Dear Mackenzie: There's One More Donation You Owe to the World

Unionize Amazon.

by

Hamilton Nolan

Published on

Thursday, December 17, 2020

by

In These Times

We’re going to have to con­fis­cate the rest of your mon­ey when the rev­o­lu­tion

 comes any­how. Might as well set your kar­ma right before then. 

(Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic via Getty Images)

Dear Macken­zie Scott, 

This week, you announced that you’ve made $4.2 bil­lion in char­i­ta­ble dona­tions in the past four months. For that you deserve an extreme­ly mod­est amount of con­grat­u­la­tions! You are, no doubt, besieged at all times by peo­ple who come to kiss your ass and beg for mon­ey. We come to you today with some­thing dif­fer­ent: moral con­dem­na­tion leav­ened with only the faintest sense of praise — com­bined with an idea that offers redemp­tion for you and for the belea­guered reg­u­lar peo­ple of Amer­i­ca at the same time.

Your net worth, accord­ing to reports, stands at some­thing like $60 bil­lion. How did you get so rich? You got so rich by being mar­ried to Ama­zon CEO Jeff Bezos for 25 years. More specif­i­cal­ly, you got so rich by divorc­ing Jeff Bezos last year, and get­ting 4% of Amazon’s stock in the process. That stake in the com­pa­ny was worth $38 bil­lion when you got it. You have there­fore made more than $20 bil­lion in the past year, thanks to the company’s boom dur­ing the pandemic. 

The very exis­tence of a $60 bil­lion for­tune in the hands of one per­son is a crime, proof of the way that human soci­ety has evolved away from jus­tice.

Here is where we will say some­thing mild­ly nice about you: You seem to be on the good end of the bil­lion­aire class. Many of your wealthy peers view char­i­ta­ble giv­ing as a chance to see their name adorn­ing fan­cy build­ings, or to attend lav­ish social events while being insu­lat­ed from crit­i­cism for their lav­ish­ness. Oth­ers, like your ex-hus­band, view char­i­ty as an unim­por­tant after­thought, donat­ing an inde­fen­si­bly pal­try por­tion of their wealth to the needy, or leav­ing the task to a foun­da­tion after they’re dead. By giv­ing away bil­lions this year alone, you have demon­strat­ed that you grasp, to some extent, the moral urgency of help­ing peo­ple soon­er rather than lat­er. You have pledged to give away the major­i­ty of your wealth in your own life­time — not much of an eth­i­cal achieve­ment by Peter Singer stan­dards, but in the con­text of Amer­i­can bil­lion­aires, not bad. 

Fur­ther­more, your choic­es of where to give seem to show that you do care about impact, and not just grandeur and flash. You sought out small orga­ni­za­tions, from his­tor­i­cal­ly Black col­leges to local food banks, that can do a lot with your mon­ey, rather than lazi­ly writ­ing checks to big nation­al groups that will show­er you with good P.R. and then blow a lot of your mon­ey on mid­dle man­age­ment. You exhib­it a very basic sense of human decen­cy, and that alone puts you ahead of most of your peers. 

Of course, that is not enough to give you a pass. The very exis­tence of a $60 bil­lion for­tune in the hands of one per­son is a crime, proof of the way that human soci­ety has evolved away from jus­tice. And your for­tune, in par­tic­u­lar, is not clean. Your mon­ey was earned on the backs of hun­dreds of thou­sands of reg­u­lar peo­ple who have done the work that makes Ama­zon run, and suf­fered as a result. They have suf­fered phys­i­cal­ly. They have suf­fered finan­cial­ly. And they have suf­fered exis­ten­tial­ly, by being treat­ed at every turn as cogs in a machine, rather than as human beings whose own hopes and dreams and auton­o­my should be allowed to flour­ish. Every Ama­zon ware­house work­er forced to pee in a bot­tle because they didn’t have suf­fi­cient breaks; every Ama­zon office work­er who slept in their car in order to keep their job; every Ama­zon deliv­ery dri­ver denied a chance at an actu­al career with a liv­ing wage and ben­e­fits because the com­pa­ny has seen to it they will nev­er be a full time employ­ee; all of these peo­ple put a dol­lar into your pock­et, Macken­zie Scott. Your for­tune came from them. Your mon­ey was earned by squeez­ing them into pover­ty. That is the plain truth. No mat­ter how nice of a per­son you may con­sid­er your­self to be, the fact is that you have a pro­found debt to all those people. 

