A Union’s Strength Comes from the Power to Strike

Here is a book on union organizing that seems about to become a classic for our times.




December 2, 2020 Derek Ludovici THE INDYPENDENT



https://portside.org/2020-12-02/unions-strength-comes-power-strike




No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age
Jane McAlevey
Oxford University Press, 2016
ISBN: 9780190624712

The COVID-19 fiscal crisis is wreaking havoc on the public sector. Mayor de Blasio has threatened to terminate as many as 22,000 city employees. At the City University of New York around 3,000 of my fellow adjuncts have been laid off and CUNY is running on a month-to-month budget as the prospect of more state budget cuts looms over us. While the cause of this crisis is novel, the continued assault on labor and the public good is not. What is our way out?

Halting production by withdrawing labor collectively is the strongest weapon that workers have. Bringing back strike-ready and practicing unions is the only way to bring about structural changes that challenge decades of neoliberal logic. This is Jane McAlevey’s assertion in her 2016 book No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age. As the title suggests, the book is about the organizing needed to strike.

McAlevey has been a labor organizer and negotiator for more than 20 years. She played a key role in turning Nevada into a strong union state (in spite of so-called right-to-work laws) in the mid-2000s while much of the rest of the union movement continued its long decline. In her book, she draws on her experiences to make her

foundational argument — unions declined because their strategies shifted from doing deep organizing of the rank-and-file membership and fostering workers’ agency, to that of mobilizing activists to carry out campaigns, relying much less on workers themselves. In doing so, unions ignored workers and their organic community ties, something from which unions once drew strength. She argues the difference between these approaches matter because they determine what possible victories a union can achieve.
Back in the day

She compares the organizing of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s compared to the AFL-CIO today. Unlike the American Federation of Labor, which at the time focused only on skilled workers, the CIO actively attempted to bring all workers in a company, no matter their skill level, into one union. To accomplish this, leftwing union organizers, often hired from the Communist Party, would actively attempt to identify “organic leaders” among rank-and-file workers. These were often the workers that peers would come to for advice. Organizers would then have a one-on-one conversation with the organic leader, letting the leader do most of the talking, only asking critical questions meant to let the worker convince themselves of their own exploitation and move them towards union sympathy.

The author is clear to note that these leaders were rarely activists who approached the union, but rather folks who had the clout to help lead the workshop floor through a successful membership drive. McAlevey stresses organic leaders were co-organizers with the union’s staff.

McAlevey argues that when the New Voices slate, a slate of mainly service sector unions, won the first ever contested AFL-CIO election in 1995 this changed. Neoliberalism and its assault on labor had hollowed out the membership, leading the federation’s unions to focus on winning new members, yet they did so through mobilizing campaigns meant to decrease opposition to unionization. By placing mobilization front and center unions had in fact shifted the focus of union staff to the employer rather than the worker.

While the book is full of different approaches that have been taken to win, McAlevey stresses that organizing to win means organizing with workers and their communities, or the “whole worker” as CIO organizers would say. She supports this argument through four case studies including one focusing on homecare workers and another on the efforts of Make the Road New York. However, the two that stand out the most are a unionizing campaign of a slaughterhouse in the right-to-work Deep South and the Chicago teachers strike of 2012.
From the slaughterhouse to the schoolhouse

In the former McAlevey shows the hard fight of unionizing the Smithfield Meat Packing plant in Tar Hills, North Carolina — the largest pig processing plant in the world and a workplace with high turnover, where the management would intentionally stoke racial divides and use ICE as publicly funded Pinkertons. Interference by Smithfield was so brazen during unionization efforts that the National Labor Relations Board nullified two elections.

After Hispanic workers walked off the job due to management asking for immigration papers, forcing management to negotiate their return, organizers were able to start helping these organic leaders to organize the rest of the plant. The chapter is the most exciting in the book, detailing the various ways organizers mapped not just the physical plant but also the social relations of the workers. Ultimately, through public campaigns and work stoppages, the employees were able to unionize and have their pay raised to $15 per hour. McAlevey uses this case to show that 1930s CIO organizing model of organizing the “whole worker” is not only possible, but necessary.

