Labor Advocate Gives Big Push to Health Care

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The Clinton administration's health-care effort has quietly signed on one tough battler.

Joyce Miller, a native Chicagoan, began work Tuesday as a special adviser to Labor Secretary Bob Reich.

Miller long was the nation's top female labor leader, serving as the first woman on the AFL-CIO Executive Council before leaving a year ago to run the Glass Ceiling Commission in the Labor Department.

In her new job, she'll try to explain the White House health-care reform to three constituencies: women, unions and retirees. Called outreach, it's basically a selling job for a complex plan facing sturdy opposition.

Why the appointment? As one Washington insider …