On May 7, 2020, RNs and members of National Nurses United, one of the signatories on Labor Network for Sustainability’s April 7, 2020 letter to Trump and Pence, placed shoes outside the White House, each pair representing a nurse lost due to insufficient PPE during #COVID19. Photo credit: @NationalNurses.
As reported in The Hill, a letter to president Donald Trump from more than 100 unions, advocacy organizations, and environmental groups demanded that the administration immediately provide equipment to hospital workers, cleaning staff, restaurant workers, manufacturers, and others who cannot work from home.
The desperate need for personal protective equipment (PPE) goes far beyond healthcare workers. Janitors are deep cleaning buildings, teachers’ aides are delivering meals to children at home, warehouse and manufacturing workers are making and distributing essential goods, home care providers are caring for the most vulnerable, public service workers are maintaining essential services, bus operators are taking essential workers to their jobs.
The letter grew out of a series of teleconferences in which the leaders of seven unions described to the leaders of major environmental organizations the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on their workers. (Watch: LNS Building Support for Workers in the COVID Crisis).
The letter was signed by the Service Employees International Union and unions for flight attendants, transit workers, manufacturing, and telecom workers, as well as the Sierra Club and other environmental groups as well as civil rights groups such as the NAACP.
For more about labor-environmental cooperation in the struggle to protect workers against coronavirus, check out “Unions Fight to Protect ALL Essential Workers.”