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Joe Biden letter to ATU members

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KAMALA HARRIS A HISTORIC VICE PRESIDENTIAL PICK

In a historic pick, Joe Biden has chosen a Black woman, California Senator Kamala Harris, as his vice presidential running mate in the November U.S. election.

“In Senator Harris, Joe Biden has selected a fighter, a champion of working families, and a strong advocate of the labor movement to help win the White House in November,” says International President John Costa.

“The team of Biden and Harris will unify Americans, beat the COVID-19 pandemic and restore the respect of the world to our country. Together, they will fight for racial and economic justice and a more inclusive future for America’s working families.”

Daughter of immigrants

The daughter of immigrants from

Jamaica and India, Harris grew up believing in the American Dream and rose to be the first Black and

Indian American woman to represent

California in the U.S. Senate.

As a young child in Berkeley, CA, in the 1960s, Harris’ life was shaped by the Civil Rights Movement as her parents brought her to countless protests. She regularly describes her mother as the most important influence on her life. “My mother used to say, ‘Don’t sit around and complain about things, do something,’” says Harris. Harris began her career fighting for working families in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, where she focused on prosecuting child sexual assault cases. She then went on to be the first Black woman elected as San Francisco’s District Attorney.

In 2010, Harris became the first Black woman to be elected California Attorney General, overseeing a justice department second only in size to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Fought for families In that position she fought for families and won a $20 billion settlement for California homeowners against big banks that were unfairly foreclosing on homes. Harris also worked to protect Obamacare, helped win marriage equality for all, and defended California’s landmark climate change law.

In 2016, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate, where she has a strong track record of supporting working families and the labor movement. She has pushed to create a fairer process for forming unions and protecting healthcare and retirement security.

She introduced and co-sponsored legislation to help the middle class, increase the minimum wage to $15, reform cash bail, and defend the legal rights of refugees and immigrants.

As a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Harris also oversees the federal government’s response to natural disasters and emergencies, including the Trump Administration’s response to COVID-19.

ATU members across this country are excited to stand together, fight back, and elect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the nation this November. v

ISSUES THAT MATTER MOST TO ATU MEMBERS

The 2016 election of U.S. President Donald Trump has drastically impacted ATU members and all Americans. During the past 3½ years, this President’s policies have resulted in illness, injury, and even death for countless transit workers. He has starved public transit of crucial funding, weakened unions, and stolen the hardearned wages of working families to line the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.

What would Joe Biden do differently? A lot:

ISSUE: COVID-19 “It is what it is,” said Donald Trump regarding the staggering coronavirus death toll. “I think it’s under control,” he says, as over a thousand Americans die each day. More than 85 ATU members have lost their lives.

Trump’s dismal mismanagement has cost lives. An ATU survey found that 50% of our employers have not provided bus operators with basic personal protective equipment (PPE). Without federal government help, transit agencies have been forced to bid against each other for PPE, making it difficult to secure life-saving equipment. In the first few critical weeks of the pandemic, Trump’s Department of Transportation incredibly said, “… PPE is not recommended at this time. …” Even now, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended wearing cloth face coverings in public, Trump’s DOT has not mandated masks on transit.

Consequently, passengers keep infecting other riders and operators. That’s likely what happened to Jason Hargrove, 26-Detroit, MI, a 50-year-old bus driver, who posted a Facebook video complaining about a passenger who openly coughed on his bus without covering her mouth. Eleven days later, Jason died of COVID-19.

Joe Biden: A Different Approach “Jason Hargrove is a heartbreaking example of the courage and selflessness that you and your colleagues show every single day to literally keep the country running,” Joe Biden said during a recent town hall with frontline workers, including paratransit driver Jerry Brown, 836-Grand Rapids, MI.

“Jason should have never been left to fend for himself

“I also strongly believe that people getting on your bus should also wear protective masks. They should be in a position so that they are not spreading what they have to you as well, and to other passengers.” Biden says that, if elected, he will listen to doctors, reopen the White House Pandemic Office, create 10 mobile testing sites per state, provide faster hospital expansion, and produce enough safety gear. “When I’m President, we will be better prepared, respond better, and recover better,” he said. Biden’s message to ATU members: “You deserve to be protected.” ISSUE: Transit Worker Assault In May 2019, the ATU family mourned Thomas Dunn, who used his last breath to steer his vehicle to safety before he bled to death in the drivers’ seat. We were shocked that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) chose at that same time to abandon their responsibility to stop assaults against transit workers.

And if I’m President, I guarantee you that protection and support for transit workers will be available.” Four years earlier, ATU led a Congressional effort to secure language in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, directing FTA to issue regulations to protect transit workers from assault. After four long years, during which countless drivers have been assaulted and killed, Donald Trump’s Department of Transportation said it was “unnecessary” to issue a rulemaking on transit worker assault.

