January 25, 2021
The Honorable Adam Gray
California State Assembly
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: AB 237 (Gray) – The Public Employee Health Protection Act – SUPPORT
Dear Assemblymember Gray:
We support your proposed Public Employee Health Protection Act, AB 237, which would require public employers in the state to maintain existing health care coverage for employees during any labor dispute between the public employers and their employees.
Our nation’s failure to provide universal healthcare allows employers off scale leverage in relation to employees. There is no justification for making medication or treatment inaccessible or allowing a deadly virus to spread as a weapon against the exercise of legal labor rights.
In recent years, thousands of frontline public employees have made the difficult decision to strike for better schools, livable wages, safer staffing, and affordable health care. The University of California Santa Cruz threatened striking student workers with cancellation of health coverage just as COVID was first spreading across our country. UC told striking maintenance workers that if they remained on strike, they would lose their family health coverage eligibility UC knew that a strike leader’s son was battling brain cancer. While such action may violate existing collective bargaining statutes, holding a worker’s family as bargaining hostages should be explicitly prohibited.
The Public Employee Health Protection Act would protect against employers announcing plans or threatening to stop paying the employer share of health insurance premiums, or even dis-enroll workers from their insurance, if workers remain on strike.
The Public Employee Health Protection Act will help end the weaponization of health care when public employees exercise rights the Legislature has granted them.
Sincerely,
Constance Penley
President, The Council of UC Faculty Associations and
Professor, Department of Film and Media Studies, UCSB
Wendy Matsumura
Vice President, The Council of UC Faculty Associations and
Professor, Department of History, UCSD