You could, I guess, just write a check and give every Ama­zon work­er a few thou­sand bucks. That would be nice for a pass­ing moment, but noth­ing would real­ly change. You can­not fix a struc­tur­al debt with a trin­ket. In order to start cor­rect­ing the fun­da­men­tal injus­tices that have made you so rich, you must do some­thing that can give those work­ing peo­ple their own pow­er to take back con­trol of their lives. 

With one check, you can make it pos­si­ble to start union­iz­ing the com­pa­ny that made you a mega-bil­lion­aire.

Ama­zon needs a union. And I am hap­py to say: Macken­zie Scott, you can help with that. It’s hard to orga­nize a com­pa­ny like Ama­zon, both because it is a larg­er beast than any indi­vid­ual union has resources for, and because it will spend a great deal of mon­ey on lies and intim­i­da­tion to pre­vent its work­ers from exer­cis­ing their fun­da­men­tal right to orga­nize. But mon­ey can help to even the play­ing field. For a small frac­tion of the mon­ey you just gave out — say, $100 mil­lion — it would be pos­si­ble to hire orga­niz­ers nation­wide with the express pur­pose of union­iz­ing Ama­zon. The com­pa­ny is cur­rent­ly fight­ing against one sin­gle union dri­ve at a ware­house in Alaba­ma; we need to have them fight­ing against par­al­lel union dri­ves at hun­dreds of ware­hous­es across the coun­try all at once. The labor move­ment knows how to orga­nize work­ing peo­ple, but its resources are sim­ply no match for a $1.6 tril­lion com­pa­ny that can stamp out iso­lat­ed dri­ves like a giant crush­ing an ant. To give Amazon’s work­ers a chance at real jus­tice, the com­pa­ny must be orga­nized. And to orga­nize a com­pa­ny like this, there must be ded­i­cat­ed nation­al infra­struc­ture work­ing on this, and only this. No labor union in the Unit­ed States has enough mon­ey to build this on the scale that’s nec­es­sary. But you do, Macken­zie Scott. 

With one check, you can make it pos­si­ble to start union­iz­ing the com­pa­ny that made you a mega-bil­lion­aire. This is the sin­gle best way to start pay­ing your moral debt to those whose lives have been treat­ed as dis­pos­able in ser­vice to Amazon’s growth. And, it will real­ly piss off Jeff Bezos. I think we would both like to see that, no? 

We’re going to have to con­fis­cate the rest of your mon­ey when the rev­o­lu­tion comes any­how. Might as well set your kar­ma right before then. 

Sin­cere­ly,

The unwashed masses

Hamilton Nolan is a labor reporting fellow at In These Times. He has spent the past decade writing about labor and politics for Gawker, Splinter, The Guardian, and elsewhere. You can reach him at Hamilton@InTheseTimes.com.

© 2020 In These Times

Planet Earth To Loathsome 

Sanctimonious GOP: 

Unclutch Your Fucking Pearls

by

Abby Zimet, Further columnist

 Thursday, December 17, 2020

Just wow. After weeks of seditiously refusing to recognize Biden's win and blithely demanding a "gratuitously cruel" trade-off between COVID relief or unemployment benefits and cynically gaming those benefits in a last-ditch effort to retain an undeserved Senate majority; after four endless years of silent complicity before Biblical-level evil; after all the lies, scams, cruelty, racism, golf, greed, kids in cages, shit-hole countries, pussy-grabbing, victim-blaming, murderous negligence and 300,000 dead Americans to show for it, fuck-your-feelings Republicans are now shocked, SHOCKED we tell you, that Joe Biden's pottymouth former campaign manager and incoming deputy chief of staff has dared to indulge in some altogether warranted incivility on the subject of their unholy malfeasance. In a now infamous interview published in Glamour, Jen O’Malley Dillon called GOP lawmakers what they are - fuckers - while citing Biden's theme of unity: "In the primary, people would mock him, like, ‘You think you can work with Republicans?’ I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of fuckers. Mitch McConnell is terrible. But this sense you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? He rejected that. From start to finish, he set out with this idea that unity was possible, that together we are stronger, that we (need) healing, and our politics needs that too.” All of which sounds, to those of us who've been living on Planet Earth the last four years, like a bit of cogent, hopeful truth-telling.

