"Paid sick leave" is the right of workers to both job security and continued pay when we get sick. This right exists in almost every country in the world, but not at the federal level in the US.

We must reject both the fake-optimism of the officials and the resignation that has set in after nearly two years of death and disease. We must fight for the measures that will see us through this newest episode of this ongoing crisis.

With Phase II of reopening beginning Monday, June 22 in New York City, which allows for outdoor seating restaurants, de Blasio has predicted that up to 300,000 workers will return to work. However, the logic of the bosses is unforgiving, and has no respect for de Blasio’s optimism. The possibility of seating a handful of patrons on the sidewalk, in the middle of an ongoing pandemic and historic economic catastrophe, will not see us all back to work. Instead, beginning this Monday, temporary unemployment for many of us will become permanent unemployment.