Sustaining the Movement for the 99%

Statement by the Steering Committee of Labor Campaign for Single Payer

This autumn has been witness to an extraordinary moment in American history as the Occupy Wall Street movement swept the nation and gave voice to a widespread anger at corporate greed and raging inequality. With winter approaching, and more and more cities sending police to physically assault and clear out their outdoor encampments, it is time to take stock of the achievements and prospects of this movement.

From the start, the Labor Campaign for Single Payer has stood with the 99%. Our fight to win healthcare as a human right for everyone in America is part of this movement. Our victory depends on this movement becoming powerful enough to defeat the 1% who treat the people's health as just another source of profit and whose control of the political process stymies any real efforts at reform.

We stand with them because they have brought to light the vicious class war that is daily waged against working people and because they have boldly called on the American people to choose sides in this war. We stand with them because they have laid bare the links between the economic and political power of the 1% and the misery of the 99%.

As part of our campaign for healthcare for all, we will work to spread and sustain this movement. We have a particular interest and duty in working to facilitate strategic and mutually respectful relationships with the labor movement which has always stood in the front lines of the war on the workers and has been under intensified assault for over thirty years. We believe that such relationships will create new synergies—providing institutional and organizational ballast to the Occupy movement while positioning labor as a social movement that speaks on behalf of all working people.

Read the full statement here.

Published December 7th, 2011

Like this post? Consider sharing it on Facebook or Twitter.