Op-Ed: The transformative power of union membership
NJ Spotlight Op-Ed
Debbie White, President, HPAE
August 29, 2024
HPAE, the largest union of health care workers in NJ, is 50 years old. Its president reflects on lessons for workers — and patients
Fifty years ago, a small group of young nurses at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey got together to discuss their difficult and demeaning working conditions, including being forced to rotate shifts, low pay and no recognition for education or experience. The nurses ultimately decided that the best chance they had of effecting any change in their workplace was to unionize. When they won their union election in September 1974, they became the first private sector union of nurses in the state of New Jersey and subsequently achieved wins in their working conditions that were publicized statewide.
Within a few short years, nurses and other health care workers in surrounding hospitals noticed the difference it made to be in a union and they, too, voted to join what was then called the Englewood Nurses Association. Within 20 years, our small union of nurses had grown to 10 times its original size as more and more health care workers joined us. Now, 50 years later we are 15,000 members strong, representing many more health care professionals, including social workers, respiratory therapists, lab workers, blood bank technicians, nursing assistants, even IT specialists in hospitals, long-term care facilities, blood banks, labs, homecare agencies and research facilities. And we continue to grow.
We are the Health Professionals and Allied Employees, also known as HPAE, and we are the largest health care union in New Jersey. We started out small but grew into a powerhouse.
Because we fight for a safer workplace, our wins are wins for patients too. We fought against mandatory overtime and won, a practice that had, for years, forced nurses to work extra shifts resulting in an exhausted and burnt-out workforce caring for patients who deserved better. We fought for safer needle systems that decreased the chance of accidental needlesticks to both patients and nurses. We fought for competitive wages, increasing recruitment and retention of workers in the health care workforce because we know that more staff equates to better quality of care.
HPAE was also the loudest voice in the state calling for safety in our hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, undeniably the most terrifying time in history for both patients and health care workers. We bargained for enhanced safety language in our contracts and worked through our health and safety committees to develop plans for a safer work environment. HPAE also filed the largest number of OSHA complaints in our state when employers failed to keep workers safe and every HPAE complaint resulted in a citation and plan of correction from OSHA. When health care workers are safe, patients are safe.
Our current campaign, “Code Red,” is focused on staffing appropriately in our hospitals. The wealth of research available to us today shows that with lower patient assignments, the quality of care dramatically improves. However, we found that hospital systems are big business that will not easily follow the advice of researchers when it impacts profit. HPAE unions are leading the way in this campaign, negotiating contracts with nurse-to-patient limits and pushing this into legislation as well.
History tells us labor unions are powerful and can be transformative. HPAE’s history also tells us that, regardless of age or experience level, any health care worker can lead a movement to change lives. Without a union, though, we know that workers do not have a voice or a say in their working conditions. We know that “shared governance” is only a title. True “shared governance” comes with being in a union, where workers have a legal right to impact wages, hours and working conditions.