I would say it is a very serious moment for everybody in the country and it is probably a new chapter in our history that is going to be rewritten. Or written this time. We have things that have never happened before on a scale that have never happened before to this country. And we are going to have to get back the way we did during the world wars where we all started pulling together to try to solve a common problem. That new chapter would begin with what . Employers do not know that they have to do or what they should do. We need to adopt that standard. The federal government has to to lead on that. The second thing we have to do, is get personal protective equipment in the hands of a number of our front line people because the shortage is there. People do not know how to get it. The strategic stockpile is not being opened up the way it should be. So we need to have one person in charge at the white house that is telling people, heres how you can get those supplies. Then we need to develop hospital in that capacity no matter how much it costs because we are going to be stretched beyond our limits very, very quickly. That is to deal with the contagious part and the disease. But then you have to deal with the people and their lives afterwards. The first thing we should do is to pass a paid sick leave, 14 days of paid sick leave for everybody out there. I truly do not know why the white house insisted that they would not have people or companies over 500 provide sick days for their employees. Those are probably the most important. So 14 sick days for everybody. The second thing is, we need to change our unemployment system. Right now it pays too little and covers too few. It needs to become a real social safety net, so that people who are unemployed, like autoworkers who just got laid off, or bus drivers who got laid off because the school closed, or thousands of others, on construction sites, in aviation, and transportation, and entertainment. All of those people can be covered who would not be covered otherwise. The next thing we need to do, is to make sure everybody maintains their health care. Because they are going to need it. If we give bailouts, the bailout should be used to keep people on the job. No layoffs. No wage cuts. No benefit cuts. No unionbusting. No stock buybacks. No giant bonuses for management but use the money to keep people on the job so we can keep the economy moving. To the greatest extent we can. Host let me turn to followup one question, talked about the federal response this week at the white house. When asked, President Trump said he would give a 10 out of 10. What would you give the president so far . Guest well, i would give him probably a two or three. Because this started a long time ago, steve. Right after this president took over, there was a workplace contagious disease standard that was about to be issued. And he scrapped it. That standard would have required employers to have a plan to educate their employees and have the Proper Health and Safety Equipment on to prevent contagious diseases. He absolutely failed there. Then he dismantled the pandemic disease response infrastructure and the the Response Team that was started by president bush. It was built on by president obama. He scrapped that. And now we have to rebuild it. And then osha, the Occupational Safety and health administration, which is the agency designed to protect the health and safety of workers, has the lowest number of inspectors and Health Specialists it has ever had in its history. And it has not had a leader, a director, for a couple of years. So he failed there. And then at the beginning of this, we knew in december that it was coming and he wanted to pretend that it was just a few people and it was nothing. They even tried to pretend this was a hoax. Unfortunately, some people still believe it is a hoax because they said it. We have to tell people the truth and he has not done a particularly good job at that. I think the last couple of days, he started to be more realistic about that and i think that has been a welcome thing, but we have lost four months in the process and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. A lot of people are going to get very sick. And some people are going to die because that delay was allowed to occur. Host mr. Trumka, this week we saw secretary Treasury Steven Mnuchin say privately he believes the Unemployment Rate could escalate to 20 if washington does not come through they very aggressive stim list package. What kind of job losses are you concerned about . Guest we are seeing job losses in a number of sectors that are massive. You are seeing them in education and you see them all away down the line, bus drivers, food workers, janitors, everybody that is associated with it. You see it in manufacturing stop the big three shut down. Now the supply chain will have to shut down to follow it. You see it in entertainment. Everything has been canceled. So entertainment workers are not able to do anything. We see it in construction. Construction is being canceled, delayed, moved off and so construction workers are starting to get laid off. That is why it is so important for us to get the Unemployment Insurance program up, running, covering people with sufficient amount of income to keep them going and to keep the economy moving. So that when this pandemic leaves, we can still pick up the pieces and quickly rebuild the economy and get everybody back to work and our economy moving again. Host the American Federation of teachers is under your organization. Do you believe at this point that teachers