PITTSBORO, NC – As the election ramps up, the North Carolina Green Party wants to let you know about this month's news from the North Carolina Green Party:

• Organize with us to get out the vote for the Hawkins/Walker Green Party presidential campaign;
• Donate to our presidential campaign fundraiser;
• Check out our most recent activism in solidarity with BLM;
• Read our open letter calling on Gov. Cooper to put farmworker safety before profits during Covid.

Read this on our website | Haz clic aquí para leerlo en español

NCGP to Governor Cooper: Farmworker Safety During the Pandemic Is More Important Than Profits

Governor Cooper:

In April of 2020, a letter was sent to you from the North Carolina Farmworker Advocacy Network (NCFAN), which is a coalition of organizations working to improve the living and working conditions of agricultural workers. In this letter, you were asked to use the power of your office to issue an executive order that would help to protect agricultural workers during the pandemic. In particular, NCFAN requested that you instruct agribusinesses to:

• Provide migrant farmworkers with access to healthcare services and other resources.
  
  
• Ensure migrant agricultural workers are not put at risk in their employer-provided housing.
  
  
• Ensure agricultural workers are able to protect themselves from exposure while working.
  
  
• Protect workers from retaliation who get sick.
  
  
• Ensure H-2A farmworkers are able to enroll in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), ensure Spanish interpretation for health information, and provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers serving agricultural workers.

These are not onerous requirements. As NCFAN has pointed out, you previously publicly committed to issuing this order, as reported in the News and Observer on August 14, 2020. Comparable orders have been issued in Michigan and Wisconsin. In fact, in 2016, long before the pandemic, both Attorney General Josh Stein and yourself told the NC Latino Congress that, once in office, you would work toward “improving the state’s ability to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate health and human services to North Carolina’s growing Spanish-speaking community.”

However, upon signs of resistance from the NC Department of Labor and Department of Agriculture, you quickly rescinded the commitment to the executive order. Both of the heads of these offices are Republicans, and both are themselves committed to protecting business (including large farmers and agribusiness) from any legal responsibility to protect workers beyond the bare minimum dictated by law. Since Republican legislators have spent the last decade reducing that responsibility, your office had an opportunity to begin to reverse the damage of laws created to benefit employers over employees. It should have been an easy decision to inform commissioners Berry and Troxler that their resistance to your order was not in line with the needs of the farmworkers in North Carolina, and that your administration, and the attorney general’s office, was quite prepared to enforce this order. As has been pointed out by North Carolina Justice Center in an article in the Greensboro News and Record on September 10, 2020, many businesses would have complied with your order regardless of the positions of the commissioners.

The failure to issue the order is a betrayal of North Carolina farmworkers, and it calls into question your intent to govern on behalf of all inhabitants of the state. Farmworkers, with or without visas or other documentation, are used by agribusiness to make profits. COVID-19 disproportionately affects people in black and Hispanic communities. For Berry and Troxler, despite the high-sounding rhetoric, these people are disposable, whereas the profits of agribusiness are indispensable. We must ask, which position will you take Governor? Will it be people or profit? Health or illness? Empathy or indifference? The people expect better.

North Carolina Green Party Coordinating Committee

North Carolina Green Party Supports and Participates in the Black Lives Matter Movement

Several North Carolina Green Party members, including cochair Tony Ndege, Charlotte Area Greens cochair Jacob Samuels, past candidates Keenen Altic, Joshua Bradley, and Robert Corriher, assistant secretary Ade Mowry, Troy Winfree of Triad Greens, and others have been heavily involved in statewide protest movements against state violence and systemic inequity.

These actions have included:

• A week-long occupation of the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh, which helped to win the successful veto of the onerous SB 168;
  
  
• Dozens of protests in the wake of the murder George Floyd, including several events in the Triad where Ndege is a lead organizer in the Black Lives Matter movement;
  
  
• Demands for truth and transparency over the death of John Neville and other jail inmates;
  
  
• Demanding that Forsyth County and all NC counties sever their contracts with Wellpath, a for-profit corporation which is the largest healthcare provider for incarceration institutions in the country;
  
  
• Recent actions in solidarity with the #KenoshaUprising in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake, who grew up in Winston-Salem.

Volunteer to Get Out the Vote for Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker

Let's get out the vote for Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker! We can ensure automatic ballot access through 2024 for the NC Green Party by winning at least 2% of the votes for president in 2020 in North Carolina!

