Workday Magazine (https://workdaymagazine.org/category/covid-19/page/7/)
The Minnesota House has already passed HF 2768, “but the Minnesota Senate has not scheduled a final vote, which appears to set up state workers as bait for end-of-session drama.” According to an emailed statement.
Legions of undocumented immigrants in the United States carry letters signed by their employers stating that President Donald Trump’s administration considers them essential workers amid the pandemic. While these letters exempt them from being arrested by local agents for violating stay-at-home orders, these workers could still be detained and deported by federal authorities.
An empowered workforce is a safe workforce, pure and simple. Governor Walz should give workers – not their bosses – the right to decide if they feel their workplace is safe. Nothing else will do more to keep Minnesotans alive in this crisis.
In a statewide address Wednesday night, Gov. Tim Walz said the current stay-at-home order will expire at midnight Monday.
The Minnesota Senate still has not yet scheduled a vote on the contracts, despite there being only a week remaining in the legislative session.
Workers and their supporters held a “socially distanced car vigil demonstration.”
The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), which represents 200,000 workers in the United States and Canada, told In These Times that nearly 1,000 of its members have been infected with coronavirus, and almost 40 have died.
New documents obtained by ProPublica show public health officials in Grand Island, Nebraska, wanted the JBS meatpacking plant closed. But Gov. Pete Ricketts said no. Since then, cases have skyrocketed.
‘To protect the flow of supplies to U.S. military contractors, the Pentagon is pressuring Mexico and India to keep factories open, at the peril of Mexican and Indian workers.’
The data collected shows that at least 16 of those corporations pay their workers less than the national median household income level. Five pay wages so low they fall below the poverty line for a family of four.