Another damn good reason why single-payer health care is badly needed.

[KansDem]

Juan Gonzalez: Verizon Workers’ Strike "Most Important Labor Battle Going on Today"

Telecom giant Verizon has threatened to suspend benefits to 45,000 striking workers if they do not return to work at the end of the month. The strike was called after negotiations after Verizon sought to cut health and pension benefits and obtain more leeway to fire workers. The strike is "the most important labor battle going on today," says Democracy Now! co-host and New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez. "We’re not talking here about a General Motors or a company that’s in financial trouble. But Verizon is literally swimming in cash. <...> And yet, even with such a profitable company, you have a situation where it is demanding unprecedented givebacks from its workers. If Verizon, such a profitable company, can insist that its workforce has to do all of these cuts in their living standards, what does it mean about any other company in America? <...> The workers are vowing to keep this up as long as possible, because a company that is so profitable right now should not be insisting that its workers give up even more of the hard-fought gains they’ve had over the years."

http://www.democracynow.org/

Those benefits include health care, dental care, and pharmaceuticals.

If we had single payer, then threatening workers with the prospect of suspending their corporate-provided benefits would not be a factor in labor negotiations. Corporations could not use extortion as a means to end strikes.

Interesting that single-payer would diminish the power and control corporatists had over workers.

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[annabanana]

2. Boy Howdy you got THAT right! Using health care as a cudgel in

a labor dispute is something that should not be allowed to happen. As long as Americans are dependent on their employers for life and death decisions we will be a Nation of Wage Slaves.

[Scuba]

15. Fear of losing health insurance keeps a lot of Americans on jobs they would otherwise leave. n/t

[raccoon]

18. And Fear of losing health insurance keeps some Americans in marriages they would otherwise leave.

Also keeps some from leaving their jobs and starting their own business.

[noamnety]

20. delete

cause I can't read. :)

[The Doctor.]

21. Which is why corporate America will never allow single payer.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. The PENDING MERGER.

[RC]

4. With who?

[DCKit]

7. T-Mobil, I would think.

Turns out they weren't exactly truthful with their disclosures.

[RC]

8. Does the United States even have any reasonable honest corporations?

[DCKit]

9. I'm not the person to ask - waaayyyyy to cynical. nt

[area51]

11. AT&T

I think it's AT&T that wants to join w/T-Mobile.

[DCKit]

12. Then which merger is it?

There are questions about the AT&T/T-Mobile merger as well.

Which of the screwed up deals is Verizon involved in?

Where's the FCC when you need them?

[defendandprotect]

5. Some Verizon contact info --

Ivan G. Seidenberg
140 West St
New York, NY 10007
(212)-395-1000


A bit more on corporate H/Qs --

Verizon's Corporate Office Headquarters in the USA:
140 West Street
New York, NY 10007
Corporate Phone Number: 1-212-395-1000
Corporate Fax Number: 1-212-571-1897
Corporate Email: [email protected]

[LiberalLoner]

6. We will be like the old man and the dog in "Tommyknockers" - having all our life

sucked from us painfully with nothing given to us in return.

Soon they won't be paying us enough to live - they will be paying us just enough to make our dying a little more slow. And we will take those wages, because...what is the alternative?

[Pooka Fey]

10. K&R

[sad sally]

13. Yeah, too bad it wasn't part of the "messy" legislation.

On health care, Obama says that he said in the campaign that a single-payer system wouldn't happen. He says it was a "landmark piece of legislation" and that the process was "messy."

[WinkyDink]

17. Too many questioned it before it was law. They needed to wait.

*SARCASM*

[gratuitous]

19. That, and Olympia Snowe wouldn't have liked it

So, in spite of the high support single payer health care enjoys across the country, we can't have nice things because it would make the baby Jesus cry. Or something. Oh, and death panels. Can't forget the death panels. And, can you imagine the wealthy having to wait in line with everyone else? Rampant galloping socialism. Doom. And stuff.

[sad sally]

22. Oh yeah, that evil socialism:

From the Socialist Party of the US's website:

"THE SOCIALIST PARTY strives to establish a radical democracy that places people's lives under their own control - a non-racist, classless, feminist socialist society... where working people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically-controlled public agencies; where full employment is realized for everyone who wants to work; where workers have the right to form unions freely, and to strike and engage in other forms of job actions; and where the production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. We believe socialism and democracy are one and indivisible.

The working class is in a key and central position to fight back against the ruling capitalist class and its power. The working class is the major force worldwide that can lead the way to a socialist future - to a real radical democracy from below. The Socialist Party fights for progressive changes compatible with a socialist future. We support militant working class struggles and electoral action, independent of the capitalist controlled two-party system, to present socialist alternatives. We strive for democratic revolutions - radical and fundamental changes in the structure and quality of economic, political, and personal relations - to abolish the power now exercised by the few who control great wealth and the government.

The Socialist Party is a democratic, multi-tendency organization, with structure and practices visible and accessible to all members."

[slipslidingaway]

14. Another good reason! knr nt

[WinkyDink]

16. "....single-payer would diminish the power and control corporatists had over workers." BINGO.

[mdmc]

23. ..

[woo me with science]

24. This. Is. Evil.

Health care should not be tied to employment and should not be a bargaining chip or bullying tactic for employers.