We have a lot more work to do. Can you email your Member of Congress and tell them:
Get back to work NOW – take up the HEROEs act negotiation with the Senate ;
Fight to pass, and keep key provisions of the Essential Workers Bill of Rights in the next COVID response bill;, And
Cosponsor the ReWIND Act to stop another fossil fuel industry bailout at the expense of public health crisis and frontline workers, and add it to HEROES during negotiation!
Essential workers are on the frontlines of this pandemic, and many are working in high-risk conditions without appropriate equipment, safety standards, or job protections. But Mitch McConnell and his Republican Senate say they have “not yet felt the urgency of acting immediately. And to prove the point, they just went home for a two-week vacation.
Essential workers are home care workers, grocery and drug store employees, domestic workers, food service workers, government employees, janitorial staff, farm workers, delivery drivers, warehouse workers, transit workers, and child care workers. Anyone who has to remain on the job without the ability to telework during this emergency.
If you agree that essential workers deserve labor and health care protections, pick up the phone and call your Senators right now at 1-833-933-0204. Tell them to get back to work by taking up the House-passed HEROES act, improving it by keeping the Essential Workers Protections, and adding in key pieces of the ReWIND act as well.
Call your Senators now at 833-933-0204 and tell them to get back to work by taking up the House-passed HEROES act, fight to keep the Essential Workers Protections, and improve it by adding in key pieces of the ReWIND act.
Congress is already negotiating on the next COVID-19 stimulus package, and Trump and his allies are pushing hard for another big bailout for fossil fuels. Alarmingly, some elected leaders are considering a dirty deal where they’d trade another fossil fuel bailout for good-but-inadequate tools like tax credits for renewable energy and electric cars.
Fortunately, not everyone is tempted by this devils bargain: Dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate have signed on to support a new bill called the ReWIND act that would ban fossil fuel bailouts, and give us more control over the +$2 trillion Congress has already appropriated.
So far, we’ve got more than 30 members of Congress on our side, but we need more than 200 to stop the dirty deal and pass the ReWIND act as part of the next Congressional stimulus bill. Can you write to your member of Congress now?
All over the country and around the world, people need help. They need a bailout to afford medical care, feed their kids, stay safe, and eventually get back to work.
Tomorrow, May 1, 2020, Amazon workers are going on strike for safer working conditions. Renters and homeowners are calling on landlords and banks to cancel rent and mortgage payments. Families are demanding utility corporations put an end to water and utility shutoffs. Small business owners are fighting to get relief funds so they can pay their employees, instead of bailing out Big Oil. Community members are calling for the release of people trapped in unsafe jails and detention centers. Nurses and grocery workers are calling for better safety protections and pay.
On May Day we’re coming together to make some noise and tell our stories in solidarity with one another. To unite our individual fights into a shared struggle.
May Day is an international day of action historically led by immigrants and workers to demonstrate strength and solidarity. This year as the pandemic forces us to keep our distance physically, it’s especially important that we come together in solidarity with those who are hit first and worst by climate change and the Pandemic: frontline workers, immigrants, black, indigenous, and communities of color. All those at the edges of our society at this moment.
For the last few weeks, thousands of us have been sending letters to Congress telling them to bail out #PeopleNotPolluters. But the pandemic has disrupted daily life for our elected leaders as well, and we’re hearing that most congressional offices are flooded in emails, and don’t have good systems for answering the phones while all their staff are quarantined at home.
Enter the magic of social media, art, and visual storytelling! If you’ve got an account with facebook, a twitter, or instagram (or any other social media platform) use it now to make sure they see and respond to our messages.
Here’s how:
The goal is to use your social media channels to send personal messages to your representatives in Congress:
POST a video of yourself on twitter or facebook with a personalized message to Congress about why congress should put people first and not bail out the Fossil Fuel Industry – make sure to use the hashtag #PeopleNotPolluters so we can find you.
A few weeks ago, thousands of us took action to tell congress to prioritize people, not polluters in the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law on March 27. Now, a new version is under debate in Congress, and the fossil fuel industry is working overtime to make sure they profit during this moment of crisis and pandemic.
Trump and co aren’t trying to help workers in the fossil fuel industry, or keep people save during the pandemic. If they were, they’d be supporting universal healthcare, direct relief to working families, and personal protective equipment for all workers. No, this is all about using the cover of the crisis to make a buck, and push through dirty projects that we’d never allow in normal times.
With more than 16 million people out of work, and pollution making people more sick, and more likely to get sick, this is no time to give a bailout to the fossil fuel industry. If we speak together now, and generate a big public outcry, we can make sure that big polluters aren’t allowed to profit off this pandemic.
As Energy Secretary, Rick Perry had a duty to act on those plans and proposals in ways that would save lives and fight the climate crisis. Instead, he cashed in a favor to go back to the board room of one of the biggest companies in the world profiting off climate chaos. At Energy Transfer, again, he’ll make big bucks ramping up fossil fuel infrastructure that locks us into decades of further dependence on the fuels that threaten our climate and common home. This cannot go unchallenged.
Thanks for signing our petition Below are some tools to share the action with your networks online. Because Congress isn’t able to send the full aid package quickly, we’re also including links to some local groups in Puerto Rico. If you wan to bypass the racist Trump regime and fund direct aid to the people who need it, these are some places to start.
Ayuda Legal PR is a nonprofit organization that provides free and accessible education and legal support to low-income people and communities in Puerto Rico. Following Hurricane María, the group, made up of lawyers, legal experts and law students, began focusing on legal assistance during and after disasters, particularly access to justice, the right to housing and fair recovery — all of which will undoubtedly be needed for people rebuilding houses and businesses, seeking health care and more after the earthquakes. Donate here.