Classy and classic. Getty Image

But self-righteous GOPers found her indecorous, confirming the staggering hypocrisy of a party that doesn't care if toddlers are jailed in concentration camps as long as you don't cuss while you do it; that stood by as a foul Trump bragged and mocked, Melania derided "fucking Christmas," Ted Yoho called AOC a "fucking bitch," idiots trashed Jill Biden for being educated. In a flurry of pearl-clutching unmatched since Trump said Rashida Tlaib "dishonored herself" by vowing to "impeach the motherfucker," people sneered, "So much healing" and wrote "scoops" on Biden's "sincerity." Bullshit, retorted MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and others who called out all the fucking cowards who stayed silent before all the atrocities. "I'd clutch my pearls over this totally normal turn of phrase (in politics, at least), but I hurled them into the sea in 2016 to try to awake a vengeful god while listening to the Access Hollywood audio," wrote one. Many cited 3,000 people a day dying "from a disease our government purposefully allowed to spread" they then hoped to spread to our children through herd immunity: "That's profane." Women joked this is just locker room talk, teachers swore it's how they get through the day, journalists cited countless members of Congress who'd  "dropped the f-bomb" with them. Given... everything, it was agreed, "THIS DOES NOT MATTER." Steve Schmidt reserved special fury for smarmy Marco Rubio, who unwisely chimed in, blasting him as a contemptible "American Vichy" who "abandoned every principle" to be "handmaid to Trump’s indecency," never mind the daily Bible verses he posts. His final words for Lil Marco, and ours for the rest: “Go fuck yourself.”

Lindsey Graham saying “Trump is a fucking idiot” on loop is everything,pic.twitter.com/4C1OK97rkz

— YS (@NYinLA2121) May 3, 2019

Failure to Prosecute UK War Crimes in Iraq Exposes ICC's Own Failings

The court could have set a powerful precedent in holding Britain to account. Instead, it has become a laughing stock and few will be able to take it seriously again.

by

Moazzam Begg 

 Published on

Thursday, December 17, 2020 

by

Middle East Eye

A platoon sergeant of the 1st Royal Regiment of Fusiliers guards members

 of 39 Engineer Squadron 32 Armoured Engineers as they breach one of

 the first obstacles clearing the way for British troops to enter Iraq on

 March 21, 2003. (Photo: Cpl. Paul (Jabba) Jarvis/British MoD/Flickr/cc)

"A court finds UK war crimes but will not take action." That was the extraordinary BBC News headline last week following the International Criminal Court's publication of its detailed investigation into war crimes committed by British troops during the occupation of Iraq.

The ICC's report is based on the findings of a preliminary inquiry to determine both whether there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed and to assess whether the UK has itself investigated and sought to prosecute those accused of involvement.

The British government has gone to exceptional lengths to ensure that British troops accused of committing war crimes in Iraq are immune from prosecution.

The ICC concluded that because the UK was "not unwilling" to investigate and prosecute its soldiers for committing war crimes in Iraq, the investigation was being closed.

The truth, however, is that the British government has gone to exceptional lengths to ensure that British troops accused of committing war crimes in Iraq are immune from prosecution. Out of the hundreds of cases pending against British soldiers, by June this year only one such case remained open.

In March, the government presented the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill. The law will place a five-year limit on criminal prosecutions against soldiers accused of war crimes and a six-year limit on civil actions.

Any cases outside of these periods will require the attorney general's consent. There will also be a duty for the government to consider abandoning its commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) ahead of military expeditions overseas.

The new law will stop countless claims of war crimes against British soldiers who served as part of the military occupation of Iraq. The bill had its third reading in the Commons in November and is primed to becoming law in the new year.

