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:

Jul 2, 2021 | News Story

On Tuesday, United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm came to New York City to discuss ways to build a clean energy economy and create good-paying, union jobs. As part of the visit, she sat down at a roundtable with union leaders and workers organized by Climate Jobs NY.

Jul 2, 2021 | News Story

Staff members of Brooklyn Defender Services (“BDS”), a non-profit public defender organization in Kings County, this week announced the formation of the BDS Union as a chapter of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (“ALAA”) – UAW Local 2325.

Jul 2, 2021 | News Story

Editorial employees of Insider overwhelmingly voted 241-14 to be represented by The NewsGuild of New York, TNG-CWA Local 31003 in a National Labor Relations Board election that concluded this week.

Jul 2, 2021 | News Story

Workers at Change.org, a global platform that empowers people to start and win campaigns that address pressing issues in their lives and communities, this week announced that they have formed a union, Solidarity at Change, with the Communications Workers of America’s CODE-CWA project.

Jun 25, 2021 | News Story

In a giant step forward for all New York patients, nursing home residents, nurses and healthcare workers, legal mandates are now in place to set and enforce staffing standards at every hospital and nursing home in New York, regardless of whether the facility is public or private, not-for-profit o

Jun 25, 2021 | News Story

More than a thousand coal miners at Warrior Met Coal are now in the third month of their strike in the right-to-work state of Alabama.

Jun 25, 2021 | News Story

The NewsGuild of New York has filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the NLRB after Gannett managers offered employees benefits in exchange for rejecting the union and created the impression that management was spying on workers’ protected union activities.

Jun 25, 2021 | News Story

The recently formed AJWS Union announced this week that management at American Jewish World Service, a leading global Jewish human rights organization. has formally and voluntarily recognized the workers' union affiliated with OPEIU Local 153.

Jun 4, 2021 | News Story

UFT President Michael Mulgrew, DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido, and 32BJ President Kyle Bragg co-authored an

May 21, 2021 | News Story

As New York updates its re-opening guidelines, the key to bringing back tourists and audiences is very simple: vaccinations.