With a 97% yes vote for the union, childcare workers will be able to negotiate with the state for living wages, health care, and support services.
Nancy Harvey, childcare worker, said “We need a livable wage. It’s unfair and unjust for us to be caring for families and yet no one is caring for us.”
The union, Child Care Providers United, was supported by two unions, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
Preschool childcare workers carry out one of the most important jobs yet they are grossly underpaid. Preschool teachers are six times more likely to live in poverty than K-12 teachers.
In California these workers receive payments from the state when they care for children from low-income families. Their union is fighting to get more funding for families. As of now, only 1 in 9 low income families receive subsidized care.
“For far too long, the needs of parents have been pitted against the needs of providers,” said Mary Ignatius, statewide organizer for Parent Voices California, a parent-led organization that advocates for more childcare subsidies. “Our providers are always sacrificing for families. I know that as they are getting to the table to improve their wages and livelihoods, I know at the same time they’ll be doing everything they can to improve access, because that’s who they want to serve, the most vulnerable children.” (Source: edsource.org)
President-elect Donald J. Trump shakes hands with Vice President Joe Biden as he arrives for his inauguration on January 20, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Photo by: Pat Benic/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
by Sally Jane Black
“Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in [Congress].” – V.I. Lenin
In 2014, Ukraine announced it would not exclusively sell its natural gas to NATO countries but would also sell to Russia. For this, the Obama administration backed a coup that put a fascist government in power in the country. Six years later, the Ukrainian military is sporting swastikas, burning trade union offices, and passing anti-Jewish and anti-LGBTQ laws. Joe Biden, as Vice President, backed and celebrated the fascist takeover because the capitalists that funded the Democratic Party asked for it.
As workers face crisis, it is understandable to place hope in those who promise relief. And we organize to demand that relief. It is understandable to look at Trump’s never-ending assault on our lives and cling to any contender. Compared to the fascist, racist, sexual predator Donald Trump, even a racist, sexual predator like Joe Biden may seem to offer a sliver of hope.
We know that Trump is a fascist and dangerous. He has unleashed anti-worker, racist hatred and encouraged police repression. The question is will voting for Biden stop the growth of fascism? The same Biden who supported a coup against the elected Indigenous leader of Bolivia, Evo Morales, who supports Bolivia’s extreme right-wing oligarchy, which is carrying out mass killings, arrests and cuts to social programs amid a pandemic? Can we count on him to restrain these forces at home? Will Biden, former vice president to deporter-in-chief Obama offer relief to the most oppressed among us? Trump is an outgrowth of the years of promoting oil, chemical, and military profiteering by the Democratic Party along with Republicans. Trump is an executive of the capitalist class, not just an insane individual.
To promote the capitalist Democratic party rather than our own independent party is to ignore the policies they have carried out for decades on behalf of the ultra-rich including the slashing of social programs. Massive deadly unjust wars were carried out by “Democrats” along with the growth of racist mass incarceration, privatization of prisons, and the drug wars designed to fill prison profiteers’ pockets with the fruits of enslaved labor.
Must Trump go? Yes! But the tragedy of the last four years has been to put faith in the Democratic Party instead of forcing Trump out with massive street demonstrations. While pouring millions into the Democrat coffers, the unions have failed to mount one major anti-Trump demonstration while he strips workers of all safety and rights.
We defend the right to vote as we fight against attacks on all civil rights, union rights or threats to the environment. But we have seen that the Democrats are not the opposition party to the Republicans. Their role is not to resist fascism, but to maintain exploitation and help quash the mass movement by false promises. Biden has a history of embracing racist, homophobic, sexist, and anti-worker policies, supporting (and even drafting legislation for) everything from segregation to mass incarceration. In the midst of a pandemic, he has denounced universal healthcare, and in his time as vice president, he supported the rise of ICE. His vice presidency set the groundwork for the federal police forces we face today. He is not the answer to fascism; he has shown already that he supports it when it benefits the capitalist class at home and abroad.
Over 40 million people took to the streets to oppose police terror, and the Democrats picked a “top cop” as Biden’s vice president, who incarcerated thousands, put trans people in wrong-gendered prisons and denied them healthcare, and criminalized truancy in California schools. The Democrats serve the rich ruling class, who want to put down the uprisings and force workers to die for profits.
Change comes from the struggle, not from politicians. The uprisings represent change. The Democrats and Republicans represent the status quo (the dictatorship of the capitalists). We should fear four more years of Trump. But we should also fear Biden’s drive to World War III against China which would destroy us all.
Let the power of the people speak, let us vote with our feet and our bodies to force back not only Trump but the capitalist drive to war, destruction of the planet, and impoverishment of the people.
Biden’s role is not to save the people from Trump. It is to save the capitalists from the people’s anger at Trump. Organizing a working-class movement, creating a working-class party, and fighting for working class interests will win us far more, no matter who is in office.
