October, 08 2020, 12:00am EDT
![Center for Biological Diversity](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012680/origin.jpg)
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.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
'Disgusting': Global 1% Captured $42 Trillion in New Wealth Over Past Decade
"The richest 1% of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs."
Jul 25, 2024
The richest sliver of the global population hauled in more than $40 trillion in new wealth over the past decade as countries around the world cut taxes for those at the very top, supercharging inequality that poses a dire threat to democracy and the planet.
An Oxfam analysis released Thursday ahead of a meeting of G20 finance ministers estimated that over the past 10 years, the global 1% has accumulated $42 trillion in new wealth. That's "nearly 34 times more than the entire bottom 50% of the world's population," the group observed.
"That is disgusting," Michael Taylor, founder of the Australian Independent Media Network, wrote in response to the new figures.
The analysis comes amid a growing push by current and former world leaders for rich countries to enact a global tax on billionaire wealth that would begin to reverse the damage done by decades of regressive policy. Oxfam found in a separate analysis released earlier this year that economic and political elites' global "war on fair taxation" has slashed taxes for the rich by 32% since 1980.
Oxfam said Thursday that global billionaires "have been paying a tax rate equivalent to less than 0.5% of their wealth."
"Inequality has reached obscene levels, and until now governments have failed to protect people and planet from its catastrophic effects," Max Lawson, Oxfam's head of inequality policy, said in a statement Thursday. "The richest 1% of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs."
"Momentum to increase taxes on the super-rich is undeniable, and this week is the first real litmus test for G20 governments," Lawson added. "Do they have the political will to strike a global standard that puts the needs of the many before the greed of an elite few?"
A recent report by renowned economist Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley outlined how nations could go about implementing a 2% minimum tax on the wealth of global billionaires—a policy change that he shows would raise up to $250 billion in annual revenue that could be used to support a range of priorities, from climate investments to education and healthcare programs.
"Thanks to recent progress in international tax cooperation, a common taxation standard for billionaires has become technically possible," said Zucman. "Implementing it is a question of political will."
The economist's report was commissioned by the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has championed a global billionaire tax in the face of resistance from powerful nations, including the United States—which has more billionaires than any other country. In 2018, U.S. billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans.
But reporting indicates that the leaders of G20 nations—which are home to roughly 80% of the world's billionaires—are likely to rebuff Lula's push for billionaire wealth tax, opting instead to pursue what Bloombergdescribed as "research on taxation and inequality that could take years to deliver results."
Reuters similarly reported Wednesday that G20 finance ministers meeting in Brazil "are preparing a joint statement for Thursday in support of progressive taxation that will stop short of endorsing the hosts' proposal for a global 'billionaire tax.'"
The global billionaire wealth surge comes in the context of growing misery for large swaths of the world's population. A report released Wednesday by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that one out of 11 people around the world—or up to 757 million people—"may have faced hunger" last year.
"The world's poorest people are paying the highest price of hunger," Eric Munoz, Oxfam's food policy expert, said in response to the FAO report. "We need deeper, structural policy and social change to address all of the drivers of hunger, including economic injustice, climate change, and conflict."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Groups Demand Probe of Israeli Influence Operations Targeting Americans
"The administration must work to defend our democracy fully, and ensure that no foreign state has a green light to inappropriately target American citizens or manipulate our democratic process."
Jul 24, 2024
Over two dozen organizations on Wednesday demanded that the Biden administration launch a multi-agency investigation into recent reporting that "the Israeli government is engaging in illicit social media influence operations targeting U.S. elected officials and U.S. civil society."
Pointing to June reports by The New York Times, Haaretz, and The Guardian, the groups—including the Center for International Policy, CodePink, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), National Iranian American Council (NIAC), U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) Action, and Win Without War—wrote to President Joe Biden and the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State.
As Israel began waging war on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack, the country's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs "allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out," the Times reported June 5, citing related documents and unnamed Israeli officials.
"Unfortunately, what has been reported thus far could just be the tip of the iceberg."
Although the Israeli ministry denied involvement in the campaign and Stoic didn't respond to requests for comment, the newspaper noted that "at its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook, and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments. The accounts focused on U.S. lawmakers, particularly ones who are Black and Democrats."
As The Guardian reported on June 24, "That effort is only one of many such campaigns coordinated by the ministry."
The newspaper detailed "a sprawling relaunch of a controversial Israeli government program initially known as Kela Shlomo, designed to carry out what Israel called 'mass consciousness activities' targeted largely at the U.S. and Europe."
"Concert, now known as Voices of Israel, previouslyworked with groups spearheading a campaign to pass so-called 'anti-BDS' state laws that penalize Americans for engaging in boycotts or other nonviolent protests of Israel," The Guardian explained, referring to the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
"Its latest incarnation is part of a hardline and sometimes covert operation by the Israeli government to strike back at student protests, human rights organizations, and other voices of dissent," according to the newspaper. "Voices' latestactivities were conducted through nonprofits and other entities that often do not disclose donor information."
