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Workers’ Voice newspaper: March-April edition
The U.S.-Israel war on Iran is a major escalation in the Middle East that has dangerous implications for working people everywhere. The brutality of the imperialist assault internationally is paired with the attack on civil liberties by the Trump regime inside the U.S. This includes the continued operations of ICE and Border Patrol, the threats to the 2026 mid-term elections, environmental rollbacks that deeply impact the Black community, and unchecked police brutality.
Our editorial in this issue warns us: “There is a great danger of underestimating the determination of the U.S. corporate elite to drive through this effort. We cannot rely on court rulings or upcoming elections to save us. We must organize now, not only for mass demonstrations and community networks against ICE violence, but to find our way to building a new working-class party through which we can organize our political defense on every plane and on every day.”
In this issue we also have articles on the Epstein files and the ruling class, the San Francisco teachers’ strike, and a review of the new album by U2.
The March–April 2026 edition of our newspaper is available in print and online as a pdf. Read the latest issue of our newspaper today with a free pdf download! As always, we appreciate any donations to help with the cost of printing.
Click on the image to read the paper or message us to get a hard copy:
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[Italy] Workers on Strike Across the Country! Communist Alternative Stands With Them!
The new decree issued by the chairman, dating from March 11, even more so than the last one, is explicit in its class character. While drastic measures are announced to combat the Coronavirus emergency and the closing of small commercial activities and restaurants is imposed, they are leaving factories open, even in Lombardy, a region where the percentage of infected people and deaths is very high. They leave offices and factories, supermarkets, banks, call centers, etc open. All this while the government announces tens of thousands of layoffs in the aerial sector (see Alitalia and Air Italy).
By: Fabiana Stefanoni, 03/14/2020
Capitalism throws its mask away
It is precisely in critical moments such as this that the masks fall off. Capitalism shows its true face in a striking way: a barbaric and inhumane one. The government in power, like all bourgeois governments, in a unanimous agreement between «new» parties self-proclaimed as the M5S and the «traditional» parties, slavishly executes the orders of the Confindustria: the factories and the big commerce chains will not close because, it defends the billionaire earnings of the capitalists!
For that, while the need to stay home to avoid infections is announced, the workers, contractors, transport workers, employees, bellhops, are all forced to go… to get infected in their workplaces!
Aside from being hypocritical, the declarations of the chairman of Confindustria, Boccia, that guarantee that workers can be protected on the job, are criminal. Anyone who has set foot in a factory, or has spoken to people who have worked in assembly lines, knows very well that, in the current conditions of the industry, there is no protection possible. The workers inevitably find themselves at short distances among themselves, work in closed places where the virus can spread easily. They load and unload merchandise that can be sources of infection.
The truth is another, and it’s a class truth: the billionaire capitalists, industrialists and bankers don’t want to renounce to a measly crumb of their billionaire earnings: for this reason, they don’t want to close the factories. It is a lie of those who say that the production cannot be interrupted: the majority of the big factories in our country –from the steel mills to the metallurgical industry, from the chemical industry to the automotive– produce goods that have nothing to do with the «needs of public health». The only needs they want to defend are their earnings: the lives of millions of workers don’t matter at all!
The anarchist and irrational character of an economic system based on individual benefit also emerges clearly: capitalists don’t see beyond their own noses, they don’t consider that the Coronavirus might infect them as well. It even seems that some “Paperoni” [“the guys with the money”] are already equipped to travel with their private jets to remote islands or luxurious bunkers… and they don’t calculate that if workers are infected en masse, it’ll be necessary, by force majeure, to stop the production and close the factories.
It’s worth noting that, as always, the bourgeoisie expresses different positions on the inside. The majority of the industries that need the workers physically working in the factories (steel mills, metallurgic, automotive, etc.) don’t have the intent of closing, not even in areas of major risk (the emblematic case of the steel mill giant Arvedi de Cremona that hasn’t closed a single day, in one of the areas of main outbreaks of the virus) or close two or three days just to «make the factory more safe»(!) (like FCA). There are also businesses in sectors that need less «physical» manpower that can get away with working from home. For this reason, they offer a «generous» 15 day pause to halt productive activities: this is the position expressed, for example, by the colossal editorial RCS, that controls TV stations, like La7 (ironically, the journalists from the TV stations themselves, announce it’ll take «months» to come out of this emergency).
One thing is certain: all of the Italian bourgeoisie, after the noise from the Milan stock exchange, are panicking. This means they’ll implement or require even more severe measures… in defense of their earnings. There are already cases of workers pressured by their employers to lie about their state of health (that is, to hide the fact they’ve been infected) to avoid shutting down their establishment. In many workplaces, the employees have been forced to take vacation days, many have been layed-off. And this is just the beginning.
Hipocrisy and firefighters
The positions of Salvini, Meloni and Fontana are embarrassing and hypocritical, and are just now demanding a greater number of industries be closed (probably based on the electoral consensus). These loafers must be reminded that they too, like all the other main political bourgeois leaders (from Zingaretti to Berlusconi, from Bersani to Monti, from Renzi to Vendola) have actively supported – by voting in Parliament and implementing in regions they govern – all billionaire budget cuts to health, with the subsequent drastic and dramatic reduction of first aid beds and intensive therapy beds. All of them, Salvini and Meloni leading, when they were in the government with Berlusconi, approved the privatization of the health system, the closing of hospitals, the dismantling of the beds. All of the center-left representatives did the same, without exception: only we, in that moment, denounced the cuts to the beds implemented by Vendola in Puglia. It’s also worth remembering Salvini, whose right hand Zaia, in the fortress of the League, the region of Véneto, initially blocked the factories from closing, from the imminent spread of the virus: it’s too easy to switch positions at the last minute because of fear of losing an electoral consensus!
[link | Also read Coronavirus: Who is to blame?]
But the hypocrisy doesn’t just come from the right. The bureaucracies of the main syndical organizations, CGIL, CISL and UIL, Landini in the lead, have taken on an unequivocal position in defense of the earnings, putting the lives of millions of workers at risk. They immediately requested to «increase the security parameters and health protection», thus backing the employer ideology that it is not possible to halt production. The truth is another: currently there are few production sectors where it is necessary they remain active, and they’re related to emergencies. Therefore, those who produce tools, machinery and medicine necessary to face the Coronavirus, and some food chain businesses (those who produce first need nourishment). All the other industries could be closed: it would suffice to commandeer the goods already produced and destined to market (goods that many industries have left on the shelf and maintain them there waiting for better times to sell them) and use them for the requirements of the popular masses in this critical period.
With no shame, Landini, la Furlan, and Barbagallo call for «concord and responsibility». Their pretense is that it is possible to work in a safe manner in delivery, claiming the «disinfection» of the establishments is impossible. Thus taking on a huge responsibility: sending the workers and their families to die, in accordance with Confindustria and the government! (1)
The working class marks its presence!
Immediately after Conte’s TV announcement on March 11, that all of Italy would become a «red zone», but that millions of workers would still have to continue working, the workers’ protests exploded, of course in all possible ways in a moment which demonstrating publicly can in fact be dangerous. The fighting front of No Austerity, in which our militants also participate in its construction, after publishing numerous posts about the class character of the measures taken by the government and its organisms (think about the attack on the right to strike in transport), launched a calling to all labor unions to call for an indefinite and immediate strike in the private sector (that is, in all sectors where it is possible to strike indefinitely without risking sanctions to the workers).
That same day, blockades and strikes were announced throughout the country (some base unions have also proclaimed turmoil and indefinite strikes at a national level).
Here we share a list, that is constantly updated of the main workers and organizations of workers on strike (or that have announced striking): Pasotti and other big factories in Brescia; in Asti, Vercelli e Cuneo, the MTM, the IKK, the Dierre, Trivium; Corneliani, Iveco, Relevi in the province of Mantova; Whirlpool in the province of Varese, the great steel mill Ast in Terni; Briton in the milanese district of Cormano; Electrolux and Marghera in the province of Treviso; Fincantieri in Liguria; in Liguria, dockers and ship maintenance workers also declared a strike; telecommunications workers (System House Srl, System Data Center and Out Spa) as well as Riders are on strike, just as the delivery people are at risk of infection with home deliveries; in Tuscany, strikes are ongoing in the Piaggio of Pontedera, the Gkn of Florence, Hitachi in Pistoia, in Esselunga (where a national strike has been announced); the workers of Almaviva are on indefinite strike and a ten day strike has begun in the Ilva of Taranto; the workers of Alitalia of several manipulation sectors in the airport of Fiumicino, though they cannot strike due to laws against striking, have introduced blocking of activities; there are already other strikes programmed in factories that were previously closed for just a few days and are now re-opening: from Ferrari in Maranello to many other companies in the rubber-plastic and chemical industries, from commerce to telecommunications. In the last few days, workers of the FCA of Pomigliano and Termoli were on strike.
[link | Also read Argentina | For the lives of women workers, everyone to the streets on the 9th]
These are very important strikes, mostly because, aside from the demands, the workers have organized themselves. In contrast to the grand national bureaucracies that wanted to muffle any protest, to guarantee their role of the only spokesmen for the workers (and with that, protect the interests of their own bureaucratic apparatus, in accordance with Confindustria). However, the workers will not become «cannon fodder» («we are not cannon fodder» is one of the mottos of the labor protest). They pressured their union representatives in the companies to call to strike: for this reason, we are experiencing production halts, called for by the most disparate union acronyms, from those based on FIOM, to CISL and UIL. Even in an emergency situation, in which we’re not sure if we’ll all survive, the working class is giving us a great lesson in determination and struggle, that is proving it has the capacity to take destiny into its own hands.
With the workers on strike for a different system!
The Alternative Communist Party backs the workers who have gone to strike. While we are writing this, also thanks to the pressure exerted by these strikes, the government just convened the union leaders «of trust» to evaluate what to do. The bureaucracies of CGIL, CISL and UIL have asked for a temporary interruption of functional industries for the «disinfection» (sic!), with the use of social security networks (that is to say, new indirect public finances for the businesses: the State pays for the salaries instead of the employers). Fiom’s leadership and that of other metallurgic unions (Fim and Uilm), in spite of themselves, have been forced to cover ongoing strikes and the upcoming ones, claiming «a strike for all the time needed».
The results that have been obtained (the temporary closing of some productive sites) are fruit of the struggle, but we must not let our guard down: it is necessary to maintain a state of turmoil until every factory is closed (except for the very few necessary factories needed for health emergencies). So that the protest is effective, labor blockades must be generalized and expand.
