SPECIAL BULLETIN: RWU Supports National Day of Action to Demand Healthcare

View this Email as a Webpage

Thursday, May 29, 2025 — Railroad Workers United (RWU) supports the May 31st National Day of Action for Single Payer Healthcare. At our founding convention in 2008, we passed a Resolution in Support of Single Payer Health Care, noting: 

“Railroad workers, their families and their unions are waging an increasingly difficult struggle to win or keep good health care coverage. Every rail union at every contract deadline must battle and sacrifice merely to sustain health care benefits. The rising costs of health insurance are blocking rail workers’ progress in wages and other areas.”

Things have only gotten worse since then, with health spending in the United States doubling from $2.4 trillion in 2008 to $4.9 trillion in 2023. Companies, including rail carriers, use access to good healthcare as a bargaining chip when negotiating with workers, often threatening to increase premiums or decrease access in order to try and get workers to ask for less when it comes to improvements in wages or other working conditions. 

If the U.S. had a national healthcare system which prioritized providing care instead of producing profit for private companies, it would increase workers power at the bargaining table.

RWU also specifically supports the action in Pittsburgh, which has the additional focus of demanding economic compensation and healthcare access for the people of East Palestine, Ohio, who are continuing to suffer in the aftermath of Norfolk Southern’s disastrous derailment in 2023.

We encourage all to attend and show their support at 12 noon Eastern at Freedom Corner in Pittsburgh.

WHAT: National Day of Action for Single Payer Healthcare

WHEN: Saturday, May 31st, 12 Noon EASTERN (for Pittsburgh rally)

WHERE: Freedom Corner in Pittsburgh, PA

IMPORTANT LOCAL PA INFO HERE

*if you are not in Pittsburgh, find a local action at the link below