Midtown Hospital Baltimore

Members at the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Midtown campus ratified their strongest contract ever in February, after months of tough bargaining. In the end, members were able to negotiate wage increases that amount to more than 10 percent for the longest-serving workers. 1199 Magazine recently caught up with some of the Union Delegates on the bargaining committee to find out how they did it. In the years since workers first organized with 1199 to form a union at the hospital, members have been working steadily to improve their wages and conditions.

1. Lewis Gilliam was certified for his job in Peri-operative Services three years ago, thanks to a Union program. He prepares the carts that go into the Operating Room with the specific instruments needed for each surgery. Before that, Gilliam worked in Materials Management, which involves stocking the wards with supplies.

“It was a good apprenticeship for what I’m doing now,” he says, “but it was getting boring. I want to continue to advance and study to be a Surgical Technician. Before getting a job in the hospital seven years ago, I was a butcher at Safeway. But meat cutting is becoming extinct, and I enjoy helping people by working in health care.”