How COVID-19 reveals inequalities in the U.S. economy

https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52175/




By G. Dunkel posted on November 3, 2020


The Trump administration has admitted it has no plan to get COVID-19 under control. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told CNN Oct. 25 that “We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas.”

This a very risky strategy, given that the vaccines and therapeutics don’t yet exist. What Meadows is really saying is more workers will be risking their lives as they are forced back to work to make ends meet, and the government will do nothing to help them. The workers facing the greatest challenge are those who started with the lowest wages and those who face systemic oppression. That’s what the statistics reveal.

Workers in the U.S. have faced unemployment rates as high as 14.9% in 2020. In September it was 8.9% for all workers — and those rates omit underemployed and discouraged workers.

If you look at unemployment rates for workers of color, as reported by the Current Population Survey, the inequalities jump out: 7.2% for white workers, Latinx workers 11.2%, Black workers 13.2% — almost double the rate for white workers. For all women, the unemployment rate is higher than for men.

A large percentage of Black and Latinx women are concentrated in service and retail jobs and have been hit especially hard. Under the pressures of e-commerce and the pandemic, nearly a million retail workers have lost their jobs, which were low-paying to begin with. Even when restaurants and stores are open, customers stay away out of fear of becoming infected. This creates additional hardship for workers dependent on tips or sales commission.

The lowest-paid workers — with little to no emergency savings — now face the highest unemployment. The number of jobs for workers who were making less than $14 an hour has dropped by 20% since January. The number of jobs paying between $14 and $20 an hour has fallen by almost as much — 16%, while the number of jobs for workers making $32 or more per hour has increased by 2%. (Current Population Survey)

Bosses get richer, workers get sick

While workers are suffering under the lash of unemployment and being forced to take dangerous, low-paid jobs to survive, the rich are getting richer. Google’s third quarter revenue amounted to $46.02 billion, up from $37.99 billion in the preceding quarter. Amazon reported revenue for its third fiscal quarter of 2020 up 37% from 2019, to $96.1 billion.

One area of retail still operating at full capacity is grocery stores, including the Amazon-owned Whole Foods. While their owners are raking in billions in profits, grocery workers still face deadly risks every day — even though the bosses cut off their “hazard bonus” pay.

According to the Washington Post (Aug. 12), “At least 130 U.S. grocery workers have died, and more than 8,200 have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since late March.” Hazard pay or no hazard pay, given the current high unemployment rates, workers are willing to take the jobs.

The big bosses — who know how desperate workers are to put food on the table for their families and keep a roof over their heads — pile on the work, cut hours and force workers to deal with customers without masks who won’t heed social distancing. Some workers are so disgusted at their treatment that they quit mid-shift. But others are so desperate that they come to work sick.

U.S. statistics compared with China’s

The Commerce Department reported that the U.S. output of goods and services, Gross Domestic Product, fell off the cliff in the second quarter (April, May, June). It declined by 9.5%, about $450 billion. This was the biggest percentage decline since 1875. This followed a first quarter decline.

Even after the U.S. GDP grew by 7% in the third quarter, aided by the March stimulus package, the U.S. economy has declined by 3.5% since the beginning of January.

Compare this to China’s growth rate of 1.9% according to the World Bank. China, which has had 4,746 deaths from 91,921 COVID-19 cases according to WHO, has managed to control the pandemic there.

China has exhibited an orderly, scientific and highly organized response on a national scale. China’s government still plans to end poverty before 2021 despite the pandemic. It plans to arrive at a moderately prosperous society for all by 2030 and reach a developed, socialist economy by 2050.

What is clear is that U.S. workers need a new approach to control this pandemic and its economic impact. China might provide a good example of what is needed.

