Correspondence with and related to the union

              LOCAL 15A RETAIL, WHOLESALE, AND TOBACCO WORKERS AFL CIO
R. W. D. S. U. 655 EAST BAY STREET, CHARLESTON, S.C  •  DIAL RA 2-0227
November 4, 1968
Dr. William McCord, President
Medical College Hospital
80 Barre Street
Charleston, South Carolina 29403
Dear Sir:
four letter dated October 14, 1968 is itself a documentary, the impact of
which demonstrates the dire need for talks between Medical College Hospital
representatives and the representatives of the duly elected Non-Professional
employees so that the colliding differences be conciliated composed in a
democratic and businesslike way.
The dedication and obligations we have in comon to the overall task of
tending to the sick should enable us to attain respectfull treatment
concerning our problems and grievances that arise out of being hostipal
employed. Imperative it is that there be avenues established to exchange
views, to discuss differences and to reach agreement through mutual understanding. This is the democratic labor relations process to which
America is pledged and honor bound.
ft may be shocking to you behind the scenes, but Hospital employees can
no longer afford, as the reward for their devotion, the financial burdens
of being the lowest paid, the ill-fed and ill housed, a scandlous contribution extraced from them to subsidize the hospital, while such burdens
are and can not be imposed in the rest of the citizens and hospital patients
much less than on the medical profession. What is then so courageous and
so morally worthy to fasten the defenseless hospital workers against their
wishes to the ungodly life of sorrowful poverty on the one hand and piously
on the other hand proclaim the humanitarian virtues ofMIospitals as compared to the profit-motivated corporations?
These Non-professional employees of the Msdical College Hospital have
formed an organization for their mutual benefit and cooperation. This,
as an objective, is similiar to the purposes of the Doctors who are
organized in the American Medical Association to which you belong, to the
Professors who are organized at the Medical College, to the Registered
Nurses who are also organized or for that matter the Union men who built
the college itself.
Therefore, the issue cannot be whether the Non-professional workers have the
right to form an organizations That right stems from the cooperative nature
of their humanity and their inalienable right, long recognized by the