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Art by @broobs.psd
Stories From the Field
“Racism is a Public Health Issue”: COVID-19 is exacerbating the systemic health inequities of racial and colonial capitalism, as poor Black, brown, and Indigenous communities are hit hardest by the virus. In many places, Black people account for an alarming number of COVID deaths — particularly in the South where there are huge gaps in medical coverage, writes Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson of NEC member organization the Highlander Center. Jen Deerinwater, a New Economies Reporting Fellow, points out that historic injustices and lack of access to basic resources also puts Native people at greater risk of COVID-19.
Read and sign on to the Movement for Black Lives' COVID-19 Demands, and donate to the NYC Black Mutual Aid Fund organized by NEC member organization BYP100, as well as BAJI, and DecrimNY.
#CancelRent: We were inspired by the leadership of NEC member organization PUSH Buffalo last week, as they waived April rent for all of their 104 residential and commercial tenants! It’s clear that in this moment, we need developers and decision-makers to cancel rents, even as we continue organizing to build real community control of land and housing moving forward. Check out Right to the City’s Beyond Recovery campaign to learn more about the demands to cancel rents and mortgages.
Community Teach-ins on COVID-19 Movement Building: On April 2nd, we hosted a participatory discussion with the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), Right to the City, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) about the COVID-19 policies we need to transform this system for good and move towards a just COVID-19 recovery. Also, be sure to check out the Rising Majority’s teach-in with Angela Y. Davis and Naomi Klein about movement building and other COVID19-related public discussions catalogued by CJA.
Solidarity Economies Abroad
Internationalist Responses to COVID-19: The Transnational Institute (TNI) is hosting a series of webinars on the global dimensions of the coronavirus pandemic and how social movements could respond. Check out the recording from the first conversation — featuring activists from India, México, South Africa, and Malaysia — and register for their upcoming events in English and in Spanish.
Rent, Utility, Debt Freezes in El Salvador: In order to provide economic relief for those hardest hit by COVID-19, the government of El Salvador has announced a three-month freeze on payments for utilities, mortgages and personal loans, credit cards, telephones, cable and internet, as well as a cash payment of US $300.
Basic Income in Spain: Universal Basic Income (UBI) has gained traction in many countries as a tool to provide economic relief amid the coronavirus pandemic. This week, the Spanish government stated that they not only planned to implement payments as soon as possible, but that UBI would become something that “stays forever, that becomes a structural instrument, a permanent instrument.”
#StayHomeButNotSilent
From Palestine to Indonesia to the Mexico-U.S. border, members of the international peasant movement, La Vía Campesina, are highlighting the vulnerability and the urgent need for solidarity with peasants and migrant workers around the world during the COVID-19 crisis. Read their statements and join LVC’s call for creative mobilizations to #StayHomeButNotSilent on the International Day of Peasants’ Struggle on April 17th.
Forward Thinking on COVID-19
NEC member organization, The Laura Flanders Show is producing a new series called “Forward Thinking on Covid-19.” Each week, guests on the show offer their best forward-looking perspectives on what needs to happen to address COVID-19 through the lenses of public ownership, racial and gender justice, queer liberation, and more, while lifting up actionable models of collective care and mutual aid.
Movement News
- A Call To Action: Towards a General Strike to Create a New World
- As Congress Pushes a $2 Trillion Stimulus Package, the “How Will You Pay For It?” Question Is Tossed in the Trash
- No Rent Was Paid In April By Nearly a Third of American Renters
- Coronavirus, Anxiety, and the Profound Failure of Rugged Individualism
- Merits of Postal Banking on Display During COVID-19 Pandemic
- Coronavirus Demands Social Distancing & Social Movements. Here’s How To Do Both.
- COVID-19 Makes Clear Energy and Water are Public Goods
- Distancing to Reconnect: Possibilities and Parenting During Covid-19
- In Crisis, Learning From Ecologies of Care
- International Solidarity in a Time of Crisis
- Mutual Aid Is Making a comeback During COVID-19 Outbreak
- On Strike Now for Three Years, Spectrum Workers Are Demanding Public Ownership
- Protecting Privacy in the Age of Coronavirus: Digital Tools for Nonprofits
- Renters on Strike: If We Can't Work, We Can't Pay
- Small Business Administration (SBA) Gives The Green Light for Cooperatives in the Paycheck Protection Program
- So You Want a General Strike? Here’s What It Would Take.
