Once again, big capitalists are trying to grab public money to make private profits. The Convention Center already receives $63 million in stolen tax dollars from hotel taxes that should go to the city general fund. Their recent scheme should land them all in jail. They want to take $340 million in public funds to build a private Omni Hotel, and pay no taxes on sales or real estate. But they will keep the profits!
As if it’s not bad enough, these unelected vulture capitalists presented a “consultant’s” report that deliberately attempts to mislead us. The Bureau of Governmental Research (a business group itself) revealed that there is a $100 million gap between their analysis and the Convention Center. BGR estimates they will use $330 million in public funds.
BGR goes on with a list of other misrepresentations and false assumptions. The Convention Center also claims this will add jobs. But BGR estimates this project will take 130,000 guests from existing hotels. What will happen to those workers?
Clearly we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in what will be one gigantic financial scandal and rip-off. Who is getting paid off in all this? The big capitalists. Who will lose? The workers and residents of New Orleans.
A few elected officials have raised what amounts to a squeak in protest. But if one looks at their campaign contributions, the link between them and the Convention Center is obvious. Campaign contributions are bribes in reality. At a recent Board meeting, the Peoples’ Assembly, New Orleans Workers Group and the Hospitality Workers Committee organized to fight this theft.
On September 21st, over 100 people showed up in a playground in Kenner for a vigil called by Congreso de Jornaleros (Congress of Day Laborers) against wage theft and police discrimination. This protest was a response to a local employer, Santos Silva, refusing to pay his employees $700’s worth of wages. When the workers brought up that they could sue, Kenner police responded by taking the employer’s side and attempting to intimidate the workers. Multiple pastors, community leaders, and activists spoke up in support. Among them were representatives from the teachers’ union Jefferson Federation of Teachers and the construction workers’ union Laborers’ International Union of North America. They called for the unity of all workers, regardless of skin color, gender, or nationality, in the fight against the bosses that exploit us all. Many immigrant workers spoke up about their struggles with Louisiana police departments. Local police forces routinely arrest immigrants and beat detainees, even injured ones (one worker spoke about how he was beaten even though he was on crutches because of his broken pelvis). Kenner police also routinely turns immigrants into Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport them. But, as one worker, María, put it: “I am not afraid, I am angry because of everything that’s been done to us.”
Since late August, six trans women of color have been murdered in the United States, including a woman murdered by a serial killer working for the US Border Patrol. In 2018 so far, over 20 trans people have been murdered in the United States. In New Orleans in 2017, two Black trans women were murdered over Mardi Gras weekend; the status of their cases is unclear. The media has consistently misidentified them, misgendering and demonizing them. Police response to these murders has been inadequate at best and insulting at worst. Trans people, especially Black trans women, face disproportionate violence in the United States. Instead of receiving protection from police, they are often profiled as sex workers and criminalized for simply being themselves. In New Orleans, NOPD continues to harass trans women of color, and local resources are sparse.
Workers Voice spoke with Bayleigh Martin, a Black trans woman who works as an organizer for Breakout, a local organization that serves LGBTQ youth of color, about what trans youth of color face in New Orleans and the conditions that they live in.
Workers Voice: Hi, Bayleigh. Can we start with your telling me a little bit about what trans youth face in New Orleans on a daily basis?
Bayleigh Martin: People are just on them, making them feel like they’re less than, like they’re not worth anything. There’s not many schools that actually take the time to do a mental health check of the child. Some trans kids are not comfortable being who they are; some kids can’t not live how they want to. Some parents kick them out. How can they go to school if they have no place to call home?
Workers Voice: You mentioned children being kicked out by their parents. What are their options for finding shelter when that happens?
Bayleigh Martin: Trying to find shelter is very hard. Covenant House is always full. Trying to navigate in the world without that support from your family is very disheartening and very hard. Even as a heterosexual person, it’s hard. When you’re confronting yourself and your own sexuality, when people aren’t accepting it, it becomes … a mental health issue. It’s very hard to try to cope, because… You’re saying, ‘You’re my mom and you’re treating me like this. Am I not worthy? Am I not good enough to live?’ It can make you wanna kill yourself.
Workers Voice: What do trans youth face in local schools?
Bayleigh Martin: There’s not really support. It’s either or. Most of them do have something, but it’s like, ‘Do I wanna go through all of this just to go to the bathroom?’ I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t. I’m damned if I go into the boys, because I might get raped or beat up. If I go in the girls, they think I’m looking at them, but I’m not. They’re not on my radar.
Workers Voice: You’ve talked before about challenges trans people face when it comes to their IDs. Can you tell us more about that?
Bayleigh Martin: Your ID is important because [for instance] if I’m trying to be called, say, Melody and everybody calls me Melvin, so like the name my mother gave me, that’s not my name. Or I say, ‘Please call me this, or use she and her pronouns,’ but you’re still trying to correct me on who I am based on my ID, it’s hurtful. I’m telling you who I am. I don’t care what my ID says. It creates an issue. And for me, working in fast food, it was very hard because your real name is put out there [on your name tag].
Workers Voice: What do trans youth of color face when it comes to the local police?
Bayleigh Martin: Well, they can arrest you for carrying condoms in your purse, because they think you’re doing [sex work]. They can stop you and you could be subject to a search. There’s so much. They harass you. You could be put in the wrong jail. It’s dangerous just being out there as yourself.
Workers Voice: There were two murders of black trans women here last year.
Bayleigh Martin: The girls who are living their life, just living their best life, it’s dangerous for them. A friend of mine said, ‘How can we expect respect when the police don’t respect us?’ It’s a lot.
Workers Voice: What sort of obstacles do trans youth face when it comes to medically transitioning in New Orleans?
Bayleigh Martin: Some [trans youth] end up going to different people, asking what’s the best way to transition or come out. They want to hurry up. They’re not able to go to professionals. You’re not gonna have the right [treatment]. I know one girl had some stuff that was killing her from the inside out. There are risks if it’s not a professional. But everybody’s transition is their own. You are not going to be the same size, the same color, as another woman, because as you see, everybody’s different. While you find a role model, they’re not gonna help you on your own. You’re not becoming your own way.
Workers Voice: What changes would you like to see in New Orleans to make it safer or better for trans youth?
Bayleigh Martin: More queer spaces for queers to be safe in. More help as far as jobs and housing. More help with mental health issues. I want the police to step up and not downtrod on us. I want them to not keep us under the board, under the counter, tucked away, then wanna come when it looks good for the press.
1. Using his position as a colonel in the Tennessee militia, by force Jackson seized land from poor farmers to benefit slave holding plantation owners. He personally acquired over 640 acres and set up the Hermitage Plantation, owning over 300 slaves.
2. With his partner Overton they acquired land reserved for Cherokee and Chickasaw, in violation of law, to found Memphis, Tennessee.
3. Jackson whipped slaves and sent troops out to capture runaway slaves.
4. To acquire more land for slave owners he embarked on stealing land from Native American tribes across the Southeast.
5. As President he enacted the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Although the Supreme Court ruled against this policy, Jackson defied the court and ordered removal.
6. Jackson represented the slave state who voted to enact the removal policy. The southern state governments destroyed tribal governments, banned assemblies, the right to sue or testify in court, or dig gold on their own land.
7. 17,000 Cherokees were forced from their farms.
8. This came to be known as the Trail of Tears. 8,000 Cherokee and Chickasaw, 4,000 Choctaws died from brutality, hunger, exposure and disease and in prison camps.
9. While in the military Jackson invaded Florida in 1818. He carried out wars against the Seminole, Creek and Muscogee Indians. This was to acquire Florida for slave owners and to prevent runaway slaves from joining the Seminoles. Jackson burned the homes and crops of the Seminole and others.