VOLUNTEER! There are many ways to help get out the vote for Howie and Angela. We need volunteers:

• to serve as coordinators across the state;
  
  
• for door hanger canvassing (no face-to-face required during this Covid-19 crisis);
  
  
• social-media content posters;
  
  
• content writers; 
  
  
• phonebanking and textbanking;
  
  
• early-voting canvassing;
  
  
• campaign yard sign placement and pickup. 

Even volunteering an hour or two will make a tremendous difference. Join us for our statewide campaign meetings on Wednesday nights on Zoom to learn how you can help. Please register in advance for these meetings and sign up to volunteer!

More and more voters are realizing that the two corporate parties have failed us. The Hawkins/Walker ticket represents real change in this country. While every candidate says that, the Green Party’s platform proves our commitment to broad sweeping system change to improve the lives of the working class, especially oppressed groups, as well as our environment. Our votes come from people who want something different and have no faith in continuing the same failed strategies; they're people who are fed up with our undemocratic electoral system and the corporate parties’ failure to protect and serve its citizens.

None of our most urgent problems will be significantly addressed by either a President Biden or a President Trump. Voters overwhelmingly support Green Party positions like:

• Medicare for All;
  
  
• An end to wars for profit / bring our troops home;
  
  
• Slashing of the military budget;
  
  
• End to the militarization of police;
  
  
• End of the War on Drugs - legalize cannabis and expunge records of non-violent “offenders”;
  
  
• A Real Green New Deal;
  
  
• Equity and protection of marginalized peoples;
  
  
• This tells us what we already know: that we need to stand even stronger for what we want, and that's real change!

It is critical that we take a stand and not only vote for our future and the future of new generations but also, most importantly—organize for a new mass party, not vote for our fears and hope for the best. The tactic of Lesser Evilism has not worked in over a century of attempts to reform either big-business party, and it certainly won’t work for us in 2020 or for the future of people or our planet.

REGISTER GREEN TODAY!

Donate to Our NCGP Campaign Drive!

We're raising $7,500 to get out the vote for the Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker presidential ticket in North Carolina and to increase NC Green Party registration! Our goal: win at least 2% of the vote for Hawkins/Walker in our state. Two percent means the NCGP automatically retains its ballot line for 4 more years to run Green candidates. Otherwise we may lose ballot access for several months or longer, and we will be required to collect several thousand petition signatures.

DONATE NOW to help us organize for H20—and to build the North Carolina Green Party. The two major parties have utterly failed the people and the planet. Help us build our own political power independent of the two capitalist parties!

Your donation will be used for:

• Increasing voter registration and candidate interest for 2020–2024;
  
  
• Sending out mailers to statewide registered Greens;
  
  
• More signage and getting signs to volunteers in every town—rural as well as larger cities!; 
  
  
• Door hangers and other important materials for Get Out the Vote and membership-building efforts;
  
  
• Training volunteers and having limited volunteer stipends;
  
  
• Putting materials on campuses and other areas with a large percentage of likely voters;
  
  
• Other critical volunteer materials including PPE, hats, and badges;
  
  
• Phone banking and text banking for getting out the vote and membership drives.

Become a Member!

The North Carolina Green Party refuses all corporate contributions, so dues-paying members play a vital role ensuring our state and local organizations have the resources needed to build an independent party for people and planet free from the influence of the 1 percent.

Who can Become a Member of the North Carolina Green Party?

North Carolina residents who are registered to vote as “Green” are eligible to become members of the NCGP after they have affirmed Green Party principles (see our 10 Key Values and Platform), set their own dues rate using a budget-friendly sliding scale, and initiated payment of those dues. You choose your own dues level on the honor system, based on what you can pay. Note: Residents who are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement (including but not limited to reasons such as age, criminal record, or noncitizen/undocumented status) may also become members. Email the NCGP secretary at [email protected] if you feel you are ineligible to vote due to state disenfranchisement. All NCGP members, with the exception of noncitizens, shall pay modest annual dues.

Find out more: www.ncgreenparty.org/membership.

Find Us on Social Media

Like and follow our NCGP Facebook Page.
Follow us on NCGP Twitter.

Join our statewide and regional NCGP Facebook groups to connect with Greens:

North Carolina Green Party
Charlotte Area Green Party
Triangle Area Green Party
Triad Area Green Party
Eastern NC Green Party
Western NC Green Party

In solidarity with people and planet against profits,

The North Carolina Green Party
https://www.ncgreenparty.org