The case of the Chicago Teachers Union focuses on how CTU went from being strike allergic to taking on one of the nation’s most powerful mayors, Rahm Emanual, President Obama’s former chief of staff. Key to CTU’s success was that a group of teachers formed to make the labor leadership “act like a union” and when that failed they ran for and were elected to lead the union themselves.

The Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) rise came during a moment of disarray, but through their victory they were able to change the union’s approach from managed capitulation to active organizing. CTU organizers began organizing teachers. Teachers in turn used their organic ties to their school communities to talk with parents about how a strike that included demands for more school funding was for the good of their children. In September 2012 the union went on strike and won a decisive victory. So successful was the approach that not only did the teachers win their demands, CTU President Karen Lewis polled as the most popular Chicagoan.

In the book’s conclusion McAlevey stresses that labor needs to focus on “strategic sectors,” workplaces that can’t easily be moved or offshored. Health and education are the two she underscores. As an adjunct lecturer at the City University of New York I find these chapters especially inspiring. Many rank-and-file organizers at CUNY have participated in reading groups or McAlevey’s online strike school in recent months. There is a growing conviction that union power and strike preparedness is built from below, through members organizing each other. At my university this has meant having earnest conversations across job titles to understand grievances, as well as vulnerabilities of others. It also means building solidarity with our students that extends outside the classroom.

At best mobilizing will slow the rate of non-reappointments and layoffs. To truly fund education and other public goods, to abolish anti-labor legislation will not take a miracle but active, rank-and-file organizing.

250 MILLION PEOPLE PARTICIPATE IN COUNTRYWIDE STRIKE IN INDIA

https://popularresistance.org/250-million-people-participate-in-countrywide-strike-in-india/



By People's Dispatch.December 2, 2020
| RESIST!









Despite Police Repression And The COVID-19 Pandemic, Workers And Farmers And Their Allies Across India Participated In The Pan-India Strike Action Against The Recent Neoliberal Reforms Pushed Through By The Narendra Modi Government.

On Thursday, November 26, India witnessed the biggest organized strike in human history. Over 250 million workers and farmers, along with their allies among students, feminists and civil society groups participated in the nationwide strike. The strike coincides with India’s Constitution Day, which commemorates the adoption of the constitution in 1949, and comes in the background of an unprecedented attack on workers’ rights and farmers’ protections by the right-wing government of prime minister Narendra Modi.

The protest by farmers in States around Delhi continued late into the night on Thursday and early Friday. Thousands of farmers have broken blockade after blockade and are marching to the city. The police have used water canons on them repeatedly but have failed to break their spirit. They are expected to reach the borders of Delhi on Friday.

The strike was organized by a coalition of workers’ and farmers’ movements, with 10 national trade confederations and the umbrella group, All India Kisan Sangharsh [Farmers’ Struggle] Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), that consists of over 200 farmers’ groups across India. Women’s rights groups, students unions and various civil society organizations also participated in the strike. The strike also received support from Left parties and several opposition groups.

Some of the key demands contained in the 12-point charter put forward by the organizers include withdrawal of a series of laws recently passed by the Modi government repealing key labor and farm price protections, a rollback in the recent disinvestment policies in major government-owned enterprises, implementation of existing welfare schemes for rural workers, and expanding welfare policies to aid the masses affected by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thousands of farmers, along with members of trade union groups and other movements, from across India, also led a rally to the national capital of Delhi. The rally was met with a fierce repression from the Delhi police who made use of a blockade, baton charges and water canons to stop the march. Eventually, the blockade was breached


In similar confrontation with the authorities, workers and farmers groups brought major metropolitan cities like Kolkata and Mumbai to a standstill, with sit-ins organized on key transport routes. The industrial and mining belt across East and Central India also witnessed a virtual shutdown.

Organizers have stated that the strike is a build-up to more upcoming struggles in the country. “The workers and peasants will not rest till the disastrous and disruptive policies of the BJP government are reversed. The strike today is only a beginning. Much more intense struggles will follow,” said Tapan Sen, general secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), one of the trade union confederations participating in the strike.

The strike comes at a time when the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed India into a veritable recession, exacerbating existing inequalities and deprivation. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) has declined by a record 23.9%, while unemployment has soared to an unprecedented 27%.

Amidst such an all-round crisis, the right-wing government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party has implemented new amendments to labor codes and introduced farm bills that have reversed major historical progresses made in workers’ rights and farm protections.

Despite police attempts to suppress the strike in several, massive rallies were held across the country. Members of the Health Employees Union along with workers of Jawaharlal Nehru Port, a major port of India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, participate in a strike.

Trade unionists blockaded the National Highway 31, a major roadway that connects the city of Kolkata, in the state of West Bengal.

Blockade of key railway lines was also witnessed in major cities across India.

Refineries in Assam, the northeastern state rich in oil and natural gas reserve, were shut down by the strike.

Police in the state of Haryana detain participants of the protest rally on their way to the national capital, Delhi. Delhi’s two neighboring States of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh coordinated attempts, with the Delhi police, to prevent protesters from entering the capital.

In the meanwhile, the protesting farmers held counter blockades in Uttar Pradesh on routes leading to Delhi.

Massive protests were also held in southern states.

Protests were also held across Jammu and Kashmir, which has been under a virtual government-imposed lockdown for over a year and repressive government policies have made mobilizing extremely difficult.




See the original article for images of the protests.

IRAN CALLS ON THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO CONFRONT ISRAEL

By Telesur English.

December 2, 2020




https://popularresistance.org/iran-calls-on-the-international-community-to-confront-israel/





NOTE: Palestine Chronicle reports that the United Nations Human Rights Office is calling for Israel to conduct an investigation of Israeli occupation forces shooting Palestinian children in violation of international law.

Iran is asking the international community to confront the Israeli regime’s actions, “a murderer of children” and “a violator of human rights.”

In a message sent on Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Iranian President Hasan Rohani has declared Iran’s strong support for the Palestinian people to achieve their ideals.

Rohani condemned the recent actions of the Israeli regime against the Palestinians, including the killing of Palestinians in custody and the torture of prisoners, especially women and children, as well the so-called ‘deal of the century’ and the continuing siege of the Gaza Strip, and stressed the need for urgent action by Islamic countries and the international community to find a solution to end these aggressions.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran […] urges the international community to confront the actions of the Zionist regime, which is murdering children and violating human rights, as well as the provisions of several United Nations resolutions,” he said.




The Iranian leader also said that “the end of the long-term conflicts and disputes in Western Asia and the establishment of a just and lasting peace will not be achieved until the Palestinian question is resolved and there is an end to the seizure of all the occupied territories, granting the right to self-determination to the Palestinian people.”

According to Rohani, the Israeli regime is endangering peace and stability in the West Asian region by adopting aggressive actions and policies in that area, especially in Syria and Lebanon, and by secretly planning the production of weapons of mass destruction.

The President of Iran has also rejected the latest agreements of normalization of ties with Israel by some countries of the region, stating that they constitute a “betrayal” of the Palestinian cause when the regime in Tel Aviv is increasing its inhumane acts against the Palestinians.

In September, Baréin and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed pacts for the normalization of ties with Israel in the White House, under the watchful eye of US President Donald Trump, who is seeking, according to the Israeli media, Arutz Sheva, to put pressure, through the emirates, on other countries in the region to do the same.

In this sense, Sudan has recently joined the states mentioned above and reconciled with Israel after several weeks of dialogue, conversations in which Washington played a crucial role.

“[Disregard for the rights of the Palestinians] will not only aggravate the situation in the occupied territories but will also have far-reaching consequences for regional and international security,” Rohani added.

MORE PEOPLE IN THE US ARE PAYING RENT ON CREDIT CARDS

By Chris Arnold, WBUR.

December 2, 2020




https://popularresistance.org/more-people-in-the-us-are-paying-rent-on-credit-cards/



Lawmakers Fail To Pass Relief Bill.

