Right next to the prescription drug counter in a Minneapolis drug store, it was the perfect setting for a press conference providing a solution to Minnesota's health-care crisis. Converting to single-payer health insurance not only provides better and more accessible health care for all Minnesotans, it also makes economic sense, according to the Minnesota Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN), of which MAPE is a member.

Joel Schwartz, MAPE Region 2 director and chair of the Health Care Task Force, was one of several speakers at the press conference. Schwartz pointed out that health care has been a major issue each of the last three contracts that MAPE has negotiated with the governor's team.

"Two things are clear from our experience," Schwartz said. "First, workers' benefits will continue to erode as long as the current crisis in health care continues. This is true for both organized labor and unorganized. This erosion of benefits will generate an ever-increasing number of work stoppages in the organized labor sector.

"Second, it is clear that contract negotiations are not an effective avenue for addressing health-care benefits for working people. The problem is systemic, and the answer must be systemic."