The aim of the proposed law is to protect British soldiers from what the government calls "vexatious litigation."

The case of Phil Shiner

The government often cites the case of Phil Shiner, the British lawyer who successfully exposed the role of British soldiers in the torture and murder of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi man who died in British custody in Basra in 2003.

Shiner was struck off by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2017 after being found guilty of professional misconduct charges including paying an Iraqi middleman to find claimants to make allegations against British soldiers.

Shiner had submitted thousands of claims against the British army so this was the opportunity the government - having previously denounced law firms involved in litigation against British soldiers as "ambulance-chasing lawyers"—was waiting for. In the same year, the government shut down its own investigation, the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT), which had been set up to investigate allegations of torture by British soldiers. None of the IHAT cases led to prosecutions.

Despite denying the allegations of war crimes, the government reached out-of-court settlements with at least 326 claimants. It was, however, following on from Shiner's work that the ICC picked up the baton where the IHAT had dropped it. According to a report by the BBC and the Sunday Times, British IHAT detectives said they had seen evidence of war crimes carried out by British soldiers and alleged that Shiner's case was used to close down their investigation.

Stark contrast

The ICC said that there was a reasonable basis to believe that between 2003 and 2009 British soldiers murdered at least seven prisoners and tortured 54 others. It found there was a reasonable basis to believe that at least seven captives were raped or sexually abused as detainees in Camp Breadbasket run by British armed forces.

The stark contrast between the ICC's findings and its actions are deeply troubling. It is essentially saying that we know you raped and murdered but you're free to go—because we believe you'll police yourself.

This is what one IHAT detective said: "The Ministry of Defence had no intention of prosecuting any soldier of whatever rank he was unless it was absolutely necessary, and they couldn't wriggle their way out of it."

Why was the British Army in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The UK sent forces to Afghanistan as part of the international coalition that invaded the country in 2001 following the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks in the US, and to Iraq in 2003 as part of a US-led invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

In both countries British soldiers became increasingly bogged down fighting against insurgents opposed to international occupation.

In Iraq, British forces were handed responsibility for security in Basra and three provinces in the south, but their presence was challenged by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army militia fighters.

In September 2007, British forces withdrew from their bases in the city to the airport on the outskirts, the targets of "relentless attacks," according to an International Crisis Group report which said that their retreat was viewed by locals as an "ignominious defeat."

In Afghanistan, British forces had been deployed in 2006 to Helmand Province. But they proved ineffective against the resurgent Taliban and in 2009 more than 100 British soldiers were killed.

British troops eventually withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014, with 454 service personnel killed over the course of their 13-year campaign in the country.

Around 120,000 British troops served in Iraq for six years. In light of all that has emerged with US atrocities in Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, and revelations of the atrocities and coverups unearthed by WikiLeaks, it is not inconceivable that British troops committed many war crimes or that the British government would seek to cover them up.

After all, these soldiers were part of and allied to the most powerful and organised military machine in the world. They were armed, trained and motivated to fight, capture, interrogate and kill in the name of Queen and country.

Of course, it wasn't just Iraq. The brutality had begun in Afghanistan following the US-led invasion in 2001. A BBC Panorama investigation this year found a deliberate "policy of execution-style killings was being carried out by [British] Special Forces" against unarmed men.

Panorama also uncovered communications from Afghan Army officials who refused to go out on patrol with British soldiers because of their penchant for murder and their tendency to blame their Afghan counterparts in order to avoid investigation. They also said British soldiers planted drugs and guns on the bodies of unarmed Afghans they had killed.

Once again, the government was left to investigate itself. Operation Northmoor was set up in 2014 but the investigation was closed down in 2017 after looking at 675 allegations of abuse, but without interviewing key Afghan witnesses. The investigating Royal Military Police (RMP) "found no evidence of criminal behaviour by the armed forces in Afghanistan."

In November, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) released findings from a four-year inquiry that found Australian soldiers serving in Afghanistan, "fuelled by bloodlust" and "competition killing," tortured and executed unarmed Afghan prisoners and then covered up their crimes by planting guns. Thirty-nine people were killed. Some of them were shot dead. Two children reportedly had their throats slit.

