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Shame on Corporations Using COVID-19 Pandemic to Attack Workers
Kenneth Quinnell April 9, 2020
While the COVID-19 pandemic wreaks its havoc on the world’s population, working people are on the front lines, joining together to save lives and keep the United States running. And many are paying the ultimate price. The latest numbers from the CDC show that nearly 400,000 Americans have contracted the virus and more than 12,000 have died. We’re currently facing one of the most challenging events in recent history.
And some greedy corporations are using this time to attack these working people, attempting to use a crisis to roll back the rights of the very people who are dying while keeping America running.
Here are the corporations that have used the pandemic to attack the rights of working people.
Postal Service management has failed tremendously in handling the coronavirus pandemic. For weeks after it was clearly a public emergency, there was essentially no response at all from management. Some safety talks about personal precautions were distributed to supervisors, though from what I can tell, they were never read in most places.
An agreement was signed with the Postal Workers (APWU), one of the four postal unions, that gloves, sanitizer, and masks would be provided at all stations, but none of these were available at virtually any station for weeks afterward (masks still aren’t).
With the partial exception of the APWU, top leaders in the unions were either doing very little or not communicating what they were doing to members. (In the time since we started our petition, below, the postal unions did get the Postal Service (USPS) to add 80 hours of sick leave for lower-tier workers who didn’t have any, and to allow employees to use their own earned leave to stay home with kids who were out of school. But this was still far short of what was needed on the job.)
Click here to read our shop floor organizing plan. Postal workers recognized that this was going to be disaster, and many understood that we needed to act on our own behalf. I talked to some sympathetic co-workers and started a petition demanding safety precautions, administrative leave with full pay for anyone at high risk, hazard pay, and more, hoping to use it regionally to identify other rank and filers willing to act. The petition got tens of thousands of signatures the first day (it’s now up to around 90,000), more than half of them from postal workers.
Don midwest
Liz Warren has the chance to stand up and do something good to save the post office
T and R, la58!! I doubt Liz will do anything to help the workers. She’s all talk and very little action. Sound familiar? Bernie has always been a champion of the USPS. He’s keeping an eyeball on the FRighties cos they’ve been creaming in their pants for decades to privatize/steal it.
I am a registered nurse at Cook County Hospital, the safety-net hospital in Chicago and the busiest hospital in the state. The people who come to this hospital are some of the most underserved patients, mainly people of color, immigrants—many undocumented, the uninsured and underinsured, the homeless, and the incarcerated. Our emergency room denies no one care and about 300 people per day come there for treatment.
We have yet to become a COVID-19 “hot spot” but my co-workers all know it’s coming. Nurses know our patients will be some of the hardest hit.
Already my hospital has changed drastically. We now have a whole section of the emergency room for COVID-19 patients, with isolation rooms. The critical care areas (for the severely ill) and the medical surgical units (for the less ill), where I work, also have COVID-19-only areas.
Nurses and other hospital staff are being exposed, showing symptoms, being tested, and being quarantined. The hospital says at least a dozen have been quarantined but my union, National Nurses United, estimates the count is higher.
JUST-IN-TIME TRAINING
With nurses out sick with COVID-19, nurses from the operating and recovery rooms are being reassigned to help out in the COVID-19-only areas—the emergency room, intensive care units (ICU), and medical-surgical units. Many have not worked in these areas before and are being given “just-in-time” training. This means a nurse is oriented to the basics of each area right before being sent to work there—much like the auto industry’s model of “lean production.”
The U.S. health care system has been run this way for years before this pandemic—on the edge, with no extra staff or supplies, to guarantee maximum profits.
All this has left nurses feeling anxious and scared. Since February, our core of stewards and activists had been pressuring management through emails and meetings to demand that the optimal personal protective equipment (PPE) of N-95 masks be made readily available to us. We demanded in-person training where a qualified educator would show nurses how to correctly put on and take off the PPE and answer our questions.
Over the last several weeks, large numbers of essential workers in different industries have gone out on strike to fight for the protection they need to do their jobs safely. Nurses and health care workers also have been speaking out. We have seen story after story about the lack of PPE in hospitals. Nurses have led socially distanced protests outside of health care facilities—six feet apart—and held car protests to demand PPE.