With their savings running out, many Americans are being forced to use credit cards to pay for bills they can’t afford — even their rent. Housing experts and economists say this is a blinking-red warning light that without more relief from Congress, the economy is headed for even more serious trouble.

There’s been as much as a 70% percent increase from last year in people paying rent on a credit card, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

“If you’re putting your rent payments on to a credit card, that shows you’re really at risk of eviction,” says Shamus Roller, executive director of the nonprofit National Housing Law Project. “That means you’ve run out of savings; you’ve probably run out of calls to family members to get them to loan you money.”

Marine Madesclaire could be faced with the choice of paying her rent on credit, too.

Before the pandemic hit, she felt like she was hitting her stride. The 29-year-old Los Angeles actor was doing lots of auditions and managing to land at least some quick appearances in Hollywood films.

To pay the bills, she had a gig doing modeling work at Las Vegas trade shows. “You go to the conventions, and you stand and look pretty next to, insert product,” she says. “And it paid very, very well. I had been traveling.”

But all that stopped in March. Since then, Madesclaire has been among millions of unlucky people who’ve faced long delays getting unemployment benefits. It appears she should qualify. But it’s been more than six months, and she still hasn’t received any unemployment money.

“It’s been so long that I don’t cry about it anymore,” she says. “I used to, like, have full-blown meltdowns about it.”

She depleted her savings just to eat and pay bills. She’s run up more than $10,000 in credit card debt.

Madesclaire has asked her card issuer Chase for help. But she says except for waiving some late fees, the bank hasn’t done much to help her. She says the 16% interest is sinking her even deeper into debt.

“They’re charging me interest and late fees,” she says. “And up until like a week ago, they also were calling me like five times a day until I told them to please stop.”

Chase said in a statement to NPR that it has enrolled many customer accounts in “payment assistance” plans. The bank says it doesn’t charge them late fees, but it does keep charging interest.

Madesclaire was finally able to find a low-wage job at a computer repair store. But while that just barely covers her monthly bills, she’s still four months behind on her rent.

A state eviction moratorium in California will protect her until the end of January, or she says she would have paid her rent on a credit card, too.

“If the choice is debt or homelessness,” she says, “I’m going to go in as much debt as I can.”

Some people just pay that way for convenience. But for many others it’s an act of desperation.

The National Housing Law Project’s Roller notes that there’s a federal order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aimed at preventing evictions. But it’s not an outright ban, and many people don’t know the order exists or how it can protect them. So he says it’s not working very well. There have already been thousands of evictions in Houston, Memphis, Tenn., Richmond, Va., Columbus, Ohio, and other areas, Roller says.

“It’s bad for public health, it’s bad for the families that are involved,” he says. “It’s bad for all of us as a country.”

It could also be just the tip of the iceberg. And it’s not just housing rights groups that are worried.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, estimates about 10 million Americans owe back rent. And without another robust relief bill from Congress, he expects to see “mass eviction” starting early next year.

“Just think about that for a second,” he says. “This is all going to be happening in the dead of winter, in the middle of a raging pandemic. I mean, I can’t even construct a darker scenario.”

Zandi says even if they don’t lose their housing, millions of other Americans will fall deeper into debt. And he says so many people continuing to suffer financially will hurt the whole economy.

“I think odds are very high that we’re going to go back into recession,” he says, “if lawmakers can’t get it together early next year and pass a fiscal rescue package.”

Zandi says, “It’s absolutely critical that lawmakers step up.”

As part of the federal aid, he and Roller would both like to see an effective nationwide eviction moratorium, combined with money to pay landlords the rent they are owed to keep them from going under, too.

Facebook speech falsely claims massive vote fraud

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/03/pers-d03.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Facebook speech falsely claims massive vote fraud

Donald Trump’s Mein Kampf

Patrick Martin
8 hours ago







The speech by Donald Trump posted on his personal Facebook page Wednesday afternoon was a declaration of war on American democracy. It was a scarcely veiled call for a right-wing insurrection to overthrow the election results and maintain in the White House a president who has been repudiated by the American people.

