A Moral Policy Agenda to Heal and Transform America: The Poor People’s Jubilee Platform (Aug 2020)

July 2020

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States.
Preamble to the U.S. Constitution

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?
Isaiah 10:1

From Alaska to Arkansas, the Carolinas to California, Mississippi to Maine, Kansas to Kentucky, the Bronx to the Border, Appalachian hollers to Apache sacred lands, people are coming together to organize their moral outrage against systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy and the false narrative of religious nationalism into a powerful moral fusion movement. There are 140 million people who are poor and struggling against these injustices in the richest country in the world. A society sick with these interlocking injustices needs a voice rooted in our deepest Constitutional and moral values to remind us of who we are and who we must be.

We know that poverty and inequality kill 250,000 people every year in American and it is still not frontpage news. Alongside these unseen deaths, we have seen more than 130,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus. We have also witnessed the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and untold others at the hands of state violence. For every day that we choose not to address the five interlocking injustices, there is a death measurement.

In 2018, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival set forth a comprehensive Moral Agenda based on the needs and demands of the 140 million. For years we have been shifting the narrative and building power among the poor to create a compelling moral force for broad and bold systemic change. On June 20, 2020, millions of people tuned into the Mass Poor People’s Digital Assembly and March on Washington to hear the reality facing the 140 million. Hundreds of thousands of people took action and forwarded these moral policy priorities to Congress and their state governors.

We now launch a Moral Policy Agenda to Heal and Transform America: The Poor People’s Jubilee Platform. This platform proclaims that moral policy is also economically sound policy, because the 140 million are not only the hope of the poor. The least of these, who are, in actuality, most of us, can lead this country out of the pain we have been suffering. The rejected are leading a moral and economic revival to save the heart and soul of this nation.

Forward together, not one step back!

Rev. Dr. William Barber II
President, Repairers of the Breach
Co-Chair, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
Director, Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice
Co-Chair, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Shailly Gupta Barnes
Policy Director, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
Policy Director, Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice

Roz Pelles
Strategic Advisor, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
Vice President, Repairers of the Breach Click Here to Download the Full PlatformPREAMBLE AND PRINCIPLES

The Poor People’s Jubilee Platform is organized into five sections:

Part I. Establish Justice and End Systemic Racism: The Right to Democracy and Equal Protection Under the Law
Part II. Promote the General Welfare: The Right to Welfare and an Adequate Standard of Living
Part III. Ensure Domestic Tranquility: The Right to Work with Dignity
Part IV. Secure the Blessings of Liberty: The Right to Health and A Healthy Environment
Part V. Provide for the Common Defense: Reprioritizing our Resources

The Platform is grounded in five principles:

We need a moral revolution of values to repair the breach in our society. This platform abides by our deepest Constitutional and moral commitments to justice. Where harm has been done, it must be acknowledged and undone.
Everybody in, nobody out. Too many people are hurting and we can’t be silent anymore. Everybody is deserving of our nation’s abundance.
When you lift from the bottom, everybody rises. Instead of “trickle-down,” we start with the bottom up.
Prioritize the leadership of the poor, low-income and most impacted. Those who are on the frontlines of these crises must also be in the lead in identifying their solutions.
Debts that cannot be paid must be relieved. We demand freedom from servicing the debts we cannot pay.

Throughout our history, it has always been the role of moral movements to turn pain and righteous anger into a transforming force. From Abolition to Reconstruction and the organized outrage of the labor movement, women’s movement, Civil Rights Movement and more, fusion movements have compelled governments to take transformative action. This happened when those movements brought diverse people together, resisted efforts to divide their members against one another and refused to narrow demands to what was seen as politically possible. Instead, they pushed for what was necessary and made that possible.

