Memphis NUHHCE Town Hall Meeting
The new President of the United States of American faces an enormous and difficult job. So do we!
The new President of the United States of American faces an enormous and difficult job. So do we!
We arrive at this juncture with more than 10 million people unemployed.Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs just this year and this is not the end of job losses. We are in the greatest financial crisis since The Great Depression. We face the largest number of home foreclosures ever in our history – more than 100,000. Our healthcare delivery system is in shambles. We are still engaged in two wars – costly in lives and resources; more than 4000Americans have been killed and some $10 billion a month is spent in Iraq alone. That is a war that must end.
Simply put, many Americans have had their hopes and dreams dashed. But we, as members of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, arrive at this junction with our vision clear and our resolve strong.
How are we going to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without healthcare? I think healthcare should be a constitutional right,” said 1199C Delegate Mustafa Muhammad, drawing thunderous applause from the audience at the town hall meeting during the NUHHCE Triennial Convention, held from November 10 through November 12, 2009 in Memphis.
“If we’re going to start thinking out of the box – healthcare should be the right of every living being – especially in this country,” declared Muhammad.
The theme of the meeting was to be: The Future Direction of a Divided Labor Movement – What Next? However, much of the discussion focused on instituting universal healthcare and passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
Stewart Acuff, Director of Organizing for the National AFL-CIO, said Republicans may filibuster to block the measure in the Senate and that he hoped President Barack Obama will include the Act as part of his economic recovery plan.
Dr. Elaine Bernard, Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, said that “While we won the election, we are not empowered. The power elites are the business people and the bankers.” However, she said, “We can use the reins of government to change things. The power-elites need to believe if we don’t get universal health care and if we don’t get the Employee Free Choice Act, there will be no peace.”
Dr. Bernard likened healthcare access to public education and fire service and indicated there is clear precedent for government-supplied service available to everyone. Also, she said, the economic crisis has built support for government regulation.
“During a crisis is when you can begin to think big,” said Dr. Bernard, who said that half of bankruptcies are caused by healthcare costs, the United States and South Africa are the last industrialized nations that don’t offer citizens healthcare. She also told the audience that universal healthcare would be safer and cheaper because of the high costs and perils of people neglecting their health until their illnesses are advanced.
Obama, according to Acuff, forced the nation to “confront the 47 million of us, friends, neighbors, family without healthcare.” Obama ,Acuff continued, “confronted a 30-year failed Reagan economic policy.”
“We need fundamental change – change that is deep enough to change the quality of people’s lives, change that will restore our kids and grandkids access to the American Dream, change that fights to end poverty in America, change that gives the economic power to workers., change that will end the worst inequality in America since the 1920’s, change that can close or at least narrow the gap between the rich and the rest of us, change that says unions are good, change that is real enough and deep enough to lift us out of this recession and clean up the mess that is both Washington and Wall Street