Asheville DSA Launches “Masks for the Many”
“Masks for the Many” is a mutual-aid program initiated by Asheville Democratic Socialist of America and supported by other local worker’s solidarity organizations to fill a simple need that the owners and bosses refuse to fill. Every day members of our region risk theirs and their family’s health to pay their bills and provide our community with necessary goods.
Ownership can’t even be bothered to provide us with basic safety equipment because they’re too busy counting the piles of cash that they’re raking in from this pandemic. They have made it clear they do not care about working people. They only see dollar signs. Jeff Bezos has added $80 billion to his net worth since the outbreak of the pandemic but has failed to provide Whole Foods workers (the people who produce that wealth for him) with proper N95-grade safety equipment. This is shameful and disgusting.
At our local Whole Foods on Tunnel Road there have been 4 confirmed cases of Covid-19 amongst the staff. Yet still the owners see no need to provide the workers with suitable PPE to keep them safe. Workers, already paid too little, are left to figure it out themselves. All while Bezos piles up staggering amounts of wealth from their labor.
We are standing together as working people supporting each other to bridge the gap that the greed and selfishness of bosses has created. We support workers organizing to improve their conditions and build power in their workplaces. So far we have supplied workers at Whole Foods with 250 KN95 masks and we’re expanding from there. Let’s keep it growing!
This is a mutual aid effort and counts on working people helping each other. If you’d like to contribute to provide more masks for other workplaces, please donate on Venmo to @masks-for-the-many. Do you know of a workplace in our community that needs PPE aid? E-mail avldsa.labor@gmail.com.
