FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 7/24/2025
Contact: andre@wholewashington.org – (206) 659-9826
Press resources: www.wholewashington.org/press
This release: Statewide Universal Healthcare Resolution Passed Through Washington State Labor Council
Statewide Universal Healthcare Resolution Passed Through Washington State Labor Council
Vancouver, WA – The Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) has passed a resolution (2025.02 on page 23) in support of Washington pursuing a statewide universal healthcare system Thursday morning (7/24) at the 2025 Washington State Labor Convention in Vancouver Washington.
The resolution was introduced by a powerful constituency of member unions including the MLK Labor, American Federation of Teachers Washington (AFT WA), Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action (PASARA), and the Washington Education Association (WEA) and was recommended for passage to the general body by the WSLC Resolutions Committee on 7/22. The vote was held Thursday morning (7/24) where it was passed with only a few cards raised in opposition in a vote of over 300 delegates.
Full list of sponsoring members:
- AFT WA
- APALA Seattle
- IAM 751
- Kitsap CLC
- MLK Labor
- Pride at Work WA
- AFL-CIO
- Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action
- Retired Public Employees Council of WA
- Thurston Lewis Mason CLC
- Twin Harbors CLC
- UAW 4121
- WA Education Association
- WFSE/AFSCME Council 28
- WFSE Local 443
The resolution calls for Washington to adopt a single-payer universal healthcare system to ensure high quality and affordable coverage to all Washingtonians regardless of employment status and asks that the WSLC join the national Labor Campaign for Single Payer to co-develop a policy and strategy for accomplishing the goal.
The resolution comes out of nearly a year of work which began with the Health Care is a Human Right Washington coalition’s first ever labor summit held in August of 2024. Since then the coalition has held a second labor summit and helped shepherd through similar resolutions in unions across the state culminating in the passage of the statewide resolution at the convention.
While similar resolutions have passed through the WSLC before, 2025.02 goes beyond the general values of universal healthcare and puts more emphasis on Washington to take on the responsibility of achieving universal coverage. Though it stops short of endorsing a single-payer bill like The Washington Health Trust, currently introduced in both the state House and Senate, advocates are hopeful that this is the beginning of a developing consensus within the labor movement to push hard for passage of it or something similar.
“We have worked tirelessly to include organized labor at the table in our strategic planning and policy development. Coordinating a large coalition takes a long time, but with this foundation, we are eager to turn our attention to the next step of building unity behind a specific single-payer policy so we can get beyond resolutions and on to passage and implementation. We consider everything on the table for negotiation.” said Andre Stackhouse, executive director of Whole Washington.
The passage of the resolution comes just weeks after Congress’s passage of H.R.1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) which includes cuts to Medicaid estimated to cause nearly 500,000 Washingtonians to lose their Apple Health insurance coverage starting in January 2027 in addition to the nearly 150,000 likely to be priced out of the Washington Benefit Exchange due to expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies starting in January 2026.
Campaign website: https://www.wholewashington.org
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