Worker Solidarity
Of the 45 million Americans who have no health insurance, 10 million of them are children. 30 million more are underinsured. Today, only 60 percent of working-age Americans have health coverage through their employer, compared to 69 percent in 2000. The majority of the uninsured are neither poor by official standards nor unemployed, 80% are employed or live in working families. They are the working class; employees of small businesses, civil servants, single working mothers and those working part time or on contract.
The inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage is 26 percent lower today than it was in 1979. Since 2000, a net 394,000 private-sector jobs have been lost and leaving nearly 8 million workers unemployed. Those that have kept their job are working longer hours for less pay.
Today we have witnessed the biggest government rollback of overtime pay rights since passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938. Meanwhile the Bush administration has ushered in tax-cuts that benefit America's wealthiest families. Operation 2012 calls upon the AFL-CIO Executive Council and Change to Win to call for all 13 million members to walk off the job in protest of the greatest government deficit in U.S. history.
We call upon the millions of American workers who have seen their wages and insurance slashed to organize and demand change. The American worker has the ability to demand greater accountability from our elected officials and force the government to listen to the voice of the American working class.