We make ours, the already advanced platform made by some struggle realities (for example, the call to go into quarantine), but we also believe that we should immediately prepare ourselves for a long term of class confrontations (we’ll see in what ways we can make that happen, moving ahead with a situation of infection risk). The time is up for wearing masks, of the double-dealing and having it both ways. The time has come to decide which side you’re on: either the unscrupulous capitalists’ side, or on the workers’ side.
The Communist Alternative Party calls for:- Immediate shutdown of all productive sites, every factory and every company until the Coronavirus emergency is lifted, with the exception of the few essential factories that produce hospital machinery, masks, pharmaceutical products and the businesses that provide basic needs food (in these cases, it’s necessary to radically redefine the methods of production and the organization of internal labor, with the hiring of permanent personnel and the reduction of the work schedule with the same pay for the workers).
- Reopening of all the hospitals that were shutdown due to budget cuts and requisitions by the State of all the private clinics to strengthen the national public health system; immediate duplication of hospital beds in first aids and intensive care.
- Permanent hiring of a large contingency of doctors and nurses in hospitals and public infrastructure, from those in waiting lists; real protection and salary increases for health workers.
- In big companies, 100% remuneration by the employer, without recurring to vacations or payroll cuts; in small businesses, 100% pay, with retribution from the State for what the company cannot afford to pay.
- Immediate closing of all offices and call centers, with the change to work from home only where strictly necessary to avoid harming the community.
- Immediate interruption of all transport (railway, airway, buses), providing minimal contingency (and protected), only for emergencies; calling for 100% of the salary for personnel without recurring to vacations or payroll cuts.
[link | Also read Petrol Strike: Advancing in the fight to defeat Bolsonaro, impeding privatization, and guaranteeing employment and rights!]
- Immediate halt to lay off procedures in the aviation sector. Nationalization without compensation and under the control of the workers of Alitalia, Air Italy and Ernst.
- Immediate closing of all superstores, with direct and free distribution of nourishment by the State until the emergency ceases.
- 100% remuneration (even including the citizenship salary, to be equal to the full salary, the so called «quarantine income») of all education personnel, services and cooperatives that had to leave their jobs due to the emergency.
- Permanent recruitment of all school personnel (teachers and ATA) with 36 months of service to strengthen online teaching; total closure of schools with no work obligations for administrative personnel and janitors.
- Immediate citizenship income («quarantine income») equal to the average salary of a worker for all those who do not have a job or who can no longer work, including self-employed workers, from trade to crafts to catering. Public support for small family-run businesses that have no income during this period due to forced closure.
- Abolition of Salvini’s Decrees; opening of centers of public assistance for immigrants, to also guarantee real health protection; immediate citizenship status for all immigrants, so that they can have easier use of the health services they require.
- Cancel the pay of the external debt, with the goal of having more resources to combat the sanitary emergency.
- Expropriation by the State, of all big factories, starting with those that refuse to halt production, with the objective to use the goods destined to market or shelved in warehouses to satisfy the needs of the community.
- Nationalization of all big banks, with the creation of a one and only grand state bank without private capital that can guarantee unconditional and subsidiary loans to workers and the unemployed in this state of emergency.
If these measures were taken, the health crisis could be approached with no risk to workers who are currently living under the threat of being fired en masse: the bankers, capitalists and billionaires must pay for the coronavirus crisis, not the workers!
Never like today, have Trotsky’s words been more up to date, than that of the «Transition Program» in which he wrote that in capitalism «a catastrophe threatens all of human civilization». In 1938, when Trotsky wrote these words, a new world war was expected, and would come soon after. Today, another catastrophe is upon us. Yesterday, like today, salvation «is in the hands of the proletariate, that is, especially, in the hands of its revolutionary vanguard». And in these days of generalized fears, but also of class confrontations, we have proof of this with the ongoing strikes. It is true, as Trotsky said, that «the historical crisis of humanity is the crisis of the revolutionary leadership», today more than ever it is imperative and urgent to build the international revolutionary party.
(1) It must be clarified that, unfortunately, even the combative syndical sectors and representatives of the «revolutionary» left are backing these positions, in fact capitulating to Confindustria’s positions that believe it is possible to have employees go to work under «safe conditions». At the end of this experience, there will come a time of ruthless balances also in organizations of labor and class movements.
Article published in: www.alternativacomunista.it
The illustration says: “Stop capitalism to stop the virus”. – #closethefactories.
Translation: Anastasia Ransewak -
[Italy] Won’t the Government Close the Plants? Workers’ Strikes Will Do It!
They will not stop us!
On the night of March 11th, immediately after Prime Minister Conte’s announcement about the government’s decision to close only small stores, bars and restaurants, leaving open the factories, megastores, offices, banks and several means of transportation functioning, we launch a demand to labor unions to call for an immediate and indefinite strike in the private sector.
By Fronte di Lotta No Austerity, 03/13/2020
It’s clear the government followed the instructions of the Confindustria [Industry’s Confederation], which is to say, of the rich capitalists (industrialists and bankers) who don’t hesitate putting the workers’ lives at risk to protect their billionaire earnings.
No one has fully understood how the coronavirus is spread: the declarations of the president of Confindustria, Boccia, who guarantees workers on the job «are protected», are therefore criminal. The only certainty we have is that today there are over a thousand deaths and the health system is crumbling after years of budget cuts by billionaires. The budget cuts were voted, approved and implemented by political leaders of center-right and center-left, from Salvini to Meloni, from Bersani to Zingaretti, from Monti to Renzi (the intensive therapy sectors were particularly affected by the budget cuts).
This is a government decision, shared by all the affected regions’ governors, including Zaia, from the Northern League, Salvini’s right-hand, who from the start opposed a strong resistance to the halt of commercial activities and production. The only certainty is that workers, employees, railway workers, are going to work, putting their lives and their loved ones’ lives at risk.
Fortunately, despite the embarrassing support, offered by the national directions of CGIL, CISL, and UIL, of the decision to not close the factories (they only asked for more workplace protection!), on Thursday March 12th, the workers made themselves heard… and crossed their arms en masse in all open factories. The strikes were proclaimed by various corporate syndicate entities or by sector, confederations as much as base entities (some base syndicates have already proclaimed a state of strike at the national level and have begun striking indefinitely).
Ongoing Strikes
The following cities are on strike: Brescia, Imp. Pasotti and various other big factories. In Asti, Vercelli and Cuneo, Mtm, Ikk, Dierre, Trivium are on strike. In the province of Mantova, Coneliani e Iveco, began to strike, while in Relevi a state of strike emerged. The strike started in Whirlpool, in the province of Varese, in Ast, in Terni, in Bretaña, in Cormano, in Electrolux, in Susegana, in the province of Treviso and in Fincantieri in Marghera. In Liguria, the workers of Fincantieri and ship maintenance are on strike. Two days of national strike have been announced at the national level in System House Srl, System Data Center and Out Spa (telecommunications).
Home delivery motorcyclists who are at risk of catching the virus due to home deliveries are on strike as well. In Tuscany, the strikes are ongoing in Piaggio, Pontedera, Gkn, Florence, Esselunga (where a national strike has been proclaimed). The workers of Almaviva are on indefinite strike and a 10 day strike has been announced in Ilva, Taranto. The workers of Alitalia of various sectors of services in the Fiumicino airport, despite not being able to strike due to laws against it, demanded to work in safe conditions and demanded a long blocking of activities. There are already more strikes programmed as facilities that had shut down for a few days are re-opening: from Ferrari, in Maranello, to many businesses in the rubber-plastic, chemical, and alike sectors. In the last few days, the workers of FCCA in Pomigliano were on strike.
By expressing total solidarity and support to the workers on strike, the militant Fronte Di Lotta No Austerity renews its calling to all labor unions to proclaim indefinite strikes in all sectors wherever possible, with the goal to protect the workers’ lives and their family members’ lives! The strikes must not stop until the lives of all the workers are secured!
Is your factory on strike? Tell us, it’ll be an example for many others. Would you like to organize a strike at your factory? Contact us, we can help you organize it. Contact info@frontedilottanoausterity.org
#iostoacasadalavoro
#nonsiamocarnedamacello -
A Socialist Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic in the U.S.
Statement by La Voz de l@s trabajadores/Workers’ Voice
The coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic has brought to the forefront how urgent it is to fundamentally transform the U.S. medical system and the entire capitalist economy at large. As a recent article in the Washington Post argued, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations could prove to be utterly ineffective because they do not take into account the dire social reality of US workers: “parents who don’t have paid sick leave from work (only 10 states and the District of Columbia mandate it); a lack of affordable childcare or sick child care; at least 28 million Americans living without insurance and nearly one-third of the population still underinsured; health protections that are not distributed evenly from region to region; and fear among undocumented immigrants regarding access to care.”[1] This economic reality has developed a culture of non-reliance on medical services and healthcare institutions because they are seen as a financial hazard for most workers: “More Americans were afraid of paying for healthcare if they became seriously ill (40%) than were afraid of getting seriously ill (33%), according to a 2018 poll by the University of Chicago and the West Health Institute. The study also found that in one year, more than once, about 40% of Americans skipped a medical test or treatment and 44% didn’t go to the doctor when they were sick or injured.”[2] While the pandemic is slowing down the global economic system, the response to this crisis from many capitalist governments has revealed the system’s inadequacies, unpreparedness, and fundamental disregard for working and poor people. A socialist program is needed to requisition the production of vital pharmaceutical and drug companies and nationalize that industry so medical supplies are not an object of profit making and speculation.
Labor precarity and under-employment are also major obstacles to enact emergency measures that would protect the population from pandemics. This is because people cannot afford to miss work. Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), workers are guaranteed only unpaid leave for up to 12 weeks. Most families cannot lose 2 weeks of wages and are one paycheck away from financial disaster. According to the Labor Project for Working Families, “for people in public-facing low-wage jobs, staying home from work is rarely an option.”[3] A report by the Center for American Progress said that 38% of private-sector workers and 78% of part-time workers have no paid sick days. As it is, these workers can barely afford to live off their wages, averaging $10 per hour. We urgently need the imposition of medical and maternity/paternity leave for all workers on a federal level, regardless of the size of their workplace or their union status (of course union workers that already have rights above and beyond the minimum should keep them).
