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.
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Across the country, we are seeing a great resurgence in worker organizing. Workers are striking in record numbers and winning uphill battles against corporate giants.
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Workers at the Starbucks in Caesar's Bay Shopping Center in Bath Beach, Brooklyn won their NLRB election unanimously with a result of 17-0.
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More than 150 staff from the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), other non-profit organizations, CWA Local 1180, politicians, and supporters joined together for a virtual Zoom rally in support of NDWA staff unable to secure a contract with management after an entire year.
New York City workers, labor leaders, elected officials, clergy and community members gathered yesterday at City Hall Park to mark Workers’ Memorial Day, honoring dozens of workers who have died or suffered illness or injuries while on the job in our City over the past year.
This week, UFCW Local 1500 members from Foragers Market announced that they have voted to ratify their inaugural contract, which runs for 2 years.
Workers at the legendary Greenwich Village movie house Film Forum filed a petition Tuesday for an NLRB election to join UAW Local 2110.
The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys – UAW Local 2325 this week announced that the Center for Appellate Litigation (CAL) has recognized the union as the collective bargaining representative of its non-supervisory staff.