Author: Workers Voice

Protesters in cities across Tennessee wore “Red for Fed” on Wednesday [July 25] to rally against the Trump’s administration’s move to restrict the amount of time federal employees on the job can spend on union activity.

The demonstrations joined a movement of planned rallies across the nation, led by the largest federal employee union. The protests coincided with a hearing in Washington D.C. District Court for a lawsuit that the American Federation of Government Employees led against the White House over the matter.

“What do we do when they attack us? Fight back!” a group of nearly 40 people outside the Nashville VA chanted in the peak of the afternoon. Trump signed a trio of executive orders in May that prohibit federal employees from spending more than a quarter of their total paid “official time” conducting union business. Demonstrations took place in Nashville, Fort Campbell, Clarksville, Knoxville and Chattanooga on Wednesday afternoon. In Nashville, many worked during the time of the rally to serve veterans inside the hospital.

They only came out to join in during their personal time when they took lunch breaks. “AFGE standing up for you and me,” the group chanted. “Trump’s orders impede on our collective bargaining rights and fair and balance merit principals,” said Lisa Hartman, vice president of AFGE Local 2400 in Nashville.

Excerpted from an article by Yihyun Jeong in the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle

The thoroughly-undemocratic U.S. Supreme Court has struck a vicious blow against labor. In the recent case, Janus v. American Federation State, County, and Municipal Employees, the court ruled 5-4 to impose a so-called “right to work” framework on public sector unions across the country. The ruling says that government workers who are not union members cannot be required to pay union dues, union fees, etc., at their unionized workplace. Anti-worker right wingers claim that this is about free choice and that it will save non-union members some money. The truth is that a strong union helps non-union workers by giving all workers more leverage against the capitalist bosses. Whether a worker is in a union or not, they benefit in the long run as the union wins pay raises, benefits, and more for union and non-union workers alike. The Janus decision is not just anti-union, but anti-worker. This is part of the relentless class war waged by the capitalist class against the working class. In the face of Janus and other assaults, the working class cannot go along with business as usual. What is needed is organization, militant struggle, and a revolutionary world outlook. We should, of course, not forget that the teachers strike that spread across multiple, supposedly-conservative states this past spring was actually illegal in most of these states (state lawmakers had attempted to prevent public sector workers, like teachers, from striking). These teachers set an example of militant defiance in the face of legal hurdles, and the entire impetus came from the grassroots efforts of the school workers themselves. They have shown that, despite setbacks, we must push ahead.

Workers in construction, sanitation, farm workers and others have dangerous jobs where they sustain injuries or worse. Every year dozens of workers die and thousands more become sick working in the heat. Under Federal OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) law, employers are responsible for providing workplaces that are free of known safety hazards, including protecting employees from extreme heat.

But the bosses usually ignore this law, and without union protection more workers will die. Thousands of Orleans Parish and Louisiana workers face this issue every year. The fact that it’s always hot here in the summer is no excuse and with global warming it’s getting worse every year. Young workers face this problem, and for old workers it’s more severe.

We need to organize to protect ourselves and other workers. Orleans Parish and the state of Louisiana should pass laws like other states that follow OSHA guidelines and protect workers against retaliation for standing up for our rights. But this won’t happen without a struggle because the bosses control their puppet politicians that they have paid to put in office.

Here are the OSHA guidelines. Print them out, give to your co-workers. If the New Orleans Workers Group can help contact us.

OSHA GUIDELINES:

• Provide workers with water, rest, and shade;

• Train workers to recognize symptoms in themselves and others;

• Allow new or returning workers to acclimatize by gradually increasing their workloads or allowing more frequent breaks;

• Reduce the physical demands of the job. If heavy job tasks cannot be avoided, change work/rest cycles to increase the amount of rest time;

• Monitor workers for signs and symptoms; and

• Implement an emergency response procedure.

Hotel workers of Chicago have won an important victory in the fight against the sexual harassment and assault of women in the workplace. Starting July 1, every licensed hotel in Chicago must provide ‘panic buttons’ to hotel housekeepers who work alone, according to an ordinance that was championed by UNITE HERE Local 1 and the Chicago Federation of Labor. These buttons enable workers to signal for help and to hold offending guests accountable in the event of sexual harassment or assault.

Women working in hotels deal with a hostile work environment in which they are preyed upon by men who take advantage of their immigration status or the lack of support they get from the bosses. According to a survey of nearly 500 hotel workers in Chicago, 58% reported having been sexually harassed by a guest. The same survey found that 96% of hotel housekeepers said they would feel safer if they had a panic button.