Trump’s Mismanagement of the Health Crisis is Criminal
Trump’s initial public reaction to the emergence of COVID-19 was to deny it outright, saying it was the Democrats’ “new hoax”, then that it was “hysteria” spread by “fake news media”. He later jingoistically suggested that the virus comes from abroad, and thus his response has largely been limited to imposing bans on travel from China and Europe instead of focusing on the reality that the virus is already spreading domestically. No response has been given to the growing problems of testing capacities. The fact is that there are far from enough hospital beds, and more generally, that the healthcare system is a complicated, decentralized patchwork of private insurers and provider networks, which still leaves 30 million without medical coverage.
Trump’s public address on March 12th was not only insufficient, it was riddled with lies and half-truths that sewed confusion about travel restrictions, trade and cargo, health insurance coverage, and the availability of antiviral therapies. In actuality, the travel restrictions only apply to 26 “Schengen Area” countries in Europe. As to trade policy, the transport of goods is not affected. Rather than his claim that all copayments for coronavirus treatments would be waived, insurance industry leaders only agreed to no copayments for coronavirus testing. Despite Trump’s promise “to make antiviral therapies available in record time,” an antiviral drug could be ready for production at earliest in June.
The greatest atrocity by far, is Trump’s squandering of the ample time afforded by the knowledge of this pandemic since December. Not only was his administration not proactive, they weren’t even reactive until far too late. They abdicated their responsibility by waiting until there were 2174 confirmed cases and 53 deaths in the U.S, and on March 13th he declared a national emergency under the Stafford Act. This measure allows for $50 billion that states could use to establish emergency medical centers and support hospitals, but it has failed to provide access to testing as of the time of writing. In a press conference the same day, he double downed with a brazen declaration, “I don’t take responsibility at all.” While this measure opens up funding, it also opens the door to attacks on democratic rights and cancelling or bypassing union contracts during this state of emergency. We need to fight for the resources to deal with the crisis, while defending against attacks on workers’ rights.
After much delay and pressure from below, which is described in the following section, on March 14th, the US House of Representatives passed the bipartisan “Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” which has support from Trump and Republicans and is, therefore, likely to pass in the Senate. This legislation would “expand access to free testing, provide $1 billion in food aid…[and would] include 14 paid sick days for employees, as well as three months of paid emergency leave throughout the coronavirus crisis.”[4] While these testing and food aid measures are drastically needed to deal with the current crisis, they only apply to this specific pandemic, and not future ones which we will certainly face. Additionally, under closer inspection, proposed paid sick-leave measures leave out around 80% of workers, thanks to exemptions given to megacorporations like Amazon and McDonalds as well as small businesses. Instead of pushing forward universal paid leave for all workers, both Democrats and Republicans have demonstrated their commitment to preserving corporate profits over public health. We need more than a bandaid to deal with this crisis; we need a complete transformation of the US medical system and the economic system that prioritizes profit over people.
The Labor Movement’s Response to the Crisis
Workers are reporting that the bosses are doing nothing to make working conditions safe during this pandemic, while many others are getting laid off or have had their hours drastically cut. Many employers are simply telling workers to wash their hands and follow the recommendations of the government. As the US government has been particularly slow to respond to the pandemic, sectors of the labor movement and other working class organizations have been discussing the challenges of this crisis, highlighting the concerns and inadequacies of the government’s response, and formulating demands and solutions. Frontline rank and file workers like nurses, educators, transport workers, and service workers have been working around the clock to keep people safe, fed, sheltered and healthy. They are keeping the economy running with the limited resources available, putting them at great risk of contracting the virus. The crisis is both revealing the mismanagement by the capitalist class, and the ability of working people to address the crisis with real solutions.
On March 6th, the California Nurses Association, along with the American Federation of Teachers, the United Auto Workers, and 10 other unions, issued a resolution calling out how the CDC’s proposed changes at the time would be inefficient and result in harmful effects on healthcare workers. They argued that these changes would “decrease the level of protection for healthcare workers…[and] would also contribute to the spread of this virus.” The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) demanded that the city close schools and provide food for students. Rank and file workers throughout Connecticut from a variety of sectors of the labor movement including hotel workers from Unite Here local 217, produce clerks from UFCW local 919, and educators from local AFT and NEA chapters, are organizing an online meeting to discuss a plan of action for a workers relief program from the Coronavirus. In California, Community College faculty unions are demanding to bargain with their districts over the effects of unilateral changes being made due to the pandemic, and are demanding that faculty be paid throughout the crisis. And in the midst of active struggle, graduate student workers across the UC system are dealing with the challenges of the pandemic as they formulate plans to move the COLA strike online.
Other educator unions and rank and file educator groups, like MORE (Movement of Rank and File Educators) in New York City, successfully called for a mass sickout against their district’s failure to close schools. Additionally, organized educators developed common-good, community demands in coalition with unions and community organizations, including: the Seattle Equity Educators, UTLA, Oakland students, and Philadelphia educators. These coalitions formed independently of each other and developed similar demands mirroring the fragmentation of the Red for Ed movement – which is understandable given its newness. If workers can channel these separate efforts into a coordinated national movement, they will be most able to protect themselves, their families, and the communities they serve in the face of irresponsible governance at all levels.
In Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) told the public and workers that their sanitation protocols were sufficient, even when the CDC was warning of an imminent outbreak. Workers tried approaching their union leaderships to begin mobilizing union power, but were bureaucratically blocked by union officials uncomfortable with making demands against the bosses. Workers conducted discussions at their workplaces and online and created lists of demands which they brought to managers and to mass membership meetings of their unions. Demands included distribution of hand sanitizers and sanitizing wipes, more frequent cleaning with proper safety equipment and training, and paid work hours. Workers also demanded a moratorium on marks against a worker’s record for being sick. Again, workers were told that they could not discuss this because “the union may get sued” or that “we don’t want to create a panic.” Teachers in Chicago were at the same time demanding the schools be closed and food be distributed to families who relied on school food programs. The city government refused but were embarrassingly overruled the same day by the Governor who closed down not only Chicago schools, but also all of Illinois public schools (with pay for all staff). The Chicago Teachers Union, which had led two strikes since 2012, joined with other unions and community groups to call for immediate social measures, such as:- A moratorium on evictions and mortgage payments for families in need.
- Testing protocols that place no economic burden on individuals and families in need.
- The provision to all Illinois workers—in Chicago schools, public agencies and private businesses—of 15 additional days of paid time off, to align with the quarantine period for COVID-19
Transit workers are following the lead of the teachers in demanding free, voluntary testing for all transit workers and 15 days paid leave for those testing positive. Since workers took these initiatives, both union officials and CTA management have taken some steps to follow workers’ and passengers’ demands. However, tests are still not available and as of the writing of this article, workers (including bus and train operators and customer assistants) are officially still unable to be absent without discipline that can lead to being fired, even if they have COVID-19(!). Part-time workers still get no paid leave. Some workers are demanding paid leave be made a central demand during the current contract fight (their contract expired in December, 2019).
An Emergency Plan to Face the Coronavirus Pandemic
We are in the richest country in the world, and in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies are making record profits at the expense of our healthcare. Other companies are sending workers home with no pay. While some workers can work from home, many others cannot, especially those in low paid service jobs, or in manufacturing or transportation. If sent home, they will lose their wages. Forced to choose between respecting the quarantine and ensuring their own economic survival, many will likely continue showing up to work, putting themselves and the community’s health at risk. We must pressure local, state, and federal leaders to prepare for worst case scenarios.
We need to expand organizing through our unions and community groups to demand concrete emergency measures and deep reforms to ensure the health and safety of workers as well as unemployed workers. The 2018 and 2019 strikes have shown that collective action and strikes get the goods. With the growing healthcare crisis revealed by the Covid-19 epidemic, we must ramp up our mobilizing. We are challenged by having to limit our tactical options given social distancing and containment measures. However, the production slowdown and school closures we are experiencing is akin to a national strike wave and reveals the vulnerabilities of the neoliberal capitalist economic system.
This is the time for socialists to build together a united front with all unions and community organizations to demand and organize for an emergency plan that will satisfy the basic needs of working people:
- Free distribution of face masks, hand sanitizing, soap and isopropyl alcohol,
- Free local, accessible screening and treatment for everyone who is symptomatic, basic emergency healthcare access to everyone and a plan for universal, comprehensive healthcare for all
- Nationalization of the drug and pharmaceutical industry
- Emergency public housing plan and shelters for all unhoused people with outreach workers and protocols around screening and response to illness
- Childcare for healthcare and other essential workers
- Full compensation for all workers and families who cannot work until the end of the pandemic
- Moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, utility shut offs
- Organization of house calls by unions and workers organizations – assisting incarcerated and elderly people with distribution of food, access to medical attention, etc.
- Moratorium on immigration status checks and deportations
- Local hotline numbers available 24/7 that are anonymous and not tied to law enforcement or ICE
[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/as-coronavirus-spreads-the-bill-for-our-public-health-failures-is-due/2020/03/05/9da09ed6-5f10-11ea-b29b-9db42f7803a7_story.html
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/27/coronavirus-outbreak-us-healthcare-sick-leave
[3] Ibid.
[4] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/13/congress-coronavirus-stimulus-package-deal-friday-128140
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UC Graduate Students on Strike for COLA
Written by La Voz comrades in UC Berkeley and UCLA
On Thursday March 5th, thousands of graduate students and faculty at several University of California (UC) campuses walked out of class and marched to rallies as part of a day of action across the UC system. This day of action, approved by votes at graduate student assemblies on various campuses, was part of the campaign for cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for graduate student instructors. The mobilizations were organized in solidarity with the 82 graduate students fired by UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) administration in retaliation for their strike action, and in opposition to the Unfair Labor Practice charges (ULP) that the UC management had filed against the TA’s union, the United Auto Workers (UAW) 2865. Some campuses like Berkeley included additional demands for the demilitarization of campus police and divestment from police organizations, as well as demanding an end to semester-only appointments for teaching staff.
Preparations towards a statewide strike have been advancing since then, with UC Berkeley beginning a strike on Monday 16th and a possible statewide ULP strike being organized for April. The COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding cancellations of normal in-person classes have compounded the difficulties faced by student workers at universities. Student instructors are now expected to restructure their course-materials into an online-friendly format with minimal technological support and a marked disregard for working health conditions from university administrations. This health crisis has forced strike organizers to move the picket lines off of the campuses and onto the internet. The health crisis also underscores the urgency of the COLA movement’s demands: graduate student employees need a living wage, and the 82 fired workers need to be reinstated now!