We are trained to help our patients. We are committed to this. Nurses have not struck, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t taking collective action. Although it may seem quieter on the outside of health care facilities right now, we are fighting back daily on the inside.
I fully understand the what this nurse is saying. Even though the virus has not hit hard in my area yet my sons fiancée is a nurse and just went thru that “Just in time” training on using ventilators. She was told that this was the only training she would get –a 4 hr video session. she hopes she can remember all the nuances when crunch time hits. The hospital in our area is the usual run a lean as you can for staff so any forthcoming sickness on staff will mean trouble.. The Mrs who works for the same hospital doesn’t know where additional staff will come from if to many get sick. She was recently reassigned to be the screening coordinator for the public entering the hospital training the staff on screening and using those gun like thermometers’. We are expecting a surge with in the next 10 days due to the election. Friday we did have the 2nd highest day of positive tests with almost 200 -3 days after the election If we get thru that surge just maybe things will get better. I just don’t know what will happen in Milw., Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay as their the larger population centers and the virus seems to hit those hardest. Grocery run was a little different today as Aldi’s limited people entering the store to 60 at one time. No wait to get in but a change. TP still a thing and hard to find. So when Hollywood makes its next end of the world movie they better show looters stealing TP instead of tv’s to capture the publics real reaction :).
The Danish government has struck a historic deal with unions and employers’ associations to stop mass layoffs during the pandemic.
Over the next three months, the national government will cover 75 percent of the wages of workers who would otherwise be laid off, up to $3,300 per month. Companies will cover the remaining 25 percent of wages, while workers will give up five days of future paid vacation time.
The deal covers companies who would have to lay off at least 30 percent of employees, or 50 employees or more. In return, companies commit to no layoffs while they’re receiving government compensation.
The Danish government was one of the first in Europe to issue stay-at-home orders for all non-essential workers. This early reaction has helped the country keep its COVID-19 toll low.
A WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT
Covering 75 percent of wages may seem like a huge investment for the government, but it is much smaller than it seems. Layoffs would mean lost tax income and the expense of paying unemployment benefits. Although the deal is partly a handout to companies, it’s an investment in maintaining economic confidence and an attempt to avoid a more costly economic crisis.
Rather than relief for the financial sector as in the U.S. bills, the Danish model provides a boost to the real economy—the production of goods and services. That indirectly helps the financial sector too: for instance, fewer people will be forced to default on mortgages.
More important, the Danish way encourages and enables workers to stay home—avoiding the spectacle seen in other countries of millions of low-wage workers still feeling they must show up, despite the danger, to get paid.
Finally, for workers, staying on the payroll with a job to return to is far superior to being laid off, even if unemployment benefits are generous (in the U.S., for example, Congress recently increased benefits by $600 a week, while in Denmark the lowest level of benefits for adult citizens without dependents starts at $1,690 pre-tax. Immigrants get somewhat less, while people with a longer employment history get $2,790 for two years).
Especially for nonunion workers, who have no seniority right to their old jobs after a layoff, the Danish model addresses the profound insecurity so many workers in other countries are now experiencing.
“The echo of what we are doing now will be heard into the future. Now we are laying the tracks for companies and employees to get well through the crisis,” said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
Initially, money has been set aside to cover a relative small proportion of non-public employees, but the Social Democratic government is willing to put the full financial power of the state behind the deal: “There is no ceiling,” Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen said as the deal was unveiled March 15.
this is just like draft in war. surprise! you or a relative get to maybe die.
i’m going to look around locally and see where I can best give at least some amount for people who aren’t working. Since they won’t use our tax dollars, we have to double down on our own debt to try to take care of people that don’t want to go into work and do this.
I hate this country right now and honestly I’m really pissed at all the wine moms and grandmas I personally know or am acquainted with. I try to be nice because they are humans with hearts and they honestly don’t have a clue.
Special Delivery: Local 134 Helps Retirees Stay Safe, Well, and Fed April 6, 2020
As volunteers delivered care packages of food to Chicago Local 134 retirees and widows at the end of March, Elbert Walters said it was a little like “reverse trick-or-treat.”
Apprentices and business agents, traveling separately to retirees’ homes, rang bells and hustled away as grateful recipients waved and hollered “Thank you!” from their doorsteps.
“It was an amazing experience for everyone,” said Walters, who helped execute the project in his first month as the director of Powering Chicago, a labor-management partnership between Local 134 and electrical contractors.
Elbert Walters unloads groceries for retirees in a special check-out lane that Costco opened for him and fellow Local 134 shoppers, Business Manager Donald Finn and Recording Secretary Kevin Connolly. He and Local 134 Business Manager Donald Finn put their heads together after a member approached Finn about helping retirees during the coronavirus crisis.
“We know that the older generation can be more susceptible to severe complications from this disease, so we wanted to make it as easy and safe as possible for them to get the supplies they need,” Walters said.
With some 7,000 retirees, the local put out a call for those most housebound and in need. “We had to make sure we could come through,” Finn said. “We didn’t want to give false hope.”
Finn, Walters and Recording Secretary Kevin Connolly headed to an area Costco to fill carts and trolleys with loaves of bread and non-perishables such as peanut butter, tuna, crackers and granola bars.
Because stores have limited quantities to prevent hoarding, each shopper used his own Costco membership card and kind employees offered their personal cards to help them purchase what the retirees needed, with Powering Chicago footing the bill.
About 15 apprentice and staff volunteers divided the groceries into care packages and helped deliver them to more than 100 homes throughout the Chicago area.
Finn said calls and emails have been pouring in from appreciative retirees. “Oh my gosh, there’s been a tremendous response,” he said. “Even people who have said they’re fine and didn’t need help have said ‘thank you’ for offering.”
Walters, a journeyman wireman and business agent before taking on his new role at Powering Chicago, said it’s all part of being a union family.
“We stand on the shoulders of our retirees and the that path they carved for us,” he said. “Our mission statement at Powering Chicago is ‘Better Construction, Better Careers, Better Communities,’ and this fits right in with that. We take care of each other.”
Protecting Michigan from Wisconsin’s electoral sabotage Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press Published 7:34 a.m. ET April 9, 2020 | Updated 9:52 a.m. ET April 9, 202
But for Republican legislators in Wisconsin, the deadly pandemic was also a convenient tool — a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to suppress Democrat turnout in a critical statewide election.
And if you supposed that some vestigial consideration for the health and safety of their fellow citizens might dissuade them from exploiting that opportunity, then you underestimated the depths to which the most depraved elements of the once-proud GOP have sunk.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers had the right idea. He’s a Democrat, but like Republican governor in Alaska, Georgia, Ohio, and Wyoming, Evers recognized that the social distancing prescription even our science-phobic commander-in-chief now endorses was incompatible with an in-person election. So he postponed this week’s election and extended the period Wisconsin voters would have to cast absentee ballots by mail.
Or at least, he tried.
Spreading the virus to suppress the vote
If the counter-terrorism experts who revamped this country’s criminal statutes after 9/11 had conceived that elected leaders might one day weaponize a deadly pandemic against their own constituents, some Republican state legislators in Wisconsin would be headed to a federal penitentiary for they did next.
Sadly, there is little evidence that Michigan’s Republican legislative leaders are any less interested in suppressing voter turnout here (although, to their credit, they have yet to deliberately endanger any Democratic voter’s life). But it will be at least a little easier for Michigan’ Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to overcome whatever obstacles GOP lawmakers attempt to erect between now and the next statewide election in August.
In November 2018, despite vigorous Republican opposition, Michigan voters resoundingly adopted a state constitutional amendment that allows any registered voter to cast an absentee ballot. The impact of that reform is already manifest; about a million voters cast their ballots by mail in last month’s presidential primary, twice as many as voted absentee in the 2016 primary.
Long before coronavirus entered the political lexicon, election experts predicted that as many as 2 million voters would cast absentee ballots in this November’s presidential election; now the numbers voting by mail are likely to be even higher, whether or not emergency measures mandating social distancing remain in effect.
