Off to a Great Start!

June 2008 President's Report

by Luella Toni Lewis, MD
 

Each year, CIR gains many new members who are just beginning their residencies at CIR-affiliated hospitals. As you find your way around and learn who your elected representatives are, please bear in mind that not that long ago, they were in your shoes, wondering just what CIR is, and what it can do.

Last year at this time CIR celebrated its 50th anniversary, and our convention included many CIR alums who really brought home what this union has accomplished in half a century.

Those accomplishments were achieved one contract at a time, one organizing drive at a time, one hospital saved from closure at a time, one interpreter service won at a time.

It’s the hard work, the passion, the persistence –- and sometimes the daring, of residents just like you that have built CIR and improved the lives of so many residents and the patients we care for.

CIR’s success over the years has come from our emphasis on three important pillars: collective bargaining, organizing and patient care advocacy.

For starters, what is collective bargaining? Simply put, it is a mutually acceptable agreement between residents and hospital administration which is binding to both parties. Negotiating great contracts is the first thing that anyone thinks about when they think CIR and it’s what clearly distinguishes our 13,000 members from the 90% of resident physicians in the U.S. who are NOT unionized.

CIR members, leaders and staff put a lot of emphasis on negotiating the best contracts we can, with an emphasis on salary, benefits, working conditions, due process guarantees, and patient care provisions.

Organizing means growing CIR membership so that our voice is loud and strong! The more members we have, the greater clout we will have at the bargaining table and in the political arena where decisions are made that impact patient care nationally.

Finally, that last pillar –- the pillar that distinguishes CIR more than any other –- 50 years of advocacy for our patients, and for safe, quality patient care and health care for all!

CIR’s patient advocacy has taken many forms, beginning with our first year in existence, when residents at New York City public hospitals formed CIR in part to affiliate with medical schools for greater oversight of patient care.
What else have we accomplished?

• Abolishing universal every other night call in the mid-1970’s;
• Negotiating interpreter service guarantees;
• Testifying for needed local, state and federal funding;
• Stopping unwarrented closures of safety-net hospitals; and
• Highlighting the inherent inequity and inefficiency of a healthcare system that prevents so many millions from getting the healthcare they need.

What we’ve learned over the years is that patient advocacy requires –- no, demands, political action. So much of what really matters to us is decided not in our individual hospitals, but in the political arena.

These three pillars —- collective bargaining, organizing, patient advocacy and with that political action —- that is what CIR is all about.

So think about which of these pillars speaks to you and calls you to greater involvement. Then, when you know your way around your hospital, find your CIR department rep, and say hello. Begin a conversation about how you can get involved in CIR, or bring CIR into engagement with your key healthcare
issues, and see what can be done!

You can always email me at llewis@cirseiu.org.

Welcome.