10. Jackson was opposed to treaties calling them “an absurdity” and said “the government should simply impose its will on them.” TAKE DOWN ANDREW JACKSON PUT UP HARRIET TUBMAN & LEONARD PELTIER Take Em Down Nola, info@takemdownnola.org,
IT IS DANGEROUS TO CONTINUE THE DECEPTION OF THE PEOPLE
The Clintons, VIP guests at Trump’s VIP wedding
By Gavrielle Gemma
Since its founding, the Democratic Party has represented slaveholders and later a substantial section of the capitalist ruling class. There are, on occasion, divisions among the capitalists, but only on how to prevent the rise of class consciousness and maintain the exploitation of labor, imperialist domination, white supremacy, not to end it.
Friedrich Engels, the collaborator with Karl Marx, wrote many years ago that in fact, the appearance of liberal, bourgeois democracy was best suited to capitalism. While relentlessly pursuing the same goal of profit at any cost, it disguised its ends better and deceived and pacified the people more.
The nomination of Hillary Clinton disgusted a vast section of especially young activists who opposed the militarist, oil company and banking candidate and who had come to realize that the Democratic Party was not a party of the workers or the people, but controlled totally by and for the 1%, the same 1% that controls the Republicans.
Millions of workers and youth were ready to leave the Democratic Party. They were inspired by just the mention of the word socialism by Bernie Sanders, even though he was a Democratic Party candidate. But Sanders, despite Democratic Party corruption preventing his nomination, heartily endorsed the rotten Hillary Clinton. Supporters had fervently hoped if not nominated, he would run as an independent. We cannot forget this undemocratic decision and capitulation to the very forces he was condemning.
Even the possibility of a long overdue break with the parties of capitalism scared the establishment, and they went into overdrive to hammer in a message that only the Democrat Party candidates could save us from Trumpism.
Trump arose out of the crisis of capitalists who felt their empire and profits were crumbling. They wanted to quickly pursue an assault on the workers, as well as accelerate the theft of the budget to be turned over to the war profiteers and banks as their solution.
The Democratic Party aided this by building up the military and supporting, eagerly, genocidal wars for profits. After all, both parties serve the same masters. The Democratic Party method is to pursue the same aim but more gradually, and they have gone along with cuts to social programs over the decades. They have deported millions of immigrants, initiated policies of mass incarceration and impoverishment, especially of women. They have supported continuous imperialist war and carried out fascist coups in the Ukraine and Honduras. Meanwhile, not one single meaningful measure enacted against the lowering of wages and insecurity of the working class was undertaken. Resorting to imperialist war, coups, and sabotage flows from the capitalist need to exploit labor, expand markets, get cheap labor and resources through domination of other countries. Are these the forces that will Fight the Right?
It was exactly Democratic Party deeds that paved the way for the ruling class to take a chance on a more openly reactionary president who could drive the capitalist engine of destruction of the world’s working class at a faster, unfettered pace.
That Sanders’ program is not revolutionary, and that he himself has often gone along with imperialism is undisputed. But it is the movement that exploded that was so important. However, both the “establishment” Democrats and the “left” Democrats immediately began to perpetuate the deception that the reason for the hated Trump regime is all due to bad people getting in, and if only we elect “good” people everything will be fine. This is not only historically false, but dangerous. Some younger activists have been led to believe that all things bad began with Trump. If only we could go back to the Obama years, all would be well. The result is the social democrats are actively herding people back into the Democratic Party rather than out of it.
It’s certainly a good sign that voters pick a democratic socialist, a liberal, over a white nationalist, but nothing more. That should be a signal that these voters are ready to organize, not to wait for a new congress to be the savior. Progressives can all recognize the extreme white nationalism, anti-worker assaults and dictator-of-the-world desires of Trump’s program. We are all supposed to fight the right. But awakening forces are told to ally with fascist FBI directors and generals—indeed anyone who criticizes Trump. Will that really hold off the right? That has been attempted often in history with disastrous consequences.
In Chile in 1974, Salvador Allende, a socialist, was elected president. The U.S. and Chilean oligarchy teamed up to sabotage the economy and arm and train the generals. Allende tried to ally with the liberal capitalist class forces of Chile, rather than arming the masses for the inevitable fight to come. The result was that Allende was murdered and the U.S. installed a 30-year brutal dictatorship, murdering thousands and impoverishing more.