UCSC’s Spark and UC’s Growing Retaliation
The grading strike began in the Fall 2019 quarter at UC Santa Cruz, where several hundreds of rank and file graduate students voted to withhold grades because they could not afford to live in the area anymore. Most of them are spending 50 to 70% of their wages to rent rooms in shared housing, many have to get second jobs or commute from far away.
UC President Janet Napolitano threatened to terminate all graduate students on strike if they did not return to work at the end of February. This intimidation campaign forced many to go back to work, especially international students whose visas depend on their student status. Yet a solid group of 82 were fired for withholding grades. In response 500 graduate students in Santa Cruz across 22 departments have pledged to refuse to take the TAships vacated by the 82 terminated graduate students, and hundreds of graduate students held emergency assemblies at UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles (UCLA), and other campuses.[1] They are committed to building this movement beyond Santa Cruz and have demonstrated solidarity in action. Last March 5th was just the first day of coordinated actions. The COLA grassroots assemblies are now moving towards building a state-wide wildcat strike, and they are asking faculty members to join them! At UC Berkeley they are initiating a full teaching strike starting March 19th with more than 15 academic departments participating.
The Grassroots Wildcat Strike and the UAW 2865 Leadership
The wildcat strike was neither organized nor supported by the majority of the UAW 2865 leadership. The UAW leadership has done the opposite, with its leadership signing an unpopular contract in the summer of 2018 that locked all teaching assistants into a 4-year agreement that included insufficient wage increases. Many rank and file workers expressed frustration with the fact that the contract was signed over the summer, when fewer graduate students were around, as well as being angry at the union’s failure to keep its promise that it would get ready for a strike the next fall to win larger wage increases among other demands. UAW leadership held no forums for debate on the Tentative Agreement, and directed paid staff to persuade members to vote “yes”. Nevertheless, a majority of UCSC academic employees voted against this inadequate agreement.
There are many ways to organize a strike, and graduate students at Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and UCLA have chosen to organize it collectively and democratically from below. In the cases of Berkeley and UCLA, they have been organizing at the departmental level. Department by department, student workers are bringing faculty members into the organizing process as well.
The differences between COLA organizers and UAW leadership as Tara P. and Shannon I. have argued, “boil down to a fundamental question: are we “assessing” and “mapping” workers’ engagement for the sake of assessment and data-gathering, or are we assessing what kinds of doable actions workers are willing to take, and giving them a clear path to action? A democratic movement not only consults and maps, it also inspires, gives confidence, and proposes a plan of action. This is what real democracy looks like. It’s messy, and imperfect, but its power cannot be beaten.”[2]
As COLA organizers pointed out, the kind of democracy workers need in their unions and organizing spaces is not a procedural one, or one of quantitative assessment, but a democracy that has a social content and goal, namely, to improve workers’ lives: “the key questions are: how do we implement democracy, and critically, in the service of what? We do not believe that [sic] union or workers’ democracy is the art of polling opinions, or creating the best statistical predictions. Our democracy is a democracy that engages in collective action to fight for our collective needs. We organize democratically in order to transform our living conditions, increase our power as workers in society, and reshape our consciousness as academic workers in public education. Our union democracy is a political practice of solidarity, a practice that starts from the analysis of this world in order to bring about a new world. Our democracy is not neutral or indifferent to our exploitation, acts of injustice, repression, and oppression. It is our best tool to overcome it.”[3]
Legal or Illegal, the Strike Must Continue
Since the strike for COLA began in Santa Cruz, and then spread to other campuses in January with the formation of COLA rank and file committees, the UAW 2865 officials began to change their position. From discouraging and “containing” the strike action at UCSC at the outset, they shifted to begin to show support for the COLA demands they had originally opposed. Now they are finally attempting to give a legal framework to the strike by mobilizing for an Unfair Labor Practice strike, based on the valid charges the union filed against UC administration for their illegal conduct towards the union: an attempt to bargain with the UCGPC (an inter-campus Graduate student government body which is unelected and does not represent graduates as workers) and retaliation against striking graduate students, by punishing them as students and not as employees. The union leadership says that it plans to hold a strike authorization vote early April, but no actual strike date has been set.
The ULP strike should not be considered in opposition to the actual wildcat, because the ULP can and should be used to extend the strike, and involve more graduate students and also faculty in strike action. It is clear that most of UAW 2865’s leadership is promoting the possibility of a future ULP strike in order to stop and dilute the ongoing wildcat strike. Moreover, they do not want nor know how to organize the strike. We believe that it is necessary to merge the strikes. The ULP strike would not be on the table if UCSC graduate students had not started their strike action, which has then been followed by a growing number of individuals and departments at other campuses. Spreading the grassroots wildcat strike from department to department, with the rank and file workforce leading the charge is the best way to ensure that the ULP strike happens and that it is a powerful and successful one. This is why all campuses are accelerating their meetings with departments to get them strike-ready in time for a proposed state-wide teaching strike on April 1st.
COLA Strikers Must Have a Seat at the Negotiating Table
COLA strikers have not yet agreed on how to best conduct the negotiations to secure a COLA increase not only for all graduate students (including both those teaching and those on fellowship), but also to set a milestone beneficial to other unions and university workers. Many of them are wary that if the same UAW 2865 union officials are left in charge of the negotiations, the rank and file will once again be sold out. They want a seat at the bargaining table, and they are right to demand one!
Most COLA organizers, however, believe that the union framework will be the best way to secure COLA increases for all teaching assistants. COLA assemblies are going to be discussing concrete proposals to bargain with UC management on this matter and convene at a state-wide level to discuss their bargaining strategy with elected delegates. It is important to agree on the composition of a new kind of bargaining team that includes representatives of the campus COLA organizing committees elected at the COLA assemblies.
In Order to Win, Graduate Students Need Active Solidarity
The strike is unfolding under very hostile conditions: it is an unsanctioned strike, which was met at first with opposition from the union leadership; it has endured severe repression and now faces the coronavirus crisis situation. The health crisis is being used by UC management to discourage workers from participating in the strike, and guilt trip graduate student workers into working more and making more sacrifices. Despite all of this, graduate students are increasing their militancy and are mobilizing for mass wildcat action. They need all the solidarity we can offer them from other UC constituents (faculty, staff) and from other education unions. COLA organizers are pushing back against the UC administration’s narrative, and they are explicitly linking their struggle for basic needs to the health crisis. Now more than ever graduate students need living wages, to be able to afford food, housing, and medicine. And more importantly, the 82 fired grad workers must be reinstated now! It is unconscionable for UC management to not to hire back these workers in the middle of this pandemic!
It is vital for all other public education unions to support the COLA strike and to protect the UAW 2865 union from retaliation. Solidarity also needs to materialize in the form of financial contributions to their strike and organizing fund, given that graduate students cannot use their own union’s resources and the threat of retaliation they face.
All Support for the UC COLA Strike!
UC Graduate Students Need a COLA NOW!
Reinstate all Fired Workers and Drop the Charges Against the UAW 2865!
UC Must Come to the Bargaining Table!
[1] https://payusmoreucsc.com/pledges-to-refuse-taships-vacated-by-terminated-grads/
[2] https://medium.com/@somecolaorganizers/the-grassroots-wildcat-strike-for-a-cola-and-the-fight-for-a-democratic-militant-union-a-a0edd4ea3178
[3] https://medium.com/@somecolaorganizers/the-grassroots-wildcat-strike-for-a-cola-and-the-fight-for-a-democratic-militant-union-a-a0edd4ea3178 -
Eight theses on Covid-19
“The Covid-19 is yet another warning: capitalism, which leads humanity to barbarism, must be ended.”
- The fact that the economic slowdown preceded Covid-19 should not lead to denying either the economic impact of the epidemic (interruption of some production processes, disruption of supply chains, sectoral impacts on air transport and tourism, etc.) or the seriousness of the threat it poses as such. A disruptive phenomenon with exponential dynamics, this epidemic is a specific amplifier of the economic and social crisis. It also reveals the fragility of the capitalist system and the dangers it poses for the working classes, in particular through its congenital fossil-based productivism, the fundamental cause of the ecological and climate crisis.
- Controlling the epidemic would have required prompt action and strict measures to monitor the health of travellers from contaminated areas, identify and isolate infected people, limit transport and strengthen health services. Stuck in the neoliberal policies with which they tried to counter the economic slowdown, the capitalist governments were slow to take these measures, then took them insufficiently, which forced them to then take more severe measures, while always chasing behind the spread of the virus. Zero stocks, cuts in the fields of health and research and flexiprecarity of work must be blamed in the crisis.
- Scientists sounded the alarm during the SARS coronavirus epidemic in 2002. Basic research programmes were proposed in Europe and the USA, which would have made it possible to better understand and prevent this category of virus reappearing in new forms. Governments refused to fund them. An absurd policy, but tailor-made for leaving research in these fields to the pharmaceutical industry, whose goal is not public health but profits from the sale of drugs on the market for solvent patients.
- Like any disruptive phenomenon, the epidemic first elicits reactions of denial. These can then give way to panic and panic can be exploited by demagogues to play the game of authoritarian strategies of technological control of populations and limitation of democratic rights, as in China and Russia. There is also a serious risk that the Covid-19 will be used by the fascists as a pretext to justify and intensify the racist policies of refoulement of migrants.
- The left cannot be content with reducing the exogenous factor of the health crisis to the endogenous capitalist economic crisis. It must take into account the health crisis as such and develop proposals to combat it in a social, democratic, anti-racist, feminist and internationalist way. Against individualism, it must also adopt for itself and advocate in social movements responsible collective behaviours from the point of view of non-propagation of the virus. Unlike the measures to limit car use taken by certain governments in response to the “oil shock”, for example, no one can avoid their responsibility for health: their own, that of theit loved ones and public health, without forgetting responsibility for the global South. Either the social movements take this issue in their own hands, democratically and from the social realities of the dominated, or else the dominant ones will impose their liberticide solutions.
