Original Policy Platform
This pandemic has laid bare that we must rewrite the rules to ensure every person – no exceptions – can thrive. We must address short-term issues facing our families, but also recognize this moment as a chance to change our system that has left so many of us behind while a small group have hoarded an amount of wealth that could ensure broad prosperity.
This is a moment that we must stand with and for each other across our differences and against anything and anyone who seeks to divide us.
Our organizations make the following demands on local, state and federal government leaders to enact in both the short-term to make our state a place where everyone can thrive.
Emergency Assistance for All
Multi-lingual Access to Emergency Information
Status: Partially Complete
It’s critical that each and every Minnesotan be able to access & understand the information we need to prevent the spread and severity of COVID-19. All State of Minnesota communications about the COVID-19 outbreak must be accessible in not just English, but Spanish, Somali, Hmong and other languages spoken in Minnesota households.
Emergency Shelter
Status: Partially Complete
All Minnesotans should have a safe place to live, especially now. This means emergency shelters should be found for all of our unhoused population, and it should be appropriate to curtail spread of COVID-19. This means hotels and other existing structures should be used to house our population.
Food Access for Every Minnesotan
Status: Partially Complete
No matter who we are or how much money we have in our wallet, all Minnesotans should be able to get the healthy food they need, while curtailing spread of the virus. All Minnesotans who are experiencing decreased income should have access to food assistance - no exceptions. Screening and approvals should be made virtually and via telephone. Additional support should be given to meals on wheels to expand those served and ensure our elderly have access to food assistance that is safe from spread of the virus.
End Price Gouging
Status: Complete
We all need affordable access to the basic resources that help us live our lives. Ensure the Senate passes Price Gouging Bill passed by House to prevent overpricing of basic necessities including toiletries, food, and medicine.
Childcare Funding
Status: Partially Complete
Minnesota’s childcare providers have been frontline, critical care workers in these times and beyond. To ensure our children continue to have safe, healthy and nurturing environments we need an immediate infusion of funding into our Child Care Assistance Program to fully meet the need of all Minnesota families and to raise the wages for all child care workers to a livable wage.
Safety in our Workplaces
Hazard Pay for Front-Line Workers
Status: Unaddressed
Now more than ever, the people who do the critical work of cleaning our buildings, taking care of the sick and elderly, providing grocery services, and other essential services need to have the value of their contributions properly compensated. Front-line workers should receive hazard pay if they chose to continue working.
Safety for Front-Line Workers
Status: Unaddressed
Front-line workers (including healthcare, janitors, maintenance, food service, and other essential services) must be kept as safe as possible from the virus, while preventing spread. These workers must be provided proper protective equipment, and language appropriate training. Additionally, healthcare workers who are personally or who care for a family member who is more vulnerable to coronavirus because they are pregnant or have suppressed immune systems, should not be required to care for patients with respiratory illnesses.
Health Care Access for All
Ensure Access to Public Health Insurance Programs
Status: Unaddressed
In order to minimize the effects of COVID-19, it is vital that all Minnesotans, without exception, have access to the care they need, not only when they are already ill, but including the preventative and ongoing care that they need to help prevent the spread and severity of this pandemic. This means that new Medical Assistance applicants should be presumed eligible and immediately enrolled and that all Minnesotans without health insurance should be able to enroll in MinnesotaCare.
Continuity and Affordability of Health Insurance Coverage
Status: Partially Complete
In order to minimize the effects of COVID-19, it is vital that all Minnesotans, without exception, need to be able to continue to access the care they need, not only when they are already ill, but including the preventative and ongoing care that they need to help prevent the spread and severity of this pandemic. This means that no one should be kicked off their health insurance regardless of its term or their employment status or ability to pay, and that deductibles and co-pays should be suspended for all care during this crisis.
Affording Our Lives
Social Distancing Wages
Status: Partially Complete
12 weeks of 2/3 wage replacement, up to $200/day, for employees of employers with <500 employees who are not health care workers, reimbursed by federal government
Advance tax rebates of $1200/individual + $500/child for those making less than $75k/individual
With school closures and the community transmission of COVID-19, workers need the ability to apply the important practice of social distancing by staying home when they are sick or to care for a family members who is sick or lacks care. All workers, including public employees, subcontracted workers, and consumer-directed home care workers, who need to stay home from work for any reason connected to COVID-19, including the closure of their workplace, need full wage replacement and continuation of benefits that goes beyond their current paid-time off benefits and that does not accumulate points under an attendance policy. This social distancing wage must extend for no less than three weeks for private employees, and for the duration of this pandemic for public employees, including local government and school employees.
Emergency Unemployment Benefits
Status: Partially Complete
1-week waiting period waived
Largely bans employer challenges
Work search requirements loosened
Additional 26 weeks passed by Congress
Additional $600/week passed by Congress
Still inaccessible to anyone without a SSN
People are being laid off now and need emergency support to be able to eat and pay for basic needs. All workers, including undocumented workers, consumer-directed home care workers, event workers, and workers with more than one job, who are laid-off or have their hours significantly reduced should be able to access expanded unemployment insurance benefits immediately and retroactively, without counting the benefit against the employer's experience rating, and with a moratorium on employer challenges during the pandemic, including increased and extended benefits
Supporting Small Business
Emergency Assistance for Small Businesses
Status: Partially Complete
$40mil state funding
Federal forgivable loans for payroll, rent/mortgage, & utilities capped at the lesser of 2.5x payroll or $10mil
All too often during state emergencies, large corporations receive massive government bailouts while small businesses struggle to survive. We are calling for emergency grants and low-to-no-interest loans to assist small businesses that suffer economic demange during the coronavirus crisis.
