SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW TRAVELS FROM BORDER TO BORDER JULY 2-27, 2009

Frustrated that patients, nurses and doctors have been largely excluded from the debate, Anne Feeney and almost four dozen professional musicians decided to launch the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show. How can our health care system be improved when the only players at the table are huge hospital chains, big pharma and insurance companies? Why should we be surprised when their best ideas to save money involve eliminating patients’ right to sue incompetent and negligent doctors? So Feeney and her colleagues are taking the debate to college campuses, church halls, small theaters, union halls and public parks throughout California, Oregon and Washington.

6:00 PM, JULY 7 in Ashland
Sing out for Single Payer Road Show with Jack Williams, Anne Feeney, Jason Luckett, Raina Rose, Trevor Smith, Andrew Pressman, Pat Dodd, Citizens' Band and a special guest!
Unitarian Center
87 Fourth Street
Ashland, OR 97520
Price: $10-20 donations suggested, no one turned away
Wes Brain is the contact - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

-- Sponsored by Southern Oregon Central Labor Council and Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice --
click to make graphic larger

July 7 in Ashland

SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW
http://www.annefeeney.com/specialevents.html

Anne Feeney's webpage: http://www.annefeeney.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW TRAVELS FROM BORDER TO BORDER JULY 2-27, 2009

CONTACT: Anne Feeney – 412-877-6480 – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
http://annefeeney.com/specialevents.html

As the debate on how to resolve the nation’s health care crisis continues, one singular answer has been widely ignored in the public debate, despite its popular appeal: a progressively financed, comprehensive, universal health care system – otherwise known as single-payer. That doesn’t sit well with Pittsburgh activist and labor singer Anne Feeney. She says she’s been ‘comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable’ with her music since 1968.

Frustrated that patients, nurses and doctors have been largely excluded from the debate, Feeney and almost four dozen professional musicians decided to launch the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show. How can our health care system be improved when the only players at the table are huge hospital chains, big pharma and insurance companies? Why should we be surprised when their best ideas to save money involve eliminating patients’ right to sue incompetent and negligent doctors? So Feeney and her colleagues are taking the debate to college campuses, church halls, small theaters, union halls and public parks throughout California, Oregon and Washington.

Modeled after the traveling chautauquas of the 1930s, these barnstorming concerts will take place nightly and run from San Diego, CA to Bellingham, WA. “This is a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. It’s a great opportunity for Americans to improve the health of the nation and bring quality health care to everyone in the United States. We’re on the road – entertaining, mobilizing, educating, inspiring and energizing folks on this chance of our lifetime,” says Feeney.

Some musicians will sing at one location – others, like David Rovics, Brian QTN, Green Mountain Grass and Citizens’ Band will do several shows. Jason Luckett, a Los Angeles based singer-songwriter who has been described as “Billy Bragg meets Stevie Wonder” will do the entire tour with Feeney. Several of the shows are being presented by physicians.

The two-hour concerts feature lots of community singing, humor, harmonizing and jamming. The shows are sponsored by the California Nurses’ Association-National Nurses’ Organizing Committee, Universal Health Care for Oregon, Jobs with Justice, The Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, the Solidarity Education Fund, Physicians for a National Health Plan and Unions for Single Payer HR 676. The musicians are traveling with lots of information to distribute on national health care. Their slogan is “Everyone In! Nobody Out!”

Healthcare industry spending $1.4 million - a day - on lobbyists

By John Byrne via Raw Story.

The healthcare industry is spending upwards of $1.4 million each day on average to lobby members of Congress on health care legislation, a report issued by Common Cause this week reveals.

Industry spending has nearly doubled since 2000. Healthcare interests contributed $94 million to Congress members during the 2008 election cycle alone — up from $40 million in 2000.

Common Cause’s report has received almost no treatment in the press — with a single article in Bloomberg News and one in the National Journal.

The industry is attempting to alter the course of Democrats’ plans to provide universal health coverage for most Americans.

“The top recipients of health industry campaign contributions from 2000 to 2008 are new Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AK) at $7.3 million and $6.3 million respectively,” National Journal reports. “All of the campaign finance data used in the report came from the Center for Responsive Politics.

“The report concludes that members of Congress face a disheartening conflict of interest: side with their large campaign donors or back reform measures that have support from the public, like the public plan option which would create a publicly-funded health insurance entity to compete with private insurers,” the site adds.

The full Common Cause report is available here.

Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice Is Here

Local Coalition Earns National Recognition

SO JwJ

Local Coalition Earns National Recoginition With Local Charter
SOJwJ recent approval for charter application to the National Board validates the more than two years SOJwJ has worked in the Rogue Valley in solidarity with other organizations to make an economic impact.

