Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign

Sisters and Brothers of the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign,

I think your call for this demonstration is a good idea--- long overdue.

I hope you will circulate this letter to all of those associated with this important campaign, including all of the endorsers.

In my opinion you should be advocating for a national public health care system (not just single-payer) because this would also be a massive job creation program.

Your campaign would provide a great opportunity to explain what kind of healthcare reform we really need in this country.

Here is a “letter to the editor” I wrote that was published in over 80 newspapers around the Midwest; this is the one published in the Grand Forks Herald:

Letter to the Editor, Grand Forks Herald; submitted for publication. July 12, 2009

Our country is embroiled in controversy and debate over health care reform. Focus on the purpose of health care has been lost. Health care has two purposes:

1.         Keep people healthy.

2.         Get people well when sick.

Barack Obama and the Democrats have killed single-payer universal health care which was by far the most popular alternative. Now they are confusing the issue with talk about a "public option" when the only real "public option" is something like VA or the Indian Health Service; both of which could be combined and expanded to include everyone under a Public Health Service.

Our public officials squander our limited and scarce resources--- during a period of a crumbling economy--- financing wars in three countries; subsidizing the Israeli military machine; and spending trillions of dollars financing 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting the globe; and then they tell us there is no money for health care. Instead, we should be building 800 public health care centers stretching out across the United States providing a public health care system which includes:

•           No-fees/No premiums

•           Comprehensive   (cradle to grave)

•           All-inclusive   (general, dental, eyes, physical therapy, prescription drugs)

•           Universal   (everybody in; nobody out)

•           Publicly funded

•           Publicly administered

•           Publicly delivered

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world.

We can afford to provide a first-rate, world-class, free public health care system for our own people--- if we get our priorities straight.

We need health care reform based upon: Everybody in; all the profiteers out.

Health care is supposed to be about people, a human right; not about profits.

Representing workers employed in smoke-filled casinos suffering from cancers and heart & lung problems, I know a little something about why we need health care reform now.

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

I would note that for a completely adequate public health care system, people I know who work in administrative capacities the National Public Health Service and with the Indian Health Service tell me that it would require about 30,000 community health care centers across the United States which would be like satellite branches of these 800 main health care centers--- 17 in each state… we are talking about a massive jobs creation program here. This would be comparable, in jobs creation, to the jobs in public education. We wouldn’t expect a private for-profit school system to educate everyone, why do we expect a for-profit healthcare system to be able to take care of our healthcare requirements when it comes to three-hundred million people?

Figure it out. The American people want jobs. The American people want real health care reform. The American people want peace.

Why shouldn’t the working class be shoving a comprehensive program bundling this altogether to put under Obama’s and the Democrats’ noses?

We are easily talking 8 to 10 million jobs here which I doubt you can get from single-payer although I support single-payer as a step towards a national healthcare program (I was the author of the single-payer universal healthcare resolution which passed with 72% support at the 2006 State Convention of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party [Democratic Party])… 8 to 10 million jobs is quite an incentive to get people demanding peace because cutting this military budget is the only way we are going to get these kinds of programs. In my opinion, the way labor should push this is by saying: We need to begin health care reform with a vastly expanded network of the existing public health care sectors including expanding Medicare, VA, Indian Health Service and the National Public Health Service in order to bring healthcare to the 50 million people in this country who presently have no or inadequate access to health care as we implement a single-payer system like the Canadians have for everyone else until we can phase everyone, beginning with pregnant women and children through age 18, into a national public health care system.

In fact, the single-payer system in Canada was advocated by Tommy Douglas to be a temporary fix until the entire healthcare system became socialized healthcare because as Tommy Douglas so often explained, as long as healthcare is motivated by profits this profiteering would bleed the system to death.

The American people have been denied the opportunity to participate in this healthcare debate because all the facts have been withheld from them… without all the facts it is impossible to participate in the decision-making process so it is up to the working class movements to bring forward real progressive alternatives to this healthcare mess.

To put things in perspective as to why single-payer alone is inadequate, we need to consider that the number of people without access to healthcare in our country is larger than the entire population of Canada.

Not having access to free health care is the price we pay for wars and militarism.

One other suggestion:

I think you need to consider including something in your materials about the need to enforce affirmative action in hiring along with your call for jobs because otherwise poverty is going to continue to mount in communities of people of color where unemployment is already three to six times the national average in these areas. Here in Minnesota, on some Indian Reservations unemployment is as high as 85% with most Reservations having unemployment hovering at 65% and higher… there is no way to explain this deplorable and shameful situation other than failure by local, state and federal governments and their departments and agencies to enforce affirmative action. Former United States Senator Mark Dayton, now running for governor of Minnesota has pointed out that both the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development are refusing to implement the affirmative action programs they are mandated by law to enforce… between these two Departments, they oversee the bulk of projects financed with “stimulus funds” under the  American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. I am sure if a study were to be done this would be found to be the case because Barack Obama and his Administration have steadfastly refused to enforce affirmative action so how could it be anything other than an explanation why unemployment has risen so drastically and disproportionately in communities of people of color other than lack of enforcement of affirmative action. People cannot be expected to join the struggle for jobs if they are going to be entering into a “new” era where they are once again “last hired and first fired.”

We should be telling Barack Obama and the Democrats:

No peace; no votes.

No real health care reform; no votes.

No jobs; no votes.

It’s time to look to Canada for more than just healthcare reform; we need to look at the Canadian workers’ NDP as an alternative to this rotten and corrupt two-party trap labor has found itself caught in with Democrats promising anything to get our support, our votes and our money. The New Democratic Party in Canada is backed by the Canadian Labour Congress and its affiliates all across Canada. The NDP government in power is an example of what working people can accomplish. For the life of me, I don’t understand why American labor has not sought out some advice from the new Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Gary Doer, who resigned as the Premier of Manitoba to take his present job. Gary Doer has been a life-long labour leader whose activities fighting for the rights of working people got him elected first as a member of the Provincial Government and then to lead that government which, under his leadership accomplished many important reforms making life better for working people. There is a great deal to be learned from the experience of the Canadian working class having its own political party. Having attended several Canadian Labour Congress national conventions as a guest, I found it very interesting that John Sweeney would speak to the convention delegates lauding their support for the New Democratic Party of Canada but then return to the United States and pretend the NDP does not exist nor inform American workers of the tremendous progress Canadian workers have made through the NDP.

We would have a much different kind of government if progressive-minded workers occupied 25% of the seats in the United States House and Senate along with State Legislatures.

I would note that the New Democratic Party in Canada has its roots in the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party that controlled Minnesota politics for many years with two socialist governors, Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson, and communist United States Congressman John Bernard who went on to become one of the finest trade union organizers in the United States for many years. Floyd Olson became so popular nationally that the intent was to take the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party national with Floyd Olson intending to run against FDR because he was moving too slowly in implementing the New Deal reforms.

In fact, socialized healthcare was supposed to have been a part of the New Deal reforms. Over 70 years later we still don’t have it.

Working people shouldn’t be forced into the position of constantly having to hold up the Dumb Donkeys’ tails having to live on what the sparrows leave behind as Wall Street coupon clippers, vultures and parasites grow fatter and fatter on profits from wars; profits derived from the wealth created by labor.

I am glad to see the diverse support you are gaining for your project.

I have posted the following information on your call to action on my blog and will be posting this entire letter:

Friday, February 12, 2010

DC March for Jobs, Peace and Justice!

South Carolina AFL-CIO Endorses DC March for Jobs, Peace and Justice!

WORKERS EMERGENCY RECOVERY CAMPAIGN

P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140 Tel. (415)
641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217 email:
wercampaign@gmail.com website: www.wercampaign.org

----------

[please excuse duplicate postings, and please
distribute widely]

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

Rank-and-file unions from various parts of the country,
as well as Central Labor Councils, have been passing
resolutions calling on the AFL-CIO and Change to Win to
organize a massive Solidarity Day III demonstration in
Washington to demand job-creation programs as well as
other programs vital to working people. [See initial
list of endorsers of this call below.]

This campaign just took a qualitative leap forward when
the statewide South Carolina AFL-CIO passed a similar
resolution, which you will find below.

These resolutions have a receptive audience. AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka recently argued: "It's not
time to leave it to any political party to take care of
us once we put them in office. It's time to organize
and mobilize as never before to make every elected or
aspiring leader PROVE he or she will create the jobs we
need in an economy we need with the healthcare we need.
I know we are the people who can mobilize a massive
army to force elected leaders to deliver."

Together, these developments signal that now is the
time to act. We want to encourage all of you to raise
similar resolutions in your union locals and
labor/community organizations. Every resolution will
help, and any single resolution might just provide the
essential tipping point that results in a nationwide
call for a Solidarity Day III demonstration.

Every recent poll has concluded that job loss is the
top concern of the American public. If we succeed in
winning a call for Solidarity Day III march in
Washington, this diffuse sentiment will achieve
concrete expression in the streets as working people
across the country mobilize under the banner of a
demand for job-creation programs, single-payer
healthcare, an end to home foreclosures and evictions
and war, money for education and vital social services,
and so on.

The labor movement in this country represents the
interests of the majority of the people in this
country. The bankers do not. We have a solemn duty to
press for Solidarity Day III so that the collective
voice of the majority of working people can be heard
across the nation.

