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Make a donation to Jobs with Justice before April 1 and have it matched dollar for dollar!  Click here to donate!

A new committee of women leaders in Indianapolis has been established to raise up the plight of hotel housekeepers and they pain they endure every day to provide for their families.  The Indianapolis Hope for Housekeepers Coalition meets monthly to strategize ways to stand up and fight for justice with Indianapolis housekeepers.  For information about the meetings, contact Allison at Allison@CentralIndianaJwJ.org. Get detailed info about the hotel workers' fight for dignity and respect in Indainapolis here. 

  The effects of taxing our health care benefits on Hoosier Families.

See the Indiana specific report here.

What is wrong with the Senate Finance Committee health care bill?  (The Baucus Bill.)

Click here to see what we think is wrong with the bill just released (9-16-09) by the Senate Finance Committee and Chairman Baucus.    

WellPoint could face investigation for their actions with employees regarding health care reform.

Click here to see our press release.

What do I tell my Senator? 

 Click herefor easy talking points about health care reform.  We want the Senate to pass a bill out of the Senate Finance Committee by September 15th.  Review these important parts of health care reform and choose the part most imortant to you. 

Call 1-877-264-HCAN and talk to Senator Bayh and
Senator Lugar today!

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March on the Chamber of Commerce

Tuesday, August 25th
8:00 a.m.
Dowload a flyer.

A proposal being discussed in the Senate would allow for the creation of health care co-ops instead of establishing a new public health insurance plan option. Many important details about this plan are still up in the air. Experience with co-ops suggests they would have no more ability than a good non-profit health plan to enter most local markets, rein in costs, or “compete,” other than through mimicking the behavior of profit-driven plans.

A co-op is not a substitute for a public health insurance plan that is:

• Available to everyone nationwide, with the government bearing risk

• Big enough to compete with insurers

• Powerful enough to get good rates from providers but with fair payment that attracts broad participation

• Innovative enough to change care delivery and put the right incentives in the system

• Transparent and accountable

• Playing on a level playing field with other plans in the exchange

• Able to remedy disparities in access to care for underserved communities

Co-ops Can’t Compete to Lower Costs

• State-based or regional co-ops, run by their members, would be too weak to stand up against the insurance industry conglomerates, unlike a single public health insurance plan, available nationwide.

• Today, 94% of insurance markets in America are “highly concentrated” and controlled by a handful of powerful companies.

• Co-ops would be too small to attract provider participation or to strike bargains with providers, unlike insurers with established networks strengthened by backroom deals with providers.[1] In fact, according to one Wall Street analyst, “providers would have very little reason to deal with them, since the co-ops have no volume or leverage.”[2]

• According to Saint Louis University law professor Thomas Greaney, “it is hard to envision numerous regional co-ops gathering the necessary data, experience and reputation to serve as a benchmark or counterweight to dominant hospitals and provider groups across the country.”

Co-ops Won’t be Ready for Prime Time

• Forming 50 state co-ops would take an enormous investment of time and federal capital: filing to become a co-op, applying for and winning federal seed money, establishing boards of directors, recruiting enrollees, forming provider networks, designing plans that comply with 50 state and new federal laws, setting up all plan administration – and so on.

• In an environment where one person goes bankrupt due to medical costs every 30 seconds, even if all barriers to their success could be overcome, we cannot afford to wait for co-ops to spring up in every state across the country. We need a solution that’s available everywhere on day one.

• What happens when a co-op fizzles? New market entrants face a host of obstacles, according to Greaney, and even established plans can find it impossible to break into a new market. For instance, in Pennsylvania, the dominance of two non-profit insurers in distinct parts of the state has thwarted the entry of other regional and national competitors for years.[3]

• Co-ops have been tried and failed before. Rural health cooperatives started after the Great Depression “crumbled in the face of physician resistance (including boycotts), the lack of financial wherewithal of the cooperatives themselves, and the eventual withdrawal of government support.”[4]

Co-ops Can’t Change Care Delivery

• Democrats and Republicans have agreed that delivery system reform is key to the success of health care reform and the sustainability of our American health care system. A weak co-op structure won’t have the weight or the know-how to accomplish these goals.