UNITE HERE has successfully pushed to pass similar legislation in Seattle and Miami. Every worker in every city deserves this basic protection against violence. By organizing, workers can win control over their workplaces and their bodies. And by organizing, they can strike a blow against the oppression of women everywhere. As Roushanda, a hotel worker in Chicago, put it: “Today’s the day we say no more… Today’s the day we claim our space.”

Prime Day is the retail and logistics giant, Amazon’s, biggest PR scheme; last year, the sale brought in $2.4 billion. But this year, things did not go according to plan.

Amazon workers have seized the opportunity to deal a major blow to the corporation. On May 16, Spanish Amazon workers called for an international strike on the website, amazonenlucha.wordpress.com. Major unions organized across Europe, with workers in Spain, Poland, Italy, and Germany participating in the strike. Consumers (who are mostly fellow workers) showed solidarity with a boycott, intensifying the blow.

The action is a forceful example of international coordination, demonstrating the power of the global working class; this is a power that is only beginning to be tested in our era. By any measure, the strike significantly affected Amazon’s ability to fulfill shipments because strike participation was so high. For example, an estimated 96% of the workers at the San Fernando warehouse outside Madrid participated.

The strike also comes at a time when Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, has entered into a new wealth bracket. He now has $150 billion. This wealth is generated by the thousands of Amazon workers throughout the world, who are increasingly raising their voices about the harsh working conditions they face. They report exhaustion, heavy workplace surveillance, isolation, inability to take bathroom breaks, frequent workplace injuries, and more. Despite these hardships, they are setting an example of struggle for the entire world proletariat!

In June, the Teamsters union negotiated a tentative contract for UPS workers. The contract— which covers 250,000 workers— boosts starting pay for both part-time and full-time employees. Beginning in August, 2018, starting pay for part-time package handlers will go from $10.35 an hour to $13 an hour, and is set to rise to $15.50 over four years. Drivers currently making $19 an hour will get bumped up to $20.50 later in the summer. They are set to make $34.79 an hour by 2022.

Nevertheless, workers have expressed dissatisfaction with at least one aspect of the contract as it exists now; the agreement creates a new driving position called Full-Time Combination Drivers (Combo Driver). Unlike regular drivers, Combo Drivers would work inside the building and on the road at the company’s discretion. They would work weekends, receive approximately $6 less than regular drivers, and lack certain protections.

The concessions from UPS bosses came after the workers voted to go on strike earlier in June. The strike would have been the rst for UPS since 1997, and one of the most far-reaching for the U.S. economy in decades. Although the strike did not occur, the threat indicates the growing confidence of labor in the country. The unevenness of the concessions, however, suggests that the struggle is far from over, and should dispel any illusions about the bosses’ good will.

By Malcolm Suber

Over the weekend of May 18-20, 65 delegates representing more than 20 cities and states held the first National Liberation Assembly of Black anti-capitalist and anti-racist organizers.

The Assembly was the result of years of veteran revolutionary organizers observing the upsurge in the Black mass resistance struggle exemplified by the massive response to the Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown killings at the hands of white supremacists and racist police. This upsurge revealed the necessity for a well-planned country-wide response from the most advanced sections of our movement. It was concluded that serious revolutionary organizers had a duty to try and unite so that the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) could be rebuilt along sound revolutionary lines rejecting the dead-end leadership of reformist and Black capitalist forces.

Black mass struggle has broken out against police terror and police murder; for jobs and a livable wage; against the oppression of women;  for housing for the homeless and affordable housing for working class families; for universal healthcare; for protection of the children and the elderly; against environmental racism; for community controlled quality education; for equal treatment of immigrant workers, for human rights for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters; and for the removal of all monuments to white supremacy.

These movements have lost their potency because they are localized and without the visibility and guidance that a country-wide revolutionary leadership could provide.

The National Assembly held workshops on the many fronts of struggle and discussed the central question of how can revolutionary fighters overcome their differences and establish a centralized organization centered in the black working class and unified in an anti-capitalist, anti-racist Black United Front.

There was a National Liberation Council elected with the authority to self-expand for inclusion for regional, gender balance, diversity and youth.

