As the number of U.S. coronavirus cases climbs, people are justifiably frightened by the Trump administration’s lack of preparation. It’s hard to feel safe when, at a rally last Friday, the president called the virus the Democrats’ “new hoax” and compared it to immigrants crossing the southern border.
There is, however, a glimmer of hope in the actions of nurses, hospital staff, baggage handlers, and other working people.
Nationwide, flight attendants are calling on commercial airlines to help stop the spread of COVID-19, the infectious disease caused by coronavirus. They’re demanding hand sanitizer stations, equipment, ticketing change waivers for sick passengers, and more.
In Oregon, health care workers are raising concerns about the health care industry’s ability to cope with a widespread contagion. Members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49 and the Oregon Nurse’s Association are requesting training and more equipment.
In New York, airport workers are buying their own respiratory masks as they wait for airlines to do their part.
“You have cabin cleaners who come into contact with blood, vomit, mucus, feces, all types of bodily fluids, and they have no more training today than they did before the outbreak,” Kevin Brown, the New Jersey state director of 32BJ SEIU, told USA Today. “We’ve requested this and we’ve gotten nowhere.”
Security workers at Australia’s biggest airports have even threatened to strike unless members are given equipment to guard against catching the virus.
This isn’t the first time working people have used their collective power to slow the spread of an infectious disease.
Back in 2014, as an Ebola outbreak spread beyond West Africa, medical interns, residents, and fellows were concerned about inadequate plans for caring for patients at their facilities. Through joint labor-management committees at hospitals across the country, the SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents convinced administrators to collaborate on plans to keep both staff and patients safe.
When New York’s Bellevue Medical Center admitted its first Ebola patient, the plan was put into action and no one in the facility became infected. However, at the nonunion, privately owned Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, which didn’t have the plan, several staff became sick after treating a patient with Ebola.
The 8-hour workday. Social Security. Smaller class sizes in public schools. This isn’t the first time working people fought together on behalf of everyone.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy