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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NEW YORK, October 11, 2023—Nearly 113 years after the tragedy, the long-awaited public memorial to the victims and legacy of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire will today be dedicated at the s
Wednesday, October 11, 11:30AM: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was one of the worst workplace tragedies in American history. But it was also a turning point in winning safer working conditions and basic human rights for working people throughout America.
Actors’ Equity Association, the national labor union representing more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers in live theatre, has announced that it has organized the production assistants (PAs) who work as part of stage management teams on Broadway and sit-down productions produced b
Momentum continues to build as postdoctoral researchers organize unions across the city with UAW.
Workers at Hex & Co., the three-location board game bar/cafe chain including the largest board game cafe in Manhattan, delivered a letter to their management in late September asserting their right to collectively bargain, and asking them to voluntarily recognize their union with Workers Unit
On Thursday evening, the musicians of the New York City Ballet Orchestra (members of AFM Local 802) ralied at Lincoln Center's Fall Gala to demand a fair contract with the wages and healthcare they deserve, instead of being asked to make financial concessions once again.
On Sept. 26, LaFontaine Oliver, the CEO of New York Public Radio, said he planned to lay off 12% of the organization's workforce in the coming days.
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On October 5, we recognized Latina Equal Pay Day, marking the symbolic date to which Latinas have to work—almost 22 months—to catch up to what their white, non-Hispanic male co-workers earned in 2022 alone.