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El periódico «La Voz de los Trabajadores»: Edición de marzo-abril
La guerra de Estados Unidos e Israel contra Irán es una escalada importante en el Medio Oriente que tiene implicaciones peligrosas para los trabajadores de todo el mundo. La brutalidad del asalto imperialista a nivel internacional va junto con el ataque a las libertades civiles por parte del régimen de Trump dentro de Estados Unidos. Esto incluye las operaciones continuas del ICE y la Patrulla Fronteriza, las amenazas a las elecciones de mitad de período de 2026, los retrocesos ambientales que afectan profundamente a la comunidad negra y la brutalidad policial sin control.
Nuestro editorial en este número nos advierte: «Existe un gran peligro de subestimar la determinación de la élite empresarial estadounidense de llevar adelante esta iniciativa. No podemos confiar en que las sentencias judiciales o las próximas elecciones nos salven. Debemos organizarnos ahora, no solo para realizar manifestaciones masivas y crear redes comunitarias contra la violencia del ICE, sino para encontrar el camino hacia la construcción de un nuevo partido de la clase trabajadora a través del cual podamos organizar nuestra defensa política en todos los planos y todos los días».
En este número también tenemos artículos sobre los archivos de Epstein y la clase dominante, la huelga de maestros de San Francisco y una reseña del nuevo álbum de U2.
La edición de marzo-abril de 2026 de nuestro periódico está disponible en formato impreso y en línea como PDF y contiene articulos en ingles y español. ¡Lee hoy mismo el último número de nuestro periódico con una descarga gratuita en PDF! Como siempre, agradecemos cualquier donación que ayude a sufragar los gastos de impresión.
Haz clic en la imagen para leer el periódico o envíanos un mensaje para recibir una copia impresa:
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San Francisco Educators Organize for Our Schools in the Midst of Crisis
Written by Yusef El-Baz
Our contract campaign in United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), which began in early February, presents socialists with an opportunity to nurture a movement centered on working class autonomy, solidarity, and militancy. This campaign comes at the end of an inspiring and illuminating year of strikes and class struggle in public education in the US and across the world, in which educators and allies took to the streets, shut down schools, and forced the capitalist state to redistribute millions of dollars to public schools. While educators experienced the ups and downs of class struggle with a combination of euphoria, uncertainty, solidarity, and demoralization, our struggles have also increased the confidence and combativity of the working-class, opening up possibilities for expanding the class struggle and socialist politics.
To make matters more complex, the abrupt and destructive COVID-19 crisis unleashed itself after our union had conducted barely one round of negotiations with the district and after hundreds of members organized against budget cuts to our schools. As our district moved to close schools in its slow and uncoordinated response to the proliferating virus, pedagogy and organizing slowed down and gave way to the panic-stricken reaction to the crisis. Our union leadership, to its credit, began conversations with the district around immediate issues and provided members with Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) on a regular basis, ensuring continuity of pay, benefits, building sanitation, and clarified work expectations from the district. In addition, on the heels of United Teachers of Los Angeles, the Chicago Teachers Union, the Seattle Educators for Equity, and other educator locals and caucuses, UESF signed on to a ‘Common Good’ platform with other unions and organizations, such as the SEIU Local 1021, with demands including increased sick leave and direct pay to the city’s workers. And while our union has led worthy mutual-aid efforts in distributing food and promising economic support to undocumented families, it has yet to take clear political leadership; they’ve said nothing regarding the status of our contract fight, how members will remain politically involved in union matters during closure, or how we plan on organizing to defend and win our demands.
In our now third week of school closures, thousands of education workers in our district, as in many others, are being thrust into the development of online education – and the fundamental reorganization of our labor process it represents – mandated by our district to begin on April 13th, generating hours and hours of labor on top of confusion, questions, and resistance to the process. A small, but growing network of rank and file educators, called #StrikeReadySF (SRSF), have begun to organize online and produce responses to this crisis, including a ‘Stance on Online Learning’ that has received support from educators far outside of our local, with the purpose of leveraging our collective power – in this case digital labor – to resist the imposition of senseless workloads and the looming decimation of teaching labor.
#StrikeReadySF is a developing group of politically radical organizers in UESF that centers solidarity, militancy, and social justice, and which has fruitfully participated in the contract campaign, helping to highlight key demands from our base, organize new members, and cohere a vision for our contract struggle in the context of a long-term fight to transform our unions and schools.
At the beginning of the school year, UESF held a members’ conference with Jane Mcalevey – militant unionist – about open bargaining, preparing for strikes, and building with community allies. Prior to this event, SRSF organized a rank and file meeting to prepare a core set of demands we intended on holding UESF accountable to. UESF held a day-long workshop at this same event with the purpose of preparing organizers for the contract campaign. In the words of UESF organizers, there is an attempt to move the union from a service to an organizing model.
The changes that the union leadership is promoting around the negotiations process include: inviting members to a campaign kick-off event to review the results of the bargaining surveys and to decide on key demands, minimizing the core bargaining team to allow more members to participate (although no more than 30 will be allowed throughout the entire process), and improving communication between the leadership and the membership. Our union president recently made a statement in which she apparently reflected on the mistakes UESF made in the past that caused it to lose members’ trust, and that the union was now making an honest attempt to rebuild that connection. Nowhere in the presidents’ statement was there talk of strike preparation, nor what our currently organized forces are and how the union plans to activate our entire membership. Informal estimates predict that about half of our school sites are not meaningfully connected to union organizing efforts. Especially in this new era of the pandemic and school closures, it will be imperative for unions and caucuses to fill this gap through strategic organizing efforts.
In mid-February, our district superintendent released a statement indicating that, due to a budgetary deficit, they would have to cut $26 million dollars from our schools, including layoffs of scores of employees. Immediately, conversations on social media and at school sites began around the significance of these cuts. In response, UESF called for a rally in front of the district’s central offices to challenge the district’s statement. The rally itself was the usual; UESF organized a march of a few hundred people with chants and calls to the district to end its cuts. It did not present any demands on the district; #StrikeReadySF presented a flier with tentative demands we developed with members, including class size reductions, student supports, and cost-of-living salary increases. During the rally, for the first time in twenty-four years, our members, led by SRSF, took the streets, forcing the union leadership to also take to the streets and lead chants. Once inside the district boardroom, #StrikeReadySF chanted “strike ready!” in which the other UESF members and audience joined in. The following day, the San Francisco Examiner published an article on the rally with the title “Educators warn of possible strike after district calls for budget cuts, layoffs.” The consistent work of even a few, well-organized militants in our union helped to place the strike on the agenda for educators in San Francisco.