In the early 20th Century, roaring inequality and the Great Depression brought about mass unemployment, hunger and homelessness. Millions of people demanded government action to secure jobs, labor protections and the general welfare. The unemployed councils of the 1920s and 1930s and widespread popular resistance sowed the seeds of the Social Security Act, Federal Housing Administration, Works Progress Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Some decades later, the Great Society of the 1960s reshaped the federal budget: it reduced military spending and increased funding for social welfare and entitlement programs, created Head Start, established Medicare and Medicaid and passed the National Environmental Policy Act. All of these programs redefined the role of government and harnessed the wealth of this country towards the needs of the poor. This did not happen haphazardly, but was brought about by the power of poor people taking action together.

We know that poor and dispossessed people will not wait to be saved. Instead, people are taking lifesaving action borne out of necessity to demand justice now. This is the force that is coming together in the Poor People’s Campaign. In 46 states across the country, and together with 19 national faith denominations and more than 200 national partner organizations, we are demanding voting rights, guaranteed incomes, work with dignity, living wages, health care, clean air and water and peace in this violent world.

In 2018, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival released the Souls of Poor Folk Moral Audit, which looked at how the injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy have evolved over the past 50 years. In 2019, we released the Poor People’s Moral Budget and showed that if we implemented the demands of this Campaign, we could fundamentally revive our economy and transform our society.

The Poor People’s Jubilee Platform now identifies legislative and policy priorities to heal this country. We have been investing in punishing the poor; we must now invest in the welfare of all. We have been investing in systemic racism and voter suppression; we must now invest in expanding democracy. We have been investing in killing people; we now must invest in life. We have been investing in the wealthy and corporations; we must now invest in the people who have built up this country and make it run every day, the 140 million and more who have been abandoned in an era of abundance.

Somebody’s been hurting our people, and it’s gone on for far too long, and we won’t be silent anymore!

Part I: End Systemic Racism and Support Democracy

1. Protect and expand the right to vote

Reinstate key protections of the Voting Rights Act, specifically Section V, and develop a preclearance formula to include jurisdictions that were covered by the Voting Rights Act as well as all jurisdictions that have passed voter suppression laws since 2013.
Enact all of our voting rights demands, including: securing online registration, automatic voter registration, same day registration, early registration for 17-year-olds; establish verifiable paper records; make sure judges who are nominated to the federal bench have a clear history of decisions that support voting rights; grant the right to vote for people who are currently and formerly incarcerated; make Election Day a National holiday; grant statehood to Washington D.C.
Establish the right to participation as an indicator of democracy and a federal authority to monitor the registration and participation of minority, poor and low-income voters.

2. Protect and honor the rights of first nations, indigenous and native people

Protect the rights of indigenous people to their lands and resources, the free exercise of their culture and religion, sovereignty for first nations and secure their human rights, Constitutional guarantees and treaty protections.
Direct adequate federal resources towards Indian Health Services and tribal schools, as well as towards indigenous and tribal housing, water, sanitation, utilities, cultural and other needs.
With the meaningful engagement of impacted communities, cease all mining and extraction on indigenous and native lands.
Establish a pre-requisite that assesses harms to the free expression of the right to religion for any federally authorized projects on native land.

3. End police brutality and mass incarceration. Redirect resource towards impacted communities. Establish a National Truth Commission.

Demilitarize the police: end the 1033 program that sends military equipment to local law enforcement, end all military training for law enforcement; ban the use of force as a punitive measure or means of retaliation.
Hold police, law enforcement and local governments accountable under federal law as well as state law for abuses of their powers to kill; enforce the duty to intervene.
End cash bail, predatory fines, fees: stop criminalizing the poor to raise state and local revenues.
Stop locking people up for non-violent crimes and misdemeanors; issue renewed sentencing guidelines that reduce jail time and the incarcerated population.
Redirect resources from policing and mass incarceration towards building up impacted communities.
Work with frontline communities, impacted people and families to establish a National Truth Commission on Mass Incarceration and Police Violence; lift up their pain and identify their solutions to these crises to shape and inform federal policy.

