Mandatory Credit: Photo by ISA HARSIN/SIPA/Shutterstock (11029703ae)
Demonstration Place du Trocadero in Paris, called in particular by journalists’ unions who denounce an attack on freedom of expression and the rule of law, following the adoption by the National Assembly in first reading November 20, 2020 of article 24 of the global security law proposal, brought by Gerald Darmanin, Minister of Interior in the government of Emmanuel Macron. This article penalizes the malicious diffusion of police images
Demonstration against global security law, Paris, France – 21 Nov 2020
More than half a million people across France took to the streets to protest of the so-called Global Security Bill, which was passed in late November. The bill would have forbidden the publication of images where a police officer can be identified and expanded the ability of the “security forces” to film ordinary citizens without their consent using bodycams and drones. Although the bill has been withdrawn as of December, right wing lawmakers say they will return with a new version.
Images of police brutality particularly against Muslims, Black people, and migrants in France have galvanized opposition to President Macron’s repressive, racist, and anti-worker policies. In addition to the ‘security’ bill, Macron has promoted a bill called Supporting Republican Principles. THis bill seeks further restrictions of Muslim life by banning home-schooling, expanding surveillance of Muslims, and subjecting publicly funded organizations to tests of their French nationalism. Protesters must stay in the streets to ensure this racist bill is also withdrawn.
The people of Yemen are suffering the worst humanitarian crisis in the world because of U.S. imperialism. Since 2015, the U.S. had backed a Saudi led war against Yemen by supplying weapons and bombs that have killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people and destroyed the county’s cities and agriculture. 20.5 million of the 29 million people living in Yemen lack access to clean water and sanitation, and over 60% of the people are starving. Half of the country’s healthcare facilities have been destroyed. Every day children are dying from starvation and preventable illnesses.
Stop the War Coalition has called for a global day of action on Monday, January 25. Join the Workers Voice Socialist Movement as we stand in solidarity with workers and oppressed people all over the world to say: No War on Yemen! 12 Noon, January 25 at Duncan Plaza Loyola Ave at Gravier St, New Orleans
U.S. uses “terror” designation to starve more children through sanctions and blockades.
Now international organizations are withdrawing aid from Yemen because the U.S. is calling Houthis in Yemen “terrorists.” This designation goes into full effect on January 19. The Houthis are an Indigenous people that have long resisted U.S. imperialism, overthrowing the authoritarian U.S.-backed regime in 2014 and establishing a government in the north of Yemen, while the south is ruled by a U.S. puppet government. The U.S. has no right to determine the national destiny of the Yemeni people.
Not only is the U.S. spreading vicious lies about the Houthis, they are recruiting members of al-Qaeda to help Saudi-backed militias overthrow the Houthi government. The U.S. capitalist ruling class doesn’t care if millions more Yemeni people die so long as they can crush any opposition to U.S. imperialism.
Workers around the world must unite to demand an end to the U.S./Saudi war on Yemen. As workers living in the most powerful and violent imperialist country on Earth, we have a special duty to stand with the people of Yemen and demand that not one more of our tax dollars go towards aiding, supplying, or abetting the Saudis in this genocidal war.
NEW YORK, NY – MAY 01: People protest working conditions outside of an Amazon warehouse fulfillment center on May 1, 2020 in the Staten Island borough of New York City. People attending the protest are concerned about Amazon’s handling of the coronavirus and are demanding more safety precautions during the pandemic. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, AL are organizing for union representation with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). This is a historic step towards organizing the first union ever in Amazon, at a time when hundreds of Amazon workers around the globe have gone on strike. While CEO Jeff Bezos’ fortune has surpassed $200 billion, Amazon workers continue to fight for benefits, a living wage, hazard pay, and safe working conditions during a global pandemic. But Amazon is already trying to sabotage workers in Bessemer by delaying the union election and will likely spend millions of dollars on union-busting campaigns. Nevertheless the struggle in Bessemer is a tremendous example to other Amazon workers around the world whose labor reaps huge profits for corporations but almost nothing for the workers themselves. A win for Amazon workers would be a win for us all!
