Sept. 25: Demonstrators from across Louisiana convened at the Governor’s Mansion to demand justice for victims of police terror
by Adam Pedescleaux
A week after Lafayette resident Trayford Pellerin was murdered by police outside of a gas station for allegedly carrying a knife, a demonstration protesting police violence was organized by a group called The Village in coalition with the NAACP. People of Lafayette gathered to march through the streets with Black Lives Matter signs, stopping to listen to speeches from people who knew Pellerin personally. Speakers called for justice and for the pig to be tried and jailed for the racist killing.
Just days after a white supremacist murdered two anti-racist protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin, tension was high. White supremacists were emboldened by the fact that Trump and the police supported this act of terrorism. New Black Panther Party members as well as a New Orleans Workers Group member showed up armed and ready to defend the lives of protestors against any far-right provocateurs. Two Boogaloo members (far-right bigots who are radicalized on racist cesspool websites) came out armed though they later left.
On September 25, the New Orleans Workers Group caravanned to Baton Rouge to join a coalition convened by The Village to demand justice for Trayford Pellerin, Ronald Greene, Breonna Taylor and the countless others who’ve lost their lives to killer cops.
If we the people desire change in our community and communities everywhere, it is critical that we take to the streets and show our strength and determination to enact real and lasting change for the better, not those half-baked non-solutions that our two-faced politicians sell us so they can continue to line their pockets in peace. It is a requirement that we convince our coworkers, friends, and families that we can win a future where we and our children are free from racist terror!
$400 million in public funds for safe schools, not Gayle Benson
by Gavrielle Gemma
Construction union leaders recently opposed a demand to redirect the $400 million in public funds for the Superdome renovation to meet the dire needs of the community during this time of crisis. Once again the capitalists and their politicians have managed to pit workers against the community over seemingly opposing interests. This scenario will never play out in favor of workers or the community. A new way forward must be forged.
Big oil tells workers their fate is linked to oil production. They want to convince their workers that what’s good for BP or Exxon Mobil is good for you. The oil industry had record profits for years, got billions in subsidies from the government, and destroyed the coast. Bloody wars were fought to increase the wealth of company shareholders. But when prices drop, working class communities take the blow. Oil profits are in offshore bank accounts, not in the pockets of workers. The owners take those profits out of state and pay little if any taxes. Yet they expect oil workers to pledge their allegiance to the company.
The planet cannot survive continued fossil fuel production. Oil workers and their communities should take the lead now in a movement to secure jobs at equal wages in renewable energy. Instead of allowing tax exemptions and subsidies to big oil, they should support a transition to clean energy jobs with a guarantee for equal wages or better.
Only bosses benefit from getting public funds, tax exemptions.
The labor of tens of thousands of steel workers created enormous wealth, which has been used by company owners to bring in new hi-tech mini mills. Hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs, and communities were destroyed. Despite this, the union jumped to support the bosses’ scheme to get tariffs on steel imports. Have tariffs benefitted the workers? No.
Corporate tax cuts and public funded rip-offs have not created jobs.
As of 2018 Louisiana lost $12 billion in taxes due to the legislature giving their friends and contributors tax exemptions while these companies made lots of profit. That $12 billion could have been invested in housing, roads, and childcare, creating thousands of living wage jobs. Thousands of construction workers would have been needed.
The Trump tax cuts were sold on the basis that this would stimulate hiring and good wages. Most of that money went to huge executive salaries, investors’ dividends and stock buybacks. The very same companies that profited from the tax cuts laid off thousands of workers.
$400 million in public funds to make schools safe, hire construction workers.
Gayle Benson is the richest person in Louisiana. The Bensons got their wealth by ripping off the public by hundreds of millions of dollars. They were also exempted from sales and other taxes. The Superdome was built with public money but the revenue it has produced has not returned money to the benefit of the Parish.
Construction workers have been hard hit in this depression. Work for union members is especially hard to come by and often depends on publicly funded projects. It’s understandable the construction trades support this giveaway of public funds. But other workers are suffering also. There is enough for all if we fight together.
Together we should demand that public money used for school re-openings. The schools are not safe from COVID-19. School facilities are lacking in every way from plumbing, reconfiguring classrooms, and especially proper air filtering.
$400 million should be used to hire construction workers to make these schools safer. This would require carpenters, laborers, plumbers, steamfitters, HVAC, and more. The community would welcome this to protect the children, staff, and communities, and provide construction jobs.
The trades might answer: “That’s all in the future. We need to feed our families now!” No one expects workers not to show up for work at the Superdome. What we suggest is that at the same time they start a campaign for public funds for workers and communities now.
The labor movement—especially the construction trades—needs a new fighting strategy to win a better world for all working people.
*This author of this article was married for decades to a union steamfitter and knows the ups and downs of construction work, unemployment, loss of health benefits in down times, and the dangerous nature of this work.