In discussions around funding our underfunded public school system, school districts often say that it does not have the adequate funding from the state to not institute cuts and much less to provide us with more resources. While it is true that statewide funding is extremely low in California, in 41st place nationwide in per-pupil funding, it is also true that SFUSD uses about 60% of the funds it does receive in order to expand and fatten a district bureaucracy which does not contribute to our children’s growth and whose top administrators collect six-figure salaries. In addition, San Francisco is one of the wealthiest regions in the world, with technology and real estate industries forming millionaires and billionaires who pay a pittance in taxes in relation to the wealth they steal. Organizers in UESF must organize a strong local contract campaign to redirect district resources to our school sites and programs that benefit our students directly, including taxing the 1% in our area to do so. We do not have to play by the rules of the powers-that-be.
With that being said, it is imperative that we organize on a statewide level, as California Educators United has done, to tax the wealthiest Californians and provide billions of dollars in public services because it is true that, since the majority of funding comes from Sacramento, what we can achieve in local struggles remain limited. A productive local campaign, however, can prepare us to organize fruitfully with other locals around the Schools and Communities First 2020 ballot initiative in November with the purpose of obtaining the stated billions for schools and social services.
Our goal as socialists is to: 1) organize members to push for an emergency set of demands to address the COVID-19 crisis, 2) promote members’ participation in the official union processes to gain political experience, strengthen our campaign, and be in a position to challenge the leadership where necessary, 3) create independent spaces of rank and file organizing in order to hold the leadership accountable to a democratic process; and to transform UESF in the long-term into a militant, social justice union and 4) develop the most active and politicized layers in this fight into organized socialists who can amplify class independent, socialist politics. -
Watch video of this web presentation: ‘China, from workers state to imperialist power’
This event took place on April 16, 2020. Watch the video below:In 1949, Chinese workers and farmers made one of the most important revolutions in world history. Now, China stands as one of the major stronghold of world capitalism. Over the last decade and a half, its international presence and influence have been transformed into those of a leading imperialist power.
Keith Leslie is an independent historian and rank and file worker. In this Socialist Resurgence webinar, he gave an analysis on how and why China went from a workers state to an imperialist country, and some of the implications that change has for the global class struggle.
For background, please read Socialist Resurgence’s document China: A New Imperialist Power, available here: https://socialistresurgence.org/sr-documents/
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Sanders drops out — what next?
Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at a Democratic Party campaign rally at the University of Houston on Feb. 23, 2020. (Larry W. Smith / Shutterstock) By JOHN LESLIE
On April 8, Bernie Sanders announced the suspension of his presidential campaign, saying, “I have concluded that this battle for the Democratic nomination will not be successful, and so today I am announcing the suspension of my campaign.” This makes former Vice President Biden the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. Sanders is keeping his delegates and will remain on upcoming primary ballots in an attempt to negotiate for the inclusion of some of his agenda in the party platform. Sanders has pledged to support the party nominee, just like he did in 2016 with the neoliberal Hillary Clinton.
The Democrats, the pro-Democratic media, and a section of capital have thrown themselves behind Biden, a flawed and often incoherent candidate. These forces pulled out all the stops to derail the Sanders campaign. The Democratic establishment and their paymasters on Wall Street would rather lose with a bland centrist than with a liberal reformer. Socialists should understand that Sanders’ mild reformist measures would never get through Congress. Democratic Party centrists hold the balance of power in the party and in Congress.
We must reject the notion that Sanders’ campaign is anything resembling a popular working-class mobilization. Yes, he’s a sincere reformist, but he’s also a component part of the Democratic Party. Some leftist Sanders supporters claim that he can be pushed to break with the party. This wishful thinking is contradicted by the senator’s own words: “As a member of the Democratic leadership and the United States Senate, and as a senator from the state of Vermont, this is something that I intend to intensely be involved in over the next number of months, and that will require an enormous amount of work.” Similarly, Sanders has reiterated his support for the eventual Democratic nominee.
The purpose politicians like Sanders serve is not to win gains for the working class but to act as a shock absorber for a system in crisis. Social democrats like Alexandria Occasio-Cortez (AOC) and Sanders are not “independent,” as some claim. They are loyal builders of the Democratic Party. They may criticize the party’s right wing, but they are team players at the end of the day.
The current situation only reinforces the fact that the Democrats are not a party for workers and the oppressed, but a capitalist party that subordinates workers and the oppressed to Wall Street.
What next?
This situation poses a question for socialists—what to do next? For months, sections of the left, both reformists and a layer of former revolutionaries, have immersed themselves in the Sanders effort in the vain hope that the Vermont Senator’s campaign would open space for socialists. Some of these socialists have also insisted, despite numerous historical examples to the contrary, that it is possible to change or capture the Democratic Party. Many of these reformist and neo-reformist socialists have succumbed to the idea that the left can use the Democratic primaries. Grassroots political campaigns like the movement against climate change, for example, have been given short shrift as activists and organizations put emphasis on electoral campaigns.
We call on all sincere socialists to make a clean break with the Democratic Party, the graveyard of social movements. The unions and organizations of the oppressed have been subordinated to the Democrats for too long by leaderships who have hitched their fates to the needs of Wall Street.
The Democrats have a long history of attacks on the poor and working class. They have been enthusiastic cheerleaders for neoliberalism and accomplices in every imperialist misadventure overseas. The left wing of the Democrats plays a crucial role in keeping the working class people and oppressed peoples captive to the logic of lesser evilism. Going forward, there must be a decisive break with lesser evilism and the Democrats.
