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Dear
Friend:
As the election ramps up, we wanted to let you know about this
month's news from the North Carolina Green Party:
- Organize with us to get out the vote for the
Hawkins/Walker Green Party presidential campaign.
- Donate to our presidential campaign
fundraiser.
- Check out our most recent activism in solidarity with
BLM.
- Read our open letter calling on Gov. Cooper to put
farmworker safety before profits during Covid.
Photo: Norma Garcia-Lopez
NCGP to Governor Cooper: Farmworker Safety During the
Pandemic Is More Important Than Profits
Governor Cooper:
In April of 2020, a letter was sent
to you from the North Carolina Farmworker Advocacy Network (NCFAN),
which is a coalition of organizations working to improve the living
and working conditions of agricultural workers. In this letter, you
were asked to use the power of your office to issue an executive order
that would help to protect agricultural workers during the pandemic.
In particular, NCFAN requested that you instruct agribusinesses
to:
- Provide
migrant farmworkers with access to healthcare services and other
resources.
- Ensure
migrant agricultural workers are not put at risk in their
employer-provided housing.
- Ensure
agricultural workers are able to protect themselves from exposure
while working.
- Protect
workers from retaliation who get sick.
- Ensure
H-2A farmworkers are able to enroll in the Affordable Care Act (ACA),
ensure Spanish interpretation for health information, and provide
adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers
serving agricultural workers.
These are not onerous requirements.
As NCFAN has pointed out, you previously publicly committed to issuing
this order, as reported in the News
and Observer on
August 14, 2020. Comparable orders have been issued in
Michigan and Wisconsin. In fact, in 2016, long before the
pandemic, both
Attorney General Josh Stein and yourself told the NC Latino Congress that, once in
office, you would work toward “improving the state’s ability to
provide culturally and linguistically appropriate health and human
services to North Carolina’s growing Spanish-speaking
community.”
However, upon signs of resistance from the NC Department of
Labor and Department of Agriculture, you quickly rescinded the
commitment to the executive order. Both of the heads of these offices
are Republicans, and both are themselves committed to protecting
business (including large farmers and agribusiness) from any legal
responsibility to protect workers beyond the bare minimum dictated by
law. Since Republican legislators have spent the last decade reducing
that responsibility, your office had an opportunity to begin to
reverse the damage of laws created to benefit employers over
employees. It should have been an easy decision to inform
commissioners Berry and Troxler that their resistance to your order
was not in line with the needs of the farmworkers in North Carolina,
and that your administration, and the attorney general’s office, was
quite prepared to enforce this order. As has been pointed out by NC
Justice Center, in an article in the Greensboro
News and Record on September 10, 2020, many
businesses would have complied with your order regardless of the
positions of the commissioners.
The failure to issue the order is a
betrayal of North Carolina farmworkers, and it calls into question
your intent to govern on behalf of all inhabitants of the state.
Farmworkers, with or without visas or other documentation, are used by
agribusiness to make profits. COVID-19 disproportionately affects
people in black and Hispanic communities. For Berry and Troxler,
despite the high-sounding rhetoric, these people are disposable,
whereas the profits of agribusiness are indispensable. We must ask,
which position will you take Governor? Will it be people or profit?
Health or illness? Empathy or indifference? The people expect
better.
North Carolina Green Party
Coordinating Committee
North Carolina Green Party Supports and Participates in
the Black Lives Matter Movement
Several North
Carolina Green Party members,
including cochair Tony
Ndege, Charlotte Area
Greens cochair Jacob Samuels,
past candidates Keenen Altic,
Joshua Bradley, and
Robert Corriher, assistant
secretary Ade Mowry,
Troy Winfree of Triad Greens,
and others have been heavily involved in statewide protest movements
against state violence and systemic inequity.
These actions have
included:
Volunteer to Get Out the Vote for Howie Hawkins and Angela
Walker
Let's get out the vote for Green
Party candidates Howie Hawkins
and Angela Walker! We can
ensure automatic ballot access through 2024 for the NC Green Party by
winning at least 2% of the votes for president in 2020 in North
Carolina!
