COHSE Wales

COHSE Wales presentation by David Williams

circa 1980

COHSE Nursing - Nightingale sticker

COHSE Nurses 1979

COHSE nurses present Jim Callaghan with a doll "Jim's Baby" at  No 10 during the 1979 pay dispute

NHS 1998 Birthday celebration Guy's Hospital

NHS 1998 Birthday celebration

 Guy's Hospital July 5th 1998

Nalgo - Put People First Hot Air Balloon

Nalgo - Put People First Hot Air Balloon circa 1982

NALGO Sports Clubs

NALGO has a large network of Sports and social Clubs well into the 1980's and some clubs even continued into the new union Unison.

Most town's had their NALGO cricket and/or NALGO football clubs

Watford Nalgo Cricket Club V Watford Football Club at Cricket

Nursing Students - Defending the NHS - Join the Resistance !

Nursing students showing support for the NHS at Kings College Hospital

Join the UNISON Resistance !

NHS Pay - London Demonstration 22 September 1982

Wednesday 22 September 1982 was one of the largest acts of solidarity in the British trade union history, with millions on strike and a national rally in London with 120,000 taking part. There were demonstrations in the following towns (not full list)

Aberdeen 12,000

Inverness 1,000

Elgin 500

Lerwick 400

Oban 100

Stornaway 500

Dundee 10,000

Edinburgh 10,000

Kirkcaldy 2,000

Glasgow 20,000

Dumfries 1,000

Newcastle 5,000

York 1,000

Sheffield 10,000

Barnsley 1,000

Leeds 6,000

Hull 4,000

Chesterfield 3,000

Manchester 2,000

St Helens 2,000

Liverpool 20,000

Bolton 2,000

Blackpool 400

Wigan 5,000

Leek 300

Coventry 2,000

Gloucester 500

Hereford 400

Swindon 1,000

Milton Keynes 1,200

Cambridge 2,000

Colchester 1,000

Braintree 100

Norwich 2,000

Kings Lynn 300

Harleston 500

Fakenham 100

Southampton 1,500

Bournemouth 1,000

Eastbourne 500

Yeovil 1,000

Belfast 3,000

Derry 3,000

Armagh 300

Ballymena 200

Enniskillen 350

Swansea 1,000

Aberystwyth 200

Rhondda 500

also many rallies/marches in London ie Hackney, Hillingdon

Nurses Strike 1988

An iconic picture from the 1988 nurses dispute lead by COHSE and NUPE local activists, which resulted in one of the biggest ever pay rises for nurses

Edinburgh NUPE Nurses against privatisation of hospital cleaning services

COHSE Against Pit Closures 1992

COHSE members with banners including West Midlands and Wales COHSE banners on the TUC march and rally against pit closures Sunday 25th October 1992 in heavy rain - marching from the Embankment to Hyde Park London.

Bethnal Green Hospital - The First Casualty Dept Work-In 1978

Hospital staff at Bethnal Green hospital, east London were told in October 1977 that the local Area Health Authority wanted to reduce services at the hospital to just care of the elderly. Immediately a Tower Hamlets Action Committee was established with over 700 people attending the first meeting held on 24th November 1977.


On the 26th November, 102 East London GP's signed a 13 point statement opposing the closure

Bethnal Green and Stepney Trades Union Council issued a detailed paper objecting to the plans and asking that alternatives be drawn up to develop Bethnal Green.




On the 28th January 1978 over 500 attended a march from Weavers Field to the London Hospital to protest at the closures.

In March it was agreed that a regular picketing of the hospital should take place to highlight the plight of the hospital

On the16th March 1978 at another huge meeting Bethnal Green Hospital is declared unanimously a "protected hospital"


A planned march against hospital closures in East London arranged by Plaistow Hospital campaign on 18th March is banned by the police due to events in Lewisham

30th March 1978 60,000 marches pass Bethnal Green hospital on their way to the Rock Against racism Carnival in Victoria Park

10th March a 2 hour stoppage is staged in five East London hospital's in opposition to the health cuts

30th March East London Hospital unions call strike action in nine hospitals for between six and twenty four hours, the Royal London and Mile End hospitals stop all routine work for 24 hours. 800 campaigners march to the Health Authority headquarters to protest

THE WORK-IN BEGINS

1st July 1978 at 8pm ,the time of the official closure, the hospital staff, applauded by a large crowd of local people and filmed by the News at Ten (ITV) put up a notice announcing the occupation of the casualty unit at Bethnal Green hospital. Detailed arrangements are made with medical staff, GP's , The Emergency Bed Service (EBS) to guarantee admissions and safety.

