NY Labor Council Urges AFL-CIO Convention to Endorse HR 676
The Troy Area Labor Council has submitted a resolution to the AFL-CIO September Convention, calling for the AFL-CIO to endorse HR 676 and to lobby against “… any fallback program of mandated insurance or public option plans which include the wasteful, for-profit insurance industry.”
The Troy Council’s resolution also asks that “the AFL-CIO help organize and financially support a ‘Healthcare is a Human Right’ Solidarity March and Rally in Washington, DC.”
The upstate New York labor council has sent copies of its resolution to all 491 Central labor Councils and Area labor federations requesting “…that your Labor Council join with us in submitting this or a similar resolution to this year’s AFL-CIO Convention.”
In the letter, sent to all 491Labor Councils, Mike Keenan, President of the Troy Council, said: “While the discussion of health care reform goes on in the White House and in the Congress, unfortunately, what we are hearing from the media are mostly the voices of the insurance industry and pharmaceutical lobbies; and misguided politicians who think that the healthcare crisis can be solved by either taxing healthcare benefits or mandating that we purchase health insurance.”
The AFL-CIO Convention will meet September 14-17th in Pittsburgh, PA. Labor Councils are entitled to vote in the convention. One hundred and twenty-seven Labor Councils have endorsed HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) and 75 co-sponsors.
Download the Troy Council’s letter.
Download the Troy resolution.
re: Troy labor coumcil and Sept AFL-CIO convention. I think that
by Sept the healthcare reform train will be too far down the wrong
track to be recalled. The national AFL-CIO leadership is gutless
and ignoring the fact that 80% of state AFL-CIOs have already en-
dorsed 676. How about all the endorsing unions screaming to their
respective I.O.s and the national AFL-CIO (JoAnn Volk, healthcare
office (202) 637-5121 jvolk@aflcio.org) that we want a fight, not
their mantra “it’s not politically feasible”? If May 30 is to be a
day of action, let’s get the endorsing unions close to D.C. to march
there and the rest of us to demonstrate at the federal bldg nearest
to us. Bernie Sanders is right by calling for a grass roots rise-up
now or never. Or as Anne Feeney sings: “Have you been to jail for
justice?!”