Se genera impulso para huelga general si Trump intenta golpe de estado

https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52172/




By Martha Grevatt posted on November 3, 2020


Un movimiento ha estado creciendo desde la resolución del Consejo Laboral de Rochester del 8 de octubre apoyando una huelga general si Trump se niega a dejar el cargo. Esta audaz iniciativa fue seguida por una resolución similar de la Federación Laboral de Wisconsin Central. Ambos grupos llamaron a la AFL-CIO a lanzar la huelga general para frustrar un golpe de estado derechista, racista y anti obrero de Trump.

Ahora el empuje es para que los trabajadores retengan su trabajo en defensa de sus derechos democráticos básicos. La Federación Laboral del Área Oeste de Massachusetts aprobó una resolución el 19 de octubre para una huelga general y otras “acciones no violentas”, si “Donald Trump y sus partidarios republicanos intentan obstruir, subvertir, sabotear, anular o rechazar un recuento justo y completo de votos presidenciales”. La organizadora de la Federación, Lydia Wood, explicó: “Consideramos que es la herramienta más poderosa que tiene el movimiento”. Hay 30 sindicatos miembros en la federación.

El 21 de octubre, el Consejo Laboral de MLK, que cubre el condado de King alrededor e incluyendo Seattle, resolvió “trabajar con aliados en los movimientos antirracistas, de justicia ambiental, feministas y de los pueblos pobres, así como con los LGBTQ+, las minorías religiosas y las comunidades de inmigrantes para hacer planes de contingencia en respuesta a las acciones antidemocráticas del presidente Trump y sus aliados”.
El consejo resolvió además que “el sindicato MLK tomará medidas para prepararse para una acción no violenta generalizada, incluyendo protestas y paros laborales, coordinando la capacitación de las fuerzas de paz y otros entrenamientos necesarios”. AFSCME Local 304, representando a los trabajadores del estado, había aprobado una resolución dos días antes instando al Consejo a tomar esta posición.

El 20 de octubre, un seminario web para discutir la estrategia de la huelga general presentó a la Presidenta de la Asociación de Auxiliares de Vuelo-CWA, Sara Nelson, una posible candidata a suceder al Presidente de la AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka. Decenas de miles de sindicalistas de base han firmado un compromiso de “defender la democracia” para tomar las calles y cerrar el país, si es necesario para evitar un golpe de estado. La sucursal del área de Detroit del Sindicato de Trabajadores Postales Americanos apeló a sus miembros para que firmaran el compromiso.

Trumka aún no ha tomado una posición sobre los llamados a la huelga general. Pero, como afirma Doreen McGrath, miembro de Portland Electrical Workers (IBEW): “Hay mucha corriente de trabajadores de base que presionan a la dirección del sindicato para que aprueben estas resoluciones.”

Las huelgas generales – paros laborales colectivos que involucran a una gran sección de trabajadores en un área o país en particular – son poco comunes en los Estados Unidos. Además del Primero de Mayo de 2006, las huelgas generales más conocidas tuvieron lugar en Seattle en 1919 y en Minneapolis y San Francisco en 1934. Otras ocurrieron en Terre Haute, Ind., en 1935, Lansing, Mich., en 1937 y Oakland, Calif., en 1946 – todas hace mucho tiempo.

Seguramente vendrán más llamados a “no hacer negocios como de costumbre” si Trump no respeta el voto de los trabajadores y la gente oprimida. Esta huelga general sería una de las pocas huelgas políticas –a diferencia de las huelgas económicas– en la historia laboral de EE.UU. La más reciente fue la huelga masiva de trabajadores inmigrantes el 1 de mayo de 2006. En 1947, 250.000 trabajadores de la industria automotriz abandonaron el trabajo para protestar por la Ley Taft-Hartley, que se oponía a los sindicatos, y que condujo a la destrucción de sindicatos en todo el país en las décadas siguientes. Recientemente, atletas profesionales hicieron una huelga en solidaridad con Black Lives Matter.

Una huelga general en todo el país –o incluso en lugares dispersos– por una crisis política intensificaría la lucha de clases de maneras nunca vistas en décadas.