Workers cannot put our faith in the courts. Not only is it clear that the court system is skewed to the rich–what worker can afford to go to court against their bosses?–but the courts themselves only decide in favor of the workers when they are forced to by the struggle. The courts are designed to distract us, to draw our desperation away from the struggle and hinge our hopes on nine members of the rich, ruling class.
“Our humanity does not begin and end with the courts,” said Joseph Coco, a queer, trans essential worker. “They are a tool that’s been forced onto us by the rich ruling class. A tool that doesn’t truly belong to the people is a tool that can never grant us true liberation.”
While workers around the country celebrated the defeat of anti-abortion laws, unanimous jury verdicts, and discrimination of LGBTQ people in the courts this summer, the undemocratic, unelected Supreme Court ruled in favor of several anti-worker causes that will especially harm women and all LGBTQ people, including allowing employers to discriminate on “religious or moral grounds,” leaving the door wide open to refusing to serve LGBTQ people at businesses, denying birth control to workers, or discriminating against almost anyone for anything on a “moral” basis.
Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Title VII protecting LGBTQ rights, the Trump administration enacted a policy that shelters could refuse homeless trans people on “religious or moral grounds” as well. The court decision for Title VII means nothing to the Trump administartion’s assault on our rights, nor to the rich ruling class they serve.
They have made it clear that no court decision will stop them from using their power to divide and control workers, pitting LGBTQ workers against religious workers, limiting our ability to engage with society, and making it harder for us to survive. Only a united working class movement can force the courts to bend in our favor.
The United States has only 4% percent of the world’s population but the highest number of cases and deaths in the world. “It is what it is,” Trump said in August. Meanwhile socialist countries around the world have pursued a different path: “We have a responsibility to protect human lives and the entire social fabric with serenity, realism, and objectivity,” said Cuban President Díaz-Canel.
Socialist States Put People Over Profits
The U.S. government’s COVID-19 policy is geared towards protecting the profits of billionaires. Meanwhile, socialist states have taken a scientific approach aimed at protecting life and avoiding social trauma and desperation.
Vietnam, population 96 million, has had only 26 deaths and 989 infections due to swift, scientific measures instituted immediately by the Vietnamese Communist Party, including a country-wide lock down, information campaign, mask mandate, free hand sanitizer, early closure of schools and religious institutions, and extensive testing. At the same time, they continued to meet the needs of the population.
While certain parts of the U.S. have enacted preventive measures such as mask mandates, free testing, contract tracing, and the closure of all but essential businesses, these policies are doomed to fail if people are not guaranteed essential means of survival such as housing, food, and healthcare. U.S. residents have to weigh potential financial ruin (and for some of us, deportation) against the need to self-isolate or to seek out medical care.
Socialist states showed another way. The Indian state of Kerala— governed by the elected Communist Party of India (Marxist)—made testing and treatment free and available to everyone in the state. For those unable to safely quarantine at home, centers were set up, and temporary housing was constructed for migrant workers needing safer housing and healthcare.
Socialist countries provide cash assistance, food, housing, and medical care. There are no evictions. This is in stark contrast to the U.S. policy of providing temporary and partial relief to some while showering private corporations and banks with trillions of dollars.
PPE, Health Care for the Public Good Not Profits
At the onset of the pandemic, the U.S. flat-out rejected test kits from the World Health Organization. Socialist countries, including China and Vietnam, directed their public sector to produce PPE and healthcare equipment for their own people and also sent these products around the world. China built hospitals in as few as ten days.
Socialism: A System of Solidarity and Internationalism
In Kerala, government employees, trade union members, youth and student activists, participate in relief efforts. Through government sponsored and civilian organized Social Volunteer Forces, hundreds of thousands of youth identify needs and coordinate the provision of goods and services to communities and hospitals.
Socialist countries demonstrate solidarity at home and internationally. Cuba has dispatched doctors around the world, as has China. Vietnam sent hundreds of thousands of units of PPE to the United States. These countries understand that if humanity is going to survive this pandemic and future disasters, worldwide cooperation is required.
Workers Must Get Rid of the Murderous Capitalist System
The causes of the high rate of deaths and illness in the U.S. predate the virus. We must reject the centuries-old U.S. policy of sacrificing workers at the altar of capitalist profit, with the worst harm falling on our Indigenous and Black siblings. We must stand up and get rid of a system that says our lives and our families are disposable. Together, we must dispose of the capitalists for the sake of all humanity and the planet.
Plans for tax exempt luxury housing at Charity Hospital include a swimming pool and private parking while we’re struggling with broken roads, poor schools, and low wages. Charity was the second-oldest public hospital in the United States before being sabotaged after Katrina.
