Labor Campaign Pushes Healthcare as a Human Right, Not a Business | The Nation

Labor Campaign Pushes Healthcare as a Human Right, Not a Business | The Nation:

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The unionists gathered over the weekend at the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer conference in Chicago argue that if universal health care is ever to be achieved in the US, labor must play a key role in pushing for it—which many have plans to do, particularly on the state level, in the near future.

The LCSP was founded in 2009 by a broad group of union activists, including Mark Dudzic, a former union local president, and longtime labor organizer and rabble-rouser Jerry Tucker. Tucker, who died late last year and was commemorated Friday by the campaign, was a stalwart organizer at the rank-and-file level, having little interest in the shifts of power in labor’s upper echelons. That spirit clearly still animates the campaign; attendees seemed to see the hopes for single-payer to come not from on high, but through organizing at labor’s grassroots.

Campaign activists, like many on the left, acknowledged the Affordable Care Act’s positive outcomes like some expanded coverage and the expansion of Medicaid while arguing it does not go nearly far enough in its reforms. Dudzic, the national coordinator of the campaign, says that labor and the progressive movement face a pivotal choice after the ACA has been cemented as the law of the land.

Healthcare-NOW! - Remembering Jerry Tucker

Healthcare-NOW! - Remembering Jerry Tucker:

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 Stopped Right to Work

While he was known for his tough bargaining fights, Jerry also understood the political world. In 1978 he was appointed to lead what many viewed as a hopeless effort to defeat a right-to-work referendum in Missouri. He constructed a campaign where workers reached out to farmers and small businesses and framed the issue as a “Main Street” fight against big business. The initiative was overwhelmingly defeated.

Until his illness prevented it, he was working closely with activists in Wisconsin to help unions recover from the assault on public workers, starting on the shop floor.

Since 2009, I have had the privilege of working with Jerry in the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare, which he co-founded. He saw the healthcare fight as the linchpin of an alternative worker-oriented political economy. Jerry served as unpaid staff to the organization and his leadership, contacts, and respect helped bring a broad group of leaders to the table. Throughout our deliberations, Jerry always advocated for the long view: building a grassroots movement strong enough to confront the massed corporate power at the core of the healthcare system. He stressed connecting our campaign to the fights against concessions at the bargaining table and urged against “inside the Beltway” thinking.

Jerry had an abiding belief in the ability of working people to make a better world for themselves. Despite all the defeats and disappointments, he never deviated from that touchstone. In his recorded remarks to last spring’s Labor Notes Conference he said, “I have an uncompromising faith in the rank and file’s capacity to respond when the truth is shared and a two-way flow of strategic and tactical options is offered the base.”

another analysis of Senate arrests

This is from the folks at Real News Network. http://therealnews.com/t/
they have a good collection of vids and information. The vid below has comments that might be useful to those in the group

"Single-payer advocates protest Senate hearing
Chair of Finance Committee takes single-payer plan off the table and calls for "more police"

May healthcare days of action

Some political actions will be done in May. Will update info as we recieve it and have plans to participate.
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Labor Campaign for Single Payer Joins the Call for "Nationwide Days of Action for Single Payer May 27--June 3


"The debate over healthcare reform is heating up. President Obama has called on Congress to enact major reform legislation by the fall of this year. Opponents of real reform, led by the health insurance industry, are moving heaven and earth to make sure that the voices in support of single payer Medicare for All are frozen out of these discussions. It is urgent that those of us who stand with the American people in the belief that healthcare is a basic human right be heard now.

To that end, the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Healthcare-- the national coalition of single payer advocacy organizations--has called for a Nationwide Day of Action for Single Payer between May 27 and June 3. This coincides with the Memorial Day recess when most members of Congress will be in their home districts. From Augusta, Maine to San Diego, California, activists are planning demonstrations, marches and rallies that target the health insurance industry and demand that their congressional representatives sign on as co-sponsors of House bill 676 and Senate Bill 703. They will also ask them to use their influence to ensure that single payer proposals are given the same consideration as all other credible healthcare reform proposals in the upcoming congressional hearings.

Labor has a special role to play in making the upcoming Day of Action a success. We can provide the resources, numbers and credibility to make sure that our congressional representatives take us seriously. Our allies at Healthcare NOW have set up a web page to support these actions: http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/may-30th-day-of-action/

We call on all labor organizations that have endorsed HR 676 to join with the organizers of actions in their area and work with them to plan a powerful public event. If no event is planned in your area, we ask that you take the lead and begin to assemble a group of single payer allies to plan a joint action. The Labor Campaign for Single Payer can assist you in planning and publicizing an event and reaching out to other single payer supporters.

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HR676 Rally Las Angeles

The vid below is a recient LA demonstration in support of HR676. The organizers have the following message for upcoming action:

Then join with single payer activists from around the country to help plan a local Day of Action on May 30 (http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/may-30th-day-of-action/).
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This is April 6, 09 demonstration in LA. The sea of blue is the California's Teachers Union by the way. Some of the demonstrators are decrying the exclusion of "Single Payer" options from the California plan and the Obama administration health care discussions.

Single payer options like HR676 are not on the table appearently and folks supporting this are being excluded.

from NBC LA news

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