Begining with an explatory committee in 2005, SOJwJ followed the lead of other Jobs with Justice coalitions, including Central Oregon JwJ and Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network (ESSN)

SOJwJ has recruited five community groups and five labor groups, over 100 organizational members and nearly 200 members returning pledge cards. In December 2006, SOJwJ was awarded a grant from the McKenzie River Group for use in organizing activities.

As stated on its website, SOJwJ’s mission is to improve working people’s standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers’ right to organize.

Whereas two organizations might disagree on principles, such as emphasizing environment instead of labor or vice versa, coalitions unite organizations that disagree by agreeing on the spirit of principles.

Depending upon the philosophy that it takes more than individual effort to impact economic change, SOJwJ is a non-profit coalition of labor unions, student organizations, faith-based groups and other community organizations. SOJwJ’s Chair Wes Brain states, “A coalition like SOJwJ strengthens its participating organizations and facilitates economic change.”

Fighting for economic change is often an uphill battle. SOJwJ brings together labor unions, religious congregations, and community organizations to support the civil and economic rights of all working people – especially the right to a decent standard of living, the right to a stable job, and the right to organize.

Members of SOJwJ have marched with teachers from Rogue River School District during their strike, participated in Ashland’s Fourth of July Parade and organized two Anne Feeney benefit concerts.

SOJwJ holds its meetings the second Tuesday of every month, 7:00 PM at the Central Point Labor Temple.

the JOBS WITH JUSTICE PLEDGE

I’ll Be There…

…standing up for our rights as working people to a decent standard of living.

…supporting the right of all workers to organize and bargain collectively

…fighting for secure family-wage jobs in the face of corporate attacks on working people and our communities

…organizing the unorganized to take aggressive action to secure a better economic future for all of us.

…mobilizing those already organized to join the fight for jobs with justice.

During the next year, I WILL BE THERE at least five times for someone else’s fight, as well as my own.

If enough of us are there, we’ll all start winning.

SOUTHERN OREGON JOBS WITH JUSTICE COALITION

-- MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS -- (Jan. 2009)

American Federation of Government Employees
Amalgamated Transit Union Local #757
Amercian Postal Workers Union/Southern Oregon
Citizens for Peace and Justice (Medford based)
Disable United in Direct Empowerment
Jackson County Pacific Green Party
Klamath Siskiyou Wildland Center
KSKQ Community Radio
Oregon AFL-CIO
Oregon Education Association
Oregon Fair Trade Campaign
Oregon Nurses Association/RVMC
Oregon Action/Southern Oregon
Peace House
Service Employees International Union #503
Southern Oregon Central Labor Council
Southern Oregon Socialist Action
SweatFree Communities

CITY OF ASHLAND ADOPTS SWEATSHOP-FREE PROCUREMENT POLICY

By adopting a sweatfree resolution in December, 2008 the city council set the stage for Ashland, Oregon to join a cutting-edge movement that iis picking up steam and building sweat-free communities all across the country. At the Tuesday June 16, 2009 city council meeting Ashland adopted the following strong policy: The City will use its purchasing procedures and spending authority to promote the improvement of working conditions in the world by avoiding the acquisition of uniform and clothing items that cannot be certifed as being the product of a "sweat free" environment.

Ashland's campaign for the adoption of a sweatshop-free procurement policy has been a project of Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice (SOJwJ). SOJwJ chair Wes Brain comments: "It has been a year since we started the Ashland Sweatfree Campaign and several things have come together for Ashland to make this choice to move to become sweat-shop free." Sweatfree Communities is a budding nationwide campaign which has been highlighted in the Pacific Northwest in Portland, Oregon where innovative cutting-edge policy has led the way in the non-sweatshop procurement movement. Taxpayers in Portland flat out don't like public dollars supporting sweatshops and Ashlanders overwhelmingly agree. We don't want to purchase cheap garments that are worn by our police and firemen if they are produced in conditions that exploit workers including children and otherwise violate international labor law."

As for the future of the Sweatfree Communites movement in Oregon: The Portland Sweatfree Campaign showed Ashland a vision and provided the boost to become sweatshop-free, and now the Jobs with Justice coalition in Eugene is interested in a campaign, too. At the same time sweatfree activists are now talking to state government officials about Oregon adopting a sweatshop free procurement policy and following the example of eight other states. "The movement is taking off like wildfire", states Brain.

Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice has led the Ashland Sweatfree Campaign. The following campaign committee members are all Ashland residents. Pam Vavra, Jason Houk, Brenda Gould, Rich Rohde, Steve Ryan, Eric Navickas and Wes Brain.

Queries for additonal information can be made to:

Wes Brain
Chair, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
541-482-6988

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