Nashville Aero Lodge 735, IAM & AW, Endorses HR 676

Mike Worrell, Recording Secretary of Aero Lodge 735, International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, in Nashville, Tennessee,
reports that his union has endorsed HR 676, national single payer health
care legislation sponsored by Congressman John Conyers.  HR 676, known as
Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, has 63 co-sponsors in the current
Congress.

“Health care is a big part of the collective bargaining process.  It gets
more expensive for the companies and the union, and we believe a single
payer plan will benefit everyone,” said Worrell.

Aero Lodge 735 represents 651 members at four different companies.  The
members are employed in a variety of jobs from making parts for Air Bus
and Gulf Stream business jets, to making seals, driving shuttle buses and
making fans.

“During bargaining for the last fifteen years, the companies have been
asking for more for less health care,” said Worrell.   “When we received
the letter asking us to endorse HR 676, we talked it over and everybody
agreed at the meeting.”

The letter encouraging endorsement of HR 676 was from the All Unions
Committee for Single Payer Health Care and from Dr. Art Sutherland, a
retired Memphis cardiologist and state coordinator of Physicians for a
National Health Program of Tennessee.

Worrell also took the resolution to the Central Labor Council of Nashville
and Middle Tennessee where he serves as Secretary of that organization of
16,000 workers in 40 local unions.  Both the Executive Board and the
membership of the CLC reaffirmed their support for HR 676 and passed the
resolution.

“Unions led the way in other industrialized countries to assure universal
coverage with good care through a form of single payer.  We can do it
too,” states the resolution.

A copy of the resolution passed by Aero Lodge 735 and by the Central Labor
Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee is available here:
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org/tools/sample_resolution

Dr. Sutherland has offered to provide a speaker on single payer to those
Tennessee local unions or labor councils that would like to have one.