The 46-minute diatribe, which Trump called “the most important speech I’ve ever made,” embraced all the bogus charges of vote fraud, ballot-stuffing and the use of computer software to “switch” votes promoted by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell over the past three weeks. These allegations have been laughed out of court for lack of any shred of evidence, in state after state, by Republican and Democratic judges alike.

Trump declared that the November election was “rigged” and demanded that the US Supreme Court intervene to overturn the results in all the battleground states, declare him the winner, and award him their electoral votes and thus a second term as president.

However, the main purpose of the speech, which brands the Democratic Party and most state election officials as criminals, was to incite Trump’s most fervent followers to stage violent attacks against anyone targeted by the would-be führer in the White House. Denouncing those who “desire to hurt the president of the United States,” Trump demanded that “something should happen.” He added, “These entrenched interests oppose our movement, because we put America first.”

The language of the speech, and its sweeping and anti-democratic line of argument, suggest that it was written by Stephen Miller, the spearhead of Trump’s war on immigrants, perhaps with an assist from Steve Bannon, Trump’s former top political counselor. Miller and Bannon have been the leading advocates for Trump to transform the Republican Party into an openly fascistic movement, with himself as its boss, whether inside or outside the White House.

White House officials indicated that Trump recorded the speech last week, before Attorney General William Barr, one of his most obedient political servants, conceded in an interview Tuesday: “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” That admission alone demonstrates that Trump’s speech was devised on the principles of Hitler and Goebbels: the bigger the lie, the better.

The timing of the speech’s release was significant. It came barely 24 hours after a press conference where a top Georgia election administrator, a longtime Republican loyalist, made an extraordinary public denunciation of Trump personally, blaming him for mounting threats of violence. Gabriel Sterling cited the noose left at the home of one election IT worker and thousands of death threats directed at Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Raffensperger’s wife, Sterling himself and many others involved in counting and tabulating votes in the state.

Sterling’s comments blamed Trump explicitly. “Mr. President, you have not condemned this language or these actions,” he said. “This has to stop.” He also denounced Georgia’s two Republican senators, who have both called for Raffensperger’s resignation and backed Trump’s attack on Georgia’s conduct of the Nov. 3 election.

“Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions,” he said. “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.” Sterling said Trump appeared to have lost Georgia’s 16 electoral votes—he trails Biden by about 13,000 votes after two recounts—while the two Republican senators each failed to gain a majority and will face Democratic challengers in a runoff election on Jan. 5.

The Georgia Republican official also condemned comments by Joe diGenova, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, who called for former federal cybersecurity chief Christopher Krebs to be “shot at sunrise” because he declared there had been no successful hacking of the vote. “Someone’s going to get hurt,” Sterling concluded. “Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”

In the context of this criticism, which dominated US media coverage of the election aftermath for 24 hours, Trump’s Facebook speech has a clear meaning: he is deliberately encouraging the violence against which Sterling and other officials have warned.

There is a dialogue taking place between the criminal in the White House and his most violent and reactionary followers outside it. On Tuesday, the Washington Times, the ultra-right daily newspaper in the US capital, published a full-page ad purchased by an Ohio-based fascist group, the We The People Convention, calling on Trump to declare martial law and order a new election under the supervision of the US military.

The ad denounced the “threat to our United States by the international and domestic socialist/communist left,” warned of the existence of “well-funded, armed and trained marxists in ANTIFA and BLM strategically positioned in our major cities,” and denounced the election as “corrupt and provably fraudulent.”

Not only did the newspaper agree to publish this demented screed, but two figures closely identified with Trump immediately tweeted their endorsement of its call for martial law: retired General Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor, just pardoned by Trump last week after pleading guilty to perjury charges; and Lin Wood, a lawyer who has led Trump campaign challenges in several states. Wood also represents Kyle Rittenhouse, the pro-Trump vigilante who gunned down two people protesting police violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Both Flynn and Wood declared that America was “headed to civil war” and claimed that the Democratic Party was in league with “Communist China” in seeking to overthrow the Trump administration. Wood also claimed that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, was “a traitor & a criminal” who had received kickbacks from China to throw the election to Biden.

