Sanders Medicare for All: Why the Nevada Culinary Workers revolted against
their Union Bosses
JOHN BUELL
02/24/2020
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) In the days leading
up to the Nevada Democratic caucus media frequently referred to the
powerful 60,000 member Culinary Workers Union. In the last quarter century
instances when the words powerful and union would be used in the same
sentence are all too infrequent. Nonetheless, this union has distinguished
itself both by organizing across a diverse workforce and by delivering to
these workers the means of a middle class life. In the process they could
put to rest the neoliberal cliché that service sector jobs are inherently
low wage. These jobs are low wage in most of the country because they are
nonunion and/or located in communities where the minimum wage lags well
behind more progressive states and municipalities.
Despite its well- deserved success, the union has left in its wake some
important questions that need to be addressed if it is to become a model for
broader progressive politics. As during the so- called Golden Age of
American capitalism (Circa 1945-1975) workers with the generous health care
packages gained those through their jobs. This may seem unexceptional, but
in fact it is an accident of history. During World War II price and wage
controls limited the wage gains employers could provide. One way to get
around this strait jacket was to offer healthcare coverage. In some
instances unions and management jointly managed health care systems or
worked through other providers.
Progressive as these steps may seem they impose substantial limits. When the
worker loses a job, he or she often loses coverage, and many agreements
eliminate coverage in the event of a strike. In addition even the best plans
are not written in stone and in an era of corporate givebacks have been
often chipped away at.
Health care in the US, mediated through insurance middlemen, is costly to
the corporations that provide it and a source of anxiety to its recipients.
That is especially the case in an era when medicine is capable of
extraordinary achievements, which also often come with great costs. So why
wouldnt most corporations support a single payer system like Medicare for
All? Their cost of production would dip and they could also shed a whole arm
of their business, one they are not trained or prepared for. And why did
many rank and file union members disregard their leaderships advice that
they vote for any candidate other than Senator Sanders because of his long
term support for Medicare for ALL?t The short answer is the strong class
consciousness of the corporate elite and the emerging sense that we are all
in this together on the part of many union members.
Sanders defenders have done a good job explaining that freedom of choice of
ones physicians and cost savings are better secured by Medicare For All
than by any private plan. But other concerns also seem to have played a big
role.
Despite leaderships rejection of Sanders he won an overwhelming victory in
Nevada and appears to have done very well in union households, Just why is
well captured in this Buzzfeed article. Jennifer Medina of the New York
Times reported that the leadership of Nevadas powerful Culinary Workers
Union urged members to vote for anyone other than Sanders because of his
Medicare for All plan, including in texts this morning.
Many rank-and-file members of the Culinary Union voted for Sanders anyway,
Medina reported. It looks like Sanders did well at caucuses for casino
workers on the Strip.
Monica Smith, a Culinary member since 1987 and a server at the Bellagio,
told Buzzfeed that she caucused for Sanders out of concern for those without
union-negotiated health insurance.
We have so many people that have walked that picket line, blood sweat and
tears, for us, said Smith. Were going to be here to protect it, but I
worry about other people that arent protected by unions. How do they get
healthcare? (Quoted in Common Dreams)
If many rank and file union members are conscious of the class dimensions of
this struggle the same can be said in spades for corporate managements
understanding of what is at stake. Long time union organizer Mark Dudzik
puts it thus:
Yet more than 30 years after the crisis of escalating health insurance
premiums first hit the corporate radar screens, not a single major U. S.
corporation has come forward to advocate for replacing employment-based
health insurance with a comprehensive national healthcare system.
Why is this? Corporations like having healthcare linked to employment. They
like having people held captive in jobs they hate for fear that theyll lose
their health coverage. They like it that, when you go on strike, you
generally lose your health insurance. This hunger for power sustains and is
sustained by a clear class identity. large corporations actually believe in
class solidarity. Health industry executives serve on other corporate boards
and other executives serve on their boards. The banking and financial
sectors establish all kinds of interlocking relationships between various
large corporations. They belong to the same country clubs and their kids go
to school together. They know that the threat to put the voracious health
insurance industry out of business is a threat to profiteers everywhere..
Dudziks remarks remind me of the path breaking work Polish Marxist Michal
Kalecki did in the mid forties on the reasons capitalists opposed full
employment: under a regime of permanent full employment, the sack would
cease to play its role as a disciplinary measure. The social position of
the boss would be undermined, and the self-assurance and class-consciousness
of the working class would grow.
This is a struggle about more than the right to choose the private insurance
plan through which we as patients will be compelled to filter our own health
concerns and needs. It gives us more voice within an expanding health sphere
and lifts some of the leverage enjoyed by bosses who control access to
health care and therefore often life itself. Advocates of Medicare for All
should make these connectionswell understood by corporate capitalclear to
all.