New Orleanians have not forgotten how the wealthy weaponized Hurricane Katrina to dispossess tens of thousands of workers of our jobs, homes, and livelihoods. We watched (and continue to watch) giveaways to developers, business owners, and tourism executives while our community remains displaced, impoverished, and denied basic rights to jobs, healthcare, public transportation, public housing, and public education.
For reasons the wealthy would like us to forget, New Orleanians, more than most Americans, are poised to see the COVID-19 pandemic for what it is. We know that disasters are always in part human-made: when we talk about Katrina, when we speak of the Storm, we aren’t just talking about wind and water. And when we talk about COVID-19, we know this disaster is more than a virus; it’s also a scheme of the rich ruling class.
Like Katrina, COVID-19 is being weaponized against the working class in the United States. As we see corporate bail-outs shower our exploiters with money, the working class is told to be satisfied with one-time payments and unemployment checks (which many workers still don’t qualify for) while we face mounting debts, evictions, and hunger.
With COVID-19, we currently face a disaster on two fronts: there is the immediate threat of the virus itself and the imminent and ongoing threat to our lives that the ruling class, using the virus as cover, is opportunistically organizing.
We New Orleanians must position ourselves to fight both the current and coming disaster. We must organize to ensure that our city and country are not further re-made by the wicked hands of the rich. As the ruling class weaponizes this terrible virus, the working class must organize in solidarity with one another to fight the real disease: capitalism.
At a Take Back Pride demonstration on June 13, hundreds of protestors joined the worldwide movement to rid the earth of monuments to white supremacy. Carrying out the people’s mandate, they toppled a long despised statue of slaveholder and segregationist John McDonogh in Duncan Plaza. John McDonogh amassed a vast fortune off the backs of enslaved African people. Upon his death, some of this money went to the city to ensure a racially segregated school system. For their mere presence at the scene of this righteous demonstration of people power, Protestors Caleb Wassell and Michaela Davis were wrongfully singled out, arrested and face serious charges.
The City of New Orleans government should be arrested for continuing to allow the emulation of slaveholders to litter the city. It is long past time that all racist monuments to slavery be taken down. For years the City has ignored people’s demands to remove these statues. Just as all civil disobedience arose out of justice denied, people are rising up to push society forward. The national uprisings that were sparked by the public lynching of George Floyd are not over. Too many of our people are being repressed by police and jailed for exercising their right to rebel. We refuse to have our tax dollars used to imprison anyone standing up for freedom. We demand that all charges against Caleb and Michaela be dropped.
School Staff and Parents Fight to Keep Schools Closed as School Infections Skyrocket Across the Country
by John Guzda; History Teacher, Jefferson Parish
On August 10th, the Jefferson Parish School Superintendent announced that the reopening of schools was pushed back from August 12th to August 26th. This decision was made in direct response to the people of Jefferson Parish standing up and speaking out! Three rallies, threats of sick-outs, press statements, emails to school board members and district leaders, interviews with the media, and an unwavering determination to love and protect students and education workers pushed the business-controlled school board and district administration back. This moment has proved once again, that when we fight, we win!
Unquestionably, this pushback has prevented countless cases of sickness and even deaths. Though we recognize this victory, as we continue to see more cases of sickness and death in children across the country occur due to the reopening of schools, we know that this fight is far from over! As Louisiana continues to remain number one in the country for per capita COVID-19 infections during this global pandemic, we will continue to demand that the lives and safety of our children and education workers must be protected! We will continue to demand that schools not reopen until there are at least 14 consecutive days of zero cases in any given parish, and that education leaders in the Greater New Orleans area move to end the digital divide now! Every student needs to be provided with a free high-quality computer, and free high-quality internet access during this time away from brick and mortar schools. Money should be provided to working parents for home child care and assistance. Access to a 21st century education is a human right and not something that should be paid for. The struggle continues…
Creating a revolutionary culture that highlights the sacrifices and achievements of freedom fighters is a vital part of the working class struggle for complete emancipation. These commemorative dates allow us to remember as well as to plan for a future free of capitalist oppression and exploitation. Black August is such a commemoration that deserves the support of the working class. This commemoration was created by revolutionary fighters incarcerated in California.
Each year since 1979, organizers from the Black liberation movement (BLM) have used the month of August to focus on the oppressive conditions inside the state run gulags and concentration camps the U.S. calls prisons. We concentrate our efforts on the fight to free all political prisoners and to abolish the capitalist prison industrial complex. We struggle to expose the forced slavery conditions that our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and other loved ones who are held captive by the racist legal system. We also celebrate Black August to educate each other about the revolutionaries who have been held in isolation decade after decade.
The historical roots of Black August can be traced to the actions of Jonathan Jackson who was gunned down outside the Marin County courthouse on August 7, 1970 as he attempted to liberate three imprisoned Black Liberation Fighters: James McClain, William Christmas, and Ruchell Magee.