The Democratic Party and the pro-Democratic sections of the media have responded with silence to Trump’s open declaration that he won the election and would continue in office. As of this writing, the Biden campaign had issued no statement, nor had leading congressional Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or senators Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. There was little or no reporting on the evening network news broadcasts about the president of the United States declaring that the election in which he was defeated was a fraud. The cable networks dismissed Trump’s speech as a rehash of previous discredited claims, without great significance.

This dovetails with the position taken by Biden and the Democrats after fascist Trump supporters in Michigan were arrested as they prepared to kidnap and murder the Democratic governor of the state. Gretchen Whitmer had been the target of numerous Trump attacks, including a tweet calling on his followers to “liberate Michigan” from the coronavirus lockdown imposed—but long since lifted—by the governor.

The Democrats fear not Trump’s threats of violence and dictatorship, but the mass popular revolt that would be touched off if Trump actually attempts to carry out his long-threatened election coup. The Democrats know very well that America is a social powder keg, deeply divided between the fabulously wealthy financial aristocracy, which both Democrats and Republicans serve, and the vast majority of the population, struggling to survive.

Trump’s latest threats take place as the coronavirus pandemic is spiraling out of control as a result of the homicidal policies of the ruling class. The average number of daily deaths is approaching the previous peak in the spring, and hospitals throughout the country are overflowing. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield warned on Wednesday that the next several months will be among “the most difficult in the public health history of this nation.”

Two weeks ago, long after the television networks and other media had “called” the election for Biden, and the Democrat was beginning to assemble his cabinet and White House staff, the Socialist Equality Party warned:


Trump remains president, at the summit of executive power in the United States, for another 65 days, and the political situation can move in different directions. And if he is removed from office, Trump is creating a “stab in the back” narrative that the election was illegitimate and that he remains the rightful president.

This warning has been more than vindicated, not only in Trump’s fascistic Facebook speech, but in his reshuffling the Pentagon leadership to place US military forces under the direction of his own personal loyalists, and his efforts to ignite an international crisis—such as a war with Iran—that could provide a pretext for the declaration of a state of emergency at home and the unleashing of mass repression.

The central question remains: the working class must intervene into this raging crisis of the American ruling class as an independent political force. Workers and young people cannot rely for a minute on the opposition to Trump on the part of a Democratic Party that is a thoroughly reactionary instrument of the financial oligarchy. The working class must oppose the conspiracies of the Trump White House and its fascist thugs through the methods of class struggle and the political fight for socialism.

US coronavirus pandemic deaths heading towards 3,000 per day

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/03/pand-d03.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Chase Lawrence
7 hours ago







Coronavirus deaths in the United States are expected to surpass 3,000 per day this month, with the spread of the virus completely out of control and cases rising rapidly in the aftermath of the Thanksgiving holiday. Wednesday marked a new high with 2,831 recorded deaths, raising the seven-day average to 1,658, while hospitalizations nationwide surged past 100,000.

The case fatality for the US, according to John Hopkins University of Medicine, stands at two percent, though this is likely to rise as hospitals are overwhelmed with patients. The cumulative death toll across the country stands at nearly 280,000 as of this writing, with over 14.3 million total cases.

Speaking before the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation on Wednesday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield ominously warned, “We really have a pandemic that is throughout the nation. … right now it is important that we recommit ourselves to this mitigation as we now begin to turn the corner with the vaccine. But the reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation, largely because of the stress it’s going to put on our health care system.”

Pointing to the alarming number of deaths daily in the US, a Bloomberg opinion piece aptly titled “Covid-19 Will Soon Be Like Another 9/11 Every Day” makes the obvious connection between the death rate and the case number. “So of the 140,000 getting sick every day, eventually about 2,800 will die,” the article notes. “That’s nearly as many as on 9/11, for each day that new infections remain at about 140,000—and we’ve already been at that level for 21 days.”

The article also points to those who will experience long term and, in many cases, debilitating symptoms, stating that half or more of hospitalized cases will become long-haulers as evidenced in multiple studies, accounting for 3,300 to 15,000 people per day.

