Anyone who’s turned on the news or received an email about the upcoming election has heard that there is a lot at stake in the 2024 elections. I learned that firsthand when I traveled to Chicago in August with a delegation of National Nurses United (NNU) nurses to attend the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
Our delegation met with federal, state and city elected officials from all over the country who champion the fight for healthcare justice. Nurses attended powerful workshops related to labor and healthcare.
Delegates Are the Voice of the People
For the first time in my life, I was selected to serve as an official delegate to the convention, along with other New York labor leaders. Labor was in the house at this convention, and several national labor leaders were prominent speakers. It was clear how strong and growing the labor movement is in our state and country and how excited union members were to participate in this convention and nominate Kamala Harris for president and Tim Walz for vice president.
I personally felt so energized by the convention and so proud to represent New York and cast my vote for Harris/Walz. I actually called my mother from the floor of the convention while she watched on television to tell her how excited I felt to be part of a historic moment to build a better future for my daughters and other young people throughout the country. We have the opportunity in 2024 to elect not just the first woman president or woman of color president but someone with the experience, leadership and heart to lead our country in a better direction.
Delegates and attendees at the Convention heard about the stark differences between the presidential candidates. When it comes to healthcare and the economy, the visions for our future could not be more different.
Unions and Economic Justice
Harris is pro-union, showing up for our NNU siblings back when she was a California senator and attorney general.She is part of the first administration to walk the picket line with striking workers, and she supports protecting the right to organize a union. When Trump was president, he rolled back the union rights of public sector workers and health and safety protections for all workers. Another Trump administration would try to eliminate even more of our union rights by enacting policies from Project 2025, a 900-page blueprint from his former administration staffers and allies. Anti-worker policies include lifting restrictions on child labor and undermining minimum wage and prevailing wage and overtime laws. They would give companies the right to break union contracts midstream, make it even harder to organize a union and eliminate public sector unions entirely.
On Healthcare
As vice president, Harris took swift action to protect healthcare workers’ health and safety in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and build a robust testing, treatment and vaccine program. She has a long track record of supporting legislation to protect patients and nurses, including federal safe staffing ratios, healthcare for all, and a bill to prevent workplace violence in health care settings. When Trump was president presiding over the first deadly wave of the pandemic, he dismissed nurses’ concerns over lack of personal protective equipment.
The Biden administration worked to expand access to healthcare and lower the cost of prescription drugs. Harris supports restoring full reproductive rights and saying, “every woman should have the right to make decisions about her own body — not the government.” During Trump’s administration, reproductive freedom and healthcare were severely restricted. He attempted to roll back the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid coverage. Instead of policies to increase access to care and put patients over profits, another Trump administration would restrict LGBTQ+ care and reproductive care, including criminalizing people who mail abortion pills and who provide reproductive healthcare. The administration would privatize and gut Medicare and Medicaid and roll back attempts to cap outrageous drug costs.
The Choice is Clear
When it comes to economic and healthcare policy, the choice is clear. I’m sometimes asked by members why a healthcare union would be involved in politics at all. I tell them that the policies that affect our work lives and our family lives depend on the people we elect to office. There’s no way not to be involved in politics, because you better believe that our bosses are involved in politics and heavily invested in the outcomes. As the saying goes, “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
I hope you’ll take a moment to review the 2024 Election Guide in this issue, which highlights some of the key competitive races in November’s elections and details more reasons NYSNA has endorsed Harris for president. Our endorsed candidates are carefully vetted by NYSNA’s Political Action Committee. I encourage all NYSNA members to get involved and get out the vote by reaching out to NYSNA’s Political and Community Organizing Department.
There is just too much at stake to sit on the sidelines.