may not return to school this school year . Guest i think that is quite likely. That we will be doing things remotely and online the rest of the school year. In fact, some schools have already done that. Some schools of Higher Education have already said they are not coming back. And the number of the Public Schools are doing the same thing, so could very well happen. That means all the support staff are not going to be around. There going to be laid off and theyre going to need in on a plymouth system that really takes care of them in length and the amount of money provided to them. That is where we should focus now, on getting that done and built, so more americans can fall into that safety net and be protected. Host at this point in the economic crisis, we were talking about bailouts and you mentioned earlier the possibility that companies could end up having the u. S. Government be a major shareholder. For example we saw that in 2008 and 2009 with General Motors and chrysler. What lessons have we learned in the financial crisis about those bailouts that need to be applied to structure these accordingly . Guest they used the money totally improperly. Most of it went for stock buybacks and bonuses for management. They did not use it to keep people on the job. So this time we have learned that lesson and we are putting conditions on that. You do not cut their wages or their benefits and you do not try to bust a union just because it is there. And use the bankruptcy laws to do it. They did all of those things in the last crisis and it showed just how selfcentered they not focus on did the public good. This time we are going to help them focus on the public good by putting conditions on any money or assistance that they ultimately get. Host you said we need to be ready to pick up the pieces when this pandemic ends. I think that is what a lot of americans are thinking that at some point, this, too, will pass. From your standpoint, what kind of a timeline are we looking at . And how would that look in terms of picking up the pieces for the average worker . Guest there are some workers out there hopefully who will continue to work throughout this. The frontline workers that are risking their lives every day to keep the rest of us safe, to provide us with food, to provide us with energy that we need, they are working out there and we need to protect them. That is the first thing we do. This thing could go on to the Third Quarter, the second and Third Quarter of the year. I dont think that is an unreasonable thing. And now the scientists are saying that in china, where they pretty much knocked it down by isolating everybody, that they think there will be a resurgence whenever the people go back to work and we will have to be careful about that. We should be pushing for there to be a cure for this. Some type of cure that we can give our people so that we do not have to worry about that. And we can actually bounce back as an economy. But when we go back, were going to have to go back gently. We have to have money in the hands of all the people who ultimately need it. At that time, workers will need money. Employers will need money. Small businesses will need money. And states and local governments will need money. So we have to make sure that states and local governments are getting aid, perhaps through medicaid, having medicaid paid for a year, that is an important thing as well. Then we can start bringing the economy back online. Because it went down pretty quickly, but it can go back i think well go back a little more slowly than it went down. Host over the last 10 days the economy has come to a standstill. You think it will not be a quick rebound, that it will be a slow recovery . Guest i think well gear back up and take a while. It will take a couple of quarters to start a zero progress getting people back to work. And again, i dont to sound like a broken record, but that is why reforming and fixing the Unemployment Insurance system is so important. Because those workers are going to need that money not just a theyre lump sum shot, going to need that money for a long time if were going to keep the economy moving at any kind of pace and then try to rebuild in the last several weeks, we have seen the stock market crash and the dow plunge below 20,000 points. Many of the workers and unions in this country rely on Pension Funds that are heavily invested in the stock market. Are you concerned at this point some of those pensions could be in jeopardy if the market does not recover quickly . Guest i think theres no question about it. That those pensions will be just like businesses. And so if we are doing a bailout for business, we should also be doing a bailout for pensions on a commensurate level so we make sure that Pension Plans for people who live on those pensions, need those pensions, and spend those pensions to keep the economy growing can continue to do that. This drop in the stock market is hurting everybody. Everyones savings plan their , 401 k , their ira, and our Pension Plans. So if we are going to bail businesses out, we should bail out Pension Plans as well and make sure they can weather the storm and maintain the level of pensions that people have now. Host this is a difficult time for everybody. You have 12 million plus Union Members you represent. Union dues could be a problem for some people. Are you looking at potentially giving people a break . Guest well if they are not working, they do not pay dues. That is one thing for sure. We are looking at every way we can to put together packages from the entities that we have. We have