On December 17, fast food workers in New York City became the first in the country to win protections against arbitrary layoffs and reduced hours. NYC passed two “just cause” bills that prevent bosses from firing a worker or cutting their hours without giving a valid reason, either economic or related to job performance. This is a historic win for fast food workers who have been declared essential during COVID-19 but are treated as disposable, forced to work without healthcare, a living wage, hazard pay, and paid sick leave. They are often fired without warning or reason. Like many other essential work forces, the majority of fast food workers are Black and Brown people and women, who have suffered the most from COVID-19 and bear the brunt of the exploitation and lack of job security in the fast food industry. But fast food workers have fought back valiantly. They were the first to hold rallies for a $15 minimum wage and have been rallying and striking across the country demanding safety protections and higher wages since the pandemic. We should celebrate every victory for workers, anywhere and everywhere and never forget that it is our collective power that will help us win our long overdue rights.
Here are just a few of Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s Crimes Against the People. Landry has overstepped his authority by actions not authorized by the people of Louisiana.
As head of the Republican Attorneys General, Landry organized a robocall for people to march on the Capitol. Landry refused to sign letters from other attorneys general to condemn the fascist violence in D.C. Instead he attacked Black Lives Matter protesters and said Antifa was responsible. Landry is not representing the people but a small group of racist thugs. He should lose his office for using his position to encourage them.
Despite 400,000 dead in the U.S. from Covid including 8,000 so far in LA, Landry sued to end safety measures in LA. Landry has opposed all workers’ safety measures against COVID, including hazard pay and universal healthcare.
Landry gets funding from billionaires like Charles Koch and ALEC, the ultra-right wing corporate lobby that funds most of the state legislators, and writes the laws they submit. When they say jump, he says “How high?”
Landry sued to get rid of Medicaid and deprive nearly 700,000 adults and children of healthcare. The people did not authorize him to do this as the State attorney general.
Landry wants to kick 810,000 Louisianans off of Food Stamps.
Landry opposes raising the minimum wage.
Landry opposed workers getting paid sick time off.
Landry is for increased fossil fuel production but not for guaranteeing jobs for oil workers.
REMOVE LANDRY FROM OFFICE AND THROW HIM IN JAIL FOR CRIMES AGAINST THE PEOPLE!
July 18, 2020: Demonstrators at a BLM rally for Black women led by New Orleans Workers Group.
by Lauren Gutierrez
With consistent attacks to dominate our bodies, control our lives and degrade out worth, the U.S. government and many other countries around the world still fail to acknowledge women or femmes as whole and autonomous human beings. Instead, we are left to persistently fight for our human rights along with the day-to-day struggle of living in this over-burdening capitalist world.
Women or femmes are disposable property within their own homes. According to a new study, one in three women murdered worldwide are killed by an intimate partner, which may actually be a higher number due to lack of data or missing information. From the pathetic criminal justice response to reported rapes and domestic violence to a broken healthcare system, society, and government continue to fail women and femmes, leaving us to depend on our partners support, even if they are toxic and abusive. Meanwhile, hundreds of women are in jail for defending themselves.
The U.S. has taken it upon itself to remove women’s body parts. Doctors have been removing the uteruses of migrant women in ICE concentration camps built under the Obama administration and utilized in Trump’s America. Some of the most vulnerable women are those from a foreign country caged and dependent on their captors to provide food and healthcare. Our government has seen this as an opportunity to mutilate and torture mostly black and brown migrant women.
There is an epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the U.S. and Canada where 4 in 5 Indigenous women experience violence in their lifetime, which includes human trafficking. In many cases, missing Indigenous femmes are misclassified as Hispanic, and missing adults don’t show up in the law enforcement database. These crimes aren’t even reported on or resolved within the public eye, so they basically remain invisible to society.
Since 2015, police have murdered 48 Black women. How many of them can you name? The most noted young woman of them all, Breonna Taylor, has yet to see any justice after police took her innocent life.
The life expectancy of a Black transgender woman is 35 years. At least 350 transgender and gender non-conforming people have been killed globally in 2020. 98 percent were trans women or trans feminine. 79 percent were people of color. This doesn’t include those deaths that were unreported or misreported, either by deadnaming or misgendering the victims.
The majority of Louisiana voters have chosen to add oppressive language to the Louisiana Declaration of Rights, weakening the protection of and funding for abortion access. The addition begins with the words, “To protect human life” as it utterly disregards the human life of the woman herself. But just as has been done in Argentina, Ireland, and Poland, we will turn this around in Louisiana. Massive, women-led struggles around the world demand abortion rights, an end to violence against women, and rights to food, wages, and housing. We need to get busier here.
In a capitalist patriarchal society, it is okay to oppress or dominate women or femmes. We are still seen as property within our homes and the government still fights to control our bodies and decisions on family planning. Our lives are valued less than a masculine person and even seen as a commodity for sex or slavery. Women and femmes are treated as less than human – as an object. In my opinion, people and the government seek to control what they fear. If dominance over femmes is a badge of honor, then being a femme in control of oneself must be the “holy grail.” Onward.
In protest against the utterly inhumane conditions in Alabama DOC, the prisoner-led Free Alabama Movement’s 30-Day Economic Blackout has stopped work from Jan 1 to Jan 31.
On January 1, incarcerated people across Alabama’s prison system went on a work strike and 11 people in isolation went on a hunger strike. Officially called the “30 Day Economic Blackout,” the strike is being organized by the Free Alabama Movement, founded and led by imprisoned Black men fighting against mass incarceration and prison slavery. People in Alabama’s prisons live in heinous conditions in overcrowded cells and are ten time smore likely to die from homicide than in any other state. Incarcerated peoples’ loved one can no longer visit them in person; Alabama is only allowing virtual visits due to COVID-19, but the Free Alabama Movement claims this is a front to permanently end in-person visits to psychologically torture incarcerated people even more. These virtual visits are insanely profitable for tech companies that have contracts with prisons. The strike is calling on people to show solidarity by boycotting 5 corporations that profit from prisons and forced prison labor: Securus Technologies, JPay, Access Correction, Union Supply Company, and Alabama Correctional Industries.
Prisons are a tool for the mass torture and dehumanization of primarily Black and brown people and funnel huge profits to private corporations through forced labor. They are designed to prop up capitalism and further the oppression of workers. Now incarcerated people are being left to die in crowded and dirty cells without access to adequate medical care during COVID-19. These people are our friends, family, and community members. The Alabama strike is a tremendous act of resistance that we must support.
The people on hunger strike have been brutally repressed with beatings, mace, harassment, and threats. The Free Alabama Movement is asking everyone to engage in an email, phone, and twitter storm of support. Tell Dunn: “At Kilby Correctional Facility, Sgt. Williams and Officer Landrum jumped on an bead a prisoner who is participating in a hunger strike. Alabama DOC needs to intervene immediately by investigating this incident and firing both guards.” – from the the #Alabama11. Show your solidarity by joining this call!
Call, Email, Twitter the Alabama Corrections Department Alabama DOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn: 334-353-3883 Jefferson.dunn@doc.Alabama.gov Twitter @ADOCDunn
U.S. Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on economic relief but they recently united to vote for a $740.5 billion military budget (the total war budget is $1.2 trillion). Both are threatening to go to war with China. Trump is sending warships to the Pacific and whipping up hatred against China to get us to ignore the fact that our tax dollars are being looted to fatten the pockets of war profiteers.
From Trump calling COVID-19 “the Chinese virus” to the corporate media spreading lies about China engineering the virus, the U.S. ruling class is blaming China for the pandemic in order to distract us from how they have profited from it. While U.S. billionaires have seen their profits increase by $685 billion since March, at least 170,000 have died from COVID-19 because the U.S. government refuses to provide universal testing, healthcare, medical supplies, and PPE, and mask mandates.
What do we workers have to gain from a war on China? How would having our tax dollars looted to fund another imperialist war make our lives any better? U.S. capitalists want to invade China, take over its land, markets, resources, and exploit the labor of its people so they can continue to accumulate wealth while people suffer, here and abroad. China is attempting to determine its own path as a sovereign country, free from the rule of U.S. imperialism and capitalism.
Instead of blaming China, we should be looking at its response to the pandemic as an example of what’s possible when a government puts people over profits. The Chinese government managed to stop the spread of COVID-19 early on because it immediately provided universal testing, healthcare, PPE, medical supplies, and resources for people to survive quarantine. China has absolutely no interest in a war with the U.S. Not only has it not fought a war in over 40 years, it has upheld its commitment to international solidarity during the pandemic by sending medical personnel and equipment to over 150 countries, including the U.S.
