Rockefeller’s Public Option Killed in Senate Finance’s Health Care Bill
UPDATE: Schumer’s public option amendment got killed as well, 10-13, with Baucus, Conrad and Lincoln voting against it. Disgrace.
Looks like one version of public option just got killed in the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s public option amendment, the strongest of the public option amendments offered, was just voted down 15-8, with five Democrats voting against it: Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Tom Carper (Del.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.).
As Rockefeller said before the vote:
Why would we not do this? People come second and the profits come first if we’re against this.
Florida Union Members Protest Anti-Worker Corporate Training
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Paul Pimentel, research director for the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA), reports on the fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
As the debate heats up in the U.S. Congress over passage of the Employee Free Choice Act—a bill that would allow workers’ freedom to bargain with corporations for better wages and benefits—Big Business is spending millions of dollars to kill the bill with a disingenuous disinformation campaign that includes TV and radio advertisements, lobbying members of Congress and holding nationwide seminars like the one held earlier today by the South Florida Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Association.
This time, scores of union activists and allies were on hand to greet seminar goers and get the truth out about the Employee Free Choice Act.
From the Field: Employee Free Choice Actions Everywhere
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| USW members Ed Sadusky and Ken Matz struggled for three years to form a union and get a first contract. |
With members of Congress at home for the April congressional recess, the grassroots campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act is in high gear, with more than 300 events taking place around the country in support of workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain. Here are some highlights of this nationwide effort.
Last Tuesday, hundreds of workers rallied for Employee Free Choice in Harrisburg, Pa. Among the speakers were Ed Sadusky and Ken Matz, two workers at a steel plant in Cressona, Pa., who were subjected to intimidation, harassment and management roadblocks in their attempt to form a union. Their efforts to bargain for a better life were thwarted by corporate pressure and delays, and it took them two and a half years to get a fair first contract. Their story illustrates why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.
