Bernie’s Army Redeploys to Support Covid-19’s Frontline Workers
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Source:
In These Times
As shoppers crowded into the McAllen, Texas, branch of Sprouts Farmers Market in mid-March to stockpile food, store clerk Josh Cano grew alarmed at the lack of safety precautions in place.
“There weren’t sneeze guards or masks or gloves,” he says. “There was zero sense of urgency from management.”
Cano, 24, worried about bringing the coronavirus home because his mother has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. He had heard of an online form that activists from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the United Electrical Workers union (UE) were using to help workers organize to make their workplaces safer as the Covid-19 pandemic spread. The two groups — which had previously worked together on the Bernie Sanders campaign — were calling their joint effort the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC).