Gail Kingman

“I joined the Union as soon as I was hired in 1998,” recalls Gail Kingman, an RN at Civista Medical Center in LaPlata, MD. “We have an open shop and at that time a lot of nurses weren’t signed up as members. I was working alongside a nurse who had been there 20 years. She still had to work three more years to be Social Security eligible because her ‘pension’ from Civista was only going to be $400 a month. Now that’s an insult. I believe that workers always need someone to protect them, especially on retirement.  

“Staffing was really dangerous at our hospital. I work Med-Surg and we were taking care of 12 to 13 patients on night shift. I joined the bargaining team because we had to do something about getting better staffing ratios. During negotiations, we nurses stuck together. When the talks stalled, we decided to go public so the community would know that we were standing up for them.

“We went out on a strike that lasted three and a half weeks. It was cold and wet and we were out there every day. But the support from the community really touched us.   People driving by would honk in support, people would drive up and bring us food, the local businesses really supported us and put up signs in their businesses.  

“One of our nurses who was working on getting her pilot’s license had a great idea. As we were on the picket line, we looked up in the sky and there was Trish in a plane flying a banner that read “Surrender Civista”. Now that is a moment you will never forget.“

The Civista nurses won that strike, but now are back in tough negotiations once again. “This time round,” says Gail, “negotiations have been tense because the nurses have been working to help the support staff form their own union with 1199SEIU. Unfortunately management has broken the law so many ways to scare people and spread misinformation on what the nurses are doing.

“I’m disappointed at what management has done, but not surprised. All of our nurses have got to stand together and stand tall or we will never get what we deserve from an employer who doesn’t want to give anything away. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again until Civista ‘surrenders’.”