The party we need
Socialists reject the idea that there is an electoral road to socialism. The U.S. ruling class is ruthless and would resist an elected socialist or working-class government by any means necessary, including the mobilization of fascists. The lesson of Chile serves as an example for all of us. An elected reformist government was overthrown by the military with the collusion of the CIA and U.S. multinational corporations. Thousands were slaughtered by the fascistic military regime. Salvador Allende, the elected Socialist Party president of Chile, was overthrown and murdered. Allende’s illusions in bourgeois legality kept him from arming and mobilizing the working class in defense of the government.
The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare the corruption of our ruling class and their disregard for human life. The ruling rich are willing to sacrifice the lives of the most vulnerable in society to preserve their wealth. Workers and oppressed people need a party of our own—a fighting Labor Party based in the unions and organizations of the oppressed. Such a party must fight every day in the streets and at the ballot box. The fight for a working-class party is necessarily a combined struggle to build a class-struggle leadership in the unions and to construct a revolutionary organization worthy of the name.
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Death toll worse than reported in the U.S.
For the information of our readers, we are reprinting an article posted by independent socialist Barry Sheppard.
One week ago, the official death toll from COVID-19 in the United States was 3700. Today, April 7, the number has risen to well over 12,000.
But this underestimates the real figure. An article in yesterday’s New York Times reports “… hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners say that official counts have failed to capture the true number of Americans dying in this pandemic. The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision-making from one state to the next” and limited availability of tests.
In short, there is no national overall plan to confront the pandemic, or even to collect true information. Another indication of the abject failure of the Trump administration, which literally has blood on its hands.
The article gives some examples. “A coroner in Indiana wanted to know if the corona virus had killed a man in early March, but said her health department denied a test. Paramedics in New York City say that many patients who died at home were never tested for the corona virus, even if they showed telltale signs of infection.
“In Virginia, a funeral director prepared the remains of three people after health workers cautioned her that they each had tested positive for the coronavirus. But only one of the three had the virus noted on the death certificate.”
In addition, prison authorities, including those in for-profit private institutions, have an interest in underreporting cases and deaths among the huge prison population where there is no possibility of “safe separation.”
The same is true for the immigrants being held in crowded facilities, most private for-profit, under the control of Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE). They especially want to cover up sickness and death of the children being held in crowded cages. The undocumented, homeless and uninsured also are susceptible to dying from the virus, without ever having been tested and counted.
Dozens of immigrants at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, have been on hunger strike since April 3 to protest their continued imprisonment at the for-profit facility. This is a striking immigrant prisoner: “We’re just asking for deportations to be postponed while the pandemic passes. We are not asking for anything more. I think we are human. We are not animals to be treated as the worst thing in this country. We are asking for a humanitarian visa.”
It is just now being reported that among the hardest hit are African Americans. Today I saw on CNN three reports. In Louisiana, Blacks make up one-third of the population, but 70 percent of the deaths. In Illinois, 15 percent of the population and 42 percent of the deaths. In the city of Milwaukee, 26 percent of the population and 71 percent of the deaths. Those are only the reported deaths. Blacks are disproportionally represented among the above categories of the under reported.
African Americans have significantly worse indicators of general health, including for conditions that make the sickness more dangerous, including high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, asthma, and more.
Latinos are also being hard hit. One district in New York City is in the borough of Queens, and has become an epicenter within the larger epicenter of the city. This is one area in the district represented by Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).
Her district also includes the notorious jail on Rikers Island, where at least one prisoner has died of the virus. Hundreds have tested positive out of a total of 5000. Many are there for parole violations or serving less than a year for low-level offensives, or are even being held in pre-trial detention and haven’t been convicted, because they don’t have money for bail.
AOC recently tweeted, “COVID deaths are disproportionately spike in Black + Brown communities. Why? Because of the chronic toll of redlining [around these communities], environmental racism, wealth gap etc. ARE underlying health conditions. Inequality is a co-morbidity. COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations.”
In a recent interview on Democracy Now, host Amy Goodman introduced Ocasio-Cortez.: “Can you talk about your district? We have heard a lot about Elmhurst Hospital. The doctors and nurses, like so many around the country, and the sanitation workers in these hospitals are not properly protected. We have not heard as much about the community that it serves. In just the last week, I’ve heard about three men—two Mexican brothers who died in their home, not even in the hospital, their bodies just recently taken out; a third died in the hospital—but fears of even going to hospitals, knowing what could happen to them, who have been hard-working members of our communities for so many years. Talk about your community.”
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: “Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the actual community surrounding Elmhurst Hospital and Elmhurst, Queens. This is one of the most working-class and Blackest and Brownest communities in New York City. It is extraordinarily dense. Even for New York City, it is a very dense and densely populated community.” It also has many undocumented workers.
“It’s no surprise that in the wake of this pandemic the Trump administration announced a public charge rule that basically said if you are undocumented and seek public services, public health care, SNAP [food stamps], WIC [nutritional program for women, children and infants], etc., then you will be essentially put on a fast track to either denial of citizenship or outright deportation ….
“After we pushed the Trump administration, we were able to secure confirmation from the administration that they would not refer COVID-related cases and treat them under the public charge rule. But there’s so much confusion already that many are scared to go to the hospital. These are the same people who are preparing our food. They’re the same people who stock our grocery shelves. They’re the same people who deliver our goods. And the idea that we can deny them care, as though the pandemic will not affect them in greater ways because of that, is naive, and it’s unscientific.”
There is an ironic twist to the administration’s dealings with the undocumented. It is an open secret that agriculture relies on undocumented workers. These workers have now been declared part of an “essential” business. Most have been working the fields for years and decades, are part and parcel of the U.S. population, but are denied citizenship rights.
Agribusiness likes to keep them that way, so they have difficulty asserting their rights as workers concerning wages and working conditions, for fear of deportation—but they are now recognized as “essential” to the United States while still called “aliens” like they are from Mars.
In addition to the many protests and demonstrations by nurses, doctors and other medical workers demanding personal protective equipment, other workers who need such protection have staged wildcat strikes and protests. These include such essential workers such as those delivering food to those quarantined because they have the virus.
Grocery store workers who have to deal with large numbers of people have demanded protective equipment, and in some cases have gotten it. Others are protesting overcrowded conditions that make contagion more likely, including in some auto plants. Some have walked out due to coworkers being tested positive.
