After an arduous summer working hard for health insurance reform, our Montanan activists kicked back on labor day--by attending a rally for health insurance reform. You guys just don't quit! With a crowd of 300 people in attendance, the 27th annual Labor Day rally sponsored by the Central Montana Labor Council proved that when it comes to reforming our health care system, the hard working people of Montana don't take a day off.
Did you attend a Labor Day event, march or rally with SEIU members or any of our coalition partners? We want to know!
Use this form to upload your photos, audio and video capturing your Labor Day experience--we'd love to showcase your footage on the SEIU Blog in the coming days.
Here's a photo from a great healthcare event that was held yesterday in Los Angeles:
« Submit your photos, audio or video from Labor Day here.
Visit SEIU's Labor Day 2009 page for facts on labor unions and health reform.
On Tuesday September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers marched from city hall to Union Square in New York City, holding the first-ever Labor Day parade. Despite the threat of losing their jobs, participants took an unpaid day off to honor American workers and draw attention to grievances they had with employers.
And the list of grievances was long. During this time, the average American worked twelve hour days, seven days a week, just to make a basic living, with children as young as six toiling alongside adults.
As years passed, more states began to hold these parades, but Congress would not legalize the holiday until 12 years later. A bloody strike by railway workers brought the issue of workers' rights to the public eye and provoked Congress to officially make the first Monday of September Labor Day.
Today, it's not uncommon to hear the phrase "Unions: The Folks Who Brought You the Weekend." And the saying is true: unions won the eight-hour day standard we all enjoy today. What many people don't realize is that workers and their unions had to fight for the eight-hour day for nearly 3/4 of a century (beginning in August 1866) before any national reform was enacted. The dream of an eight-hour work day finally became a reality in 1938, when the New Deal's Fair Labor Standards Act made it legally a full day of work throughout the United States.
The Struggle Continues
Although many Americans have now come to associate Labor Day as just a day off from work or the end of summer relaxation, it's important not to forget the sacrifices of our brothers and sisters, whose brave acts earned us the working rights we now possess. Unions have historically laid the groundwork for impressive grassroots campaigns to strengthen America's middle class and rebuild the economy in hard times. As we face the greatest recession since the Great Depression, unions continue to be at the heart of efforts to pass healthcare reform, restore economic balance and bring prosperity to all Americans.
This Labor Day, let's remind members of Congress just how many working families are still struggling to make ends meet under the strain of skyrocketing health care costs. Help send Congress back to DC with a mission to reform healthcare by joining us at send-off rallies across the country.
Events being held by SEIU and HCAN across the country on Labor Day, September 7th in Arkansas, Colorado, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Washington state are listed after the break.
Squeezed by higher costs and lower patient counts, the Rimrock Foundation (site: http://www.rimrock.org) in Billings is an example of how the health care crisis has begun to cause financial strain for some health care providers.
The Rimrock Foundation has a staff of 147 and last year served about 5,000 people in its various programs which treat patients with addiction and mental health issues. Each year, the foundation offers about $500,000 in free care. Gov. Brian Schweitzer's administration has touted the organization's pilot programs that have helped people manage addiction and stay out of prison.
But that important work may be in jeopardy. Worrisome to Rimrock director David Cunningham is a trend that started months ago and accelerated in August: The numbers of patients has dropped by about 30 percent over the past three months.
The reason, suspects Cunningham, is the rising number of people without health insurance or with monstrous deductibles. Also, more insurance companies are becoming "freer and freer to 'Just say no,'" he said. The insurance companies typically will cite "pre-existing condition" clauses to avoid paying for the foundation's services, he said.
The upshot is that more and more people are waiting longer to seek treatment.
"What we are seeing is people who are acutely ill. People are holding off unless they have no other way to survive," Cunningham said.
On the other end of the foundation's financial worries are the rising costs of health care for the staff, which have gone up 88 percent over the last seven years.
Cunningham has hedged the facility's financial bets by leaving vacancies unfilled. He plans to wait and see, and to press for health care reform that keeps costs down, insures more people and puts an emphasis on prevention and wellness.
Last week, thanks to the support of hundreds of passionate reform activists, the cause of health care reform was advanced across Montana. With over 200 heath reform protesters showing up initially, the final count ended up being over 700 protesters from ACSCAN, AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, Montanans for Single Payer, AFSCME, MEA-MEFT, HCAN and, of course, SEIU. The ralliers more than outnumbered the 150 "tea partiers" protesting against reform.
Watch more video of the protest on KULR8 here
With buses full of pro-health care reform advocates from Missoula, Billings, and Wolf point, our health reform advocates claimed the best piece of protest real estate: front and center on the airport's field. Turnout was driven by creative efforts from groups like the NHCRC, who gardened tickets for volunteers and staff to attend the events. Morale was boosted by the honk and wave rally and sign making party the night before the president's visit.
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Two weeks ago, "Tea Party" protesters physically assaulted an SEIU staffer at a health care town hall event in Missouri.
Video of the event had well over 400,000 views on YouTube. And despite the fact the video showed our staffer -- dressed in purple -- on the ground at the start of the clip, Glenn Beck and his tea-bagging friends launched daily attacks on SEIU claiming we perpetrated the violence.
It's time like this that we need immediate coordination, and being a part of our mobile alert list is a critical piece of our rapid response infrastructure.
Text 'SEIU' to 787753 (PURPLE), or click the link to sign-up for mobile alerts right now: http://action.seiu.org/seiumobile
All across the country, right-wingers and opponents of health care reform are spreading misinformation about President Obama's proposals to improve health care coverage for all Americans. To help debunk the misinformation about what health care reform actually means, a new coalition called Americans for Stable Quality Care--which includes the SEIU, American Medical Association (AMA), PhRMA, the Federation of American Hospitals and FamiliesUSA--will launch their first ad today as part of an August recess campaign for health care reform.
