Unionists campaign for single-payer

ST. LOUIS--A spirit of "Yes We Can" pervaded the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Health Care conference held here January 10-11. More than 160 trade unionists from across the country attended.

Among the unions that sent delegates were the California Nurses Association, Massachusetts Nurses Association, AFSCME, Teamsters, United Steel Workers, California School Employees Association, United Auto Workers and Theatrical Stage Employees Local 1 from New York City.

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), set the tone for the conference:

It matters what we do here, and what we take forward, and how we do it...I think it's a tremendous mistake for labor to go low on the profile of single-payer. Barack knows single-payer--he said if it was up to him, we would do single-payer. We have to light the fire that builds the movement to get single-payer. That is our mission and our goal.

The first day was a working meeting and included breakout strategy sessions that focused on how to educate union members on single-payer, making links with community organizations, and building grassroots, single-payer campaigns within unions.

A panel titled "What's Wrong with Massachusetts?" led by Sandy Eaton of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, outlined the problems with the mandate approach to health care. As Eaton said:

The Massachusetts mandate is a boondoggle for the insurance companies. It takes taxpayer money to subsidize people to buy into this system. It forces them into this system--that's why AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans) love it. They're making money hand over fist.

And it makes people into criminals with financial penalties if they don't go along with it. The mandate forces the working poor to prove they are poor every year, or they will be penalized. There are still hundreds of thousands of uninsured.

All the health care reform bills that will be introduced in the new Congress, including Obama's, contain a mandate provision.

The group discussed the urgency of taking action within the first 100 days of Obama's administration. A number of actions were proposed: truth hearings that link health care with job losses and the economic recession; organizing the retirees of the UAW who are losing health care; and getting politicians at the local and state level to support HR 676, Rep. John Conyers' single-payer bill.

Money was pledged by both individuals and unions to fund a full-time organizer to work on the single-payer campaign.

The conference was a first step in launching a nationwide labor-led campaign for single-payer. Conference attendees agreed that there is much work to be done and committed themselves to the fight.