The report includes the chilling account of one special forces operative and how ADF troops idolised British and American soldiers' atrocities: "Whatever we do, though, I can tell you the Brits and the US are far, far worse. I've watched our young guys stand by and hero worship what they were doing, salivating at how the US were torturing people."

Although, at times, it has backed ICC prosecutions of individuals, the Trump administration has shown its open hostility to the court by freezing ICC assets and placing prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and others on a travel ban.

A paper tiger

The ICC is also being penalised by the US for investigating Israeli war crimes. It is now hoped that President-elect Biden will reverse the sanctions but it won't be an easy rise for the ICC either way.

It is now hoped that President-elect Biden will reverse the sanctions but it won't be an easy rise for the ICC either way.

It could have achieved something meaningful with Britain but once again it seems the ICC is quite willing to prosecute Africans but far less able to prosecute powerful Western nations.

It may be because Britain is, by the government's own account, one of the largest contributors to ICC coffers that this prosecution didn't go ahead. Or it may be that the ICC is just a paper tiger. Whatever the case, there is no escaping the connotations of this.

The ICC could have set a very powerful and visible precedent in holding Britain to account. It could have given hope and a semblance of justice to those who have neither. Instead, the ICC is a laughing stock and few will be able to take it seriously again.

Moazzam Begg is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and spokesman for Cageprisoners

© 2018 Middle East Eye

One World: The Wisdom of Wholeness

In this country, as well as much of our divided world, short-term gain is often all that matters and nothing else exists. This flawed thinking is at the core of our social infrastructure.

by

Robert C. Koehler

Published on

Thursday, December 17, 2020

 by

Common Dreams

As awareness of the "rights of nature" grows across global humanity,

I have no doubt that the wisdom of this awareness will start infiltrating our

 judicial, social and economic infrastructure as well, and begin undoing the

 short-term, dangerous thinking behind it. (Photo: Peter Lesseur / EyeEm/ iStock)

“We won't be in a position to make permanent progressive changes until the bad governments are changed permanently into good governments. And all governments are bad governments now and will remain bad governments until we have a global humanity.”

The words are those of Mark Haywood, in an email to me last week about my column, “Embracing Ecological Realism.” I think the words nail it. And I would add that “global humanity” includes a connection to Planet Earth, to life itself. And my intention is to put these words in a political context that is free—so I pray—of cynicism.

The irony is that this is ancient wisdom. We used to know this, once upon a time. Then we got civilized and became conquerors. We are now at the end, or nearly so, of this dark, bloody path. And while global humanity’s next step is uncertain—we must plunge into a new way of being—the wisdom of our fathers and mothers can guide us:

“For instance, an Ojibway friend of mine gave me a sheet of paper entitled ‘Twelve Principles of Indian Philosophy.’ The very first principle on that sheet read as follows: WHOLENESS . . .”

These are the words of Rupert Ross, in his book Returning to the Teachings. He continues: “The principle of wholeness thus requires looking for, and responding to, complex interconnections, not single acts of separate individuals. Anything short of that is seen as a naïve response destined to ultimate failure.”

If we don’t look at the world—every person, every living being, every flowing river, every handful of earth—with a sense of wholeness and wonder, with a sense of its connection to the larger eco-structure of the planet, which includes ourselves, whatever we do is likely to come back to haunt, if not us, then our children. This applies, most significantly, to political actions and government policy. If we go to war, war comes back to us. If we exploit, deforest and poison the planet . . . I think we know what happens.

This is not us-vs.-them politics, left vs. right. And it is certainly not some sort of idealism. This is reality: ecological realism. And the outreach of this column is to politicians who do not want to be failures.

Of course, there are “interests” that are going to come into conflict, especially considering our long history of short-term winning, also known as profit. In this country, as well as much of our divided world, short-term gain is often all that matters and nothing else exists. This flawed thinking is at the core of our social infrastructure. But much to the surprise of many corporate leaders, a deeper wisdom is also present at the core.

