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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The Union Veterans Council, an AFL-CIO Constituency Organization, brings working-class veterans together to speak out on the issues that impact us most, especially the need for good jobs and a strong, fully funded and staffed VA.
Union members at HarperCollins, one of the largest publishers in the country, started an indefinite strike yesterday, with workers and supporters gathered outside the company's New York City offices to make their demands.
"This is my dream job. But I will not risk getting infected with bed bugs or sick due to mold." said Kent, a baker at the NYC Roastery at a rally held by Roastery workers and their supporters at the location at 61 Ninth Avenue in Manhattan on Thursday.
NewsGuild of New York members at Thomson Reuters have announced that a supermajority of union members voted in favor of authorizing their bargaining committee to call a strike if their employer continues bargaining in bad faith.
Across the country, overworked and underpaid Chipotle workers, organizing with 32BJ SEIU, have been fighting to form a union.
Over 200 union journalists across 14 Gannett owned-newsrooms from New York and New Jersey to Arizona and Southern California collectively walked off the job for a one-day strike last Friday.
Yesterday, working New Yorkers made their voices heard, voting in support of candidates who will stand up for working families and engaging voters one on one through our NYC Labor Votes! Campaign and the efforts of our affiliate unions.
Resident physicians at Montefiore Medical Center, one of the largest teaching hospitals in New York City, announced their intention to form a union with the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU) on Tuesday.
Workers at a Starbucks-Amazon Go convenience store near Times Square filed a petition for a union election Friday—and one worker told THE CITY that supporters are already feeling the heat from management, receiving threats of write-ups and citations for coming to work in pro-union T-shirts.
In another step towards parity for Staten Island Ferry marine engineers, the City Comptroller’s office has determined that the engineers should be paid wages comparable to other mariners in the New York City area.