WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:270000 00:00:00.270 --> 00:00:04.230 We haven't seen this level of concern about the American workforce since the 00:00:04.231 --> 00:00:06.360 great recession. Joining us now, 00:00:06.361 --> 00:00:11.361 democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and the president of the AFL-CIO, 00:00:12.210 --> 00:00:14.460 Richard Trumka. Thank you both for joining. 00:00:14.470 --> 00:00:18.400 Senator, we'll be with you in one second. I want to ask you though, Richard, 00:00:18.460 --> 00:00:20.950 what do you, what do you think about the idea? I mean, 00:00:21.190 --> 00:00:23.410 we all need to fly on airplanes. You need to play on airplanes. 00:00:23.411 --> 00:00:25.030 I need to fight on play. I get that, 00:00:25.540 --> 00:00:30.490 but what do you think about the fact that these airlines spent the billions of 00:00:30.490 --> 00:00:34.120 dollars that they got from the Trump tax cuts and didn't spend a dime on 00:00:34.121 --> 00:00:37.960 employees, didn't spend a dime on a rainy day fund, 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:41.740 didn't spend a dime on expanding the business. Instead, 00:00:41.770 --> 00:00:45.940 they spent the overwhelming majority of their money on stock buybacks and now 00:00:45.941 --> 00:00:49.540 they're coming back to the federal government asking for 50 billion more of our 00:00:49.541 --> 00:00:50.374 dollars. 00:00:51.870 --> 00:00:55.770 Yeah, that was outrageous and we're going to protect against that. Look, 00:00:55.890 --> 00:01:00.690 we have several needs right now. Workers do a, and you're looking at a crisis. 00:01:00.691 --> 00:01:01.920 The first need Joe, 00:01:02.130 --> 00:01:06.360 is we have to have a contagious disease workplace standard so that every 00:01:06.361 --> 00:01:10.710 employer out there is protecting its employees. The second thing we need, 00:01:10.950 --> 00:01:14.190 we have a crisis of personal protective equipment. 00:01:14.191 --> 00:01:19.191 Right now we have nurses cutting up gowns to make a mask for them selves. 00:01:20.190 --> 00:01:23.910 The third thing we need, and this is in order of importance, 00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:29.090 is paid sick days and then unemployment insurance and then health care and then 00:01:29.161 --> 00:01:33.330 make sure those bailouts are used to keep people on the job. 00:01:33.420 --> 00:01:36.450 So there's no layoffs, no wage cuts, uh, 00:01:36.451 --> 00:01:41.451 and no benefit cuts and they don't try to use it to bust unions with the idea is 00:01:41.881 --> 00:01:43.170 to keep them on the job. 00:01:43.171 --> 00:01:46.860 But the first emergency is protecting those frontline workers. 00:01:47.130 --> 00:01:50.040 We need somebody in the federal government right now, Joe, 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:51.960 that you can call a governor, 00:01:51.961 --> 00:01:56.010 could call or a healthcare facility could call and say we need personal 00:01:56.011 --> 00:01:57.750 protective equipment, send it to us, 00:01:57.990 --> 00:02:01.230 cut through the bureaucracy because there's a crisis right now. 00:02:02.190 --> 00:02:06.060 So Senator Merkley, how do we do that? And also as we move beyond, 00:02:06.150 --> 00:02:09.870 and I was talking about a new Yorker article earlier today that said one of the 00:02:09.871 --> 00:02:13.460 problems with the protective equipment is now we get something like 90 00:02:13.510 --> 00:02:17.560 95% of it from China. Now of course this is not bashing China. 00:02:17.830 --> 00:02:22.090 I would say that would be a problem if we get 90 95% of it from Nova Scotia. 00:02:22.390 --> 00:02:26.980 Hey, how do we put ourselves into a position where we are this vulnerable? 00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:29.950 And more importantly, as Richard has said, 00:02:30.160 --> 00:02:34.570 how do we protect front line workers now and make sure all the money that 00:02:35.130 --> 00:02:37.900 Washington's spending is focused on our workers, 00:02:38.050 --> 00:02:42.220 protecting them at work and protecting them when they're out of work? 00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:44.890 Well, Richard's making a great point. 