Austerity

Montreal’s Francophone Teachers Strike Against Austerity

October 10, 2015 Ashoka Jegroo, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Austerity, Montreal, Strike

By Ashoka Jegroo for Waging Nonviolence, Thousands of Francophone teachers, along with students, parents, and other supporters, flooded Montreal’s streets for a one-day strike on September 30. The strike is the first of six planned by the Federation Autonome de l’Enseignement, or FAE, a coalition of eight of Quebec’s French-speaking teachers unions, as part of their negotiations with the provincial government over proposed cuts to education. “We are taking the streets today to tell the population and the parents that we are with them, and that their schools, teachers and their students, deserve more,” Nathalie Morel, vice president of the FAE, told CTV Montreal. “We deserve better.” Sylvain Mallette, head of the FAE, first announced the strike on September 8, and on Wednesday, around 34,000 French-language teachers walked off the job and marched on the streets of Montreal.

Here’s How We Free U.S. Cities From Wall Street Control

September 24, 2015 Saqib Bhatti, www.occupy.com Resist! Austerity, Finance and the Economy, Los Angeles

By Saqib Bhatti in Occupy - To try to balance its budget, Los Angeles had enacted hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts over the previous five years. City jobs had been slashed by 10 percent, flood control procedures had been cut back, crumbling sidewalks were not repaired and alleys were rarely cleared of debris. Sewer inspections ceased entirely; the number of sewer overflows doubled from 2008 to 2013. The campaign slogan wrote itself: “Invest in our streets, not Wall Street!” At the city council debate, Timothy Butcher, a worker with the Bureau of Street Services, got up and said, “I don’t know a whole lot about high finance. I’m just a truck driver. But I do know, if I go to a bank and they give me a bad deal, I don’t deal with that bank any more. And I don’t understand why the city can’t use the same kind of concept on some of these big banks, saying, ‘Hey, help us out or, you know, we’re not going to deal with you any more.’ ” The City Council approved the resolution unanimously.

Illumination Project Asks Where The Money Went

September 20, 2015 Tom Tresser, www.tifreports.com Organize! Austerity, Chicago, Taxes, Transparency

By Tom Tresser for TIF Illumination Project. Chicago, IL - What a night at Malcolm X College. About 300 people showed up for the first 2016 Budget Town Hall presided over by Mayor Emanuel and attended by all his department heads on September 1. Dozens of folks got one minute to ask a question or make a statement. The room was filled with supporters of the Dyett High School hunger strikers. People young and old expressed their anger and aspirations, stepping up to the mike and demanding that the mayor first meet with the hunger strikers and accept the community-development proposal to transform Dyett into a global leadership and green technology academy.

Report From Chicago: Dyett Hunger Strike Ends

September 20, 2015 Michelle Strater Gunderson, www.livingindialogue.com Resist! Austerity, Education, Neoliberalism, Privatization

By Michelle Strater Gunderson for Living in Dialogue. Chicago, IL - September 19, 2015. The hunger strike for Dyett High School ended this morning on day 34. Once again I headed to the south side to be with my friends and fellow education fighters known as the Dyett Twelve. Education activists had been told that the hunger strikers would have an announcement this morning, and many of us converged at the Rainbow Push Coalition broadcast to be there in support. I sit in the pews behind Cathy Dale and Jeanette Taylor-Ramann – two women who I have come to love and respect through this struggle. After 34 days of fasting the hunger strikers have an other-worldly presence. They seem so strong and focused, yet vulnerable at the same time.

Puerto Rico Proposes Harsh Austerity To Solve Debt Crisis

September 10, 2015 Alice Ollstein, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Austerity, Debt, Puerto Rico

By Alice Ollstein in Think Progress - The government of Puerto Rico put forward an official plan on Wednesday to tackle its looming $72 billion debt crisis. In exchange for demanding some concessions from the island’s hedge fund creditors, the government is promising to pay workers less than the minimum wage, slash retirement benefits, limit collective bargaining, cut funding to universities, and shut down more K-12 schools. In a speech Wednesday, Puerto Rico’s Governor García Padilla said the hedge funds and other creditors had a moral obligation to meet them halfway, otherwise the island will run out of money next summer. “That path…will result in years of litigation and defaults and a major humanitarian crisis,” he said. “It will force us to choose between paying a creditor, a teacher, a policeman or a nurse.”

