It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday,

March 31st. In the COVID-19 era, we shouldn't just ask what does mitigation look like.

We should ask, what does mitigation with social

justice look like? What does it look like for laid off people who can't pay this month's rent?

What does it look like for the people who deliver things, not just the people who order things?

What does it mean for immigrants losing their jobs as well as people born here and much more. We're very happy to have

with us now to talk about mitigation itself and mitigation with social justice, Congresswoman

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of Queens and the Bronx, who's been speaking

and writing on these essential issues. Congresswoman, it's great of you to come on in the

midst of all this. Welcome back to WNYC. Of course. Good morning. Thanks for having me.

And let's start on the news that some delivery workers went on strike or had sickouts yesterday.

Some will do so today. Amazon, Instacart, Whole Foods in some places, and you've been tweeting about it.

Could you say some of what's happening and why?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you know, in the case of Instacart and many of these other delivery services, workers are treated as independent contractors, as almost a cost-sharing measure by a lot of these major corporations,

except when it comes to Amazon and Instacard and these large workers, they're experiencing

record sales right now, but their workers are under unprecedented danger.

Even in Woodside, a fulfillment facility, an Amazon fulfillment

warehouse has several cases of coronavirus in their workers working in the warehouse.

Workers are scared. They don't feel like they have proper protective equipment, paid sickly

for everyone.

You know, there's this idea that if you get tested, if you have coronavirus, you can get paid sickly.

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