Any thoughts email me
carlofiorletta@giaa.us
STATEMENT OF THE ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT, AND MEDIA INDUSTRIES (AEMI)
COALITION In Support of Universal Health Care
For decades, unions in the arts, entertainment, and media industries have fought to secure
health coverage for our members — writers, directors, actors, musicians, technicians,
broadcasters, and the craftspeople whose work enriches American life. We have built health
and welfare funds that our members depend on over the course of their careers, as they move
from job to job. We have bargained hard in every contract cycle to protect and strengthen those
plans.
However, unchecked increases in healthcare costs now consume an outsized share of what our
members win at the bargaining table, crowding out potential gains in wages, working conditions,
and other vital subjects of bargaining. And because our industries mostly run on
project-by-project, gig-based employment, many members' eligibility for coverage depends on
meeting work-hour or earnings thresholds, thresholds that are harder to reach during economic
downturns and industry disruptions. Unsurprisingly, our most vulnerable members are often the
first to lose coverage. Our members deserve the same guarantees that workers in other
industrialized nations have: that getting sick will not mean financial ruin, and that a gap in
employment will not mean a gap in care.
We stand in agreement with AFL-CIO Resolution 10, adopted at the 2022 convention, which
affirmed the goal of moving toward a federal single-payer system — like Medicare for All — that
guarantees health care as a human right, while retaining the critical role of workers' health plans
to supplement coverage.
The AEMI stands with our members and the entire labor movement in the difficult but necessary
fight to guarantee health care as a human right for all. We call on Congress and the
Administration to take meaningful steps toward universal health coverage.