29 March 20
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29 March 20
OK Boomer: How Bob Dylan's New JFK Song Helps Explain 2020
Michael Hogan, Vanity Fair
"Bob Dylan has always been a stubborn contrarian, so maybe it's fitting that, after five decades of evading any and all responsibility as a 'voice of a generation,' he is finally embracing it, kind of, at the height of the 'OK Boomer' backlash."
Michael Hogan, Vanity Fair
"Bob Dylan has always been a stubborn contrarian, so maybe it's fitting that, after five decades of evading any and all responsibility as a 'voice of a generation,' he is finally embracing it, kind of, at the height of the 'OK Boomer' backlash."
An interstate in Alabama. (photo: Seth Herald/AFP/Getty Images)
'A Dangerous Gamble': Alabama Gov Refuses to Order 'Shelter-in-Place' for Residents, Leaving Black Alabamans Especially at Risk
Anne Branigin, The Root
Branigin writes: "It looks like Nathaniel Woods isn't the only person Gov. Kay Ivey is willing to put to death."
Anne Branigin, The Root
Branigin writes: "It looks like Nathaniel Woods isn't the only person Gov. Kay Ivey is willing to put to death."
t looks like Nathaniel Woods isn’t the only person Gov. Kay Ivey is willing to put to death.
The Republican governor announced during a press conference on Thursday that the state would not be enacting “shelter-in-place” measures, which have been shown in other countries to mitigate the disastrous effects of the coronavirus.
From Talking Points Memo:
“Y’all, we are not Louisiana, we are not New York state, we are not California,” Ivey told a reporter who had asked about a potential order. “And right now is not the time to order people to shelter in place.”The governor asserted that businesses need to stay open to provide food, medical supplies and jobs.“We’ve got [to] have all the materials that are needed to keep Alabamians working as much as we can,” she said.
Ivey’s talking points mirrored Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, who earlier this week said his state would be taking a “wait and see” approach to declaring a “shelter-in-place” order.
“No one at the State Department of Health has recommended that we have a statewide shelter-in-place order,” Reeves said.
Shelter-in-place means people need to stay in their homes unless they need to leave for “essential” activities or work. Non-essential workers could still leave their homes to go to the grocery, food bank, pharmacy, laundromat, or walk their pets, but would need to maintain at least 6 feet of distance from other people and practice good hygiene if they do so (washing their hands, coughing into their elbows if they need to, and not touching their face).
So far 21 states and numerous cities have given shelter-in-place orders: all of the West Coast and much of the Northeast and Midwest have directed people to stay at home. Louisiana is the only Southern state that has.
Gov. Ivey is exactly right. Her state is not California—and that’s exactly why she should be concerned.
“Nationally, the rates of infections are doubling every two and a half days,” Dr. Mark Mitchell, associate professor for Climate Change, Energy and Environmental Health Equity at George Mason University, told The Root. “Many of the southern states have more vulnerable populations and less of a health and public health infrastructure than some of the wealthier states.”
Alabamans, compared to Californians, tend to be lower-income, meaning they have less access to healthcare, a demographic fact made worse by Alabama not adopting Medicaid expansion. Rural communities are particularly underserved.
Then there’s the health of Alabamans and other Southerners. The latest research shows people who are overweight or obese are more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who aren’t. Mitchell points out that African Americans across the South tend to have higher rates of obesity and diabetes. Mustafa Santiago Ali, Vice President of Environmental Justice, Climate, and Community Revitalization, notes that communities of color in the state also have high incidents of liver and kidney disease, cancers, lung diseases and asthma—chronic conditions that increase the chances they’ll develop severe COVID-19 symptoms.
“To not do everything in your power to minimize the impacts of this virus places a crosshair on these communities,” Ali told The Root.
Ivey and Reeves aren’t just gambling with the lives of communities of color, either: low wage workers, low-income communities, the elderly, and indigenous populations desperately need the protections the governors refuse to give them.
“When it hits the black belt, when you see how few clinics and hospitals are in those rural areas, there’s no way in the world you’re going to be able to deal with all those cases,” said Ali.
