Delma Delora Oral History Interview

Delma Delora  talks about her work at St. Vincent's and Christus St. Vincent's in Santa Fe, NM where she started as an LPN in 1962 working in the emergency room.   Delora describes the changes that she has seen in the provision of health care over her long career as an RN in which she worked in various departments including the cancer ward with AIDs patients during the 1980s.  Delora's  union membership takes shape in 1974, acting as the President of the Professional Performance Association (PPA)  at St. Vincents.  She emphasizes the importance of the Taft Hartley Act of 1974 which gave nurses the right to organize a union and bargain collectively.  In the 1980s, the Union decided to affiliate with a national union, and they became District 1199 NM Hospital Workers Union.   Delora's life of Union and social and economic activism contributes a long and rich Labor history story in New Mexico. Interview by Diane Pinkey.

The Working People's History of New Mexico Project (WPHNM) is an oral labor history project created to gather the labor stories of working people in New Mexico. While part of the interviews focus on the specific jobs that the interviewees performed, the interviews also explore labor-management relations as well as union, workers council, and social activism participation.  The interviews contain information about family and social relationships and offer themes of social and historical interest in New Mexico and the US.