As the Director of the United Steelworkers District 11 and the newly appointed lead for healthcare bargaining, Cathy Drummond discussed workplace hazards faced by nurses and healthcare workers on today’s episode of the America’s Work Force Union Podcast as we celebrate National Nurses Week.
Drummond provided an overview of some recent organizing campaigns by the Steelworkers with positive results. Nurses and other healthcare workers face several hazards in the workplace, and part of their success has been ensuring their members receive contract assurances that there will be proper benefits, pay and safer working conditions. There is still one battle that healthcare workers, especially nurses, have yet to see resolved: staff shortages. Drummond talked about efforts to improve staffing levels nationwide, including a successful campaign establishing guidelines for safe staffing in Minnesota.
Despite an increase in awareness and concern about violence in the workplace, there are still too many instances of violence against nurses and healthcare workers, Drummond said. Employers are aware of the incidents, but she said there are no guarantees the situation will improve without proper legislation. There are several active campaigns focused on limiting the opportunities for violent acts to be committed against nurses and other healthcare members. The work never stops for these groups, Drummond said, and every day should be a day to show respect and support for those in the industry.
Drummond began her career in 1989 as a coder with Hospital Services in Hibbing, Minn. A coder translates the services and diagnoses that are provided by doctors and hospitals into billable codes that are sent to insurance companies so facilities and hospitals are reimbursed for their work. After a successful organizing campaign, Drummond was elected to the bargaining committee for the newly formed Local 9460. She went on to serve as her Local Union’s vice president and was eventually elected president. She also talked about her career path with the International, starting as a staff representative in 2004. After a few more position changes, she was elected District 11 Director of the USW in 2023, becoming the first female district director in the union’s history.
Local 9460 represents approximately 2,400 USW members working for various healthcare employers. District 11 serves over 34,000 members in nine Midwestern states: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Listen to the show above to hear more from Drummond about the USW’s work with healthcare workers.
America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.
America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.
