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As Labor Day Nears, Looking at the State of the Union Movement |
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Today, along with the release of the AFL-CIO’s report, “Young Workers: A Lost Decade,” AFL-CIO leaders are taking a close look at where the union movement has come in recent years and where we need to go. With difficult fights ahead to create an economy that works for everyone, union members and allies around the country must continue to mobilize and educate so that we can reform health insurance, ensure job creation and pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
In a wide-ranging press conference today, the AFL-CIO’s top officers talked about their priorities and the future of the union movement. It’s a critical moment and an opportunity to rebuild a stronger, fairer economy.
As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney stated, we need to be fighting as hard to pass legislation on health care, the economy and the freedom to form unions as we did during the election:
It’s been an energizing year for working families…but it’s also been a hard one. For years we worked against the loss of health care, the loss of manufacturing jobs, the refusal to put any brakes on corporate greed and the refusal of our government to support working people under President Bush. The Bush legacy is devastating.
Now we are eager to ensure that we rebuild an economy in which working people’s work is valued, where CEOs don’t make hundred of times what average families do, where everyone can see a doctor and not lose a home because of abuses in the system…the energy and action that union families poured into the 2008 election hasn’t slowed since November.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker detailed the significant nationwide grassroots effort union members have made on behalf of health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act, ensuring that members of Congress hear working people’s voices on these key issues:
More than 18,000 union members attended 400 town halls in the month of August alone. Union families have made close to 200,000 phone calls and written over 250,000 letters this year to senators and representatives about health care and workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
This Labor Day weekend, over 100,000 union members will make a push for health care and the Employee Free Choice Act at celebrations around the country.
As Congress comes back into session our efforts will intensify. Workers are invigorated and are ready for round two of the fight.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka said union members are committed to standing firm on the principles that underlie health care and labor law reforms. Noting that there is one bankruptcy every 30 seconds in the United States due to medical bills, and that 94 percent of the health insurance industry is concentrated into a handful of companies, leaving consumers with nearly no options, the union movement will not support a health care bill unless it has a public option to help break the stranglehold of insurance companies.
After the passage of health care, we’ll fight for labor law reform that fulfills three principles: giving workers a free and fair process, without management intimidation, to form a union; ensuring that workers who choose a union can bargain for a fair first contract; and making sure that companies that break the law face real penalties.
This Labor Day, America’s union movement is prepared to mobilize and win on the issues that matter to working families. There’s no time to waste.
2 Comments
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Well, now that there’s an overwhelming consensus that the Republicans have NO INTEREST in bipartisanship, can we get back to basics, and ram universal health care through Congress?
I won’t cast another vote until UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE passes!
That sounds great, except that there are too many conservative Democrats in Congress who are aligned with the Republicans on their opposition to universal health care. Still, we must not stop trying to tell our elected representatives that this is what we want.