- The major danger of the epidemic is the possible saturation of hospital systems. This would inevitably lead to a worsening of the price paid by the poorest and the weakest, in particular among the elderly, as well as a further shift of care tasks into the domestic sphere, that is to say generally onto women. The saturation threshold obviously depends on the countries, the health systems and the austerity policies that have been imposed there. It will be reached all the more quickly insofar as the governments are running behind the epidemic instead of preventing it. The fight against the epidemic therefore requires a break with austerity policies, a redistribution of wealth, refinancing and de-liberalization of the health sector, the suppression of patents in the medical field, North-South justice and a clear priority given to social needs. This implies in particular: banning dismissals of infected workers, the maintenance of wages in the event of partial unemployment, stopping checks, “activation” and sanctions against social security recipients, etc. It is mainly on these questions that we must intervene to counter irrational responses and their potential for racist-authoritarian slippage.
- There are many commonalities between the Covid-19 crisis and the climate crisis. In both cases, the capitalist system’s logic of accumulation for profit makes it incapable of preventing a danger of which it is nevertheless aware. In both cases, governments oscillate between denial and the inadequacy of policies designed primarily according to the needs of capital, not the needs of populations. In both cases, the poorest, racialized and weakest, especially in the countries of the global south, are in sights, while the rich say that they will always get by. In both cases, governments are using the threat to advance toward a strong state while far-right forces are trying to take advantage of fear to out forward foul Malthusian and racist responses. In both cases, finally, the social law of capitalist value comes into direct contradiction with laws of nature with exponential dynamics (the multiplication of viral infections in one case, warming and its positive feedbacks in the other).
- The climatic danger is however infinitely more global and more serious than that of the virus. The same will obviously apply to its consequences if the exploited and the oppressed do not unite to bring down this absurd and criminal mode of production. The Covid-19 is yet another warning: capitalism, which leads humanity to barbarism, must be ended.
9 March 2020
This article appeared in International Viewpoint, the English-language journal of the Fourth International. Translated from Gauche Anticapitaliste, 10 March 2020 “Huit thèses sur le coronavirus” by ESSF and IVP.
Daniel Tanuro, a certified agriculturalist and eco-socialist environmentalist, writes for “La gauche”, (the monthly of the LCR-SAP, Belgian section of the Fourth International). He is also the author of “The Impossibility of Green Capitalism,” (Resistance Books, Merlin and IIRE) and Le moment Trump (Demopolis, 2018).
Photo: Kena Betancur / AFP / Getty Images
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The disease is capitalism: Global economic crisis
On Monday, March 9, the Dow Jones futures market immediately dropped 1800 points. This triggered an automatic “circuit breaker” in the market, in which trade was halted for 15 minutes. After the trading curb ended, futures contracts continued to fall until the total point losses were around 2000 points, or a loss of 7.8 percent. This was preceded by a longer, slower decline beginning in February, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) had reached a peak of 29,000 and declined 14 percent to 25,000 at the same time in March.
The fall in the American stock market was mirrored in international markets as well: the Brazilian IBOVESPA index fund lost 12%; the Chinese CSI 300 Index fell by 3%, the Hong Kong Hang Seng index fell by 4.2%, and the Japanese Nikkei 225 fell by 5.1%. In Asian markets specifically, stocks have been declining since December, signaling an end to the boom in financial capital prices.
The market collapse comes in the context of the escalation of two major events: the escalation of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak into a global pandemic, and an oil price war between oil-producing nations that has forced prices of crude oil down to around $35 per barrel. In this article, I’ll place these two short-term crises into the context of longer-term crises of production in the United States and Asia.
Spread of coronavirus and its economic impacts
I won’t spend too much time on the virus itself, but it helps to have a little context on how quickly the disease spread. COVID-19 disease was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019. It initially presented itself s a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown cause. The disease is characterized by a symptom onset time of between two and 14 days, and the ability to transmit an infection before any symptoms are displayed. The initial spread of the virus was facilitated by the Chinese New Year, spreading symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers throughout both the country and the world. By Jan. 20, over 6000 people had developed symptoms, while the number of asymptomatic carriers remains unknown.
The Chinese government responded with relatively draconian but effective measures, quarantining several cities in Hubei province and enforcing social distancing, resulting in an eventual decline in newly reported cases by late February. By this time, however, new cases had begun to explode in Italy, Iran, and South Korea. Northern Italy in particular has been hit particularly hard; the province of Lombardy is under quarantine, and reports are that hospitals are almost completely overwhelmed.
One of the first-order effects of the pandemic is on global supply chains for manufactured goods, especially electronics. Since these supply chains are centered on largely Chinese manufacturing, the imposition of quarantine resulted in large-scale disruption to the production of manufactured goods. The economic meaning is that once available stocks have been shipped, we will begin to see shortages and price increases for certain manufactured goods, especially electronics. This is sort of the common-sense supply-side story.
There’s also a common-sense demand-side story as well. The response by governments to the pandemic will take the form of something of a continuum of two strategies: either (1) do nothing, and rely on individual measures like social distancing or self-quarantine, or (2) take extremely, shall we say, proactive steps to halt the spread of the virus. In either case, there will be a reduction in the amount of expenditure on the one hand of wage goods—because at the very least, the service sector will experience a major contraction. The slow down in service work will get worse as public health systems become overloaded. In countries with weak worker protections as well as non-existent public health institutions, such as the United States, this will also result in large numbers of people losing their jobs and their homes.
On the other hand, the price of capital goods will begin to fall as well, because underlying every demand crisis is a profitability crisis. This is a very important point, because the profitability crisis gives us the difference between “a public health catastrophe” and “a public health catastrophe that precipitates a global recession.”
Underlying crisis
Over the past decade, stock prices have grown enormously, much faster than dividends. The reason for this is investment capital flowing to its most profitable use, that is to say, the greatest return on investment. For the purpose of this article, we can consider financial instruments, in general, as futures contracts.
We purchase today a contract entitling us to a future return. We can then turn around and sell this contract based on the fact of that future, unrealized return and then make a profit. So financial positions based on future unrealized gains are used to cover the positions of other financial positions based on future gains. This can actually go on for quite some time, as seen by the long boom in financial asset prices seen after 2008.
However, this requires two things: the first is cheap credit. We can think of the interest rate as a sort of tool to discipline the financial market. If the interest rate I need to pay is 8% every year, then I’d better make sure that I am generating at least that much in profit. In fact, the interest rate has remained below 2% for almost the entirety of the past decade. This indicates that there are still very few productive avenues for investment in the real economy.
The second thing that is required is stability. The game of “financialization” can go on for quite a long time until credit-lubricated demand for both consumer goods and investment goods falters. The world is currently experiencing a shock to both from the coronavirus. Once demand collapses in a few key industries, such as airline travel, this usually leads to a chain reaction as financial profits based on future real returns fail to materialize.
Shocks and spills: The story of oil
The oil price shock comes at the tailwinds of several global trends that preceded the current crisis by a few years. The first of these is falling demand for oil globally; some of which is due to the small but growing switch to renewable energy worldwide. A larger factor is the long-term decline in Asian manufacturing. Even before the coronavirus, Chinese growth in GDP fell to its lowest point in 2019. The decision by oil-exporting nations not to cut production seems to be a decision to increase revenue by increasing output and putting the more expensive American and Canadian shale oil and gas producers out of business. Finally, the anticipated drop in demand due to the pandemic put pressure on primarily oil-exporting nations to try and cut production further in order to sustain prices. These talks failed, and the result is the collapse of collaboration between OPEC and Russian oil interests.
The fall in oil prices is causing financial contagion in the real sector through two channels. The first is the channel that I outlined above: investors that are heavily invested in oil priced their futures contracts in with the expectation of a given return that is now impossible given the dramatic fall in the price of oil. Another, largely unexplored, channel is the fact that American-Canadian shale oil is both extremely unprofitable and extremely debt-laden.
We know from Marx 101 that as the organic composition* of capital in an industry rises, the rate of profit tends to fall. Shale extraction, often accomplished by fracking, is one of the most capital-intensive industries there is. However, output from these projects declines much faster than anyone anticipated, and returns in the industry are low even when the price of oil is high. The industry has attracted enormous levels of capital investment to the tune of $200 billion of debt just in 2015, and likely much higher in 2019. A collapse in the shale industry would cause reciprocal falls in the prices of capital goods in the United States and worldwide.
Which way forward?
If the response is left in the hands of capital, in the short term, a nasty recession is all but assured, given the drastic falls in manufacturing output in the Asian countries over the past several months. In addition to this, Western countries may be facing down the barrel of a public health catastrophe, given the unpreparedness of governments here and elsewhere in responding to the coronavirus.
In the long run, because of persistently weak consumer and investment demand, both the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Federal Reserve have kept interest rates at historically low levels. Despite this, private capital is undertaking a “flight to safety,” meaning that capital is flowing into U.S. bonds at historically low rates—so low that, after accounting for 30 years of inflation, an investor is guaranteed to lose money. In other words, the outlook for the profitability of investment is so bad, they would rather hand it to the U.S. government at a modest loss than to risk it by putting it into the circuit of production. This means that monetary policy, either through quantitative easing or interest-rate reductions, which has been the primary tool of recession-prevention in past years, will be completely ineffective.
There is no way for capital to “manage” itself out of this crisis. The solution it puts forward will be to cut its losses as much as possible and put the rest on the backs of the working class. Instead of inaction, repression, and austerity, workers have the opportunity to demand unlimited sick time at full pay and immediate mobilization of medical workers to address the reality of the pandemic. Already, organized labor has been coming together to make these demands on citywide bases, such as in Chicago. The effort must be expanded and coordinated on a national scale.
So too must the demands take into consideration the reality of the coming recession. To stop the economic downfall from an oil war, trade unions, especially those involved with industries like pipeline construction, must demand an immediate transition to 100% clean, renewable energy within the next five years. In response to the already-begun recession, the solution involves, on the one hand, public ownership of housing to stave off a homelessness crisis, and on the other, the expropriation of all finance capital, whose only response to death and destruction is to re-inflate the burst bubble. Both actions must be taken without compensation for either the big landlords or the big banks.
The only social force that is capable of making such demands, either rhetorically or in action, is the working class. The corona outbreak proves the burning need for a labor party and a fighting union movement that can win the necessary solutions to the problems forced on us by the bosses.
*The Marxist Internet Archive defines the organic composition of capital as “the ratio of the value of the materials and fixed costs (constant capital) embodied in production of a commodity to the value of the labour-power (variable capital) used in making it.”
