Dear friends,
I keep catching myself holding my breath. We have waited so long for this presidency to end and we know that no move is too outrageous. Last night, I wondered if the president-reject was so bitter that he would forego his final chance to grant pardons. My reasoning was that he recognized that because he’s under financial scrutiny, he can’t take his cut, so he wouldn’t bother. But people with actual access to White House staff told a different story:
In his final hours as president, Trump has homed in on maximizing one of the few unilateral powers still at his disposal: clemency. He has spent hours in recent days deciding whom to pardon and for what crimes….
Lawyers argued to Trump that he could not pardon people without naming potential crimes, and that preemptively pardoning people would be a bad idea, a senior administration official said.
Trump has been asking aides, friends and other associates whether they’d like a pardon. When one such person declined Trump’s offer for a pardon — explaining that they faced no charges, committed no crimes and therefore had no need for clemency — “Trump’s response was, ‘Yeah, well, but you never know. They’re going to come after us all. Maybe it’s not a bad idea. Just let me know,’ ” according to another senior administration official briefed on the conversation.
So, this morning’s news of pardons predictably had little to do with justice or mercy.
Meanwhile, here in NYC, a story about economic justice is playing out. The workers at Hunts Point Market have been on strike for a few days, demanding a $1/hour raise. The NYPD have stepped in as strikebreakers. We understand that food is essential and that the people who truck it from the Bronx to locations around the city are doing necessary work, but apparently, their demand for another dollar is too much.
1,400 workers walked off the job at the Hunts Point Produce Market—part of the world's largest food terminal—on January 17th, the result of a wage dispute. Videos from Monday night show dozens of police officers, some wearing riot gear, converging on a picket line where some striking workers were standing in the path of a truck driver outside the massive complex.
"I think they're using the pandemic to try and get out of the contract," Machadio [a Teamsters trustee] said. "Their businesses have been shut down not one day, nothing has happened. And they're telling me about the uncertainty of their business. We all live in an uncertain world. I mean [...] I could be dead next week…. Give them a decent raise, pay their healthcare, and we settle this. End the story."
I haven’t seen any petitions to sign or strike funds to support (the Teamsters are pretty formidable). Hundreds of Teamsters have been infected with Covid-19 and six have died, according to Teamsters Local 202 VP Leonardo Servedio.
The union is not trying the hold the city’s fruits and veggies hostage. They are trying to earn a decent living. The Teamsters at Hunts Point Produce market earn between $18 and $21 per hour, which does not constitute a living wage in NYC for a family with two children, even if both parents are working; the modest increase workers are demanding would make a meaningful difference. Fight for $15, a campaign for an increased minimum wage for the majority of workers who are not unionized, needs our support.
Watch Fran Marion’s speech and sign this petition to support the Fight for $15!
Only a small number of states offer any overtime to the agricultural workers who grow our food. Farmworkers were excluded from the protections of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which reflected the demands of Southerners who exploited the work of Black sharecroppers, and a correction is long overdue.
Please call on your Congressional representative and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to support the Fairness for Farm Workers Act.
Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, a national organization of farmworkers led by women, is working to educate and inform farmworkers about their eligibility to receive the Covid vaccine and about how the vaccines work. They are also countering the soon-to-be-former Administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and mistrust of vaccine safety.
Support Alianza Nacional de Campesinas.
There is so much more to do, but we need to pause, breathe, and welcome new national leadership.
with love,
L