A proceedings committee was formed and charged with the task of gathering, assembling and publishing National Assembly papers for distribution, study and debate as part of the process leading to a 2nd National Liberation Assembly which will adopt a program for Black liberation.

by Dylan Borne

The Democrats and Republicans have joined hands to give $716 billion of our tax dollars to the military in 2019. That’s $82 billion more than this year. To buy even more warships, fighter jets, submarines, missiles, tanks and nuclear weapons, these stolen tax dollars will go to private profit-making war corporations, who then turn around and fund politicians. This money also funds the wars in the Middle East that have killed over 4 million people to date. Already, the total budget is 3 times more than China spends on its military and 10 times more than Russia—even though the US government says China and Russia are the boogeymen.

But even that $716 billion is an underestimate. In addition to the Pentagon budget, the following expenses and more add up to a real military budget of over $1 trillion:

• Department of Energy developing thousands of nuclear warheads

• State Department marketing weapons worldwide

• CIA training Latin American death squads

• Justice Department contracting out prison slave labor to make uniforms, night vision goggles, body armor, and more to arms corporations

• Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deporting or imprisoning millions of immigrants, including children, for “homeland security”

• Military grants for universities to develop new weapon technologies

• Military grants for local police to buy weapons

Who wins out from all this spending?

War corporations (like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, etc.) are raking in billions of dollars from the sales of missiles, fighter jets, and all kinds of other weapons to the military. Oil companies like Exxon and Koch Industries get a kick of it too, since wars in the Middle East always leave large oilfields open for them to steal (after killing or displacing the land’s former inhabitants). For them, more war means more money.

By the way, these corporations aren’t the ones paying for this military budget. In 2015, Koch got $156 million in tax breaks ($77 million from Louisiana!). In 2016, Boeing got $305 million. It’s ordinary workers that get the bill deducted from our paychecks, while the corporations skim the cream.

Sellout politicians (Democrats too!) and corrupt generals fuel the fire

War corporations get their way by pulling the strings at the highest levels of government.

John Bolton, the National Security Advisor, came into office fresh out of working for EMS Technologies, a company that made a fortune selling weapons to the government. Now, he’s in charge of making military recommendations, and he’s openly pushed for war on Iran “by 2019.” It wouldn’t be a surprise if war corporations hire him right back once he retires.

In the 2016 elections, war profiteers gave an average of $43,000 to every Republican in Congress, and $32,000 to every Democrat. If you think it’s only Republicans who want to buy more weapons, think twice: Democrats are cheering them on. The large majority of them support increasing military spending—after all, that’s what they’re paid for.

The military’s top generals take bribes in the hundreds. These generals sound the alarm for war, and are rewarded by arms dealers with a cushy job and a fat paycheck once they retire. Investigations reveal that over 70% of retired generals get six-figure contracts from war corporations (on top of their $250,000 tax-funded pensions).

Who loses?

The rest of us do.

While billions upon billions are being stacked onto the military budget, over 30 million workers are losing their healthcare because of federal cuts. It would only take $80 billion, a fraction of military spending, to make all public colleges and universities in the US free. Child hunger is higher than it was 50 years ago, youth unemployment plagues black neighborhoods, Puerto Rico is still without electricity, Flint still has lead in its water, and New Orleans still has an affordable housing crisis, even though it’s cheaper to fix these problems than to build more warships.

Adding up all its fuel burning, oil spills, toxic chemicals, and nuclear waste, the US military is the world’s #1 polluter.
Our environment and our communities bear the cost. Corporations that care more about money than human lives laugh their way to the bank while we workers foot their bill.

By Nathalie Clark

Paris, France.
On Saturday May 26, 50 organizations—leftist political parties, student groups, and unions—took to the streets across France to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s attacks on workers’ rights and social programs. This coalition united to protest government policy changes, show continued support for the railway workers, and communicate that workers will continue to disrupt business as usual as long as Macron persists in his attacks on their livelihoods. To voice their discontent, French workers from the SNCF—the railroad system—and from Air France, have been carrying out strikes for over two months. Energy workers, involved in a struggle to raise the minimum wage since December 2017, also joined this protest. Air France was forced to cancel 25% of flights, and train circulation around the country was disrupted. What’s more, the SCNF estimates costs of the strike at around 400 million euros since April 3. Workers have demonstrated their enormous collective strength in the face of austerity, racism, and the rise of neo-fascists.

Macron has been carrying out policies against workers across all industries. He is planning to hand over the French railway system to private companies that will attempt to squeeze the profit out of underpaid workers by threatening mass layoffs. Through struggle, railway workers in France have won benefits, such as 3 extra days paid vacation, but these workers still struggle with difficult work schedules, risks posed by the hazardous materials they handle, and health problems often incurred from their work.

In France, energy used to be a public service: the means of production were owned by the state, which gave workers more job security. But privatizing the energy industry has increased prices for individual households, and shortages for everyone. As a reminder to the bourgeoisie that energy is not private property, electric and gas workers have gone beyond merely striking– they’ve cut off power to multinational corporations that fire employees to increase profits for shareholders and have restored electricity and gas to families unable to pay their bills. As part of their support for the railway workers struggle, they also plan on cutting power at railway stations. The energy and gas workers in France are watching history repeat itself; Macron promises that the SNCF (the national railway company) will not be privatized, but the same promises were made about energy. Today, the state owns only 20% of shares, leaving employees at risk.

Attacking workers’ rights in the name of profit is more than immoral, it’s deadly: an estimated 10000 to 14000 people die per year because of unemployment in France. Workers in France and across the globe are defending more than labor laws when they take to the streets, they’re fighting for their right to exist. Workers provide the labor upon which society depends; without us, society would collapse. How would capitalists make their profits, without the work provided by electricians, tellers, secretaries, teachers, hospital staff, and all the other heroes too often forgotten? How would surgeons save lives without lights in their buildings? Capitalism constantly reinforces the idea that commodities and money matter more than people but we of the working class can use our power to put people before profits.

New groups of workers join the strikes

Remy Herrera reports from Paris that unionized fast food workers at McDonalds, at the big retail stores, and in elder care institutions have denounced low wages and speedups; the care workers have also demanded better conditions for the residents. Sanitation and sewer workers mobilized against the hardships of their jobs and demanded early retirement. In mid-June farmers blocked 14 oil refineries. Workers at the Catacombs (an underground cemetery) and museum workers have also gone on strike.

Greedy Real Estate Developers Create Affordable Housing Shortage, Inflate Rents

by Gabriel Mangano

While the super rich rattle on about how wonderful the economy is doing, for the working class there is nothing but increasing poverty, misery, and insecurity. A new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) shows that nowhere in the United States can a person working a full-time job minimum wage job afford a two-bedroom apartment.

At $7.25 an hour and with national and state data on rental prices, researchers calculated that the average worker would have to work 122 hours a week (17 + hours a day, seven days a week) at the national fair market rent. Even at the average renter’s hourly wage of $16.88, in only 11% of US counties can a renter afford a two-bedroom apartment.

In New Orleans, things are even worse. A New Orleans/Jefferson Parish worker must make $19.15 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. For minimum wage earners, the outlook is bleak. A minimum wage worker must work 92 hours, that’s 2.3 full time jobs, to afford a two bed-room apartment. In fact, a minimum wage worker has to work almost 80 hours to afford even a one-bedroom. If a minimum wage worker were to rent a two bedroom without paying more than 30% of their income as “recommended” by bourgeois economists, she would have to find an apartment that rented for $377 a month.

While short-term rentals like Airbnb get much of the blame for the housing crisis, even more significant is what kind of housing is being built. Between 2005-15, the number of homes renting for more than $2,000 increased by 97% while homes renting for less than $800 declined by 2%. Of over 6.7 million units added in that time, there were 260,000 less affordable units. Even in New Orleans, there is a 20% vacancy rate while many of the 185,000-renter families scuffle to find an affordable place to live.

The capitalists have created the affordable housing crisis as another way to exploit the workers. The tiny percentage of set asides of so-called affordable units helps only a few and often come with time limits that force long time renters into the streets when their “affordable unit” expires. And while Section 8 affords some “lottery winners” with mostly decent housing it is not available to all. There are thousands of people who qualify for Section 8 but the program is shut off to us. To make it all worse, Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD has proposed raising the rents of those in HUD housing by 20% which will mean evictions and increased hunger and deprivation.

Longstanding homeowners, especially Black and older homeowners, are being forced out of homes by soaring property taxes caused by gentrification which is supported by the city’s mayor and city council.

We need a united Tenants movement for rent control and take overs of abandoned properties for people, not profit. There is abundant housing available and plenty of abandoned units that could be rehabilitated. There are thousands of people who could do that work. While only socialism, which puts the workers in control, will bring a total end to homelessness and even rent all together, we can unite now as tenants to wage a struggle to push back against these insatiable profiteers.