The first hospital casualty work-in in history begins with patients arriving at 8:02

On the 30th July managers arrive at the hospital threatening staff with legal action, nursing staff instruct under threat of dismissal to move, medical staff who refuse to do so are "harangued" and threatened. The Bethnal green Hospital work-in is called off on 3oth July 1978 having treated over one thousand local patients

Key individuals included - Many volunteers and Dr David Widgery ,Dr Leibson, Dr Thompson, Mr Frohn (Consultant) Sister Gainsford, Mrs Cox NUPE,, Zena Lee, Ann Sargent, Albert Vanner, Jane Salvage, Kambiz Boomla any many others

Keep Bethnal Green Hospital Campaign booklet
The NHS in East London - What Lies Ahead ? Jane Salvage and Kambiz Boomla

Bethnal Green Hospital was occupied by staff and supporters on 1st July 1978

Maude MacCallum - The Professional Union of Trained Nurses (PUTN) - the first nursing union estb 25/10/1919

A meeting was held on the afternoon of Saturday  25th October 1919 (inaugural meeting) at Mortimer Hall, Great Portland Street to establish a nursing Union - The Union for Trained Nurses.

Miss MaCallum moved a resolution that immediate steps be taken to form a professional union. Miss MacDonald seconded stating "never had there been a time of greater crisis for the nurses. thousands were out of employment because they could not secure a living wage"

The resolution to form a union was declared carried by a large majority

It is more than likely that Maude MacCallum was influenced in establishing the PUTN by her knowledge of the Irish Nurses Union

Report from the Times newspaper 27th October 1919

 

Maude MacCallum - Professional Union of Trained Nurses 1919

please credit this blog

Maude MacCallum

Hon Secretary Professional Union of Trained Nurses

Maude MacCallum also known as Miss E Maude MacCallum was the daughter of Mr James W. MacCallum of Dublin and granddaughter of Major John MacCallum of Dover. (her brother being John MacCallum).

Educated at St Margaret’s Hall, Dublin and subsequently entered Trinity College, Dublin, where she took all the course open to women in those days.

She also matriculated at the Royal University of Ireland before entering Nurse Training School at Adelaide Hospital, Dublin.

After obtaining her nursing qualification she joined the Nurses Co-operation then located at 8, New Cavendish Street, London. She also carried out several years war work as a nurse.

She was elected a member of the Committee of the Co-operation and while serving upon it, originated and, with the help of two other far-seeing nurses, carried to a successful conclusion, the scheme for Sickness Benefit Fund and also originated the Benevolent fund , two of the most practical pieces of work for the benefit of Nurses of the Co-operation.

It was a personal experience which led Miss Maude MacCallum in 1919, to found the Professional union of Trained Nurses on 25th October 1919, (The first nursing union) for which injustice and tyranny touched her own life she realised how defenseless were many of her colleagues under similar conditions, and with unselfishness singleness of purpose she devoted herself thenceforth to the betterment of the conditions of the “working nurse” and to her protection from unqualified competition when trained.

The PUTN was registered as a Trade union in order to ensure that it should always be managed by nurses themselves.

Nurses & Trade Unionism 1921 Maude MacCallum "Nothing within recent years has so aroused employers to action as the formation of a Nurses Trade Union

The Professional Union of Trained Nurses worked closely with the Poor Law Workers Trade Union (later NUCO later COHSE) and MacCallun had her own page in the union’s journal “Monthly Notes”

We believe the debt of gratitude which they owe her will be increasingly appreciated, as the truth of her favorite motto “Who would be free themselves must strike the blow” becomes more and more understood.

In February 1920, Miss Maude MacCallum was appointed a member of the first General Nursing Council (now Nursing & Midwifery Council NMC) by the minister of Health at the time Christopher Addison MP.

During her term of office she upheld the right of nurses to manage their own affairs and opposed medical and lay domination. She consistently voted for, and spoke in support of, proposals for the benefit of the nursing profession and opposed many recommendations of the majority which she considered inimical to its interest, in spite of derision and rudeness.