A study published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report explains, “In a multistate telephone survey of symptomatic adults who had a positive outpatient test result for SARS-CoV-2 infection, 35% had not returned to their usual state of health when interviewed 2–3 weeks after testing. Among persons aged 18–34 years with no chronic medical conditions, one in five had not returned to their usual state of health.”

The explosion in cases is a consequence of the criminal “herd immunity” policy pursued by both Democrats and Republicans which has entailed the reopening of schools and nonessential production in order to maintain profit making and ensure a continued rise in the stock market. Both President-elect Joe Biden’s administration and President Donald Trump have repeatedly stated their commitment to oppose lockdowns to control the pandemic no matter the cost in lives.

Contradicting the severity of the virus and basic scientific facts, the CDC has decreased the recommended quarantine time to 10 days for those with symptoms, and seven days without symptoms and a negative test in order to get workers back on the job faster.

In contradiction to the politically motivated revision by the CDC, the WHO in a paper on the criteria for releasing COVID-19 patients from isolation the states that the minimum time for isolation is 13 days.

The change in the CDC’s recommendations will lead to a significant increase in cases and deaths, as employers can force infected workers back on the job and still claim to be following federal guidelines, necessarily leading to an increase in cases as asymptomatic individuals continue to spread the virus at workplaces.

In an exposure of the crass profiteering of US corporations, a recent Reuters investigation revealed that nearly half of the 140,000 ventilators in the US Strategic National Stockpile “don’t meet what medical specialists say are the minimum requirements for ventilators needed to treat Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, the main cause of death among COVID-19 patients, according to a Reuters review of publicly available device specifications and interviews with doctors and industry executives.”

$450 million was handed over to giant corporations like GE, Ford Motor Company and others by the Department of Health and Human Services for the roughly 66,000 sub-par ventilators. These ventilators are acknowledged by health professionals, and even some of the manufacturers themselves, such as Hill-Rom Holdings Inc and ResMed Inc, to be inadequate as per WHO standards set in March for treating COVID-19.

Richard Branson, a professor at University of Cincinnati, speaking on the pNeuton ventilator that GE and Ford manufactured, told Reuters that the sub-par ventilators are “a risk because if they get something they are not expecting and it isn’t capable of meeting the patients’ needs, then that puts the patients at risk” simply stating that without the right equipment “the patient won’t survive.”

According to the investigation, of the half of ventilators considered adequate, only 10 percent are full intensive care unit type ventilators that doctors and ventilator specialists would normally use, while 40 percent are transport ventilators that are not normally used for longer periods for treating ARDS but are “considered sophisticated enough” for patients to recover.

The absolute hostility of the political establishment to any efforts to fight the spread of the virus necessitates action by the working class to stop nonessential production and close schools. This fight must necessarily be organized on a socialist basis, and be politically independent from and irreconcilably opposed to the twin parties of the US financial oligarchy, who are jointly responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the country from the pandemic. The trillions in bailouts, along with the profits raked in from the pandemic by giant corporations like Ford and General Electric must to be seized in order to pay workers to stay home until a vaccine is freely distributed and the pandemic is brought to an end.

Massive service cuts to public transit planned in Massachusetts

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/03/mbta-d03.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Will McCalliss
7 hours ago







In early November, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) announced their plans to cut services in response to the budget deficit caused by low ridership during the coronavirus pandemic. The impacted services include local and commuter train, bus and ferry transportation, with the planned changes to be implemented in different modes of transportation at varying times in 2021. The plan will be voted on by the Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) December 7.

In justifying this plan, the MBTA cited a 74 percent decrease in average daily ridership, down from 1.3 million to only 330,000. This, along with more people potentially continuing to work from home even after the pandemic, could lead to an almost $600 million deficit. The proposed service cuts would save $142 million by summer 2022.

The extent of the proposed cuts is drastic and too lengthy to enumerate fully. Among the more notable changes are:
Subway service would end at midnight as opposed to 1 a.m., and at peak times, subway arrivals would decrease in frequency by as much as 2 minutes; on average, the frequency would be cut down by 20 percent.


