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Dr. Byrce Pulliam spends his nights in a community emergency room in Southern Oregon, where the line between life and death can come down to seconds—and insurance coverage.

“I show up 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year with one goal in mind: to provide excellent care for patients in crisis. Being a doctor is often challenging, but it has become harder because our nation’s healthcare system is on life support,” he said before a House hearing on Oct. 8.

Pulliam, a founding member and chair of the Southern Oregon Providers Association, which is part of the AFT’s Northwest Medicine

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times  column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.