Since its inception nearly 35 years ago, MagnaCare has supported labor by helping to provide quality health, retirement and workers’ compensation benefits to union members. We believe that organized labor raises the standard of living for all Americans, and that together working people can improve the welfare of the group.
Recently, MagnaCare’s leaders joined New York’s annual Labor Day Parade to support our organized labor clients. We are proud to walk alongside union members each year to demonstrate the power of labor to create lasting change. The parade is an important reminder of how much unions have positively impacted our country by securing benefits like the 40-hour workweek and the vacation time we enjoy today.
MagnaCare’s Labor History
MagnaCare was founded in 1990, as unions began to expand services to meet the needs of members buffeted by union-busting, offshoring and rapidly rising healthcare costs. We partnered with unions as newer benefits like improved health plans, defined contribution retirement benefits and workers’ compensation became a reality for working people.
Back in 1990, MagnaCare’s initial aims were modest—to reduce laboratory and radiology costs for labor communities. During that decade, our mission evolved considerably. In response to the need for unions to offer more comprehensive financial and social services to members and their families, MagnaCare stepped in, developing solutions to uncomplicate benefits administration.
In the early 2000s, as technology and the Internet changed the workplace, MagnaCare evolved with unions to provide benefits such as Internet-assisted medical management services, as well as automated enrollment and eligibility. Later, in the 2010s, MagnaCare unveiled its Create® Technology platform to further automate administrative tasks and reduce administrative costs for unions and their members, making sure union dollars are spent wisely for the benefit of the group.
MagnaCare’s Role Today
As a trusted third-party administrator, MagnaCare is the one-stop shop unions and trust funds need to provide the infrastructure members have come to rely on: benefits administration services, physician networks, workers’ compensation services and networks of hospitals and health systems across the country.
Outside of providing new services and improved user experiences through technology, MagnaCare supports labor by maintaining the union news platform, Laborstrong.live. On Laborstrong, we share important stories from passionate labor leaders, resources and educational materials about nationwide events, ways to get involved and apprentice programs to join.
MagnaCare also recognizes the importance of growing union membership. An extended period of contraction is over. Union support has perhaps never been stronger as we prepare to enter the next quarter century. After at least a decade of growing support, some 67% of Americans approve of unions, and more than 77% say unions mostly help rather than hurt union members, the highest reading on that barometer ever. A record high of 61% of respondents also say that unions help rather than hurt the U.S. economy.
We must keep this momentum, which is why MagnaCare actively supports programs critical to growing union membership far into the future, such as Helmets to Hardhats, which connects veterans to careers in the construction industry and Nontraditional Employment for Women, which trains and places women in skilled construction, utility and maintenance trades. Another valuable program is Pathways to Apprenticeship, which provides free services helping people from low-income communities, more than half of whom have a history of justice involvement, find a building trades apprenticeship program. More than 85% of those helped through Pathways continue in their chosen trade and many have become mentors to younger people with similar backgrounds.
MagnaCare is proud to partner with the working people who fought for the benefits we have today. With the 2024 elections quickly approaching, we encourage union members to consider the importance of voting and how your vote could impact the future of labor funds.