That’s the way Joe Biden sees it too: “Just someone getting on the bus and going after you. … I mean, my Lord, we need much more support for transit workers, because you are the reason why things continue to function. Period. I promise you I’m going to keep banging away at this. … And if I’m President, I guarantee you that [protection and

1593-Tampa, FL, a bus operator whose throat was slashed,

support] will be available.” ISSUE: Taxes In 2017, “Joe,” the bus driver and “Jane,” the rider, took it on the chin with passage of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – the most outrageous money grab by the rich in American history that will destroy what is left of the middle class.

For Joe, 50, a married operator with two children, earning $38,000 per year, the bill is devastating. Ending the state and local deduction has made it very hard for Joe to keep food on the table and save for his kids’ college.

He’s driven for 10 years, but he’ll need to retire soon due to chronic back and kidney problems. He’ll need continuous, costly medical care for the rest of his life. But under Trump’s tax bill, he won’t be able to deduct unreimbursed medical expenses exceeding 10% of adjusted gross income. Talk about cruel!

Jane, the rider, doesn’t fare any better. She could afford to ride public transit because the law provided her with a tax benefit for taking the bus to work. However, Trump removed the option for employers to deduct the cost of those benefits, so Jane’s boss pulled out of the program. She may have to walk the five miles to her job now. This not only affects her, but impacts ridership, farebox collection, service, and threatens transit jobs.

Under this obscene bill, the 1% get even richer through massive corporate and estate tax giveaways, leaving the rest of us behind.

Joe Biden would roll back the tax cuts for high income households and corporations. The top one percent of taxpayers (those with income above $400,000 per year) would face the largest tax increase. Under the Biden plan, to take the burden off the middle class, about 72% of new tax revenue would come from the richest Americans.

ISSUE: Transit Funding Where would Biden spend the hundreds of billions of dollars raised through his tax policy? Public transportation would be a top priority.

Biden’s Build Back America Better plan calls for millions of good, union jobs rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure. Biden will provide every American city of 100,000 or more, with high quality, zero-emissions public transportation.

In contrast, Donald Trump has tried to gut transit funding. In his first three years in office, funding for highways, roads and bridges more than doubled at the expense of public transit. Trump cut multi-modal transit grants from 28% to 8.5%. His Department of Transportation shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants from transit projects to rural roads.

Moreover, Trump’s FY 2020 budget proposed to slash funding for new transit projects by nearly 40%. The Administration has continuously targeted FTA’s “Capital Improvement Grant” program, which provides funding for major new transit projects, like Phoenix’s South Central Light Rail (Local 1433) or Indianapolis’ Red Line bus rapid transit (Local 1070).

ISSUE: Unions In 2018, in a sharply divided 5–4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited public sector unions from collecting any fees from nonmembers. The Janus v. AFSCME case overturned laws in the 22 states that had not adopted “rightto-work” policies. Justice Neil Gorsuch cast the decisive fifth vote in favor of killing public sector unions. Who appointed Gorsuch? Donald Trump, of course.

While Trump tried to convince unions to support him in 2016, a leaked White House memo outlines the President’s true intentions – to destroy unions, get rid of worker protections, cripple workers’ ability to organize, and increase profits for corporations.

The President hasn’t even nominated anyone to run the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which enforces workplace safety laws.

We’ve seen PPE shortages and outbreaks at numerous workplaces. The pandemic has already caused more illness and death in a shorter period of time than any other health crisis since OSHA’s creation 50 years ago. Joe Biden is a lifelong champion of workers and organized labor. He will increase workplace safety and health. He will reinstate critical safety protections and ensure that all OSHA officials understand the consequences of not having safety standards in place. He will direct OSHA to expand enforcement and increase the number of its investigators.

Biden is proposing a plan to grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class by strengthening unions and helping all workers bargain successfully for what they deserve.

As President, Joe Biden will:

Check the abuse of corporate power over Labor and hold corporate executives personally accountable for violations of labor laws;

Encourage and incentivize unionization and collective bargaining; and

Ensure that workers are treated with dignity and receive the pay, benefits, and workplace protections they deserve.

Biden strongly supports the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which promises to restore the power of workers to organize and negotiate on the job. The PRO Act would impose appropriate financial penalties on companies that break the law. The bill also prohibits employers from forcing their employees to attend “captive audience” meetings whose sole purpose is to intimidate workers into voting against the union.

CONCLUSION: Every vote counts Sometimes, in past elections, it’s been hard to find differences between the candidates’ views on key pocketbook issues. So, people simply vote for the person based on their views on social matters, like religion, or guns.

Or they just stay home like they did in 2016. That election was effectively decided by 107,000 people throughout Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – a tiny portion of the electorate. The world would be a much different place if just a few thousand more people had voted. Certainly, more ATU members would be alive today.

This year, not voting is not an option. We urge you to make your decision based on your job and the health and safety of your family. If you are not registered, please do so immediately. Vote as if your life depends on it – because it does. v

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