The coalition calling on Biden to launch an investigation wrote that "it is incumbent on our government to protect its citizens from efforts by foreign governments to inappropriately interfere in our democratic process by spreading disinformation, targeting U.S. elected officials, and seeking to intimidate members of U.S. civil society."
Highlighting previous action "to punish and deter such nefarious behavior" by Russian firms, the groups argued that "as an administration that has defined itself as defenders of American democracy against threats from both domestic and foreign state actors, the news of the Israeli government's attacks on our democracy must be addressed."
NIAC president Jamal Abdi said, "What this letter asks for is very simple: that President Biden and his administration treat reports of inappropriate Israeli influence operations with the same seriousness that it has allegations of Russian and Iranian influence campaigns."
"Unfortunately, what has been reported thus far could just be the tip of the iceberg," he continued. "The administration must work to defend our democracy fully, and ensure that no foreign state has a green light to inappropriately target American citizens or manipulate our democratic process."
The U.S. government has provided weapons and diplomatic support for Israel's war on Gaza, which has killed at least 39,145 Palestinians and injured another 90,257, according to local officials, and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
"The United States has failed to protect Palestinian communities, putting them at risk of harm to continue emboldening Israel," USCPR Action policy manager Mohammed Khader said Wednesday. "As the Israeli government and its foreign agents attempt to undermine our collective efforts on Palestinian rights, we strongly urge for the federal government to impose sanctions to hold Israeli officials and institutions accountable for violating the law."
In addition to the reported covert operations, there have been overt actions by Israel's leaders. As Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Wednesday endorsed former U.S. President Donald Trump for the November election, saying that he believes the Republican "will receive the backing to act against Iran," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress, despite protests from American lawmakers.
Trump, Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris—now the presumed Democratic nominee for the November election—are all set to separately meet with Netanyahu while he is visiting the United States.
"It's time for the Biden administration to end its policy of exceptionalism towards Israel and hold all nations to the same standards," declared DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar. "The administration must take decisive action to protect our democracy from all forms of foreign interference."
Keep ReadingShow Less
730 Million People—Including 20% of Africans—Faced Hunger Last Year
Jul 24, 2024
More than 730 million people around the world faced hunger last year, including 1 in 5 Africans, with over half a billion people set to be chronically malnourished by the decade's end if current trends continue, according to a report published Wednesday by a United Nations agency.
One in 11 people globally went hungry in 2023, the latest U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report revealed.
"The report shows that the world has been set back 15 years, with levels of undernourishment comparable to those in 2008-2009," according to the FAO. "An alarming number of people continue to face food insecurity and malnutrition as global hunger levels have plateaued for three consecutive years."
"Hunger is not something natural. Hunger is something that requires a political decision."
The agency noted significant variation in regional trends as "the percentage of the population facing hunger continues to rise in Africa (20.4%), remains stable in Asia (8.1%)—though still representing a significant challenge as the region is home to more than half of those facing hunger worldwide—and shows progress in Latin America (6.2%)."
"If current trends continue, about 582 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, half of them in Africa," FAO said, warning that "the world is falling significantly short of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, by 2030."
FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said in a statement that "transforming agrifood systems is more critical than ever as we face the urgency of achieving the SDGs within six short years. FAO remains committed to supporting countries in their efforts to eradicate hunger and ensure food security for all."
"We will work together with all partners and with all approaches, including the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, to accelerate the needed change," Qu added. "Together, we must innovate and collaborate to build more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agrifood systems that can better withstand future challenges for a better world."
FAO argued that "achieving SDG 2 Zero Hunger requires a multifaceted approach, including transforming and strengthening agrifood systems, addressing inequalities, and ensuring affordable and accessible healthy diets for all."
"It calls for increased and more cost-effective financing, with a clear and standardized definition of financing for food security and nutrition," the agency added.
The new report comes ahead of this November's scheduled G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty Task Force Ministerial Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On Wednesday, Qu praised Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—who currently chairs the G20—for centering food security in the bloc's agenda.
In the 2000s, Lula's leftist government implemented plans including Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) and Bolsa Familia (Family Allowance) that significantly reduced malnutrition and poverty in Brazil.
"We need to build on the progress achieved in this region, and share this experience with other regions, especially Africa," Qu said.
Speaking in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, Lula said that "hunger is not something natural. Hunger is something that requires a political decision."
Cindy McCain, executive director of the U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP), said Wednesday that "a future free from hunger is possible if we can rally the resources and the political will needed to invest in proven long-term solutions."
"I call on G20 leaders to follow Brazil's example and prioritize ambitious global action on hunger and poverty," she continued. "We have the technologies and know-how to end food insecurity—but we urgently need the funds to invest in them at scale."
"WFP is ready to step up our collaboration with governments and partners to tackle the root causes of hunger, strengthen social safety nets, and support sustainable development so every family can live in dignity," McCain added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular