Earth Day to May Day Chicago Coalition: Vision Statement
Earth Day to May Day Chicago Coalition: To Unite Labor, Community and Environmental Justice Organizations During a Public Health, Economic, and Environmental Justice Crisis
Join us for #earthday2mayday at bit.ly/earth-day-may-day
Thousands of community members were preparing to take to the streets as part of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a mass mobilization to bring together labor, immigration, and environmental justice communities in Chicago. The coronavirus has drastically changed the political landscape in which we operate, and we will not be able to gather in the streets for nine days of action from Earth Day to May Day. However, the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the urgent need for strong community, labor, and environmental justice partnerships. In the coming weeks, we demand immediate, direct economic relief for community members and workers who need it most, rather than bailouts to corporations and shareholders. We now have an unprecedented opportunity to transform our economic system to center workers and end our dependence on fossil fuels through a just transition for our communities.
COVID-19 is a crisis for all, with specific danger to vulnerable populations: workers, undocumented immigrants, Black, brown, Indigenous, frontline communities, people with disabilities, and incarcerated people. People living in environmental justice communities are more likely to be immunocompromised due to centuries of pollution and systemic racism. Just as corporations contaminate the planet, now they are spreading COVID-19 by having workers in “essential” industries laboring in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Workers face lost wages, layoffs, insecure housing and virus exposure without paid sick leave. Immigrants, especially undocumented people, are often essential frontline workers, but are left out of COVID-19 relief bills without access to public healthcare and financial assistance while ICE continues to target undocumented immigrants with shelter-in-place orders. Moreover, these workers are especially vulnerable to exploitation because of their lack of access to their rights and protections as workers. Incarcerated individuals are more likely to have chronic health problems while unable to practice social distancing without access to proper hygiene. Prisons and jails are quickly becoming disastrous incubators for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, airlines and the oil and gas industry rush to shield themselves, asking for billions in bailouts. The same political leadership claiming a Green New Deal is unrealistic and too expensive will now give trillions to corporate America via a bailout that lacks oversight and accountability to protect immigrants, workers and our communities. It’s clear that resistance to redistributive, collective, and people-centered policies was never about a lack of money but instead about power and political will.
In exposing the dangerous flaws of our existing system, the current crisis highlights the urgency of many of our organizations’ demands that we need a Green New Deal, guaranteed paid sick leave, Medicare For All, an end to deportations, detentions and incarceration, a jobs guarantee with unions for all and a just transition. Therefore, we refuse to simply return to “business as usual” after the COVID-19 Crisis. We demand a just and equitable world, we demand a people-centered recovery built with equitable and just policies to protect and support frontline communities, workers, immigrants and the vulnerable. We need to drastically reorder our society to address increasingly common public health and climate-related disasters that impact workers and environmental justice and immigrant communities around the world.
Together we call for immediate support for our communities and economic relief going directly to workers, regardless of immigration status or ability, not to corporations. In the long-term economic recovery from this crisis, we must stimulate a worker-centered economy dedicated to ending our dependence on fossil fuels with a just transition.
Join us for #earthday2mayday at bit.ly/earth-day-may-day
Organizations that signed on:
350 Chicago
About Face: Iraq Veterans Against the War-Chicago
ACCESS Living
ACES 4 Youth
Active Transportation Alliance
American Federation of Government Employees Local 704 (Chicago’s EPA Workers)
Arab American Action Network
Arab American Family Services
Athena
Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC)
Clean Power Lake County
Center for Neighborhood Technology
Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Chicago Democratic Socialists of America
Chicago Jobs Council
Chicago Jobs with Justice
Chicago Workers Collaborative
The Climate Reality Project — Chicago Chapter
Conceivable Future
Dissenters
Enlace
Extinction Rebellion Chicago
Fair World Project
Familia Latina Unida/Sin Fronteras
Farmworker Association of Florida
Faith in Place Action Fund
Food Chain Workers Alliance
Food & Water Action/Food & Water Watch
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
GoodKids MadCity
Grassroots Collaborative
Jobs to Move America Illinois
HEAL Food Alliance
HANA Center
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR)
Illinois Single-Payer Coalition
Illinois Youth Climate Strike
Illinois People’s Action
Greater Chicago Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
Labor Network for Sustainability
Latino Union
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO)
Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA)
Metro East Green Alliance
Mujeres Latinas En Accion
Oak Park Area Climate Action
ONE Northside
One Fair Wage
Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD)
PASO- West Suburban Action Project
People for Community Recovery
The People’s Lobby
Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project (PNAP)
Physicians for a National Health Program Illinois
Raise the Floor Alliance
Right to Family Campaign
Rising Tide Chicago
Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73
Social Justice Institute
South Suburban Immigrant Project (SSIP)
Sunrise Movement Chicago
Syrian Community Network
United Electrical Workers (UE)
Urban Growers Collective
U.S. Palestinian Community Network
Vietnam Veteran Against the War
Warehouse Workers for Justice
