100 signatures reached
To: New York City Council
Pass the NYC Essential Workers Bill of Rights
Every night, New Yorkers are cheering wildly to thank the people who are stocking shelves in our grocery stores, delivering food and supplies, driving people to work and appointments, and caring for sick New Yorkers in our hospitals and nursing homes.
The NYC City Council has the chance to make sure these workers are recognized with more than applause. An NYC Essential Workers Bill of Rights would ensure they have the pay, sick leave, dignity, and workplace protections they so deeply deserve.
NYC's Essential Workers Bill of Rights will ensure that these frontline workers are able to take paid sick leave, are protected against unfair firings, especially when they speak out about safety conditions, and are compensated for the risk and sacrifice they are undertaking for our collective benefit. The NYC City Council should move quickly to pass the Essential Workers Bill of Rights.
Why is this important?
This pandemic has exposed the fragility of our deeply unequal economy and vividly demonstrated the need to afford basic protections to essential workers. Workers who are deemed essential for our collective survival are the same workers who we have failed as a society to recognize and value. We can and we must change course.
Workers who our society has long treated as disposable, many of them women and/or immigrants, Black and brown workers, all of them low-paid, have always been essential but only now are being recognized as such. Recognition is not enough, we demand long-lasting protections to make their work safer and more sustainable.
The Essential Workers Bill of Rights package of legislation includes:
-extending sick leave to cover app-based and other misclassified workers
-just cause protections against unfair firings
-pay premiums for hourly workers at large companies
-support for the effort at the state level to fix the rampant misclassification that allows employers to dispossess their workers of critical rights and protections
Frontline workers who are risking their health and that of their families should be able to take paid sick leave, be protected against unfair firings, especially when they speak out about safety conditions, and be compensated for the risk and sacrifice they are undertaking for our collective benefit.