Pandemic-era voting will get its first road test in less than a month, when about 200 jurisdictions across the state will hold May 5 elections, mostly to authorize or renew property tax millages for local governments and school districts.
The number of Michigan voters eligible to participate in those contests is small, and turnout will likely be a tiny fraction of that. But Whitmer established an important precedent last month when she limited the number of polling places where voters will be able to cast ballots in person and authorized Secretary of State Benson’s office to mail pre-filled absentee ballot applications to everyone eligible to vote in the May 5 election. The combined initiatives effectively set the stage for the sort of mostly-by-mail election Wisconsin’s Gov. Evers sought to effect
Absentee Voting Absent voter ballots are available to registered voters for all elections. They provide a convenient method for casting a ballot instead of attending the polls on Election Day.
Absent Voter Ballot Applications
Download an absent voter ballot application Download an absent voter ballot application – Fillable Version Download an absent voter ballot application – Spanish/Español Version Download an absent voter ballot application – Large Print Version Click here to locate your clerk then send your absent voter ballot application to that office Who is Eligible for an Absent Voter Ballot
Due to the passage of the statewide ballot proposal 18-3, all eligible and registered voters in Michigan may now request an absent voter ballot without providing a reason.
Don midwest
a fun article for today
this is my historian friend featured in a LA Times article
I talk with him every week, have been to the house several times and helped out, and sent him thousands of pages for his book on the coup that has happened here in America
When it comes to fighting wars abroad, there seem to be unlimited funds; the question of how we’re going to pay for it is rarely asked. Since taking office, President Trump has passed one of the most expensive defense budgets in U.S. history. As the United States faces the most serious and immediate threat it has faced in decades, the defense budget should instead be redirected toward combating our public health emergency.
Over the past two weeks, nearly 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment, and Federal Reserve economists project that number may come close to 50 million in the coming months. In a country where medical care is tied to employment, those who have recently lost their jobs will likely join the ranks of the uninsured—a population that stood at 27 million before the COVID-19 crisis began. And there are signs that this crisis is already hitting low-income communities of color the hardest. Physicians on the front lines report that the distribution of testing sites and medical resources have shown familiar biases against low-income majority-black neighborhoods. In Milwaukee, where all eight of their first fatalities were African American, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has referred to medical discrimination in the midst of the pandemic as a “crisis within a crisis.” With the United States now leading the world in confirmed coronavirus cases, and facing projections of up to 240,000 deaths, the military budget is a striking indicator of how drastically we need to reorient our political priorities.
Stub
What a nice surprise is Jesse Jett. Great song. Thanks.
Elizabeth Warren: -took part in a coordinated smear on Bernie a week before the first primary -accepted help from a dark money group after losing the first few states to make it to super tuesday -did self care instead of endorsing her "friend" because of mean tweets & emojis https://t.co/b9MBiURhod
Operation 'Tarnish Tara' is in full swing at the Democratic Party HQ, mainstream media, Metoo, & the Biden campaign. It's on us to make this story break so that American's realize the truth about #LyinBiden and his sexual assault of his former staffer, #TaraReade. #IBelieveTarapic.twitter.com/BqrvhYYWP1
This song can be interpreted in so many ways, To me a Thank you to the Dr.s and nurses on the front lines and also the Berners that fought the good fight for Bernie, their are many more doing positive things for the greater good during these trying times.
wpDiscuz
https://aflcio.org/2020/4/9/shame-corporations-using-covid-19-pandemic-attack-workers
https://labornotes.org/blogs/2020/04/how-postal-workers-are-organizing-ourselves-during-crisis
Liz Warren has the chance to stand up and do something good to save the post office
will she do it?