Sewerage and Water Board (S&WB) workers are right to collectively demand pay increases and safe work conditions. Too often the Mayor of New Orleans and the Executive Director of the S&WB (whose yearly pay recently increased from $265,000 to $295,000) hold press conferences touting “their” great work, but it’s the labor of the workers that really move the city forward.
The workers ought to be the ones administering the city-wide utility service. Their knowledge and expert skills make them the best authority to decide how the city’s resources are best used to meet the needs of the community.
In August, it was revealed that a private contractor named Olameter was hired to increase meter readings. A local reporter exposed that, “the contract calls for Olameter to be paid $37.97 per hour for each of the 20 workers being provided under the contract, with an expenditure cap of $500,000 over three months. S&WB meter readers are paid $13 an hour, though S&WB’s spokesperson, Courtney Barnes, maintains that the utility has been working to get the city’s Civil Service Commission to raise wages.
It’s not the workers who benefit when city contracts are awarded to the friends of city officials. The workers are cheated again when high utility bills cut into their already low wages. The way out of this exploitive situation is not to gripe about how bad things are, but to organize.
The S&WB workers shouldn’t wait on the Civil Service Commission to give raises. Raises can be won through worker solidarity and an organized effort to push workers’ demands. To wage this fight, the workers need an independent union.
“Where there is no union, fight for one. Where there is a union, fight to make it fight!”
It is the legal right of workers to unionize, even in a right to work state. Organized, the workers could decide that instead of hiring 20 temporary workers to be paid at twice the rate of full time workers, all employees would be hired full time on a permanent basis, with living wages and safe work conditions.
The S&WB workers don’t need the Civil Service Commission, nor private contractors, nor high paid overseers to direct and control them. The S&WB would operate so much more efficiently if the workers were in control.
Public support for S&WB workers is present, because this is the same S&WB that is notorious for guesstimating bills and overcharging residents. Support for S&WB workers will only rise when the workers unite in solidarity across departments and job roles and fight for their collective rights! When we fight, we win!
Angola Inmate Targeted for Organizing to Contain COVID-19
Quierza Lewis (center) with family.
by Z Petrosian
As COVID-19 infected and killed men at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Quierza Lewis knew he had to do something to protect himself and other inmates. Denied adequate testing, proper medical care, PPE, sanitizer, and unable to physically distance, Lewis and two other inmates began to seek legal advice and discuss the possibility of a peaceful protest aimed at improving living conditions at the prison.
For this organizing, Quierza was charged with the intent to initiate a work stoppage and moved to solitary confinement. In an even more absurd move, Angola officials charged him with bribery, citing a GoFundMe a friend set up to help with his case. Quierza was denied a lawyer to fight these charges.
“I just couldn’t let them railroad Quierza like that,” said Tanisha Lewis, Quierza’s older sister. Taking matters into their own hands, Tanisha was joined by other activists in contacting the prison on Quierza’s behalf: “I let them know that the calling wasn’t going to stop.” As more people called and help publicize the situation, the prison was pressured into dropping the bribery charge, and on September 14, Quierza was sent back to general population after 34 days in solitary.
Pandemic conditions at Angola warrant immediate action
The organizing Quierza and the two other inmates were trying to initiate is desperately needed at Angola where COVID-19 has sickened hundreds and claimed the lives of at least 16 inmates and 3 staff. “They know they are not doing what they need to,” Tanisha remarked. “They hate that the inmates are getting [that information] out.”
Still, as illnesses and deaths mount, the Department of Corrections itself claims they have only tested 1,365 inmates, roughly one quarter Angola’s incarcerated population of around 5,500.
Making matters worse, Angola inmates generally have to pay for their own medical care. Though these fees have been waived during the pandemic, Quierza, who suffers from asthma, has been unable to obtain an inhaler. Frequent punitive chemical sprays in solitary aggravated his condition, and the next call to action is to advocate for Quierza’s access to an inhaler.
“We are fighting for him.”
Tanisha is worried but steadfastly fighting for her brother: “My mom died fighting for her baby. She died fighting for him, and I’ve gotta continue.” That fight began nearly 16 years ago when Quierza, then 25, was convicted of cocaine distribution by a non-unanimous jury relying on testimony that three co-defendants gave in exchange for lighter charges. Quierza was sentenced to life without parole even though no drugs or paraphernalia were found on him or in his home.
Quierza Lewis is one of thousands of incarcerated people who have made efforts to organize behind bars to fight for their lives in the face of the pandemic and the broader system of injustice. When their jailers try to silence their voices, those on the outside must make them heard because none of us is free while our siblings remain in cages. For Quierza and all other non-violent offenders, we demand the state #FreeThemAll!
Sept. 13: Valley View inmate firefighters working in Butte County, CA
As fire and hurricane seasons become longer and increasingly dangerous, incarcerated workers are on the frontlines fighting to protect our communities. Often risking their own lives to save those on the outside, these workers receive little pay if any.