“Shelter-in-place” measures are an important tool governments have to buy time, so health care facilities can continue to provide adequate care to all those who come through its doors—not just COVID-19 patients. By delaying these orders, Ivey, Reeves, and other Southern governors have sent a clear message about their priorities, and who they’re willing to protect.
“Those who are squandering this time where we could be slowing down the epidemic are putting their populations in danger, and putting their health systems in danger of being overwhelmed by the COVID-19 epidemic,” said Mitchell. “It’s a dangerous gamble.”
“More people will get sick, and more people will die,” Ali said. “That’s as clear as I can say it.”
Members of an LGBTQ military organization will be protected from discharge for having HIV. (photo: Advocate)
HIV-Positive Service Members Targeted by Trump Win Partial Victory
Trudy Ring, The Advocate
Ring writes: "A federal judge has refused the Trump administration's request to remove the Modern Military Association of America from a lawsuit challenging discrimination against HIV-positive service members, meaning a greater number of troops will be protected from discharge now and that all service members with HIV will be protected if the suit succeeds."
Trudy Ring, The Advocate
Ring writes: "A federal judge has refused the Trump administration's request to remove the Modern Military Association of America from a lawsuit challenging discrimination against HIV-positive service members, meaning a greater number of troops will be protected from discharge now and that all service members with HIV will be protected if the suit succeeds."
EXCERPT:
Under that policy, the Defense Department argues that HIV-positive service members should be discharged because they cannot be deployed overseas. But with modern HIV treatment and prevention methods, there is no reason they cannot be deployed, the plaintiffs and their lawyers say.
In the Roe and Voe case, regarding the Air Force, Brinkema last year issued a preliminary injunction blocking the discharge of the named plaintiffs while the case proceeds to trial, and an appeals court upheld the injunction in January. Brinkema’s ruling that the MMMA can remain a plaintiff in the case assures that the injunction will protect its members from discharge as well, even if they are not named individually in the suit, according to Lambda Legal, which is representing the plaintiffs.
“This also would means that any success on our claims going forward will unquestionably apply to all Service Members living with HIV and not just named plaintiffs,” Lambda notes in an email.
A Koch Foods plant in Morton, Mississippi. (photo: Rory Doyle/ProPublica)
What Happens if Workers Cutting Up the Nation's Meat Get Sick?
Michael Grabell, ProPublica
Grabell writes: "As COVID-19 makes its way across the country, leading to panic grocery buying in state after state, the stresses on the nation's food supply chain have ratcheted ever higher. But in industries like meatpacking, which rely on often grueling shoulder-to-shoulder work, so have the risks to workers' health."
Michael Grabell, ProPublica
Grabell writes: "As COVID-19 makes its way across the country, leading to panic grocery buying in state after state, the stresses on the nation's food supply chain have ratcheted ever higher. But in industries like meatpacking, which rely on often grueling shoulder-to-shoulder work, so have the risks to workers' health."
EXCERPTS:
A federal food safety inspector in New York City, who oversaw meat processing plants, died from the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
A poultry worker in Mississippi, employed by America’s third largest chicken company, tested positive for the virus, causing a half-dozen workers to self-quarantine. Another worker in South Dakota, employed by the world’s largest pork producer, also tested positive.
In Georgia, dozens of workers walked out of a Perdue Farms chicken plant, demanding that the company do more to protect them.
And Tyson Foods told ProPublica on Friday that “a limited number of team members” had tested positive for the disease.
As COVID-19 makes its way across the country, leading to panic grocery buying in state after state, the stresses on the nation’s food supply chain have ratcheted ever higher. But in industries like meatpacking, which rely on often grueling shoulder-to-shoulder work, so have the risks to workers’ health.
At Koch Foods in Mississippi, Ramirez, an undocumented Guatemalan immigrant who asked to go by his last name, said a woman who worked near him showed up for her shift last week with a heavy cough. But after she told her supervisor, he said, she was told she couldn’t come back. The message was clear, he said. So, when he started feeling sick a few days later, he simply kept quiet and continued working.
