Posted on

The State Can’t Tax the Rich, But It Can Suffocate Our Colleges?

By Nathalie Clarke and Dylan Borne

In spite of his 2015 campaign promises to reallocate savings to health services and education, Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who supposedly has our best interests at heart, showed himself willing to slash education before anything else. To compensate for a $1 billion deficit, he declared on January 22nd that he would cut the Louisiana state budget by $994 million.
On January 31st his office announced that he had cut the budget by $672 million since being elected, cutting $11.9 million from higher education—a success in “fiscal responsibility.” Since Bobby Jindal was elected in 2008, funding for public colleges has been cut and tuition has persistently increased, going from 39% of universities’ revenue to 71% in 2015.

This cut is just the continuation of capitalist politics: it targets working families that cannot afford out-of-state or private universities. In 2016, when Edwards threatened the Louisiana Legislature with a $131 million budget cut, SUNO declared that 50% of adjunct faculty would be released, eliminating certain courses. In 2010 UNO faced $13 million in cutbacks. As a result, multiple programs were eliminated.

The cuts will destroy TOPS, a scholarship that covers tuition for hundreds of thousands of students. Although TOPS has its own problems (it’s based on ACT scores, and because of how expensive ACT training is, privileged kids almost always do better), it’s better than nothing, and the new budget cuts will probably cut it by 80%. The last shred of hope for many working families to send their children to college is gone. Costs of attendance have continuously been increasing; LSU now costs $30,000.

We call these cuts “capitalist” because they never fail to benefit the rich at the expense of workers. When the government of Louisiana decides to cut the budget, it never affects the military, the growing prison system, or the NOPD and their surveillance cameras, because those are “mandatory spending.” Schools, mental health services, Medicaid, youth programs, and daycare are all “discretionary,” or optional. While the rich contribute only 4.2% of their income in taxes to these programs, the working class pays 10%. So not only do workers see our programs cut, but because of the regressive tax code that steals wealth from the poor and redistributes it to the rich, we may not be able to afford private services to replace them. In 2012, a study by the Revenue Study Commission found that the top 2.3% of taxpayers raked in 55% of tax credits. These tax credits alone could refund TOPS—film industry tax credits totaled $231 million.

In the past, students and faculty from public universities around New Orleans have fought back against the budget cuts. In 2010 and 2015 at UNO, SUNO, McNeese, and LSU alike, students and professors have rallied to defend the right to higher education. While the government is slow to respond, the 2015 protests led to a partial renewal of TOPS funding. The state doesn’t have our interests at heart, but it gives us what we deserve when we hold its feet to the fire. Only a powerful student movement, with the support of working communities, will solve our education crisis.

Posted on

Dr. Barnwell Brings Fellowship and Harmony to New Orleans with Community Sing

By Antranette Scott, Peoples’ Assembly Organizer

On April 7, the Community Sing, headed by Wendi Moore-O’Neal, hosted a weekend of events that featured Dr. Ysaye Maria Barnwell. The weekend started with a welcoming dinner for Dr. Barnwell. Wendi and The Heart Team broke bread and fellowshipped with Dr. Barnwell; sharing the work that various members of the Heart Team and each individual’s passion for our collective liberation from white supremacy and freedom for all people in the city of New Orleans and around the globe.

The Community Sings acts as a bridge between the front lines of struggle and a way to recharge and energize ourselves for the work ahead. By focusing on songs of struggle, liberation, and freedom, we connect the past with our present day fight. These songs give us a type of technology that can be used to flex our collaborative muscles, practice intentional vulnerability, and realize that there is no safe space, only spaces that we step into courageously.

On Saturday, at the White Buffalo Community Center (CORE USA), Wendi and Dr. Barnwell lead a workshop centered on Singing in the African American Tradition and Organic Harmonizing. Voices were lifted and attendees were given a sweet sample of the power of communal sound. Black Swan Food Experience prepared a lunch that fed everyone body and soul. After lunch attendees worked with a song written by local freedom fighter and songwriter Rodneka Shelbia “I Am the Prize”. By utilizing her phenomenal understanding of sound, Dr. Barnwell transformed the community singers in ways they had never imagined and brought out the power of Rodneka’s song in new ways.
Later that evening Dr. Barnwell closed out Tulane’s “What is the Sound of Freedom?” concert. Dr. Barnwell was joined by Dr. Courtney Bryan, Dr. Tyshawn Sorey, as well as William and Patricia Parker.

