For Culinary Union members, the 60,000-square-foot health clinic serves as a physical reminder of the health plan they have fought for since the 1960s. Roughly 130,000 workers and their family members receive health insurance coverage under the Culinary Health Fund, a multiemployer benefit trust fund also sometimes called a Taft-Hartley fund. The way it works is that employers of Culinary Union members pay money into the fund for each hour worked, which is then used to pay for health care for union members and their families. Employer contributions to the trust fund are negotiated through the collective bargaining process, and the fund itself is administered by a board of trustees with equal employer and union representation.
“We went through a lot of struggle to get health care for families, and a lot of sacrifice too,” said Geoconda Arguello-Kline, the Culinary Union’s secretary-treasurer, pointing to the union’s 67-day citywide strike in 1984 in which employer contributions to the health trust was a central issue.