Speaking at the Scottish Nurses Club at 205 Bath Street, Glasgow on Friday 19^th Mach 1920 MacCallum stated “The Professional Union of Trained Nurses must have been a much needed organisastion if one might judge from the bitter attacks made on its organisers.

“Who was afraid of being injured ? . besides, it would not be the nurses themselves who would be hurt by the action, as their conditions were so bad they could hardly be worse; besides, it was not to be expected that so much wrath should be poured forth just to prevent the nurses injuring themselves if they wished to do so. There must be some other interested threatened”.

At the same meeting she also highlighted a historical problem with nurse attitudes to trade unionism “Disabusing the minds of her hearers that trade unionism was synonymous with strikes, which she admitted. It was in her own mind until she went thoroughly into the matter”.

At a meeting of the PUTN on 1^st February 1922 at 6 Nottingham Place, it was reported by the Professional Union of Trained Nurses Chairman Mrs Winifrede Paul “seldom have nurses been roused to such a pitch of indignation over anything as they have been at present by the treatment of Mrs Bedford Fenwick and the other independent nurses – including the secretary of the PUTN- have received at the hands of the College of Nursing Ltd”

MacCallun stated in 1923 after the College of Nursing with the help of Sir Alfred Mond Minister of Health had been able to “pack” the General Nursing Council of 1923 to exclude opposition, including Mrs Bedford Fenwick that the PUTN was “The principle thing that stood between them and serfdom”.

The Professional Union of Trained Nurses had by July 1921 established an “Alliance” with the Medico-Political Union (Doctors union). The PUTN was meeting regularly at the Plane Tree Restaurant, 106 Great Russell Street

 Cancer) which ultimately caused her death, she made no mention of it to her nearest or dearest.

She finally resigned as Honorary Secretary of the Professional Union of Trained Nurses in 1926 on grounds of her health.

and Kate L Earp became Chairman and Winifred Paul Hon Secretary of the Professional Union of Trained Nurses

In her last few days she was nursed at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Euston (now UNISON headquarter) and died on the morning of 14^th June 1926.

The British Journal of nursing November 1937 stated

"The Professional Union of Trained Nurses, the inner history of the opposition to, and defeat of, the movement broke her (MacCullun) heart. In this connection we may place on record the fact that owing to her intelligent advocacy the Labour party gave whole hearted support of the Nurses Registration Act 1919. It was the members of the Conservative Party, to their discredit who "talked out" our Bill after a thirty year struggle with reaction 

Her service was held at St Pancras Church and was conducted by Rev Prebendary Metcalfe and Rev W.E. Kingsbury Secretary of the Actors Union.

Suspended at the lower end of the coffin was a laurel wreath with roses and a message “in loving remembrance from the PUTN” tied with its colours.

Notes from various publications incl the British Journal of Nursing
by Michael Walker UNISON

Photo of MacCallum from The British Journal of Nursing July 1926
Read Sarah Claridge PUTN and NUCO posting on this site
Kate L Earp (was this Mrs Atherton Earp ? trained at Crumpsall Infirmary, Manchester, child welfare Paris, Educational organiser Infant Welfare Centre, Hampstead,)

Professional Union of Trained Nurses established on 25th October 1919 by 1920 with 268 members.

COHSE/NUPE/NALGO Eisteddfod 1991 - Mewn undeb mae nerth

Cyfarchion o'r Eiseddfod Genedlaehol

Mewn undeb mae nerth

Thatchers Advice To NHS Patients Circa 1988

Flying the Red Flag

"Insult" to Duke of York.

Red Flag on Asylum Building. 

January 1927 National Asylum Workers Union Journal

Gateshead Town Council on January 5th 1927 refused to allow the Communist Party to hold meetings in the Town Hall. During the proceedings there was a stormy scene arising out of an incident at the Corporation's mental asylum at Stannington, where, it was alleged, a "red flag" was flown while the Duke of York was at the neighbouring hostel of the Newcastle Poor Children's Holiday Association.

Councillor White said the statement was not true, and refused to sit down when ordered. After a good deal of uproar the Mayor explained that the red flag was exhibited from a window of a building on the asylum estate. When an employee was called before the committee he denied showing the flag and said it was flown by his daughter.