The highlight of her visit, was when Dr. Barnwell led a Community Sing held at Southern University’s Dr. Millie Charles Building of Social Work. Over 200 folks were in attendance to learn of Spirituals as Storytellers. Dr. Barnwell harvested the power of our vocal community and truly transformed the space. The Peoples’ Assembly presented a call to action for equity and equality of the working class people of New Orleans by recognizing we have to wage relentless struggle against symbols and systems of oppression.

We are forever grateful to Dr. Barnwell for answering the call and sharing her knowledge with the Community Sing. Also thank you to Wendi Moore-O’Neal, Jaliyah Consulting and The Heart Team.

Posted on

Westbank Walmart Truck Unloader

You may have heard or seen in the news recently that the corporate leaders of Walmart have generously decided increase the minimum wage from $10 an hour to $11 and give a one time bonus that is determined by length of employment. President and CEO Doug McMillon has stated that this is an investment into us as employees, but the majority of us see it for what it is, extra scraps thrown to the workers, who are mostly black, for the same backbreaking work that keeps this evil machine running day after day. They condescendingly announce this to as if they’re doing us a favor, while most employees continue to rely on food stamps, public housing, second jobs, and medicaid (our benefits don’t even cover the full cost of a teeth cleaning) to survive. Several of my coworkers have even returned to selling drugs on the side to make ends meet.

To briefly sum up who I am: I’m from the Westbank and my family is mostly made up of the proletariat. After my parents’ divorce and my dad suffering a near fatal accident on the job, I lived with him to take care of him. His only income at the time was $850 a month from social security. To keep food on the table and the lights on I began selling drugs to pay whatever bills I could. I barely passed high school, and college was a fairytale for someone like me. So after two years of unemployment out of high school I couldn’t be picky and was hired on at Wal-Mart as a truck unloader at $8.40, which later became Cap-2 after the first wage increase. The first thing you are shown in orientation is a cheesy 90’s anti-union video and they make it clear that organizing will get you fired on the spot.

To start, the workload and expectations are impossible for the amount of people on a crew. Eight hours of work (unloading the truck onto pallets and carts then pulling them to the sales floor) is expected to be done in four and a six person crew is supposed to do a fourteen person job. On top of this the air conditioning is too weak for the size of our backroom, constant harassment from management about not pushing our bodies to the limit, bathroom breaks are treated as slacking off and lunch breaks usually don’t come until six or seven hours into our shift with one fifteen minute break until then. Managers act as constant reminders that your job can be gone in an instant, yet they routinely break rules such as smoking near propane tanks and driving forklifts inside the building. The tension causes tempers to flair, arguments and even fights between workers constantly happen.

One night there was an attempted robbery, so from then on managers had to lock all doors after the store closed at 12 am. At the time our crew got off at 1 am, so a manager had to let us out to re-lock the door behind us. If we left without a manager letting us out we faced termination. Several of them took advantage of this by refusing to open the door for us if our job wasn’t finished (the rules clearly state they can’t hold us after our scheduled time), threatening to fire us if we didn’t stay past our time. Surprising we reported this to the labor board and a long time Co-Manager (the store manager’s assistant) was demoted and transferred. So far this is the only “victory” we’ve had when we fought for our rights.

Once the first wage increase to $10 an hour happened, the company decided to create Cap-2. We still unload both general merchandise and grocery trucks, but now we also act as a second maintenance team, forklift operators, stockers, occasional buggy pushers. Basically anything management wants to throw on us because we’re in no position to argue. They also began to cut the hours and positions of the overnight shift, expecting us to finish all of grocery, chemicals, paper goods, pharmacy, infant supplies and pet supplies by the end of shift. Basically after killing ourselves to unload the trucks in impossible times we have to stock everything from half the store. We have never had enough people on the crew to do this on a normal day and we’re frequently chewed out for not meeting these ridiculous expectations.

The threat of being written up is constant, especially for black workers. Talk back? Written up for being negative. Say nothing and walk away? Written up for insubordination. Take your polo off because it feels like an oven in the back room? Dress code violation. Buying something on your break? Prepare to be stalked by asset protection, the wannabe pigs that assume every black worker wants to clean the store out. Most days I clock out feeling so physically and mentally drained that walking to my car feels like running a marathon. I feel like I wake up every day just to get beaten up and cheated out of eight hours of my life.