At Amazon, workers are protesting because they have to handle very many boxes that can carry the virus from the outside, and need gloves and masks, as well as overcrowded conditions that prevent safe spacing. Jeff Bezos, one of the five richest men in the world, is the head of Amazon, and can’t cough up the money to meet the workers’ concerns. Amazon is one company which is profiting from the pandemic since people saying at home are turning to delivery services like Amazon. One Black worker was fired for leading a small walkout at one of Bezos’ plants. Management launched a racist campaign to discredit him in the plant, planting rumors that he was stupid and “inarticulate.”
These protests and walkouts have been small, but they indicate that anger at businesses and the government over the pandemic may portend more in the future.
Illustration: “The Plague,” by Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901).
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April 11 Webinar: Class Struggle in the Age of Pandemics
A WEBINAR SPONSORED BY THE REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST NETWORK
SATURDAY, APRIL 11
2 PM EDT (1 PM CDT / 12 PM MDT / 11 AM PACIFIC)
REGISTER HERE
The global coronavirus pandemic has exposed the underlying weaknesses of world capitalism. Workers and oppressed people face 3 interrelated crises: a looming climate crisis, an economic crisis which already existed but was brought out in the open by the outbreak, and a pandemic that threatens the health of millions.
The current situation is unprecedented. In order to slow the advance of the COVID-19 outbreak, governments are consciously demobilizing whole sections of the capitalist economy. In the US alone at least 10 million are unemployed.
In the US, the Trump administration has refused to develop a national plan of action. There are already shortages of basic protective equipment for healthcare workers.
What are the roots of these crises and how can the working class address them in a way that puts forward the interests of the majority instead of the ruling rich?
OUR PANELISTS
Justin Akers Chacón is an activist, professor of US History and Chicano Studies, and writer in the San Diego-Tijuana border region. He is the author of Radicals in the Barrio and No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US-Mexico Border.
Mary Bowman (they/them) is a revolutionary socialist and an abortion provider in Chicago. They have been involved in reproductive justice and healthcare labor organizing in Chicago for several years.
Heather Bradford is a member of Socialist Resurgence who works full-time at a domestic violence shelter and part-time at a reproductive health clinic. She is active in her union as Vice President of AFSCME 3558 and involved with an abortion fundraising group HOTDISH Militia and the Feminist Justice League.
Joe Hutchinson is a hotel worker and member of Unite Here Local 217 and Connecticut Workers Crisis Response.
Blanca Missé is a professor at San Francisco State University and an organizer with Workers’ Voice/La Voz de los Trabajadores and the International Worker.
Coco Smyth is an organizer with the Revolutionary Socialist Network and Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists, the Marxist Center and an “essential” worker. -
New England Carpenters & Painters walk out, demand COVID protections
Construction worker at a site in Boston’s Seaport District. (Matt Stone / MediaNews Group / Boston Herald) By JAMES FARRELL
The COVID-19 crisis has caused mass unemployment, but in many locales building-trades workers, both union and nonunion, are expected to continue working. Is this because they are constructing infrastructure essential to fighting the coronavirus? No. Quite often, they are working to build condos, homes, or commercial projects deemed necessary by the rich, but with no impact on the crisis.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s restrictions aimed at “flattening the curve” exempted almost 900 projects from shutdown orders, including luxury condo projects in Manhattan. In Massachusetts, the governor classified construction activity as essential. At least a dozen Boston area members of the carpenters’ union have tested positive for the coronavirus, and hundreds are self-quarantining as a result of on-the-job exposure. This recklessness by the government and the contractors endangers the lives of construction workers and their families.
The Boston-based Eastern States Regional Council of Carpenters called on all of their 13,000 members to walk off the job on Monday, April 6. Late in the day on Monday, the Painters’ union joined with the Carpenters in telling their members to stay home. In all, approximately 17,000 construction workers are idled by the first major officially sanctioned job action by construction workers in response to this crisis.
Carpenters union tops have cited the fact that companies have failed to provide the proper sanitation and protective gear, and the impossibility of maintaining physical distancing on the job as the impetus for the action. “Despite everyone’s best effort, no one has been able to satisfy everyone’s requirement that the jobs are safe,” said Carpenters Executive Secretary-Treasurer Tom Flynn.
On April 1, the Massachusetts Building Trades Council (BTC) voted to call on the governor to shut down all non-essential construction for a month. BTC head, Francis Callahan, said, “The existing order from the state leaves too much work ongoing and what I would consider work that can wait. It’s a horror show…”
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has stated that he has ordered contractors to implement “social distancing” measures and that contractors should “secure the site and pause construction” when workers are exposed, but union officials have acknowledged that implementation of these protective measures has not happened. In response to the BTC call of a shutdown, he cited a housing shortage in Boston to justify continuing construction work.
In Philadelphia, construction of the new $700 million Live! Hotel & Casino has continued after the general contractor, Gilbane, obtained an exemption from Governor Tom Wolf’s shutdown of businesses. The waivers for businesses is supposedly for health-care or other “life-sustaining” work. Hundreds of construction workers report to the casino site daily.
At least two workers on the site have tested positive and dozens have been asked to self-quarantine. The second person on the job to test positive was an on-site medic who was reportedly asymptomatic. In response to this, and following advice from a union official who said the site is unsafe, some of the carpenters walked off. Additionally, Electricians Local 98 and Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 have pulled their members from the site.
Local 19 President Gary Masino wrote, “While some job sites have reopened in Pennsylvania via the waiver process, it is unfortunate that the General Contractors on a few of these projects were not complying with the CDC regulations. … Because of this, we felt that the workers on those projects were in danger and it was decided to pull our Local 19 members off of those sites.”
Additionally, there have been smaller, unsanctioned job actions on individual sites in New York and Ohio by carpenters, plumbers, sheet metal, ironworkers, and electricians. Some contractors have shut down operations to protect workers, but for many companies it’s full steam ahead with few protections for workers on the job sites. For these contractors, their profits and schedules take precedence over the lives and health of workers. Ironically, the building-trades unions have been trying to sell the fiction that the contractors are the workers’ “partners.” This myth is exposed by the lack of concern for our health by our “partners.”