BLM Opposes DC Mayor’s Increase In Policing

August 28, 2015 Eugene Puryear & Sean Blackman, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Austerity, Community, DC, Police abuse, Racism, Washington

By Eugene Puryear & Sean Blackman for Stop Police Terror - Mayor Muriel Bowser has released her plan addressing the spike in crime. Stop Police Terror and many others, have stated, she is headed in the wrong direction. In her framing she states the plan is “comprehensive.” Translated from politician-speak that means it contains “something for everyone.” Stop Police Terror has some serious concerns particularly about the massive increase in police presence and expansion of police powers. Much of what Bowser proposes is based on spurious information. Tougher penalties for crimes on public transit is a strategy that simply will not work. One of the principal studies on the effect of more severe penalties concluded: “the studies reviewed do not provide a basis for inferring that increasing the severity of sentences generally is capable of enhancing deterrent effects.” Stop Police Terror rejects this mass incarceration approach to criminal justice that has been proven by the academic and anecdotal evidence to be unsound.

Greece Is For Sale – And Everything Must Go

August 22, 2015 Nick Dearden, www.globaljustice.org.uk Educate! Austerity, Europe, Greece, Privatization

By Nick Dearden in Global Justice - I've just had sight of the latest privatisation plan for Greece. It's been issued by something called the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund – the vehicle supervised by the European institutions, which has been tasked with selling off an eye-watering €50 billion of Greece's ‘valuable assets’. The fund was a real sticking point because the European institutions wanted to move it to Luxembourg, where they could keep a better eye on it. Anyhow, it's still in Athens, and this document, dated 30 July, details the goodies on sale to international investors who fancy buying up some of the country. We've attached it to this blog to give a flavour of what’s up for grabs at the moment.

Germans To Run Greek Airports In Wave Of Bailout Privatisations

August 19, 2015 Associated Press, www.AP.org Educate! Austerity, Germany, Greece, Privatization

By Associated Press in The Guardian - Greece has agreed to sell to a German company the rights to operate 14 regional airports. The deal is the first in a wave of privatisations the government had until recently opposed but must make to qualify for bailout loans. The decision, published in the government gazette on Monday night would hand over the airports including several on popular tourist island destinations to Fraport AG, which runs Frankfurt Airport, among others across the world. The deal, worth €1.23bn euros (£0.9bn/$1.37bn), is the first privatisation decision taken by the government of Alexis Tsipras, who was elected prime minister in January on promises to repeal the conditions of Greece’s previous two bailouts. The government initially vowed to cancel the country’s privatisation programme but Tsipras caved in to win a deal on a third international bailout for Greece, worth €86bn.

Greek Parliament Approves Bailout Causing a Rebellion In SYRIZA

August 16, 2015 Sharmini Peries, www.therealnews.com Educate! Alexis Tsipras, Austerity, Bailout, Greece, Syriza

By Sharmini Peries for the Real News - It has been I think a dramatic 48 hours, even by the standards of the Greek crisis. As the, within hours--perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration. A day or two of the bailout negotiations having been announced as concluded, the parliament, the Greek government tabled a 400-page bill which basically gave to the parliamentarians less than 24 hours to digest and debate. Just before the debate began, 11 members of Syriza, the Left Platform of Syriza led by Panayiotis Lafazanis, the former energy minister and I think the putative leader of the Left Platform, issued a letter in which they called for the formation of a national anti-bailout movement, and asked for a nationwide mobilization at every level of the political organization of the Left Platform to oppose the bailout.

Alexis Tsipras: “Austerity Is A Dead End”

August 10, 2015 Kostas Arvanitis, www.transform-network.net Educate! Alexis Tsipras, Austerity, Finance and the Economy, Greece, Syriza

By Kostas Arvanitis for Transform Network - We have to be objective in our conclusions. These have been six months of great tensions and emotions, and self-flagellation helps no one. Feelings of joy, pride, dynamism, determination, and sadness have surfaced. But I think that at the end of the day, if we try to look at this process objectively, we can only be proud to have led this fight. Under adverse conditions and with a difficult balance of forces within Europe and the world, we tried to assert the point of view of a people and the possibility of an alternative path. Ultimately, even if the powerful were able to impose their will, what remains is the absolute confirmation on the international level that austerity is a dead end. This process has established a completely new landscape in Europe.