• As Jacob Hacker noted: “Cooperatives might be able to provide some backup in some parts of the nation, but they are not going to have the ability to be a cost-control backstop, much less a benchmark for private plans, because they are not going to have the reach or authority to implement innovative delivery and payment reforms.”[5]

• Private health plans, both for-profit and non-profit, consider the data necessary to understand plan coverage, innovations and provider incentives to be business trade secrets – making it impossible to understand or improve quality overall.

Co-ops are a Gift to the Insurance Industry

• Because co-ops would start entirely from scratch, they would likely need to outsource most core operations. That means 50 state co-ops handing over their federal seed money in big contracts with insurance companies.

• A co-op model is a handout to the industry in two ways: it deprives Americans a true competitor – a strong public health insurance option – and allows lucrative new third-party administrator contracts to operate without government oversight.

Non-Profits Have Failed to Act in the Public Good

• Co-ops would be indistinguishable from today’s non-profit plans, which generally are compelled to act in ways that do not serve the public’s interest in order to “compete” with for-profit plans. Today, nearly half of privately insured people are enrolled in non-profit health plans and yet costs have sky-rocketed.

• The Blue Cross Blue Shield health plans were originally started as co-ops. Those that retain their non-profit status have done no better than their for-profit counterparts in controlling costs. For instance, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama controls 83 percent of the insurance market but allowed costs to increase 79 percent between 2000 and 2007, with premiums increasing nearly 5 times faster than wages in the state.[6]

• Non-profit status doesn’t guarantee good behavior. According to Senator Barbara Mikulski, Maryland’s Blue Cross Blue Shield plan went from “non-profit to profiteering.”[7] According to a report in Health Affairs, “Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland and its sister plan in the District of Columbia were poster children of nonprofit corruption and incompetence, squandering their assets on ego-building but money-losing diversification initiatives and on lavish executive lifestyles that devoted more days per year to jetting around the globe than to paying insurance claims back home.”[8]

• Held to the same level of scrutiny, non-profit insurers would exhibit the same greed and lack of public accountability Senator Charles Grassley has found in repeated investigations of non-profit hospitals.

Why We Need Health Care Reform
A State By State Report

Indiana

Other States

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Central Indiana Jobs with Justice calls for public apology from State Representative Jerry Torr. 

Click here to read the letter. 

  Why Small Businesses need
Health Care Reform Now.

Download a fact sheet.

Send a letter to your Member of Commerce.

Are you a small business owner?  Send a Letter to the Editor.  Use this sample to get started.

 Will Congress fix health care or save money for Millionaires? 

Call Congress and demand reform. 

Call 1-877-264-4226.  Here's what to say:

"HR 3200 -- America's Affordable Health Choices Act -- will save taxpayers an average of $2,200 per year and will impact only the highest income earners.

Passing health care reform will save us all money. Not passing it will save millionaires money.

Small business owners all across our country support this bill. You should, too.

Fixing America's health care crisis will fix our economy and get our country back on track. The time is now.

I urge you to vote for HR 3200, America's Affordable Health Care Choices Act."

How will H.R. 3200 affect your community?

Click here to see a district by district report.

Erasing Health Disparities Report  

Click here to download the full report

Click here to download a short summary

Click here to download the national report 

The Truth about Health Care Reform

Check out our blog, and dispel the myths about health care reform.  

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24hr Surge for Health Care Reform 

Starting at 12:00 a.m. on Wedneday, July 8th, health care reform partners and activists will be canvassing for 24 hours - encouraging their co-workers, neighbors and fellow citizens to contact their elected officials for health care reform. 

Call Your Senators and Member of Congress at 1-888-436-8427.  Here's what to say:

I'm calling to ask my Member of Congress to support health care reform that includes a public health insurance option.  Hoosiers and Americans deserve the choice of a quality, affordable health insurance option that will be there no matter what, to compete with the private insurance companies. 

Volunteer to encourage others to call.  Email Allison or call (317) 450-4019 to sign up for a shift anytime from Midnight to Midnight!

12 am - 5 am:  Outside Wishard Hospital Emergency Room, 1001 W 10th St, Indianapolis 

6 am:  UAW 933, 2320 South Tibbs Avenue, Indianapolis

8 am - 12 pm:  Farmers Market at the City Market, 222 East Market Street, Indianapolis

11am – 2 pm:  CWA Local 4900 at AT&T
(union members only)

2 pm:  Press Conference, outside 10 West market Street, Indianapolis.  Deliver letters and signatures, as well as a report to Senators Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar on how to pay for health care reform. 

