{ title: 'The Spectrum (Buffalo, N.Y.) 1955-current, September 19, 1979, Page 2, Image 2', download_links: [ { link: 'http://www.loc.gov/rss/ndnp/ndnp.xml', label: 'application/rss+xml', meta: 'News about NYS Historic Newspapers - RSS Feed', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-09-19/ed-1/seq-2/png/', label: 'image/png', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-09-19/ed-1/seq-2.pdf', label: 'application/pdf', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-09-19/ed-1/seq-2/ocr.xml', label: 'application/xml', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-09-19/ed-1/seq-2/ocr.txt', label: 'text/plain', meta: '', }, ] }
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IFarm workers expand from I lowest paid to powerful union / Nurses shacked y Buffalo General Hospital, is wary of losing her Job. “My permit is only good until June, 1980, while the results of the next scheduled test won't be available until mid-July. I won’t be eligible to work in any hospital during that month-long overlap,” she said. licensed. We have to be concerned for their patients,” she added. If and when the nurses are fojced to retakelhc test, many of them will object to the repayment of the initial $60 fee. The Board of Education says that effprts will be made, to cover the re-admission costs. Editor’s note: The United Farm Workers Union’s new contract victories in California at a time when events seemed to work against them surprised even Us most ardent supporters. Mary Ellen Leary, who writes for the Economist. Atlantic and PNS on California political and economic trends, reviews the context and the implications. over the details of a second contract. The UFW has grown up. The farm worker’s right to bargain over pay and working conditions, like any industrial worker, in the U.S., is now reality, a| least in California. The strike included ugly violence which led to the death of one striker, and much anger on both sides, but the bulk of the crops got to market with strikebreaker efforts. Not all candidates were granted permits. Those nursing school graduates without temporary licenses will have to wait until next summer to start work. Zealous appeal slated In light of the recent developments concerning the nursing boards, many candidates have taken the opportunity to express dissatisfaction with the entire concept behind the tests. “It’s not a fair test of the practical abilities that a' nurse has to demonstrate once she’s in the hospital,” claimed nurse Anne Tucker. by Mary Ellen Leary. Special to The Spectrum What became apparent, however, was the strength of organized labor’s support for the UFW. The size of the UFW march to Salinas last month, which brought, by police estimate, from 15,000 to 20,00(Jsupporters to the final demonstration, astonished growers. They had thought loyalty to Chavez was diminishing. It also hinted at the possibility of a much longer holdout, when John Henning, California AFL-CIO chief, said at the Salinas rally: “Where Cesar Chavez stands, we stand; where Cesar Chavez goes, we go.” “Labor is our strongest ally,” said Marc Grossman, UFW spokesman. “We stand where most unions in America stood 50 years ago. Just like the Irish and Italian and German immigrants who began the labor movement here, our members are poor, they are often illiterate and they are non-English speaking. That gives us problems most unions have outgrown. But their members understand what we are up against. We don’t have to explain the fight for a living wage to labor. They’re with us.” Over 100,000 nurses in all 50 states took the exam but, so far, only New York State has invalidated its test results. “Each state has the ability to set its own criteria for prospective nurses,” said Board of Education spokesperson Peggy Collins. “Yet no out-of-state purse will be able to practice in New York until they satisfy our criteria,” she added. New York currently requires a score of 350 on the 800 point test for nursing certification. Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers, the fragile union of the lowest paid workers in the nation, seemed—once again— to be down for the count. The union’s eight-month strike to jack up wages for field hands seemed Sure to be engulfed by the surge of immigrants from Mexico who compose a limitless pool of strikebreakers. So it came as no small surprise that key California growers, including the largest lettuce grower in the nation, have signed new three-year contracts with the union, very nearly meeting the union demands. The significance of this latest breakthrough lies not so much in Chavez’s extraordinary ability to rise from a perilous low point, as in the fact that the new contracts show the UFW making the transition successfully from what was essentially a labor movement to a full- fledged, mature labor union. The new contracts bring field workers $5 an hour (over the $3.70 they were making last year) escalating over the next three years-to $5.71 for the least skilled workers, and including cost-of-living boosts. This is very close to the goal Chavez announced last January when he had asked $5.25 for this year. It may not be the “mainstream wages of working Americans’’ towards which Chavez has beep pushing the farmhands, bin the gap is harrowing. In an interview with The Spectrum, Executive Secretary of the New York Chapter of the State Boards for Nursing Mildred Schmidt claimed that all candidates have the right to respond to the Board’s decision in any manner they wish. “But if they want a nursing license, they’ll have to take the next'exam in February,” she quipped. Few actually cheated This is not the first time that a State test has been obtained in advance by test-takers. The theft is analagous to the 1974 rip-off of New York State Regents exams by two high school students-. When that exam was found invalid, no re- test was scheduled. Chlquita bananas Governor Jerry Brown of California, who walked the last three miles of the march with Chavez, pledged his personal help to bring labor and management together. He phoned the Sun Harvest president later to encourage new talks. Jhcse factors,, among others, led grower; to re- evaluate their resistahee to the S5 wage level. In addition. Sun Harvest did not want a long boycott of United Brahds’ easily targeted brand-names, such as Chiquita bananas, already tagged for market resistance by Chavez supporters. J u >, Another small help, said UFW chief counsel Jerry Cohen, was that growers asked anxiously if they could get back their previous experienced workers. Floating new arrivals have proven less skilled than the union members. The contracts provide for the first time for company-paid union representatives at each farm to improve liaison between grower and workers. But the surprise lingers. For there seefned many signs • that Chavez’ hold on the imagination of U.S. liberals ' ' U4 eontlnued on page 8— Nonetheless, many nurses are planning a zealous appeal. Other than the planned Albany protest, Brocklehurst is wilting letters to newspapers across the state. “Something has got to be done. I went through hell studying for those July exams. Now my whole summer appears to be just a waste of time. Now I’ll have to take the exam again,” she lamented. Most of the nurses, interviewed feel that, in any case, the results of ; die test should be made available. “We should at least be able to see how we did,” asserted Brocklehurst. “It’s upsetting to most of us who legitimately studied for the exam,’’ she added. The Board estimated that only 5 percent of those who took the exam actually cheated. Board of Education member Helen Mellet said, “But this examination is for minimum competency in nursing—if we didn’t cancel it, we couldn’t know how many incompetent nurses had- been The UFW is far from getting all growers to accept such terms yet. The strike continues to skip and hop around the Western fields. But the sign-up of notable tomato and broccoli growers, and especially of Sun Harvest, Inc., is counted as a major victory. Five vineyards have also signed new three-year contracts. Strongest ally Over the past decade marches, strikes and boycotts have marked the struggle of the transient and seasonal farm workers to get union recognition and to insure by law the right to bargain with growers. This year, the'objective was quite different. An existing union with legal bargaining rights was striking ■ SECURITY guards unarmed guards, male/female for the Buffalo/Falls area, part-time weekend, full-time evening work, phone needed Pinkerton's 403 Mein St. 862-1 760 Equal opportunity employer It--.. »E lt=-.- ■ -It II It II II ' B tf.l William Kunstlter Activist Lawyer Wednesday Sept.19,1979 8 pm Fillmore Rm. admission free