4. Protect immigrant communities and recognize their role in our society

Move immigration out of the Department of Homeland Security.
End the 287G program and the collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement.
Redirect CBP, ICE and resources for the border wall towards reuniting families and securing appropriate documentation for and meaningful assistance to border communities.
Repeal mandatory detention laws, close child detention centers, private detention centers and shadow detention centers; draw down the population of people who are currently detained.
Institute a moratorium on deportations and roll back the expanded deportation provisions of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
Extend eligibility of federal assistance, social welfare programs and CARES Act provisions to include immigrants.
Repeal the Public Charge rule that threatens the immigration status of immigrants who receive public benefits.

5. Protect democratically elected leadership from being undermined by unelected emergency financial managers who are brought in to resolve budget shortfalls

Implement a federal moratorium on emergency manger / emergency financial manger laws that are often applied to minority majority cities to take over local budgets and resources. Remove emergency managers who have been appointed, dissolve takeover boards and return governing responsibilities to elected officials
Secure the fiscal health of cities and states facing budget crises by establishing automatic stabilizers that will: infuse federal resources into local and state governments; institute moratoriums on municipal and state debt servicing, evictions, rent hikes, utility shut offs and family separation; and increase taxes on corporations and financial institutions.
Establish local oversight systems to ensure that resources are being used to resolve the fiscal crisis, rather than serving financial interests.

6. Secure quality, equitable and diverse public education for all and protect public education

Increase federal funding for Head Start and Early Head Start so these programs can enroll all eligible children.
Increase federal funding for pre-K-12 education that enhances public education.
Establish federal resources to support substantive efforts to desegregate schools and school districts by race, income and ability.
Increase resources for school infrastructure and the development of teachers / administrators.
Establish a technology infrastructure that can provide reliable and secure online and remote learning options to support public education, rather than replace it.
Identify specific resources for tribal schools and institutions and HBCUs.
Make public school salaries in poor and low-income communities competitive; expand loan forgiveness programs for public school teachers.
Protect and expand the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

7. Relieve student debt and provide free college for all

Provide federal resources to ensure that public colleges and technical programs can be free for everyone who wants to attend.
Establish 100% debt forgiveness for households with incomes under $50k; up to $50k debt forgiveness for households with incomes under $100k; and proportionally less debt relief for those earning up to $250,000.
Allocate federal resources to higher education programs and institutions to train poor and low-income students for the Jubilee Jobs Program.

II: Promote General Welfare

1. Change the poverty measure to reflect current conditions

Redefine poverty in terms of economic security and the ability to meet basic needs. At a minimum the official poverty line must be pegged to the median cost of living and include expenses for: housing, utilities, food, transportation, childcare, personal and household items, health care, education, debt and tax burdens, savings and access to financial services.
This new measure will determine eligibility and the level of assistance for federal welfare, assistance and entitlement programs. All of these programs — including unemployment insurance, guaranteed adequate income, direct cash assistance, SNAP, WIC, social security, SSI, SSDI or others — must ensure an adequate standard of living that is measured by this new threshold.
During the interim period until a new definition is implemented, the appropriate measure will be at least 2x the Supplemental Poverty Measure poverty threshold.

2. Establish a universal and guaranteed adequate income

$2k per month for adults, $1k for children / dependents.
Provide an opt-out option at 400% of the poverty line.
Include a care income to recognize the economic contribution of routine housework, childcare, tending to the elderly and other household or non-household members and other unpaid activities related to household maintenance.

3. Redefine welfare as a right that strengthens our society

Establish a guaranteed entitlement of the poor to a direct cash-assistance program. Payments must go to primary care givers and be commensurate with an adequate standard of living today.
Repeal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
Prohibit the use of any funds allocated towards welfare spending to go towards family separation or child removal.
Expand SNAP and other programs that work for the poor, like the EITC and the CTC.
Eligibility for welfare programs must be based on an income threshold using the new poverty measure. Eligibility cannot be limited by imposing work requirements or lifetime limits.
Expand childcare and development block grants to meet childcare and early child development needs for poor and low-income families.
Expand eligibility to include immigrants and the formerly incarcerated. Anyone in need must be able to access these entitlements.
Index funding of these programs to inflation on an annual basis.
Establish participatory oversight at all levels of governance.