Photo: Mark Lennihan / AP
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Standing at the crossroads: The United Auto Workers and the way forward
United Auto Workers, Aramark workers carry strike signs while picketing outside the General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, Sept. 15, 2019. (Rebecca Cook / Reuters) By DEAN COHEN
The UAW seems to be standing at the crossroads, and like Robert Johnson’s protagonist from the song, the once rising sun now seems to be sinkin’ down. That sun seems to be setting on a great labor union, once the shining jewel of the CIO and the whole U.S. labor movement.
From the millions of dollars in fines, to the decades of jail time handed down in sentences, to the forced resignation of President Gary Jones, the scandals keep coming like punches to the head and body of a used-up prizefighter who appears to be in the ring way past his prime. Are there more to come? These blows have rocked not only the UAW membership, but also the membership of the entire union movement. They have definitely impacted the union’s ability to organize the transplanted auto plants like Volkswagen, Honda, and Toyota.
Perspective members have to be asking themselves, “Just what kind of organization am I being asked to join and give my dues money to?” Hanging over all this is the threat of government interference in the UAW, a move that would be a setback to the whole labor movement.
The roots of these crises have not just materialized out of thin air. It is the culmination of the undemocratic nature of the UAW’s top leadership. Called the Administration Caucus, it goes back decades to the successful attempt of Walter Reuther and his allies, following the Second World War, to impose a one-party rule, tame the union’s militancy, and drive any left-wing influence out of the union.
Reuther and the rise of the Administration Caucus
Walter Reuther was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, into a staunchly left-wing and pro-union family. His father was a union teamster, socialist, and strong supporter of Eugene V. Debs. Walter early on joined the Socialist Party (SP) and its youth organization, the Young Peoples Socialist League. By 1927 he had moved to Detroit to work in the growing automobile industry and obtained a job at Ford’s sprawling River Rouge Plant.
In 1932 he was fired from Ford for organizing a rally for the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate Norman Thomas. It was then that he and brother Victor decided to travel overseas. After three years they returned to Detroit, where the autoworkers were already on the march toward industrial unionism. Reuther helped organize a number of plants into Westside Amalgamated Local 174. This local would be his base for years to come.
It should be noted that the Reuther brothers were well known as members of the SP at this time. It was also well known that Reuther would work closely with members of the Communist Party (CP), though it wasn’t so much out of solidarity with other members of the left in the union. Walter, ever the opportunistic budding “labor faker” would work with anyone who he felt could further his rise in the union, and the CP represented a sizably force in the UAW at this point. This close relationship cooled around the time of the Stalin-Hitler Pact.
With the advent of World War II, and the union bureaucrats’ acceptance of the no-strike pledge, Reuther and the CP enthusiastically jumped on the no-strike bandwagon. With Walter, it was to solidify his position as an up and coming “labor statesman.” With the CP, it was at the behest of their Stalinist masters in the Kremlin following the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941. But the CP went beyond the no-strike pledge, hysterically demanding support for the speedup and incentive pay in the UAW and other unions where the CP had forces.
The Stalinists made these demands for the duration of the war and beyond! These demands were extremely unpopular with the rank and file and tended to put “moderate” union hacks like Reuther between a rock and a hard spot! This situation came to a head during the UAW’s 1944 convention, where the membership actually voted down any continuation of the no-strike pledge. It took all the bureaucratic wrangling that Reuther and the CP could muster to thwart the will of the ranks.
By 1945, the union bureaucrats could no longer contain the anger of the ranks, who had seen many of the hard-fought gains of the 1930s rolled back by the no-strike pledge and the War Labor Board. This anger burst forth in the greatest labor upsurge in U.S. history. Walter Reuther, by this time a UAW vice-president and head of the union’s GM Department, backed a national strike against General Motors. He hardly had any choice!
UAW-GM workers enthusiastically flocked to the picket lines on Nov. 21, 1945, and held the line for 113 days. But barely 90 days into the strike, the Stalinist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE), which had contracts covering workers at GM electrical divisions, announced they had cut a deal with GM behind the backs of the UAW. This undercut the UAW’s bargaining power and earned the Stalinists the undying hatred of UAW militants.
Reuther was able to use this justified hatred to consolidate his power. He allied with the anti-communist Association of Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU) and went after the CP in the union, putting CP-led locals like Ford Local 600 in receivership. Next to be targeted was any left-wing opposition. You were given a choice—get on the Reuther bandwagon, and cushy International jobs awaited. Don’t play ball, and there’s the door!
The UAW constitution never had a provision for direct membership election of top officers. Top officers were and still are elected by delegates at the International Convention. This made the job of taming the union easier: Control the hiring of International Staff and control the selection of delegates. The Administration Caucus was born!
Opposition begins
The first opposition to Reuther’s complete domination coalesced around former President R.J. Thomas, Secretary-Treasurer George Addes, and Vice President Richard Leonard at the 1947 UAW convention. The Thomas-Addes-Leonard caucus attracted many of the union’s most militant elements, who were concerned that democracy was slipping away from the rank and file. But that caucus suffered a big defeat at the ’47 convention and very soon disbanded.
The prosperity of the 1950s and early ’60s was not very conducive to the formation of opposition in the UAW. Secure employment, relatively high wages and good benefits kept the ranks contented. Except for small groupings centered mostly in Detroit, the Revolutionary Union Movements (RUMs), the UAW bureaucracy remained unchallenged by the type of national opposition movements that formed in other large unions in the late 1960s and ’70s, such as the Teamsters (Teamsters for a Democratic Union), Mineworkers (Miners For Democracy) and Steelworkers (Steelworkers Fight Back).
In 1986, the New Directions Movement emerged, led by Region 5 assistant director Jerry Tucker. But not too long after Tucker’s failed bid for the union presidency, New Directions faded.
Present crisis & “Unite All Workers for Democracy”
Given the present crisis in the union, it is not surprising that an opposition movement has emerged. An opposition caucus, Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), was founded in mid-2019. According to a supporter of the caucus, the UAWD seeks to “return the UAW to its militant roots.”
On its website, UAWD lists a number of goals. Among them are better contracts, more transparency, better organizing and community outreach, all fine goals. However, UAWD’s main goal is limited to having as many locals as possible sign on to a call to force the union leadership to call a “special convention,” as per Article 8, Section 4 of the union’s constitution, in order to pass a resolution changing the constitution to allow for direct membership election of top officers (one member, one vote). As of this writing, some 20 locals have signed on.
While the direct election of top officers will be a step toward greater democracy in the union, this will not, in and of itself, “return the union to its militant roots.” As UAWD’s website points out, direct membership election is not an outlandish demand. Other unions, such as the Steelworkers and the Machinists allow for one member, one vote. Yet that has not made those unions militant, fighting organizations.
It will take a militant, fighting program to return the UAW to its roots. In order to win better contracts, one demand has to be to dump the union’s long-time strategy of striking only one auto company at a time. This strategy arose with Reuther as a way to put pressure on the struck company by allowing their competitors to keep making and selling cars. As we have seen with the most recent GM strike, this strategy is a dead-end loser. A militant, fighting union, led by a class-struggle leadership, would have shut down ALL the auto companies! Only by shutting down the entire industry will it be possible to win good contacts.
Top on the list of any opposition caucus must be the call to decisively break from the bosses’ political shell game. A break from the Democrats and Republicans by the UAW (and the rest of the labor movement), and the formation of an independent, working-class political party, is a must if labor is to move forward.
Just recently, disgraced former President Gary Jones was indicted on charges of embezzling more than $1.5 million of union funds. As the scandal deepens, the possibility of a government takeover of the union grows. We know from recent history how badly that worked out for the Teamsters union. Another top demand of a militant opposition must be no government interference in the union!
A nationally organized opposition caucus within the UAW, built upon a militant, fighting program, will be a step forward toward returning the union to its militant roots.
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COVID-19: Fight disaster capitalism with solidarity and socialism
Worker disinfects counters in the library of Ohio State University. Since then, the university has cancelled on-site classes, and other schools around the state have followed suit. (Columbus Dispatch) By CENTRAL OHIO REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISTS
As this statement is being drafted, Ohio’s top health and government officials have estimated that more than 100,000 people in the state are carrying the Coronavirus, or COVID-19. So far, over 1,600 people in the U.S. have tested positive for the illness, and forty people have died.
At the surface level, the state government has only introduced the most minor methods for preventing the spread of the virus and providing treatment for those who have been affected: closing public schools, colleges and universities, sporting events, and gatherings of more than one hundred people; state Democrats introduced a bill struck down by Republicans that would have provided a measly seven day paid leave for workers affected.
We have also seen the crude violence of the capitalist state unleashed: sending out riot police to attack students at the University of Dayton, arresting immigrants at hospitals, and doubling down on the xenophobic call for a wall along the US-Mexico border while using the pandemic to continue stoking racism.
With the growing state of emergency that is accompanying the spread of COVID-19 worldwide, people are becoming more conscious of the instability, unreliability, and inability of capitalism to prevent the spread of and provide adequate treatment for disease and illness. People are concerned about their survival: how they will be able to pay bills and acquire food if they have to be quarantined; how they can remain safe at work or if they should be working at all; and how to obtain access to sufficient healthcare and testing, among other things.
The coronavirus cannot detect the wealth of the individuals it infects, and members of the capitalist class have already been impacted. Despite this common human interest in stopping the spread of COVID-19, capitalists have proven unable to direct their resources toward anything other than the continued maintenance of profitability. The New York Federal Reserve is throwing $1.5 trillion at the stock market to try—unsuccessfully—to save it from an abysmal week. While the rich continue worrying about how many millions of dollars of wealth they will have at the end of the week, millions of working-class people are wondering whether they’ll continue to have a job, housing, and healthcare, assuming they are fortunate enough to have all three to begin with.
Under capitalism, where human necessities such as healthcare and housing are made into commodities, workers are coerced into a violent ultimatum: either go to work while sick and risk infecting others, or stay home to get healthy and risk losing your job and ability to survive.
A responsible approach to the current pandemic would see the leadership of nurses, doctors, researchers, and other care providers giving out directives based on public health interests, not the banks and insurance companies gobbling up more money from government subsidies and parasitic fees against workers. It would see basic necessities distributed for free and free medical care for all, because any vulnerability at all during a pandemic puts the whole population at risk. In a reasonable society—which is to say a socialist society—we would mobilize collectively to put a stop to the pandemic; instead, we wait in uncertainty as the economy crashes and our livelihood is risked along with it.
The status quo is untenable, and we must fight to overturn it.
