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:

Aug 6, 2021 | News Story

Actors’ Equity Association reached an agreement with the Broadway League on COVID safety protocols for the Production Contract— the contract on which Broadway actors and stage managers work.

Aug 10

Join immigrant essential workers at United Metro Energy for a rally with local elected officials as they continue their strike for fair wages and benefits for their families.

Jul 30, 2021 | News Story

More than a thousand United Mine Workers of America members and supporters have once again carried their ongoing strike against Alabama’s Warrior Met Coal to New York City.

Jul 30, 2021 | News Story

Editorial employees at Forbes voted 67-7 to be represented by The NewsGuild of New York, TNG-CWA Local 31003 in a National Labor Relations Board election that concluded Tuesday.

Jul 30, 2021 | News Story

Members of The NewsGuild of New York at The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Ars Technica this week announced that they have unanimously ratified their first contracts with Condé Nast.

Jul 30, 2021 | News Story

Faith activists recently delivered a letter to all 50 U.S. Senators calling on them to pass the PRO Act, making it easier for workers to form a union.

Jul 23, 2021 | News Story

On Monday, July 19, the IBEW hosted a webinar with nearly 700 IBEW officers, local union business managers, staff, and rank-and-file members to hear from U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm about the Biden Administration's push for a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Jul 23, 2021 | News Story

The workers of Volunteers of Legal Service (VOLS) announced this week the formation of the VOLS Union, which will be a chapter of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (“ALAA”) – UAW Local 2325, and have called on management to immediately recognize them.

Jul 20, 2021 | News Story

Workers’ rights are under attack.

Our outdated labor laws have been chipped away and weakened by anti-worker legislators. Every day, we hear about corporations openly union-busting and retaliating against working people without consequence.