Sign DSA's petition for a working class solution to the COVID-19 crisis

Join us in demanding:

• Development of a COVID-19 Vaccine: We call on the CDC for the development of a vaccine, with international cooperation and free distribution, and that there is no profiteering by pharamaceutical companies through these efforts. County and city officials must also work to ensure that testing is widely available and free of cost.
• Guaranteed Protections for All Workers: At least 30 paid days of sick leave and family and medical leave for all workers, not just a fraction as the bipartisan bill that just passed Congress allows for. There should be no exclusions based on employer size, employee status, or length of employment. No one should go to work when they're sick or when a loved on is. Protective equipment and safety measures for healthcare and emergency workers. Emergency unemployment benefits and wage coverage for all workers, including tipped workers, gig workers, domestic workers, undocumented workers, and independent contractors. We support currently proposed legislation to establish an emergency Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Protections for People/Workers Without Wages: Not every person living in the US is able to work, whether due to disability, age, discriminatory practices, or because their labor is unpaid, as with parents who care for children at home, or criminalized, as is the case with sex workers. Many also deal with wage stagnation or make a living outside wage labor. Every person residing in the US, regardless of status, should receive $3,000 a month from the government to bolster the social safety net and help enforce a better standard of living during this crisis.
• Medicare for All: We need healthcare free at the point of service, with no copays, deductibles, or premiums. Our country requires comprehensive and universal coverage, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Congress must take action to pass an emergency Medicare for All bill that accomplishes this. We also demand a repeal to the Hyde Amendment and protection for abortion as basic healthcare and not an elective procedure.
• Right to Safe Housing: This means a moratorium on evictions, taxes, and foreclosures. We are calling for a rent freeze, an end to houseless camps sweeps, and immediate provision of emergency housing for all who are unhoused.
• Keep Communities Safe: Police, jails, and ICE/CBP hurt our communities every day, but they are especially dangerous during a viral pandemic. Many of these institutions will become hot beds for the virus and provide obstacles to ensuring those inside benefit from community care. We demand a moratorium on detention and deportations, a release of incarcerated people, closure of detention camps, and the abolition of cash bail. Services supporting those experiencing sexual and domestic violence, intensified during times of confinement, must be prioritized. Local, state, and federal funds and personnel should be redirected to providing emergency services.
• Bail Out People and the Planet: Put people back to work in the aftermath of the pandemic with a Green New Deal. Nationalize fossil fuel companies; phase out fossil fuel use within 10 years; and ensure a just transition for affected workers with a job, home, pension, and 5 year salary guarantee. This would also suspend utility shut offs and bills for 12 months; expand power marketing administrations to create unionized jobs building publicly owned renewable energy.
• Debt Forgiveness: If the Fed can pump $1.5 trillion into Wall Street, we can forgive student loan debts, and suspend payments for mortgages and other household debts for those who lose their jobs.
• Lifting of All US sanctions Against Sovereign Countries. Sanctions have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, depriving regular people of much-needed medical supplies and building materials. The COVID-19 pandemic only intensifies these shortages, particularly in hard-hit countries like Iran.
• Right to Information: We deserve to know what’s going on in our country in order to have full transparency and accountability of those in power. To do this, we must ensure that everyone has free internet/Wifi and a means with which to access.
• Safe and Fair elections: States who have not yet had primaries should reallocate resources to ensure that voters can vote by mail and thus do not have to risk spreading the virus by crowding into voter booths. Election workers should also be equipped with personal protection while they ensure we can continue the primaries as safely as possible.

As we make these demands, we must also prioritize organizing around:

• Community Cooperation: Now more than ever, mutual aid is key to ensuring members of our community stay resilient as we endure this crisis together. We must form or find local efforts to be sure our neighbors are taken care of.

We know the work that must happen to deal with COVID-19 must be collective work and that our impact and chance at survival is contingent on working with as many people as possible. This crisis represents a moral obligation to mitigate this crisis as best as possible and empower those around us to take action now.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed truths about how our capitalist society runs. It has laid bare the injustice, the inequality, and the indifference to human suffering that are endemic to capitalism. In response, voices around the country, including some in Congress, are arguing for national paid sick leave, expansion of Medicaid, a moratorium on evictions, the forgiveness of student debt, and free healthcare.

We need all of these things--but we’ve needed them for a long time. It should not take a disaster that threatens the well-being of people across the world for our leaders to muster up the political will to provide workers with basic human rights.

If there were ever a time for bold leadership not bound by the old ways of doing things, this is it. So, right now, we have a choice. We can let Trump and the Democratic Party establishment have their way, pushing private corporations as the “saviors,” letting them turn a crisis into a profit-making opportunity while millions die. Or, we can come together in solidarity — to push back against the rich and powerful who use racism and xenophobia to divide us — and demand that the crisis be dealt with in the only humane way — with universal programs that guarantee basic needs as human rights, and pave the way to a more just society. We know these ideas may be revolutionary to the status quo. They are radical because they get to the root of the problem. They produce results for the working class.

Now is the time for solidarity and political demands because this crisis is political.