Without assistance from the Michigan Nurses Association, and the many nurses among us in Michigan who are helping to deliver Single Payer into the world, our movement would be severely hampered.
On Labor Day, and throughout the month of September, take time to talk to a nurse about Single Payer! Thank her (or him) for their efforts on behalf of their patients. Nurses see, at very close range, the physical suffering and economic hardship affecting people forced to rely on profit-driven health insurance. Nurses unions have been a driving force in promoting Single Payer around the country over the course of many years. Today, on Labor Day, celebrate the fact that we have the power of the Michigan Nurses Association behind and with us as we move forward to secure Single Payer for all!!
The Union Movement in the United States was once a powerful and proud movement, and was a driving force behind many incredible social and economic changes beginning in the 1930s. There have been many deliberate and unfair assaults to the Union Movement since the 1960s, yet this movement was built on and exemplified important social values we need to continue to espouse today. Union values reflect the original American values of our revolutionary founders - advancing the ideas of equality, economic fairness, dignity, mutual assistance, collective strength, and the notion that democracy and individual rights are paramount. Claiming and upholding these values in pushing for Single Payer Universal Healthcare is vitally important, and celebrating these values embodied in the work of our sisters and brothers in labor unions is equally so.
Billy Bragg, talking and singing about our best shared social values, the values that underlie the power in a union!
If you want to take action to support Labor, and thank unions for working for Social Security (among other things) click this link.* This action network site* has supplied a short list of things Labor Unions have contributed to our America. It includes:
Social Security
Weekends
Paid vacations
The 8-hour work day
Medicare/Medicaid/Affordable Care Act
Ending child labor
Work breaks, including paid lunch breaks
Equal pay for equal work for women
Abolition of sweatshops
Sick leave
The minimum wage
Pregnancy and parental Leave
The right to strike
Anti-discrimination rules at work
Overtime pay
Occupational health and safety
40-hour work week
Worker’s compensation
Unemployment Insurance
Pensions
Public education
Collective bargaining rights for employees
Wrongful termination laws
Whistleblower protection laws
Anti-sexual harassment laws
Holiday pay
*from Grey Roots Action, Rebuild the Dream, and Action Network
Comments