4. Protect and expand Social Security, Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance

Ensure that SS, SSI and SSDI payments secure an adequate standard of living as measured by the new poverty measure.
Protect these critical sources of income from economic crisis, fiscal crisis or any other public health crisis.
In the case of an economic downturn, the Treasury must transfer the necessary funds to offset in full any losses to ensure that these payments continue to be made and provide for an adequate standard of living.

5. Secure housing for all

Acknowledge the true extent of homelessness to establish housing policies that can account for all the homeless.
Establish the Housing First program within the Jubilee Jobs Program to end homelessness by providing housing for all: Mobilize public resources and capacity to turn vacant units into affordable public housing. Build new public housing. Protect and expand housing and rental assistance for poor and low-income households. Minimize the use of shelters.
Prevent further homelessness: Ensure that the costs of housing are within the income abilities of every household. Stop all evictions. Prohibit rent increases and the imposition on any late fees on mortgages and housing payments. Curb speculation in housing markets.
Impose penalties on Wall Street, real estate corporations and other institutions that have profited from the housing and financial crisis of 2008-9. These penalties will be directed towards the Housing First program and rental assistance.

III. Promote Domestic Tranquility

1. Update the unemployment measure and expand unemployment coverage

Establish the U6 measure of unemployment as the standard measure of unemployment.
Make COVID-19 unemployment provisions permanent: Expand unemployment insurance coverage to include all who were eligible for the expanded coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic, incentivize work sharing and extend the number of weeks that unemployment insurance is available.

2. Institute living wages and economic security for all workers

Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 / hour.
Make concrete plans to raise the minimum wage from $15/hour to a real housing wage ($23/hour in 2019) in no less than two years; index the real housing wage to inflation and adjust annually.
Legislate equal pay for equal work and make it mandatory under federal law.
All workers must have paid family leave, paid sick leave, hazard pay, personal protective equipment and living wages.

3. Establish the Jubilee Jobs Program, a federal jobs program to secure full employment as a right

Prioritize socially beneficial industries, with massive investments in caregiving, education, health care, mass transit, water / utilities / infrastructure jobs and cultural production in poor and low-income communities, deindustrializing communities, small towns, rural areas and indigenous areas.
Within the Jubilee Jobs Program, establish: (1) Community Care Corps that will focus on expanding health care training, capacity and resources; (2) Green Jobs Corps that will focus on environmentally sustainable infrastructure jobs; (3) Housing First that will focus on converting vacant property into affordable public housing and building new affordable public housing; (4) Together We Thrive that will focus on education and schools; (5) Jubilee Arts and Justice Corps that will focus on cultural production; (6) Universal Tech Corps that will focus on training and placement in ICT, R/D and automation sectors; and others.
Include job training and placement programs to support employment of poor and low-income students and workers who have been displaced in these socially beneficial industries.
All jobs within this program will provide living wages, worker protections and give workers the right to form and join unions. They will also give workers in these programs a leading voice in their design and implementation.

4. Secure the right to free association and the right to form and join unions

Ensure the vast majority of workers are able to form and join unions.
Establish sectoral and geographical forms of bargaining.
Establish the NRLA as a floor, not a ceiling, and allow states to go above and beyond its protections.
Extend NRLA, FLSA, OSHA protections to include all workers: informal workers; so-called independent contractors; self-employed workers; undocumented workers; workers with disabilities; incarcerated workers; and workers designated as “essential” workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Expand protections for workers who organize.

IV: Secure the Blessings of Liberty: The Right to Health and a Clean Environment

1 . Protect and secure health care for all

Expand Medicaid and Protect Medicare.
Establish a universal, single player health care system that provides health care to all, regardless of income, disability, prior health conditions, employment status, immigration status or any other characteristic that is used to deny eligibility for health care coverage.
Increase resources for Indian Health Services to make sure it is adequately funded.
Expand Veterans health care to make sure it meets the needs of our veterans.
Allocate specific resources for COVID-19 vulnerable populations, including people who are homeless, incarcerated, detained and those in congregate care at nursing homes and other care facilities.

