After months of hearings, hundreds of town halls, and more than 60 years of debate, we're closer than ever before in our nation's history of making health care reform a reality. With a historic victory in the U.S. House at our backs, we head into the Senate--where we could face an uphill battle against insurance industry interests.

In a Washington Post op-ed today, SEIU President Andy Stern speaks on how far our Senate leaders should go to achieve their top health care priorities, and finding a balance between pragmatic compromise vs. selling out.

Just as when unions negotiate their contracts, there comes a time when members must make a choice and vote. It's game time, our Senators can no longer hide, threaten, or negotiate their own individual bill. No one gets a free pass for denying the American public a fair up-or-down vote on this bill. The American people have long memories, and come next November, no one will forget who attempted to derail reform. Our elected leaders will be held accountable for the choices that they make.

We stand at this historic moment because of decades of hard work. Unfortunately for the millions in this country suffering under an insurance system that costs too much and covers too few, politics and grandstanding are at risk of taking over. The American people elected a team of 60 Senators to push for bold solutions. They will be judged for what they deliver. If at the end of the day Americans can't afford health care or if the standard of care declines, every single Democratic Senator will pay the price.

Read the entire op-ed at the Washington Post. And while you're here...we'd love to know your thoughts on the subject. If it comes down to the wire, how much compromise do you think our Senate leaders should be willing to make to change the status quo and get health reform passed?

The Washington Post has published an excellent editorial piece on the Child Nutrition Act. In it, the newspaper's editorial board preaches the "wisdom of spending more money to provide healthier meals."

The board says that they're "encouraged that there's a growing movement to do something about" food that "isn't good" for children. As a "Washington Beltway" newspaper that's seen its fair share of movements and supposed movements, those aren't words that they throw around all-too-often.

The Child Nutrition Act, says the editorial, "is up for reauthorization by Congress next month," and President Obama "has signaled his interest by including an extra $1 billion in his 2010 budget proposal for school food improvements."

The board states that while there are "enormous financial pressures facing the nation," there "is also no denying that what children are eating today carries its own costs in the form of increased obesity, incidence of diabetes and earlier deaths."

You can read the full editorial here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/20/AR2009092001966_pf.html

In case you missed it, the Washington Post recently highlighted the Believe Together Coalition, a coalition SEIU helped form with a multitude of faith groups earlier this year. The Post writes that "the group originally grew out of frustration that conservative Christian groups were dominating the national faith conversation on social issues. The coalition is speaking out on such issues as healthcare reform and comprehensive immigration reform."

Last month, the coalition brought together Americans from different faiths on Washington's Freedom Plaza to focus on the urgent, moral need to provide for all members of our community. Check our live blogging from the event.

Last week, the Washington Post published an opinion piece authored by Valarie Long, the Vice President of SEIU Local 32BJ, which represents approximately 10,000 security officers across the Northeast.

In the piece, Long recognizes the importance of the job that security officers perform each and every day, raises the need for improved standards in the private security industry, and offers her condolences to the family of Officer Johns.

Here's what she writes:

The tragedy at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was a painful reminder that private security officers often are our first line of defense and that these modestly paid men and women risk their lives to keep us safe. As we mourn Stephen T. Johns, we can honor his memory by raising security industry standards.

It's in everyone's best interest to ensure that security officers are well prepared to handle emergencies and are treated with the respect they deserve for their brave service.

You can view the piece on the Washington Post here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061602913.html

In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post this morning, industrial and labor relations scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner writes about the obstacles facing workers today.

Over a five year period, Bronfenbrenner studied more than 1,000 union elections and the behavior employers exhibited during the process.

Here's what she found:

• In 34% of the elections, companies fired employees for union activity.
• In 57% of the elections, employers threatened to shut down their facilities
• In 47% of the elections, employers threatened to cut wages and benefits
• In 63% of elections, supervisors interrogated workers in one-on-one meetings, and in 54% of elections supervisors threatened individual workers in those meetings.

Bronfenbrenner writes that this wasn't always commonplace. In fact, she's seen a "steady decline of workers' rights in the past several decades," where "employers are more than twice as likely as they were in the 1990s to use 10 or more tactics...to thwart workers' organizing efforts." Many of these are "punitive and aggressive," and she has seen a marked shift away from "softer tactics such as social events, promises of improvement and employee involvement programs."

