INTERVIEW-US labor head to push healthcare, labor law reform

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Reuters

* Says health reform should break insurers' "stranglehold"

* Former coal miner to become head of AFL-CIO Wednesday

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON, Sept 13-As President Barack Obama pushes for a deal on healthcare reform in Congress, the biggest U.S. labor federation is planning an intensive lobbying campaign to preserve the debate's most contentious proposal: a new government-run health insurance program.

The AFL-CIO's prospective new president, former Pennsylvania coal miner Richard Trumka, told Reuters in a weekend interview that he would start mobilizing the federation's 11 million members soon after he takes the AFL-CIO helm later this week.

The campaign will also lobby Congress to enact top-priority labor law reforms and seek to generate momentum for an aggressive effort to turn out the union vote in the 2010 congressional elections.

"We'll be in a campaign mode starting immediately, going through 2010," Trumka said in a telephone interview from Pittsburgh, where he is expected to be named as the first new AFL-CIO president in 14 years on Wednesday, replacing John Sweeney.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN12481366

[endless october]

1. "a new government-run health insurance program?"

if a new one is contentious, let's just expand the old one (medicare) to include everybody.

[Lugnut]

2. Exactly!

Medicare Part E or Medicare for everyone.

[Iowa]

3. Excellent...

No strong public option and we'll kick your worthless asses to the curb next year. And it isn't just union members... this old retiree and many like minded people who aren't dues paying union members will do the same.

[New Dawn]

4. K&R