1199 Publications Department Files

As a local of the Drug, Hospital, and Health Care Employees Union, Local 1199 was founded by Leon J. Davis in 1932, to organize pharmacists in New York City. Nonprofessional hospital employees were organized starting in 1958. Because of the large number of Black and Puerto Rican workers it sparked the first post war Civil Rights Movement. May 8, 1959 marks the start of approximately 3500 hospital workers striking against seven large private hospitals in New York City, the strike lasted forty-six days. Professional and technical workers were added to the union in 1963, the same year they won the right to collective bargaining under provisions of the state's labor relations act. The union was granted the right to represent workers across the state in 1965. Registered nurses became part of the union in 1973. In 1998 the union became part of SEIU and membership went up significantly. Between 1933 and 1957, 1199 functioned as a drugstore local with its membership growing to 5,000 workers employed in independent and chain drugstores throughout the New York metropolitan area. With its success in organizing workers in Montefiore Hospital in New York City, the union began a massive campaign to organize workers in voluntary and non-profit hospitals in the New York area, a large proportion of whom were black or Hispanic. In 1973, the national union was established with locals in other states, including Pennsylvania, Maryland, South and North Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The union combined organizing efforts with civil rights organizations, in an effort to achieve mutual political goals. Throughout the period of these records, the union was led by Leon Davis (president of Local 1199 and of the national union) whose administration guided the union's political and social activities. Local 1199 formed in 1932 as the Pharmacists' Union of Greater New York. It affiliated with the AFL in the mid-1930s, adding Local 1199 to its name at that time; it would ultimately affiliate with the CIO in 1937 and operate under the name Retail Drug Store Employees Union, Local 1199. In those early years, the union's publication was known as the Voice of the Mortar and Pestle, the Union Pharmacist, and the Retail Drug Worker. The publication began using the name 1199 News as early as 1942. By the 1950s, its membership of pharmacists, porters, clerks and other drug store employees had grown to 6,000 workers employed throughout the New York metropolitan area in independent and chain drugstores.

In 1958 the largely white, male and Jewish drug store union leadership made common cause with predominantly female, Black and Hispanic non-professional health care employees, working to organize the staff of Montefiore Hospital in New York City. Encouraged by the successful result of this effort, the union began a massive campaign to organize workers including nurses' aides, dietary aides, orderlies, dishwashers, porters and laundry workers in all the voluntary (private and non-profit) hospitals in the New York metropolitan area. Among these nonprofessional and paraprofessional workers, 85% were African-American or Hispanic.

In May 1959, workers in seven voluntary New York metropolitan area hospitals (Mt. Sinai, Brooklyn Jewish, Lenox Hill, Beth Israel, Beth David, Flower Fifth Avenue and Bronx Hospitals) voted overwhelmingly to strike. The unprecedented and bitterly-fought strike lasted forty-six days. The accord reached by the negotiating team and the hospital administration that ended the strike resulted in a Permanent Administrative Committee Agreement which gave the workers much of what they were seeking but barred Local 1199 from resolving disputes directly with hospital management. Despite terms that effectively kept the union from representing the hospital workers, the agreement was approved.

Beginning with this proto-union for hospital employees, 1199 produced two parallel publications, the 1199 Drug News and the 1199 Hos