VOLUNTEER! There are many ways to help get out the
vote for Howie and Angela. We need volunteers:
- to serve
as coordinators across the state
- for door
hanger canvassing (no face-to-face required during this Covid-19
crisis)
- social-media content posters
- content
writers
- phonebanking and textbanking
- early-voting canvassing
- campaign
yard sign placement and pickup
Even volunteering an hour or two
will make a tremendous difference. Join us for our statewide campaign
meetings on Wednesday nights on Zoom to learn how you can help. Please
register in advance for these meetings and sign up to volunteer!
More and more voters are realizing that the two corporate
parties have failed us. The Hawkins/Walker
ticket represents real change in this country. While every candidate
says that, the Green Party’s platform proves our commitment to broad
sweeping system change to improve the lives of the working class,
especially oppressed groups, as well as our environment. Our votes
come from people who want something different and have no faith in
continuing the same failed strategies; they're people who are fed up
with our undemocratic electoral system and the corporate parties’
failure to protect and serve its citizens.
None of our most urgent problems
will be significantly addressed by either a President Biden or a
President Trump. Voters overwhelmingly support Green Party positions
like:
- Medicare
for All
- An end
to wars for profit / bring our troops home
- Slashing
of the military budget
- End to
the militarization of police
- End of
the War on Drugs - legalize cannabis and expunge records of
non-violent “offenders”
-
A Real
Green New Deal
- Equity
and protection of marginalized peoples
This tells us what we already know:
that we need to stand even stronger for what we want, and that's real
change!
It is critical that we take a stand
and not only vote for our future and the future of new generations but
also, most importantly—organize for a new mass party, not vote for our
fears and hope for the best. The tactic of Lesser Evilism has not
worked in over a century of attempts to reform either big-business
party, and it certainly won’t work for us in 2020 or for the future of
people or our planet.
REGISTER
GREEN TODAY!
Donate to Our NCGP Campaign Drive!
We're raising $7,500 to get out the
vote for the Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker presidential ticket in
North Carolina and to increase NC Green Party registration! Our goal:
win at least 2% of the vote for Hawkins/Walker in our state. Two
percent means the NCGP automatically retains its ballot line for 4
more years to run Green candidates. Otherwise we may lose ballot
access for several months or longer, and we will be required to
collect several thousand petition signatures.
DONATE NOW to help us organize for H20—and to build
the North Carolina Green Party. The two major parties have utterly
failed the people and the planet. Help us build our own political
power independent of the two capitalist parties!
Your donation will be used
for:
- Increasing voter registration and candidate interest for
2020–2024.
- Sending
out mailers to statewide registered Greens.
- More
signage and getting signs to volunteers in every town—rural as well as
larger cities!
- Door
hangers and other important materials for Get Out the Vote and
membership-building efforts.
- Training
volunteers and having limited volunteer stipends.
- Putting
materials on campuses and other areas with a large percentage of
likely voters.
- Other
critical volunteer materials including PPE, hats, and
badges.
- Phone
banking and text banking for getting out the vote and membership
drives.
Become a Member!
The North Carolina Green Party
refuses all corporate contributions, so dues-paying members play a
vital role ensuring our state and local organizations have the
resources needed to build an independent party for people and planet
free from the influence of the 1 percent.
Who can Become
a Member of the North
Carolina Green Party? North Carolina residents who are registered to
vote as “Green” are eligible to become members of the NCGP after they
have affirmed Green Party principles (see our 10
Key Values and
platform), set their own dues rate using a
budget-friendly sliding scale, and initiated payment of those dues.
You choose your own dues level on the honor system, based on what you
can pay. Note: Residents who are ineligible to vote due to state
disenfranchisement (including but not limited to reasons such as age,
criminal record, or noncitizen/undocumented status) may also become
members. Email the NCGP secretary at [email protected] if you
feel you are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement. All
NCGP members, with the exception of noncitizens, shall pay modest
annual dues.
Find out more: www.ncgreenparty.org/membership.
Find Us on Social Media
Like and follow our NCGP Facebook
Page.
Follow us on NCGP Twitter.
Join our statewide and regional NCGP Facebook groups to
connect with Greens:
North Carolina Green Party
Charlotte Area Green Party
Triangle Area Green Party
Triad Area Green Party
Eastern NC Green Party
Western NC Green Party
In solidarity with people and planet against
profits,
The North Carolina Green Party
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