And it’s showing itself. The residents of Grant Township, Pennsylvania, for instance, have managed to stave off the construction, by the state gas company, Pennsylvania General Energy Company, of what are called fracking waste injection wells in their community. Five years ago, the residents, by a large majority, passed a Rights of Nature law, which, my God, “recognizes the rights of local ecosystems” to thrive, to exist. The law asserts that nature isn’t simply property, to be used (or used up) in any way the “owner” sees fit.

The gas company has sued the township several times over this infringement of its right to pollute, but the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has recognized the law and revoked the company’s permit to build its wells in the township.

“This decision is soooooo delicious,” township supervisor Judy Wanchisn told Rolling Stone after a legal victory in March. “I am hopeful that the haters and naysayers will take note, and that communities will be inspired with what’s just happened and run with it. Fights like ours should mushroom all around Pennsylvania.”

One fascinatingly strange facet of this issue is that it had to be settled in a court battle, with Nature, the defendant, pitting her interests against the plaintiff, as though the two were separate entities. As awareness of the “rights of nature” grows across global humanity, I have no doubt that the wisdom of this awareness will start infiltrating our judicial, social and economic infrastructure as well, and begin undoing the short-term, dangerous thinking behind it. This is the return of pragmatic wholeness to human consciousness.

For instance: “The idea of a value-based economic structure is far more realistic than many of our present business models, which are short-sighted in the extreme,” Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee writes at The Guardian.

“. . .We need to explore ways that businesses can serve humanity in its deepest sense, rather than creating a poverty of spirit as well as an ecological wasteland—develop an awareness that the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the energy we use are not just commodities to be consumed, but part of the living fabric of a sacred Earth. Then we are making a real relationship with our environment.”

With this return must come, of course, an awareness and an acknowledgement of our history of defying this wisdom, and the harm that it has caused. What we have done to the planet in the last few hundred years, we have also done to its human protectors.

“Indigenous American oppression is often cast as an object of the past,” writes Maria Fong at the Tufts University Sustainability blog, “but like global warming, their struggle is ongoing, part of the past, present, and future. As we fight against climate change, keep in mind the colonial history of resource extraction and exploitation. The same Enlightenment ideals that inspired the industrial revolution, warming our planet, also led to brutal conquest of Indigenous people.”

Moving beyond the misnamed Enlightenment is, of course, an immensely complex shift. But the wisdom is there! It’s available to those who seek it, even president-elects. Of course, when politicians do not seek this wisdom—and it’s questionable to what extent Joe Biden is doing so—the wisdom must flow upward, from global humanity. Don’t let cynical despair stop you from participating in this flow. We have a world to save.

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, "Courage Grows Strong at the Wound" (2016). Contact him or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

People's Action Calls On Biden to Transform Labor Dept Into Agency That Protects Workers—Not Corporations

"While we at People's Action believe that Senator Bernie Sanders is an example of the type of person ready to transform the landscape for working people in solidarity with the movement, we're ready to welcome any labor secretary ready to do the same."

by

Julia Conley, staff writer

 Published on Thursday, December 17, 2020 

by

Common Dreams

Customers and cashiers at a Publix supermarket in Orlando, Florida. (Photo: Jeffrey Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Amid an unemployment crisis and a pandemic in which millions of grocery store and other essential workers have been forced to work in unsafe conditions, the national grassroots group People's Action on Thursday led a call for President-elect Biden to nominate a secretary of labor who will "transform" the department into an agency that supports and protects workers—not corporations.

Along with 24 of its state and local member groups, People's Action sent a letter (pdf) to two of Biden's top incoming advisers, Ron Klain and Mike Donilon. As Biden considers a potential labor secretary, the groups wrote, the incoming White House chief of staff and senior advisor should push for "the selection of someone that will be ready to usher in structural reform and have the ability to relate to and galvanize the movement to both define and open up political space for the type of change needed to address inequities in our society that have reached an unacceptable and unsustainable level."

"We need a secretary of labor ready to bring about structural reforms in concert with workers and movements. We need more than simply enforcement of laws on the books; we need labor law reform that will put more power in the hands of workers and, in turn, more money in their pockets."
—People's Action

According to recent news reports, Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-Iowa) has been under consideration this month to be Biden's labor secretary. The congresswoman, a moderate who lost her reelection campaign in November, introduced a bill in May to help small businesses procure personal protective equipment for their workers.  

