‘
Stories From the Field
Inequity in the Time of Coronavirus: Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor writes in the New Yorker that, “the pace at which African-Americans are dying has transformed this public-health crisis into an object lesson in racial and class inequality.” COVID-19 relief measures and long-term transformations of our healthcare system need to center Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities, because as Race Forward notes,“structural racism has always been a pre-existing condition.” Follow Colorlines’ ongoing reporting about COVID from racial justice perspective and support the Movement for Black Lives’ Mutual Aid Fund.
Cancel Rent to Community Land Trusts: Last week, Representative Ilhan Omar introduced a bill to cancel rent and mortgage payments amid the COVID pandemic. The bill ties immediate relief to long-term transformation of the housing system, including a proposal to establish a fund to finance the purchase of private rental properties by community land trusts. The legislation was developed with grassroots organizations, including NEC member organizations People’s Action, Democracy Collaborative, and PolicyLink.
#ProtectAmazonWorkers: “Who put the corporations in charge? It’s our country… If we don’t regulate Amazon, we are effectively allowing it to regulate us.” NEC former board member and co-director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Stacy Mitchell made the front page of the NY Times Business section over the weekend. Learn how she’s been at the forefront of the fight against Amazon’s powerful grip on our economy and the work she’s doing with the new alliance, Athena.
Solidarity Economies Abroad
A Local Solidarity Economy in Brazil: Maricá, a city of 160,000 outside of Rio de Janeiro, has implemented an ambitious city-level response to COVID-19. The plan is anchored in a basic income and existing solidarity economy infrastructure — including free public transit and a local digital currency, backed by a community bank. Read more about the history of the solidarity economy in Maricá, and how it shows the “power of permanent policy structures to offer rapid emergency responses that favor mutual aid.”
Cooperators of the World, Unite! In the face of the COVID crisis, worker and social cooperatives around the world are carrying on doing what they have always done: “protecting their workers, responding to the needs of society, and acting at the local level.” Read more in this excellent roundup of cooperative responses to the COVID-19, and watch the recording of this webinar on international solidarity among co-ops from NEC member organization the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.
Neighborhood Doctors in Cuba: As the U.S. medical system proves ill-equipped to care for the health of our communities during this crisis, Cuba presents an alternative model for public health: teams of neighborhood doctors that go to their patients, door by door, to provide preventative care and education. Watch this short video about this system of organized community health care in Cuba.
#ShareMyCheck to Support the Solidarity Economy
Last week, we launched a #ShareMyCheck campaign to support frontline solidarity economy organizers during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. We’re thrilled that we’ve already raised $15,000 to redistribute! Help increase the impact for these groups working to build a new economy rooted in mutual aid and deep democracy, by sharing all or part of your stimulus check with the New Economy Movement Support Fund. 100% of donations will go directly to frontline groups.
Also be sure to check out NEC member organization, NYC Network of Worker Cooperative’s #ShareMyCheck campaign to support immigrant worker-owners in NYC, as well as the Seed Common’s worker-owners response fund!
Movement News
- A Socialist Cry for Civilisational Change: COVID-19 and the Failure of Neo-liberalism
- Are Worker-Owned Restaurants Better Equipped to Weather the COVID-19 Crisis?
- Cooperatives Cooperate to Protect Home Health Aides with Masks
- Coronavirus Economic Relief Cannot Neglect Black-owned Business
- Coronavirus Holds A Magnifying Glass To America’s Inequalities And The View Is Brutal
- Food Cooperatives are Essential For A Just Recovery
- How to Keep Homes Affordable—Permanently
- Immigrants Are Bearing the Brunt of the Coronavirus Crisis
- In the Face of COVID, Let’s Reorganize Society Around the Needs of the Poor
- Means TV: Inside the Leftist, Worker-Owned Streaming Service
- Owning the Future: After Covid-19, a new era of Community Wealth Building
- Public Banking Would Help Speed the Economic Recovery from COVID-19
- The Coronavirus Is Radicalizing Workers
- To Combat Widespread Job Loss, Stay Local and Look to Import Replacement
- Workers Should Shape the COVID-19 Recovery
Podcasts of the New Economy
This episode of Irresistible (formerly known as Healing Justice Podcast) features Yahya Alazrak of NEC member organization Resource Generation and Dara Marquez of Movimiento Cosecha talking about the #ShareMyCheck campaigns they’re running to redistribute stimulus money to mutual aid funds and grassroots movement organizations during this crisis, especially to undocumented workers who are on the frontlines of essential work right now but did not qualify for any stimulus support.
Additional listens:
Adrienne Maree Brown On Finding Joy During The Coronavirus Crisis
Upstream: Julia Salazar on Coronavirus, Feminist Economics & Democratic Socialism
Working People Podcast: “We Are Essential”
NEC on The Gram
Follow NEC on Instagram – @NewEconomyCoalition – Where we’re sharing about why we need a #PeoplesBailout that puts health first, provides direct relief to frontline workers, and makes a downpayment on a regenerative economy.
