Health Care Security Campaign
A Victory that Sets Industry Standards for
Good Jobs with Good Benefits
More than 1.8 million people in New York City lack healthcare. Each year, more and more New Yorkers lose their healthcare as companies that provide coverage lower their standards to compete with those that do not. This competition creates a downward spiral in the standards by which employers operate their businesses—slowly, what were once established wage and benefit standards are eroded as irresponsible businesses increase their profits by cutting jobs, wages, and benefits. And then other businesses follow suit in order to “keep up” with the competition.
To respond to this crisis in healthcare and to stop the downward spiral in industry standards, NY Jobs with Justice launched the New York City Health Care Security Campaign in the fall of 2004. The Health Care Security campaign is a cutting-edge local policy initiative that offers a solution for New Yorkers who are uninsured and for people whose current healthcare must be protected from declining industry standards. The legal mechanism of the Health Care Security Campaign requires businesses in targeted industries that are operating below the industry norm to rise to the standard already being met in the industry by responsible union employers. This policy not only provides greater healthcare to more New Yorkers, but it also creates a model for local government action in regulating private business and ensuring positive economic development in our communities in the face of declining or disappearing national regulations.
Over the last year, the Health Care Security coalition of labor unions, health policy advocates, businesses, community organizations, faith leaders, and elected officials organized within the City Council to secure a pilot program of the Health Care Security Campaign in the grocery industry. This means that mega-chains like Wal-Mart and BJ’s that traditionally provide low wages and poor benefits (if any) to their workforce will have to meet the industry standard set by responsible City businesses like D’Agostino’s and Fairway Foods.
The Health Care Security campaign was a hard-fought, quickly-won battle from the first public hearing in December, 2004 to the Council vote in August, 2005 and the override of the mayoral veto in October—the coalition rallied public opinion behind the bill in the form of letters, postcards, and key media editorials, organized educational forums among health policy and labor advocates, held a community forum to gain Council Speaker Gifford Miller’s support, and worked with lead sponsor and Chair of the Health Committee, Councilmember Christine Quinn to educate her fellow legislators about the importance of this issue.
In 2006, JwJ and the coalition will focus on supporting the efforts of the Brennan Center for Justice, the bill’s legal architect, to defend the legislation in court and see that it is implemented fairly. The Health Care Security campaign has already been replicated in Suffolk County and other parts of the country are looking to replicate the NYC initiative and similar efforts in California and Maryland.
The Health Care Security Campaign is a cutting-edge policy reform initiative that has already set a precedent for local health care reform and industry standards initiatives across the country. In addition to the 26,000 workers and their families who will have healthcare provided or protected here in New York, the Health Care Security Campaign could be replicated to cover hundreds of thousands of families across the country as communities work to solve the nation’s health care and job standards crisis in the absence of federal or state action. NY JwJ intends to support the expansion of this effort in the state and within other industries here in New York City.
Find out more about the Health Care Security Act and Jobs with Justice’s long-time commitment to progressive healthcare solutions.
Jobs with Justice
