Many of the workers keeping us alive right now are migrants: agricultural, domestic, warehouse, delivery, gig workers, and more. These vulnerable folks have long been excluded from full healthcare and social supports.

We must protect and value these workers who are now – finally – understood as essential.  That means full and equal access to all income support, healthcare, and labour protections.

For the lowest-paid workers, the current emergency is likely only the beginning of prolonged hardship.

Government income supports are necessary: it’s wrong that they apply to some workers and not others. We need to raise the floor for everyone, permanently.

That means making emergency payments universal, canceling rent and debt, and permanently raising the minimum wage and all forms of social assistance.

The people risking their lives on the frontlines of the pandemic – nurses, food workers, cleaners, and others – are not getting the support they need.

Many are risking their livelihoods to go on strike to demand PPEs, safe workplaces, paid sick leave, and danger pay.

If we call them “heroes” (and they certainly are) they must have these rights and more.

Governments have turned on the taps to keep economies afloat in this crisis.

The price is high – in part – because safety nets were shredded by 50 years of cuts. That must change now.

Sick leave for all. Employment Insurance must be easier to get, last longer, pay more, and cover everyone. Mend the net before the next crisis hits.

Workers create our wealth. As we spend to rebuild, all workers must benefit.

Employees deserve a say in the decisions that shape their working lives: worker-owned cooperatives bring democracy to the workplace and can save thousands of small businesses that will otherwise go under.

And at every stage, it must be easier to form, grow, and strengthen labour unions.

To avoid a depression, we must begin a just transition to the next economy immediately, and extractive workers can lead the way.

With a massive polluter-pays jobs program, we can spark a reclamation boom – cleaning up a century of fossilized infrastructure.

And a huge federal program to re-train all kinds of workers can spread these good jobs across the land.

Every day, care workers save lives and brighten days. And before they were on the frontlines of the pandemic, they were first responders in the climate crisis.

Theirs is the vital, low-carbon work that knits society together: we need to recover with a vast expansion of care work. 

And those workers need pay and protection matching their status –  it’s essential.

To build an economy around safety and stability, we need to transform all our systems: energy, food, transit, housing, and much more. 

There’s a staggering amount of meaningful work to be done — all of it a matter of survival. The federal government can and must offer a good green job to every single person who needs one

The goal of the Green New Deal is an economy that protects and works for all of us, and our shared home, the earth. The best safeguard against a return to reckless pursuit of maximum profit is to put the economy under democratic control.

Public, cooperative, and worker ownership must be a guiding principle as we roll out new infrastructure, industries, and jobs.