Shut it down!
All non-essential construction activity must stop during this crisis, with laid-off workers’ unemployment compensation supplemented to insure no loss in pay. The benefit contributions made to health, savings, and pensions must continue at full rate. For those job sites where essential work must be continued—for example, the building of temporary health care facilities or repairs to critical infrastructure—the work week should be cut to 20 hours at no loss in pay.
No work should be performed without the proper PPE, and on-site conditions must be made sanitary. This includes adequate running water and soap for hand washing. Stewards must have the ability to stop all work if a problem arises. Paid time off and sick leave must be offered to all workers. The building trades unions should extend their oversight and protection to nonunion construction workers by advocating for their safety and to ensure that they are paid a fair wage.
The cost of this crisis must not be balanced on the backs of working people. Make the bosses pay!
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[Britain] Johnson Endangers the Lives of Workers and the Population
Socialism or the hell of capitalism.
Mass testing now!
Mass PPE now!
By International Socialist League – ISL, the British IWL-FI’s section
The Present Crisis
The Coronavirus situation has laid bare the contradictions of capitalism, which is now leading the globe into a massive recession, and untold loss of life. Britain and the USA are about to endure, along with many other countries, a huge health crisis. In Britain, it is against a backdrop of an NHS weakened by cuts, lack of staff and unpreparedness – despite the many warnings over pandemics.
Global health crisis predicted
The present global health crisis has been predicted, as there have been over 300 instances of zoonoses – human infections of animal origin – since 1960. Zoonoses are a result of the expansion of food production globally. Where the outbreak originated, in China, small farmers were forced to rely on wild animal markets after huge farms made their traditional way of life unsustainable.
The expansion in food production is not solely the fault of China, for instance, the investment bank Goldman Sachs invested heavily in Chinese poultry farms after the 2008 recession. Chinese companies have also invested in large-scale farms abroad.
Whenever large changes are made in land use careful ecological impact assessments should always be made. Nature and its environment cannot be left to capitalism. Proper husbanding of the planet can only be implemented under workers’ control with the help of scientists.
Austerity and privatisation created NHS crisis
In Britain, we are faced with the Coronavirus crisis with a weakened NHS. The Tory party has attacked the NHS since they gained government in 2010, with the help of the Lib Dems.
The NHS was created in 1948 and came out of the huge crisis of capitalism that had caused the Second World War and the mass desire of workers not to go back to the 1930s.
However, the capitalist class has long despised any form of social provision, which they see as an unnecessary reduction of their profits, whether it is the NHS, council housing or state education.
The NHS was subject to constant underfunding and attacks by the Conservatives. In 2012 introducing the commissioning of health services by local health trusts weakened the NHS. The Health and Social Care Act allowed privatisation of NHS services and the undercutting of the NHS, as a national body, and in so doing impede its ability to respond to emergencies such as Coronavirus.
During recent debates and interviews on the TV on the current crisis health ministers, such as Helen Whately, appeared not with the normal “NHS” badge on their lapel but a badge denoting “CARE” – an umbrella organisation set up by health privateers deliberately to undermine the specialness of the NHS.
Thatcherism is continued by this government.
Government empty promises create a worst crisis
During the present virus crisis, NHS hospitals are forced to use private providers for beds, protective equipment, and ventilators – while the privatised sections of the NHS are off-limits to anyone who cannot pay. As the deaths of the first doctors treating coronavirus patients are announced the scale of the government’s incompetence is revealed.
The shocking fact that nine weeks have been squandered in the fight against coronavirus was reported by an academic in The Guardian on 24th March. These weeks could have been used to run simulations of the effect of the disease, set up supply and production chains for ventilators, PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) and implement mass testing.
In a shocking disclosure on BBC Radio 4 on 28 March, a manufacturer of Coronavirus tests in the UK confirmed that he was producing 100,000 a day but all these were being sent abroad to other countries especially in the Middle East, and no doubt to private health care providers in the UK. This at a time the government says it was unable to test front line NHS staff.
Health staff have to listen to empty promises from the government while capitalism supplies 100,000 testing kits to private companies like Ocado.
The lack of proper urgency in responding to the epidemic reflects the ideology of the privileged layer that now rule Britain.
Rulers indifference
The indifference among the ruling class was reflected in an interview on BBC Radio 4 on the World at One program on Thursday 26 March with the ex-editor of The Daily Telegraph, Max Hastings. Under the guise of worrying about the cost of the measures to his children and grandchildren, he stated that the country could not afford a shutdown, as it would cost the country too much. What he meant was that profits are more important than life. Hastings contribution laid bare the class nature of society. The people that are most at risk in the epidemic are workers while the ruling class, who generally have much better overall health and do not have to work in risky occupations like care of shops, are better able to survive.
No mass testing and lack of PPE is a crime
What is shocking is that the UK did not start mass testing to identify and isolate those infected. Even the lock-down was only partially implemented with the discretion afforded to companies to decide if non-essential work was going to continue. Alarming scenes have been played of commuters on the London Underground packed in together providing the ideal transmission of the virus.
There are constant complaints by NHS nurses, doctors, paramedics, support staff including cleaners that they are not being given adequate personal protection equipment (PPE) and constant denials that there was a problem by the Chief Executive of NHS Providers Chris Hopson (the umbrella body for all NHS trusts) and even the chief nursing officer.
The previous Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has been conspicuous on the TV berating the government for not taking more draconian measures to halt the pandemic but three years ago when he was in charge of health a report urging the stockpiling of PPE in case of a future epidemic was ignored on the basis of cost.
If there is a lack of PPE in hospitals it is non-existent in many care homes, and there are reports of COVID-19 entering care homes.
There is only one unavoidable conclusion: capitalism sees profit more important than lives.
All unions and the TUC must start fighting
Every worker that is forced to work in non-essential work must be supported in their fights against the employers. Many factories, building sites, postal workers and others are fighting. Some employers are using this crisis to sack workers and to get rid of known union militants such as Percy (United Voices of the World).
Reports on 2 April stated that NHS managers are trying to gag healthcare whistle-blowers about the lack of PPE in the NHS would be disciplined.
