News

After waiting since June for missed payments from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia-area child care providers have finally received the money — in some cases thousands of dollars.

In a rousing speech to the members of NUHHCE District 1199C and other labor unions who are fighting to save a Philadelphia hospital, AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride stressed that community health should take precedence over corporate profits.

“I bring a message of solidarity from AFSCME’s president, Lee Saunders, and the 1.4 million AFSCME members from coast to coast who stand with you in this struggle,” McBride said Friday at the Rally to Save Hahnemann Hospital.

The 19 presidential candidates who participated in the AFSCME Public Service Forum on Saturday disagreed on a range of topics, but they all agreed on one issue – our country needs a federal law that expands and protects collective bargaining rights for all public service workers.

The work Joe Martinez does for the Los Angeles County Fire Department is emblematic of countless AFSCME members: he’s never in the spotlight and he’s always under pressure while lives are on the line.

After years of debate and delay, Congress has finally passed a bill to ensure that first responders who suffered health problems after responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will receive health care and other compensation for as long as they live.

With former Vice President Joe Biden confirming his participation on Tuesday, the AFSCME-sponsored presidential candidate forum on Aug. 3 will be the biggest event of its kind in our union’s history.

Today, the latest attempt by the Trump administration to repeal the Affordable Care Act will unfold at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans, where oral arguments in Texas v. Azar will be heard. The case threatens the future of the ACA, which provides health care to millions of Americans.

AFSCME is on a roll. We are notching victories coast to coast – at the bargaining table, in the organizing trenches and in state capitals.

Following a brutal workplace attack in October that left her unconscious and hospitalized, Tina Suckow is speaking out. She and her AFSCME sisters and brothers are raising their voices against her firing by Iowa state authorities and in favor of a federal bill that would help prevent such workplace attacks.