2. Expand our public health care infrastructure and capacity

Move federal resources and capacity towards re-opening hospitals that have been closed over the past 10 years, prioritizing hospitals in poor, low-income, rural and native communities.
Update hospitals in these communities so they are equipped to provide the best possible modern medical care.
Nationalize production and distribution of critical health care equipment.
Establish a public health communications infrastructure to share resources, learn and communicate with hospitals and health professionals across the country and world.
Establish a Community Care Corps within Jubilee Jobs Program to train community health service providers and expand health care resources in poor and low-income communities, rural areas and small towns.
Expand resources for CDC and NIH to study health impacts of poverty, inequality and ecological devastation.

3. End medical debt

Establish a federal relief fund to end all medical debt, especially for poor and low-income people.
Resource the relief fund by imposing penalties on the past and future profits of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers and other health care companies.

4. Secure access to water and utilities for all

Institute a moratorium on all shut-offs; turn the water and lights back on; and relieve water and utilities debt.
Implement a national water affordability program that is funded in part by past and future profits from water bottling companies.
Restore federal funding to local water systems. Funding must be conditioned on ending water shut offs and turning water / utilities back on.
Direct national resources and capacity to rebuild water, sanitation and utilities infrastructure.
Return private water and utilities to the public sector.

5. Declare climate change a national emergency

Redefine critical infrastructure as infrastructure necessary for a 100% renewable and climate resilient economy. This includes a modern smart grid that can manage and support 100% renewable energy use.
Prohibit the construction or expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, including all new pipelines, refineries and coal, oil and gas export terminals. Ban fracking, mountaintop removal coal mining, coal ash ponds and offshore drilling. End federal fossil fuel subsidies.
Expand and strengthen the EPA, reinstate environmental rules and regulations that have been rolled back and prohibit rule-making that weakens federal policies on climate protections.
Allocate federal resources to climate research and climate crisis mitigation strategies that are working and that can be scaled up.
Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and become a global leader on climate reduction goals.

6. Establish a Green Jobs Corps within the Jubilee Jobs Program

Target poor and low-income communities that have been reliant on fossil fuels, extraction and polluting industries and/or experienced ecological devastation and climate crisis.
Projects will include: expanding water, utilities and sanitation services; infrastructure development (roads, bridges, broadband and communications); expanding public housing that is climate resilient and energy efficient; retrofitting existing housing to be climate resilient and energy efficient; recycling/composting; sustainable agriculture, land restoration and protection; expanding and strengthening public mass transit, installing solar panels; building wind turbines, advanced batteries and the hardware and software of smart grids and more.

7. Make a full, financial assessment of the environmental damage knowingly caused by fossil fuels and extractive industries.

Target fossil fuel companies, agribusiness and other large GHG emitters, including military-industrial contractors; asset management firms with significant fossil fuel holdings; financial institutions with significant loans to fossil fuel companies; insurance companies with significant coverage of fossil fuel companies’ risks; consulting companies, software companies and retailers who have contracted services with fossil fuel companies; and households that constitute the top 0.01% of wealth holders in the United States.
Redirect this wealth towards the clean-up costs and responsibilities of establishing a 100% renewable and climate resilient economy, including the Green Jobs Corps, and other social programs indicated in this platform.

V. Provide for the Common Defense: Re-prioritizing Our Resources

1. End the culture of war

Cut military budget by $350 billion: close foreign bases, cut unnecessary weapons, dismantle nuclear weapons, close unnecessary domestic bases, cut overhead costs, cut foreign military aid, cut resources for overseas contingent operations and more.
Do not reauthorize the Budget Control Act when it expires in 2022, instead, delink military spending from social welfare spending and redirect military resources that have been cut towards securing basic needs here at home, as indicated in this platform.
Shift emphasis in foreign policy towards diplomacy, foreign debt relief and humanitarian assistance.
End economic sanctions that are hurting poor people, including in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

2. Demilitarize our communities

Implement policy priorities under Part I, End Systemic Racism and Establish Justice, to end police violence, mass incarceration and to demilitarize the US-Mexico border.
End the easy access to firearms that are militarizing our communities.

