INTERVIEW-US labor head to push healthcare, labor law reform

Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:00am EDT

* Trumka says will start lobby campaign soon

* Says health reform should break insurers' "stranglehold"

* Former coal miner to become head of AFL-CIO Wednesday

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON, Sept 13 (Reuters) - As President Barack Obama pushes for a deal on healthcare reform in Congress, the biggest U.S. labor federation is planning an intensive lobbying campaign to preserve the debate's most contentious proposal: a new government-run health insurance program.

The AFL-CIO's prospective new president, former Pennsylvania coal miner Richard Trumka, told Reuters in a weekend interview that he would start mobilizing the federation's 11 million members soon after he takes the AFL-CIO helm later this week.

The campaign will also lobby Congress to enact top-priority labor law reforms and seek to generate momentum for an aggressive effort to turn out the union vote in the 2010 congressional elections.

"We'll be in a campaign mode starting immediately, going through 2010," Trumka said in a telephone interview from Pittsburgh, where he is expected to be named as the first new AFL-CIO president in 14 years on Wednesday, replacing John Sweeney.

"Last time, we were over 26 percent of the vote in the general election. We aim to beat that," Trumka said. "We're going to have the best, the biggest, the most (turnout) we've ever had and we're starting now."

Trumka, who is currently AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, has already warned members of Congress that failure to support a government-run, or public, health insurance program to compete with private insurers will mean retribution at the polls come election time.

He declined to discuss the size or budget of the new campaign but said it would include phone banks, mailings and visits to congressional offices.

The 56-union AFL-CIO and other labor groups spent hundreds of millions of dollars to promote union issues and organize voter turnout in 2008, providing key support for Obama and other Democrats in swing states including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Labor sees the so-called public option in healthcare reform as the most effective tool for driving down health insurance costs for employers. If employers' insurance costs were lowered, labor officials say, workers could begin to claw back wage concessions intended to compensate for skyrocketing premiums.

FIGHT OVER PUBLIC OPTION

The public option has little support among fiscally conservative Democrats and faces vehement opposition from Republicans who say it will hurt private insurance companies and bring about a government takeover of the industry.

Obama backs the option but has opened the door to compromise by saying its absence would not be a deal breaker for reform. He has also asked supporters to be open to other ideas.

Trumka said he could accept only those alternatives that would more effectively break what he called the "stranglehold" insurers exercise in healthcare markets.

"We've seen nothing better so far," he said. "The Republicans have offered nothing. Some of the Democrats have offered other things. But they're nowhere near as effective at breaking the stranglehold of the insurance companies as the public option."

Trumka said he expected little of value from any bipartisan compromise offered by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.

"He may not go far enough in his committee, but we will make sure that a good bill comes out," Trumka said. "If it doesn't have a way to break the stranglehold, then -- we've said it before and we'll say it again -- we will be there."

Trumka also predicted the AFL-CIO lobby campaign would yield crucial new labor law reforms this year.

Organized labor's top legislative priority is enactment of a proposed law called the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize workers in companies with little or no union representation.

"We think it'll be passed before the end of the year," he said, dismissing suggestions the bill could be abandoned by the Obama administration if efforts to reform healthcare ultimately prove unpopular with voters and erode the president's political capital in Congress. (Editing by Mohammad Zargham)





Comments (0)
This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.