Lillie Sandoval Oral History Interview

Lillie Sandoval started work as an LPN in 1974 and worked at  St. Vincent's and Christus St. Vincent's in Santa Fe, NM  for 42 years.  Sandoval recounts her experiences from  starting in "med surg" to becoming an RN in 1990 and spending most of her career as a pediatric nurse.   She shares her participation in her Union starting in 1974 with the Professional Performance Association at St. Vincents.   Sandoval notes that the Taft Hartley Act of 1974 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.  Sandoval serves as Treasurer of the Union since the 1970s even though she retired from her job in 2012.

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.