Word: local
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Committee members work for a variety of community and labor organizations in the Boston area, in an effort to learn how these groups work to lessen economic inequalities. In addition to Local 880, the CEC offers its members placement in Mass Fair Share, Cambridge Tenants Organization and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers. The committee has about 20 to 25 members, who attend weekly dinner meetings devoted to formulating theories of change drawn from these personal experiences, Damman says...
...Local 880 has mounted several organizing drives in the past few years at Harvard teaching hospitals and other hospitals in Massachusetts. It is an unusual union, Damman says, because it strives for democracy within its own organization, and because it concerns itself with social issues that fall outside the traditional concerns of a union. In addition, he said, Local 880 is considerably less politically conservative than other, more established unions...
...Local 880 obtained a charter from the Service Employees International Union on the condition the international branch forego its traditional right to veto a strike vote of the local, Stephanie Van Dyke '79, another member of the CEC, says. The union also stands out in its concern for the rights of patients to good and compassionate health care, as well as the rights of hospital workers, Damman says...
Damman also remembers one round of contract negotiations when she witnessed a heated argument between Gerald Shea, one of the local's original organizers, and the lawyer for a hospital. In every contract, Shea tries to insert a preamble stating that the goal is to maintain "the highest standards of patient care delivery in meeting the needs of the community." He also argues for insertion of an equal opportunity clause, which adds to the traditional prohibitions of discrimination on the grounds of race, sex and religious belief, the categories of political belief, sexual preference or marital status. "The lawyer kept...
Though the CEC has often worked with Local 880, committee members also work with other community organizations, some Harvard-related and some not. Van Dyke says one of the most important placement areas remains Mass Fair Share, a Boston-based organization which, among other activities, has pushed the University to increase the payments it makes to Cambridge and Boston for its tax-exempt land holdings...