[Peace-discuss] Fw: At Labor Notes: Organizing Our Way Out of "Labor's Healthcare Muddle"
David Johnson
davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net
Wed Apr 2 16:53:23 UTC 2014
----- Original Message -----
From: Labor for Single Payer
To: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 2:39 PM
Subject: At Labor Notes: Organizing Our Way Out of "Labor's Healthcare Muddle"
National Advisory Board
Don Berry, President
Maine AFL-CIO
Jeff Crosby, President
Northshore Labor Council (MA)
Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director
National Nurses United
Donna Dewitt, President Emeritus
South Carolina State AFL-CIO
Maria Elena Durazo, Exec. Secty-Treasurer
Los Angeles Federation of Labor
Pat Eiding, President
Philadelphia CLC
Fernando Gapasin
West Central Oregon CLC
Ben Johnson, President
Vermont American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Jeff Johnson, President
Washington State Labor Council
Greg Junemann, President
International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers
Bruce Klipple, President
United Electrical Workers, UE
Tom Leedham, Secty-Treasurer
Teamsters Local 206
George Lovell, President
Vermont AFL-CIO
Fred Mason, President
Maryland/DC AFL-CIO
Hugh McVey, President
Missouri State AFL-CIO
David Newby, President Emeritus
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO
Henry Nicholas, President
AFSCME 1199
Tim Paulson, Executive Director
San Francisco CLC
Josh Pechthalt, President
California Federation of Teachers
Clyde Rivers, Representing
California School Employees Association
Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, President
NY State Nurses Assoc.
Steven A. Tolman, President
Massachusetts AFL-CIO
Jos Williams, President
DC Metro CLC
Nancy Wohlforth, Representing
California State AFL-CIO
Dear David:
When activists from UNITEHERE—the union of hospitality industry workers—were recently lobbying in Washington DC in an effort to get relief from some of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that are undermining the hard won healthcare coverage of the union's mostly low-wage membership, they were told by an aide to New Jersey Senator Menendez that, "Labor needs to regress to the mean."
Of course, under the laws of mathematics, if you only reduce those factors that exceed a mean, the mean itself constantly adjusts downward. In that context, another term for "regress to the mean" is "race to the bottom".
For many workers, the ACA is having that exact effect. UNITEHERE's recently released report Making Inequality Worse documents how Obamacare, supported by many unions as a means of leveling the playing field between union and non-union workers, is having the perverse and opposite effect of increasing inequality.
UNITEHERE is not the only union experiencing buyer's remorse. While expanding Medicaid and private insurance coverage to many who were previously uninsured and outlawing some of the most egregious practices of the private insurance industry, the ACA is also accelerating the transformation of employment based coverage into a defined contribution system. Delegates to last year's AFL-CIO Convention outlined many of these concerns in a resolution that was passed unanimously.
Part of the problem stems from Republican intransigence in refusing to consider even technical adjustments to the ACA that would correct oversights and errors in the original Bill. But the bigger problem resides in the fact that the ACA was deliberately designed to continue to treat healthcare as a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace and primarily delivered through employment-based private insurance plans. No amount of technical adjustments can fix that problem.
In the section entitled "Labor's Healthcare Muddle", Steve Early's new book, Save Our Unions documents how we got into this mess. Unlike unions in almost every other industrialized country, in the years following World War II labor made a fateful decision to move away from the social insurance model of healthcare reform that would have made it a birthright for everyone in America. Their focus shifted to bargaining for healthcare as a benefit of employment. These union-negotiated benefits then set the pattern for many millions more of non-union workers.
Defining healthcare as a benefit, not a right, made workers and their families vulnerable whenever their employment situation changed. Worse, since the healthcare security of all working families ultimately relied on a fragile system of collective bargaining maintained for some workers, everyone was in danger of losing everything if unions were weakened or busted.
And that's exactly what happened to millions of workers and their families beginning in the anti-labor onslaught in the 1980's. As unions were weakened, they were no longer able to set the standards for wages and benefits for the entire working class and non-union workers had their healthcare benefits reduced to ever-lower levels while unions circled the wagons to protect their own hard-won benefits.