“People are worried,” Ramirez said, that if they say they are sick, “they’ll fire us.”
Going to the doctor is not an option, he said, because he doesn’t have health insurance and fears it could expose his immigration status.
Koch Foods didn’t respond to calls and emails asking about its policies for sick workers.
An Amazon Fresh truck. (photo: Jacobin)
Nationalize Amazon
Paris Marx, Jacobin
Marx writes: "Instead of letting Amazon use coronavirus to dominate even more of the economy, the company should be nationalized and reoriented to serve the public good instead of predatory capitalism."
Paris Marx, Jacobin
Marx writes: "Instead of letting Amazon use coronavirus to dominate even more of the economy, the company should be nationalized and reoriented to serve the public good instead of predatory capitalism."
EXCERPT:
One of the other valuable services that would be obtained from a nationalized Amazon is PillPack, an online pharmacy the company bought in 2018. There are many elderly and vulnerable people who will still need access to their medications while having to stay indoors, and nationalizing the service could allow the United States to start serving those people, shipping their prescriptions in individual dose packages to reduce any confusion that people might have about what to take and when. Additionally, by taking the profit motive out of the equation, those drugs could be provided free of charge.
Taking Amazon into public ownership would quickly enhance the government’s ability to respond to the COVID-19 and economic crises, while allowing it to rectify the negative aspects of the juggernaut: its abuse of its workers, fueling of climate change, and attempts to further monopolize the economy under the control of CEO Jeff Bezos. Combining Amazon with the existing postal infrastructure provides further opportunities to create a public institution that responds to people’s needs with services that make their lives better. A reimagined post office could also be expanded to include postal banking in service of those who have less access to traditional banking services. It could also serve as the distribution point for other necessities such as SIM cards relying on a public telecommunications infrastructure and inexpensive eyeglasses, for example.
In the face of this expanding crisis, getting such infrastructure in place sooner rather than later is essential. Instead of letting Amazon continue as a private monopolist or trying to build a public alternative from scratch in record time, the company should be nationalized and reoriented to serve the public good instead of predatory capitalism, while enhancing the infrastructure of the post office. We have a rare opportunity to fundamentally alter the economy to serve the needs of people instead of private profit, and it’s time to seize it.
The recall concerned nearly half of the shipment of 1.3 million masks. (photo: Anadolu)
Netherlands Recalls Defective Masks From China as Spain and Turkey Return Defective Testing Kits
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "Dutch officials have recalled tens of thousands of masks imported from China and distributed to hospitals battling the coronavirus outbreak because they do not meet quality standards."
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "Dutch officials have recalled tens of thousands of masks imported from China and distributed to hospitals battling the coronavirus outbreak because they do not meet quality standards."
EXCERPT:
Other complaints
The Netherlands was not the only country to raise concerns over faulty supplies from China.
Spain announced last week that it would return more than 600,000,000 rapid testing kits it had purchased from a Chinese company after testing on an imported batch revealed they had a 30 percent detection rate, reported Euronews.
Turkey's health minister raised similar issues during a news conference on Friday, saying rapid testing kit samples from a Chinese company did not meet the country's effectiveness standards. He added another Chinese firm had instead been selected to provide the kits.
France's Health Minister Olivier Veran also announced he ordered more than a billion masks, notably from China, to help the country fight the coronavirus pandemic. It remains unclear if France will cancel its order.
Lettuce. (photo: Phuc Long/Unsplash)
18 Organizations to Support During National Farmworker Awareness Week
Food Tank
Excerpt: "From March 25-31, 2020 SAF is celebrating the 21st Annual National Farmworker Awareness Week at a time when it may be more important than ever to advocate for farmworkers' rights. SAF and their partner organizations aim not only to celebrate farmworkers but also to raise awareness about the many challenges that farmworkers continue to face."
