October, 08 2020, 12:00am EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jean Su, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 770-3187, jsu@biologicaldiversity.org
Michael Leon Guerrero, Labor Network for Sustainability, (505) 263-4982, mlg@labor4sustainability.org
Carolyn Bobb, AFL-CIO, (240) 271-7069, cbobb@aflcio.org
Sarah Hager, American Federation of Teachers, (202) 393-5684, shager@aft.org
Jess Kamm Broomell, United Steelworkers, (412) 562-2444, jkamm@usw.org
Carter Wright, Service Employees International Union, (202) 531-9386, carter.wright@seiu.org
Taylor Garland, Association of Flight Attendants, (202) 202-297-9196, tgarland@afacwa.org
David Roscow, Amalgamated Transit Union, (202) 487-4990, droscow@atu.org
Denise Romano, Transport Workers Union, (202) 719-3837, dromano@twu.org
Amy Fetherolf, Communications Workers of America, (202) 657-1931, afetherolf@cwa-union.org
Abraham White, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, (202) 341-1899, awhite@ufcw.org
Lawsuit Targets Feds' Failure to Protect Frontline Workers From COVID-19
Labor, environmental groups demand action to prevent more deaths, illness as virus spreads within White House.
WASHINGTON
Labor unions representing healthcare workers, teachers, transit operators and millions of other frontline workers joined with environmental groups today to sue the federal government over its failure to provide adequate reusable respirators, N95 masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment to these essential workers.
Today's lawsuit comes as COVID-19 has engulfed the White House, with more than a dozen high-level aides, additional White House staff and frontline workers on Capitol Hill testing positive for the virus. And it follows the announcement Tuesday that negotiations on a coronavirus relief bill would be delayed until after November 3. The bill includes provisions for adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and safety standards to protect essential workers against the deadly disease.
"The AFL-CIO is joining this lawsuit to force the Trump administration to do what it should have done months ago -- protect American workers by dramatically increasing the supply of the PPE they need to work safely during this pandemic," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. "The failure to do so is immoral and inexcusable, and we demand action now."
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., says Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf should act immediately to ensure the manufacture and distribution of PPE. The agencies failed to respond to an August petition from the groups that demanded emergency action, violating federal law. The agencies have refused to properly manage PPE production and distribution, leaving states and industry to compete and frontline workers short of supplies.
"Nurses will do whatever it takes to care for patients who are fighting this virus," said Karen Ballentyne, a registered nurse at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in Los Angeles and a member of SEIU Local 121RN. "But we need the tools it takes to do our jobs. It's disgraceful that we still can't count on an adequate, reliable supply of PPE."
"It's difficult for healthcare workers to get supplies on a daily basis because employers are conserving what they have, and having to ask or find PPE on our own is a horrible practice," said Denise Abbott, an emergency room nurse in Buffalo, N.Y., and a member of Communications Workers of America Local 1168. "Staff still have to reuse masks for the entire day unless they're dirty, damp or damaged. PPE must be at the ready and used properly if we're ever going to see an end to this crisis. With the flu season fast approaching, healthcare workers are again facing great risk from this administration's failure to act."
Healthcare workers, teachers, transit operators and other essential workers are reusing PPE or buying their own as schools open and states and cities across the country relax COVID-related restrictions. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., says Azar and Wolf should immediately use the Defense Production Act to ensure adequate PPE supply for frontline workers.
"We cannot allow this dangerous shortage of PPE to become the new normal," said United Steelworkers International President Tom Conway. "Too many workers are still forced to use improper or ill-fitting PPE because they can't get what they need or to reuse disposable protective equipment because of supply issues. Yet workers looking to this administration for help have been met by nothing but political posturing and empty promises."
Today's lawsuit comes as the United States reaches nearly 210,000 deaths and 7.5 million infections from the coronavirus and prepares for flu season. Plaintiffs include the nation's largest labor unions -- representing essential workers in healthcare, education, transportation and service sectors -- including the AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers, Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers and Amalgamated Transit Union. The groups collectively represent more than 15 million workers in frontline industries that have suffered thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of illnesses from COVID-19.
"The federal government is abandoning essential workers and treating them like they're disposable," said Jean Su, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's energy justice program. "These are teachers and nurses and bus drivers who have made sure our country survives during this crisis. We stand in solidarity with them and will do everything possible to prevent this tragic, preventable loss of life. They're being exploited, not unlike the abuse that corporations and this government inflict on the environment."