Bruce Rauner Is Using A Manufactured Crisis To Bust Unions

August 6, 2015 Jennifer Ritter and Jacob Swenson-Lengyel, www.inthesetimes.com Organize! Austerity, Conservative, Illinois, Politics

By Jennifer Ritter and Jacob Swenson-Lengyel for In These Times - If you like Scott Walker, you’ll love Bruce Rauner. In February, Rauner issued an executive order blocking public employee unions from collecting “fair share” fees, or payments from non-union members who nonetheless benefit from collective bargaining done on their behalf. The order is intended to decimate public employee unions, not just in Illinois, but across the nation. As unions rightfully fight the executive order, Rauner hopes the case will make it to the Supreme Court, where following last years Harris v. Quinn ruling, many experts believe conservative justices may be poised to strike down fair share fees nation wide. That was just an opening foray. Now Rauner is using the budget crisis to blackmail legislators into supporting his anti-worker policies. He refuses to raise revenue unless the state legislature, Cook County and municipalities across the state bow to his anti-union, destabilizing “turnaround agenda.”

Social Democracy Or Revolutionary Democracy: Syriza & Us

August 6, 2015 Michael A. Lebowitz, www.socialistproject.ca Strategize! Austerity, Colonialism, Greece

By Michael A. Lebowitz in Socialist Project - 1. For several years, Syriza has been the hope of the working-class in Greece, Europe and in every country suffering from neoliberalism and austerity. It was sending a message that a better opposition was possible; and as such it was an inspiration to similar anti-austerity struggles (in particular, that of Podemos in Spain). 2. European and Greek capital was determined to kill that messenger. Accordingly, it was and is relentless in its determination to send a quite different message: TINA, there is no alternative to neoliberalism and austerity. 3. Despite its programme as a party, the platform on which it was elected to govern and a strong popular vote endorsing its rejection of the demands of European capital, the Syriza government totally capitulated and accepted a colonial status for Greece. 4. It is never too late (or too soon) to unleash the creative power of the masses.

Hedge Funds Helped Destroy Puerto Rico’s Economy, Poor Pay Price

August 3, 2015 Alice Ollstein, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Austerity, Debt, IMF, Puerto Rico, usa

By Alice Ollstein in Think Progress - Angry graffiti scrawled across the brightly colored buildings of San Juan tells the creditors of the world exactly where they can stick their plan to extract roughly $73 billion in debt from the struggling U.S. territory. “Puerto Rico comes first. To hell with the debt,” reads one wall. “Don’t play around with my retirement,” says the side of a major freeway. Down by the University of Puerto Rico, the walls and sidewalk are filled with laments — “Look into my unemployed face” — and calls to action: “Study and fight!” Depending who you ask in Puerto Rico, the debt crisis was caused by neo-colonial and imperialist policies from the U.S., the Puerto Rican government’s wasteful overspending and corruption, or the cadre of hedge funds that are currently profiting from the island’s woes.

The Ghost Of Democracy Haunts Europe

August 3, 2015 John Weeks, www.opendemocracy.net Educate! Austerity, Democracy, Europe, Greece

By John Weeks in Open Democracy - Due to naivety and/or the triumph of hope over experience, I never entertained the possibility that the Syriza government would capitulate to the Troika. The capitulation arrived all the more unanticipated because the Syriza government surrendered to EU demands more draconian and more of an insult to national sovereignty than those rejected by 61% of Greek voters in the referendum on 5 July. This post-referendum package accepted by the Greek government does not result in a Third Bailout. On the contrary, by accepting it all the Greek government has gained (if that is the operative word) is a concession by its euro overlords to begin negotiations for a Third Bailout.

Hedge Funds Demand Austerity In Puerto Rico

August 2, 2015 Rupert Neate, www.theguardian.com Educate! Austerity, Education, Finance and the Economy, Puerto Rico

By Rupert Neate for the Guardian -- Billionaire hedge fund managers have called on Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and close schools so that the island can pay them back the billions it owes. The hedge funds called for Puerto Rico to avoid financial default – and repay its debts – by collecting more taxes, selling $4bn worth of public buildings and drastically cutting public spending, particularly on education. The group of 34 hedge funds hired former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists to come up with a solution to Puerto Rico’s debt crisis after the island’s governor declared its $72bn debt “unpayable” – paving the way for bankruptcy. The funds are “distressed debt” specialists, also known as vulture funds, and several have also sought to make money out of crises in Greece and Argentina, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near collapse of Co-op Bank in the UK. The report, entitled For Puerto Rico, There is a Better Way, said Puerto Rico could save itself from default if it improves tax collection and drastically cuts back on public spending.

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