And this is just my department, buggy pushers have it even harder. Many have mental illnesses and disabilities and are forced to work in all conditions. Pouring rain? Blistering heat? Freezing cold? Doesn’t matter: that parking lot better be clear. In the break room there’s a picture of a buggy pusher that passed away before I was hired, he was suffering from heat stroke so and a manager sent him home in a taxi instead of calling an ambulance.

Posted on

Why Is the U.S. Targeting Russia?

By Gavrielle Gemma

Like a ventriloquist’s dummy the monopolized for-profit media, with all their ties to the military, repeats lies told to set the stage for bombing one country after another. It must be countered by destroying the collective amnesia that seems to have sunk into some “opposition” quarters. We are all familiar with lies told about Vietnam, Iraq, Panama, and Grenada. Edward Snowden exposed how the U.S. government hacks into every country’s government, as well as our personal email and social media, including under Obama.

Volumes have been written about U.S. interference in the elections of countries worldwide, carrying out coups installing fascist puppet governments. Why single out Russia which is now surrounded by U.S. and NATO bases and warships? Because they want to set the stage for a war with Russia to occupy that country, take their resources, and subjugate the people.  Look at Eastern Europe with extreme right-wing, even openly Nazi governments, which are colonies of the U.S., hosting its bases, destroying the rights and living standards of the people. These governments, like Saudi Arabia enjoy praise from Democrats and Republicans. Does that not expose the fact that it is material aims, not the character of a government that draws U.S. bombers?

IF YOU DON’T OPPOSE IMPERIALIST WAR AND THE MILITARY BUDGET YOU CANNOT FIGHT FOR SOCIAL NEEDS OR AGAINST RISING  FASCISM

During the rise of Nazism liberal legislators kept voting for war budgets and compromise. While workers were sounding the alarm that it was either workers’ revolution or fascism, loyalty to capitalism at all cost governed the liberals.

Nazism was a capitalist government backed by capitalists globally. Capitalism’s (Nazism) aim was to prevent revolution by the European working class, to destroy the Russian revolution, and to enslave countries as colonies.

The U.S. entered the war only after the Soviet Union, which lost 30 million people resisting the Nazis, had triumphed and the Red Army was marching across Europe. (This is seared into the Russian consciousness) The U.S. stepped in as a replacement for Nazi generals with the Marshall Plan to crush revolutions, install military forces and take part in the colonial occupation of large areas of the world. Freedom, democracy and revulsion of the Nazi Holocaust had nothing to do with it. Since then the U.S. under both Republican and Democratic administrations has trained, funded and installed fascist governments in Chile, Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and more.

Ask the Palestinian people being massacred by Israel, a fascist apartheid government backed by billions of dollars and supported wholly by Democrats and Republicans which sees Israel as its closest nuclear ally to threaten all the people in the Middle East. Ask the people of the Ukraine which Obama and Hillary Clinton imposed by coup a Nazi government in Kiev, murdering anti-fascist resistance fighters in Eastern Ukraine. This government is from a party called Svoboda, which honors veterans of the Waffen SS’s local Halychyna Brigade, a unit which was constituted in 1943 to counteract the Soviets.

All the sanctimonious talk by the monsters of imperialism about Putin’s authoritarian regime is hogwash, and blaming Russian interference for Trump’s presidency is self-serving claptrap. The people of Russia are organizing and want no part of U.S. interference or an imperialist invasion. Demonizing a country and its leaders, who used to be its friends, is their script as pretext for war.

Every worker needs to know that both the Democratic and Republicans are the parties of Wall Street, and it’s us against them. We are at a dangerous moment in time internationally and at home. The first weapon we have is truth.

Posted on

Attacks on Title IX Threaten Trans People

Last year, the Department of Education rolled back previously-won support for transgender students, but until this year, it was unclear how far they would take it. Recently, cases brought before them have been rejected and their intentions are clear: they no longer recognize the inclusion of “gender identity” under Title IX, the law that guarantees equal access to students to school activities. Not only has this allowed schools to deny trans students access to school activities, but it has also removed bathroom access from the list of protections under the law.

