Ocean State Action of RI

Ocean State Action is a coalition of community organizations, professional associations, and labor unions founded in 1988. Our shared vision for Rhode Island is a community where the ideals of equality, justice and the common good prevail -- where businesses thrive and where every Rhode Islander has access to quality health care, education, housing and livable wage jobs that support them and their families in achieving their fullest potential.

Together, coalition members, allies and volunteers have won critical public policy and political victories. If you have participated in politics in Rhode Island within the last fifteen years, you have likely been a part of our work:

• winning stronger oversight of non-profit and commercial health insurers and the creation of a State Health Insurance Commissioner and community advisory board;

• winning the Family and Medical Leave Act years before the federal government passed it;

• helping to stop Columbia/HCA's brand of for-profit medicine from taking hold in Rhode Island ;

• helping to establish Rhode Island as the state with the highest number of insured residents through the expansion of the RIte Care program;

• participating in campaigns to protect a woman's right to choose, the rights of working people, and establishing rights for the LGBT and immigrant communities; and

• leading campaigns to protect the promise of Social Security and for tax and budget equity.

Ocean State Action is at the center of the state's progressive action, providing training, strategic development, lobbying, community organizing, campaign work, and technical assistance to coalition members and allies who fight for and win progressive policy changes for Rhode Islanders.