Recession

General Strike Campaign Growing In The United States; Begins On May Day

April 20, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast COVID-19, General Strike, Recession, Working Class

Over the last two years, there have been record numbers of worker strikes in the United States not seen since the depression. Since the recession and COVID-19 pandemic started this winter, there have been many wildcat strikes in response to workers having their pay cut and being required to work in hazardous conditions even though they are deemed essential. Now, as the government demonstrates its unwillingness to provide basic protection for the population even as it injects billions of dollars to big industries and banks, support for a general strike is here. We speak with Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson about the plans being made for the first general strike on May Day, what that will look like and how the campaign will be sustained over time.

Unions Back US Postal Service’s $75 Billion Pandemic Appeal

April 20, 2020 Mark Gruenberg, Intrepid Report. Organize! Bailout, Labor Unions, Postal Service, Recession

Washington — Faced with a crash in mail volume and revenue due to closures to battle the coronavirus pandemic—right when the country needs the Postal Service the most to help get vital food, medicine, and other life-saving goods to everyone—Postmaster General Megan Brennan asked Congress for a combination of $75 billion in cash and credit to keep going through the financial disaster. Her April 9 video briefing request, to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which handles postal legislation, drew immediate support from the nation’s two big postal unions, the Letter Carriers (NALC) and the Postal Workers (APWU). And even GOP President Donald Trump’s Postal Board of Governors backed it. “It is vitally important to the American people that the next stimulus package provides funding to the Postal Service sufficient to maintain a revenue stream that allows them to continue operations through this pandemic crisis,” NALC President Fredric Rolando e-mailed on April 10.

New York Tenants Plan A ‘Massive Wave Of Rent Strikes’

April 20, 2020 Steven Wishnia, The Indypendent. Resist! COVID-19, New York City (NYC), Recession, Rent Strike

With hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers unable to pay rent after being forced out of work by the coronavirus epidemic, a group of housing activists is organizing what they call “a massive wave of rent strikes” beginning May 1. Their aim is to pressure the state to cancel all rent payments for April, May, and June. “My building is going on rent strike starting May 1,” Lena Melendez of Washington Heights, a member of the Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association, said during a telephone press conference April 16. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 90-day moratorium on evictions won’t protect tenants, she added, because when it ends, they’ll owe three months back rent— often adding up to $6,000 or more. There will be “massive evictions” when the courts reopen, she predicts.

A Universal Basic Income Is Essential And Will Work

April 20, 2020 Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog. Create! Debt, Federal Reserve, New Economy, Recession, Universal Basic Income

According to an April 6 article on CNBC.com, Spain is slated to become the first country in Europe to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) on a long-term basis. Spain’s Minister for Economic Affairs has announced plans to roll out a UBI “as soon as possible,” with the goal of providing a nationwide basic wage that supports citizens “forever.” Guy Standing, a research professor at the University of London, told CNBC that there was no prospect of a global economic revival without a universal basic income. “It’s almost a no-brainer,” he said. “We are going to have some sort of basic income system sooner or later ….” “Where will the government find the money?” is no longer a valid objection to providing an economic safety net for the people.

Coronavirus And The Crisis This Time

April 20, 2020 Sam Gindin, The Bullet. Strategize! COVID-19, Recession, Socialism, Working Class

Crises – not regular downturns but major crises – are characterized by the uncertainty they bring. They interrupt the normal and require yet-to-be discovered abnormal responses in order for us to move on. In the midst of these periodic calamities, we don’t know how or even whether we will stumble out of them nor what to expect if they do end. Crises are, consequently, moments of turmoil with openings for new political developments, good and bad. Because each such crisis modifies the trajectory of history, the subsequent crisis occurs in a changed context and so has its own distinct features. The crisis of the 70s, for example, involved a militant working class, a challenge to the American dollar, and a qualitative acceleration in the role of finance and of globalization.

Long Breadlines Form Outside Of Food Banks

April 20, 2020 Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. Educate! COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Food distribution, Recession

At least 10,000 cars line up in an orderly fashion in San Antonio, all full of hungry, increasingly desperate people. Thousands already arrived the night before just to get a chance to eat. “We just can’t feed this many,” said the CEO of the local food bank that Texans have descended upon. It is a scene playing out across the country; 1,300 cars swamped the drive-thru Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank. The United Center, home to the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks, has been transformed into a huge food warehouse, as COVID-19 has driven a wedge through the cracks in American society, where tens of millions of people now face unemployment and hunger. Some have claimed that the food lines are a glimpse into what a future American socialist state would look like.

Pandemic And Economic Crisis In Latin America

April 19, 2020 By Revista El Porteño (Chile) - Corriente Socialista Militante (Argentina) - CMI-Chile, Marxist.com. Organize! Argentina, Chile, Neoliberalism, Recession

The coronavirus pandemic is the catalyst that just pushed the economy into a global recession. The capitalist crisis that has shaken the foundations of the world since 2008 is on its way to becoming the most acute, in historical terms. Before the onset of the pandemic, the world economy was so fragile that any accident could have pushed it toward the precipice. The coronavirus gave it that final push. The virus of overproduction, with financial speculation as its inevitable consequence, has infected the cells of the capitalist mode of production. Once again, private property and its legal consequences obstruct the means of production for all of humanity. Already the International Labour Organisation has warned of the loss of 25 million jobs over the next few days.

