AFL-CIO kicks off ‘Fair Share Health Care’ campaign

The AFL-CIO’s campaign to push large corporations like Wal-Mart to spend more of their payroll on employee healthcare benefits received an enormous boost in January when Maryland legislators voted to override the veto of Fair Share Health Care legislation by Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich.

AFL-CIO activists will work with lawmakers in 33 states to win legislation requiring companies to do their part in paying for healthcare benefits. The legislation will reduce the bill taxpayers pay to cover profitable corporations’ employee expenses, ease the financial strain states face in growing Medicaid costs, and help level the playing field between companies that provide good jobs and benefits and those that don’t.

“What the Maryland victory shows is that the tide is turning because working people are not just fed up—they are ready to get active to set our country in a different
direction,” says AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. “Maryland’s working families have sent a clear message to local governments and corporate America by demanding healthcare fairness—and winning.”

The Maryland bill requires private companies with more than 10,000 employees in the state to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on employee health benefits or make a contribution to the state’s insurance program for the poor. Wal-Mart is the only known employer in Maryland that does not meet the requirement.

“The victory in Maryland has given life to this campaign and has captured people’s attention and energy,” says Naomi Walker, director of state and legislative programs for the AFL-CIO.

Walker expects to see immediate action on the legislation in several states, including Michigan, Washington and Wisconsin.

While Fair Share Health Care legislation will differ slightly in each state, in general it will require large corporations to spend a certain percentage of their payrolls to provide healthcare benefits or pay into a state healthcare fund. The percentage  would be set by the state legislature or based on the average percentage large employers pay in the state.

Should the country face a pandemic influenza outbreak, nearly 35 percent of the population could become ill. An estimated 15 million healthcare workers and first responders will be needed to meet the needs of the public. 

The AFT, the Communications Workers of America, United American Nurses, United Steelworkers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) want to ensure that these frontline workers are protected in the event of an outbreak.

In a Dec. 21 letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, the unions asked for an emergency temporary standard under the Occupational Safety and Health Act that would require employers to provide comprehensive protections for the caregivers who will be called on to protect the public in case such an outbreak occurs. The law provides for such emergency measures when a hazard poses a grave danger to workers.

In November, the Bush administration unveiled its influenza pandemic plan. President George W. Bush asked Congress for $7.1 billion to fund the plan. Most of the money would fund development of vaccines, drug and vaccine stockpiling, disease surveillance and staffing for local health departments.

However, the plan fails to recommend or require measures to protect healthcare workers and emergency workers who would be called upon to protect the public, the letter points out.

Pandemic influenza differs from each year’s seasonal flu. An influenza pandemic is a global outbreak of disease that occurs when a new strain of flu virus develops, causes serious illness in humans and spreads easily from person to person worldwide.

Such a disease is highly contagious because people have no immunity against it. Yet, Bush’s plan fails to recommend even the most basic respiratory protection measures required by OSHA for workers exposed to respiratory hazards. It also omits key infection control measures required or recommended for other infectious agents.

The letter also calls for the emergency OSHA standard to require employers to develop a flu exposure plan addressing such needs as hazard communications training, vaccination and record-keeping, and making mandatory the use of portable air filtration units to reduce workers’ exposure to infectious particles.

The AFT is calling on congress to reject devastating cuts in President Bush’s latest budget proposal. The plan, delivered to Capitol Hill in February, would impose draconian cuts on the elderly, the poor and the disabled.

Coming less than a week after President Bush’s State of the Union message and his call for a national competitiveness initiative, the budget proposal exposes the “empty rhetoric” surrounding the administration’s so-called national priorities, says AFT president Edward J. McElroy. “This is not the first time President Bush has pledged federal assistance for those in need only to later renege on his promises.”

The president’s FY2007 budget calls for cuts to entitlement programs and government assistance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The cuts largely target Medicare but includes $13.6 billion in federal spending reductions for the state-federal Medicaid program for the poor over the next five years.

Bush’s budget would cut entitlements by $65 billion over five years, the largest chunk of savings coming from a $36 billion reduction in spending for Medicare, the federally funded healthcare program for the elderly.

“It is unconscionable that the president wants to make severe cuts in the Medicare program, which will harm thousands of elderly Americans by cutting an important lifeline to healthcare,” McElroy says. “The cuts also would reduce reimbursements to hospitals, affecting healthcare professionals and their patients nationwide. Congress cannot allow this to happen.”

The administration is also cutting aid to  student loans, early education and adult literacy programs. In addition, Bush has called on Congress to make permanent the income tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 and is proposing additional cuts and tax breaks.