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Thursday, May 14th, 11 AM

Please join advocates for elders and people with disabilities, public health advocates, concerned community members, and City officials in an online Town Hall on problems of care in nursing homes and other congregate facilities (group homes, board & care homes, assisted living facilities, homeless shelters, SROs, jails etc).

Click here to sign up!

More information about the issue:

The huge concentrations of COVID cases and deaths in care facilities has been a national disgrace. San Francisco is no exception. Contributing factors include no provision of social distancing, the lack of testing, lack of formal or informal oversight, lack of transparency in reporting cases and deaths to families and the public, and the long-standing low-staffing, low pay, and lack of safe conditions and PPE for care workers.

In California, these problems are made worse by (1) the state’s order that nursing homes accept recovering COVID patients, (2) proposed immunity for nursing homes from criminal or civil penalties for COVID deaths during the pandemic, and (3) proposed state triage guidelines if hospitals become overwhelmed that could discriminate against older people, people with disabilities, poor people, fat people, and people of color.

Nursing facilities are nearly all for-profit, and money must not be a motivating factor in whether or not to provide the best care possible. In addition, local and state government must step in more aggressively to protect people. The low priority placed on the lives of older people and disabled people living in facilities is a sign of ageism and ableism, oppression based on age and disability.

Please attend to learn about these problems, declare that ageism and ableism are unacceptable in our community, and join the dialogue to prevent future tragedies.

 Sponsored by the California Care Rationing Coalition:

Senior and Disability Action, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, Gray Panthers, California Alliance of Retired Americans, Hand in Hand, and many more

In view of continued concerns about the coronavirus, new revelations, all the uncertainties and lack of testing, we are canceling our May 23 general meeting.

Hopefully over the coming weeks, we will have better information about what is risky and what is reasonable.

Meanwhile follow the restriction guidelines and stay safe.

I am writing to ask for your help in cosponsoring H.R. 82 (Graves-LA and Spanberger-VA) since you were one of the cosponsors of this bill in the 117^th Congress. This bipartisan bill will repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO), penalties that financially harm millions of retirees across our nation.

The WEP and GPO cut or eliminate Social Security benefits that retirees have paid for. The WEP cuts the earned benefits of public service workers that they paid for during their time working in the private sector. The GPO eliminates the Social Security survivor benefit, even for those with a modest pension. Retired educators can be forced into poverty when their spouse dies, even though their survivor benefit had been paid for by their spouse.

Now is the time to take action to repeal these two unjust penalties. The nation has been seeing an exodus of teachers who are either leaving the profession or retiring earlier than planned. The repeal of these two offsets is an important step to help to turn the tide in favor of teachers remaining in the classroom.

Please cosponsor the bipartisan bill H.R. 82 (Graves – LA and Spanberger – VA) and move this issue to the forefront.

In view of continued concerns about the coronavirus, new revelations, all the uncertainties and lack of testing, we are canceling our April 25 general meeting.

Hopefully over the coming weeks, we will have better information about what is risky and what is reasonable.

Meanwhile stay safe.

Friday, May 1st at 12:00 noon CARA (CA Alliance of Retired Americans) is holding a virtual sing-a-long to celebrate INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY in honor of workers all over the world.  (click on link at noon): https://zoom.us/j/8308420049
or Dial by Phone 888-475-4499,  Meeting ID for both computer and phone is  830 842 0049

Union Maid (v.1/2 Woody Guthrie, v. 3: Capple Israel, v.4: Nancy Katz; m:trad “Redwing”)
There once was a union maid, who never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the company boys come ’round
She always stood her ground.
Chorus: Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union,
I’m sticking to the union, I’m sticking to the union.
Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union,
I’m sticking to the union ’til the day I die.
This union maid was wise to the tricks of company spies,
She couldn’t be fooled by a company stool, she’d always organize the guys.
She always got her way when she struck for higher pay.
She’d show her card to the National Guard
And this is what she’d say (Chorus)
You women who want to be free, take a little tip from me;
Break out of that mold we’ve all been sold, you got a fighting history
The fight for women’s rights with workers must unite
Like Mother Jones, move those bones to the front of every fight! (Chorus)
A woman’s struggle is hard, even with a union card
She’s got to stand on her own two feet and not be a servant of the male elite
It’s time to take a stand, keep working hand in hand
There is a job that’s gotta be done and a fight that’s gotta be won! (Chorus)

Solidarity Forever (lyrics by Ralph Chaplin, v.3 Steve Suffet. music: Battle Hymn of the Republic)
When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.
Chorus: Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.
It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;
But the union makes us strong. (Chorus)
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong. (Chorus)
They divide us by our color, they divide us by our tongue
They divide us men and women, they divide us old and young
But they’ll tremble at our voices when they hear these verses sung
For the union makes us strong
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong. (Chorus)