Speakout Columns
We can’t afford to waste this crisis
Jun 29, 2009 10:46 AM
Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, says, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” The causes of the economic crisis are not of our making, but we can use the angst about our economic system that the crisis has generated to fix some fundamental problems if we choose.
While President Barack Obama has moved quickly to stem the crisis, he has acknowledged we won’t be able to rebuild the middle class if working people don’t have the freedom to form and join unions. And in the face of powerful lobbying from some corporate interests, the president also wants to extend health coverage to the 45 million uninsured people via a plan with a public insurance option.
Yet corporate America is wasting no time in fighting against the Employee Free Choice Act and real health care reform. It’s up to us — union members and our community and faith-based allies — to fight to “Turn Around America” into a country where people’s needs, not corporate greed, are met; where children are guaranteed quality education in small classrooms; where workers can exercise their right to organize free from fear; and where everyone has the right to quality health care. In order to do this, we must help build and become part of a greater social movement.
The brutal campaign waged by the Chamber of Commerce against the Employee Free Choice Act is not unexpected. Fortunately, in New York State, despite the corporate multimillion-dollar campaign against the bill, every single Democratic congressperson and both our senators are sponsors of this important piece of legislation.
The Employee Free Choice Act is built around three principles:
- Workers need to have a real choice to form a union and bargain for a better life, free from intimidation
- We have to stop the endless delays; companies can’t just stall to stop workers’ choice
- There have to be real penalties for violating the law.
We cannot get out of the economic crisis unless we create millions of decent-paying middle-class jobs. When families have good jobs, they have money to spend on services and goods that stimulate economic activity. And, the best proven road to the middle class is a union job. That is why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important.
On June 25, thousands of union members and community activists lobbied in Washington, D.C., for “Health Care for America Now.” If the campaign to win health care for all Americans is successful, it will mark a paradigm shift in our country.
Forces are already arrayed to defeat any type of government or public option. These are some of the same forces that are opposing the Employee Free Choice Act. TV ads like the fear-mongering “Harry and Louise” ads of the past have begun.
Many unions, central labor councils and state federations have adopted resolutions supporting the “single payer” option. Frankly, it is unlikely that Congress will pass such legislation. Let’s make sure that the perfect is not the enemy of the good. We need health care reform and we need it now, even if it is not perfect.
We simply cannot fix our economy without fixing our broken health care system. Health reform must bring down costs. We cannot cover everyone without bringing down costs and we cannot control costs without getting everyone into the system.
- A public health insurance plan makes reform work. Giving everyone the choice of a strong public health insurance plan will inject needed competition into the market, drive costs lower and improve quality across all plans. It will also mean that health care will be there for all of us, no matter what.
- Employers must pay their fair share. Health reform must build on what works, which for 160 million Americans is the employer-based system. To do that, employers must be required to either offer coverage to their workers or pay into a fund to finance coverage for uninsured workers.
- Taxing health benefits — one of the proposals being floated to pay for health care reform — will raise costs for workers when they need relief.
Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform are within reach — if we don’t waste this crisis.
