Counter the chaos

To the editor:

In April 2020, I was exhausted and shell-shocked after a 94-hour week of intubating and resuscitating Covid patients at my safety net hospital in Queens.

When FEMA-funded relief workers arrived at Elmhurst Hospital, I finally felt able to test myself for Covid and took my 10 days of self-isolation, while a FEMA refrigerated truck was parked outside.

Federal agencies and workers are essential. From safeguarding our national security to managing crises like pandemics, plane crashes and fires, they are the safety net.

Agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Health are essential to prevent and respond to public health crises, providing essential guidance and research, and coordinating care across our patchwork health system.

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump are illegally and unwisely taking a wrecking ball to these agencies, undermining our democracy, aiming to consolidate their power by sowing division, fear and chaos. They may well succeed in their attempt to destroy labor law and the NLRB, ending legal or administrative solutions to workplace conflict between managers and workers.

How can we stand up to these corporate thugs and support federal workers, the rule of law and our increasingly fragile democratic project?

The answer is to organize. If you are a federal worker, join the Federal Unionists Network (look up their Feb. 19 Day of Action). If you have a union, reform it to become strike-ready. If you don’t have a union, start building an effective union in your workplace right now.

Dr. Damien Archbold

The writer in an anesthesiologist, NYCH+H/Elmhurst and a member of the Doctors Council SEIU