a thing called union plus where we offer a series of benefits. One of those is mortgage and mortgage relief. We drop the payments on those so you do not have to do them during periods of time like this or if youre unemployed. We are putting together a series of packages like that to offer them for members. We are also looking to put together a lump sum of money so we can offer to our unions if they get into financial trouble in this process so they can keep functioning. Because it is more important for those unions and workers to have a strong voice now than it would be ever before. Because if our boys goes silent, the incorporations and the bailouts will do exactly what they did the last time. They will use them for buyouts, stock buybacks, and things of that sort, but they wont use them to keep people on the job. There wont be a voice pushing to expand Unemployment Insurance so that it covers everybody for a longer period of time at a higher amount. That is really what we should be doing. Host mr. Trumka, you put a lot of issues on the table and i was wondering, have you talked to the Trump Administration come to the president about Unemployment Insurance and these concerns . Guest i have not talked directly to the president. Ive talked to the leadership on the hill. We have talked to sent messages directly to the white house. They know our position. We know theirs. We are trying to work through to get a passage in a bipartisan way that can do exactly what needs to be done, and that is give people protective health care or protective equipment first, 14 paid sick days, then an expanded Unemployment Insurance that we cover more people for a longer period of time. Host let me turn to politics. Joe biden is the Presumptive Democratic nominee. Are you prepared to endorse him . To see if we have the necessary that. Of support for i would anticipate that we do an ultimately, there will be endorsement. Im not sure exactly when it will be. Be until junent or maybe july because quite thisly, were focused on crisis right now and the safety and health of our fron frontline workers. In the past, you have been a thetor, a guest at Democratic Party conventions. Did you have a sense that will democrats will still meet in milwaukee . Are you hearing of any plans by the dnc in light of what were today . With i think theyre making contingent plans. And we is still going on still have to be isolated from one another, then then in tot, theyre not going violate those rules. Well find a way to do it that preserves democracy and the will and comes uptes with a candidate that really we think will ultimately take the because thisack white house hasnt been very crisis, only in this but they havent been very good for workers throughout the process. If anit sounds as endorsement of joe biden is almost inevitable. Statement . Air well, joe biden isnt done yet. The primary isnt done yet. Sanders is still there and we will make a decision if in, at some point. If, in fact, theres only one candidate, then we would be able to move that meeting up. November of course, were going to have the election, the thersection of politics and pandemic with people having to go into the ballot box and touch example. R are you favoring any sort of sort oroting of some allmail voting . Some sort of alternative to give confidence that they can vote without becoming infected . Weve always been in favor of having an expanded early voting and voting by mill. A couple of states already do it. It works tremendously. It gives you time to think and time,t the ballot, have and then you dont have to worry about whether its a bad day on election day or its raining. Done. N get it and so weve always been an toocate for that and we want make sure that we expand our early voting, not let it be useracted, that they dont this as an excuse to try to restrict the number of people use vote, but we should this as an opportunity to make voting come to more people and more people be able to vote and avail themselves to the democracy. Just real quick pivoting back to your conversation that youve been, you know, leading for the last several weeks about the fact that we just simply havent the right equipment to those frontline workers, theres also a discussion about a simple manufacturing capacity. We dont have enough. But we now are seeing the andmakers, General Motors ford and tesla are considering actually converting plants tomake some of these. Is that a good strategy in your mind . Absolutely. I think we need to start making more and more of the products. If you want to look at capacity make 48 of the things that we need for national country. In this ive been screaming about that for years that national security, we should make everything necessary for security right here. We make 48 of the stuff we need. Say we dont have the capacity to do healthcare for an emergency that we knew was coming. Convert plantsld that we have right now, capacity, into being able to making the things and we can do and we canmall scale to that on a large scale. Theres a Small Manufacturer up in maine that is right now masksng out how tomake because heres exactly whats happening. We have nurses right now that cutting up gowns to make their own masks because they masks and respirators, and then theres the need for ventilators. Italy, the doctors were making a decision on who got a ventilator and lived and who didnt get a ventilator and died. Now, that decision should never have to be made. We should have the capacity and developing that capacity right now. Has thismilitary Strategic Reserve and theyre going to open that up, but