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By James Haslam, on May 5th, 2010  MONTPELIER – Vermonters from all across the state converged on the statehouse on May 1st in a demonstration to show that Vermont can and should be the first state in the nation to recognize healthcare as a human right and provide it as a public good by implementing a single-payer, universal healthcare system.
Over a thousand people marched from the Montpelier City Hall down to the capital building accompanied by drums, dancers, puppets, baloons and signs supporting universal healthcare whiloe chanting “hey, hey what do we say? Vermont is ready to lead the way!” The marchers then joined another two hundred participants already at the Statehouse lawn and swarmed up the capitol steps for a festive rally. They were joined by US Sen Bernie Sanders and the rally also featured skits by various regional organizing committees of the “Healthcare Is A Human Right” campaign, musical performances by Vermont artists, and speeches by campaign leaders from all parts of the state.
Sanders, a longtime advocate of universal care,
Continue reading 1000 Rally For Single Payer Healthcare in Vermont
By Allison Fletcher Acosta, on April 8th, 2010  In 2008, the Vermont Workers’ Center/JwJ launched the Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign. On May 1, 2009 their “Healthcare Is A Human Right” Rally at the Statehouse drew over 1,200 participants and was the largest weekday rally in the state capitol’s history. They are gearing up now for an even bigger rally this May 1st. Over the past few months the campaign has organized a series of People’s Forums across the state with almost 100 state legislators and over 1,000 total participants. They have released two videos about the campaign, “If Vermont Leads, the Rest of the Nation Will Follow” and “We Ain’t No Fools Day.”
Yesterday, the Vermont State Senate voted 28-2 in favor of the S.88 healthcare bill. The bill calls for the Legislature’s Health Care Reform Commission to hire consultants who will design three health care models with implementation timelines beginning in July 2012. One of the three models must be a single-payer system that is government-administered and publicly financed. All three of the models must meet the Healthcare is a Human Right principles of universal, comprehensive,
Continue reading Step Forward in Vermont’s Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign
By James Haslam, on January 8th, 2010 More than two hundred Vermonters from the Vermont Worker’s Center “Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign (HCHR)” filled the Cedar Creek room at the Statehouse on January 6th, coming from all over the state, to deliver thousands of postcards to the leadership of the State Legislature and to take action on the two single-payer health care bills, S.88 and H.100, and mend the broken healthcare system this year.
“We came here today because we seek to change what is politically possible in the health care reform process,” said Susan Lucas, RN president of the nurses union at Copley Hospital. “We believe that health care is not a commodity but a public good shared by all. The time is now to make health care a basic fundamental right for every single person”
The event received a lot of attention from the Vermont media. Check it out!
“Rally for Health Care Reform in Vermont”, WCAX
“Health Care Rally Held at Vermont Statehouse”, WPTZ
“Workers Lobby for Single Payer Health Care”, Vermont Public Radio
“Flurry of Activity in First Day of Session”, Vermont Press Bureau
And we’re just getting started! There are many upcoming events for the
Continue reading Health Care is a Human Right in 2010
By James Haslam, on December 2nd, 2009 Last night the Vermont Workers’ Center’s “Healthcare is a Human Right” Campaign held their second Chittenden County People’s Forum on Healthcare at St. Michael’s College.
 State Senator Doug Racine, chair of Vermont’s Senate health and welfare committee, announced that his committee will begin holding hearings on S.88, the bill that (along with its House companion H.100) will put Vermont on the road to recognizing healthcare as a human right.
“Healthcare is the most basic of human rights,” said Racine. He has scheduled the first public hearing on the bill, to be held jointly with the House health care committee, for January 12, exactly one week after the start of the 2010 legislative session.
Racine’s choice of Tuesday’s forum for the announcement was seen by many as recognition of the success of the Vermont Workers’ Center’s statewide grassroots campaign at putting pressure on the Vermont legislature to enact healthcare reform legislation that embodies human rights principles.
“We now have organizing committees statewide and we have been working with a number of other organizations to build a grassroots network capable of changing what is politically possible for healthcare reform in Vermont. It is clear that these efforts are pushing
Continue reading Single-Payer Health Care Will Be Taken Up in Vermont 2010 Legislature
By jwjnational, on October 20th, 2009 Cross-posted from the Vermont Workers’ Center blog.
FAIRLEE – This past weekend, the Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO convention delegates representing 9,500-members unanimously voted to:
endorse H.100 and S.88 … (and to) play a leading role together with our allies in the Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign … in mobilizing broad public and political support for single-payer healthcare.
Building a powerful movement “to change what is politically possible” with real healthcare reform is the Vermont AFL-CIO’s #1 priority.
Convention delegates also put a parade of politicians, including four Democratic gubernatorial aspirants, on notice that they expected political leaders to work to pass single payer legislation in Vermont this year. Legislative leaders of the Working Vermonters Caucus also pledged to make passing H.100 and S.88 a priority.
In September in a unanimous vote, the national AFL-CIO endorsed the Single Payer Medicare for All approach to healthcare reform as the “most cost-effective and equitable way to provide quality healthcare for all.” United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, who chaired the discussion said, “Whatever the outcome of the current debate over health care reform in the 111th Congress, the task of establishing health care as a human right, not a
Continue reading Vermont AFL-CIO Endorses Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign and Joins National in Supporting Single-Payer
By Allison Fletcher Acosta, on October 14th, 2009 JwJ coalitions making news September 9 – October 14, 2009. More media coverage of JwJ is available here.