*****
Healthcare
There has never been a more urgent case for Medicare for All than the COVID-19 pandemic. Guaranteed healthcare for all is a basic, necessary step in preventing the further spread of the coronavirus. This includes ensuring access to food, toiletries, and other basic goods. As immediate emergency measures, we need:
- Expanded testing for anyone experiencing symptoms, free of charge
- Free treatment and a free vaccine, once one is developed
- Public investment in research for developing treatment and vaccines
- Guaranteed refills on prescription drugs
- Public ownership of all treatments developed to combat COVID-19, to prevent the pharmaceutical industry from price gouging to shore up profits
- Expanded production of necessary medical equipment
- Distribution of basic goods free of charge
Housing
Social distancing and quarantine are impossible without stable housing. The capitalist housing crisis will not be solved overnight, but there are several steps that can be taken immediately to mitigate the worst outcomes:
- Moratorium on evictions
- Rent and mortgage freeze
- No utility shut-offs, including wifi
- Take vacant housing units under public ownership to be provided to unhoused people at no cost
- Compensation for the thousands of university students who have been evicted from their campuses
Landlords and developers have been getting their subsidies in the form of tax abatements to gentrify the city; it’s time for the working class to get subsidies of our own and ensure housing for all.
Incarceration
While giving out directives to avoid large gatherings, the government has not ceased to lock people in cages, where they are forced into close contact and subject to heightened risk of infection. The state of New York has also relied on prison slavery to produce hand sanitizer, while prohibiting those very workers from using it.
From the colonization of the Americas to the Nazi concentration camps, the immediate cause of death for victims of genocidal violence has often been disease—due to overcrowding and intentional deprivation of health. To prevent more of the violence, we call for:
- Moratorium on deportations
- Closing the concentration camps
- Releasing incarcerated people and provide them with housing
Jobs
Paid sick leave is essential to prevent people from spreading diseases while ill and especially important while waiting for COVID-19 test results. The capitalists will try to offset the hit to the economy by laying off workers and imposing more austerity. Companies cannot continue to hold such power over the lives of their employees; we must instead have:
- Paid sick leave for 4 weeks without touching vacation time
- Indefinite paid leave for those caring for a sick loved one
- Continued pay during any quarantine period
- A basic income to cover expenses for workers pushed out of their jobs
Internationalism
The pandemic is a global phenomenon that must be tackled on the international level. Rather than closing borders and blocking trade with rival states, we must respond with international solidarity. This means:
- Distributing medical supplies to countries most impacted by COVID-19
- Lifting the deadly sanctions on Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and other states targeted by U.S. empire
*****
COVID-19 highlights our dire need for socialism: an economic system founded on providing for people’s needs, rather than creating profit for the rich. A socialist society is one where economic production and distribution is democratically organized and governed by the working-class, who has the best idea of how to care for itself, and prevent the spread of deadly diseases such as COVID-19.
The government needs to take sweeping action to ensure the safety of all, especially the most vulnerable among us. Every death is blood on the hands of a cruel and incompetent system failing to act. We unfortunately cannot put our faith in waiting for them to take appropriate actions; we must band together and take care of ourselves, our neighbors, and our coworkers.
Workers, such as those employed in the service, hospitality, and healthcare industry, must get organized to ensure that they receive adequate paid sick leave and that people receive medical treatments and testing at no cost. This may entail that workers go on strike and/or shut down their workplaces to prevent the further spread of the virus. This may also entail that medical professionals and patients take control of healthcare facilities to ensure that people are receiving care at no cost.
Retail, logistics, transportation, and distribution workers must ensure that essential goods continue to be stocked in local stores, and to prevent business-owners from price gouging these items. At the same time, workers must have the right to self-isolate and refuse work without risk of retaliation. While distributing basic goods is necessary, we must also ensure the health of workers in these industries and prevent further spread of the virus through logistics.
Tenants and homeowners must organize amongst their neighbors to go on a rent and mortgage strike, and to demand that their utilities not be shut off. Unhoused people must occupy vacant housing units to ensure that they have safe access to shelter.
We encourage everyone to get connected to Mutual Aid Central Ohio to organize a grassroots community response and to fill out their Google form to indicate resources that you need or can offer to others. If you are not in central Ohio, look for a similar network in your own community or consider starting one of your own.
We will fight disaster capitalism with solidarity and socialism.
Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Network, as is Socialist Resurgence.
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Coronavirus: A socialist commentary on what must be done
Workers in Seoul, South Korea, clean the streets. (AP) By ERWIN FREED
The coronavirus has been recognized as a pandemic. As of March 13, about 1700 people in the United States have contracted the illness, according to the news media, and 41 have died. Globally, over 125,000 cases have been reported with over 4200 deaths. The disease, which spreads easily and often has no symptoms, is bringing the global economy to an almost universal slowdown.
The complete lack of centralized health-care infrastructure and 50 years of relentless austerity have made the United States a potential powder keg for this pandemic. For over a month after the outbreak had started, getting tested for COVID-19 was virtually impossible. Social media sites are filled with horror stories of people with symptoms and doctors’ recommendations to be tested facing hours of bureaucracy and no resolution.
Given the virtual absence of testing for the first two months of the disease’s spread, the real number of infections is guaranteed to already be significantly higher than what is so far recognized. In contrast, countries with more effective responses rolled out massive measures to test on a nationwide scale, with procedures like drive-through tests and thorough evaluations of close contacts for positive subjects.
The United States has been especially slow to respond to the outbreak. Official statements on the situation have ranged from outright lies to confusing misinformation, leaving space for competing incorrect narratives to take root. Over the last two days, the number of confirmed cases has risen by 40 percent, yet states like Connecticut still have major roadblocks to even basic measures like testing.
In respect to the economic impact, the coronavirus is merely a trigger for a longer-term build-up of capitalism’s crisis tendencies, specifically with regards to corporate debt and speculation. Nevertheless, the effects are being felt viciously by the working class.
Layoffs have already begun in several industries, including event planning and hospitality and among port workers on the West Coast. They will likely multiply many times over by the time the virus dies out. For those not yet unemployed, hours are being slashed, as people choose to self-quarantine and avoid public spaces.
Less than half of workers in the lowest half of the income distribution have access to paid sick time. At least 8.5% of people living in the United States are uninsured, and those who are insured still risk high costs for any interactions with hospitals, urgent-care units, and other medical establishments. One of the first people to be tested in the United States for Corona, Osmel Martinez Azcue, was left with a $3270 bill, and despite being insured, was made to pay almost half of it.
Many companies are halting travel for professional workers and instead implementing work-from-home where possible. However, shifting office work away from the office leaves cafeteria and other service workers without a job. With weekly unemployment benefits for those who can qualify ranging between $235-$631, many people stand to immediately fall behind on living expenses as their workplaces are shuttered.
Social distancing and a general slowdown of work are necessary to combat the spread of the virus. Italy’s complete shutdown, too late to stop the death toll from spiraling upwards, is a stark example of what happens when normalcy is maintained. Hospitals are completely overwhelmed, to the point where a manual was drafted by an Italian medical college on whom not to treat—i.e., to let die. The criteria are age and prior medical conditions.
Closing the door
Hospitals have been closing at a rate of at least 30 per year in recent years for reasons of profitability and indebtedness. Urgent-care facilities and other market-approved alternatives have left the country with a falling number of hospital beds in the case of an outbreak such as we are likely to experience. In Philadelphia, for example, Hahnemann hospital was closed in late 2019, and all of its beds and equipment were sold just two months ago. Mercy Hospital is also slated to be closed this year. Both facilities largely serviced working people and people of color, as is the case for many hospitals that are not bringing in the necessary revenue to be considered “sound investments.”
All levels of schools have begun to close their doors in an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease, but the decentralized and unplanned closures have shown a burning light on how many people are dependent on school lunch programs and university housing to survive. There is no immediate solution to either problem being proposed by governments, although some commentators have suggested increasing SNAP payments by an undisclosed amount or requiring schools to continue to serve lunch. Neither school systems nor the states are offering child-care services for parents who need to continue working.
Trump’s xenophobic response
As we go to press on March 13, Trump is reportedly considering declaring a national emergency, which would free up $42 billion in potential grants to the states. But that is too little, too late—after years of cutbacks to funding for the Center for Disease Control under both Obama and Trump. A month ago, just as the coronavirus was taking hold, Trump slashed the budget once again for the CDC, as well as proposing deep cuts in Medicaid benefits for the poor.
As the effects of the virus on the U.S. economy became clearer this month, Trump initially planned on a $9 billion expenditure to help prop up businesses hit by the corona-driven slowdown. However, the deep drop in stock prices soon caused the administration to push the Federal Reserve to sign onto a $1.5 trillion package of low-cost business loans and asset purchases. The effort, which at the time of writing has pumped $300 billion dollars into financial markets, has had almost no effect on the drop in stock prices.
Trump’s proposal for a $900 billion reduction in federal payroll taxes would do very little to help working people, and likely be used as an excuse to cut social spending after COVID has passed. However, $900 billion could be used for immediate construction of new hospitals, expanding existing and recently closed hospitals, and retooling factories to provide necessary goods produced at union wages and made free to the public.
On March 11, Trump went further, framing the disease as a “foreign virus” and announcing to a national TV audience a plan to close the country’s borders to travelers from Europe. In a tweet, the president continued his xenophobic language as he touted the construction of his wall on the border with Mexico as an effective way to deter the virus. He recently said at a rally that “the Democrat policy of open borders is a direct threat to the health and wellbeing of all Americans. … Now, you see it with Coronavirus.” Of course, his remarks are actually aimed at immigrants, and the Democratic Party has been as nearly as fervent as he has been in increasing repressive measures at the border and building the deportation machine.
Like Trump, right-wing politicians and pundits all around the world are using the crisis to call for stricter border controls and a rollback of immigration. The Russian fascist theorist and activist Alexander Dugin has argued that the coronavirus is the death knell of “globalization” and “liberalism.”
Due to the fact that the first cases likely began in Wuhan, China, fear over the coronavirus has been able to fuel anti-Asian racism. Incidences of violence are growing and the spread of anti-Asian and anti-Chinese prejudice has become so great that there is already a full Wikipedia article on “Xenophobia and racism related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic.” New York City has been a hotbed of outright assaults against Asian and Asian American people, with several recorded instances.
