Title
Fonda Osborn Oral History Interview
Streaming Media
Description
Fonda Osborn worked as a nurse for 38 years. Her passion for the importance of the Union in health care staffing started at Holy Cross Hospital in Taos, NM where the Union contract worked well. Osborn then moved to Las Vegas to work at Alta Vista Hospital where large patient loads, understaffing, and favoritism lead staff to unionize. Despite winning the vote for a Union, the failure to negotiate a contract was a difficult lesson. After the Las Vegas campaign, Osborn was invited to work on contract negotiations at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Santa Fe, NM in 1987 and worked through numerous Union contract negotiations in various leadership roles until her retirement in 2015. Reflecting on the transition of St. Vincent’s to administration by Christus St. Vincent’s, Osborn describes the success of Union contracts to improve staffing and gain benefits. A long life of Union activism and work on the social justice issues of affordable and accessible health care in New Mexico are hallmarks of Osborn’s Labor story.
Publication Date
6-20-2017
Keywords
District 1199 NM Hospital Workers Union, corporate health care, better working conditions and staffing, contract negotiation and legislation, Health Security Act, Strike, informational picket, NLRB, litigation, Cesar Chavez.
Disciplines
Labor History
Publisher
Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication, University Libraries, University of New Mexico
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Pinkey, Diane and Fonda Osborn. "Fonda Osborn Oral History Interview." (2017). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/wphnm/31
Comments
1920x1088; MP4; No institutional restrictions are placed on the use of this collection. Use of material is allowed for educational and research purposes. The University Libraries do not hold copyright.