Vital Healthcare Workers Face Massive Layoffs

April 18, 2020 Sara Flounders, Workers.org. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Recession, Workers

Health care workers are suddenly facing the largest layoffs and pay cuts in three decades. These workers are being justifiably lauded as the frontline of defense in a global pandemic. But rather than thanks, health care workers face hardships as administrators, investors and stockholders look first at the bottom line of profit. Altarum, which describes itself as a nonprofit research firm for vulnerable and publicly insured populations, provided a detailed study of the job loss and pay cuts. It reports that in past economic recessions, jobs in health care grew. Not this time. More than 43,000 health care workers lost their jobs in March. More drastic cuts in hours and pay are expected in April and moving forward.

Public Banking Would Help Speed Economic Recovery

April 18, 2020 Isaiah Poole and Rick Girling, The Hill. Create! COVID-19, Debt, Public Banking, Recession

At least 90 percent of the nation’s cities are facing a budget crisis because of the economic shutdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a mid-April report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities. Because municipal governments cannot run deficits, they will have to respond by cutting staff and programs, which will worsen the economic conditions of the cities they serve. If cities had public banks, they would be much better equipped to deal with these budget shortfalls and maintain the services and staff most vital to their economic recovery. That’s why state and local political leaders should use emergency powers to rapidly create public banks that can serve as key engines of a just and sustainable economic recovery. Public banks are new to most of us in America, but they have been a proven institution globally for the past few hundred years.

Protect Tenants From COVID-19 By Nationalizing Landlords’ Assets

April 17, 2020 By Phillip Mendonça-Vieira, Passage. Create! Bailout, COVID-19, Housing, Nationalization, Recession, Rent Strike

With the economy grinding to a halt due to the social distancing measures and emergency lockdowns imposed in order to fight COVID-19, more than a million of Canadians have lost their jobs and are filing for employment insurance. This poses a unique danger to tenants. A half century of housing and tax policies that discriminate against tenants has highly stratified who rents and who owns their accommodations by income — as of 2016, the average household income of Canadian homeowners was nearly double that of renters. Many tenants are now, or soon will be, having to choose between buying groceries and paying rent, as the government’s support programs exclude a great deal of people.

Head Of The Postal Workers Union Says The Postal Service Could Be Dead In Three Months

April 17, 2020 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Organize! Congress, Labor Movement, Postal Service, Recession

Among the most prominent victims of the coronavirus financial crisis is the United States Postal Service, which could quite literally run out of money to operate if the federal government does not approve a rescue package for it soon. The Trump administration—which, like much of the GOP, has long advocated for cutbacks and privatization of the postal service—actively prevented the USPS from being bailed out in the CARES Act, even as Donald Trump has made a show of publicly thanking Fedex and UPS for their work. Not very subtle. Fifty years ago last month, U.S. postal workers staged an unprecedented and historic eight-day strike, backing down the Nixon administration and winning the right to collective bargaining. A half century later, Mark Dimondstein, the leader of the 200,000-strong American Postal Workers Union, says that Republicans are using today’s crisis as an opportunity to destroy the postal service as a public entity once and for all.

Tenant Advocates Call For Mass Rent Strike On May 1

April 17, 2020 Jake Offenhartz, The Gothamist. Resist! Bailout, New York (NY), Recession, Rent Strike

New York tenant leaders are planning a “massive wave of rent strikes” across the state, the latest escalation in a campaign to force action from Governor Andrew Cuomo as he continues to resist calls to lift rent obligations for those financially impacted by the coronavirus public health crisis. With just two weeks before next month’s rent deadline, the Upstate/Downstate Housing Alliance and the Met Council on Housing launched a pledge on Thursday urging New York tenants to collectively withhold their rent on May 1st, regardless of whether they can pay. The largely unprecedented organizing effort would send convulsions through New York’s already cracking rental market and, in theory, leave Cuomo with no choice but to take action. It comes as the number of New York residents who’ve applied for unemployment in recent weeks skyrocketed past one million.

Billionaire Taxes Decreased By 79% Since 1980

April 16, 2020 Bob Lord and Chuck Collins, Inequality.org. Educate! Billionaires, Recession, Taxes, wealth inequality

Conventional economic wisdom says a time of crisis is not the moment to enact tax increases. But, as Eric Toder at the Tax Policy Center recently pointed out: “[Tax experts] can begin to think of the time after the pandemic passes and how government should respond to massive increases in the public debt, and the new tax increases that Congress will need to enact to fund them.” Initial tax increases should hold harmless working- and middle-class families who will be the most economically vulnerable coming out the pandemic. The first several trillion in new revenue should come from America’s wealthiest households, those who have seen their taxes slashed over past decades. At the top of the list of new tax increases should be a wealth tax on our billionaire class.

Disunited States: Government Failure To Address Coronavirus Is Sparking A Mutual Aid Revolution

April 14, 2020 Eleanor Goldfield, Mintpress News. Create! Capitalism, COVID-19, Mutual Aid, Recession

I‘m not from DC, but I live here. I’m now a part of this living, breathing being that is a city. This city. It helps me to think of cities that way, even ones that I don’t fully feel at home in – like a body. And I’m like a blood transfusion. I know this isn’t my city, my body, but it’s where my life flows now, and so I best flow with it. This body holds me – it is my literal and figurative structure. I am one of the millions of cells rushing through the veins of this place, and although I’m a relative newcomer, I can feel that this body is not well. I can feel that familiar illness – it’s the same as any city I’ve ever lived in.. Every body is weakened and bowed under the weight of capitalism. Yet, there is a new illness – one that found a foothold in our immunocompromised bones and at the same time exposes the severity of that underlying sickness so old it’s etched in our souls.

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