"NEVER BEFORE HAVE M.D.'S DONE SO MUCH FOR THEIR PATIENTS": THE 1975 STRIKE BY THE COOK COUNTY HOSPITAL HOUSE STAFF ASSOCIATION AGAINST COOK COUNTY HOSPITAL
VICTOR G. DEVINATZ
DOI: 10.2190/KE1U-7EBD-23LW-52AX
Abstract
By the late 1960s, residents and interns had organized housestaff unions and had conducted successful job actions in hospitals throughout several of the largest cities in the United States. The House Staff Association (HSA) at Cook County Hospital (CCH) in Chicago emerged several years after this earlier period of organizing and was considered to be the most politically developed housestaff union in the nation. Although the CCH housestaff officers' concerns over patient-care issues dates back to the late 1960s, these demands were the driving force behind the HSA's 1975 strike against CCH, the longest housestaff officers' strike in United States history. By successfully mobilizing community support and with the help of the hospitals' attending physicians, the HSA emerged victorious from the strike. The HSA's strike over patient-care demands provides an indication that public sector housestaff unions may be effective social change agents in organized medicine.
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