00:02:44.891 --> 00:02:48.430 I've been in calls from the governor of Oregon and leaders, 00:02:48.460 --> 00:02:51.970 other leaders in Oregon saying, uh, we need help right now. 00:02:51.971 --> 00:02:55.720 So I call up the head of the national strategic reserve and I say, 00:02:55.900 --> 00:02:57.190 what happened to the order that, 00:02:57.310 --> 00:03:01.870 that Oregon put in on third and on March 12th they couldn't even find it. 00:03:02.230 --> 00:03:05.170 And so, and then had to call back up and say, 00:03:05.380 --> 00:03:08.020 and so have you shipped and where's that truck? 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:12.010 And where's that pallet that got lost along the, along the way. Uh, we're in, 00:03:12.190 --> 00:03:13.360 uh, we're in real case. 00:03:13.361 --> 00:03:18.100 I think going back to your earlier discussion about the tests on February 5th, 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:22.160 we had, you ain't show having shipped 250,000 tests. 00:03:22.430 --> 00:03:24.950 Where was the leadership in America saying, 00:03:24.951 --> 00:03:28.790 right now we need to put American industry to work making protective equipment, 00:03:29.090 --> 00:03:32.480 American industry to work making these tests we can do, 00:03:32.481 --> 00:03:34.310 if the rest of the world can do it, we can do it. 00:03:34.760 --> 00:03:38.660 And the fact is that leadership was completely missing. So now we're, 00:03:38.661 --> 00:03:42.710 we're being just caught way behind. And as this surges are, 00:03:42.711 --> 00:03:47.030 our workers who are on the front line do not have the protection they need. 00:03:48.510 --> 00:03:53.040 Senator, uh, I'll go, ah, go ahead. Richard. 00:03:55.030 --> 00:03:58.630 Uh, a decision was made early on in this administration. 00:03:59.200 --> 00:04:01.170 The Obama administration had a, uh, 00:04:01.270 --> 00:04:05.500 contagious workplace disease standard that was going to be issued by OSHA. 00:04:05.860 --> 00:04:10.390 When this administration came in, they, they swamped that. They got rid of it. 00:04:10.840 --> 00:04:10.841 Uh, 00:04:10.841 --> 00:04:15.841 it would have required employers to have a plan to educate their employees and 00:04:16.271 --> 00:04:20.380 have the protection equipment on hand. So it would have been there, 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:24.550 but they made the decision to do away with that. In addition to that, 00:04:24.820 --> 00:04:29.820 we have fewer OSHA inspectors on the job now than we've ever had in our history. 00:04:30.700 --> 00:04:34.930 We have fewer health specialists on hand that we've ever had in our history. 00:04:35.080 --> 00:04:39.160 So workers' health and safety was put into the secondary round. Joe, 00:04:39.161 --> 00:04:44.161 they spent $24 billion on immigration enforcement and $2 billion or protecting 00:04:45.671 --> 00:04:49.840 workers. Elephant safety 12 the one difference. That's outrageous. 00:04:50.380 --> 00:04:53.170 It's unbelievable and that's why we're, we're right now in the, 00:04:53.290 --> 00:04:56.530 one of the reasons why our workers are in the crisis that they're in 00:04:56.880 --> 00:04:59.580 and the health care workers on the front lines a Senator, 00:04:59.581 --> 00:05:04.581 I know you've been in contact with the hospital system in your state facing 00:05:04.621 --> 00:05:07.680 similar challenges to other hospitals across the country. 00:05:08.010 --> 00:05:13.010 The president mobilize the military for his caravans at the border. 00:05:13.860 --> 00:05:16.530 He knows he has this at his disposal. 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:19.470 Do you support the president? Mobilize? 00:05:19.540 --> 00:05:24.190 I seen the military to set up hospitals across the country to deal with Corona 00:05:24.191 --> 00:05:25.024 virus. 00:05:26.010 --> 00:05:28.980 If that's the best, fastest way to do it, then then yes, 00:05:29.220 --> 00:05:32.670 I know that we've gotten calls from colleges saying, we have empty dorm rooms. 