In 1967 I was a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh during the day, and an employee of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at night. In my position as an “attendant” at Western Psych, I was charged with the responsibility of watching the patients, some of whom — to my surprise — were my former high school classmates. Each patient had a chart that listed the name, diagnosis and physician assigned; every contact with the patient was to be recorded in that chart. Of the doctors, nurses and attendants charged with the health and welfare of the patients, the latter of those three spent the greatest amount of time with them.
Patients’ charts were filled with notes on interactions. Attendants were cautioned against forming conclusions about behaviors; we worded our observations and contacts carefully. “Patient seems to be talking to himself,” or, “patient’s agitation seemed to stem from …” All the attendants at the hospital were male and many of them were college students. Occasionally, a call would go out to the wards asking that all available attendants converge on a particular floor to assist in subduing an agitated patient. This “all-hands-on-deck” approach sometimes ended in a giant scrum, and on one occasion, resulted in an injury to an attendant. Perhaps that injury, and the fact that we attendants spent more time with the patients than did the doctors and nurses, led to the idea of a formation of a quasi-union to allow us to lobby for greater recognition for the work we did.
I don’t remember anyone citing Eugene V. Debs’ organization of a Pullmans’ strike in 1894 as a rallying principal, nor was the 1966 United Farmworkers strike, organized by César Chávez and Delores Huerta. At the time that we started organizing, we were just 4 years past the 1963 March on Washington, organized by labor activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. We certainly did not discuss Rose Schneiderman who, at age 21, developed the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers in 1903 and led them on a strike. We certainly did not discuss the March 1911 Triangle Waistcoat Factory fire that resulted in the deaths of 146 people. We just talked about being recognized for the work that we did; we didn’t even ask for money. But the administrators of the hospital, which was attached to the University of Pittsburgh, grew nervous, believing that we were trying to unionize.
Labor Day was established as a national holiday in 1894, when President Grover Cleveland ended the Pullman’s strike by signing the legislation written by Congress. The first Monday in September will see most of the country finishing a long weekend of picnicking, partying, and barbecuing. The people who have labored under the protective mantle of a union will appreciate the rest, while most of us will appreciate the party.
At WPIC in Pittsburgh, an agreement was eventually reached between the hospital administrators and the attendants and from that time on, we were not merely called “attendants,” but “psychiatric attendants.” We did not ask for a raise in our hourly pay, nor was one offered. We did not want to “… labour by singing light/Not for ambition or bread…” as the poet Dylan Thomas wrote. Our labors were for both ambition and bread; few of us who worked there were career psychiatric hospital employees. Just as I was, many were students at schools and universities and just passing through. But we got what we most wanted: To have our work on the floor recognized as important and necessary, to have our labors seen.
cjon3acd@att.net