Natural disasters create major challenges for workers on at least two fronts: people who can’t get to work or whose jobs disappear and need support, and the workers who help make recovery happen are too often underpaid and exploited. Saket Soni and Andrea Cristina Mercado, the executive directors of Resilience Force and New Florida Majority, respectively, write in the Orlando Sentinel that, after Hurricane Irma:
The human cost was also profound, as people struggled to rebuild their lives. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable often did so with little help from the government. Only 53 percent of eligible workers received disaster unemployment assistance, a cash benefit for those who lose their jobs because of a disaster. Tens of thousands stood in lines for hours at four South Florida sites in the heat to receive disaster food stamps, assistance to buy groceries and other food items, only to be turned away.
What should voters look to the next governor of Florida to do?
Some may criticize the notion of an expanded social safety net, saying that jobs, not welfare, are the solution. They could support our next governor in capitalizing on the momentum of the current movement for New Deal-style publicly funded jobs, as exemplified by Cory Booker’s Federal Job Guarantee Development Act. The next governor should also use existing work-force development or AmeriCorps funds to engage the unemployed and underemployed in high-need areas to mitigate climate change and repair, rebuild and prepare for the inevitable next disaster.
And speaking of the next governor of Florida …
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● United Airlines catering workers in five cities voted to unionize. More here.
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● One way to defend transgender people from Trump's attacks? Labor unions:
Union contracts, which are enforceable in all 50 states, can contain clauses that specifically address gender-identity parity. “You can get any kind of non-discrimination language put into a contract that’s then enforceable through the provisions of that contract,” Jerame Davis, executive director of Pride at Work, told In These Times. “Basic non-discrimination that includes protections for gender identity and expression go a long way toward mitigating these issues.”
● University of California workers staged a three-day strike this week.
● To win the Midwest, labor-backed coalition pursues minorities who haven’t voted before in midterms:
Its political program is active in battlegrounds across the country, but the SEIU has put extra emphasis on the Midwestern states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania where Trump won unexpectedly in 2016 and Republican governors took a sledgehammer to union power over the course of the past eight years by signing right-to-work laws or otherwise making it harder to organize and collect dues.
A key part of the strategy has involved coupling its years-long crusade to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour with more traditional electioneering efforts. Internal research found that the infrequent voters they’re trying to reach can be motivated more easily by issues that matter to them than individual candidates, who they tend to view more cynically.
