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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After two years of bargaining, graduate workers at Columbia University (GWC-UAW 2110) are set to go on strike on Monday, March 15th at 10am if the University does not agree to a fair contract. Last spring, 96% of student workers voted 96% yes to authorize a strike.
On Wednesday, the CLC hosted our 2021 Labor and Civil Rights event, an annual opportunity to recognize and celebrate the continuing unity and interdependence of the labor and civil rights movements.
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Join us on Thursday, March 25, 6pm as we commemorate the lives lost during the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. #TriangleFire #WeRemember
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Three weeks ago, CUNY Chancellor Matos Rodríguez decided to ignore the PSC-CUNY contract and refuse to pay equity increases to 2,500 workers in lower-paid full-time staff and faculty positions.
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