More unions getting behind the Conyers Bill (HR 676)

I found the following on a site of an organization called International Labor Communications Association. It describes growing support among unions for the Conyers bill that advocates for a single-payer national health insurance system. Read more about H.R. 676 -- The U.S. National Health Insurance Act.

SINGLE-PAYER GOVT. HEALTH CARE BILL GAINS UNIONBACKERS AS ‘COVER THE UNINSURED’ WEEK RUNS
By Press Associates, Inc. Staff Writer Mark Gruenberg

WASHINGTON (PAI) – A bill establishing a government-run Canadian style single-payer health care system for the U.S., built on Medicare, is gaining union backers, coincidentally as “Cover the Uninsured” week ran from May 1-7. The measure, H.R. 676 by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), would eliminate the private for-profit health insurance industry by establishing a government-run system.

The “United States National Health Insurance Act” would be funded through the federal budget, says a fact sheet from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which covers health issues and which sponsors the week spotlighting the uninsured.

Momentum for Conyers’ bill – plus the week-long observance and a planned Senate debate the same time on health care issues – comes just after the Massachusetts legislature voted to require every state resident to buy insurance. ...

The latest backers of Conyers’ bill were the Ohio legislative board of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen/IBT, Letter Carriers Branch 3126 of Royal Oak, Mich., and Graphic Communications Conference/IBT Web Pressmen’s Local 4N of San Francisco. The Ohio BLET said it will take the cause to its conference convention in June and – if it wins – to the Teamsters convention immediately afterwards.

Their endorsements, in late April, came just after that of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, on April 6, after lobbying by USW Local 3567 member Janet Hill, who is also secretary of the Pittsburgh-area Coalition of Labor Union Women. Both the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia CLUW chapters had earlier endorsed Conyers’ legislation.

The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, which claims 900,000 members, is the second state fed to back H.R. 676, after Kentucky’s. Conyers also has 68 U.S. House co-sponsors.

And Amalgamated Transit Union Local 825, which represents bus drivers, mechanics and other workers at New Jersey Transit, also voted to ask its parent international to back Conyers’ bill.

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