3. Implement fair taxes and penalties on the wealthy, corporations and Wall Street

Fair taxation will raise nearly $8.9 trillion over the next ten years that will be used to support the programs in this platform. Taxation includes: wealth tax on ultra-millionaires and billionaires, raising the top individual tax rate, taxing income from investments the same as income from work, strengthening the estate tax, taxing capital gains appropriately, restoring the corporate tax rate to 35%, repealing tax breaks for fossil fuels, reinstating a financial transaction tax and more.
Implement additional penalties on wealth that has been wrongfully gained through the climate crises, 2008-9 foreclosure crisis, water scarcity and profiteering from multiple health crises.

4. Relieve the debts of those who cannot pay

End payments on crushing individual and household medical debt, housing debt, water / utilities debt and relieve student debt, especially for poor and low-income families. Waive all interest payments.
End payments on municipal and other bonds for cities and states that are in fiscal crisis. These bonds funnel public resources towards servicing debt – rather than meeting critical public needs – and must be relieved. Waive all interest payments.

5. End the practice of profiteering from crisis

Federal resources to address economic, social or public health crises must first be directed towards the needs of the poor and most marginalized and cannot go to lobbyists, insurance companies, financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, wealthy corporations or otherwise be used to increase the wealth of Wall Street, corporations and the wealthy.
Stop banks from freezing accounts and garnishing payments from poor and low-income individuals.
Increase federal protections from predatory lending.

6. Work to close the racial wealth divide

Establish a “Baby Bonds” program that provides bonds for each American child, regardless of race, valued at between $500 and $50,000, depending on the parents’ wealth level.

AFL-CIO’s 10-Point Pledge to Social, Racial and Economic Justice

We call on all of us here in the United States of America to reject death, whether by racism or economic injustice, and unite to fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone. And as we embrace life, we remember those Americans who gave their lives that we might be free—from the beaches of Normandy to the coal camps of West Virginia to the churches of Birmingham and Charleston.
We call on every person, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation or gender identity, to demand that those whom we the people have granted authority—our elected leaders, our government officials and our law enforcement officers, from the president of the United States to the police officer on the beat—to uphold the Constitution and to honor the oaths you took on the Holy Bible to establish justice, provide for the common defense and the general welfare and, in this time of pandemic, to place the lives, health and safety of our people above the greed of the wealthy and the ambitions of the powerful.
We call on the president of the United States to stop lying, to stop stoking hate and racism, and instead to turn his attention and the full power of the federal government he leads to address the physical and economic fear and pain so many now endure. We further call on him to come to the aid of the essential worker, the unemployed, the poor and the vulnerable, whether in nursing homes, in meatpacking houses or on the unemployment lines.
We call on every person of conscience to reject our country going backward. We call on our nation and our elected leaders to embrace America’s promise, to have the courage to embrace the future that we can build together, not the divisive legacies of our past.
We call on the U.S. Senate to address the intertwined crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic pain and structural racism by taking up and passing the HEROES Act and the Justice in Policing Act.
We call on both houses of Congress to go beyond the bills still sitting on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s desk and take bold action to give all of us, but especially the poor among us, all we need to live and thrive and bring a new day for our country, starting with a good job with rights and economic security for all who want to work.
We call on the authorities who have the responsibility of protecting our democracy, and on every person who believes in America, to come together to stop every attempt at voter suppression, and we call on every citizen of our republic to make every sacrifice needed to vote.
We call on every employer—every business, nonprofit and government body in America to give all workers the day off, or at least time off (with pay), to vote on Election Day.
We call on every person who believes in civil rights and economic justice to take action to defend our right to vote and our democratic republic—to work with your church, your union and your civic organization to stand up for solidarity and to reject death. We can begin by joining in a digital gathering and training on Sept. 14 jointly hosted by the Moral Mondays movement and the AFL-CIO on the theme of “Voting Is Power Unleashed.”
On Sept. 15, we call on every person in this nation to join us virtually at noon to declare that:

We the people, with deep conviction and determination, declare our commitment to defend our republic, won by the blood and sacrifice of those who came before us, by exercising our right to vote. We truly have nothing to fear but fear itself. We will move forward together and we will accept nothing but freedom. We will not take one step back, and we will bring a new day to our beloved country.