Two articles this month talked about JwJ’s role in shaping a progressive labor movement: How Can Labor Get Stronger in the Recession? and Unions Must Move Left, They Have No Alternative.
JwJ activists put pressure on their elected officials to pass health care reform in Whatcom County, WA, Portland, Eugene, Providence, Western Massachusetts, Cleveland, Indiana, and elsewhere throughout the country.
The Vermont Workers Center/JwJ held several town hall meetings in conjunction with their “Healthcare is a Human Right” campaign to pass statewide health care reform.
Single-payer health care: dead in Washington, but alive in the states | csmonitor.com
Meeting airs frustration at slow health reforms: Rutland Herald Online
Care for all, but how? | Bennington Banner
Forums push single-payer health plan | Vermont Public Radio
Time to walk the talk | Times Argus Online
Inherent compassion | Rutland Herald Online
National Workers’ Rights Board members released a new report in St. Louis and Buffalo on safety issues at the American Red Cross.
A new Jobs with
Continue reading Quick Hits September 9 – October 14, 2009
By jwjnational, on October 6th, 2009 Cross-posted from Vermont Workers Center.
 Over 150 community members participated in a forum on our Human Right to Healthcare organized by Vermont Workers Center / JwJ on October 1st at the Imani Center in the Old North End of Burlington. Nearly a dozen Chittenden Co. Legislators were present, mainly to listen, as the focus was on the voices of the people.
Burlington resident Felicia Smith spoke of her inability to afford $700 monthly premiums for the Catamount health plan for her family as a part time worker.
Shelburne resident Pat Flanagan spoke about nearly dying because of bleeding from stomach ulcers caused by too much aspirin which he took to relieve a bad toothache over a long period of time because he could not afford the dental care he needed. He also explained that he was unemployed because his electrical workers union cannot compete for jobs with contractors who do not provide health benefits for staff.
Similarly, Judith Janone, a long time Burlington city employee argued how unjust it was that her part time colleague must pay more than a third of her wage to provide her family with health insurance. “Healthcare should not be tied
Continue reading 150+ Vermonters Pack Health Care Forum
By Allison Fletcher Acosta, on September 9th, 2009 A sampling of what Jobs with Justice coalitions worked on from August 22-September 7.
 Security Guards at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, after repeated requests for a meeting, welcomed new director Timothy Rub with a rally on the steps of the museum. On September 3rd, the guards filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to allow them to unionize as members of the Philadelphia Security Officers Union, an independent union.
Jobs with Justice was one of 521 organizations that signed an open letter to Obama criticizing the Presidents inactivity on immigration reform. The letter demands the “immediate termination” of the 287(g) program which allows local law enforcement agencies to essentially act as proxies for federal agents who investigate, apprehend, transport, and detain people who are suspected of being undocumented.
The national debate on health care continues to be front-and-center, and JwJ coalitions remain engaged on the ground.
Missouri JwJ is part of a coalition pushing for reform.
St. Joseph Valley Project/JwJ in South Bend, Indiana went out to show their support for health reform when the so-called “Patients First National Bus Tour” came to town.
JwJ was part of
Continue reading Quick Hits: Labor Day Edition
By James Haslam, on September 8th, 2009 This Op-Ed Appeared in the September 6, 2009 edition of the Bennington Banner.
For the last several weeks, media coverage of the healthcare reform debate has been dominated by images of angry disruptions of congressional town hall meetings by those opposed to reform. In Vermont, by contrast, the three town hall meetings held in August by Sen. Bernie Sanders were civil, and by all accounts, the majority of those in the audience supported reform based on the principle that healthcare is a human right.
Hundreds of people came out to these events to declare their support for the basic right to healthcare and with such a huge amount of support for fundamental change, the people opposing so-called “socialized medicine” were clearly a very small fragment of the community at these events.
For over a year, the Vermont Workers Center and a growing grassroots movement of hundreds of working and low-income Vermonters have been building the Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign. What does it mean to say that healthcare is a “human right?” It means recognition of the equal and inalienable right of all members of the human family to the best possible physical and mental health, and to the
Continue reading The Struggle of Our Time
By Jonathan Kissam, on August 19th, 2009 
On Saturday, August 15, hundreds of people converged on a U.S. Senator’s Town Hall meeting in Rutland, Vermont, with healthcare reform on their minds. Despite the fact that Rutland had seen a 200-person-strong “Tea Party” rally less than two months before, and that various right-wing radio stations has been ceaselessly promoting the event for weeks, this event turned out very differently from town hall meetings held elsewhere in the country in recent weeks, where Democratic representatives and senators were largely cowed by large, well-organized and disruptive crowds. Instead, the audience, physical space, and media coverage of this town meeting, and a similar one held later in the day in the town of Arlington, were dominated by the red placards and t-shirts of the “Healthcare Is a Human Right” campaign of the Vermont Workers’ Center/Jobs with Justice.
Anti-reform speakers got their share of time at the microphone but were unable to be disruptive because of the large Workers’ Center mobilization, and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders — a long-time supporter of a single-payer, national healthcare plan — remained in control of the room, challenging the
Continue reading Taking on the Right over Healthcare Reform: Lessons from Vermont
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