Now is the time to build grassroots labor support for a single-payer Medicare for All healthcare system in California! We believe that healthcare is a fundamental human right and that organized labor must be out front in the fight for healthcare justice. In order to get our politicians to buck their donors and lead the way on Medicare for All, we are going to need the full power of the labor movement.

Shifting the cost of healthcare to workers under the current profit-driven system is a painful feature of virtually every set of union contract negotiations. For the vast majority of workers without a union, the situation is even more desperate. A publicly-financed, single-payer healthcare system like those in virtually all other industrialized countries is the only solution that will control costs, increase access and improve the quality of care.

We need to take healthcare off the bargaining table so we can fight for more. We've seen that employers like GM are willing to leverage their control of healthcare and take it away from unionized workers when they go on strike. The only way to guarantee healthcare for union members and their families is to stand in solidarity with all working-class people and guarantee healthcare for everyone.

We have labor support, but it hasn’t been galvanized to the level we need yet. There’s a lot of work to do in educating union members and leaders about Medicare for All. We’re not going to win this demand without full engagement from the labor movement, but we can get it done if we do the hard work of organizing with our coworkers. Let's take healthcare out of the hands of bosses and make it a human right for all.