This created a perception that unions were only interested in preserving their own bloated benefit packages at the expense of everyone else. In addition, the treatment of healthcare as a commodity, delivered through access to private insurance, led to a price explosion as profiteers moved in and created massive inefficiencies up and down the system, leading to healthcare costs in the U.S. that are two and one half times greater than the OECD average. For some low wage workers, the annual cost of private family healthcare insurance is now greater than their annual income.
Early also dissects labor's involvement in the struggles over the Affordable Care Act and its subsequent impact on collective bargaining (see also our briefing paper, 10 Things Unions Need To Look Out for When Bargaining Under Obamacare). He maintains that these consequences were predictable and were ignored by most unions at the time as they embraced an American Enterprise Institute model of healthcare reform and engaged in a cycle of bargaining against themselves that any shop steward could have predicted was doomed to failure.
The "regression to the mean" that UNITEHERE focuses on in their report will only get worse. In 2018, the "Cadillac Tax" will take effect. It's basic design will ensure that nearly every union-negotiated healthcare plan in the country will eventually be subject to an unaffordable 40% excise tax unless they cut their own benefits to the bone. The Boeing Corporation has already demanded and won a contract provision that workers and retirees will pay 100% of any future tax.
The times are long past when the labor movement can seek to bargain and maintain healthcare benefits that are far superior to those enjoyed by the rest of the working class. Right wing politicians have figured out how to exploit these disparities to promote a politics of resentment. These attacks have been a huge component of the anti-union campaigns in Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere. And they provide the basis for the assault on public workers everywhere.
As Early points out, "If organized labor settles for piecemeal changes and refuses to challenge the link between medical insurance and employment, it will miss the chance to connect with millions of poorly insured and uninsured workers who have no union." This is the crucial challenge for the U.S. labor movement. We cannot move backwards. The only way to guarantee healthcare for every worker is to guarantee healthcare for all through a single-payer Medicare for All program.
This weekend, the Labor Campaign for Single Payer will join hundreds of union organizers and activists at the Labor Notes Conference in Chicago. If you are attending the Conference, please visit us at our table in the Exhibition Hall and plan to attend one of our healthcare workshops and meetings.
The slogan of the Labor Notes conference is "Putting the movement back in the labor movement." We will be there to add our voice to this effort because we know that only a revitalized labor movement can help to organize our way out of this healthcare muddle.
In Solidarity,
Mark Dudzic
National Coordinator
LCS-P National Steering Committee
Wayne Bayer, Vice President
New York State Public Employees Federation
Paul Bigman
IATSE Local 15
Michael Bilbrey
President, CSEA
Donna Cartwright
Pride @ Work, AFL-CIO
Al Cholger
USW Sub-District Dir., Detroit
Jeff Crosby, President
Northshore MA CLC
Donna Dewitt, President Emeritus
South Carolina State AFL-CIO
Jed Dodd, General Chair
Pennsylvania Federation BMWED/IBT
Mark Dudzic
USW & Labor Party
Sandy Eaton
MA Nurses Assoc.
Jon Flanders
Troy Area Labor Council
Bill Gibbons
USW Regional Dir (Ret)
Don Giljum
IUOE Local 148
Bill Henning
Activist, NYC
Peter Knowlton, President
New England, UE
Martha Kuhl, Treasurer
National Nurses United (CA)
Paul Kumar, Political Director
NUHW
Traven Leyshon, President
Green Mountain Labor Council
Martha Livingston
United Univ. Professions, AFT Lo 2190
James McGee
Transit Employees H & W Fund, ATU
Lew Moye, President
St. Louis CBTU
David Newby, President Emeritus
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO
Elizabeth O'Connor
Maine AFL-CIO
Rodney Orr, Political Director
UPTE/CWA9119
Lenny Potash
Labor United for Universal Healthcare
Clyde Rivers
CSEA
Susan Reardon
Pennsylvania Federation BMWED/IBT
Jean Ross, Co-President
National Nurses United (MN)
Jim Savage, President
USW Local 10-1
Robert Score, Rec-Secty
IATSE Local 1
Mike Sullivan
Assoc. of Western Pulp & Paper Workers
Marva Wade
NY State Nurses Assoc.
John Walsh
IBEW
Jos Williams, President
DC Metro CLC
Nancy Wohlforth
California State AFL-CIO
The Labor Campaign for Single-Payer survives on the generosity of our supporters.
Please consider making a donation.
www.LaborForSinglePayer.org | organizers at laborforsinglepayer.org
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