From Politico:
The group is likely to be the biggest spender in support of health reform. The campaign will serve as a counterweight to the critics at town meetings, which are getting saturation news coverage while Congress is out of town.In a reversal from former President Bill Clinton's 1993-94 health care debacle, the group's campaign is likely to mean that White House supporters keep the upper hand on the airwaves.
Watch the ad here:
As President Obama said at the town hall in New Hampshire, "where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed." In line with prospering the truth about reform, here's the text of the first ad from this coalition:
What DOES health insurance reform mean for you? It means you can't be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition, or dropped if you get sick. It means putting health-care decisions in the hands of you and your doctor. It means lower costs, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses, tough new rules to cut waste and red tape, and a focus on PREVENTING illness before it strikes. So what does health insurance reform really mean? Quality, affordable care you can count on.
An official from Americans for Stable Quality Care elaborates on the groups' objectives for the campaign, saying "Now that the debate is turning on what health reform means for the individual, they felt the need to launch a new front that addresses some of those particulars while debunking some of the myths that are floating around. Plus, these groups recognize that their collective voice packs more punch than if they were to just speak out individually." The ads will air in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia.
For the 47 million Americans without health insurance and the rest of the country, reform in health care is worth doing. If you're looking for an opportunity to help turn the tide on reform, attend a town hall to contribute to civil public debate about important healthcare issues our country faces. Find a town hall meeting near you (hat tip to FireDogLake).
Our canvassing efforts at the local musical festival downtown on Thursday evening resulted in a variety of interesting opinions and conversations. While there were a large portion of locals who were very much in favor of health care reform, and receptive to the free pizza we would be offering the next day at Moose's Saloon, it was clear that some of the individuals we spoke with had been grossly misinformed about what health care reform would mean for them and their families. We made a point to clarify and speak to some of the lies that have been spread by the maintainers of the status quo.
The next day at Moose's, we gave away free pizza to those individuals who stopped by to share their health care story and fill out our health care survey. We only stayed for an hour, though, before we had to maneuver our beast of an ambulance through the Cabinet Mountain Range to get to the American Cancer Society/Cancer Action Network's Relay for Life.
Locals in this state swear up and down that the amount of rain we are receiving this summer is unusual and I'm beginning to think the weather gods are trying to test our resolve in passing significant healthcare reform in 2009. In Hamilton, however, we didn't let the threat of inclement weather stop our party. Making the last minute decision to move our event inside the public library didn't impact the amount of locals eager to turnout to hear their neighbors, Chris and her husband, Curt, and Corrine Gant share their horror stories with our current health care crisis. The room was so packed that there was standing room only for any stragglers.
Our ambulance got a lot of attention in this logging and mining town in Lincoln county. This tiny town in the most northwestern region of the state has received a lot of attention recently as it is one of the largest super-fund sites in the U.S. Residents here have their own special set of health care stories related to the asbestos that has covered their town for the past three-quarters of a century. Over 1/5 of this town has tested positive for asbestosis.
The Change that Works crew met up at Venus Rising, a local coffee shop, to meet with some of our coalition partners and members of the press who were going to tag along with our canvass of local small business owners. As we fanned out across Main, Park and Granite, we came across a variety of small business owners who are struggling with the cost of insuring themselves and their employees. Almost every small business owner filled out our survey, and most asked their employees and customers to fill the survey out as well.
As our ambulance skipped over to Butte's sister-city of Anaconda, we were unexpectedly ambushed by one of the regions infamous gullywashers. Our canvass and BBQ, two perfect summertime activities, was rained out!
Our hardiest activist, Bill Johnson, showed up to voice his support. We snapped a photo in our rain gear, and headed out to the Moderne Club for a dry dinner and conversation with the locals who were also hiding out from the rain.
Rockstar activists Mary Jo O'Rourke, Mike Mosolf, and Richard Taylor joined the Change that Works crew at Jaycee park in Dillon on one of the nicer evenings of the tour for a canvass of downtown neighborhoods. During our canvass, over 90% of the people we talked to filled out our healthcare survey, and a good portion of those individuals wanted to write a letter to congress and become more involved in our campaign.
On the doors, we came across a woman named Ava who was thankful for the insurance she received through work. She was thankful not for her sake, but for the sake of her husband who has recently been in and out of the hospitals for a chronic condition. Without her insurance, they would have no way of paying back the mountain of bills that has piled up over the course of his illness. Ava and her husband both filled out our survey and wrote a letter to all three of their congressmen.
Wrapping up in Dillon, we shared a lawn with a Bible Study Camp playing a game of soccer. When they found out what we were working on, the leader of the group shared his story about not having insurance, his concerns for his children, who are currently on CHIP, and wished us good luck as we continued the final leg of our journey across the state.
We woke up bright and early this morning to head out to Columbus for a honk and wave outside of the 300 Cafe. We parked our ambulance right at the corner, decorated it with signs that said "It's time for Affordable Healthcare", and waved our "Honk for Healthcare" banners and signs to a receptive audience of passers by.
After about an hour, we had to pack it up and leave the Eastern leg of our tour behind to head out to Dillon for our first stop in the Beaverhead/Silver Bow leg of our tour.
A lively crowd waved signs and chanted for quality affordable health care, and scores of motorists honked in response, as the Emergency Drive for Montana's Middle Class came to Billings as part of our 11-day, 22-town tour.
The tour is put on my Montana Change That Works, a project of the Service Employees International Union. In Montana, SEIU's members are long-term care workers and nurse assistants.
