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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On Wednesday, members of SMART Sheet Metal Workers Local 28, Laborers Local 79, Steamfitters Local 638, community supporters and other union workers rallied in front of the Tribeca Film Center, calling on self-professed union man Robert De Niro to stop cutting corners on workplace standards by us
Workers at the Trader Joe’s Wine Shop in Union Square spent the last four months laying the groundwork to unionize their store.
Approximately 30,000 NYSNA nurses have union contracts expiring on December 31, 2022, or in early 2023. This is the first time in New York state that so many private and public sector nurses will be bargaining for critical improvements to their profession and their patients at the same time.
A majority of the dancers employed at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in North Hollywood this week filed a petition for a union recognition election with the National Labor Relations Board.
Unionizing TV Commercial Production Department workers, backed by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) union and the Stand With Production Movement have met heavy resistance to their organizing efforts from the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP).
TIME Union workers have voted unanimously to ratify a new contract, a historic agreement that covers all TIME editorial employees without any divisions among the print and digital sides of TIME or TIME for Kids. The deal was finalized on July 21and ratified this week.
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler on this week’s Senate victory for working people:
Today the Senate passed legislation that will transform the lives of working families at every level, and we urge the House of Representatives to pass this bill swiftly and send it to President Biden’s desk.
New York City’s neglect for its Staten Island Ferry mariners, who have been working for the last 11 years without a contract, impacted other working New Yorkers this week when the system suffered service disruptions due to understaffing caused by the NYC Department of Transportation's failure to