Brigada Solidaria del Oeste
Also born out of the devastating 2017 storms, Brigada Solidaria del Oeste is a community initiative comprised of individuals from various organizations, creative spaces and social struggles that meets with members of communities on the island’s west coast to identify the needs of the people and work to support them. Currently, group leaders are headed south, where the earthquakes and aftershocks were felt the most, to speak with locals, assess needs and help communities on the ground. Donate to the brigade via PayPal through their email address brigadasolidariaoeste@gmail.com. 3
Casa Pueblo
On the archipelago, Casa Pueblo is a community-management project that has been addressing climate change since 1980, when the government attempted to mine deposits of silver, gold and copper, by protecting natural, cultural and human resources and advocating for a more environmentally friendly and sustainable Puerto Rico. Their efforts and education are particularly crucial as the island is increasingly hit with natural disasters. In fact, in December, think tank Germanwatch released its annual Global Climate Risk Index 2020, which found that Puerto Rico is affected by climate change more than anywhere else in the world. Donate to Casa Pueblo here.
Correa Family Foundation
Created by Puerto Rican professional baseball player Carlos Correa, the Correa Family Foundation is a nonprofit foundation that supports low-income and/or ill children. Correa, a shortstop for the Houston Astros, was in his hometown of Ponce, which was hit hard during the earthquake, with his wife Daniella Rodriguez Correa at the time the 6.4 magnitude quake hit. On Twitter, Rodriguez said she has “never been so scared in my life,” while Correa told CBS affiliate KHOU 11 “there’s a lot of victims.”
With multiple schools affected by the series of quakes, including an institution in Guánica that was destroyed, Correa started a fund through his children-oriented foundation to help rebuild impacted schools. Donate here.
World Central Kitchen & Comedores Sociales de Puerto Rico
While Spanish chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization providing free meals to people in the wake of natural disasters, isn’t native to Puerto Rico, the group works with local chefs and community leaders to help those in impacted areas. After Hurricane María, World Central Kitchen served more than 3,000,000 meals and is often applauded on the archipelago for its quick and impactful disaster relief. In a tweet on Tuesday, Andrés said that his team is heading to the southern coast of Puerto Rico, where they will be using solar power and generators to serve affected municipalities. Donate here.
If you prefer to support local food initiatives, Comedores Sociales de Puerto Rico, a project of Centro para el Desarrollo Político, Educativo y Cultural (CDPEC), is a self-managed food distribution initiative providing free meals to communities at the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras and Cayey campuses. Donate here.
Sadly, this is only the latest example of how Trump combines climate denial and racism into a policy that hurts our neighbors and fellow citizens. Carson was legally required to disburse the money last September, but has been delaying the release of $18 billion that Congress appropriated for Puerto Rico. The money is supposed to upgrade infrastructure, including the islands old and fossil-fuel powered electric grid, and help mitigate and adapt to climate-fueled super storms like Maria.
If the money had been spent on-time, it’s possible that houses, schools and the electric grid could also have been more resilient to the huge earthquakes that rocked the island in recent weeks.
We’re proud to fight alongside allies from the Power 4 Puerto Rico Coalition once more. Together, we demand that Carson and Trump release ALL the aid money, and stop adding ridiculous pre-conditions like how much to pay workers. Sign here if you agree and tell Trump and Carson to stop illegally blocking aid for Puerto Rico. Note – after you sign well redirect you to a page where you can chip in to support local PR groups working to rebuild after the earthquakes.
We started the year protesting Trump’s Environmental Record – in this photo my youngest sister Emily is shutting down a hearing with Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s corrupt, climate-denying EPA chief. Ironically this hearing happened during a government shutdown that had furloughed thousands of EPA staff nation-wide. Protesting Trump’s corrupt, climate-denying cabinet is a theme of this year’s actions.
February brought an old fight back to the fore – the fight to stop Keystone XL. Trump has been trying to build the pipeline, without success, since he was sworn in in 2017. So far court cases and local permits have kept him at bay – but we’re waiting for the moment when Trump’s fossil-fueled-authoritarian tendencies overwhelm those flimsy buffers and they simply begin lighting the fuse of this carbon bomb without proper permits and paperwork.
April was also the month we launched the first of a series of campaigns that targeted David Bernhardt, Trump’s corrupt, climate-denying Interior Secretary. Like Wheeler (see above) he became a recurring character in our fight to stamp out corruption, block pollution, and protect the climate from Trump’s cast of climate conquistadors.
May also launched our campaign to get disaster relief for Puerto Rico. This became a recurring theme as Congress would appropriate money for disaster relief, but Trump would refuse to sign or disburse the money – IF, and this is a big if, the people helped by the funding were black, brown, or tended to vote for Democrats. Later in the year we broadened this campaign to include climate refugees from the Caribbean and eventually the whole global south.
Climate Strike! That was the big theme in September as we supported hundreds of Climate Strike events here in the US. Greta Thunberg asked the United Nations “How Dare You” and I personally buckled in as part of two beautifully troublesome actions.
So there you have it! A year in photos and images to illustrate all our work. You can also check out our previous post which covers more of the science and policy on how we’re ending 2019. Next week, after the New Year, I’ll write you a message about our plans for 2020 but you can be sure it will continue a few of these themes:
Holding corrupt Trump cronies like Wheeler and Bernhardt accountable;
Working as part of the global Climate Strike movement to demand bold action from our elected leaders;
Pushing US policy makers to adopt a bold, fossil-fuel-free Green New Deal; &
Bringing you great direct-action powered online campaigns at the local, state, and federal level to demand climate action.
