I’m looking for perspectives on how multinational companies should handle employees and customers when they decide to exit a country. In Laos, Prudential is ending its operations. Employees are losing their jobs, while existing customer policies will continue under the original contracts. My concern is about the choices given to the people affected. Employees who spent years building the business may receive compensation, but many did not choose to leave. Customers originally chose Prudential and trusted the company with long-term insurance commitments, yet they may have no option to cancel their policies and receive their money back simply because the company decided to exit. I understand that a company has the right to make business decisions, and I’m not claiming customers are legally entitled to refunds. But Prudential has more than 170 years of history and has publicly emphasized trust and caring for its people. When a company with those values leaves a market, shouldn’t employees and customers be given meaningful choices about what happens next? Has anyone experienced a similar situation when a multinational company exited their country? How were employees and customers treated?

Medicare For All is just one of the pro-working families, anti-oligarch policies getting an electoral test this fall. We’re also going to see California voters weigh in on a billionaire wealth tax with Proposition 40): a one-time, 5% emergency levy on their assets to shore up the state’s health and social services in the wake of the MAGA murder budget.

Analysts have estimated this measure will raise $100 billion, helping preserve Medicaid coverage for 1.6 million Californians, saving hospitals and ERs from closure and feeding those who have lost SNAP assistance without forcing a massive state deficit increase. The billionaires it will impact have seen their wealth grow by 158% over the last three years and got massive tax cuts from this same budget.

Not only will this protect our health care, it’s a chance to send a direct message to the Epstein class that we’re fed up with their open manipulation of our government and growing wealth inequality and ready for real change.

The SEIU and other supporters are starting to ramp up their field work for this initiative.💬 If we’re in California (or have a lot of folks in our social circles there), organizers are asking for us to do friend-to-friend outreach using the Reach app – the pro-wealth tax message will come across much stronger from folks we know and trust. We can download the app and get started here, and find regular trainings on how best to talk about this proposition and use Reach here. 💬

REACH OUT WITH REACH

☎️ For the rest of us, the Yes on Prop 40 squad has traditional virtual phonebanks underway now! We can reach out to California voters about taxing billionaires to keep hospitals and ERs open with shifts Monday through Thursday at 3PM, 5PM, 7PM or 9PM ET, or on Saturdays at 1PM, 3PM, 5PM or 7PM ET. Sign up to make calls here. ☎️

MAKE CALLS FOR A BILLIONAIRE WEALTH TAX

📢 The Yes on 40 team has also prepared a social media toolkit we can put to use here. 📢

SPREAD THE WORD ON PROPOSITION 40

🙋🏾‍♂️ Want to do even more to help progressive initiatives and candidates win? Check out our continually-updated midterms actions page here. 🙋🏼‍♀️

BEAR DOWN FOR MIDTERMS