The Mayor said the committee did not believe the statement, and declared that the red flag was flown " to insult the Duke of York, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, the Sheriff, and the Union Jack." He had never known such impudence.

It was agreed that the committee should further investigate the matter.

NOTE

Red Flags were regular flown by protesters from Workhouses in the 1930’s as part of the national unemployed Workers Movement campaign

Red Flags were flown over hospitals in Glasgow on July 5^th 1948 when the NHS came into being.

St Pancras Council Labour leader John Lawrence, fulfilled a Labour commitment to fly the red flag from the Town Hall on May Day, 1958. A policy attacked by the right wing national press. The St Pancras Chronicle commented, ’will long be remembered by the 140,000 residents of St Pancras as one of the most exciting days in the borough’s history. For the Leftists, the raising of the Red Flag over the Town Hall in Euston Road, NW1, was a proud achievement.

Many Labour Council's in the 1980s, such as Hammersmith, Islington, Manchester and Sheffield regularly flew the red flag

Red Flags flown over Monaghan and Letterkenny Hospital “Soviets” in Ireland

Famously the Red Army flew the Red Flag over the Richstag, when it was captured from the Nazi's at the end of WW2 in Europe.

Red Flag flies over Guilford for Charles and Diana Royal Wedding 1981

RED FLAG

The red flags of became a potent relic following the execution of early trade unionist British sailors mutinied near the mouth of the River Thames in 1797 and hoisted a red flag on several ships.

Two red flags flown by marchers during the Merthyr Dic Penderyn (Richard Lewis) in August 1831 despite a public campaign to pardon him.

Rising of 1831 in South Wales were soaked in calf's blood.

Dr Alan Ruscoe Clarke - Birmingham Hero

Dr Ruscoe Clarke

Dr Ruscoe Clarke

 

 Dr Alan Ruscoe Clarke left the patronage of the voluntary, charitable hospital system for a salaried job in the London County Council system of the early 1930s. This was then anathema to the majority of the medical profession. He would become a pioneer of advanced trauma surgery.

 

He and his wife, Avis, met whilst both worked, she as a nurse and he as a doctor, at Mile End hospital where they had treated the wounded from both sides in the Battle of Cable Street and raised support for Republican Spain during the civil war.

 

Michael Walker remembers Avis telling him a story about how, when Ruscoe was in the Royal Army Medical Corps in North Africa during the Second World War, a German SS officer complained to one of the orderlies that, after his capture, his arm had been set in a cast and a nurse had somehow engraved in the plaster the image of a hammer and sickle. The SS officer demanded to see the commanding officer to complaint about this insult and was duly ushered into a room to see one Dr Ruscoe Clarke, who was a little more than unsympathetic to the SS officer’s plight!

 

Afterwards, Ruscoe Clarke settled in Birmingham with his wife Avis (Avis worked as Industrial nurse at Hercules Bicycle Ltd). In post-war Birmingham, Avis was secretary of the Birmingham Peace Committee from 1949 to 1959, as well as a Communist Party medical activist, nurse and health visitor.

 

Ruscoe was a medical researcher and a trauma specialist at Birmingham Accident Hospital from 1947 and later worked at the newly built Queen Elizabeth Hospital. He and his team measured red cell volumes to estimate average blood loss and showed that early transfusion of the correct volume of whole blood appeared to lead to the best chance of quick and full recovery from serious injury.

 

His medical research work is still highly regarded in the profession, his research papers still being cited, and the Royal College of Surgeons commemorated him in a long-running Ruscoe Clarke Memorial Lecture. His work is constantly cited, for example his 1941 report of the separation of a portion of the liver following a gunshot wound was only recently used as an authority.