Remember those who cops shot during mental health crisis

By Princess Harmony posted on November 3, 2020



https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52163/




I’m angry. I’m a mentally ill person tired of seeing people like us die. I’m angry that no matter what we do, police intervene where they are not wanted and not trained and don’t give a damn about us. So many people in the middle of a mental health break have been murdered by police that I can’t list them all. But I hope that people will learn about the thousands I couldn’t write about. And say their names.

Eleanor Bumpurs, in 1984, was scheduled for eviction from her public housing unit, where she refused rent payments to protest maintenance problems. The psychiatrist sent by New York City Housing Authority to speak to her judged her psychotic, unable to care for herself and needing hospitalization.

That Oct. 29, faced with eviction and hospitalization, Bumpers threatened to throw boiling lye at whoever approached. When called for assistance, the New York Police Department Emergency Service Unit, purportedly trained to control emotionally and mentally disturbed individuals, barged into her apartment. They found Bumpurs in her living room holding a 10-inch knife. Instead of seeking to subdue her without violence, officer Stephen Sullivan fired two shots from his 12-gauge shotgun, killing her.

Police killing is part of a pattern of failure that police departments have with the mentally ill, particularly if they are Black and Brown. The numbers themselves should shock: The mentally ill are 16 times more likely to be killed by police than people without mental illness. (Treatment Advocacy Center, December 2015)

Aug. 1, 2016. In Randallstown, Md., police came to Korryn Gaines’s home to serve a warrant for a traffic violation. According to the Washington Post, Gaines suffered from lead poisoning and had another unrelated mental illness. Believing that police were there to kidnap her and her son, she pulled out a gun.

More police gathered through the day. Paranoid that police were the devil, Gaines barricaded further. Police Officer Royce Ruby Jr., believing she was firing her shotgun toward the police, fired on her and killed her.

If the descriptions of that day are accurate, Gaines might be diagnosed as paranoid and potentially experiencing a psychotic disorder at the time. One key tool for de-escalating a crisis is to avoid challenging psychotic thinking. But police didn’t do that. They just fired wildly, hitting Gaines’s son in the process.

There was even a police unit in Randallstown dedicated to serving the needs of the mentally ill, but were they called in? No. Gaines was failed by a system built to harm more than help.

Killing people in crisis

A man with bipolar disorder, Earl “Shaleek” Pinckney was shot by police in August 2016 in Harrisburg, Pa. Police claimed Pinckney was holding a knife, threatening his mother. Shaleek’s mother, Kim Thomas, emphatically denied that this was the case. (Pennlive.com, Aug. 8, 2016)

Pinckney’s death at the hands of police highlights a complete failure to reach out to the mentally ill as people in crisis. Instead of taking the time to de-escalate the potential violence — potential because his mother only categorized it as a little fight — they amped up the violence and killed him. They lied to his mother, claiming he was only tased, but the truth was that he was shot through the heart. Pinckney left behind a two-week-old child.

On Oct. 26, people called emergency services in Philadelphia to come for Walter Wallace Jr., a mentally ill man and father experiencing a mental health crisis. According to his mother, police first laughed at him and her. The next time his mother called, she specifically asked for an ambulance. It didn’t come.

When Wallace decided to step off his porch, the police drew their guns, his mother begging them not to shoot him. They fired 13 bullets at him, killing him.

Instead of sending trained people who deal with mentally ill people, Philadelphia’s emergency systems sent cops who have a history of mistreating Black people. They knew he was mentally ill, and they killed him anyway.

Gary Page was a white man who had a history of schizophrenia and depression, and he treated these symptoms on his own with alcohol. But something in March 2015 broke him. He drank and became drunk and decided to slit his wrists; he grabbed a starter pistol and literally begged the cops to shoot him.

Instead of responding to this very obvious mental illness incident with care and competent treatment, the police obliged him and shot him in the head and torso.

Say their names!

These are only a few of the people with mental health issues whom police have killed.

