Labor Calls For Greater Support For Working Families Affected By Pandemic

As CSU-AAUP members rise to the challenge of turning on-ground higher education courses to online platforms, supporting and communicating with their students and fellow faculty virtually, we stand united with Connecticut’s wider labor movement as it mobilizes to protect the health and safety of all working people, including workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Labor will continue to do everything possible to reduce the toll this public health emergency is inflicting on the economy and the livelihoods of workers facing layoffs, furloughs, reduced hours, and shutdowns.

Together with our brothers and sisters in the Connecticut AFL-CIO and the labor movement, we call for the state to do more to help Connecticut’s working families, including:

  • Ensure the Unemployment Trust Fund is solvent by adding additional funds.
  • Properly fund and supply personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care, public safety and law enforcement personnel.
  • Implement paid family and medical leave as quickly as possible.
  • Expand paid sick day law by providing workers additional sick leave when the Governor declares a state of emergency.
  • Protect workers who use paid sick time to take care of themselves or others from discipline or termination.
  • Expand childcare opportunities and provide funding to health care workers to ensure they can return to work.

Click here for the full list of proposals to protect Connecticut’s working families impacted by COVID-19.

Click here to send a message to Governor Lamont and your state legislators urging them to take greater action to protect Connecticut’s working families.

All working people should have access to paid leave, paid sick days, unemployment insurance, and the necessary medical testing and treatment without incurring additional costs.