The number of coronavirus infections has ballooned by 50% -- or 2.5 million cases -- since the groups filed their petition in August. Public health experts anticipate that COVID-19 cases will surge this fall and winter as people spend more time indoors, where the virus spreads more easily.
"Our union has filed OSHA complaints, we've signed petitions, we've demonstrated and we've become PPE supply clerks for a reason: Our members are still getting sick, our colleagues and loved ones are still dying, and our government has failed to protect them," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "We've fought to get PPE for our nurses on the frontline and for our educators, who are often expected to provide PPE out of their own pockets. As the pandemic continues to ravage our communities, with no competent guidance or support from the administration, we must pursue every venue to ensure communities and our members are safe."
In March, the president issued a series of executive orders declaring a national emergency due to COVID-19 and delegating broad powers to Azar and Wolf under the Defense Production Act. The act is designed to ensure the provision of essential materials and goods during public health emergencies. The secretaries have failed to fully utilize their authority, leading to a shortage of PPE.
"UFCW members have been on the frontlines of COVID-19 in grocery stores, meatpacking plants and other essential businesses helping to ensure our families have the food they need," said Marc Perrone, president of United Food and Commercial Workers International. "UFCW has secured a wide range of PPE for these workers throughout the pandemic, but a PPE shortage still exists for millions of workers who do not have a union standing with them. The federal government's failure to close the PPE gap for workers is inexcusable and UFCW is joining with labor unions across the country today to demand action."
Steady growth in COVID-19 cases nationwide has led to a shortage of lifesaving equipment -- including gloves, masks, gowns and sterilizing supplies -- for millions of essential workers. People of color are more likely to be part of the essential workforce and at higher risk of death from the coronavirus.
"The numbers don't lie," said Labor Network for Sustainability Executive Director Michael Leon Guerrero. "Seven months after the shutdown, our partners in the labor movement are still reporting thousands of COVID cases among their members and hundreds of fatalities. Invoking the DPA is a human rights issue."
"As the pandemic rages on in North America, more people are riding public transit and ATU members continue to bravely report for work often with little or no protection to provide critical transportation to keep communities moving," said Amalgamated Transit Union International President John Costa. "The shortage of PPE has had a devastating impact on the ATU, as we have lost 89 brothers and sisters while thousands have been infected with the coronavirus. The ATU calls for the activation of the Defense Production Act to ensure the needed PPE is produced for transit and other essential workers to keep them safe on the job."
"Our members have put their lives on the line every single day during this pandemic, and yet the TWU has had to fight tooth and nail to get the bare minimum in PPE that we need to feel safe on the job," said John Samuelson, president of the Transport Workers Union. "This country doesn't stand a chance at an effective recovery from this pandemic if our elected leaders don't do everything within their power to protect frontline workers."
"People are dying, and more people are going to die because the Trump administration has totally failed to protect Americans who have been on the job throughout the pandemic keeping our country running," said Communications Workers of America President Chris Shelton. "Workers are terrified about the possibility of having to face a potential third surge of this COVID-19 virus during flu season without having access to adequate protective equipment. Trump and his cronies need to focus on the real problems people are facing and use every tactic within their power to get PPE produced and distributed to workers."
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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Amazon Won't Display Tariff Costs After Trump Whines to Bezos
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said all companies should be "displaying how much tariffs contribute to the total price of products."
Apr 29, 2025
Amazon said Tuesday that it would not display tariff costs next to products on its website after U.S. President Donald Trump called the e-commerce giant's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, to complain about the reported plan.
Citing an unnamed person familiar with Amazon's supposed plan, Punchbowl Newsreported that "the shopping site will display how much of an item's cost is derived from tariffs—right next to the product's total listed price."
Many Amazon products come from China. While U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed Sunday that "there is a path" to a tariff deal with the Chinese government, Trump has recently caused global economic alarm by hitting the country with a 145% tax and imposing a 10% minimum for other nations.
According toCNN, which spoke with two senior White House officials on Tuesday, Trump's call to Bezos "came shortly after one of the senior officials phoned the president to inform him of the story" from Punchbowl.
"Of course he was pissed," one officials said of Trump. "Why should a multibillion-dollar company pass off costs to consumers?"
Asked about how the call with Bezos went, Trump told reporters: "Great. Jeff Bezos was very nice. He was terrific. He solved the problem very quickly, and he did the right thing, and he's a good guy."
Earlier Tuesday, during a briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Amazon's reported plan "a hostile and political act," and said that "this is another reason why Americans should buy American."
