By Bruce Ewen. AFT Local 2000 member and Economics Professor and member League of Extraordinary Educators
We are in a time of renewed political action in response to a corporate controlled Congress set on goals to go “back in time” without Huey Lewis and the News by continuing to attack New Deal and later Government programs benefiting all of us, not just the few wealthy and powerful households and corporations.
Steve Walker and I attended the rally in Detroit, in solidarity with the action to support Representative John Conyers’ H.R. Bill 676 (single payer health care, or Medicare for All), wearing our blue AFT 2000 shirts, on Thursday, July 30, along with about 300 other unionists, retirees, health care activists, welfare rights activists, and especially health care workers, sponsored by the Michigan Nurses Association, Michigan United, Retirees for Single Payer Health Care, and the UAW Region 1A Retirees Council.
We all met at the historic UAW Local 600 in Dearborn/SW Detroit and took buses to the (also historic supporter of progressive causes) Central United Methodist Church on E. Adams in Detroit, stopping along the way at the Federal Building to meet with Senator Gary Peter’s staff, asking for his support of a national health care program that almost all developed, industrialized nations, including our neighbor Canada, have provided for eons. Michael Moore’s “Sicko” movie comes to mind.
As the reference material provided below shows, it is something that has been the goal of progressive government leaders since the time of President Roosevelt, the grandfather of liberalism who spoke not only for the “forgotten man” but for all of the American people, not just the wealthy few.
Instructors at WCCCD, over 95 percent of whom are part time, based on our administration’s seeming interest in setting the standard for the “adjunct nation” we are becoming, following the leadership of Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, have a common interest in supporting the Conyers bill.
And unless we “Stand and Deliver” our democratic demand for an essential part of the promise of America, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (not achievable while going bankrupt paying medical bills, paying off college loans and being sleep deprived from overwork on our “freeway flyer teaching jobs), we will not get it. The fight for economic justice at WCCCD should be paired with the fight for social and economic justice for all workers in this country. That’s the American Way!
And, that is your local, state and national dues at work! Stay healthy and support our organizations.
