Dear friends,
The Emergency Medical Service (EMS) workers who have been at the front lines of the pandemic are finally getting a raise. As with so many essential workers who provide care, there have been grave shortages of workers: half of the workforce quits after three years, and by year five, the retention rate is just 30 percent.
The new contract demands more hours of work — an increase of more than 6 percent. The wage gains are significant, however, and include more than 7 percent in retroactive pay increases plus a 4 percent raise in September when the new hours are added to the schedule.
Under the tentative agreement, a top paid paramedic will earn a base salary of $65,000, which increases to $86,379 after the fifth year of employment and up to $91,779 after 20 years.
Before the agreement, FDNY EMS workers were paid about 40% less than firefighters and police officers. EMS 2507 Local officials said the new agreement will put EMS workers on a similar wage model to the city’s police officers and firefighters.
As the president of EMS Local 2507 said, “This contract is but a start.”
Here’s some good news on the climate front: we can stop the new fracked gas power plant in Astoria, Queens. The Sane Energy Project has mobilized a campaign to stop the power plant. We need to fill the in-boxes of those with decision-making power to convince them to withhold the permits.
Tell the Governor and the Department of Environmental Conservation to stop the proposed new fracked gas power plant in Astoria, Queens. Here’s a ready-made comment!
For those carrying debt, it has been a lifeline; the average payment is $393/month.
Around 42 million federal borrowers have made no payments on their student loans for the past 17 months. This has allowed some borrowers to pay their loans off in full: about 2.5 million, according to loan servicer data. It has also given time for borrowers to figure out the loan forgiveness and modified repayment programs they were eligible to access.
By keeping billions of dollars circulating in the economy, the moratorium on student loan payments has been an important economic stimulus,
close to the same value as the one-time checks sent to 171 million in the American Rescue Plan.
There is some dispute about whether the executive branch has the authority to cancel student debt, and while Nancy Pelosi has rejected the idea, the Departments of Education and Justice are looking into it.
They need only review the order extending the payment pause. There is no difference whatsoever between the two. The Debt Collective, an activist coalition, has gone so far as to write the executive order, which identifies precisely the “compromise and settlement” authorities in the U.S. Code available to the executive branch to extinguish these debt obligations.
Take this ready-made action to call on your senators and your representative to support the cancellation of student debt.
Support The Debt Collective, a debtors’ union fighting to “build a world where college is publicly funded, healthcare is universal, and housing is guaranteed for all.”
There’s new legislation under consideration in city council to mandate reduced class sizes in NYC public schools. This issue has taken on a public health dimension during the pandemic; calls for lowering class size have been around for as long as I can recall.
Given research that shows smaller class sizes improve discipline, boost motivation and improve test scores and grades, parents, teachers and education advocates have called for smaller class sizes for decades. But while much of the conversation around the measures tends to center on the educational benefits, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how having fewer people in a classroom at a time is also a matter of public health.
[T]he public health benefit is particularly important at this time given what the city has learned over the course of the past year and half about the importance of adequate ventilation and social distancing in classrooms. With a full return to school this fall looming and the number of cases beginning to creep up again in the city, the topic of lower class sizes is particularly relevant.
“The more people you put into a room, the greater the ventilation challenges are,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, who supports the legislation. “It’s that simple. . . .I don’t believe that this will be the last health crisis that we have. I don’t think anybody believes that at this point.”
Implementing class size legislation requires a massive commitment of funding to hire more teachers and to secure classroom space. It would be an important investment in educational equity, since “the largest effects [of smaller classes] seem to be for poor students.”
Contact your council representative to voice support for Int 2374-2021 to reduce class size.
Last week, freshman Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia introduced legislation to define a Federal guarantee of the voting rights of all US citizens. The Right to Vote Act was also introduced in the House by NY Representative Mondaire Jones. Fair Fight Action and the ACLU are among the voting rights and civil rights organizations that have backed the legislation.
Come out at 1 PM today at Battery Park to support the passage of the For the People Act and the Right to Vote.
Contribute to When We All Vote!
A federal judge has ruled that the lawyers behind a frivolous lawsuit contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election must pay the legal fees of the 18 people and businesses named in the suit. In a 68-page opinion, the judge referred to the lawsuit as an “enormous conspiracy theory” and
ruled that the attorneys had violated their ethical obligations by lodging it in the first place and by peppering their motions with wild allegations that they had made little effort to substantiate. Legal rules prohibit attorneys from clogging the court systems with frivolous motions or from filing information that is not true.
Don’t hold your breath to see if the former president will pay the legal fees on behalf of the lawyers. Although various PACs have pulled in more than $80 million for Trump since he left office, he continues the pattern of self-dealing. He has spent a small fraction of this money on “legal fees paid to various firms and attorneys to advance his attempts to change the results of the 2020 election and defend himself in a second impeachment trial.”
Finally, some good election news: Kristin Richardson Jordan is the Democratic nominee for the District 9 city council seat in Harlem. Jordan is a poet, artist, and abolitionist with deep roots in the community and is among the most progressive voices likely to join the council. Another queer, Black socialist will be on the job.
Have a great day!
with love,
L