Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Russ Davis, Jobs With Justice, 3353 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02130, 617/525-8778, jwj@adelphia.net

The war has served as a smokescreen for a corporate assault on working people and our unions: pensions canceled, jobs outsourced and privatized, plants shuttered, working conditions eroded, immigrants scapegoated, the social safety net in tatters. We have tax breaks for the rich and subsidies for corporations. Public health and safety services have been eroded. Now forty-six million Americans lack health insurance, and millions more are underinsured. Over the last four years, 4 million more people lost their health coverage. Eight out of ten uninsured are from working families. Nine million people have lost employer-sponsored health insurance coverage since 2001. The percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41% in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 28% in 2001 without coverage. Jobs With Justice is a coalition with the mission to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. The core belief is that in order to be successful, workers' rights struggles have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, Jobs With Justice has created a network of local coalitions that connect labor, faith-based, community, and student organizations to work together on workplace and community social justice campaigns.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this presentation, attendees will be able to
• Discuss the relationship of inflated military spending to the devaluation of public services, including public health and safety services;
• Discuss the war on workers' rights in the U.S. and understand it's relationship to the war;
• Describe and discuss the composition and strategies of Jobs With Justice and its work toward universal health care.

Related Web page: www.jwj.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No