In Solidarity,

Alan Benjamin and Bill Leumer WERC Co-Conveners

********************

SOUTH CAROLINA AFL-CIO
Post Office Box 39
Swansea, S.C. 29160

* (803) 798-8300 * Toll free 866-798-8300 *
FAX (803) 798-2231 * E-Mail: scaflcio@bellsouth.net
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Resolution in Support of a Labor-Sponsored March on
Washington WHEREAS in the aftermath of the
Massachusetts special senatorial election, AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka issued a statement declaring,
"It's time to organize and mobilize as never before to
make every elected or aspiring leader PROVE he or she
will create the jobs we need in an economy we need with
the healthcare we need. I know we are the people who
can mobilize a massive army to force elected leaders to
deliver;" and

WHEREAS despite the so-called economic recovery, the
economic crisis for working people has continued
unabated, with growing unemployment and
underemployment, rising home foreclosures and
evictions, and the underfunding of public education and
vitally needed social services; and

WHEREAS the government has bestowed billions of bailout
dollars on the financial institutions whose
recklessness and greed created this economic crisis and
who are rewarding those responsible with obscene
gigantic bonuses; and WHEREAS the labor movement's
legislative priorities -- a massive program for jobs,
true universal healthcare, and enactment of the
Employee Free Choice Act -- are all in great peril; and

WHEREAS while the government has no problem allocating
a trillion dollars for two wars thousands of miles
away, it has not committed funds critically needed to
put America back to work, with healthcare and quality
education for all; and

WHEREAS right wing, anti-labor forces, such as the Tea
Bag movement, have brought hundreds of thousands of
people into the streets to advance their reactionary
demands; and WHEREAS there is a growing movement within
the House of Labor to counter the right-wing offensive
against workers' living standards with our own massive
mobilization; and

WHEREAS various union bodies, including the South Bay
Labor Council (CA), acting on a resolution submitted by
Plumbers and Fitters Local 393, Troy Area Labor Council
(NY), and the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO,
have adopted resolutions calling upon the AFL-CIO and
Change to Win to organize a Solidarity Day III March on
Washington D.C. in the spring of 2010 to demand jobs,
healthcare, housing, full funding for public education
and social services, and peace; now therefore be it

RESOLVED that the South Carolina AFL-CIO joins with our
brothers and sisters in calling for a labor-sponsored
march on Washington for jobs, peace and justice, which
would have the capability of mobilizing the kind of
massive army Brother Trumka spoke of; and be it finally
RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be sent to the
AFL-CIO and to Change to Win. (Adopted by the SC AFL-
CIO Executive Board  -  February 2nd, 2010)

********************

Initial list of endorsers of Call for a Labor-Sponsored
Demonstration in Washington for Jobs, Peace and Justice

- South Carolina State AFL-CIO - San Francisco Labor
Council - South Bay Labor Council (San Jose, Calif.) -
San Mateo Central Labor Council - Hartford (CT) Central
Labor Council - Troy (NY) Central Labor Council - AFT
Local 1021 (Los Angeles) - Executive Council, AFT
Missouri - California Peace and Freedom Party - Harlem
Tenants Council - Harlem Antiwar Coalition - Bay Area
Labor Committee for Peace and Justice - Ohio State
Labor Party - Railroad Workers United - Painters and
Dry Wall workers Local  93 (Bay Area)

- Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report) - Donna Smith,
American SiCKO, American Patients United - Harry Kelber
(Labor Educator) - Sharon Black (Organizer, Bail Out
the People Movement) - Monadel Herzallah (Arab American
Union Members Council) - Andy Griggs (UTLA member) -
Don Bechler (chair, Single Payer Now!) - Larry Duncan
(Labor Beat-Chicago) - Allan Fisher (AFT 2121) - Fred
Hirsch (South Bay Labor Council) - Jerry Gordon (Ohio
State Labor Party) - Bill Balderston (Bay Area Labor
Committee for Peace and Justice)

WERC Interim National Committee Members:

- Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Gulf Coast
Reconstruction activist - Alan Benjamin,* Executive
Committee member, San Francisco Labor Council - Mike
Carano, Progressive Democrats of America - Colia Clark,
Veteran, Civil Rights Movement - Donna Dewitt*,
President, South Carolina AFL-CIO - Pat Gowens,
National organizer, Welfare Warriors - Bill Leumer,*
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 853
(ret.) - Luis Maga単a, Coordinator, Organization of
Farmworkers of California (OTAC) - Cynthia McKinney,
Former Member of Congress, 2009 Green Party
presidential candidate - Jack Rasmus, Economist,
Professor at St. Mary's College - Al Rojas,
Coordinator, Frente de Mexicanos en el Exterior - Marc
Rich, United Teachers of Los Angeles - Cindy Sheehan,
Gold Star mother, antiwar activist - Clarence Thomas,
Member, ILWU Local 10 - Mark Vorpahl*, SEIU Local 49,
Portland, OR - Nancy Wohlforth*, Co-Pres., Pride at
Work/AFL-CIO, Vice Pres.,California Federation of Labor

Posted by Alan L. Maki at 12:42 PM

Yours in struggle and solidarity,

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Let’s talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for real change.