Leavitt also asked why Amazon didn't have such displays during the Biden administration and held up a printed version of a 2021 Reutersreport about the company's "compliance with the Chinese government edict" to stop allowing customer ratings and reviews in China, allegedly prompted by negative feedback left on a collection President Xi Jinping's speeches and writings.
Asked whether Bezos is "still a Trump supporter," Leavitt said that she "will not speak to" the president's relationship with him.
As CNBCdetailed Tuesday:
Less than two hours after the press briefing, an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC that the company was only ever considering listing tariff charges on some products for Amazon Haul, its budget-focused shopping section.
"The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products," the spokesperson said. "This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties."
But in a follow-up statement an hour after that one, the spokesperson clarified that the plan to show tariff surcharges was "never approved" and is "not going to happen."
In response to Bloomberg also reporting on Amazon's claim that tariff displays were never under consideration for the company's main site, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote on social media Tuesday, "Good move."
Before Amazon publicly killed any plans for showing consumers the costs from Trump's import taxes, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber's floor Tuesday that companies should be "displaying how much tariffs contribute to the total price of products."
"I urge more companies, particularly national retailers that compete with Amazon, to adopt this practice. If Amazon has the courage to display why prices are going up because of tariffs, so should all of our other national retailers who compete with them. And I am calling on them to do it now," he said.
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) on Tuesday framed the whole incident as an example of how "Trump has created a government by and for the billionaires," declaring: "If anyone ever doubted that Trump, and Musk, and Bezos, and the billionaires are all [on] one team, just look at what happened at Amazon today. Bezos immediately caved and walked back a plan to tell Americans how much Trump's tariffs are costing them."
Casar also claimed Bezos wants "big tax cuts and sweatheart deals," and pointed to Amazon's Prime Video paying $40 million to license a documentary about the life of First Lady Melania Trump. In addition to the film agreement, Bezos has come under fire for Amazon's $1 million donation to the president's inauguration fund.
As the owner of
The Washington Post, Bezos—the world's second-richest person, after Trump adviser Elon Musk—also faced intense criticism for blocking the newspaper's planned endorsement of the president's 2024 Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, and demanding its opinion page advocate for "personal liberties and free markets."
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Medicare for All, Says Sanders, Would Show American People 'Government Is Listening to Them'
"The goal of the current administration and their billionaire buddies is to pile on endless cuts," said one nurse and union leader. "Even on our hardest days, we won't stop fighting for Medicare for All."
Apr 29, 2025
On Tuesday, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Debbie Dingell of Michigan reintroduced the Medicare for All Act, re-upping the legislative quest to enact a single-payer healthcare system even as the bill faces little chance of advancing in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives or Senate.
Hundreds of nurses, healthcare providers, and workers from across the country joined the lawmakers for a press conference focused on the bill's reintroduction in front of the Capitol on Tuesday.
"We have the radical idea of putting healthcare dollars into healthcare, not into profiteering or bureaucracy," said Sanders during the press conference. "A simple healthcare system, which is what we are talking about, substantially reduces administrative costs, but it would also make life a lot easier, not just for patients, but for nurses" and other healthcare providers, he continued.
"So let us stand together," Sanders told the crowd. "Let us do what the American people want and let us transform this country. And when we pass Medicare for All, it's not only about improving healthcare for all our people—it's doing something else. It's telling the American people that, finally, the American government is listening to them."
Under Medicare for All, the government would pay for all healthcare services, including dental, vision, prescription drugs, and other care.
"It is a travesty when 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured and millions more are drowning in medical debt in the richest nation on Earth," said Jayapal in a statement on Tuesday.
In 2020, a study in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet found that a single-payer program like Medicare for All would save Americans more than $450 billion and would likely prevent 68,000 deaths every year. That same year, the Congressional Budget Office found that a single-payer system that resembles Medicare for All would yield some $650 billion in savings in 2030.
Members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation's largest union of registered nurses, were also at the press conference on Tuesday.
In a statement, the group highlighted that the bill comes at a critical time, given GOP-led threats to programs like Medicaid.
"The goal of the current administration and their billionaire buddies is to pile on endless cuts and attacks so that we become too demoralized and overwhelmed to move forward," said Bonnie Castillo, registered nurse and executive director of NNU. "Even on our hardest days, we won't stop fighting for Medicare for All."
Per Sanders' office, the legislation has 104 co-sponsors in the House and 16 in the Senate, which is an increase from the previous Congress.