Having and using trained mental health counselors, who have experience working with oppressed people on such calls, is a good start to avoiding these tragedies. Having anyone with mental-illness experience, operating as an emergency unit would be a good start. Ambulance crews with training in mental illness would be a good start. That is not happening.

Police are called the guardians of society. But they really serve the ruling class and protect this class’ property interests. They are not oriented toward defusing a mental health crisis. We cannot pretend as though police are the solution.

We must continue to honor the memory of Eleanor Bumpurs, Korryn Gaines, Earl “Shaleek” Pinckney, Walter Wallace Jr., Gary Page — and others too numerous to name — by fighting for revolutionary new ways of seeing mental health crises and mental illness and people who are experiencing them.

The repressive force of the state is unsuitable for defusing a crisis. Really, we need a revolutionary people’s mental health care unit.

Until then, we must speak their names loudly until we drown out the police and forces change.

Keep the pressure on for justice!

Say their names!

Message from Represent.Us

President Trump’s preemptive declaration of victory and calls to stop the vote count due to “voter fraud” (which has been proven to not exist!) is a clear attempt to ignore the voters and steal the election.

With millions of votes – both Republican and Democrat – still uncounted, the winner of the presidential election is still unknown.

Any attempt to stop the vote count is a serious threat to our democracy. Will you call your state lawmakers right now, and demand that every vote be counted?

Counting votes is the foundation of our democracy, and it’s imperative that our elections officials continue to do so. Democracy means the votes decide the outcome of the election, and we must keep counting – because every vote matters when it comes to deciding our next president.

We must let election officials – not the courts – continue to do their jobs and determine the rightful winner of the presidential election. Every ballot must be validated and counted.

Any action to stop the vote count would start with state lawmakers ordering election officials to leave votes uncounted.

There’s no time to waste. Leave a voicemail for your state lawmaker right now and demand that every vote be counted.

We’ll be continuing to monitor the situation – so we can be ready to take action, together, to protect our democracy.

Thank you for doing whatever you can to protect our democracy in this critical moment.

The US economy – some facts

by michael roberts




As we await the result of the US presidential election, here are some facts about the US economy within a world context.

Share of world GDP

In 1980, it looked like this:



The US had more than twice of the share of global GDP than Japan, and more than Japan, Germany and France combined. China’s share was less than 2% and virtually the same as India.

Now in 2019, pre-COVID, it looked like this:



The US still has the largest in constant dollar terms. Although the share has declined, the US share is larger than the rest of the G7 combined. But China has rocketed up to over 16%, leaving India in its tracks.

GDP per capita growth rate 1980-2020

The US real GDP per person growth rate has averaged less than 3% a year and has been slowing consistently, while China’s has averaged around three times as much.



Share of world manufacturing output

At the start of the 1980s, US manufacturing had more than 25% of world output, with Japan at 11% and Germany 7%. China was nowhere. By 2017, the US share had slipped to about 18%, with both Japan and Germany below 10%. China had rocketed to over 25%.



Share of world exports

The US share of world exports in 1980 was over 13% with Germany and Japan well behind. China had only 1% of world exports.



In 2019, China overtook the US with nearly an 11% share while the US share slipped to 10%



Life expectancy

Life expectancy is an important measure of the quality of life. Back in 1980, the US was 21st in the world with life expectancy at birth of 73.6 years, behind most European countries and even Cuba.



By 2019, the US had dropped to 43 in the rankings with 78.5 years and China was catching up at 76.7 years.



Inequality of income and wealth

Of the G7 economies, the US has the most unequal distribution of both personal wealth and incomes.



Military expenditure

The US spends three times as much on military expenditure than China and more than the rest of the world put together!



Carbon emissions per head

The US is the world leader in carbon emissions per person, followed by the energy and minerals exporters, Australia and Canada. China’s emissions per head are less than half that of the US.



Robots per capita

Korea leads the world in robot density with more than three times the number per 10,000 employees than the US. The US lags behind Germany, Japan and Sweden. China is catching up fast and will surpass the US next year.



