News of the Week: Sanders and Democrats propose bill to protect workers

NewsMay 16, 2018

Each week we share articles on subjects that are important to NUHW and its members. Here are several must-read stories over the past seven days:

Senator Bernie Sanders and a group of potential Democratic presidential contenders including Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand are introducing the Workplace Democracy Act, a major labor bill updating the 1935 National Labor Relations Act with new provisions on organizing rights and the gig economy. It would also outlaw state “right-to-work” laws, according to New York Magazine.

Voters looking toward the midterm elections are more motivated by a candidate’s stance on President Donald Trump than on any specific policy question, Kaiser Health News reports. But concerns about prescription drug prices and other health care costs still could greatly influence how people cast their ballots, according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation released Thursday. Almost a third of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats said a candidate’s support of or opposition to the president will have the biggest impact on their vote. Even among voters who said health care is the most important issue for 2018, 28 percent said they will vote based on the candidate’s viewpoints of the president.

While California as a whole has one of the lowest overall opioid-related death rates in the country, a sharp rise in heroin use across the rural north in recent years has raised alarms, the New York Times reports. In Humboldt County, the opioid death rate is five times higher than the state average, rivaling the rates of states like Maine and Vermont that have received far more national attention.

Riverside is the only city in California to have ended veteran homelessness, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. It is one of 62 communities in 32 states to do so, CalMatters reports. The city gets vets off the street or out of shelters and into permanent housing before addressing substance abuse or mental health issues.