Health workers are saying publicly frontline staff such as cleaners and porters, not just nurses and doctors, are at risk due to the shortages, how workers of colour are disproportionately the most at risk in the NHS.
The United Voices of the World demand that the government pay all essential staff a £15 minimum wage and they demand that Percy, a cleaner at King’s College London who was fired for not attending a disciplinary hearing due to the lack of social distancing measures.
The TUC says nothing about these attacks, the need to build an organised offensive against a government that does not care, or fighting to reinstate all sacked workers such as Percy.
COVID-19 and capitalism are deadly viruses
In Britain, the present Conservative government has shown itself completely unable to protect the population from the Coronavirus. Government advisers have been quoted as saying; “…just let pensioners die…” and only when it was shown that 500,000 would die did the government change to more stringent, but still inadequate, measures.
As the crisis continues the guilt of the capitalist class, in creating the crisis is becoming ever more evident. Reports from four years ago that stated the country would not cope with a pandemic were kept secret and have never been published.
Capitalism does not have a human face
What all the above shows is the class nature of British society and decaying capitalism. The government is peopled by bourgeois politicians on behalf of the capitalist class whose perspective is just one of capitalist profit and to hell with ordinary people.
We have to do more, the government and the NHS knew this type of crisis would start, just as sure as a new world crisis would happen. Before this there were ten years of austerity creating the present catastrophic situation, that killed workers even before COVID-19, concurrently with this was the Grenfell Tower, which was a known deathtrap, the flooding affecting millions of people, the hostile environment to immigrants – but now so many are needed in the NHS and to run all essential services.
This is what we mean by an accelerating decay of the provision of our rights, conditions and our lives. Only putting an end to capitalism will stop these attacks. That means the struggle for a workers’ government, workers’ control of health, all services and industry. But to achieve that we need to build a mass struggle of workers and a revolutionary party to lead workers and all the dispossessed.
We join with many others in demanding
Mass testing now!
Full PPE for all workers in the NHS, Care Homes and all essential workers such as transport workers!
Full social distancing in all workplaces such as essential building sites – close all others!
Full access to NHS and state services for immigrants!
NHS to take control of all health services including all privatised services!
Suspend rent payments and evictions for a year (Acorn and United Voices of the World demand)!
Government pay all essential staff a £15 minimum wage!
Reinstate Percy, a cleaner at King’s College London!
Capitalism, like COVID-19, is the virus, they must pay for this crisis, not workers!
Build the mass struggle to overthrow capitalism!
Build the revolutionary party to lead these struggles! -
Politicians use COVID crisis to restrict women’s abortion rights
By HEATHER BRADFORD
As the COVID-19 crisis deepens, so does the suffering of the oppressed. The oppression of women has worsened during the crisis as they are confined to their homes with their abusers. Within the home, women shoulder the burden of unpaid labor cooking, cleaning, and caring for children who are no longer in school or at day care. As waged workers, women are on the frontline of the crisis, as according to CNN, 70% of health-care and social-service workers are women. As women face increased violence, as well as hazardous and exhausting work, reproductive rights are also under attack.
Around the country, COVID-19 has been used to legitimate restrictions on abortion access. The first states to ban abortion during the crisis were Ohio and Texas. Ohio Deputy Attorney General Jonathan Fulkerson announced that abortions were non-essential medical proceedures that should be suspended for the duration of the pandemic. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott ordered a suspension of non-essential medical proceedures, which included abortions. Both abortion bans, as well as those which followed, were opportunistically framed as measures to preserve scarce medical resources.
Abortion providers which failed to comply with the Texas order were threatened with a $1000 fine or 180 days of jail time. According to The New York Times, the ban included both medical and surgical abortions. As a result, Whole Women’s Health in Texas had to cancel 150 appointments on Monday, March 23, at their three locations. Some patients had already completed ultrasounds before the order went into effect, but could not have an abortion because of Texas’ manditory 24-hour waiting period.
Texas patients were referred to Oklahoma for abortions, but on Friday, March 27, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced that abortions were included in his executive order banning all elective surgeries and minor medical procedures. Also on March 27, the office of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds announced that abortion was among the state’s suspended elective medical proceedures.
Elsewhere in the U.S. and also on March 27, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron called upon Governor Andy Beshear to restrict abortion. Cameron pressed the state’s Cabinet for Health and Human Services to certify that abortion providers within Kentucky were in violation of the emergency ban on elective medical proceedures.
EMW Women’s Surgical Center is the only abortion provider in the state. The clinic continued providing abortions last week, as the governor’s order to halt non-emergency medical procedures did not specifically include abortions. Kentucky’s general assembly is currently considering legislation to expand the powers of the attorney general over abortion laws. The legislature is still open and currently pursuing eight abortion restrictions.
Alabama also banned abortions on March 27 under the guise of pandemic response. As in Texas, patients had to be notified that their appointments were canceled. Finally, Mississipi Governor Tate Reeves threatened action against the single abortion provider in the state if it did not follow the health department directive to halt abortions as elective proceedures. While the pandemic grinds much of society to a halt, there is no end to the assault on abortion rights.
In response to the restrictions, on Monday, March 30, federal judges blocked Texas, Alabama, and Ohio enforcing abortion bans. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU filed emergency lawsuits against the orders, arguing that they were unconstitutional. Lawsuits have also been filed in Iowa and Oklahoma. Yet, just a day after U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yankel had granted a temporary restraining order on the Texas abortion ban, conservative judges in the U.S Court of Appeals ruled that the ban on abortion would be reinstated. Once again, patients were informed that they would be unable to obtain an abortion and referred to other states.
As other states move to ban abortions as medically unnessary, these measures will continue to be challenged in courts. Even if the bans are successfully forestalled by court orders, they create barriers for patients who face uncertainty, confusion, and canceled appointments. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement that abortion should be considered an essential service. The statement asserted that a person’s life, health, and wellbeing can be profoundly impacted by inability to access abortion and because abortion is time sensitive, supsension of services means that it can become riskier or unavailable due to legal restrictions.
In addition to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, on Monday, March 31, Xavier Beccara, California’s attorney general, sent a letter signed by 21 attorney generals to the U.S. Department of Health calling for expanded telemedicine during the COVID-19 crisis. The letter demanded that the abortion medication mifepristone be dispensed at pharmacies rather than requiring that clinics give the medication directly to patients.
Even without the efforts of anti-choice politicians to exploit the pandemic to limit abortion, the COVID-19 pandemic presents obstacles to reproductive rights. Economists at the Federal Reserve estimate that the pandemic could result in a 32% unemployment rate. With millions of Americans already out of work, many people seeking abortions will be unable to afford the the procedure. Because employer-based health insurances may not cover the cost of abortions and increased unemployment will result both in loss of health insurance and the financial means to afford an abortion, many people may be unable to afford the procedure.
As of 2018, eleven states banned private insurance from covering abortions and 22 states ban insurance coverage of abortions for public employees. Due to the Hyde Amendment, federal funds cannot be used to cover the cost of abortions in circumstances other than rape, incest, or life endangerment. Thus, only 16 states provide coverage for abortion through state Medicaid programs. The cost of an abortion already poses an enormous barrier. Now, more than ever, the Hyde Amendment must be repealed.
Abortion funds are one way that activists and advocates for choice have sought to overcome the financial barrers to obtaining an abortion. However, these funds are already feeling the financial strain of the economic crisis. Alabama’s Yellowhammer fund reported increased need for funds due to job loss. Yellowhammer has begun sending gift cards to patients to reduce barriers to food access and transportation. Fund Texas Choice, another abortion fund, reported that because of canceled appointments, some patients must travel further to find an abortion provider. With fewer flights, bus tickets, and available hotel rooms, patients who must travel to get an abortion face increased financial costs of travel and a lack of ability to travel. Northwest Abortion Access Fund relied upon volunteers to house and transport patients, but now must rely on hotels and rideshare companies.
These funds are adjusting to the conditions, but the safety measures will certainly increase the financial strain on the organizations. Because the funds rely on donors, who themselves may be financially pinched, donations will likely diminish as the economy crashes. Finally, many abortion funds rely on fundraising through social events, such as the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) annual Bowl-a-thon. The NNAF Bowl-a-Thon, or Fund-a-Thon, is a national fundraising effort which occurs each spring between February and April. Around 70 funds have participated in the Fund-a-Thon, but this year many have had to suspend their fundraising efforts due to social distancing measures and economic uncertainty.
Aside from funding, travel restrictions make it harder for patients to access abortion. Many parts of the country are abortion deserts, or areas which are not served by abortion clinics. For instance, patients living in remote or rural areas of Montana, Texas, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota must travel over 300 miles to the nearest abortion clinic. Half of women living in Alaska are over 750 miles from the nearest clinic. Banning abortion as part of the response to COVID-19 will only increase these travel distances during a time when it is unsafe to travel due to potential viral exposure and the resources to travel are more limited. Already, patients in Texas must look to clinics in New Mexico and Colorado to get an abortion.
In addition to the barrier of travel, according to the Guttmacher Institute, 27 states require patients to wait a specific period of time between counseling and their abortion proceedure. This generally ranges from 24 to 72 hours. Waiting periods, which are medically unnecessary and often require in-person counseling, increases the risk of COVID-19 exposure and prolongs travel time.
Travel restrictions also impact abortion providers because many rely on traveling doctors. Doctors may provide services to multiple clinics. For instance, Whole Women’s Health, which provides abortions in Austin, McAllen, and Fort Worth, relies upon traveling physicians. The McAllen clinic is the only abortion provider for hundreds of miles.
Flattening the curve of COVID-19 requires social distancing and restrictions on travel, which is why it is essential that laws restricting telemedicine, mandating in person counseling, and requiring waiting periods be suspended. This protects patients, clinic staff, and physicians while ensuring abortion access. Texas Governor Abbott loosened telemedicine restrictions on other health care, but this did not include abortion. Texas is one of the states that requires a physical visit to a clinic. Ohio’s senate passed a telemedicine ban on March 4, which is awaiting a House vote.
Abortion is an essential service and should be available by telemedicine. An accompanying demand is expanded access to medical abortions. In an article in The New York Times, Dr. Daniel Grossman, a gynecology professor from the University of California argued that the need for personal protective equipment could be reduced by providing medical abortions up to 11 weeks, ending the requirement that doctors must meet with patients physically, and if physicians could send abortion medications via the mail. Currently, 18 states require that doctors be physically present when abortion medication is taken. Expanding who can legally prescribe mifepristone would also ensure abortion access during the crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in increased reports of domestic violence as women are made to stay home due to state mandates, social distancing measures, unemployment, and the need to care for children who are no longer in school. Women are at increased risk of sexual and domestic violence during the crisis. Although the exact number of abortions due to domestic violence is unknown, an article in Re.Wire suggested a range of between 6% and 22%.
Denying reproductive autonomy is one way that abusers control victims. Domestic violence often escalates during a pregnancy and according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 20% of women have experienced violence during a pregnancy. It is barbaric to restrict abortion during a time when women are at greater risk of violence, isolation, and control. It is inhumane to restrict abortion any time, as abortion is an essential service that is necessary for the health, wellbeing, autonomy, and equality of women.
While patient safety, the safety of health workers, preserving medical supplies, and preventing the spread of COVID-19 are vital concerns, there are many ways to maintain and even expand abortion access during the crisis. Telemedicine, removing barriers to funding, expanding the means of dispensing mifepristone, overturning medically unnecessary restrictions such as waiting periods and in clinic visits, and expanding the social production of medical supplies are a few ways to improve access during the pandemic. Public safety should not be pitted against reproductive rights. There are ways to secure both. Arguments to the contrary exploit the crisis to deepen the oppression of women.
Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images
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April 11 webinar: Class Struggle in the Age of Pandemics
A WEBINAR SPONSORED BY THE REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST NETWORK
SATURDAY, APRIL 11
2 PM EDT (1 PM CDT / 12 PM MDT / 11 AM PACIFIC)
REGISTER HERE
The global coronavirus pandemic has exposed the underlying weaknesses of world capitalism. Workers and oppressed people face 3 interrelated crises: a looming climate crisis, an economic crisis which already existed but was brought out in the open by the outbreak, and a pandemic that threatens the health of millions.