I have low expectations she will do good things
T and R, la58!! I doubt Liz will do anything to help the workers. She’s all talk and very little action. Sound familiar? Bernie has always been a champion of the USPS. He’s keeping an eyeball on the FRighties cos they’ve been creaming in their pants for decades to privatize/steal it.
https://labornotes.org/blogs/2020/04/you-can-find-us-break-room-how-nurses-got-masks
I fully understand the what this nurse is saying. Even though the virus has not hit hard in my area yet my sons fiancée is a nurse and just went thru that “Just in time” training on using ventilators. She was told that this was the only training she would get –a 4 hr video session. she hopes she can remember all the nuances when crunch time hits. The hospital in our area is the usual run a lean as you can for staff so any forthcoming sickness on staff will mean trouble.. The Mrs who works for the same hospital doesn’t know where additional staff will come from if to many get sick. She was recently reassigned to be the screening coordinator for the public entering the hospital training the staff on screening and using those gun like thermometers’. We are expecting a surge with in the next 10 days due to the election. Friday we did have the 2nd highest day of positive tests with almost 200 -3 days after the election If we get thru that surge just maybe things will get better. I just don’t know what will happen in Milw., Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay as their the larger population centers and the virus seems to hit those hardest. Grocery run was a little different today as Aldi’s limited people entering the store to 60 at one time. No wait to get in but a change. TP still a thing and hard to find. So when Hollywood makes its next end of the world movie they better show looters stealing TP instead of tv’s to capture the publics real reaction :).
sending so much thanks and warmth.
https://labornotes.org/coronavirus
VIDEO: Don’t Die for Wall Street: Essential Workers on Why Everyone Else Should Stay Home
March 31, 2020 / Katie Ferrari
It Didn’t Have to Be Like This
March 27, 2020 / Stephanie Luce
Organize or Die
March 20, 2020 / Sam Lewis
Strike First, Then Bargain
March 19, 2020 / Joe DeManuelle-Hall and Jane Slaughter
Solidarity Is Our Only Chance
March 16, 2020 / Jane Slaughter
https://labornotes.org/blogs/2020/04/how-theyre-doing-it-denmark
Must be nice to live in a civilized, first-world country.
this is just like draft in war. surprise! you or a relative get to maybe die.
i’m going to look around locally and see where I can best give at least some amount for people who aren’t working. Since they won’t use our tax dollars, we have to double down on our own debt to try to take care of people that don’t want to go into work and do this.
I hate this country right now and honestly I’m really pissed at all the wine moms and grandmas I personally know or am acquainted with. I try to be nice because they are humans with hearts and they honestly don’t have a clue.
http://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/20Daily/2004/200406_SpecialDelivery
The floor/ soap box is open
🙂
+10
https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/brian-dickerson/2020/04/09/coronavirus-pandemic-elections-michigan-wisconsin/2966076001/
https://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-1633_8716_8728-21037–,00.html
a fun article for today
this is my historian friend featured in a LA Times article
I talk with him every week, have been to the house several times and helped out, and sent him thousands of pages for his book on the coup that has happened here in America
Genius or folly? One man’s three-decade quest to build a replica of Monticello in the middle of nowhere
Captivating article, and sounds like the the couple are as well. Thanks.
the couple is. oops
http://inthesetimes.com/article/22435/military-spending-budget-war-on-terror-coronavirus-unemployment
What a nice surprise is Jesse Jett. Great song. Thanks.
ok last one from jett. i don’t agree with his “burn the masters,” but haven’t resonated so strongly with a message passionately told for a long time.
https://secure.everyaction.com/KZV-9KM9hEiOfcpMi7HGow2
Don’t know how good this will be. Ro Khanna, Kaniela Ing are the only names I really recognize. I signed up.
#NotMeUs: What’s Next for 2020 & Beyond
Bernie was hurt.
Bernie can’t or won’t say it but the truth is starting come out with regards to the 🐍”s actions.
https://i.insider.com/5e1efbdcf44231026340fd13?width=1100&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Yea reverting to her R ways, really cant tag her as a DINO anymore, she’s been a great dissapointment. Early on i did have some hope for her….
She’s a republican to her core. (To coin a phrase.)
This song can be interpreted in so many ways, To me a Thank you to the Dr.s and nurses on the front lines and also the Berners that fought the good fight for Bernie, their are many more doing positive things for the greater good during these trying times.