This exclusion will allow schools to force trans students to use facilities designated to their birth-assigned genders. For many trans students, this will make them vulnerable. It is a signal that these institutions do not recognize their genders as valid, which not only causes personal distress to the students, but also endorses harassment from students and staff.

The Education Department is playing a dangerous game, trying to split hairs over what is and what isn’t sexist discrimination in order to support the fear-mongering tactics that have demonized and endangered trans people for decades. The truth is that this is yet another ploy to divide the working class and reverse a minor victory for LGBTQ people, a part of the assault on everything we have fought for. We must build solidarity and demand equality for all!

Posted on

Women Are 51% of the Workforce! The Bosses Are Terrified, So They Attack Reproductive Choice

The Koch brothers, billionaire oil tycoons, bribe legislators around the country, especially in Louisiana, to vote against equal pay, birth control, abortion, family benefits and women’s health care, and raising the minimum wage (the majority of minimum wage workers are women). The bottom line of this is the profits extracted from the underpaid labor of women workers. While Trump boasts of raping women, these so-called moral Christians cheer him on as it confirms their view of male supremacy. It has nothing to do with religion or morality. It is all about using every means to curtail our rights and make us poorer so it is harder to fight them. Birth control, abortion and programs to help raise children made it possible for women to control our lives and take part in political life. They seek to declare that we are servants and sexual receptacles because men should have rights over us.

Religion is a personal matter, and these are personal choices every woman has the right to make without male representatives fronting for Wall Street, criminalizing our decisions. The so-called right to life movement is a right-wing crusade controlled and funded for the benefit of rich men. They prey on women.

The Louisiana House passed by a vote of 90 to 3 a bill that prohibits Planned Parenthood from obtaining an abortion license. Planned Parenthood clinics are non-profits run by people who really care about women. Their clinics are often our only option for abortion, medical screenings and contraception.
Twenty Ohio Republicans have co-sponsored a bill to ban all abortions—punishable by death for women and doctors. Ohio’s abortion ban has no exceptions for rape or incest, or even to save a woman’s life, beginning at the moment of conception. The Kentucky legislature has a bill with a death penalty for abortion, and a candidate for lt. governor in Idaho said the death penalty would be an effective “deterrent” for abortion.

Women are fighting back across the country. Our labor is exploited for their profits. We can show up to work now, but they should remember we can strike for our rights: on March 8th, International Working Women’s Day, the women of Spain shut down the entire country.

Posted on

Take Em Down Everywhere Conference Comes to New Orleans

By Toni Jones

On March 23 to 25 a historic strategic organizing conferenc hosted y Take Em Down NOLA convened to build up support and create bonds of unity between groups organizing in many states to rid public spaces of symbols to white supremacy.

The weekend included strategy sessions, videos, a public rally of hundreds and a Sunday march. At the march, Shabaka from Trinidad and Tobago, (fighting statues of Rhodes and Columbus), spoke in front of the Bienville statue. Bienville was a brutal slaveholder, and oppressor of Native Americans, stealing their land for his plantation. Shabaka said “You are an inspiration to people all around the world. Everytime you take down one of these genocidal monsters, we in the Caribbean, Trinidad, Barbados, Jamaica, and Haiti, we see it and we are inspired. we are strengthened, and we know that what we are doing is right. and it gives us fuel to keep our work going.”

Conference participants and New Orleanians took to the streets to make their demand: “Take ‘Em Down Everywhere!” in the heart of the tourism capital of the south. Large metal fences had been erected, barricading the State Supreme Court, and the iron gates of Jackson Square had been locked shut in a cowardly attempt from the rich to save dead men’s monuments from retribution for their racist crimes and genocidal hatred.

TAKE EM DOWN NOLA TAKING IT TO THE NEXT STEPS
As Angela Kinlaw said at the rally about the four white supremacy monuments removed due to Take Em Down NOLA organizing, despite threats from fascists and police, “people said we’d never see this in our lifetime….But when you have an uprising, a collective mass movement that demands forward change, that change will come.”

Mayor Landrieu, New Orleans outgoing white mayor, seeking national office, is trying to claim credit for his “bravery”, all the while he has presided over increasing institutional racism in housing, wages, schools and mass incarceration. It was non-stop organizing in the streets, community, schools and workplaces that forced the first four down.

