Snow, wind and cold proved to be no match for a group of hearty UUPers intent on stopping the plan to privatize SUNY’s Upstate Medical University.

	UUP VP for Academics Fred Floss Addresses a crowd of unionists during a recent rally in Albany.

“We’re using our feet here in Syracuse to keep the legislators’ feet to the fire in Albany to save our hospitals,” UUP Vice President for Academics Frederick Floss said as he led a rally Jan. 16 outside Upstate Medical’s emergency room entrance to protest the Berger Commission’s recommendation to merge University Hospital with Crouse Hospital. If merged, UMU would cease to be a public hospital.

“The decisions we make today aren’t just affecting us, but will be affecting our children and their children’s children,” Floss told the demonstrators.

Rally part of cross-state walk

UUPers from Upstate Medical and SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry rallied along with about 50 other unionists in a show of solidarity for members of the Communications Workers of America, who were passing through Syracuse on a walk from Buffalo to Albany to protest the Berger Commission report. Floss joined the walkers as they climbed the long hill where Upstate’s campus is located and where the rally took place.

Union members from CSEA, PEF and NYSUT also participated, calling on the state Legislature to amend the Berger Commission’s report and block the privatization of Upstate and the probable privatization of SUNY’s two other hospitals in Brooklyn and Stony Brook.

“In terms of training future doctors, which is the future of health care in this country, you take away our classrooms, we’re out of business,” UMU Chapter Vice President for Academics Phil Smith told reporters at the rally.

Floss once again joined the CWA marchers when they finished their cross-state walk Jan. 26 with another rally at the Capitol in Albany.

	Upstate Medical University Chapter VP for Academics Phil Smith shares with the media the uhions's concerns about the threat to privatize the Syracuse medical facility.

Fax blitz under way

UUP is keeping up the heat on the hospitals issue via a fax blitz to state lawmakers and Gov. Eliot Spitzer. As union members, UUPers can help save the SUNY hospitals by sending faxes from their computers.

Visit UUP’s home page (www.uupinfo.org) and click the link on the right-hand side under “Call to Action.” That links to NYSUT’s Political Action page. Check the box next to the letter titled “Berger Commission Letter, General SUNY Hospital.” Then follow the instructions to have a letter faxed to the governor or to local state senators and/or assembly members.

The greater the participation, the better chance UUP will have of saving the SUNY hospitals and stopping privatization cold.

— Donald Feldstein