The following quote and reminiscence of Dr Ruscoe-Clarke appears in the Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery:  "Keep the goals of your research simple and clinically relevant, even if the methods of investigation have to be complicated" Mr. Ruscoe-Clarke, Birmingham Accident Hospital (1951). The distinguished medical researcher, H Srinivasan, recalls: "By chance, I got an opportunity to work under Mr. Ruscoe-Clarke at Birmingham Accident Hospital, the only hospital in the UK at that time wholly devoted to trauma including burns. As may be expected, "shock" was a major topic of research in that institution. I was impressed by Ruscoe-Clarke's approach to research, which was clinical and at the same time based on measurement using simple techniques possible for all. His methods of assessment of blood loss are good examples of this approach. For example, he showed that a handful of blood clot represented about half a litre of whole blood, and that an increase in the circumference of the thigh at its middle by one inch indicated increase in the volume of the thigh by about a litre, due to, say, bleeding from a fractured femur." [http://www.ijps.org/article.asp?issn=0970-0358;year=2004;volume=37;issue=1;spage=8;epage=17;aulast=Srinivasan;

"Understanding the hand: A paradigm for research as self-education" by H Srinivasan, First Seaward Road, Chennai - 600 041, India]

 

In the run-up to the formation of the National Health Service, Avis recalled: “Ruscoe came home white and shaking after a meeting at Birmingham Town Hall in 1947.... All the doctors in Birmingham were opposing the very concept of a National Health Service and supporting the retention of private practice. Ruscoe was the only doctor to speak in favour of the NHS and abolition of private patients.” 

 

Ruscoe Clarke was one of the key founders of the British Sigerist Society (1948-1956)

 

Ruscoe Clarke died suddenly and relatively early in life in 1959 but his memory still resonates in the medical profession. Extraordinarily, over a half a century after his death, in a lecture at the 2006 AGM of the Institute of Bio-Medical Science in Solihull, West Midlands, Kenneth Hughes, ended with a “poignant recording of Paul Robeson, the American singer and spokesman for human rights, singing Jerusalem”. 

 

This, it seems was sung by Robeson “at the funeral of his friend Ruscoe Clark, a surgeon based at Birmingham Accident Hospital and a staunch fellow communist. Clark and Robeson had developed their friendship through regular correspondence. On a trip to England Robeson travelled to the Midlands to visit his friend for the first time but sadly Clark had died only a few days before. 

 

This final story had a personal touch as several members of the audience remembered and shared anecdotes about Ruscoe Clark.”

 

http://www.ibms.org/index.cfm?method=science.history_zone&subpage=history_midlands

 

 

As Ruscoe Clarke, “MBE,MB, FRCS (Eng.)”, he was the author and editor of the 1959 “Modern Trends in Accident Surgery and Medicine”, which is still considered to be a model text in its field.




Dr Alan Ruscoe Clarke
Born Lewisham ? 1908 ?

Died 10th July 1959
Cremation at Yardley Crematorium, Birmingham

Irish Nurses - Irish dancing 1973

COHSE Journal February 1973

Irish Dancing

Dear Sir,

For the benefit of Irish staff in hospitals in the Balham, Tooting, Wandsworth and Mitcham areas, the Collins (could be Connolly) School of dancing every Sunday morning at St. Augustine's Hall, Broadwater Road, Tooting, London SW17. The centrally heated hall is just a few minutes walk from Tooting
Broadway Tube Station, and is convenient

Any staff who have children that would like  to  take  up.  the  challenge  of  Irish dancing, may bring them along any Sunday morning at 11.30 to 1.30.

                        M. McGrath    RMN

Registered Mental Nurse

Springfield Hospital

Tooting

London

SW17

Note:

This letter from an Irish nurse working at Springfield hospital, Tooting, South London to the COHSE journal highlights the links between Irish male nurses and mental hospital nursing in England and the scope of Irish cultural links of migrant workers in the 1970's (and also union involvement of irish nurses in England and in particular in COHSE, sometimes jokingly refered to at the time as "a male Irish charge nurse mafia"

COHSE & NUPE Nurses protest October 1992

COHSE and NUPE nurses delegation to No 10 protesting about limiting nurses pay 
October 1992

Leeds Hospital Laundry Workers Work-In

Leeds Hospital (Laundry) Sit In 

Circa 1981


Community Action No 62

Attempts by health chiefs at St.James Hospital, Leeds , to slash laundry workers wages by 5% and cut bonuses from 33% to 27% have been met with fierce resistance from staff.

Workers are staging a sit-in  at the hospital which is just one of the many which have the £600.000 - £800,000 hacked off the Leeds Health Authority budget this year.

Average take-home pay at the laundry is £45 for the women, who work on average 32 hours per week, and £77 for the men, who average 46 hours a.week.

 Suzi Armitage, COHSE Branch secretary, explained that £160.000 is  to be cut from the laundry service
  over the next two years, as the authority plans to bring 'manning  levels' into line with reduced demand.

