John,

Every day, I’m reaching out to Congressional offices to ensure that the next COVID-19 relief legislation actually helps working families, not just large corporations. And I need you to do the same.

Even if you’ve already sent messages to your representatives, it’s incredibly important that they hear from you again right now. Tell Congress: Working families need immediate help, including paid leave. [[link removed]]

The legislation drafted by Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans this weekend is a disaster. Their bill fails to close the gaps in paid leave that previous legislation left open. It doesn’t provide enough funding to help health care nor child care workers through this crisis — offering only $3 billion instead of the $50 billion we know that the child care sector, the backbone of our economy, needs. It doesn’t do enough to ensure that the people who need it the most will get cash payments. And it doesn’t provide local and state governments with enough funding to respond, nor assure that testing and vaccines for COVID-19 will be fully covered financially.

Instead it creates a slush fund — $500 billion! — for corporate handouts without requiring corporations to use that money to avoid mass layoffs or provide decent wages or baseline benefits like paid sick days for working people. And to add insult to injury, it denies critical loans to a huge swath of nonprofit health care entities because anti-abortion members of Congress are trying to use the pandemic to shut down health care clinics that provide reproductive health care.

We have to push for better. Join me in telling Congress to pass a COVID-19 relief bill that helps working families and responds to this public health and economic crisis. [[link removed]]

Thank you!
Melissa

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: National Women’s Law Center
Date: March 19, 2020 2:59 PM
Subject: Tell Congress: Paid Sick Days and Paid Leave for ALL
[link removed] [[link removed]]

Dear John,

Congress has finally passed legislation to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic — but far too many working people were left out of the final bill that was signed by President Trump.

Right now, women are the majority of those working on the front lines of this crisis — in hospitals, at grocery stores and big retail chains, and as child care providers around the country — yet under this new legislation, most of them have no guarantee of paid sick days or longer term paid leave to care for family members or recover from illness themselves. For these working women, there is no social distancing. There’s no day off. There’s no calling in sick without losing a paycheck. Unless we act. [[link removed]]

Tell Congress: We Need Paid Leave for All [[link removed]]

Working people need Congress to ensure paid leave for all workers, as well as substantial cash relief that reaches families, unemployment protections, and funding for child care, for housing, and for states to respond to this crisis.

TAKE ACTION [[link removed]]

This is a historic moment — and a chance for Congress to finally prioritize the needs of working families, specifically women and people of color, who are the ones doing the jobs that we all are depending on, yet are paid the least and are most at risk in the current crisis.

Congress must ensure that employers aren’t given a pass on providing what working people need to weather this crisis—paid time off for when they’re sick or need to take care of their families. Email your representatives in Congress now and demand that the next COVID-19 relief package includes the newly introduced PAID Leave Act and provides emergency paid sick days and paid leave for ALL.
[[link removed]]

Join us in demanding that Congress pass a COVID-19 relief package that:
Incorporates the PAID Leave Act and provides paid sick days and paid leave for all working families.
Provide $50 billion in child care funding so that providers and educators continue to receive pay and cover their operational costs, ensure care is available for frontline workers, and families do not have to pay unaffordable sums for care.
Strengthens unemployment protections for the long haul.
Immediately provides a substantial amount of cash to struggling families to help them make ends meet and boost the economy.
Protects people experiencing homelessness, and ensures that people do not lose their housing.

Unless Congress acts now, this public health crisis will only exacerbate inequality along gender, racial, and economic lines, because women — and especially women of color — are particularly vulnerable to devastating health and economic effects from a crisis of this magnitude.

Tell Congress to protect ALL working families. [[link removed]]

We are thinking of you and your family during this extraordinarily hard time — and we’ll keep fighting for all families in this country, no matter what.

Sincerely,
Melissa Boteach
Vice President for Income Security and Child Care/Early Learning
National Women's Law Center

Click here to learn more about coronavirus and steps you can take to protect yourself and those around you. [[link removed]]
DONATE [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]]
Please forward this email to your friends and co-workers and encourage them to sign up to receive NWLC emails in their own inboxes. [[link removed]]
Privacy Policy [[link removed]] | unsubscribe: [link removed]
National Women's Law Center
11 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
United States