Food Tank
Excerpt: "From March 25-31, 2020 SAF is celebrating the 21st Annual National Farmworker Awareness Week at a time when it may be more important than ever to advocate for farmworkers' rights. SAF and their partner organizations aim not only to celebrate farmworkers but also to raise awareness about the many challenges that farmworkers continue to face."
armworkers feed the world. This is the rallying cry of the Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), an organization that works with students, advocates, and farmworkers across the United States to create a more just agricultural system. The crucial contribution that farmworkers make to the food system has only heightened amid the C0VID-19 pandemic, as farmworkers are among the list of critical positions that the United States Department of Homeland Security encouraged to continue a normal working schedule.
Although a lower population density in agricultural regions may delay the spread of COVID-19, farmworkers may face heightened risks to the disease due to their exposure to environmental and chemical hazards. Most farmworkers also lack comprehensive healthcare benefits as well as paid sick leave. According to the U.S. Department of Labor just 47 percent of farmworkers report having health coverage, meaning they have no benefits to fall back on if they get sick.
From March 25-31, 2020 SAF is celebrating the 21st Annual National Farmworker Awareness Week at a time when it may be more important than ever to advocate for farmworkers' rights. SAF and their partner organizations aim not only to celebrate farmworkers but also to raise awareness about the many challenges that farmworkers continue to face. For instance, agriculture ranks among the most hazardous industries but farmworkers have considerably lower wages and less access to social benefits than others in hazardous occupations.
The week culminates on Cesar Chavez day, which commemorates the historic activist and founder of the United Farmworkers of America. To amplify the message of National Farmworker Awareness Week and support farmworkers during this uncertain time, Food Tank is highlighting 18 organizations that advocate for farmworkers' rights and wellbeing.
1. American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
The AFL-CIO is the largest U.S. based federation of unions that protects the rights of workers in a variety of industries, including food and agriculture. They take action to prevent child labor in agriculture, support diversity in farming and land access, improve farm and food worker wages, ensure overtime pay, and fight for immigration policies that help agricultural workers attain employment security.
2. Center for Good Food Purchasing
The Center for Good Food Purchasing encourages large institutions to adopt the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) – an initiative that facilitates shifts in institutional food purchasing toward local food economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare, and nutrition. Implementation of the GFPP is currently being carried out in multiple cities and school districts across the U.S.
3. Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
The CIW is a worker rights organization that exemplifies the power of farmworker community organizing. Their internationally recognized Worker-driven Social Responsibility paradigm led to significant advances in human rights within corporate supply chains. Through this approach, the CIW successfully negotiated agreements that improved worker labor standards and wages with Whole Foods, McDonald's, Subway, and Walmart through its Fair Food Program focused on Florida tomato growers.
4. Community Alliance for Global Justice (CAGJ)
CAGJ is a grassroots organization based in Seattle, WA that aims to strengthen local economies by transforming unjust trade and agricultural policies. Through community education, grassroots organizing, research and analysis, and media outreach they support healthy local food economies in which optimal labor rights are achieved.
5. Fairfood International
Fairfood international works to create a food system in which value is distributed along the supply chain proportionally and food is produced with the wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet in mind. By advancing supply chain transparency they help the agri-food sector identify improvements in sustainability and solutions for the payment of a living wage in supply chains.
6. Fair World Project (FWP)
FWP is a global organization devoted to promoting fair trade for small producers and labor justice for workers. They emphasize that unfair trade policies and corporate-friendly business practices continue to harm people and the planet. Their solution is to educate and advocate for a just global economy that respects the environment and they have active campaigns supporting coffee, melon, and cocoa farmers and farmworkers.
7. Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)
FLOC is a labor union affiliated with the AFL-CIO that aims to give farmworkers a voice in the decisions that affect their economic security and wellbeing. Baldemar Velasquez founded the organization in 1967 and built it into a more than 20,000-member strong organization that mobilizes, educates, and trains farmworkers to advocate for their labor rights.
8. Farmworker Justice
Farmworker Justice seeks to empower migrant and seasonal farmworkers to achieve fair wages, occupational safety, immigration status, and improved overall living and working conditions. They frequently engage with government officials and administrative agencies to advocate for improvements in U.S. labor laws, guest worker programs, and clearer paths to U.S. citizenship for the approximately 1.25 million seasonal workers on U.S. farms and ranches that lack authorized immigration status.
9. Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA)
The Food Chain Workers Alliance is a Los Angeles, California based coalition of worker rights organizations. They advocate for improved wages and working conditions for the people who plant, harvest, process, pack, transport, prepare, serve, and sell food. The FCWA also leverages the Good Food Purchasing Program as a tool to win fair wages and improve working conditions within institutional supply chains.
10. International Labor Organization (ILO)
The ILO is a United Nations agency devoted to promoting social justice and ensuring that internationally recognized human and labor rights are upheld. Their Decent Work Agenda focuses on working with stakeholders in their 187 member states to set labor standards and develop policies and programs that support decent work, fair globalization, and poverty reduction.
11. La Via Campesina
La Via Campesina is an international coalition of organizations that defend food sovereignty as a way to promote social justice and worker dignity. They built a movement that amplifies the voices of smallholder peasant farmers and aims to decentralize the power of corporate driven agriculture, which they argue is destructive to the environment and social relations.
12. Migrant Justice
The mission of Migrant Justice is to strengthen the capacity and power of the farmworker community to collectively organize for economic justice and human rights. By investing in leadership development, Migrant Justice enhances farmworker community members' skills in community organizing and capacity to produce systemic change. Among their accomplishments is the Milk with Dignity agreement with Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, an industry contract to implement a worker-driven social responsibility program.
13. Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA)
As an organization led by fisherfolk, NAMA was founded to promote healthy and economically secure fisheries and fishing communities. Their organizing efforts extend beyond human rights to include sustainability efforts that ensure the long-term resilience of marine food systems and the promotion of equitable access to fair markets for small and medium-scale community-based fisherfolk.
14. Oxfam International
Oxfam international operates in more than 90 countries and is centrally focused on ending the injustice of global poverty. They place a large emphasis on food and farming in their work because they note that three-fourths of the world's hungry people live in rural areas, many of whom are farmers, fishers, herders, and laborers. Through Oxfam's Behind the Brands Campaign, consumers can track major food brand's progress in supporting farmworkers and the planet.
15. Solidarity Center
The Washington, D.C. based Solidarity Center is an international organization partnering with over 400 labor unions and human rights organizations in 60 countries to support workers' rights. Seafood, agriculture, and food processing are among the many industries that they aim to effect change in by providing technical and legal expertise, bolstering union's advocacy efforts, connecting workers to protective networks, and more.
16. Teamsters
Teamsters is one of North America's most diverse labor unions, representing workers in a wide range of industries from sanitation workers in New York to vegetable growers in California. The organization supports workers in advocating for contracts that ensure fair wages, health coverage, job security, paid time-off and retirement income. Once these contracts are negotiated, Teamsters works to hold companies accountable by invoking contract grievance procedures if necessary.
17. United Farmworkers of America (UFW)
National Farmworker Awareness week ends on a day commemorating the founder of UFW, Cesar Chavez, because the organization is the nation's first union explicitly for farmworkers. Their work to protect labor rights in the agricultural sector continues today as they have facilitated dozens of UFW union contract victories that secured farmworkers' rights including fair wages, overtime pay, protections from occupational health hazards, and more.
18. Walk Free
Walk free tackles one of the world's most complex and prevalent human rights issues—modern slavery. They devote resources and collaborative organizing efforts to drive behavior and legislative changes that liberate people trapped in slavery. They also conduct research to build a comprehensive database of the estimated 44 million people living in modern slavery and have campaigned to protect children working in the chocolate industry as well as farmworkers in the palm oil industry.
Farmworkers truly are the backbone of our food system and these 18 organizations work to ensure that their rights are being adequately met or exceeded. By continuing to work during the COVID-19 pandemic, farmworkers are risking their health to prevent disruptions in the food supply. National Farmworker Awareness Week provides a time to reflect on the contributions farmworkers make to society and raise awareness about the issues they continue to grapple with, especially in the face of global pandemic.
Student Action with Farmworkers has a number of resources and to help individuals and organizations engage in the 21st Annual National Farmworker Awareness week from March 25-31, 2020.
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