3 pm – 9 pm:  Phone Bank, Jobs with Justice office, 445 N. Pennsylvania, 3^rd Floor

9 pm – 11:59 pm: Outside Wishard Hospital Emergency Room, 1001 W 10th St, Indianapolis 

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Declaration of Independence

On June 25th, HCAN and their partners mobilized thousands of people in our Capitol to demand quality, affordable health care for all.  We told our Senators and Representatives that we can't wait any longer for reform that will lower health care costs, offer the choice of a public health insurance option, and keep the insurance industry honest.  See video from the Rally here!

The American public is now declaring its independence from the insurance industry, and we are signing up people across the country to tell Congress that we need an American solution to meet our health care needs.  It's time to have a choice when it comes to our health insurance. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident;  we need health care reform that will provide:

·      Coverage we can afford;

·      Comprehensive benefits we can count on;

·      Choice of a private or public health insurance plan;

·      Equal access to quality care

Sign the Petition Here

When President Barack Obama spoke at the Westin last month, the downtown hotel's former doorman, William Selm, received a special invitation to attend. The irony wasn't lost on Selm: He'd been invited to hear the president speak about labor unions at a hotel where he'd been fired after discussing forming a labor union. more

JwJ Asks AG To Investigate Indiana Health Insurance Market

Request Follows Report Detailing Lack of Competition, Soaring Prices

Click here to see the letter

Click here to see the media advisory

Click here to see the full report

JwJ Asks Indiana Chamber of Commerce President, Kevin Brinegar, to stop the lies and declare neutrality on the Employee Free Choice Act.

Click here to see the letter.

JwJ passes Resolution in support of CWA workers bargaining with AT&T

Click here to see Resolution.

Since April 4, 2009, when the collective bargaining agreements covering union workers at AT&T expired, 125,000 CWA members have been working without a contract.  The CWA members have voted to strike when and if CWA’s leaders deem it necessary to call a strike. 

AT&T is one of America’s largest corporations – fourth behind Exxon, Wal-Mart and Microsoft – with a market capitalization of nearly $150 billion dollars (4/15/2009).  In 2008, the company earned $12.9 billion on revenues of $124 billion. 

Send a letter to the AT&T CEO, Randall Stephenson, CEO, encouraging AT&T to play a leadership role in helping to preserve middle class jobs and to promote the need for national health care reform that will help its workers, and the nation. Be sure to email us a copy of your letter.

Report Details Need for Competition in the Indiana Health Insurance Market

Media Advisory

Final Report

Press Release

President Obama and Indiana Democratic Party leaders support Hotel Workers

For more than two years, hotel workers have been requesting a fair process to form a union at their hotel.  Westin GM, Dale McCarty has given them anythign but a fair process.  Click here to see the letter sent to Westin GM, Dale McCarty by the Keep Indiana Blue Committee, signed by Andre Carson, Baron Hill, Brad Ellsworth, and Joe Donnelly.  You should contact Dale McCarty, too.  Click here to send him an email.

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NO HOLDS BARRED - The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing. 

Released May 20, 2009 by the Economic Policy Institute and American Rights At Work.  Click here for the fact sheet.

Watch the new TV  ad airing in Indiana for a public health
insurance option!

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Will you "Be There"?

Sign the Jobs with Justice Pledge to "Be There" five times over the next year for someone else's cause.  Click here.  Help us achieve our goal of 2010 pledge signers by the year 2010!!

Jobs with Justice is the
AFL-CIO Ally of the Week 

Jobs with Justice of Indiana are making invaluable contributions to the Employee Free Choice Act campaign.  Today two Indiana representatives will be headed to Washington DC ... Read More and Watch the Video

Tell Senator Bayh,
Health Care Reform Can't Wait!

Please contact Senator Bayh right away, to demand support for President Obama’s budget because it includes a down payment on fixing health care.  Senator Bayh has suggested health care reform might have to wait. 

