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 18, 2020 | Press Release

Today’s Supreme Court decision confirms that the Trump administration’s effort to strip DACA protections from 700,000 young Americans was not only cruel but illegal.

Jul 20, 2020 | News Story

As NYC continues it's phased reopening, we urge elected officials keep in mind America's Five Economic Essentials:

Keep front-line workers safe and secure. 

Keep workers employed and protect earned pension checks.

Jun 4

Join the United Federation of Teachers and the NYC Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO for a virtual fair for NYC high school students to explore careers in union jobs.

Apr 23, 2020 | News Story

Each and every day of this crisis, union members on the frontlines of the COVID-19 outbreak are bravely going to work, putting their health and lives on the line for their fellow New Yorkers.

Mar 26, 2020 | Press Release

On behalf of the New York City labor movement at the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, I’d like to extend thanks to United States Senator Charles Schumer for his tireless work on the stimulus bill.

Mar 25, 2020 | Press Release

Today, we mark the 109th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, a catastrophic event in which 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, were killed as a direct result of abhorrent working conditions and woefully insufficient workplace safety standards.

May 11, 2020 | News Story

(Updated 5/11/20) The COVID-19 pandemic remains an extraordinarily challenging situation, with New York City workers, as always, on the front lines of the crisis. The labor movement is rising in solidarity to meet those challenges.