Workers

Why The Labor Movement Should Support The ‘Beyond Recovery’ Campaign

July 20, 2020 By Stephanie Luce, Labor Notes. Create! Housing, Recession, Unions, Workers

Even before the pandemic, a large share of Americans cited housing availability and affordability as a major and growing concern. With rising unemployment, housing experts are predicting that 20 percent of all renters will be at risk of eviction by early fall. As with other aspects of the pandemic, Black and Latino people will be hurt the most. As reported in the Washington Post, a recent Census survey found that “about 44 percent and 41 percent of adult Latino and black renters, respectively, said they had no or slight confidence they could pay their rent next month or were likely to defer payment.” Majority Black zip codes already had the highest rates of eviction. The CARES Acts and expanded unemployment benefits have helped some cover their rent or mortgage, but those benefits are scheduled to run out at the end of July. Eviction moratoriums in many cities, meant to provide temporary relief, will eventually expire. Unions and other worker organizations can play a unique role in solving the housing and debt crisis both for union members and for the unorganized.

US Firms Shield CEO Pay As Pandemic Hits Workers, Investors

May 31, 2020 Jessica DiNapoli and Ross Kerber, Reuters. Educate! Recession, Wall Street, wealth inequality, Workers

New York/ Boston - Sonic Automotive Inc (SAH.N), which operates 95 U.S. car dealerships, started laying off and furloughing about a third of its workforce as the coronavirus pandemic crushed its sales. Then it changed its executives’ pay packages - handing them a multimillion-dollar windfall. On April 10, Sonic’s board gave its top executives stock options to replace performance-based share awards, regulatory filings show. The options it gave Chief Executive David Smith, whose family controls the company, are now worth about $5.16 million - more than four times the value of the performance-based stock awards he got last year. Some of Sonic’s terminated employees, meanwhile, face hard times.

Bending PPE Rules Spells Death For Health Care Workers And Families

May 21, 2020 Roberta Wood, People's World. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, PPE, Workers

Chicago - If he could have worn a fresh N95 mask for every procedure as mandated by the Centers for Disease Control, would surgical technologist Juan Martínez be alive today? It was a tough question for a reporter to ask a grieving daughter. “We can’t know, but they bent rules, and that’s not how healthcare should be,” Angela Martínez told People’s World. Angela held aloft a large portrait of her father at a demonstration on the lawn across from the entrance to University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago where he had worked for over 20 years. She was joined by her sister Rebecca, brother Juan, Jr., who had followed in his father’s footsteps as a surgical tech, sister-in-law Yaneth, and her mother Martha who had worked 13 years in the hospital’s nutritional services department.

Once Again, Congress Will Let Wall Street Pillage Main Street

May 10, 2020 Leonard C. Goodman, PopularResistance. Educate! Bailout, Congress, Recession, Workers

Over the last decade, Congress’s approval ratings have hovered around the mid-teens or low 20s, reflecting the reality that our representatives in Washington, D.C., serve the needs of big donors while throwing an occasional rhetorical bone to the “essential” workers who actually make the country function. Congress’s handling of the current crisis of the pandemic is unlikely to improve its ratings. Working Americans are facing an unprecedented disaster. Before the virus hit, half of them lived paycheck to paycheck and didn’t have $400 saved for an emergency. Now they have been ordered to stay home. Many have no income while their rents, utility bills, student loans, and credit card debts are accruing. The small businesses—restaurants, gyms, and stores—that provide half of the nation’s jobs were ordered to shut down. Their rents are accruing. And with no income coming in, many have little chance of repaying what they owe when the economy reopens.

For The Workers Of The World, The Pandemic Is Based On Inequality

May 9, 2020 Pasqualina Curcio, Resumen English. Organize! COVID-19, Economic inequality, Pandemic, Workers

It is not entirely true that COVID-19 does not distinguish between attacking and, above all, killing. It is possible that biologically there are no differences in skin color, age, or sex, in any of the case studies that will have to be conducted carefully once we have all the details of the cases of infected and dead. But one thing we know already is the vast differences and inequalities in the ways the pandemic is being fought. It is not the same as the risk of contagion for the delivery man for Amazon who must go out to work every day because otherwise his/her children will go to bed without eating, to the risk taken by the owner of the same company who, while being socially very distant in his mansion, is at the top of the Forbes list with a fortune of 138 billion dollars.

Mass Strikes Across The US This May Day

May 1, 2020 Christopher D. Cook, In These Times. Resist! COVID-19, General Strike, May Day, Workers

Toiling amid a pandemic and a callous response from corporate America and the federal government that is exposing millions to deadly hazards and deepening poverty, workers across the country are rising up, planning hundreds of strikes and sickouts for International Workers’ Day on May 1. At a time when worker organizing could be stifled by physical distancing rules and the Trump administration’s disabling of the National Labor Relations Board, workers are walking off the job in massive coordinated walk-outs and sick-outs targeting major employers such as Amazon, Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, FedEx, and Instacart, demanding hazard pay, personal protective equipment and other basic protections.

#GeneralStrike2020: How To Participate On The May Day Launch

April 30, 2020 Popular Resistance. Resist! General Strike, May Day, Rent Strike, Workers

On May Day, the first of May, the #GeneralStrike2020 (and beyond) campaign launches across the country. Learn more about the overall campaign in our most recent newsletter, "The Era of Mass Strikes Begins On May 1; First Day of General Strike Campaign." This prolonged and broad campaign will organize around a list of basic demands, as outlined here. Not on the list, but included is the demand to save the US Postal Service. The campaign will follow a three-prong strategy - resistance through noncompliance, mutual aid and building alternative systems in our communities rooted in cooperation, solidarity and participatory democracy. On May Day and extending through the weekend, there will be many activities. Read through and decide how you can best participate in the actions. There is something for everyone to do. Be creative!

‘Protect Amazon Workers’ Mural Painted In Front Of CEO Jeff Bezos’ Home

April 29, 2020 Shut Down DC, Popular Resistance Resist! Amazon, Jeff Bezos, Strike, Workers

On April 29, 2020, a team of activists with La ColectiVA and ShutDownDC painted a mural on the street in front of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ DC home. The mural read “PROTECT AMAZON WORKERS” in massive letters stretching from curb to curb. The mural action was taken in solidarity with Amazon workers across the country who are being forced to endanger their health during the COVID-19 crisis. Advocates for healthy and safe working conditions in Amazon warehouses participated in an online town hall in which they called on Bezos to provide paid time off for illness, adequately clean warehouses, and end attacks on worker organizing. They were joined by environmental justice and racial justice activists. “Whether it’s harming our environment or enabling ICE and police surveillance, corporations like Amazon are complicit in profiteering from practices that put us all, especially Black and brown communities, at risk...”

Fired Amazon Worker Chris Smalls: Support May Day Strikers

April 29, 2020 Jaisal Noor, The Real News. Resist! Amazon, General Strike, May Day, Workers

Another reason why we out here tonight is because Amazon is targeting specific people. We are being told to stay six feet apart. However, that rule does not apply for everyone. We’ve seen management do it right in front of us. We’ve seen safety that are supposed to keep us safe, do it. Yet we as associates are being targeted. Jaisal Noor: That’s Hofsa Hassan, one of the dozens of Amazon workers who staged a walkout to protest unsafe working conditions and the loss of hazard pay at an Amazon warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota on April 26th. We can expect to see more walkouts and protests leading up to big actions on Mayday or International Workers Day, which is observed in most countries except the United States. Despite its rich militant often bloody history of working class struggle that’s secured major victories like the eight hour workday.

Nursing Home Workers Authorize May 8 Strike At 40 Facilities

April 29, 2020 Robert McCoppin, Chicago Tribune. Resist! COVID-19, Nursing Homes, PPE, Strike, Workers

Workers at 40 nursing homes in Illinois, nearly all in the Chicago area, said Monday they have set a strike date for May 8, as contract negotiations come to a head while coronavirus cases are hitting a peak. SEIU Healthcare Illinois stated that it represents more than 10,000 workers at 100 nursing homes. The workers do not include doctors or nurses, but encompass certified nursing assistants and other support staff. They are negotiating with the Illinois Association of Healthcare Facilities on a new contract to succeed the current one, which expires April 30. The list of 40 homes targeted by workers could increase in the coming days, officials said. Many of the workers are making little more than Chicago’s minimum wage of $13 an hour for “backbreaking,” essential work taking care of society’s most vulnerable members, said Shaba Andrich, vice president for nursing homes.

The Struggle Against Neoliberalism Intensifies: Saving Our Postal Service And Workers

April 27, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Meatless May, Postal Service, Recession, Workers

The wave of worker, student, and renter strikes is growing into a campaign for a general strike that begins on May 1 and continues at the first of each month from there. The government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic collapse, a purely neoliberal money grab, has revealed that the only way we are going to survive and maintain social programs is by fighting for them. We speak with Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, about Congress' failure to provide necessary funding for the US Postal Service as revenue has fallen by 50%. The USPS faces the real possibility of going bankrupt and the administration is openly saying it will let it fail in order to privatize it. We also speak with Joe Henry, political director of the League of United Latin American Citizens in Iowa, about the Meatless May campaign for meatpackers and against factory farming.

Earth Day To May Day Protests Begin In DC With ‘Essential, Not Expendable’ Protest

April 27, 2020 The ShutDownDC Alliance, PopularResistance Resist! climate crisis, COVID-19, Earth Day, May Day, Recession, Workers

Three moving protests involving 135 people celebrated essential workers as well as to condemned employers and legislators for avoidable illnesses and deaths. They carried banners that read, “Essential, Not Expendable, and “Free Them All.” The three caravans – two consisting of cars and one of people on bicycles – visited grocery stores, hospitals, and government agencies, before coming together in Anacostia in SE DC, where they were joined by a live go-go band. The actions were organized by activists with Black Lives Matter DC, 1199SEIU, and ShutDownDC. The Essential, Not Expendable protest is part of the 10-day Earth Day To May Day action organized by the ShutDownDC alliance, which started on April 22, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

The Totalitarian Danger – From Paris To Washington

April 27, 2020 Daniel Gluckstein, Socialist Organizer. Organize! COVID-19, France, health, Pandemic, Workers

From the very beginning, the Fifth Republic was constituted as a regime with a totalitarian mission. The President-Bonaparte concentrates all powers in his hands. The trade union organisations are constantly subjected to attempts to integrate them into the State. Since the start of the pandemic, the Bonapartist anti-democratic nature of the regime has intensified: the introduction of a supposed “health” state of emergency; the passing of ordinances [1] that confiscate Parliament’s meagre powers and attack the social guarantees won through action by the working class; a strengthening of personal power in every domain (“I have decided, I am doing, I will do”, Macron says again and again, in contradiction with what he had decided, done and said he wanted to do a few days previously). In addition to which there are the attacks on personal freedoms and workers’ rights. In the last few days, things have moved up a notch.

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.

Dozens Of Strikes Say, ‘No Safety, No Work!’

April 16, 2020 Martha Grevatt, Workers World. Resist! COVID-19, health, Strike, Workers

As the death toll climbs, workers deemed “essential” have staged at least 75 separate job actions since the Chipotle walkout. Walkouts, sickouts, sit-ins and, most recently, car and social-distance pickets have involved people from a wide range of occupations. In addition to many fast food workers, those protesting include workers in health care, construction, manufacturing, meat and poultry processing, retail, warehouses, public transit, bars and restaurants, water and sewage, beverage bottling, nursing home care and more. Common demands of the walkouts are for employer-provided personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves and hand sanitizer, social distancing, hazard pay and the right of sick workers to stay home with pay. Payday Report lists almost 30 work stoppages that have occurred since April 1.

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