Fill out and submit the form to make your pledge!

ADDITIONAL SPONSORS

A Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

COVID Capitalism Webinar Series08 April 2020Article

Since 1 April, TNI with allies has brought together experts and activists weekly to discuss how this pandemic health crisis exposes the injustices of the global economic order and how it must be a turning point towards creating the systems, structures and policies that can always protect those who are marginalised and allow everyone to live with dignity.

TNI works closely with allied organisations and partners around the world in organising these webinars. AIDC and Focus on the Global South are co-sponsors for the full series.

Recordings of past webinars

Missed our recent webinars? Don’t worry, we recorded them so you can catch up. Watch below.

12. People Power and the Pandemic

Panellists:

Thenjiwe McHarris, Movement for Black Lives (USA)
Hakima Abbas, Assocation for Women’s Rights in Development (Senegal)
Rafeef Ziadah, Palestinian performance poet/Professor at SOAS
Josua Mata, Secretary General, SENTRO trade union, Philippines
Vrinda Grover, Human rights lawyer, India

Moderator: Hilary Wainwright, author of A New Politics from the Left (2018)

11. Walls Must Fall – Ending the deadly politics of border militarisation

Panellists:

Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism (2013)
Jille Belisario, Transnational Migrant Platform-Europe (TMP-E)
Todd Miller, author of Empire of Borders (2020), Storming the Wall (2019) and TNI’s report More than A Wall (2019)
Kavita Krishnan, All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA).

10. Taking on the Tech Titans: Reclaiming our data commons

Panellists:

Anita Gurumurthy, Founding member and director of IT for Change, India, where she leads research collaborations and projects with a focus on governance, democracy and gender justice
Nanjira Sambuli, Researcher, writer, policy analyst, advocacy strategist on tech and governance, Kenya
Ben Tarnoff, Tech worker, writer and founding editor of technology magazine Logic and author of the forthcoming Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do—And How They Do It (Sept 2020), US
Caroline Nevejan, Chief Science Officer, City of Amsterdam & Chair of Designing Urban Experience at the University of Amsterdam
Vahini Naidu, Trade negotiator, Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, South Africa

Moderated by Ben Hayes, TNI Associate, Founding director of AWO, a new data rights agency. Researcher and consultant on security policies, counter-terrorism, border control and data protection.

9. COVID-19 and the global fight against mass incarceration

Panellists:

Olivia Rope, Director of Policy and International Advocacy, Penal Reform International
Isabel Pereira, Principal investigator at the Center for the Study of Law, Justice & Society (Dejusticia), Colombia
Sabrina Mahtani, Advocaid Sierra Leone
Maidina Rahmawati, Institute of Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), Indonesia
Andrea James, Founder and Exec Director, and Justine Moore, Director of Training, National Council For Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, USA

8. Feminist Realities – Transforming democracy in times of crisis

Panellists:

Tithi Bhattacharya, Associate Professor of History and the Director of Global Studies at Purdue University and co-author of the manifesto Feminism for the 99%.
Laura Roth, Lecturer of legal and political philosophy at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, member of Minim Municipalist Observatory and co-author of the practice-oriented report Feminise Politics Now!
Awino Okech, Lecturer at the Centre for Gender Studies at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London who brings over twelve years of social justice transformation work in Eastern Africa, the Great Lakes region, and South Africa to her teaching, research and movement support work.
Khara Jabola-Carolus, Executive Director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, co-founder of AF3IRM Hawaii (the Association of Feminists Fighting Fascism, Imperialism, Re-feudalization, and Marginalization) and author of Hawaii’s Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for COVID-19.
Felogene Anumo, Building Feminist Economies, AWID presenting the #feministbailout campaign

