For the past nine years I have been a citizen-activist while holding down a full time job as a teacher at Temple University. But no more. Now I’m a paid political organizer. I recently took my first ever job doing politics, as the Health Care Campaign Manager for the State Council of SEIU.
I’m really excited to be working with SEIU. Over the years, I’ve worked closely with both SEIU Local 32BJ and more recently SEIU Local 1199p on a number of projects: The Pennsylvania Transit Coalition, the Raise the Minimum Wage Coalition, the Philadelphia Campaign for Housing Justice and most recently, the Philadelphia Health Care Coalition. SEIU locally has been at the forefront of almost every progressive effort. And at the state and national level, SEIU has been leading the way to both health care reform and a reinvigoration of the labor movement.
My primary aim at SEIU will be to support our campaign for quality affordable health care for all. While SEIU has not endorsed any particular bill so far, we believe that something along the lines of Rendell’s Rx for PA is the best way to move forward in pursuit of this goal this year. I’ll be saying more about Rx for PA and why I think progressives should be working for it soon.
In addition to working on our health care campaign, I’ll be playing a role in our 2008 Election Campaign, in which health care will be a major issue. And I hope my work on the Health Care Campaign will contribute to the development of a statewide progressive network.
I have wanted to devote myself to statewide progressive organizing for a long time, ever since we organized the Pennsylvania Transit Coalition five years ago. That’s why I so excited to be doing it now, with the resources of the state’s largest, fastest growing, and most progressive union, SEIU.