The current situation is unprecedented. In order to slow the advance of the COVID-19 outbreak, governments are consciously demobilizing whole sections of the capitalist economy. In the US alone at least 10 million are unemployed.
In the US, the Trump administration has refused to develop a national plan of action. There are already shortages of basic protective equipment for healthcare workers.
What are the roots of these crises and how can the working class address them in a way that puts forward the interests of the majority instead of the ruling rich?
OUR PANELISTS
Justin Akers Chacón is an activist, professor of US History and Chicano Studies, and writer in the San Diego-Tijuana border region. He is the author of Radicals in the Barrio and No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US-Mexico Border.
Mary Bowman (they/them) is a revolutionary socialist and an abortion provider in Chicago. They have been involved in reproductive justice and healthcare labor organizing in Chicago for several years.
Heather Bradford is a member of Socialist Resurgence who works full-time at a domestic violence shelter and part-time at a reproductive health clinic. She is active in her union as Vice President of AFSCME 3558 and involved with an abortion fundraising group HOTDISH Militia and the Feminist Justice League.
Joe Hutchinson is a hotel worker and member of Unite Here Local 217 and Connecticut Workers Crisis Response.
Blanca Missé is a professor at San Francisco State University and an organizer with Workers’ Voice/La Voz de los Trabajadores and the International Worker.
Coco Smyth is an organizer with the Revolutionary Socialist Network and Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists, the Marxist Center and an “essential” worker.
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Right-wing campaign escalates against trans rights
High-school trans athlete Andraya Yearwood (right) competes in a New Haven, Conn., track meet on May 17, 2018. (Catherine Avalone / Hearst Connecticut Media) By ERWIN FREED
On Feb. 12, a group of three female high-school athletes and their mothers filed a federal lawsuit against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and various towns’ boards of education. The lawsuit is an escalation of an ongoing campaign against trans rights being organized nationally by right-wing groups, especially the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Heritage Center.
Background
As Socialist Resurgence reported last October, the ADF has targeted high-school sports as an especially vulnerable link in the chain of trans rights. The decision to specifically go after high-school sports is a calculated measure to lean on transphobia and anti-women bias that are reflected in “common sense” understanding that trans women are equivalent to men and that cis women can not really be athletes in the same way as cis men. Actually, the arena of high-school sports is just one of many fronts on which reactionaries are fighting to roll back hard won trans rights.
The initial ADF lawsuit filed in June followed a broad ratcheting up in the offensive against trans people and particularly trans women. The SR article in October reported, “On April 12, the ban on transgender troops was put into action. The next month on May 2, the Department of Health and Human Services published documents encouraging health-care providers and insurance companies to deny health care to trans patients based on ‘religious beliefs.’
“The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to roll back anti-discrimination protections for trans people in homeless shelters on May 22. And Aug. 14 saw the proposition of a rule that would allow refusing to hire and firing employees based on their LGBTQ+ status. Just two days later, on Aug.16, the Department of Justice issued a statement saying that federal law ‘does not prohibit discrimination against transgender persons based on their transgender status.’”
The case in Connecticut
According to the reigning interpretation of Title IX and governing regulations by the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, where sports are designated into mens’ and womens’ divisions, athletes have the right to participate in the appropriate category based on self-identification. Such guiding principles are common in sports. The Olympics uses the principle of self-ID, with the caveat that trans women need to have been on testosterone suppressing medication for at least a year.
The logic of the February 2020 lawsuit is that men have inherent biological advantages in sports against women. Yearwood and Miller are men, and therefore they have inherent biological advantages against other female track runners. The tone of the lawsuit wavers between apparent scientific objectivity on the one hand, and patronizing infantilization of the cis plaintiffs on the other. For example, page 38 of the document reads, “While important races always involve some element of stress, Chelsea has felt physically sick before races in which she knew she would have to race against a male, while Plaintiff Selina Soule suffered depression after being excluded from participation in State finals because top places in the girls’ rankings were occupied by males.”
The apparent apprehension felt by these runners seems to be unaffected by the fact that Yearwood and Miller regularly lose. According to Vox, “Those same Connecticut trans girls failed to place in the top five at the New England High School track championships in 2019, losing to faster cisgender competition. In fact, just days after filing their federal suit, one of the complainants beat both trans girls in a 50-meter indoor sprint event.”
Coronavirus covers offensive against trans people
The capitalist class is attempting to use the global Covid-19 pandemic to roll back labor and civil rights. On Monday, March 16, instead of mobilizing emergency resources to protect frontline workers, the Idaho Senate passed a bill banning trans and inter-sex high-school athletes from participating in the correct gender divisions. This was despite the fact that there are no known trans athletes competing in Idaho’s highschools. In reality, the vote is a warning shot for a larger anti-trans agenda, which includes a proposed bill that would ban adolescent hormone therapy and impose life in prison on doctors who perform “top” and/or “bottom” surgeries on teenagers. The Idaho House also has proposed legislation that would ban the ability to change one’s gender identity on government documents.
On March 24, Attorney General Bill Barr filed a statement of interest siding with the ADF in the lawsuit against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference. While all eyes are on the government’s continuous inability to put peoples’ lives above corporate profits, the Attorney General is frankly stating his belief that trans people do not deserve civil rights.
Stand with trans athletes!
Athletics are the first area of attack for right-wing forces attempting to enforce a strict gender binary. To many, it appears low-stakes and common sense. In reality, banning trans people from participating in the correct gender categories of sports is fundamentally an attack on the democratic right of self-identification and the reality of trans experience. There are also severe consequences, including social ostracization and suicide.
Working people have nothing to gain from falling on the side of trans exclusion. Instead of arguing that trans athletes take opportunities from “real” women, we need to be fighting for real opportunities for all women, trans and cis. That means braking past the narrow limits of meritocracy and creating a society where people’s life trajectories are not dictated from birth by the size of their phallus. The means to such a society is shown by the fight for trans rights in the workplace and all other sectors of daily life.
Socialist Resurgence stands with Andraya Yearwood, Terri Miller, and all other trans people fighting for their rights and inclusion.