The system itself, she states, is failing "to defend workers' rights in a timely manner" and creates "delays that favor employers." That, in itself, is a large reason to support the Employee Free Choice's "first contract arbitration" section. Bronfenbrenner found that 52% of workers "who form a union are still without a contract a year after they win an election," and 37% "remain without a contract two years after the election." For employers, she notes, "labor law provides yet another means to indefinitely delay unionization."

Bronfenbrenner concludes that "if recent trends continue, there will no longer be a functioning legal mechanism to effectively protect the right of private-sector workers to organize and collectively bargain."

Read the full opinion piece here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060202967.html

In today's Washington Post, political columnist Harold Meyerson explains the importance of first contract arbitration in the Employee Free Choice Act, which is the second main plank of the legislation.

"But the kind of democratic choice that business favors is choice without consequence -- a position made clear by its opposition to the other key component of EFCA: binding arbitration between company and union if they've been unable to agree on a contract within 120 days of a union winning the election. A study of first-contract negotiations by John-Paul Ferguson and Thomas A. Kochan of MIT's Sloan School of Management makes clear why such arbitration is needed. After surveying 22,000 unionization campaigns between 1999 and 2004, the authors found that even after a majority of workers voted for a union, they actually reached a contractual agreement with management (which is currently under no legal obligation to come to an agreement) only 56 percent of the time.

"Heads, management wins. Tails, the employees lose."

It's ironic that businesses rely on arbitration all the time as a means of resolving differences; in this regard, arbitration is a tool for business success. Yet when it comes to giving workers recourse to an arbitrator as a means of getting a first contract between their newly-formed union and the employer, big business is suddenly opposed to arbitration. They praise arbitration when it favors them, but oppose it in settling first contracts.

Just prior to taking office, President Barack Obama gave an in-depth interview with the editorial board of the Washington Post, in which he reiterated his strong support for America's workers and the Employee Free Choice Act.

President Obama said that one of the reasons wages have flatlined in the last decade is because American workers have had "very little leverage" and "that larger and larger shares of our productivity [have gone] to the top and not to the middle or the bottom." Here's what he said:

Here's my basic principal that wages and incomes have flatlined over the last decade. That part of that has to do with forces that are beyond everybody's control: globalization, technology and so forth. Part of it has to do with workers have very little leverage and that larger and larger shares of our productivity go to the top and not to the middle or the bottom. I think unions serve an important role in that.

The President knows that growing union membership will only help our economy recover. New research makes a solid case as to why the Employee Free Choice Act would be a recovery program that gets our economy back on track: the economic impact of the Employee Free Choice Act would be about four times as large as the recent federal minimum wage increase.

But business interests who say that having more workers in unions will somehow hurt the economy need a new argument. President Obama says that anyone advancing that angle "probably won't get far with me."

You know, now if the business community's argument against the Employee Free Choice Act is simply that it will make it easier for people to join unions and we think that is damaging to the economy then they probably won't get too far with me.

Fortunately for America's workers, that's exactly the argument being used by business interests opposed to Employee Free Choice.

We finally have a President who understands that unions work, and is ready, willing, and able to enact the change that America's workers need.

Here is the full transcript of the relevant segment of President Obama's interview with the Washington Post:

Political columnist Harold Meyerson makes the case for the only way to restore "mass prosperity" to America in his Washington Post op-ed today:

The one great period of broadly shared prosperity in U.S. history remains the three decades following World War II, which, anything but coincidentally, is the one period in which America had high levels of unionization.

The business lobby is throwing big money into ads opposing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make it easier for workers to join unions, but one concern it has neglected to address is how the United States can again become a land of broad-based affluence with private-sector unionization at its current 7 percent level.

There is no historic precedent for mass prosperity absent mass collective bargaining. The model cannot be constructed.

The Employee Free Choice Act is a surefire way to help raise the income of millions of hardworking Americans. People in unions earn 30% higher wages and are 59% more likely to have health insurance.

Like Barack Obama, Harold Meyerson knows that the Employee Free Choice Act can help pave the way for mass prosperity. But Meyerson explains what needs to happen for it to become reality:

Some Republicans advocate time-honored business tax breaks that have never done anything to jump-start the economy; some Democrats fail to see how EFCA can renew their party's historical role as the expander of the middle class (or they fear a diminution of business campaign contributions in 2010). From the world's best bully pulpit, Obama needs to preach, and teach, some history.