Meanwhile, the U.S. maintains 800 military bases around the world and steals more than $1 trillion of our tax dollars every year for military spending. The $1 trillion could fund our needs for a living wage, universal healthcare, education, and housing ten times over. We have more in common with workers in China and around the world than we do with the rich U.S. ruling class who are killing us so they can get rich. We must stand in solidarity with China and say NO to U.S. imperialism!
An Open Letter to Governor John Bel Edwards & State Representatives
Governor John Bel Edwards Speaker of the House Clay Schexnayder Senate President Page Cortez Senator John Kennedy Senator Bill Cassidy
Dear Governor Edwards, Speaker of the House Schexnayder, Senate President Cortez, Senator Kennedy, Senator Cassidy:
The Louisiana Movement for Workers Councils condemns members of the Louisiana State Legislature and U.S. Congress who, at this moment of crisis, are playing political games. The special session is clearly more about expanding your power and privileges than it is about expanding the unemployment fund or providing genuine hurricane relief to the tens of thousands of Louisianans adversely affected by Hurricane Laura.
You continue to ignore dire conditions of Hurricane Laura evacuees who need urgent assistance with income, housing, jobs, mortgages, transportation, and food. The only relief that has come through was announced for the sake of a photo op. Most aid has been delayed or bogged down in bureaucratic red tape. Thousands have still not received SNAP, unemployment, housing alternatives, or cash income.
While you are renewing or issuing new tax exemptions to profitable corporations and wealthy individuals, the working people of the affected parishes—on whose backs this state runs —have been left in the dust.
We call for representatives of the Workforce Commission, SNAP, FEMA, and HUD to station on-the-ground personnel and equipment. Representatives of these agencies must undo the bureaucratic holdups by ensuring that: (1) FEMA pay out emergency money every day, all day; (2) families have homes to stay in temporarily or permanently; (3) a housing repair fund is provided for the thousands without insurance (because you have allowed insurance rates in Louisiana to become the most unaffordable in the country); (4) children have computers and reliable internet to attend classes.
Every day we are reminded that the rich are getting richer while you ignore the workers’ needs in favor of your own narrow interests. Hurricane Laura has scattered people, leaving thousands desperate. But folks are organizing. Your inaction and callous disregard will be remembered.
Sept. 9: Residents, including Derrick (pictured), speak out at rally in Gordon Plaza.
by Christina Tareq
Nearly 40 years ago, the City of New Orleans decided the toxic Agriculture Street landfill was the perfect place to construct and sell homes to Black New Orleanians. Building the Gordan Plaza subdivision, the city sold the homes to first-time homeowners. Today, Gordan Plaza (GP) has the second highest rate of cancer in the entire nation. “We are being experimented on, let’s see how long Black people can live on top of 150 cancer-causing chemicals,” says Shannon Rainey, President of the GP housing association and an organizer with the New Orleans People’s Assembly.
GP residents won a lawsuit against the city 20 years ago but still have not received restitution. There are 54 residents stranded in GP who continue to pay property taxes for homes that are killing them. They have been told by mayor after mayor to “be patient” as community members die of cancer. While most homes appreciate in value, these homes are essentially worthless. With no ability to sell their homes or rent them in good conscience, the only option for these working class Black families is to wage a struggle against the city for fully funded relocation of their community.
While running for mayor, LaToya Cantrell publicly called for fully funded relocation for Gordon Plaza. Since becoming mayor in 2018, she has said that she “hears Gordon Plaza” and that her administration is working on a “solution.” Yet the only changes the residents have seen over the last two years are more deaths, most recently that of one of the neighborhood’s long-time organizers, Mr. Robert Anderson, may he rise in power.
At a rally in Gordon Plaza on September 9, Mr. Derrick, who grew up in the neighborhood and whose mother still lives there, asked in regard to Mayor Cantrell’s empty promises, “who else will fight for our lives, if it’s not a Black woman? That’s the reason we were told to vote for a Black woman.” Mayor Cantrell continues to spur the calls for protecting Black lives in a majority Black city while meeting with White supremacists concerned about the fate of confederate statues. It’s up to the people to stand with each other! Join the struggle for a fully funded relocation for Gordon Plaza. Black lives matter while they yet live!