Call for free 1-888-436-8427, just ask for Senator Bayh’s office.  Ask Senator Bayh to support the President's budget and tell him Health Care Reform cannot wait!  We need health care reform in 2009!

Thanks!

Check out the Hotel Workers Video!

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JwJ to Host Workers' Rights Board Hearing on the effects of Privatization in the workplace.

more info  

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Bring Bill Back!  Sign the Petition

A few weeks ago, the Westin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis threw out the Employee of the Year!  What did he do, you ask?  He voiced his concern for his co-workers who were outsourced in the restaurant.  His department had been outsourced a few months before, so he has some experince in this area.  Click to learn  more and Sign the petition to Bring Bill Back.

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Share your justice tidbits on our Blog!!

Central Indiana JwJ has launched a blog!  Check it out at www.centralindianajwj.org/blog.  Here you will find social justice tid-bits, and more current information about the going-ons in our local movement.  Share your ideas, concerns, fustrations and successes with the rest of us!!  

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Double your Donation

Through a generous donation from the JwJ national network, new donations will be matched dollar for dollar through May 31, 2009.  Double your impact today by making a tax deductible donation.  Click here.

Employee Free Choice Act

Have you signed on to support the Employee Free Choice Act?

Some struggles of the hotel workers and janitors could be eleviated by the passage of The Employee Free Choice Act would basically do three things:

• Establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations - like writing up workers for wearing a union button, or passing out information at break time.
• Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes - This means that management will have to negotiate with the union; they cannot simply ignore the workers' request.
• Allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation - the secret ballot procedure that currently exists can still be used, but it is not secret and provides management the opportunity to intimidate, harass and violate workers' rights.

Every day, corporations deny employees the freedom to decide for themselves whether to form unions to bargain for a better life.  They routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire people who try to organize unions, and the current penalties for breaking labor laws are so insignificant that many companies threat them as just another cost of doing business. 

The system has to be changed to give all working people the freedom to make their own choice about whether to have a union and bargain for better wages and benefits.  Currently, employers are under no obligation to recognize and bargain with the union, even if 100% of workers have signed authorization.  People call the current NLRB election system a secret ballot election - but in fat it's not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our sosciety.  Management controls when the election happens.  While management is allowed to bombard employees with anti-union messages anywhere, anytime in the workplace, workers can only talk about the union while they're on breaks in the break room or before or after work.  Union organizers have no right to set foot in the workplace.  No employee has free choice after being browbeaten by a supervisor to oppose the union or being told they may lose their job and livelihood if workers vote for the union.

Central Indiana JwJ is organizing Indiana as part of the Health Care for America Now! campaign.  

Click here to learn about HCAN in Indiana.

Health Care reform in Indiana should be a top priority.  The time is now for an American solution that will secure our families' health and a healthy economy.

The first order of business for the new President and Congress in 2009 should be to pass health care legislation that guarantees quality, affordable health care for all.

We're asking you to tell us which side are you on?

In just five years, insurance companies’ profits rose more than 1,000%.

Learn more about HCAN Indiana.    

Calendar

2/10/2010
Lights!  Camera!  Social Action!

Join us for a gorilla theatre style workshop to take your direct action organizing to the next level!  $5 fee to register.  Space is limited so register online here.  5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

2/9/2010

Meet & Greet Indy Hotel Workers

at the Lockerbie United Methodist Church, 227 N East Street, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

1/16/2010 MLK Day of Action at the Earth House

more details to follow

10/6/09  Well-Point Crime Scene Die In.  Noon at WellPoint on Monument Circle

Click here to download a flyer. 

9/7/09 Application Deadline:  Art 4 Justice project.  Details

9/7/09 Southern Indiana Labor Day Parade, Princeton Indiana

8/1/09 Rally for Health Care reform. on the south lawn of the State House. 9:30 p.m.

7/30/09 Medicare's Birthday Party. 

JwJ and its partners will celebrate Medicare's Birthday on Monument Circle at 11:00 a.m.  Come sign a birthday card, and help deliver cupcakes to Senator Bayh and Senator Lugar.

7/25/09 Rally for Health Care on Monument Circle.  11:00 a.m.

6/25/09  JwJ/HCAN-delegation to D.C. to talk with Senator Bayh about the choice of a public health insurance plan.

