Ellen Golombek brings a powerful commitment to working families and to the difficult challenge of taming the American health care crisis. A former president of the Colorado Federation of Labor, she is the director of Americans for Health Care - a nonpartisan campaign launched by the Service Employees International Union to establish affordable, quality health care for all.
SEIU has a big stake in the health care issue from many perspectives. For
one, it represents
more than 755,000 health care workers, making it the largest union in the
health field.
SEIU is also the largest union in the AFL-CIO, with 1.6
million members - many of whom are lower-wage workers
with a huge stake in negotiating health care benefits in
their contracts and communities. Finally, SEIU has a long
history of engagement with African-American and immigrant
workers, and its innovative campaigns, like Justice
for Janitors and the gro u n d - b reaking home health care workers organizing
effort in California, have pushed the envelope on forging labor-community
coalitions to advance worker rights.
Americans for Health Care takes those struggles the next step, consciously building a broad coalition of working families, small business owners, seniors, health care workers, community leaders, policy makers and individuals.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Labor Primer:
Laboring for Health: Unions Leadership Role in Health Policy
Taking Health Care to the States and the Streets
Best Practices for the Long Haul
Worker Centers: Another Resource
The Soul of Labor History is the Story of Democracy
Appendices:
Article: Unions are from Mars, Community Groups are from Venus: Does that Mean We are All Aliens?