7. May 20: Public is Back – Proposals for a democratic just economy

Panellists:

Philip Alston, outgoing UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
Rosa Pavanelli, General Secretary of the global union federation Public Services International (PSI)
Aderonke Ige, Our Water, Our Rights Campaign in Lagos / Environmental Rights Action /Friends of The Earth Nigeria
Sulakshana Nandi, Co-chair, People’s Health Movement Global (PHM Global)

6. May 13: A Global Green New Deal

Panellists:

Richard Kozul-Wright, Director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, author of Transforming Economies: Making Industrial Policy Work for Growth, Jobs and Development
Karin Nansen, chair of Friends of the Earth International, founding member of REDES – Friends of the Earth Uruguay
Sandra van Niekerk, Researcher for the One Million Climate Jobs campaign, South Africa

David Adler briefly joined the discussion to introduce Progressive International, replacing Asad Rehman of War on Want – a coorganiser of the Global Green New Deal campaign.

5. April 29: States of Control – the dark side of pandemic politics

Panellists:

Fionnuala Ni Aolain, UN Special Rapporteur on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism, University of Minnesota
Arun Kundnani, New York University, author of The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic War on Terror and The End of Tolerance: racism in 21st century Britain
Anuradha Chenoy, School of International Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University (retired), and author of Militarisation and Women in South Asia
María Paz Canales, Derechos Digitales (Digital Rights campaign), Chile

4. April 22: Taking Health back from Corporations: pandemics, big pharma and privatized health

Panellists:

Susan George, Author and President of the Transnational Institute
Baba Aye, Health Officer, Public Services International
Mark Heywood, Treatment Action Campaign, Section27 and editor at the Daily Maverick
Kajal Bhardwaj, Independent lawyer and expert on health, trade and human rights
David Legge, Peoples Health Movement Moderator: Monica Vargas, Corporate Power Project, Transnational Institute

3. April 15: A Recipe for Disaster: Globalised food systems, structural inequality and COVID-19

Panellists:

Rob Wallace author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and co-author of Neoliberal Ebola: Modeling Disease Emergence from Finance to Forest and Farm.
Moayyad Bsharat of Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), member organization of La Via Campesina in Palestine.
Arie Kurniawaty of Indonesian feminist organization Solidaritas Perempuan (SP) which works with women in grassroots communities across the urban-rural spectrum.
Sai Sam Kham of Metta Foundation in Myanmar.
Paula Gioia, peasant farmer in Germany and member of the Coordination Committee of the European Coordination Via Campesina.

2. April 8: The coming global recession: building an internationalist response

Read a summary of this webinar here

Panellists:

Professor Jayati Ghosh, award-winning economist Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Author of India and the International Economy (2015) and co-editor of Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development, 2018.
Quinn Slobodian, associate professor of history, Wellesley College. Author of Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018)
Walden Bello, author of Paper Dragons: China and the Next Crash (2019) and Capitalism’s Last Stand?: Deglobalization in the Age of Austerity (2013) 
Lebohang Liepollo Pheko, Senior Research Fellow of Trade Collective, a thinktank in South Africa that works on international trade, globalisation, regional integration and feminist economics

1. April 1: Building an internationalist response to Coronavirus

Panellists:

Sonia Shah, award-winning investigative science journalist and author of Pandemic: Tracking contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (2017).
Luis Ortiz Hernandez, public health professor in UAM-Xochimilco, Mexico. Expert on social and economic health inequities.
Benny Kuruvilla, Head of India Office, Focus on the Global South, working closely with Forum For Trade Justice.
Mazibuko Jara, Deputy Director, Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, helping to coordinate a national platform of civic organisations in South Africa to confront COVID-19.
Umyra Ahmad, Advancing Universal Rights and Justice Associate, Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Malaysia

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