Another dire example in history was in Germany. Again, rather than arm the masses to fight fascism, a popular front with bourgeois elements was proposed which led to disaster. Of course, neither the Democrats or Republicans opposed Hitler while he was staving off revolution and threatening the Soviet Union. The U.S. only entered the war to make sure the U.S. ruling class got its share of colonies and influence after the Soviet Union had basically defeated the Nazis at a cost of 30 million people.
The first and greatest danger to the workers and oppressed is to deceive the people by lending support to catastrophic imperialist lies. The U.S. /NATO bloc has encircled Russia with nuclear bases and warships while installing a neo-Nazi government on its border. In an anything-that-attacks-Trump-is-good stance, Democrats focus on Russian election hacking and turning FBI despots into heroes. Some sections of the capitalist ruling class just want to do business with Russia; others want to colonize Russia and steal its vast resources. The capitalist class succeeded, cheered on by both capitalist parties in turning Eastern Europe into a U.S./NATO Colony, with U.S.-supported ultra-right-wing regimes. Both sectors of the capitalist class have nothing but evil intentions.
The danger in all this, and the danger in deceiving the workers, is that another major imperialist war may erupt, a war in which workers have no stake. The first things progressives must do is debunk U.S. propaganda and explain that the U.S. goes to war only for domination of markets, cheap labor and resources to gain profit at any cost. No U.S. intervention ever brings democracy or prosperity – only death, destruction, repression and poverty.
Nor does it bring security and prosperity at home.
Winning a seat in the capitalist government can be helpful if used to educate and organize the people as progressive change always follow mass struggle, not the other way around. But how can we move the workers past capitalist lies if social democrats collude in perpetuating them. The newly elected DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set a terrible example by praising John McCain. McCain, from a military officer family, was a war criminal who bombed Vietnam mercilessly, promoted the invasion of Iraq and was a conservative and racist. An anti-war activist shockingly told me Ocasio-Cortez had no choice. If she didn’t join the chorus of flag wavers, she would be scorned in Congress. If political leaders only want to join the club and are afraid to risk their respectability, there will be no progress.
SUPPORT OF THE MILITARY GAVE RISE TO TRUMP Moving from a civilian to military based economy strengthens the ultra-reactionary forces and makes them and the banks more dominant in politics. So the consistent Democratic Party support for imperialism and the military under Obama and before helped give rise to Trump.
Trying to separate the rise of a reactionary politician from developments in the capitalist economy leads nowhere. Hitler was supported by the world’s capitalist classes because they felt it was either fascism or revolution. Without their support, he would not have risen to power.
ANTI-IMMIGRANT POLICIES RAMPANT BEFORE TRUMP During his term Obama was dubbed “Deporter-in-Chief”. But let’s go to the underlaying cause of the desperate migration of workers. It was under Bill Clinton that the NAFTA trade deal was signed displacing millions of Mexican peasants and workers and laying off workers here. Clinton said then “NAFTA means jobs.” But the Democratic Party is equally complicit in the wars and economic strangulation of other countries that have led to the global refugee crisis. To ignore this is to be complicit in deepening the crisis.
CARTER WROTE THE PATCO UNION BUSTING PLAN, REAGAN CARRIED IT OUT
UNIONS NEED TO STOP COLLABORATING WITH BOSSES, DEMOCRATIC OR REPUBLICAN PARTIES
Usually when you give money you expect something back from it. But unions continue to give millions of dollars, mostly to the Democrats who have given nothing back. The idea that progress can be made by collaborating with the bosses rather than fighting them is a tragic lie. Of course, the top echelons of labor have made out nicely. In the 1980’s, capitalists began a massive technological revolution using funds amassed through the labor of workers. But far from benefitting workers, they used these advances to lay off millions of workers in union industries, set up shops overseas, and wages have been sinking ever since.
The Democratic Party went along with it all. They made not one sincere attempt to even moderate the effects of the capitalist technological revolution. Similarly, while banks got $12 trillion in bailouts in 2008, not one meaningful measure was raised to bail out the people.
