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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Teamsters at UPS held a rally Thursday after multiple workers were sent to the emergency room with heat exhaustion last week. The company refuses to install fans in trucks or adequate ventilation in sortation facilities.
Union members worked together across the labor movement to win many important victories for working people last year.
Workers in production departments for TV commercials across the United States are going public with their union with the backing of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and the Stand With Production movement.
Staff at Harper Collins Publishers including workers in editorial, sales, publicity, design, legal and marketing held a one day strike on Wednesday to back up their demand for a fair contract.
The Atlantic’s business and technology teams announced the formation of a union Thursday, the latest sign of growing support for unions among both tech and administrative workers in the media industry.
NYU Adjunct faculty members rallied for wage justice in Union Square Wednesday as their bargaining team gave NYU the union's initial wage demands proposal.
The WIRED union, a unit of The NewsGuild of New York, which represents more than 55 workers at the technology magazine, reached an agreement on a first contract with management late Monday night.
Last week, one of the Starbucks Workers United leaders who had recently led the successful unionization of his store in Astoria, Queens was unjustly fired by the company. This is the first firing of a union leader in downstate NY.
On Wednesday, less than an hour after Guttmacher Employees United won their union with OPEIU Local 153 by an overwhelming margin of 61-2, the Guttmacher In
Management has slow-walked WIRED Union's bargaining for over a year, refuses to discuss rights participation, and refuses to allow members of the Reviews team in the bargaining unit, in spite of their vital work for the outlet.