What we want: Political muscle

NEA Today, Sep 1994

Toward Health Care For All

Roosevelt Hill, an office assistant at the Port Gibson High School in Claiborne County, Mississippi, is thrilled over his state Association's successful 1994 lobbying campaign to win fully paid health care for all full-time school workers.

But he knows it's an incomplete victory. Every day on the job, Hill sees "a whole lot" of kids who don't have any medical coverage. "We need a health plan that will help everyone--A-L-L--not just one segment of the population," he stresses.

In a way, Hill echoes NEA policy on health care reform. While pushing to extend to support workers the comprehensive benefits already won by many teachers, the Association is lobbying in Congress for a decent, affordable health care plan for all Americans.

This year, as Congress deliberates over the details of health reform, support staff in both Mississippi and Idaho--states that have recently passed groundbreaking health care legislation for school support employees--have some lessons to teach about grassroots lobbying.

To win passage of legislated salary improvements for education employees, including health care parity for support workers who work 20 hours or more a week, members of the Mississippi Association of Educators lobbied twice a week in Jackson, the state capital.

At one point in March, more than 1,000 MAE activists--teachers and ESP members alike--marched from a statewide delegate assembly to the capitol building. They flooded the place, prompting feuding lawmakers to break their deadlock over education bills and forge a compromise.

Hill, ESP chair for the Claiborne County Association of Educators, calls the resulting health care law a "great victory for Mississippi." Until its passage, at least 10 support workers in his school district alone couldn't afford medical insurance--which cost $234 per month for an employee and a spouse not employed by the district.

Across the country, members of the Idaho Education Association's ESP Task Force, chaired by teaching assistant Susan Padula, spearheaded a successful lobbying campaign for legislation to guarantee equal health coverage to certified and non-certified school employees--who work a minimum of 20 hours per week.

In a state where school support workers have no collective bargaining rights, winning an "employer mandate" to provide equal health care was a major coup.

ESP member-lobbyists were well organized. They presented letters from non-covered workers to key legislators, offered two days of committee testimony on the ESP health crisis, and packed the hearing room. Boise-area press coverage of the testimony even drew non-union school support workers to the hearings.

"These were people who didn't even know there was an Association," notes Padula, who's PAC chair of the West Shoshone Education Association. "Our message to them: The Association is fighting for you. We believe in support staff and the vital role they play in the educational system."

Like Hill, Padula sees that children, too, need access to medical coverage. Padula's school, Pinehurst Elementary, is set in the Silver Valley mining region of northern Idaho, where unemployment is up to 23 percent.

"I see kids who don't go to the doctor or dentist when they need it," she laments.

Sadly, Richard Malizia, a school attendance officer in Union City, New Jersey, sees the same thing in his visits to homes of the working poor. "I see a lot of health problems that I report back to nurses."

Malizia, treasurer of the Union City Education Association and a member of the NEA Board of Directors, says, "It's important that everyone have a decent, secure health care plan.

"My concern and the Association's concern is that the benefits we currently receive should still be paid by the employer under health reform, not taxed as additional benefits."

Any nationally set benefits package, he concludes, should serve as a floor, not a ceiling. "We must still be able to negotiate for improvements."

Washington Watch

How will ESP members fare under health reform? NEA Today posed some tough questions Joel Pucker; NEA lobbyist on health care issues.

If reform legislation is passed, will I end up paying more for coverage?

Under health care bills that NEA supports, employers would be required to pay at least 80 percent of the average premium costs for full-time employees, and prorated amounts for part-timers. The one danger to our members regarding costs are proposals to subject some portion of employer-provided health care to taxation. NEA has been fighting such plans because they are plainly and simply a middle-class tax increase.

I work part-time. What if my employer cuts my hours to avoid paying me benefits?

NEA has been working to protect part-time employees. Under President Clinton's health plan and several other bills, a full-time employee is defined as someone who works at least 30 hours or more a week. Employers must pay a pro-rated share for all part-time employees, provided they work at least 10 hours per week. Under the Clinton plan, if an employer took one 40-hour-a-week position and divided it into two 20-hour jobs, it would pay more in premiums--a disincentive to cut back on hours of work.