Homicide rate

The US has the highest homicide rate among the G7 economies, with nearly five times the average G7 rate and nine times the rate in China.

What we know already

Notes on election morning


Anand Giridharadas
Nov 4




About the most significant election in modern American history, there is much we still don’t know. But some things are already becoming clear.

A terrifying number of Americans would prefer to see their republic wither than have to share it with Others.

A media that is shy to describe autocratic attempts as what they are, early and often, makes it easier to pull them off.

Organizing our national conversation around polls that have no basis in reality is an extraordinarily wasteful use of mental space.

Too many of us are not only unable to persuade people on the other side but also unwilling to try, uninterested in winning people over.

Movements that agree on fundamental values need to learn to be better coalition allies to each other in spite of their differences.

Men need to be taught to channel their feelings of vulnerability in an age of stagnation, chaos, plague, and change into solidarity, not strongman lust.

The urgent work of making America less racist, indeed anti-racist, must proceed, while listening to those overlooked voices in the movement who emphasize expanding the circle more than circling the wagons.

The fantasy that incremental change is most appealing to most people must be buried, and the prophets of real change must find the language and candidates to make the cause of social democracy less frightening to many Americans than it now is.

The peddlers and enablers of disinformation won’t regulate themselves; we must regulate them.

If as a culture you don’t prosecute cheats and scammers when they’re merely cheats and scammers, one day they may use public office as a shield from prosecution.

We have ceased to be a country in disagreement; we are now a country of mutual disgust; and these widespread feelings of disgust essentially shut down politics.

A country that can no longer deliberate about the future, drawing on the same well of facts, may be a country not long for liberty.

The way out of this cold civil war is a politics that is thrilling, inclusive, substantive, visionary, galvanizing, empathetic, tolerant of different degrees of on-board-ness, and deft at meeting people where they are.

Democracy is not a supermarket, where you pop in whenever you need something; it’s a farm, where you reap what you sow. Let’s plant.

A Guide To The GOP’s Effort To Steal The Election

As election results start rolling in, here’s The Daily Poster’s late guide to the GOP’s efforts to suppress the vote in key battleground states.

Julia Rock and Walker Bragman
Nov 3




Many millions of Americans are voting by mail or drop-box because of the pandemic and turnout could increase thanks to an unpopular president. The Republican Party has responded by accelerating its assault on voting rights and filing lawsuits at the eleventh hour to stop ballots from being counted.

President Donald Trump has suggested that the election will be rife with fraud given the number of mail-in ballots. (When asked to provide evidence of voter fraud in court, the Trump campaign has failed –– because widespread voter fraud is a myth.) Trump argued the Senate needed to confirm new Justice Amy Coney Barrett because the Supreme Court could decide the election.

We’ve compiled a guide to some of the GOP’s most egregious attempts to steal this election through the courts.

PENNSYLVANIA:

In Pennsylvania, Republicans successfully petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to toss so-called “naked ballots,” the term for mail-in ballots that lack the dual envelope protection required under state law. Democrats had argued that such a decision could end up resulting in thousands of discarded ballots.

Republicans had also challenged the state’s extended deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots but were unsuccessful even after taking their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

State officials in Pennsylvania told The Washington Post that they are preemptively segregating late-arrival mail-in ballots in order to preempt any effort by the administration to undermine the results of the vote.

FLORIDA:

Florida Republicans successfully disenfranchised an estimated 774,000 people, receiving a ruling in their favor (from the Republican-stacked 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) to significantly roll back a voter-enacted constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions.

The constitutional amendment passed in 2018 with 64.5 percent of the vote, ending a practice that disproportionately disenfranchised the state’s Black voters. But Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican state legislature acted quickly to enact laws adding burdensome barriers to voting for people with felony convictions, including a law requiring people to pay their outstanding court fees and fines before casting a ballot.

