John, please see the below message from a nurse and CWA member working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Personal protective equipment shortages are putting health care workers and other essential workers at risk, and Trump must act now to protect them. Sign here:

Tell Trump: Use the Defense Production Act for PPE »

John,

My name is Lavita Payton, and I work as a nurse at a major hospital in New York City. Never in my 25 years of nursing have my co-workers and I seen anything like what we are seeing with this COVID-19 pandemic.

Ambulances are streaming in hour after hour with critically ill patients in respiratory distress. ICU beds are totally filled as we frantically try to create new units for COVID patients around the hospital grounds. Doctors, nurses, respiratory techs, and auxiliary personnel are working 14-16 hours a day and we’re terrified of getting sick and bringing the disease home to our families.

Right now, we don’t have enough of the personal protective equipment (PPE) we need. We are reusing single-use gear like N95 respirators for a week, and we don’t have enough surgical masks or surgical gowns to keep ourselves safe.

But there’s a solution: Donald Trump can use his presidential powers right now to ramp up production of PPE.

That’s why I’m asking Working Families Party supporters like you to join me in demanding action. Will you sign the petition calling on Trump to use the Defense Production Act to its fullest extent to get me and all of my fellow CWA members on the front lines the gloves, masks, and gowns we need?

Add your name »

It's not just health care workers who need PPE. Across this country, there are other public-facing “essential workers” like grocery store clerks, transit workers, utility workers, and direct care workers — to name just a few. They are required to go to work every day. They are getting sick and dying, too.

Trump says this is like a war and that he is a wartime president. Then lead like it’s a war! Stop the delays! Stop quarreling with governors. Get the American industry moving forward on producing the protective equipment that health care and other essential workers need NOW!

So if you care about health care workers, if you care about all “essential” workers, please sign our petition right now to pressure Trump to invoke the full force of the National Defense Production Act.

Please sign now. It’s literally a matter of life and death.

Sincerely,

Lavita Payton
RN and CWA Local 1104 member

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