Defend Public Healthcare

Occupy Wall Street has taken on privatized U.S. health care.  Here is a short clip on work leading up to an October 26 Occupy Wall Street march "Get Wall Street Out of Our Health Care."   http://youtu.be/rZQFn6A6D-0 The Occupy movement is changing the terms of the debate in the USA and Canada.  And it is great to see them take on the mess of privatized U.S. health care and building health care for the 99%.  To keep abreast of the Occupy Wall Street work on public health care and to see videos from the October 26 Occupy Wall Street health care protest, check out this blog:  Healthcare for the 99% – Occupy Wall St Working Group

The Conference Board of Canada predicts that non-unionized salaried employees will get 3.1% salary increases in 2012, despite our economic troubles.  This is up from 2.7% in 2010 and 3% in 2011. Private sector salaried personnel are leading the way, with projected increases of 3.2%, while salaried public sector employees can look forward to only 2.6% increases. In contrast unionized workers can expect just 2% in 2012, according to the Conference Board.  Private sector increases will be a little higher at 2.3%, while public sector increases will be lower at 1.5%.    Union increases  were also well below what the non-union, salaried class got in 2010 and 2011.  Public sector union settlements were especially low, averaging 1.6% in 2010 and 2011. While the salaried class are predicted to get an (uncompounded) increase of 8.8% in 2010 through 2012, public sector wage settlements are predicted to get just over half of that (and well less than inflation). But many right wing comme