At long last, Congress has passed healthcare reform, and progressives can breathe a collective sigh of relief.  The bill isn’t a panacea.  The lack of a public option will leave for-profit insurance companies, which have correctly been vilified, without any competition.  The concessions to abortion-rights opponents are especially troubling in that they are likely to have the most impact on poor and working-class women. Still, the passage of the legislation is a major step toward recognizing and guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans.

To us, it’s astounding that the United States is the only developed nation in the world that does not have universal healthcare. Yet the public option is presented as a dangerous experiment, a “government takeover,” rather than a long overdue reform.  Middle-class people often spend a disproportionate amount of their incomes on health insurance premiums, but it is the working class, increasingly making low wages in non-union jobs, which are often uninsured or underinsured.

The United States, and indeed the world, continues to grapple with the recession.  We also grapple with employers whose first response to the economic downturn is to cut jobs and/or benefits. But we are fighting back. In response to draconian budget cuts (17 billion in 2 years) and soaring student fees (182% increase since 2002) students and faculty at the University of California campuses organized a Day of Action on March 4.  Many thousands participated in rallies and actions across the state.  In thirty-two states people organized actions in solidarity with those in California.

At one time the public higher education system in California was the envy of the nation.  Its colleges and universities provided a first-rate education for many working-class first-generation students.  Where will those students go now?  What can students do when they can’t afford a public college?

We know that the issue isn’t just resources; it’s priorities. Increasingly colleges are run on a corporate model featuring top-down decision making.  High profile projects, such as building new sports facilities, are deemed more important than funding academic programs.  Working-class people have long recognized that they must organize to protect their interests. Academics are starting to learn this lesson.

The Working-Class Studies Association must continue to study the forces that impact the lives of working people and to work for economic equality. The How Class Works Conference at SUNY Stony Brook, June 3-5, will be a venue for academic and activist work. It will be a truly international conference, with scholars from a dozen countries and five panels devoted to papers on various countries.  Plenary sessions feature Bill Fletcher and William Tabb examining the working class and right-wing populism, the economic crisis and political paralysis, and the AFT critique of charter schools.

Every conference gives us the opportunity to celebrate what we have accomplished and assess what we need to do.  In sharing our research and our skills, we collaborate. I look forward to seeing many of you in June.

In Solidarity,

Michelle M. Tokarczyk

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As I write this letter, our nation is in the midst of a debate on healthcare. There are few issues more important for working people. As Jack Metzger notes in the Working-Class Perspectives blog, a study that will soon be published in the American Journal of Public Health calculates that each year 45,000 Americans die because they don’t have health insurance. Many other Americans are underinsured because they can’t afford the exorbitant—and rising—rates that profit-driven insurance companies charge. Recently at the private liberal arts college where I teach, faculty sat gloomily in their chairs as we were told that one of our current carriers was increasing premiums 31%; we should think about whether we valued choice of doctors or affordability more highly. How many of us in that room could be among the underinsured facing financial disaster–or worse?

The crisis in healthcare is but one example of how the quality of working Americans’ lives has decreased while corporations and those who lead them have increased their profits. The situation is familiar to those of us in working-class studies: Americans are working longer hours for less and are continually threatened with loss—loss of jobs, loss of health insurance, loss of a home or a livable community.

While the challenges facing us are daunting, they are not insurmountable. Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story depicts many instances of people suddenly, surprisingly refusing to accept economic oppression: a family reclaims its foreclosed home, fired workers refuse to vacate without compensation. We see other signs of rebellion on state campuses where faculty are unwilling to accept furloughs, increased class sizes, and layoffs; and where working-class students see their dreams of a college education threatened.

The Working-Class Studies Association is an increasingly important organization. Yes, we are small, but our work reverberates outside of our conference rooms and computer screens. We make our impact organizing workers, advocating with underserved communities, and campaigning for progressive politicians. We study the lives of working-class people and their representation in the arts. In doing so we “talk back” to stereotypes of the working class. As important, we extend our activism and our scholarship beyond the U.S. borders so that we can understand and work with working people in a global context.

Within the organization, we are continually looking for ways to expand our membership and to address the concerns of those who are members. We’ve formed an Outreach Committee to connect with people who are committed to working-class issues but who may not be aware of the Working-Class Studies Association—especially activists. We’ve also formed a Graduate Student Committee to address the needs of students who may have to explain their interdisciplinary field of study to more traditional faculty or hiring committees.

When we are faced with national and international crises, it’s important to remember that each of us can make a difference because of the kind of work we’ve chosen to do. We can also share that work with one another through the Working-Class Studies Association.

In Solidarity,

Michelle M. Tokarczyk