00:05:32.671 --> 00:05:37.450 Would these be useful? We have folks proposing, uh, 00:05:37.710 --> 00:05:42.090 uh, setting up, uh, state run operations, but we need a national plan. 00:05:42.091 --> 00:05:45.810 What we're seeing is in the absence that national plan gardeners are being left 00:05:45.811 --> 00:05:49.110 on their own saying, what are we going to do? Should we be setting up tents? 00:05:49.320 --> 00:05:54.320 How can we recreate what China did with that massive thousand [inaudible] tent 00:05:55.560 --> 00:05:58.820 hospital that they set up within one week? Should we be doing that? I mean, 00:05:58.821 --> 00:06:02.870 we don't know if there's going to be 70,000 Americans die from this or a million 00:06:02.871 --> 00:06:04.040 Americans going to die from this, 00:06:04.041 --> 00:06:06.860 but we have to be prepared now because once we're overwhelmed, 00:06:07.070 --> 00:06:11.000 it's a question of who gets the ventilator and that's not a question we ever 00:06:11.001 --> 00:06:12.500 want to have to answer. 00:06:13.400 --> 00:06:14.870 Senator Merkley, it's Willie guys. 00:06:14.871 --> 00:06:18.290 Obviously you all pushed through and the president signed more than $8 billion 00:06:18.291 --> 00:06:21.550 in relief, but now you're talking about, that's to cover what's happening, 00:06:21.570 --> 00:06:25.460 the crisis right now on the medical side of it. But on the economic side, 00:06:25.461 --> 00:06:29.750 you guys are debating a little bit how much and what to give out to the American 00:06:29.751 --> 00:06:30.650 public. For example, 00:06:31.790 --> 00:06:35.000 that thousand dollars a check that would go out to every America under proposal 00:06:35.001 --> 00:06:38.840 that the president and the white house have supported. Is it fair to say, 00:06:38.841 --> 00:06:41.360 just from the outside looking in, you've got Mitch McConnell's say, 00:06:41.361 --> 00:06:42.680 let's move quickly on this, 00:06:42.980 --> 00:06:46.760 that Republicans and Democrats both are working together on this and that 00:06:46.761 --> 00:06:51.440 something might move quickly on this next phase of economic relief to Americans? 00:06:52.490 --> 00:06:54.050 Well, the word quickly, I'm not, 00:06:54.110 --> 00:06:56.900 not comfortable using right now because relatively house, 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:01.670 the house completed its work on the second factor, 00:07:01.671 --> 00:07:04.580 which was sick leave, uh, and uh, 00:07:04.581 --> 00:07:08.780 unemployment insurance and food and free tests. Uh, 00:07:08.781 --> 00:07:11.990 they completed that days ago and we don't even have the bill on the floor of the 00:07:11.991 --> 00:07:14.510 Senate. Uh, McConnell keeps saying we're going to get to it. 00:07:14.540 --> 00:07:17.150 Maybe we get to it this afternoon, but we haven't gotten to it. 00:07:17.180 --> 00:07:20.300 There's urgency here. And then the third package you're talking about, 00:07:20.660 --> 00:07:25.430 it's just in the debate format right now. There's difference of philosophy. Uh, 00:07:25.431 --> 00:07:27.770 Republicans generally are saying, well, 00:07:27.771 --> 00:07:31.190 how do we help the big businesses that are affected? How do we help wall street? 00:07:31.191 --> 00:07:33.380 Let's worry about that. And Democrats are saying, look, 00:07:33.381 --> 00:07:38.240 we did that within the last crisis and we found that the workers never got, 00:07:38.270 --> 00:07:41.270 got taken care of. Let's work. Build this from the bottom up, 00:07:41.450 --> 00:07:44.240 from the families up from the small business up. 00:07:44.540 --> 00:07:48.710 That's the way we can make a real difference for the quality of life of people 00:07:48.711 --> 00:07:50.420 and, and recover quickly. 00:07:52.290 --> 00:07:55.290 All right, Senator Jeff Merkley and Richard Trumka, 00:07:55.350 --> 00:07:59.910 thank you both for being on the show. We continue to appreciate it. 00:07:59.940 --> 00:08:04.620 Cover this developing story. She seems to change every hour that does it for us. 00:08:04.621 --> 00:08:08.040 This morning. Stephanie rule picks up the coverage after a quick break.