Read more about the Employee Free Choice Act on SEIU.org and check out our new online advertising promoting the NY Times' recent support of the early passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

In this Washington Post interview, SEIU President Andy Stern talks about Wal-Mart, Obama's many strengths and changing the status quo with Steve Pearlstein, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Commentary.

Highlights from the discussion.....Andy Stern:

On Wal-Mart's "Terrible" Moral Leadership

"Wal-Mart, as the largest employer in America, has taken a terrible role as being a moral center. Henry Ford had the understanding that people needed money to buy the car. Wal-Mart's philosophy seems to be if the five Walton family members can make money, we don't have to worry about people buying the car. They are the essence of 25 years of failed economic theory."

On Obama's Leadership Skills [and what makes him a really good leader]

"[...] Obama is clear on what he wants to accomplish, and he makes a plan...as I like to say, he works back from victory, rather than from the present forward. And once he's made his plan, he works the plan [without distraction].

"I think Obama has incredible personal skills. I've never seen a better personal organizer...you spend a day watching him on a campaign trail, but more importantly for our members, they got to watch him as a community organizer. This is a person with incredible integrity, he's a good listener and he's smarter than everyone else in the room but doesn't act that way."

On Union and Business Leadership

"Both labor and business are very stuck in the 20th century. Both do not realize we're living through the third economic revolution in history, and it's far from over. In both cases, people are managing what is and not dreaming about what can be."

On Leading Others to Change the Status Quo

"When you're walking down a road and you know where it ends and you're not happy, you have to go in a different direction.

"We've seen in the auto industry, the pharmaceutical industry and now in investment houses, that challenging orthodoxy sometimes is enormously important--because the consequences of not doing so are even more devastating."

Watch the video here.

There's a great opinion piece in last Sunday's Washington Post that dispels 5 myths about America's health care system. Written by Shannon Brownlee and Ezekiel Emanuel (incidentally, the brother of incoming Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel), the article debunks some of the common misconceptions being pushed by opponents of health care reform.

The myths, in no particular order:

1. America has the best health care in the world.

Anybody who's spent any time actually working in the health care system knows this one doesn't smell quite right. And Brownlee and Emanuel have the facts to prove it. Most expensive system? Yes. Best? Nope. Any way you slice it, we aren't getting much bang for our buck. In fact, "we lag behind many developed countries on virtually every health statistic you can name."

2. Somebody else is paying for your health insurance.

People who receive coverage through their employers usually feel indebted to them for it. To some extent, they should - but they should also remember that health benefits come at the expense of lower wages. In fact, according to the Post article, health care costs are a large reason wages have flat-lined in recent decades.

 Since the 1980's everybody's been struggling to keep up with health care costs - premiums have been rising at more than double the rate of business income and four times the rate of wages.

If your employer doesn't offer coverage, good luck trying to afford it on your own; according to Families USA, 17.8 million Americans are in families that will spend more than 25 percent of their pre-tax income on health care costs in 2008 - and that number is on track to rise dramatically in the coming years.

3. We would save a lot if we could cut the administrative waste of private insurance.

It's true that there are savings to be found deep in the bureaucracies of the insurance giants. But, at the end of the day, it's only enough to make a dent in the enormous financial drain from our health care system.

Health care is an expensive business with lots of costly technology - and the system we have to fund it now just doesn't make sense. It takes more than trimming a little fat to fix this crisis - it takes comprehensive reform.

4. Health care reform is going to cost a bundle.

Government health care. Universal health care. Socialized medicine. Opponents have done a great job of making affordable health care sound massive and terrifying. Real health care reform isn't just about covering the uninsured - it's about making the whole system run better and cheaper. According to the article:

Even moderate reform of the delivery system would improve care and save money. The Lewin Group's analysis shows that a bill proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, calling for a more comprehensive overhaul of the health-care system than either McCain's plan or Obama's could actually insure everyone and save $1.4 trillion over 10 years. More reform is cheaper.

5. Americans aren't ready for a major overhaul of the health care system.

Boloney. I can't remember the last time health care was actually a hot button issue in a presidential election. Or when the President-elect has made it such a clear priority of his incoming administration.

More to the point - ready or not, American's can't afford another 15 years (or months) without solving this crisis. We need transformational change now.