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime advocate for workers' rights, has stated his desire to serve as labor secretary, and Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, has also been named as a possible progressive contender.

"While we at People's Action believe that Senator Bernie Sanders is an example of the type of person ready to transform the landscape for working people in solidarity with the movement, we're ready to welcome any labor secretary ready to do the same," wrote the groups. "What we can't compromise on, however, is someone ready to advance bold, structural reform. The lives of working families and the future of our country depend on that."

To ensure that his Labor Department will "fight to end corporate greed and corporate monopolies with a focus on ending poverty," People's Action said, Biden must "take seriously the work that is ahead to truly address the economic and racial inequities that have grown in our economy."

"We need a secretary of labor ready to bring about structural reforms in concert with workers and movements," wrote the groups. "We need more than simply enforcement of laws on the books; we need labor law reform that will put more power in the hands of workers and, in turn, more money in their pockets."

The letter was released as a new Harvard study showed that nine months into the coronavirus pandemic, workers at some of the biggest retail and fast food chains in the U.S. are still not being afforded protective equipment and measures to keep them from contracting and spreading Covid-19. 

More than 40% of workers surveyed in the study said they are "sometimes, rarely, or never" able to socially distance while at work, and nearly 30% said the customers they serve are frequently not wearing face coverings. 

The disempowerment of frontline, low-wage workers during the pandemic follows decades of weakened labor protections and shrinking union membership, with just 11% of workers represented by unions and many retail, fast food, domestic, and other workers left out. 

"If unionization were made easier," People's Action and its member groups wrote, "we'd see growth of the most diverse and powerful labor movement in American history. These workers—elevated as essential during this pandemic, despite being the backbone of our society all along—are also more likely to be Black and Latinx."

"A bold agenda of encouraging unionization would help swing the pendulum of power towards workers and away from the 1%, and also rightfully bring more economic and political power to Black and Latinx individuals," the groups continued. "A strong secretary of labor—focused on workers' right to organize for better wages, benefits, and working conditions—could enact substantial policy reforms that could make a difference to millions of workers and to the balance of power in our country."

People's Action called for Biden to appoint a labor secretary who will bring about a new social contract—one that reaches farther than President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Depression-era New Deal did to guarantee well-paying jobs for all. 

The group pointed to five transformational policies that it recommended over a year ago, along with groups including the Center for Popular Democracy and Jobs With Justice, which it said should be used as guiding principles for how Biden's incoming labor secretary approaches the fight for American workers:

• The Right to Collective Action at Scale: Sectoral Bargaining—By reinventing our labor law system so that workers are not forced to bargain company-by-company, but instead can negotiate fair work conditions across a whole sector and up supply chains, we can restore workers' bargaining power at scale. 
• Freedom from Arbitrary Job Loss: "Just Cause" Employment—We can protect workers from being abruptly left with bills due and no paycheck by adopting "just cause" employment protections that require employers to give a good reason, fair notice, and severance pay before a worker can be left without a job.
• The Human Right to a Decent Job: A Federal Job Guarantee—With a federal job guarantee we can end structural unemployment and ensure that every person in America has access to a decent job.
• Democracy at Work: The Cooperative Advantage—We can democratize our economy and ensure workers receive a fair share of economic gains by promoting the growth of worker cooperatives that enable workers to be owners of their workplaces.
• Universal Guarantees to Basic Needs: Medicare for All and Universal Family Care—We can free workers from inadequate employer-based benefits by creating new universal social support systems, beginning with health insurance through Medicare for All and Universal Family Care to meet their caregiving needs.

"Covid-19 has revealed and exacerbated the extreme inequality that has come to be the norm in our country," People's Action wrote. "That's not how it's always been; and that's not how it needs to be. There were times in our history when this extreme division wasn't the case. Our current stability as a country depends on us getting back to a more equitable society. Cabinet positions and other key personnel in federal agencies are critical for advancing the necessary agenda."

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