 Management are likel.y to introduce a number of proposals to make efficiency savings,.including natural wastage and the threat of bringing in private contractors.

 Laundry services are among the areas of hospital work ear-marked for orivatisation by the government, which issued a circular to health authorities telling them to look at contracting-out such
services far more.

The main point of the threat of  privatisation is to drive wages down to the lowest possible levels as has been happening in council services privatised. If the workers won't accept pay or job cuts from the authority, then contractors are brought in to enforce them.

 But the workers are ready to fight. As the one health union official put it :
 "If we let them get away with this , riding roughshod over agreements, then. they'll be able to get away with anything". 

With further he'alth cuts on the way,and privatisers hungry for proftable contracts, the attacks will no doubt increase. The battle in Leeds could be a vital early one in a long war.

St Mary's Hospital (Harrow Road) - Work-In and Occupation 1981

On December 17th  the Defence Committee of St. Mary's Hospital, Harrow Road, held a press conference at which Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone declared their full support for the struggle of the staff to defend their hospital against the loss of 100 beds and eventual closure.

St.  Mary's, Harrow  Road, has been under threat for the last four years and in the past only the vigorous opposition of the staff has prevented its total closure;

The hospital serves the Paddington and Kilburn area and local residents have seen the decision to close "their" hospital and move surviving services to the prestigious St. Mary's Teaching Hospital in Praed St.

The press conference heard Terry Pettifor, NW Convenor of the London Ambulance Service Shop Stewards, describe the effects of the run down of the Casualty at Harrow Road (which is the major accident unit in the District) and pointed out that the remaining casualty facilities in the District are inadequate to cope with the number of casualties which could easily arise in an accident at the nearby Paddington Station or in a major fire.

Terry pointed out that a relatively small fire in Bayswater the week before had stretched the District's capacity to the full.

The fight in the hospital has been particularly sharp since the declaration- of a work-in on June 26 1981 . In the course of this fight staff have twice occupied areas of the hospital—the first time the administration offices were occupied for 13 days and the second time a ward was occupied for five days to prevent closure. On both  occasions court orders were used to evict.staff.

Police and security guards have been brought into the hospital no less than four  times  to  support  management's plans. A TGWU shop steward was sacked, and a nurse was suspended for a week, for attempting  to  prevent  the  forcible removal of patients from a ward.

Throughout this struggle no more than token support has been gained from the unions involved-TGWU, NUPE, COHSE and the failure of the labour movement to evolve its own strategy on health care has been partially responsible for this state of affairs.

The leadership of the TGWU-which has been most centrally involved in the struggle—has effectively washed its hands of any responsibility. Despite policy won at  the  1981  BDC  it  has  consistently refused to mobilise its great industrial strength behind this key battle.

 With a few honourable exceptions there has also been little support from CLPs outside Paddington. It is essential that  the  labour  movement  begins to evolve its own strategy to defend and extend the principle of free and adequate health care for all which was enshrined in the formation of the NHS by the 1945-51 Labour government.

It is impossible to see the defence of the NHS without the political mobilisation of the labour movement as a whole to defend our health service—any narrow economism of "leave it to hospital trade unionists" merely puts the onus on the weaker sections of our movement.

The Labour Party must see the fight for health as being one of the key questions that faces it. It is not enough to ritually denounce private practice if we lack the political answers and will to mobilise the community around this key question.

There is undoubtedly a move towards smashing the growth of trades unionism within the NHS. Julian Nettel who is now at St. Mary's was involved in the closure of St. Benedict's. In the last two years
over 20 militants have been victimised out of the NHS. In St. Mary's, Rita Maxim, a TGWU shop steward who has Stood up to management all the way, faces the sack for refusing to do two jobs.

Management obviously intend to continue this strategy in St. Mary's now they have succeeded in closing the first three wards in the hospital. They have also sacked a telephonist for leaving work at the end of his shift without waiting for a relief.

Trades unionists in the hospital realise they have lost the first battle but the war is far from lost. Help us fight to win.

Send donations and messages of support to Mick Woods, c/o TGWU Office, St.   Mary's   Hospital,   Harrow   Road, London W9.
Mick Woods, Brent E. CLP and former TGWU shop steward  St. Mary's Hospital.