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CT WFP Senior Organizer Luis Luna: Now is time for transformative action.
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8 pillars of the THRIVE agenda.
With the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in the rearview and a nationwide debate over a $2.5 trillion infrastructure bill about to start, labor activists have launched a campaign to pressure the federal government to keep spending big — this time with a focus on jobs and the climate crisis.
That new legislative push is centered around the THRIVE Act, short for Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy.
On Wednesday morning, nearly 100 people from across the city and state joined an organizing call led by the Connecticut Working Families Party and featuring U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Speakers at the hourlong event pumped the soon-to-be-proposed THRIVE legislation.
Zoom
Wednesday morning virtual WFP organizing call.
Luis Luna, a Westville resident and senior organizer with the state WFP, emceed the virtual gathering. He said it was one of over 100 “Recovery Recess” online meet-ups happening across the country this week as federal lawmakers return to their home districts to talk about legislative priorities during the ongoing pandemic.
The THRIVE bill, slated to be introduced by a host of progressive Congresspeople in April, would have the federal government invest at least $1 trillion per year between 2022 and 2031 with the goal of creating more than 15 million new jobs, cutting climate pollution in half, and “confronting systemic racism and gender, economic, and environmental justice.”
“We are in a moment where we can build true transformation to save our world from climate catastrophe while creating millions of jobs for all,” Luna said.
The bill plans to invest that money in everything from upgrading infrastructure for “clean water, affordable public transit, and a reliable electric grid” to expanding access to wind and solar power and electric vehicles to investing in “public institutions and care for children and the elderly.”
WFP Senior Political Strategist Lindsay Farrell (pictured) likened the bill to the massive investments in infrastructure and public welfare undertaken during the New Deal in the 1930s — updated for the environmental and workplace demands of the current moment, and without the racist exclusionary impact baked into those Great Depresseion-era federal actions.
“Jobs and care” is the rallying cry of this new THRIVE Act push, she said. “The THRIVE Agenda means a Green New Deal that includes everyone.”
DeLauro (pictured) chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee and successfully included a temporary expansion to the child tax credit and $50 billion in childcare support in the American Rescue Plan.
She said on Wednesday that the “interlocking crises of mass unemployment, the Covid pandemic, racial and economic justice, and climate change” present this country with a unique opportunity for the government to step in and help the lives of millions.
“All of the programs that I am fighting for are rooted in many of the same values of the THRIVE agenda,” she said, listing off bills she has championed that would stabilize schedules for low-income workers, establish paid family and medical leave for all working people, and expand affordable healthcare access to millions of people.
Now is the time for the federal government to act, and to act in big and bold ways, she said. “It is our moral responsibility to step in.”
The movement for federal legislation mirrors similar locally-backed “Recovery for All” pushes at the state legislative level to raise taxes on the rich and invest that money in direct aid to the poor and working classes.
“I Dream Of A Sense Of Security”
Several New Haveners offered their own workplace testimonials Wednesday in support of Congress taking up and passing the THRIVE Act.
One of those locals who spoke up was Antawn Turner (pictured above).
He said he grew up in the “Quinnipiac Projects” in New Haven and served time in prison because “I made bad mistakes as a teen.”
Now a free man, no longer on parole, and a father of four living in Meriden, Turner said it’s still hard to find steady work. “It feels just as hard now as when I was on parole.”
He said he lost his job as a package handler during the early months of the pandemic, and side-work doing landscaping has also largely dried up.
He, his fiancee, and their children struggled to pay rent, and then, when they tried to move, “there wasn’t enough housing options” they could afford.
“People will hold your record against you when you’re looking for a place” to live, he said. “It’s been a really rough period” as “worries about finances” have weighed heavily on the entire family.
While his fiancee did get her federal stimulus checks from the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan, he said, he has not received either “because of red tape” and uncertainty over “how to file basic paperwork.”
Regardless, he said, “I see how these checks are temporary band-aids. What we need are jobs that pay living wages.”
Turner said he hopes to one day become a professional drug and alcohol counselor, as well as a skilled and certified HVAC installer.
“I come from a background where all I seem to here is, ‘No no no.’ I dream of a sense of security, of having a regular job with benefits and a union.”
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full organizing call.
We need a modern New Deal program, and we need to address Climate Change, inequality and inequity, and opportunity and access. The THRIVE goals are a good start towards those goals.