A poll from Gallup released in 2023 found that 7 in 10 Democrats support a government-run healthcare system. The poll also found that across the political spectrum, 57% of respondents believe the government should ensure all people have healthcare coverage.
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Advocates Warn GOP Just Unveiled 'Most Dangerous Higher Ed Bill in US History'
"This is the boldest attempt we've seen in recent history to segregate higher education along racial and class lines," said the Debt Collective.
Apr 29, 2025
At a markup session held by a U.S. House committee on the Republican Party's recently unveiled higher education reform bill Tuesday, one Democratic lawmaker had a succinct description for the legislation.
"This bill is a dream-killer," said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) of the so-called Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan, which was introduced by Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) as part of an effort to find $330 billion in education programs to offset President Donald Trump's tax plan.
Tasked with helping to make $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans possible, Walberg on Monday proposed changes to the Pell Grant program, which has provided financial aid to more than 80 million low-income students since it began in 1972. The bill would allocate more funding to the program but would also reduce the number of students who are eligible for the grants, changing the definition of a "full-time" student to one enrolled in at least 30 semester hours each academic year—up from 12 hours. Students would be cut off from the financial assistance entirely if they are enrolled less than six hours per semester.
David Baime, senior vice president for government relations for the American Association of Community Colleges, suggested the legislation doesn't account for the realities faced by many students who benefit from Pell Grants.
"These students are almost always working a substantial number of hours each week and often have family responsibilities. Pell Grants help them meet the cost of tuition and required fees," Baime toldInside Higher Ed. "We commend the committee for identifying substantial additional resources to help finance Pell, but it should not come at the cost of undermining the ability of low-income working students to enroll at a community college."
The draft bill would also end subsidized loans, which don't accrue interest when a student is still in college and gives borrowers a six-month grace period after graduation, starting in July 2026. More than 30 million borrowers currently have subsidized loans.
The proposal would also reduce the number of student loan repayment options from those offered by the Biden administration to just two, with borrowers given the option for a fixed monthly amount paid over a certain period of time or an income-based plan.
At the markup session on Tuesday, Bonamici pointed to her own experience of paying for college and law school "through a combination of grants and loans and work study and food stamps," and noted that her Republican colleagues on the committee also "graduated from college."
"And more than half of them have gone on to earn advanced degrees," said the congresswoman. "And yet those same individuals who benefited so much from accessing higher education are supporting a bill that will prevent others from doing so."
“In a time when higher ed is being attacked, this bill is another assault,” @RepBonamici calls out committee leaders for wanting to gut financial aid.
“With this bill, they will be taking that opportunity [of higher ed] away from others. This bill is a dream killer.” pic.twitter.com/UjTYvnOEKv
— Student Borrower Protection Center (@theSBPC) April 29, 2025
Democrats on the committee also spoke out against provisions that would cap loans a student can take out for graduate programs at $100,000; the Grad PLUS program has allowed students to borrow up to the cost of attendance.
The Parent PLUS program, which has been found to provide crucial help to Black families accessing higher education, would also be restricted.
"Black students, brown students, first-generation college students, first-generation Americans, will not have access to college," said Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.).
“We cannot take away access to loans, and not replace it with anything else, not make the system better. We know the outcome here—Black, brown, and poor students will not figure it out. Instead, only elite students from the 1% will continue to access education.”@RepSummerLee🙇 pic.twitter.com/oGbRH154Ed
— Student Borrower Protection Center (@theSBPC) April 29, 2025
As the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) warned last week, eliminating the Grad PLUS program without also lowering the cost of graduate programs would "subject millions of future borrowers to an unregulated and predatory private student loan market, while doing little to reduce overall student debt and the need to borrow."
Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for SBPC, told The Hill that the draft bill is "an attack on students and working families with student loan debt."
"We've seen an array of really problematic proposals that are on the table for congressional Republicans," Canchola Bañez said. "Many of these would cause massive spikes for families with monthly student loan payments."
With the proposal, which Republicans hope to pass through reconciliation with a simple majority, the party would be "restructuring higher education for the worse," said the Debt Collective.
"It's the most dangerous higher ed bill in U.S. history," said the student loan borrowers union. "It strips the Department of Education of virtually every authority to cancel student debt. Eliminates every repayment program. Abolishes subsidized loans."
"This is the boldest attempt we've seen in recent history to segregate higher education along racial and class lines," the group added. "We have to push back."
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