Rick Santelli, an editor and pundit for CNBC Business News, reflected a disgusting and too common sentiment when he said on air that it might be better if everyone got coronavirus. The reality of this thought is that millions of people in the United States and abroad would die. The inclination to trivialize injury and death of elderly and disabled people is a symptom of capitalist ideology, which demands strict regulation of labor power. People who the system has deemed unproductive are also deserving to die, in the eyes of capital.
Incarcerated people and detained immigrants have been forced into conditions that leave them completely exposed to outbreaks in prisons and jails. At the same time, prison labor is being used to manufacture goods which “normal” functioning capitalism can no longer provide, like hand sanitizer.On the other hand, disabled people are pointing out the fact that the measures currently being taken in a matter of days, e.g., online classes, were previously deemed impossible.
The working class holds the keys
Capitalism has repeatedly shown itself to be incapable of keeping working people safe and healthy. The conditions that have helped to spread COVID-19 are primarily the products of capitalist austerity, environmental destruction, and anarchy. While the response to the coronavirus has been more conscious and well executed relative to the much greater crises of climate change, homelessness, and malnutrition—and even other diseases like tuberculosis—still the capitalists continue to prioritize one thing, the dictatorship of private property and profits.
Organized labor has begun to fight for demands that can keep the working class alive and fighting past the crisis. The labor movement in Chicago, spearheaded by the Chicago Teachers Union, have led the way, and unionists in other areas are urging similar measures to come up with a plan of action. To date, however, these demands are being made on citywide or regional bases and leave the basic cause of the emergency untouched.
One step that the labor movement could take is a national online conference open to all workers on forming a program to address the virus. Making a serious effort to protect the rights of all workers, including low-wage, unemployed, and incarcerated, and being willing to use the strike weapon to do so will have an incredible impact on the status of unions during and after the coronavirus epidemic. Service industries and empty office buildings could be “retooled” as emergency housing for medical responders, infected people if hospitals run out of beds, and community kitchens.
The need for a political body that is capable of reaching across industry and state lines points directly to the burning necessity of forming a mass labor party, which could pose major demands and organize to win them. A labor party with a militant program of action would be able to expose the capitalists and their politicians’ vacillations, lies, and inhumanity, while pointing to the need for a revolutionary workers’ government to put the necessary measures fully into effect. Necessarily anti-imperialist, the party would take up the demand to end U.S. sanctions against Iran, which are exacerbating the effects of COVID-19 in that country and killing hundreds, if not thousands.
At the moment, a mass labor party does not exist in the United States, let alone one with a revolutionary program. In the meantime, trade unionists can fight for big democratic inter-union meetings to come up with a workers’ response to the coronavirus pandemic. We offer the following demands as a contribution to the dialogue:
- Public control over housing to provide housing for all who need it; a moratorium on evictions and utility shutoffs.
- Nationalize the health-care, medical production, pharmaceutical, and nursing home industries to offer free quality medical care and medicines to all.
- A massive and fully funded program of scientific research on methods of treatment and vaccines.
- Redirect funding for the military and construction of the border wall toward health-care needs—specifically, coronavirus research, prevention, and care.
- Unlimited sick time and unemployment pay for all workers, with full wages.
- Restorative justice for incarcerated people!
- Amnesty for all immigrants!
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COVID-19: The monster is finally at the door
March 12, 2020 — Reprinted from: Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
COVID-19 is finally the monster at the door. Researchers are working night and day to characterize the outbreak, but they are faced with three huge challenges.
First, the continuing shortage or unavailability of test kits has vanquished all hope of containment. Moreover, it is preventing accurate estimates of key parameters such as reproduction rate, size of infected population, and number of benign infections. The result is a chaos of numbers.
There is, however, more reliable data on the virus’s impact on certain groups in a few countries. It is very scary. Italy, for example, reports a staggering 23 per cent death rate among those over 65; in Britain the figure is now 18 per cent. The ‘corona flu’ that Trump waves off is an unprecedented danger to geriatric populations, with a potential death toll in the millions.
Second, like annual influenzas, this virus is mutating as it courses through populations with different age compositions and acquired immunities. The variety that Americans are most likely to get is already slightly different from that of the original outbreak in Wuhan. Further mutation could be trivial or could alter the current distribution of virulence, which ascends with age, with babies and small children showing scant risk of serious infection while octogenarians face mortal danger from viral pneumonia.
Third, even if the virus remains stable and little mutated, its impact on under-65 age cohorts can differ radically in poor countries and amongst high poverty groups. Consider the global experience of the Spanish flu in 1918-19, which is estimated to have killed 1 to 2 per cent of humanity. In contrast to the corona virus, it was most deadly to young adults and this has often been explained as a result of their relatively stronger immune systems, which overreacted to infection by unleashing deadly ‘cytokine storms’ against lung cells.
Beds with patients suffering from influenza epidemic of 1918-19. U.S. cities requisitioned public auditoriums and arenas for use as temporary hospital facilities. The original H1N1 notoriously found a favored niche in army camps and battlefield trenches, where it scythed down young soldiers by the tens of thousands. The collapse of the great German spring offensive of 1918, and thus the outcome of the war, has been attributed to the fact that the Allies, in contrast to their enemy, could replenish their sick armies with newly arrived American troops.
It is rarely appreciated, however, that fully 60 per cent of global mortality occurred in western India, where grain exports to Britain and brutal requisitioning practices coincided with a major drought. Resultant food shortages drove millions of poor people to the edge of starvation. They became victims of a sinister synergy between malnutrition, which suppressed their immune response to infection, and rampant bacterial and viral pneumonia. In another case, British-occupied Iran, several years of drought, cholera, and food shortages, followed by a widespread malaria outbreak, preconditioned the death of an estimated fifth of the population.
This history—especially the unknown consequences of interactions with malnutrition and existing infections—should warn us that COVID-19 might take a different and more deadly path in the slums of Africa and South Asia. The danger to the global poor has been almost totally ignored by journalists and Western governments. The only published piece that I’ve seen claims that because the urban population of West Africa is the world’s youngest, the pandemic should have only a mild impact. In light of the 1918 experience, this is a foolish extrapolation. No one knows what will happen over the coming weeks in Lagos, Nairobi, Karachi, or Kolkata. The only certainty is that rich countries and rich classes will focus on saving themselves to the exclusion of international solidarity and medical aid. Walls not vaccines: could there be a more evil template for the future?
*****
A year from now we may look back in admiration at China’s success in containing the pandemic but in horror at the USA’s failure. (I’m making the heroic assumption that China’s declaration of rapidly declining transmission is more or less accurate.) The inability of our institutions to keep Pandora’s Box closed, of course, is hardly a surprise. Since 2000 we’ve repeatedly seen breakdowns in frontline healthcare.
The 2018 flu season, for instance, overwhelmed hospitals across the country, exposing the shocking shortage of hospital beds after twenty years of profit-driven cutbacks of in-patient capacity (the industry’s version of just-in-time inventory management). Private and charity hospital closures and nursing shortages, likewise enforced by market logic, have devastated health services in poorer communities and rural areas, transferring the burden to underfunded public hospitals and VA facilities. ER conditions in such institutions are already unable to cope with seasonal infections, so how will they cope with an imminent overload of critical cases?
We are in the early stages of a medical Katrina. Despite years of warnings about avian flu and other pandemics, inventories of basic emergency equipment such as respirators aren’t sufficient to deal with the expected flood of critical cases. Militant nurses unions in California and other states are making sure that we all understand the grave dangers created by inadequate stockpiles of essential protective supplies like N95 face masks. Even more vulnerable because invisible are the hundreds of thousands of low-wage and overworked homecare workers and nursing home staff.
The nursing home and assisted care industry, which warehouses 2.5 million elderly Americans—most of them on Medicare—has long been a national scandal. According to The New York Times, an incredible 380,000 nursing home patients die every year from facilities’ neglect of basic infection control procedures. Many homes—particularly in Southern states—find it cheaper to pay fines for sanitary violations than to hire additional staff and provide them with proper training. Now, as the Seattle example warns, dozens, perhaps hundreds more nursing homes will become coronavirus hotspots and their minimum-wage employees will rationally choose to protect their own families by staying home. In such a case the system could collapse, and we shouldn’t expect the National Guard to empty bedpans.
The outbreak has instantly exposed the stark class divide in healthcare: those with good health plans who can also work or teach from home are comfortably isolated provided they follow prudent safeguards. Public employees and other groups of unionized workers with decent coverage will have to make difficult choices between income and protection. Meanwhil, millions of low wage service workers, farm employees, uncovered contingent workers, the unemployed and the homeless will be thrown to the wolves. Even if Washington ultimately resolves the testing fiasco and provides adequate numbers of kits, the uninsured will still have to pay doctors or hospitals for administrating the tests. Overall family medical bills will soar at the same time that millions of workers are losing their jobs and their employer-provided insurance. Could there possibly be a stronger, more urgent case in favor of Medicare for All?
*****
But universal coverage is only a first step. It’s disappointing, to say the least, that in the primary debates neither Sanders or Warren has highlighted Big Pharma’s abdication of the research and development of new antibiotics and antivirals. Of the 18 largest pharmaceutical companies, 15 have totally abandoned the field. Heart medicines, addictive tranquilizers and treatments for male impotence are profit leaders, not the defenses against hospital infections, emergent diseases and traditional tropical killers. A universal vaccine for influenza—that is to say, a vaccine that targets the immutable parts of the virus’s surface proteins—has been a possibility for decades but never a profitable priority.
As the antibiotic revolution is rolled back, old diseases will reappear alongside novel infections, and hospitals will become charnel houses. Even Trump can opportunistically rail against absurd prescription costs, but we need a bolder vision that looks to break up the drug monopolies and provide for the public production of lifeline medicines. (This used to be the case: during World War Two, the Army enlisted Jonas Salk and other researchers to develop the first flu vaccine.) As I wrote fifteen years ago in my book, “The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu”:
Access to lifeline medicines, including vaccines, antibiotics, and antivirals, should be a human right, universally available at no cost. If markets can’t provide incentives to cheaply produce such drugs, then governments and non-profits should take responsibility for their manufacture and distribution. The survival of the poor must at all times be accounted a higher priority than the profits of Big Pharma.
The current pandemic expands the argument: capitalist globalization now appears to be biologically unsustainable in the absence of a truly international public health infrastructure. But such an infrastructure will never exist until peoples’ movements break the power of Big Pharma and for-profit healthcare.
