AFT nurse asks candidates about healthcare

Working family issues took center stage at an AFL-CIO presidential candidates forum in Chicago, broadcast live in mid-August on MSNBC. During the 90-minute debate, seven Democratic presidential hopefuls fielded questions from moderator Keith Olbermann as well as from workers among more than 17,000 union members and their families gathered at Soldier Field. The resulting debate gave the labor movement a national audience on such issues as healthcare, retirement security and the right to organize a union.

Barbara Janusiak, an intensive care unit nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Milwaukee and treasurer of Local 5001 of the AFT-affiliated Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, posed one of several questions on healthcare, challenging the candidates to discuss what they would do about the nearly 50 million Americans who lack health insurance.

The healthcare crisis, including the problems of employees who lose their healthcare coverage when their jobs are outsourced or when their employer goes bankrupt, was a central concern.

Earlier in the day, the AFL-CIO executive council pledged to kick off a new campaign on Labor Day to support national healthcare reform that “protects existing hard-won union benefits and extends coverage to all Americans.” The council called for the 2008 elections to be “a mandate on healthcare reform.”

The AFL-CIO executive council agreed not to endorse any candidate yet.