George Jackson was assassinated on August 21, 1971 by San Quentin prison guards. The assassination was a deliberate move on behalf of the US government to eliminate the revolutionary leadership of George Jackson.
Khatari Gaulden was murdered by San Quentin prison guards on August 1, 1978. Khatari was one of the key intellectual architects of the Black August tradition and a prominent leader of the Black Guerilla Family after comrade George was assassinated. He was murdered to eliminate his leadership and destroy the growing prison resistance movement.
In 1979 the first official Black August took place. Supporters wore black armbands on their left arms and studied revolutionary books, particularly those of George Jackson. During the month the brothers did not watch TV or listen to the radio. The use of drugs and alcohol was prohibited, and they held daily exercises to sharpen their minds, bodies and spirits. They honored the collective principles of self-sacrifice and revolutionary discipline needed to advance the struggle for freedom and self-determination of the Black nation. Black August therefore became a commemorative event urging on the BLM to fight for complete freedom.
It is important that we continue on the revolutionary path set by freedom fighters who made August a month of righteous rebellion. Reaffirm your resolve to struggle until the white supremacist billionaire ruling class is overthrown and the African American Nation is free!
A sampling of the racist oppression and righteous rebellion and resistance to oppression that defines this commemorative month include:
August 1619 – arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, VA
August 1791 – start of the great Haitian Revolution
August 30, 1800 – Gabriel Prosser’s Rebellion in Richmond, VA
August 21, 1831 – Nat Turner Rebellion, Southampton County, VA
August, 1963 – March on Washington, DC
August, 1965 – Watts Rebellion
August 18, 1971 – Republic of New Africa shootout with FBI, Jackson, MS
August 8, 1978 – Philadelphia police attack MOVE family
August 9, 2014 – Rebellion breaks out in Ferguson, MO after the murder of Michael Brown
August 2020 – Millions of people in the U.S. follow the lead of rebels in Minneapolis who have sparked a world-wide movement against racist police terror
Donald Trump’s brazen attempt to hold onto office has no bounds. He is trying his best to convince the US public that a now sabotaged Post Office is incapable of distributing and returning mail-in ballots. Trump has admitted that he is trying to sabotage the Postal Service to limit how many US voters can vote by mail during the pandemic. This goes along with massive voter suppression in many states.
The headlines in the capitalist media in the past weeks have increasingly reported on how Trump’s crony Louis DeJoy, a millionaire North Carolina competitor of the postal service and Trump donor, is on a mission to destroy the USPS. He has ordered slow processing times, removed mailboxes from city streets, and reduced the number of sorting machines. 46 states and the District of Columbia have been warned that the USPS cannot guarantee that all ballots cast by mail will arrive in time to be counted on election day.
On Thursday, August 16th, Trump vowed to continue blocking aid for the USPS. DeJoy has been on a tear to remove many of the top managers at the Postal Service, reassigning 33 of them. He banned postal workers from making extra trips to ensure same day delivery, leading to long delays in mail delivery across the country to turn the public against the service.
We all must rally to oppose this attempt to disenfranchise millions of voters. The right to vote is a fundamental right and must be protected. The postal system must be saved from the big capitalists who are trying to starve the USPS, privatize it, and destroy the postal worker unions and their jobs. We must force the politicians of both the Democratic and Republican capitalist-controlled parties to stop fiddling while the USPS burns.
When the city was pulling in almost $10 billion just from tourism, very little of the dough went to city, hospitality, or other workers. Now we workers are being forced to carry the whole burden of the COVID crisis while super-rich get even richer.
Before the pandemic, the city was directing an annual $180 million in tourism taxes straight into the corporate accounts of private hospitality companies. Now, citing a $170 million deficit, City Hall has announced it plans to lay off 20% of workforce.
As thousands of New Orleans residents are being put out on the street, the city is going ahead with its plans to spend $400 million to renovate the Superdome so the Bensons and other super rich capitalists can make huge profits and pay no taxes.
For decades the city has exempted real estate developers, corporations, and luxury condo owners from taxes while we workers saw our rents, taxes, and utility costs go up and up. Now instead of making the rich pay up, they’re asking workers to sacrifice our lives.
The total wealth of US billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, of Amazon has soared $685 billion since the pandemic in the middle of March to a combined $3.65 trillion. We saw that after Katrina, school owners, developers, capitalists got rich while the people suffer still to this day. We say No More! Make the Rich Pay!
Stop putting the Crisis on our backs
The New Orleans Workers Group demands of the City:
50% salary cut, an end to credit cards, cars & perks for the mayor, city council, financial officers, lawyers and all their personal staff
End all tax breaks for real estate developers and corporations
Redirect our tax money from Superdome renovation to the people
Return the years of stolen taxes ($180 million a year) by New Orleans & Company, the Sports Authority, and the Tourism Bureau