Stability of Housing & Utilities
Lease Security
Status: Complete
During this time of crisis, Minnesotans need to be able to stay in their homes. No leases should be terminated at this time, either via rent increase or via non-renewals to allow Minnesotans the security of their homes during this time of crisis.
Moratorium on Evictions and Foreclosures
Status: Partially Complete
To ensure that Minnesotans can stay in their homes during this pandemic, Minnesota must enact a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. The financial impacts of social isolation will be devastating, and we need to have security of our homes until after the initial crisis has passed.
Moratorium on Utility Shutoffs
Status: Unaddressed
Every Minnesotan, regardless of zip code, should have continued access to essential services including electric, phone, internet, water, and gas, during this time of crisis. We need an indefinite moratorium on the shutdown of any of these services, with a particular focus on those serving rural communities. Protecting provision of essential services is vital to protecting vulnerable people, allowing for distance learning, as well as preventing spread of COVID-19 by easing social solidarity through distancing.
Food System Security
Extending Farmer Mediation
Status: Unaddressed
Farmers are a critical part of Minnesota’s food system, and our economy. All mediation periods for farmers should be extended by 90 days. Furthermore, banks should be required to release living expenses for farmers in extended mediation.
Release of Farm Operating Funds
Status: Unaddressed
Farmers, who were already in financial crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic, need operating funding for crops and livestock. Farmers are deciding right now whether or not they can afford to continue to farm. An immediate release of operating funds will mean farmers can plant a crop, livestock will be fed and cared for and for many, that their farms will not be forced out of business. Farming expenditures are critical to rural economies. Farmers spend money locally, and that money circulates through the community, supporting local businesses and families.
Honor School-Farm Contracts
Status: Partially Complete*
*Schools are not required to honor these contracts, but people are organizing to resell/distribute food designated for cancelled contracts.
School districts must honor contracts with farmers who are providing local, healthy food to children through farm to school programs.
Justice Reform
Health and Safety in Prisons
Status: Unaddressed
Hundreds of thousands of people are being held in crowded, unsafe conditions in state and federal prisons. Those in prison must be able to communicate with loved ones via free functional technology. Prisons and jails must create and make public humane quarantine plans with the public. This includes the immediate release or transfer to community supervision incarcerated people at highest risk of death from infection or at lowest risk to public safety.
Keep ICE out of our communities
Status: Unaddressed
Especially during a pandemic, it is critical that no communities are fearful about seeking to cover basic needs. ICE must cease all local enforcement operations, be they in hospitals or courts, or in any part of our community. In addition, we need to eliminate ICE check-ins and mandatory court appearances. Last, local and state governments must not share personal information with ICE.
End Criminalization of Unhoused population
Status: Partially Complete*
*Executive Order 20-20 stops encampment sweeps and disbandment during the Peacetime Emergency
Especially during this time, everyone in Minnesota deserves to be treated with dignity and basic humanity, whether or not you have a roof over your head. Our unhoused population needs support, not criminalization, disruption and displacement. Stop interference with encampments, tents, RV/vehicle parking, or outdoor sleeping.
Protections against Domestic Violence
Status: Unaddressed
During an epidemic, survivors of domestic violence are at high risk for repeated violence from perpetrators, as people are forced to stay in closed quarters. We must pass an automatic granting of temporary restraining orders.
The policy platform above has been endorsed by:
TakeAction Minnesota
ISAIAH
Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL)
Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia
SEIU Minnesota State Council
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota
SEIU Local 26
SEIU Local 284
Land Stewardship Project
Black Immigrant Collective
CAIR-MN
Housing Justice Center
Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment (RISE)
Asian American Organizing Project (AAOP)
Communities United Against Police Brutality
Blueprint Campaigns
New Brookwood Labor College
COPAL
Women’s March MN
LatinoLEAD
Minnesota Interfaith Coalition on Immigration (ICOM)
Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA)
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund
MN CovidSitters
Doctors for Camp Closure - Minnesota Chapter
The Alliance for Metropolitan Stability
100% Campaign
Minnesota State College Faculty - EdMN/AFT/NEA
SPIRAL Collective
Alliance For Sustainability
Honor the Earth
Community Power
Voices for Racial Justice
Sierra Club North Star Chapter
Gender Justice
HOME Line
Interfaith Coalition on Immigration
Our Justice
St. Paul 350
House of Charity
CWA MN State Council
Lake Tax LLC
Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy
Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light
African Career Education and Resource, INC
ACLU-MN
#NeverAgainAction Twin Cities
MUUSJA - MN Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance
ASAMBLEA DE DERECHOS CIVILES
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre
Minnesota Educators Against ICE
First Unitarian Society
National Lawyers Guild--MN Chapter
Indivisible St. Peter/Greater Mankato
Let People Vote - Bryant
Education Minnesota
Jewish Community Action
UnidosMN
Outfront Minnesota
Restaurant Opportunity Center (ROC) MN
Awood Center
Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation
CURE (Clean Up the River Environment)
Faith in Minnesota