Health Care

Health care is a basic human right.  America’s labor movement has worked for more than a century for guaranteed high-quality health care for everyone.  The Affordable Care Act is a historic milestone on this journey, but we still have a long way to go.

America must continue moving forward toward a more equitable and cost-effective health care system. Moving forward means working with employers to demand health care payment and delivery reforms to control costs, allowing people of all ages to buy into the equivalent of Medicare through a public plan option and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.  Of course, the most cost-effective and equitable way to provide quality health care is through the social insurance model (“Medicare for All”), as other industrialized countries have shown. 

The worst thing we could do is move backward by repealing the Affordable Care Act or its key provisions; privatizing Medicare or turning it into a voucher program; raising the Medicare eligibility age; increasing Medicare co-pays and deductibles or otherwise cutting Medicare benefits; or taxing employment-based health care benefits. 

More about this issue:

Jun 2, 2023 | News Story

After long days of negotiations on Friday, May 26 and Memorial Day with little progress made, more than 1000 NYSNA nurses delivered a strike notice to administrators at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital this week.

Jun 2, 2023 | News Story

Insider Union members went on strike at 12AM this morning in response to the company’s refusal to undo illegal changes it made to their health care and management’s intransigence in contract negotiations.

Jun 2, 2023 | News Story

AFM Local 802 is spreading the word that the upcoming Broadway show "Here Lies Love" by David Byrne is attempting to hire NO live musicians, which would be the first time in history for a League-produced Broadway show.

Jun 2, 2023 | News Story

REI yesterday notified RWDSU—the union representing workers at its SoHo, New York store—through its new legal counsel that many workers at the store would be receiving pay cuts in their next paycheck amid a shakeup of the company’s legal representation at the bargaining table.

Jun 2, 2023 | News Story

Delivery workers work day in and day out to deliver New York City residents like me food, supplies, and medicine we need. Still, these workers have been at the mercy of multi-billion dollar corporations that exploit and deny them living wages.  

Jun 2, 2023 | News Story

The Staten Island Advance/SILive.com this week published

May 26, 2023 | News Story

The approximately 165 doctors employed by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (“Mount Sinai”) at Elmhurst Hospital this week ended their unfair labor practice strike after 3 days, with the doctors saying that Mount Sinai finally bargained in good faith and made movement that was sufficient fo

May 26, 2023 | News Story

Barnes & Noble workers at the Park Slope, Brooklyn store yesterday filed for their union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking representation with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).

May 26, 2023 | News Story

UFT members are currently working under an expired contract.

May 26, 2023 | News Story

The New York Times Guild, a unit of The NewsGuild of New York, announced on Tuesday that it has reached a tentative agreement with The New York Times Company on a new collective bargaining contract after more than two years of negotiations.