Participants decided to carry the work forward together by forming a national network called Take Em Down Everywhere.

As Rev. Marie Galatis, a veteran leader of the civil rights struggle and struggle to get rid of white supremacy monuments said, no one will stop us, we will keep marching, keep protesting until they’re all down.

NEXT STEP – NEW ORDINANCE
A new ordinance has been drafted that calls for all monuments to white supremacy come down as they represent past and present racism. The former council resolution merely named four monuments to come down because they are a “nuisance”. While that was a victory it still took over a year of protests to get Lee, Davis, Beauregard and one more off our streets.

But there are many more. The most well known is that of Andrew Jackson a symbol of the city in tourist ads. Jackson was a brutal slave holder who committed murderous attacks on “free” people of color and carried out genocide against Native Americans, as the architect of the Trail of Tears.

So even though Robert E. Lee came down (a joyous day) there is still Robert E. Lee Boulevard and Jefferson Davis Parkway, the main criminals of the confederacy who enslaved Africans and fought to continue slavery for the rich plantation owners and northern bankers.

At the same time, education and activism will continue focusing on the next five which are listed here with explanations of who these racist, rich monsters were.

The New Orleans Workers Group has been and will continue to be involved all the way and we urge you to roll up your sleeves and get with Take Em Down NOLA

Contact us at: Facebook. com/TakeEmDownNOLA/

Posted on

Workers Deserve Reliable Transportation Now

After a full day of work, I begin the trek through the rain to find a way to get home. It’s the Saturday before Mardi Gras day and I am shuffling through the aftermath of the city’s and tourist’s elaborate celebration. There is so much garbage in the streets, so many beads littering the sidewalks as water builds up in the poorly pumped streets, that it is hard to walk through the Quarter.
I join my fellow workers waiting at the S. Rampart and Canal bus stop and lean against the building wall in hopes to find shelter from the rain. I am waiting for about 10 minutes while no bus arrives before I see city workers putting barricades on Canal. A woman comes over and laughs at us for thinking there would be bus service for us workers, despite the fact that we had just worked long days serving up the food, drink, and entertainment expected of Mardi Gras weekend. She points us a couple blocks over and says that “some” buses are waiting over there.

Since paying for a taxi or a Lyft/Uber would cost my day’s wages, I start swiftly walking. Random buses are scattered throughout Elk Pl. and Basin St., and from a distance I can almost make out the number 88 on one of them. Although the RTA’s timetable said the next bus (the previous never came) wasn’t due to leave for another 5 minutes, before I can get to it, the bus takes off. I am left stranded in the rain with my entire day’s cash earnings in my back pocket.

Tired, wet, and stranded, I feel so much frustration that this is not the first time the RTA has failed workers who hold up the city’s economy. Random detours, service disruptions, and buses or street cars that just never come are common.

On a typical day I wait up to 40 minutes for a street car on the St. Charles line, multiple times every month the Canal streetcar line has unwarranted service disruptions. Almost every day the 5 bus is 10-20 minutes late, resulting in me being late to work.

The feeling of anxiety and stress I felt when my feet couldn’t carry me fast enough to make the 88 at an unpredictable time is one I and thousands of workers feel everyday. Many buses don’t come often enough and if they decide to leave early, people are left stranded for another hour or more. In that hour’s time, you could be fired from your job, miss a class or an appointment, miss valuable time with your child, or be late to get home to cook a meal or help with homework.

This is not to mention that there are almost no shelters to cover us from the elements, and that there are less than half the amount of routes than we had pre-Katrina. We walk far distances at all hours of the day and night to get to a bus that just might not ever come. During hurricane warnings and floods, we are still expected to show up to work on time, without reliable transportation.
Yet the RTA funds $75 million streetcar projects like the Rampart Line that actually decrease bus service and access to jobs. They spend $20,000 on a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tell the workers that they don’t have money for more buses.

Hospitality workers generate $7.5 billion for the city, yet we spend hours every single day taking inefficient transit. We spend most of our time being exploited at our jobs where many of us cater to tourists, just to take “public” transportation that is not meant to serve the public. We are pushed out of the downtown area due to rising rents, yet we have no means of reliable transportation to-and-from our jobs. The workers of this city deserve free transportation. The time has come to organize and demand that the RTA serves the workers that hold up New Orleans.