Mayor Walsh, we-- Boston workers and residents-- are asking you to #KeepBostonSafe:

1. Close all schools, libraries, and city offices IMMEDIATELY (by Monday, March 16, 2020 at the latest).

2. Guarantee in writing that all city workers will be fully compensated during the crisis-- no docked sick days, all hourly workers paid for full workdays.

3. Take necessary steps to ensure that all of the city's children are fed and cared for while school is closed-- provide meals directly and urge private employers to provide paid time off for Boston workers and the state to impose a moratorium on evictions.



Right now, the world is gripped by the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, and a vast array of institutions and organizations have closed or cancelled events in response. In Massachusetts, we're under a declared state of emergency, and numerous local organizations, from Harvard University to state offices to the Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, are taking dramatic steps to prevent the spread of the virus.



In Italy, in under a month, they went from 3 cases to a country of 60 million in complete shut down. In Boston, we need to act now to protect our most vulnerable citizens. That means closing schools, libraries, and other city offices to keep the children and city workers off of buses and trains, and to keep vulnerable people from interacting with the public unnecessarily. But just as importantly, ALL city workers need to be guaranteed that they won't be forced to pay for this crisis out of our own pocket: salaried workers should not be docked sick days, and hourly workers should be paid as if they worked full days each day of the shut down. Most importantly of all, the city should do everything possible to ensure that Boston's children are fed and cared for: students in food-insecure homes must get the meals that they would normally get at school in some other way, and the Mayor should urge all private employers to provide their employees with paid sick days during the crisis so that they can care for children and other family members, and urge the state to stop all evictions during the crisis.



#FlattenTheCurve #KeepBostonSafe