Tuesday, April 28 at 6:00pm
Webinar will be co-facilitated by:
Saladin Muhammad, Co-Director, Southern Workers Assembly, founding member of Black Workers for Justice, and retired International Representative with UE
Danielle Brown is the Black Voters Matter NC State Coordinator; A. Philip Randolph Institute Organizer; and Founder of IMPAXT, Inc. She has worked with various labor unions, community and grassroots organizations on various campaigns to ensure that the mission and needs of the people are met.
Webinar Speakers:
Carl Rosen, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), National President, will be speaking about the call to the Labor Movement To Organize Worker Fightback in the Face of the COVID-19 Crisis
Libby Devlin, National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United, National Bargaining Director will speak about the work of front-line nurses to defend their lives, fight for PPE and defend lives of their patients. Tampa, FL
NNU rank-n-file Registered Nurse, Palmetto General Hospital, Lauderdale, FL who have lead a series of actions demanding safety equipment.
Gregg Roddy, President ATU Local 725 in Birmingham, AL that lead a work stoppage of bus drivers fighting for safety.
Ajamu Dillahunt, American Postal Workers Union, Retired Local president, and Director of Education for NC APWU Council, currently working with rank and filers and local activist and leaders to engage members in the fight for workplace safety and saving the postal service from privatizers.
Dominic Harris, President, Charlotte City Workers Union chapter of UE Local 150, Water Department, has supported essential city workers in his city and across the state to develop fight back plans demanding PPE, workplace safety, and hazard pay.
Meg Maloney, restaurant worker, member of the New Orleans Workers Group and founding member of the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Alliance, who has helped organize demonstrations demanding protection for workers in the face of the COVID-19 crisis.
Farm Labor Organizing Committee representative, supporting rural migrant farm workers fighting for safe living and working conditions.
Brian Thompson works at the Ingalls shipyard owned by Northrup Grumman in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Workers across the US South are on the move demanding workplace safety amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic. Southern workers also need a strategy and self-organization to secure any gains they make through collective action. As we reach nearly 17 million people becoming recently unemployed, our for-profit health care system tied to a job is increasingly being exposed. Health care should be a human right for all.
Studies show that the Black working class, because of the capitalist system’s historical oppression and neglect, has suffered the highest number of deaths from COVID-19. 57 percent of the US Black population live in the South, a region where racial, economic, social and political inequality has been the highest for Black America.
How do we use this moment to advance the organization of workers at the workplace and to build solidarity formations such as local workers assemblies, especially in the Southern region with lowest union density? How can this crisis help us get closer to a universal, single-payer health care system?
We seek to launch a South-wide campaign that unites workers on the following PRINCIPLES:
1) Right to a safe workplace – everyone has the right to a safe workplace and a right to refuse unsafe work.
2) Building workplace organization and uniting with your co-workers in collective action is best way to combat unsafe conditions, and
3) Healthcare is a human right – health care should not be tied to the employer, it should be provided to everyone, even those recent unemployed through a universal single-payer system like “Medicare for All”, and all testing and treatment related to COVID-19 should be covered by single-payer public health insurance like Medicare. While also recognizing that we need to immediately fight our employers to provide affordable health insurance coverage until the day this is won.
Some of these questions (and more) will be discussed on this webinar, organized by the Southern Workers Assembly on Tuesday, April 28 at 6:00pm. Join us!
Participating organizations including:
North Carolina Public Service Workers Union, UE Local 150
Black Workers For Justice
National Nurses United
Raise Up/Fight for $15
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
New Orleans Hospitality Workers Alliance
Durham Workers Assembly
Raleigh Workers Assembly
Target Workers Unite
Southern Movement Assembly
Scalawag Magazine
and others.