i fear thats still not going to enough. We need to start having the capacity to make those respirators and all the protective equipment that we need to keep our front line because if they come off the line, then we dont to take care of the sick. In fact, we had that in a in danberry,ht now connecticut. Thancapacity, you had more 200 nurses that got taken off wereine because they disease. O corona so they were over capacity with beds and they have 200 nurses now. He line right let me turn to you and the yourio going back to earlier point, saying this is a new chapter changing the way and earn anrk income. How is this changing the aflcio . How . Weve had to start training our members, our frontline members and providing them with the equipment that they should have been getting from the government employers so we started that a number of months ago. Do best, we have a structure it that puts us in every state. So were able to reach people in every state and were educating them right now. Them together. Were finding out what they need. Use the power of solidarity to keep the fear down in this country and actually have people Work Together at a time that we need them to work ever, everre than before. Its causing us to rethink the do. We were operating remotely right now from the aflcio headquarters. Our members, our employees are out, were operating remotely ironing out all the bugs that go along with that. Out way to do that. So its caused us to rethink the net, how we do equipmentotective thats needed, manufacturing process, everything that were dealing with right now, were rethinking to make sure that it in this situation. Hopefully, it will next week, but make it work right now. Inbut bottom line just getting your response to these questions today you seem quite frustrated with the federal in all of this . I think frustrated is part im also extremely disappointed. This started right after this office whenon took they got rid of contagious disease standard that should have been there, and then they had osha and they let it atrophy. It has no leader. It has fewer people than its ever had. There im sure are working hard, but there arent enough of them there because away. E taken so many and then they disrupt or pandemic disease infrastructure that weve had, and then they knew this was coming. Anything to get testing to people. So we have nurses out there, we workers outne there, firefighters, emts, go from homers who to home, that cant get tested if they shouldow isolate or they shouldnt and as a result, its going to cause and more suffering and unfortunately, even more deaths because we didnt get in front of this. It wasnt a game. Be 15 people,to and its up and down and weve done a great job, its over. Not true. Ust and having the American People not prepare because of that was history. Pter in our so im not just frustrated; im disappointed. But quite frankly, im also hopeful because every time i go things you think are going to fall apart, people this extraordinary thing. Americans come together, nurses doctors do more, transportation workers do more. Pilots do more. Flight attendants do more. Teachers adapt to our kids and so hopeful because i see them coming together with a says nothing and no one is ever going to defeat this country. Ande going to come together as a group were going to defeat coronavirus, as well. While im frustrated on the one hand and disappointed im also more hopeful than ive years. A lot of quick followup and then nathan with the final question. Or the president lying misinformed . Does it matter . Was wrong. What he told the American People is wrong and it hurt us. And it put us back and you still people out there that believe that this is a hoax. Imagine that. People still believe this is a because he said it. It doesnt matter whether he lied or whether he was misinformed. It hurts the American Public and it should never have happened. That. Erve better than you talked about the pain and the suffering, of course, thats economy. Through the do you believe, though, that you may have to reopen contracts for unions throughout this country to potentially give a break to some of the employers who are pressure right now . Well partner with anybody. Weve always done our share if thats whats necessary, but wont do. You what we we wont let them get a bailout more exorbitant salary through stock buybacks managementnuses to while they lay off workers and cut their wages. That. t do we partnered with them and thats exactly what happened. It wont happen again. It will be fair, it will be mutual. Thats what will happen because do. s what americans we come together and do what has through anyo get crisis or any challenge and i have faith that the american given the right tools and right opportunity can face any challenge, any time, prevail. I love the American Worker and i in them. L faith we will conclude on that note, Richard Trumka joining us inm the aflcio headquarters washington, d. C. The president of that union and here in our studios and nathan today to both of you thank you for joining us on safe. Kers, be teamsters president Richard Trumka answered several questions regarding the 2020 inpaign and the election november and how the pandemic could affect that. President ialcratic candidate joe biden, a 2020 aboutatic candidate talks the National Response to the coronavirus pandemic. Few minutesd just a ago. Its about 15 minutes. Good morning. You and your family are doing well in these difficult confusings times, times. Like all families, the biden ways. Is adjusting to new less time together, more worrying about friends and