Jobs
New Listings!
Director of Development, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders – Boston, MA
Grants Manager, Highlander Center – New Market, TN
Green Business Network Renewal Caller, Green America – Washington D.C./Remote
Media Coordinator, Indigenous Environmental Network – Remote
Political Director, Center for Economic Democracy – Boston, MA – Priority May 5
All Jobs
Communications Coordinator, Northern Plains Resource Council – Billings, MT
Communications Manager, Project Equity – Multiple Locations
Database & Digital Engagement Manager, Resource Generation – Remote – April 30
Director/Program Manager, Capital Strategies Program, Transform Finance – New York City
Director of Development, OPAL Environmental Justice – Portland, OR
Director of Investment, Boston Ujima Project – Boston, MA
Director of Policy and Research, Demos – New York, NY
Education Team Coordinator Highlander Center – New Market, TN
General Coordinator, Cooperative Economics Alliance of NYC – New York, NY
Grant Writer, Demos – New York, NY
Innovation Network Manager, Climate Safe Lending, Green America – Washington D.C./Remote
Legal Apprentice, Sustainable Economies Law Center – Bay Area, CA
Partnership Engagement Director, Green America – Washington D.C./Remote
Political Director, OPAL Environmental Justice – Portland, OR
Senior Operations Coordinator, Corporate Accountability – Boston, MA
Various Positions (Organizing/Dev/HR), New Florida Majority – Miami/Jacksonville, FL
Various Positions (Organizing/Admin), Mothers Out Front
Web Developer, Foundation for Intentional Communities
Upcoming Events
Free Them All! Prison is no Place for a Pandemic
During this panel, hear about the unique life and death challenges people in prisons, jails, and detention centers face during this unprecedented pandemic, and how the virus will impact Black incarcerated people now and after we flatten the curve. We will also discuss solutions for how to use this experience to advocate for new approaches to accountability. This panel is being organized by the Movement for Black Lives as part of a series of national calls to Build Beloved Community During and Beyond COVID-19. (Online – Today! April 23 7pm EST)
Friday Night Forums: COVID-19 in Indian Country
The Red Nation in partnership with the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) and the Center for Political Education is hosting a series of critical conversations on settler colonialism, US imperialism, and decolonization. The COVID-19 pandemic is global, and so our response to it must also be global. Friday Night Forums feature anti-imperialist perspectives and lessons on organizing from around the world, with an eye toward decolonizing Turtle Island. (Online – April 24-May 29)
Divest from the War Machine: 5-Part Webinar Series
Join NEC member organization CODEPINK and World BEYOND War for a FREE 5-week online webinar series about divesting from the war machine. Starting April 23, we’ll explore how to organize to divest funds from weapons manufacturers, military contractors, and war profiteers. We’ll feature activists and organizers who have run successful divestment campaigns, to share strategies and tactics about how to replicate these successes in your community. (Online – April 23-May 19)
The Three Rs: Realize, Recognize, & Reconciliation
Join Crushing Colonialism to learn directly from a diverse group of Indigenous people who are living under and fighting against the violent realities of settler colonialism. Topics covered will include the crisis of COVID-19, Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirits, environmental justice, healthcare disparities, theft of Indigenous children by the state, cultural appropriation, and what decolonization and tribal sovereignty truly look like. (Online – April 25)
Land Liberation Study
Throughout oppressed peoples’ history, land has been the key to liberation and important power shifts. NEC memeber organization the Highlander Center is co-hosting this “Land Liberation Study” series with Southern and Appalachian land justice organizations around land issues that affect the self-determination of communities, and lifts up the organizing tactics that have emerged from land, housing, and food activism. (Online – April 27 & May 25)
Philanthropy’s Visionary Response to COVID-19: Accelerating a Just Transition in a Moment of Crisis
Join Justice Funders for a conversation with movement and philanthropic leaders about how we can use this moment of crisis as a turning point for leveraging significant change toward building a regenerative economy rooted in cooperation, collectivity and deep democracy. (Online – April 28)
This is Not a Drill
How can left organizers build independent political power as a set of health, social, and economic crises unfold? Join us for the next episode of This is Not a Drill: LIVE as we talk 2020 political and electoral strategy in the face of a global pandemic. (Online – April 29)
#Race and Pandemics: Covid-19 and Global Diseases Through a Structural Lens
This webinar with Race Forward will use a systemic racial analysis to dig into the structural roots of the racialization of global diseases. We hope that folks will bring this lens back to their institutions, organizations, and communities as a tool to shift the conversation on racism from individual to systemic, as we grapple with finding long-lasting solutions in the time of Covid-19 and beyond (Online – May 8)
‘