More than any time in current historical past, we have now witnessed the outstanding dedication of California’s workers in conserving our economic system transferring, our youngsters educated, our shops stocked, our farmlands harvested and our sufferers cared for.
They want and deserve our help after they have a labor dispute with their employers. AB 2530 can try this. As chair of the Assembly Health Committee and a health care supplier, I authored this invoice as a result of it isn’t nearly the precise of workers to strike — it’s about California’s dedication to inexpensive, common protection for all.
We have seen employer-provided health care protection be weaponized throughout strikes creating an untenable state of affairs the place simply this 12 months Stanford Hospital and Dignity Health tried to make workers select between their proper to strike and inexpensive health care for themselves and their households.
One of these employers despatched a letter to striking workers informing them that they might lose their protection if they didn’t return to work and went as far as to spotlight and underline of their letter to staff that substitute medical insurance coverage would price the worker between almost $950 and $3,667 per 30 days in the event that they proceed a prolonged strike. Clearly a menace by any measure and a menace not solely to workers but in addition to their households who rely on household health protection.
Witnessing the health care business itself depriving workers of inexpensive protection throughout prolonged strikes is astonishing, and that hypocrisy shouldn’t be misplaced on me. The determination to strike isn’t a straightforward one — workers lose their incomes, and if in addition they lose their health care protection, it may possibly threaten ongoing remedy and therapy for their medical situations in addition to their members of the family.
Workers mustn’t need to threat health care for themselves or their households as a way to train their proper to strike. We have to make AB 2530 regulation. It will shield our workers within the uncommon situations when labor disputes go on lengthy sufficient to jeopardize their employer-funded health protection.
Yes, protection would stay out there to the employee, however everyone knows it might be extraordinarily costly and wouldn’t lengthen to eligible members of the family. This invoice permits health care protection to proceed — with out the everyday ready interval — by Covered California and offers premium subsidies and cost-sharing help as if the employee’s revenue was simply over the Medi-Cal eligibility stage, together with zero premiums and deductibles and $5 copays.
Simply put, this invoice will give striking workers entry to inexpensive health care protection, not solely for themselves, but in addition for their members of the family. In an ideal world, workers would by no means have to make use of this proposed regulation and employers would select to proceed health protection voluntarily throughout labor disputes. Unfortunately and discouragingly, that has not confirmed to be the case.
Our workers have protected, cared for and supported us by a number of the hardest instances these previous a number of years and we should shield, care for and help them now.
I urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to signal this invoice.
Jim Wood, D-Santa Rosa, represents the 2nd Assembly District.
You can ship letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.