REFORM OR REVOLUTION The liberals and non-profit professionals like to say that we revolutionary socialists are only about theory and not for improving conditions under capitalism. This lie serves them well. Communists have been among the most ardent fighters for equal rights, union rights and social programs by organizing mass movements. Once these gains are established, non-profits move in and make careers and salaries while weakening the hard fought victories.
But we are not only about reform because everything won can be taken away. Every day, 25,000 children in the world die from treatable, preventable disease inflicted upon them by capitalism. There is enough food to feed the world were it not in private capitalist hands. The planet must be saved from the capitalists who only see profits at any cost. We must stop the mass murder of millions by U.S. imperialist war. We can return to the workers here the product of their labor.
This can only happen by awakening the class-consciousness of the workers and oppressed, not only to fight now, but also to fight to overturn the entire rotten system and bring in genuine socialism and a peaceful prosperous world for all. To advance this we need to openly break with the capitalist Democratic Party and advance independent mass political organizations, including building a labor party of the working class and the oppressed.
Unite Here! members from Beau Rivage and IP Casinos complete Shop Steward training on August 27, Biloxi, MS
At the beginning of September, the workers at the Beau Rivage Casino (owned by MGM Resorts International) voted to form a union. That makes the Beau Rivage the third casino on the Gulf Coast to unionize. Over 1,000 workers at the Beau Rivage are included in the union. They are represented by the MGM Gaming Workers Council, which is comprised of Unite Here Local 23, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 891, and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 406.
Under the union contract, workers will see a pay increase—in fact the highest across-the-board pay increase that Unite Here! has managed to win for any group of workers on the Gulf Coast. But the pay increase is only part of the win. Workers at the casino now have the option to join the union health insurance plan at a lower rate.
They are also no longer isolated individuals, fireable at will; they are part of a collective bargaining arrangement. That means that whatever issues they have with the owners or management in the future, the have the backing of their other co-workers and the rest of the union. Other MGM workers are already unionized in Las Vegas, Tunica, and New Orleans.
For months, Disney World workers struggled to get a new union contract. This fight has taken over nine months, with workers taking to the streets and marching outside key locations such as the Disney Springs shopping complex near Orlando. Participants in these actions included everyone from cast members to custodians at Disney’s Florida establishments. The hard work has now paid off, however, with a new contract.
The contract has been negotiated by the Service Trades Council Union, which is comprised of six unions, and represents 38,000 workers. With the four-year contract, starting pay will go from $10 and hour to $15 an hour by 2021. The contract is the result of the unions sticking to their guns. Back in May, Disney offered to implement $15 an hour starting pay, with the caveat that they would cut protections and benefits. The unions refused the deal, and now the workers have gotten the raise they demanded without losing any key benefits or protections. The unionized workers will also be getting a $1,000 bonus that Disney had previously withheld during negotiation
The current round of UPS contract negotiations has not yet come to a conclusion. UPS workers are represented by the Teamsters Union, with the largest private sector union contract in the U.S. The UPS Teamsters are comprised of 260,000 members in the UPS package division and UPS freight. These workers occupy a potentially-powerful position in the US economy which, like the rest of the world economy, is driven more and more by logistics and distribution. UPS is still the top logistics corporation in the U.S., though they are facing increasing competition from non-unionized Amazon.
The main point of contention is the creation of a two-tiered hiring system. Under this set-up, there would be regular drivers and so-called “hybrid drivers.” These drivers would deliver packages part-time and do other work for the rest of their shifts. They would not be guaranteed forty hours a week, would receive less pay, and would not be eligible for overtime when working weekends.
On September 7, Teamsters in Louisville, Kentucky, held a “vote-no” rally at a UPS freight operation. At the rally, Local 89 president Fred Zuckerman said, “The big thing is we need to get this rejected.” Zuckerman believes that workers in the union will not go for a system that will drive a wedge between regular drivers and the hybrid drivers. According to some in the union, such a system would ultimately undermine regular drivers as well, since the company would have an incentive to push higher paid, regular drivers out and replace them with hybrid drivers. The deadline for voting is October 5.
