Despite all the buzz over the Culinary Workers Union being critical of the implications of Bernie Sanders’s Medicare For All proposal on their hard-won own health care plans (which Pete Buttigieg absurdly but typically described as Sanders waging on the union) it looks like he won a plurality of the union vote and some of them gave their reasons for bucking the leadership.
Some workers who spoke to BuzzFeed News said they support Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal, even though they appreciate the union health care they have, because they have friends and relatives who don’t have union health care and worry about what would happen if they lost their jobs.
…“I have always been with the union, but I’m with Bernie and I know he’s going to be a great president. I haven’t thought about his health plan, but it doesn’t matter. I’m with him and everything he’s proposing,” said another Culinary union member, Maria Luisa, speaking in Spanish.
Mejia, who was at the Bellagio during the caucus, said she wasn’t surprised to see Culinary union members backing Sanders despite the tension of the past few weeks.
“It’s not surprising because again, on the issues, the senator has been big and bold on immigration, on health care, on college for all, these are all things that have impacted the community,” she told BuzzFeed News after the caucus.
Most people are not selfish. They care not only about themselves but also their community. My long-held belief is that this is more true among the poor and low-income communities because they are very dependent on each other to just survive, unlike the well-to-do whose money shields them from the buffets that ordinary people experience every day and who can live in gated communities where they do not have to ever come into contact with people for whom even the smallest setback can be a catastrophe.
These culinary workers are not content to have good health care for themselves because they are in a union. They want good health care for the members of their family and their friends and neighbors who are not covered by it.
This idea that we are responsible for each other and need to look out for the interests of others as well as ours is something that Sanders keeps hammering on, starting with the way he addresses the crowds at his rallies as “brothers and sisters”. This is a powerful message and it resonates with all those are not wholly captives to the capitalistic-libertarian individualistic ideology.
I’ve seen this said a few times: “even though they appreciate the union health care they have, because they have friends and relatives who don’t have union health care and worry about what would happen if they lost their jobs.”
What about: they understand that their unions have spent a lot of time and effort negotiating those health plans as part of the overall package. If decent healthcare was available *anyway*, the unions could better spend that time on increasing regular pay and improving working conditions.
@1--Right on. Mano, your comment about poor and low-income people being more generous rings true for me. My union runs a national food drive every year, and I always, ALWAYS, got more food contributions from the less-well-to-do neighborhoods. I also found that people in their 70’s and 80’s gave the most. I believe it’s because they know what it’s like to do without. The well-to-do/wealthy either don’t know, don’t care or can’t be bothered. Or maybe they’re just to busy being wealthy.
OK, I think you’re contradicting yourself here. That the wealthy live in gated communities away from “people for whom even the smallest setback can be a catastrophe” does not mean they are selfish (or more selfish than the latter group). That gated community is their community, not those other people. Surely this should be obvious since you described it as a “gated community.” If you think their community (as in the gated one) should extend beyond that, then maybe we call this a gated neighborhood instead? This is to say I sense you’re using different meanings of the word “community” in your statement, but it’s then not fully obvious what you actually mean by that word.
But if “community” does mean a more localized group, as in the case of those gated communities, then what value is there in believing people are selfish or not? White nationalists, then, might be viewed as unselfish if they show they care about their community. But there’s then a problem in that their community excludes people of color. So why should I care if they are selfish or not? Describing a person as such doesn’t tell me much about them, and least not things I’m all that interested in.