Fri 5/1: This year, celebrate International Workers’ Day by calling your legislators.

Action – Call for a real “People’s Bailout” on May Day!

Yesterday we wrote about the corporate looting taking place under our so-called “rescue” plan – the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. FAIR describes it as a “robbery in progress”.

But the GOP isn’t through yet. Sen McConnell (Senator of the 5th most federally dependent state!) is demanding liability protection for businesses and hospitals in the next round of stimulus legislation.

GOP-controlled states are actively forcing people off unemployment, and back into underpaid and/or dangerous workplaces for which our Labor Dept. has refused to order basic safeguards. Dozens of workers, including meat cutters, supermarket greeters, airport screeners, transit workers and bus drivers have died as the disease has spread. Many health care workers are being forced to treat patients without PPE and even being disciplined, even fired, for calling out their employers’ failure to follow proper safety measures.

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Rep./Sen. [___] to know that our pandemic crisis has made the unfairness of our economic system very clear and we need [him/her] to fight harder for us.

• We know that most of the stimulus money went to the wealthy and to corporations.
• We know that millions of us regular people are in continued need of urgent relief, including the “essential” workers most at risk, the homeless and the undocumented.
• We know that our Labor Dept. won’t make workplaces safe, that Sen. McConnell wants to remove liability for their negligence, and the GOP is cutting off  unemployment to force workers back to unsafe jobs.
• We know the you may think it’s OK to make deals with the GOP on some of this but now we’re talking about dead people. There is no negotiating room here.

We do what we can – we make hospital gowns out of garbage bags, we make masks, we donate money, food and necessities. Now, in this next stimulus bill,  we need you to do what you do – champion the true engines of the economy, us, not corporations and the wealthy, with these Five Principles for just COVID-19 relief and stimulus.

1. Health is the top priority, for all people, with no exceptions
2. Economic relief must be provided directly to the people
3. Rescue workers and communities, not corporate executives
4. Make a downpayment on a regenerative economy while preventing future crises
5. Protect our democratic process while protecting each other

Contact
Rep. Julia Brownley: email, (CA-26): DC (202) 225-5811, Oxnard (805) 379-1779, T.O. (805) 379-1779
or Rep. Salud Carbajal: email.(CA-24): DC (202) 225-3601, SB (805) 730-1710 SLO (805) 546-8348
Senator Feinstein: email, DC (202) 224-3841, LA (310) 914-7300, SF (415) 393-0707, SD (619) 231-9712, Fresno (559) 485-7430
and Senator Harris: email, DC (202) 224-3553, LA (213) 894-5000, SAC (916) 448-2787, Fresno (559) 497-5109, SF (415) 355-9041, SD (619) 239-3884
Who is my representative/senator?: https://whoismyrepresentative.com

Pick out your favorite specifics to add, or use them all.

1. Health is the top priority, for all people, with no exceptions.
   1. Support access to free and accessible testing, treatment and protective equipment for ALL people, including the undocumented, homeless or incarcerated.
   2. Expand hospital capacity, including in rural areas, territories and tribal lands.
   3. Provide paid sick leave and paid family leave for ALL workers.
   4. Expand funding for Medicaid and full funding for Indian Health Services.
   5. ULTIMATELY, we need Medicare-for-All, as more people now realize how  fragile the job-health care bond really is.
2. Provide economic relief directly to the people.
   1. Broaden unemployment insurance
   2. Increase food aid programs
   3. Extend housing assistance
   4. Expand childcare for working families
   5. Provide meaningful relief from student debt
   6. Halt shut offs of all essential utilities, such as water and electricity.
   7. Halt all evictions and foreclosure due to COVID-19 economic hardship.
   8. Give monthly support payments to assure access to food and other necessities.
3. Rescue workers, states and communities, not corporate executives.
   1. Financial assistance must be channeled to workers, not shareholders or corporate executives.
      1. All federal loans and grants must be used to maintain payroll and benefits. Period.
      2. States and Communities need to fund schools, police, fire, sanitation, utilities and more.
   2. Require pro-worker conditions.
      1. At least one seat on any board of directors should go to a worker’s representative.
      2. Min. $15/hour or more to meet prevailing wages
      3. Project-labor agreements
      4. Adoption of a neutrality policy in regards to union collective bargaining.
      5. Adoption of a “ban the box” hiring policy, (i.e. removal of check boxes indicating criminal convictions on initial hiring applications.)
   3. Give a pathway to citizenship to all essential workers.
      1. Stop pretending that our country can do without the labor of undocumented farmworkers, domestic healthcare workers and all the other essential jobs that these communities do or that they make no financial contribution through their taxes.
      2. 202,500 DACA recipients are “essential critical infrastructure workers”, including doctors, nurses, teachers and food workers.
      3. Let them have the same family reunification plan Melania Trump and her elderly parents got – families make us stronger.
4. Make a down payment on a regenerative economy, while preventing future crises.
   1. Create jobs with PUBLIC investment to rebuild our country’s infrastructure/
      1. Replace all lead pipes.
      2. Expand renewable power sources, including wind and solar
      3. Build clean and affordable public transport.
      4. Make our existing housing stock more energy efficient with weatherizing and resilient with localized power sources.
      5. Build and repair public housing and make convenient to public transportation.
      6. Commit to cleaner standards for manufacturing, using more resilient source materials.
      7. Commit to supporting regenerative agriculture.
      8. Restore wetlands and forests that protect our climate and wildlife and protect our national parks and lands from extractive industries.
5.  Protect our democratic process while protecting each other.

1. 1. Expand vote-by-mail to all citizens above 18 years old in all states.
   2. Expand online or automatic voter registration to all states.
   3. Completely support the 2020 Census
   4. Protect the United States Postal Service, which helps this all work.
      1. Reverse the GOP’s 1971 restructuring of the Postal System into a “business.” It is an essential government service.
      2. Reverse the GOP’s 2006 insane law requiring the USPS to refund 75 years of pension funds.