Buses would also stop at midnight, reduce frequency on “essential” routes by 5 percent and 20 percent on “non-essential” routes, consolidate and/or restructure 10 lines and cut 25 low-traffic routes.


Commuter rail service would only run until 9:00 p.m., cutting 544 trains a day down to 430. Weekend service would be cut entirely and up to six low-usage stations could be closed.


Ferry service would be shuttered entirely.

The impact this would have on workers is massive. Workers who rely on lines and stations being cut would have to add time to their commute to make multiple transfers and walk or drive to and from stations that are further away from their homes and jobs. Rush-hour subway and bus riders, who are often already forced to wait for multiple crowded vehicles to pass before getting on a vehicle with space, would have to wait even longer as the crowding becomes even more drastic.

Night-shift workers could be stranded after their shifts or forced to go home early and lose the extra hours’ wages. Many workers would have to resort to ride share services such as Uber, driving their transportation costs up sharply.

In the most severe cases, workers would simply be unable to commute to their jobs when they are needed and be fired. And the many people who rely on public transit for access to necessities such as groceries, childcare and health care, would all find themselves in dire straits. Those who rely on transit to be able to participate in general commerce and culture would also be cut off from fully participating in society.

These potentially disastrous cuts are justified, as always, by the lie that there is “no money” to pay for these services in one of the richest cities in America. In reality, there are more than enough resources to go around, but they are being monopolized by a tiny layer of capitalists.

Abigail Johnson, CEO of Fidelity Investments and richest person in Massachusetts, has a net worth of $15 billion. The MBTA’s deficit is 4 percent of her net worth. It is not even 1 percent of the combined net worth of the dozen richest people in the state.

Not only do these billionaires in the highest seats of power in the financial industry stockpile their wealth, but they directly profit off of the debts of the MBTA. According to an MBTA advisory board report, paying off the MBTA’s debt will cost $523.5 million, over a fifth of the MBTA’s operating costs, in just the 2021 fiscal year; $303.4 million of this vast sum is solely to pay off interest.

The city’s main transit union, the Boston Carmen’s Union (BCU), has organized only a handful of virtual and in-person rallies, the latter of which was only attended by a couple dozen people, despite the millions affected by the cuts. The BCU has spent most of its focus on promoting the election of Joe Biden and other various Democrats, officially endorsing them on their public website multiple times.

For their part, the MBTA is no less aligned with the foul politics of the Democratic Party. At recent virtual public meetings, purportedly held to hear and take commuters’ feedback “into consideration,” elected Democratic officials were first given the floor to speak. Many state Senate members bemoaned the damage the service cuts would cause to their constituents, and Congressman Stephen Lynch, after patting himself on the back for the money the MBTA received from the CARES Act 8 months ago, blamed the current lack of funds on Republicans in the US Senate for not passing the HEROES Act.

Of course, all of these Democrats knew full well the Republican Party would never pass the HEROES Act, a dead-on-arrival bill which amounted to nothing more than political theater, and none of them called for the types of mass action that would be needed to divert funds away from the wealthy and into public infrastructure.

When asked at the meetings how many MBTA workers would lose their jobs, MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak would not give a straightforward answer. Though he was certain to stress this would be done with “great reluctance,” he made it clear that job losses were on the table.

Additionally, in their definition of “essential” service, the MBTA goes out of its way to identify “communities of color” as being in critical need of transit, attempting to shift the focus away from class and towards race.

The ruling class never lets a good crisis go to waste and the pandemic is no exception. The banks’ chokehold on the dilapidated MBTA has left no money to spend on improving essential public transit infrastructure, and these cuts only accelerate the process. Cutting costs means more money can be put in the coffers of the financial elite.

The fight for public transit cannot be separated from the fight for working class power. MBTA workers and riders, united with health care professionals, must form a rank-and-file safety committee, totally independent from the trade unions and Democratic Party, to ensure the maintenance and improvement of public transit service as well as safe working and traveling conditions amid a pandemic. The funds for these initiatives will be found in the major banks, which must be expropriated and converted into public utilities.