Making America work again
CLIFF SCHECTER—OHIO
This is the core value of Working America, a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO. In every sense of the word.
Working America seeks to put hard-working Americans—often victims of a
system that provides pecuniary rewards for venal CEOs for shipping jobs abroad,
slashing health care plans and blowing up respected firms while pocketing
obscene amounts of cash—back to work (and improve conditions for many
others), while making this a country work for most
Americans once again, as it did from the 1930s-1980s...
Results in: Health Care for America Survey
Over a period of just seven weeks, from Jan. 14 to March 3, a total of 26,419 people took the online 2008 Health Care for America Survey sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Working America. Most are insured and employed. Most are college graduates. More than half are union members.
These are the people, it would seem, most likely to have positive experiences with America’s health care system. Instead, their responses tell a sobering story about the breadth of the problems with health care in America. They say our system has fundamental problems that must be fixed.
The people who took the survey also submitted 7,489 heart-wrenching stories about the effects of this broken health care system on them and their families. You’ll see some of their stories throughout the report.
See the report here. You can also download a PDF version.
Working America is at your door
Richard Freeman, Harvard University professor and Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics goes in-depth about our history and success at the AFL-CIO website's Point of View.
The story of Working America is the one of the greatest success in reaching workers outside of collective bargaining since the Knights of Labor in the 1880s. Its primary mode of enlisting members is through community canvassing, where bright young activists go door to door in potentially union-friendly neighborhoods. At the same time, Working America's strong online program has resulted in 60,000 new members signing up through its website....Get the full scoop here.
Working America in-depth at Firedoglake
Richard Freeman, who holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in economics at Harvard University, serves as faculty director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School and is senior research fellow in Labour Markets at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance, recently contributed a post about Working America to the popular blog Firedoglake. Here, Freeman talks about how our outreach is making a big difference in boosting the strength of the union movement. Read the post here.
Member mentioned in BusinessWeek
Deborah El, Working America member and 64 year old mother of a disabled daughter struggling with recent unemployment was mentioned in this article in Business Week. See the article at:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8UJ0KK00.htm