As the present crisis of the capitalist world system continues, we are seeing organized struggle cropping up in places where movements have long seemed dormant. The increasing frequency of labor struggles in the south is a case in point.
Texas is usually described as a “conservative” and pro-business state. Like Louisiana, Texas workers lack many basic legal protections, whereas corporations are allowed to get away with barely paying taxes and health and safety regulations are scant. Texas has a poverty level close to that of Louisiana.
In 2017 alone, 81,000 Texas workers joined unions, increasing the states’ unionization level from 4 percent of the workforce to 4.7 percent. That’s still a low rate compared to some other states, but such growth in a single year is nothing to scoff at. It shows an increasing awareness on the part of the working class that we must organize and fight back.
It looks like the organizing is paying off, too. There have been big pushes for paid sick days in San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas (Austin and San Antonio city councils have now passed ordinances mandating paid sick days, though reactionary state politicians who represent the bosses are challenging them in the courts). With the union, Unite Here!, 500 Hyatt employees won the first ever contract for workers in San Antonio’s famous River Walk tourist area in 2015. Despite challenges from the United Airlines bosses, United catering workers in Houston have made progress and will soon be able to vote on unionization, along with fellow employees in Newark, Denver, San Francisco, and Honolulu
As Syria fights the last battles of its over 7-year war against U.S. and Israeli-backed terrorist insurgency, it still faces many challenges and a rough road ahead. This long, dirty war which has been fueled by the US and its allies, has cost 500,000 Syrian lives and an estimated $400 billion in damages. The war has driven 10 million Syrians to flee their homes, creating one of the worst refugee crises in the world today. Needless to say, despite their celebrating their victories against terrorism and invasion, the people in Syria will live with the trauma of this war for generations.
However, western imperialism and its puppets in the middle east are still aggressively harassing the Syrian people and the Syrian army. In the past 18 months Israel has shot over 200 missiles into Syria. The U.S. still maintains its illegal invasion of Syrian territory, with 12 military bases and up to 2,000 special operations soldiers. U.S. Generals (Trump’s best friends) continue to regularly threaten Syria with further bombing and invasion.
Syria is now openly engaged in the early stages of what could be the last major battle of the war. Most of the western-backed terrorist forces, Al Queada, ISIS, al-NUSRA, which the U.S. has branded as terrorists are the so called “rebels” receiving support from the U.S. and Israel. They are concentrated in the northwestern city of Idlib, and the Syrian Army is preparing for an offensive with the support if its allies. They have had to make these preparations and conduct negotiations in the face of the aforementioned bombings and constant threats of intervention from imperialist politicians.
But why are the imperialists being so aggressive and threatening when Syria is close to ending its war? The answer is clear if you look at the history of U.S. war-mongering in the middle east: the imperialists make money off of wars and stealing natural resources, so they’ll only allow peace if they can hold a dominant, colonizer position.
Just within my generation, the U.S. has invaded and devastated Iraq, Libya and Afganistan. These countries, home to some of the world most ancient civilizations, had long been victims of western intervention and aggression, but they remained relatively stable until the U.S. and its allies invaded. They all now lay in ruins.
In Libya, the U.S. invasion caused the growth of a domestic slave trade as well as terrible sectarian violence between warlord and fundamentalist groups. In Iraq, the U.S.-installed government is viciously repressing protests where everyday Iraq citizens are demanding basic necessities like food and water and jobs. Afganistan has never seen an end to violence since the U.S. invaded, and NATO today uses the war-torn country as a military training ground. Last year the U.S. even dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb in Afganistan. One thing is for sure: the military industrial complex and the oil executives are laughing to the bank every time workers and oppressed people in the U.S. believe the lies that they feed us on the corporate media to justify these wars.
We should express our support for Syria in in their struggle against imperialism and for their right to self determination. We also must voice our opposition to the threats that U.S. politicians and generals have been issuing and demand that the U.S. & Israel stop their attacks and pull their troops out of Syria. Only then can Syrian workers rebuild their communities and advance their struggles against capitalist and imperialist oppression.
