Toledo Union Journal

Page 8
TOLEDO UNION JOURNAL
Friday, September 18, 1953

AFL-CIO Suggestion:

Wage, Hour Standards Urged
For Accreditation of Hospitals

New York—Charging that "glaring omissions" exist in current hospital accreditation standards, an AFL-CIO spokesman has called on the American Hospital Association to take action to provide sound personnel practices and decent wages, hours and working conditions for non-professional hospital employees.

Leo Perlis, AFL-CIO Community Service Activities director, in a telegram to AHA Pres. Ray M. Amberg, urged the AHA to designate representatives to meet with community services personnel in an attempt to remedy the plight of the non-professional hospital workers.

The 9,000 delegates to AHA's 61st annual meeting earlier approved without dissent a policy statement declaring that voluntary non-profit hospitals "should be exempt from all legislative acts requiring compulsory bargaining."

At one session, Dr. John V. Connorton, executive director of the Greater New York Hospital Association, reported on the New York hospital strike of last spring and said legal exemption from bargaining is "almost of academic interest."

He urged wage hikes to at least $1 an hour "right away."

The AHA's policy reaffirmation contrasted with the statement in the group's journal last June by Amberg that hospitals "no longer possess the right" to deny workers the "privilege of collective bargaining." Amberg, retiring as AHA head, is a director of the University of Minnesota Hospitals.

Standards Proposed

Perlis, in outlining proposed accreditation standards for hospitals, stressed the right of an employee to join an organization of his own choosing for bargaining and grievance purposes.

Perlis pointed out to the AHA that employee relations are a determining factor in hospital operation and the quality of patient care. A hospital's service can be best rendered when the hospital is "truly representative of the people and totally responsive to their needs," he said.