- Toward an Economic Democracy
- We Shouldn’t Go Back to the Way Things Were
- Why Should It Take a Pandemic to Bring out the Best in Philanthropy?
Podcasts of the New Economy
Social distancing is the best way to slow the spread of the coronavirus, but the efficacy of social distancing relies on something much deeper and harder to measure: social solidarity. This conversation on The Ezra Klein Show is about what happens when “a country mired in a mythos of individualism collides with a pandemic that demands social solidarity and collective sacrifice,” and the opportunity to build a different kind of society in the aftermath of Covid-19.
Additional listens:
NEC on The Gram
Follow NEC on Instagram – @NewEconomyCoalition – Where we’re sharing about how two iconic worker cooperatives — Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) and Opportunity Threads — are coming together across state lines to get personal protective equipment into the hands of home care workers in the middle of New York's COVID-19 crisis. Donate to support the manufacturing of protective masks for CHCA workers.
Jobs
New Listings!
Broadband Writer/Editor, Institute for Local Self Reliance – Various Locations
Database & Digital Engagement Manager, Resource Generation – Remote – April 30
Housing Justice Organizing Manager, People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) Buffalo – Buffalo, NY
National Organizer, Grassroots Feminisms, Grassroots Global Justice – Remote – April 15
National Organizer, Green New Deal, Grassroots Global Justice – Remote – April 15
Various Positions (Organizing & Admin), Mothers Out Front
All Jobs
Communications and Media Coordinator, Democracy @ Work – New York, NY
Communications Coordinator, Northern Plains Resource Council – Billings, MT
Communication Director, The Laura Flanders Show – Brooklyn, NY
Development Manager, Real Food Challenge – Boston, MA or NYC
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 Movement Strategies, Demos – New York, NY
Director of Policy and Research, Demos – New York, NY
Education Team Coordinator, Highlander Center – New Market, TN
Executive Director, Organisational Development – NEON – London – April 12
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
Program Manager – Grow Grants, NE Grassroots Env. Fund – Newmarket, NH
Senior Operations Coordinator, Corporate Accountability – Boston, MA
Various Positions, New Florida Majority – Miami/Jacksonville, FL
Various Positions, Project Equity – Multiple Locations
Web Developer, Foundation for Intentional Communities
Upcoming Events
How to Beat Coronavirus Capitalism (Part 2)
Join Haymarket Books, Democratic Socialists of America, and others for a continuation of their online teach-in with Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. (Today at 5pm ET! Online)
COVID & Capitalism
Join NEC member organization Resource Generation for a panel conversation with the Movement for Black Lives, Center for Popular Democracy, and a healing justice activist on what is being laid bare about capitalism in this moment, what is being made possible and what are the asks for young people with class privilege. (April 10 – Online)
Moving at the Speed of Trust: Disability Justice and Transformative Justice
Join the Barnard Center for Research on Women for an online conversation with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Elliott Fukui on the intersections of disability justice and transformative justice. (April 10 – Online)
American Craft Forum: Understanding the Impact and Pursuing Relief
The nation's arts and culture industry is experiencing devastating economic losses with closed venues and cancelled performances, exhibitions, and events as a result of the pandemic. This online forum is devoted to helping artists and craftspeople navigate what the $2 trillion emergency stimulus package means for the craft sector, while providing practical advice for pursuing relief. (April 10 – Online)
Covid-19, Decarceration, and Abolition
How should abolitionists respond to the coronavirus pandemic?How can we achieve urgently needed decarceration for the millions of people caged in jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers? Join Haymarket Books to discuss these important questions with Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Naomi Murakawa. (April 16 – Online)
The Black Freedom Movement Then and Now: Organizing Traditions
Join NEC member the Highlander Center and the SNCC Legacy Project to celebrate the legacy and continued work of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at this intergenerational conversation about the Black Freedom Movement. (April 16 – Online)
Remaking the Economy in Fresno: Community in the Time of COVID
Fresno recently allocated $66 million in capital investment through participatory budgeting, the largest use of that process in US history. As is true everywhere, the current pandemic has upended the Fresno community. In this webinar, participants will discuss both the effects of the pandemic today, as well as how to advance more equitable, post-pandemic Fresno future. (April 16 – Online
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