6/24/09 Janitors Rally at Noon at 36 S Meridian Street.  Another downtown building has cancelled the contract with a union janitorial company and hired a non-union company that downsized the number of employees and is not providing liveable wages and affordable health care. Come show your support!

6/23/09 Health Care Roundtable at 1 p.m. at IBEW Local 481, 1828 N. Meridian St., Suite 205, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202

 Come voice your opinion and share your story about the need for health care reform.

6/19/09  Bloomington Rally against the Chamber of Commerce

at 400 W 7th Street, Bloomington, IN  outside the Chamber of Commerce to protest their attacks on the Employee Free Choice Act

6/18/09 Rally against CVS at 12 noon, 5110 E 38th Street, Indianapolis

Join the effort to cure CVS now.  CVS is the nationa's largets retail drugstore chain.  But instead of leading the way in providing quality medicine, goods and services, CVS has a questionable record on custome health and safety.  Join us for a rally and petition signing.  More info...

6/13/09 JwJ walks with the AFL-CIO and Hotel Workers Rising in the Pride parade.  Meet at 9:45 a.m. at the corner of Mass and College.

6/10/09 Student Delegation to Senator Bayh's Indianapolis Office

Any high school or college student interested in talking with Senator Bayh's Regional Director, Andrew Homan, about the Employee Free Choice Act or the public health insurance option is invited to attend.  Contact Allison to get on the attendance list or call (317) 917-0723 x33

6/4/09 Info Picket against the Chamber of Commerce

8:30 a.m. to 4:00 under the Arts Garden at the corner of Illinois and Washington Streets.  The Indiana Chamber of Commerce is holding an anti-Employee Free Choice Act Workshop limited only to business leaders, excluding anyone from a union. In reponse, we will be picketing outside the National City Center and distributing info to the community.  RSVP to Allison or call (317) 917-0723 x33

5/28/09 Prayer Vigils for Employee Free Choice Act

Fort Wayne:  5:00 PM
Union Baptist Church
2200 Smith St.

South Bend:  @ 9:00 AM
Robert A. Grant Federal Building
204 S. Main St.

Indianapolis:  1:00 PM
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church
414 West Vermont St.

5/21/09 Noon; Tell CVS:  Indianapolis Deserves Better.  105 E Ohio Street

CVS stores in Indianapolis are selling expired products and violating health codes.  Join us for a rally and petition signing. 

Click here for more info.

Click here to see the news coverage from Channel 6.

5/20/09 Rally for Health Care  11:00 a.m. at Monument Circle following the WellPoint Shareholder's Meeting.

5/1/09 May Day Celebration at6:00 p.m. with the Democratic Socialists of America; Rathskellar Restaurant downtown

4/23/09 Health Care Townhall Meeting in Evansville:  Fix the Economy?  Fix Health Care!!! This event will take place at the Teamsters Local #215, 825 E Walnut, Evansville.  Rep. Brad Ellsworth is invited to hear abou the community support for giving Americans the choice of a public health insurance plan.  Free and open to the public.  Map

4/15/09 5:00 p.m. EST Rally for Health Care in Jeffersonville, IN.  Tell Rep. Baron Hill and Senator Bayh to support Health Care Reform NOW! 

3/31/09 Tippecanoe Activist Training & Mobilization Event, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.

IBEW #668 Hall, 2535 S 30th Street, Lafayette Indiana 47909 Map  This event is free and open to the public.  Come learn about the Employee Free Choice Act, Health Care for America Now, and get the tools needed to take action in your community.

3/4/09 First Wednesday Discussion with the ACLU of Indiana.    12:00 noon at  IUPUI Campus Center, Room 305. 

Check back here regularly for information on upcoming actions and ways you can get involved and advocate for social justice.  

Central Indiana JwJ is an organization of labor, faith-based, community, and student organizations and individuals buidling a broad and long-term coalition to support worker rights and social justice. We are building a movement...More 

I am for living wages, health care for ALL, fair trade, immigrant rights, global justice, fair wages, safe working conditions, equal pay, unions, Worker POWER, corporate accountability, climate justice, green jobs, racial EQUALITY, student power, refugee rights, public transportation, job security, International Solidarity, organizing the unorganized, and JOBS WITH JUSTICE. 

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