Democrats and civil rights groups challenged the law, arguing that it amounted to a poll tax, but the 11th Circuit overruled a district court decision that found the law did in fact amount to a poll tax.

TEXAS:

Harris County, Texas, has become a key battleground this election. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the county implemented universal curbside/drive-through voting, which is normally restricted to a narrow group of individuals under the state’s election code. Several prominent Republicans filed suit in federal court, asking the judge to end the expanded practice and to throw out more than 100,000 ballots that had already been cast this way.

Those Republicans — GOP powerbroker Steve Hotze, congressional candidate Wendell Champion, Texas state representative Steven Toth, and judicial candidate for Texas 80th District Court Sharon Hemphill — argued that not doing so “hurts not only the integrity and the reported outcomes of the election for all of the candidates and all of the voters who voted, but it could also dilute or otherwise diminish and cancel [their] casting of a legal vote for the candidates of their choice in the General Election.”

Fortunately, Judge Andrew Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee with a reputation as a GOP partisan, ruled on Monday that the plaintiffs didn’t have standing. However, Hanen suggested that Texans should avoid casting their votes in drive-through centers on Election Day.

Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott reduced the number of ballot drop-off sites to one-per-county. By 2019, Texas had closed more polling locations than any other state — and has closed 750 since 2012.

MINNESOTA:

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Oct. 29 that requires state election officials to segregate mail ballots that arrive on election day from ballots that are postmarked by election day but arrive after, in order to leave the door open for a Republican challenge to ballots that arrive after the election.

Official government bodies had been advertising that mail ballots postmarked by election day would be counted, and the mail ballots sent to voters say that mail ballots postmarked by election day and received within seven days of the election would be counted.

NORTH CAROLINA:

Late last month, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to stop a decision by the state board of elections to extend the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots to November 12 in order to handle a massive influx of mailed ballots.

Normally, North Carolina law only allows ballots postmarked by election day to be received three days after. But the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the extended deadline, holding that, “There is no irreparable harm from a ballot extension: again, everyone must submit their ballot by the same date.”

“The extension merely allows more lawfully cast ballots to be counted, in the event there are any delays precipitated by an avalanche of mail-in ballots,” the court found.

The Supreme Court let the lower court ruling stand last week.

WISCONSIN:

The Supreme Court voted 5-3, along partisan lines, to require mail ballots to arrive by 8 PM on election day to be counted, overruling a Wisconsin federal district court’s order that ballots postmarked by election day had up to six days after the election to arrive and be counted.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent: “During COVID, the state’s ballot-receipt deadline and the court’s decision upholding it disenfranchise citizens by depriving them of their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. Because the court refuses to reinstate the district court’s injunction, Wisconsin will throw out thousands of timely requested and timely cast mail ballots.”

During the primary in Wisconsin, the state had accepted mail ballots for up to six days after the election, as long as they were postmarked by election day. Eighty thousand ballots that were counted –– about 5 percent of the votes cast –– arrived after election day.

This change, between the primary and general, could confuse voters and potentially result in thousands of Wisconsin ballots being thrown out.

MICHIGAN:

In Michigan, Republicans successfully petitioned the Michigan Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court decision allowing ballots postmarked the day before election day to be received up to 14 days after. As a result, voters now have to return their absentee ballots to their clerk by 8PM on election day, which could end up disenfranchising thousands.

GEORGIA:

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling requiring mail ballots to arrive by election day in order to be counted, overturning a district court judge’s order that had extended the deadline to November 6.

ARIZONA:

In September, an Arizona judge issued an order allowing voters up to five days after the election to sign unsigned ballots and have their votes counted. The ruling extended a provision already in state law which allows such a cure period for ballots with mismatched signatures from those on file.

Republicans successfully appealed the decision, securing a reversal in a federal appeals court. Now, voters must sign their unsigned ballots by today. Late last month, Maricopa County reportedly had 11,000 ballots without signatures or with mismatched signatures.