In California, thousands of incarcerated firefighters receive only $2-$5 a day and an additional $1 per hour during active fires even though they have the same training as Cal Fire’s non-incarcerated firefighters who earn an average of more than $70,000 per year. The State of California has admitted stealing $100 million per year in wages from incarcerated firefighters.
Louisiana: Unpaid incarcerated workers from Hunt Correctional Center work 12-hour shifts to make tens of thousands of sandbags ahead of Hurricane Barry in 2019.
Here on the Gulf Coast, incarcerated workers regularly work during storms and other disasters such as oil spills. In Louisiana, those who work on storm preparation and recovery are generally not paid even a penny for their long hours.
None of us is free while any remains in chains, and no worker should tolerate slave wages for any other worker. Not only is this exploitation wrong but it results in our own inability to find work at decent wages. If governments and other employers are allowed to pay slave wages to incarcerated workers, why would they decrease their profits by paying even minimum wage to someone on the outside?
Workers unite across the prison bars! Together, we will win!
Since March 3, some 40 African migrants, most Cameroonian, have been holding hunger strikes in an ICE concentration camp in Pine Prairie, LA. They’re protesting their extended detainment and inhumane treatment by ICE. The migrants paused their hunger strike when ICE agents said they would look into their cases. When this promise turned out to be a lie, the strike resumed. While some agents used deception to manipulate, others were more direct telling the men “for the 18 years I have worked for Department of Homeland Security, I’ve been trained to deport as many of you as possible,” threatening to deport them by October 7.
The migrants qualify for asylum under international law and have been incarcerated far longer than the law is supposed to allow. Still, Oakdale Immigration Court’s racist Judge Scott Laragy recently issued Final Orders of Removal to most of the men, resting his opinion on bogus “credibility” tactics, telling them that even if they appeal, he would still deny them asylum. Laragy has denied more than 85 percent of asylum cases that came before his court between 2014-2019, well above the national average of 63 percent. Since a large number of immigration judges are former ICE attorneys, it’s no wonder they uphold ICE’s mandates that support the ruling class. ICE uses racism to divide and conquer our working-class siblings nationally and internationally.
African migrants are twice as likely to receive deportations as their Latinx counterparts and are charged higher bonds due to their lack of family ties. But that lack of ties is a result of 400 years of racist U.S. foreign policy that barred immigration from Africa since the slave trade and even more so after the Haitian Revolution. This anti-Blackness permeates the practices of capitalist politicians of all races, so much so that the Mexican government is more likely to hand over African migrants to ICE than other immigrants. Meanwhile, African American politicians like Cedric Richmond, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, have failed to take adequate action by denouncing the modern-day slavery in Pine Prairie and demanding the release of all detainees immediately.
On August 14, the New Orleans Workers Group held a militant action in solidarity with the migrants and overwhelmed ICE officials with the power of the people. Only sustained direct action by the people to expose GEO Group, the $2.5 billion private company that runs the Pine Prairie ICE camp, will achieve the ultimate shut down of the camp and liberation of our working-class siblings. To support continued effort, email noworkersgroup@gmail.com and cameroon.american.council@gmail.com . We must fight until victory! Free Them All NOW!
End Family Separation! Close the Camps! Free Them All!
The New Orleans Workers Group calls on all people of conscience to demand an end to the medical experimentation and forced sterilization of women and folks in U.S. ICE concentration camps. We cannot stand by as Republicans and Democrats attempt to minimize or conceal the atrocities occurring in so-called “detention” centers, jails, and prisons across the country.
We celebrate the brave stance of Dawn Wooten, a courageous Black woman who stepped forward to expose the horrific acts committed by a private for-profit concentration camp that cages migrants in Georgia. Similar human rights abuses have been documented in many other U.S. states.
Migrants are used as scapegoats so workers with papers will not recognize that the capitalist class is the real enemy. Migrants are workers just like us and we need to demand their release, family reunification, and full labor and political rights.
If any group of workers can be paid less, tortured, or discriminated against because of race, national origin, or gender, all workers will be hurt. To keep wages low and conditions poor for all of us workers, those who exploit us rely on reserve pools of labor, such as the unemployed, incarcerated, and migrant.
Lack of rights and fear of imprisonment and starvation have allowed bosses to pay migrant workers less money and the bosses are thrilled by that. The same process goes on in the prison system, making the U.S. the most incarcerated country in the world, with Louisiana and Arkansas as its most incarcerated states.
The right wing enforces the extreme exploitation of migrant workers by dehumanizing and caging. On any given day, more than 40,000 men, women, and children are in cages. Every migrant person caged in an ICE camp brings profits to the private owners of companies like Lasalle Corrections, GEO Group, and CoreCivic. These companies are addicted to this blood money and want more migrants incarcerated. For every person in ICE custody, these concentration camp companies receive about $65/day from the federal budget, totaling about $1 billion of our tax dollars every year.
Louisiana ranks second in ICE camps with at least 12 in the state. Some of these, such as River Correctional Center are unlisted facilities serving to disappear migrants. These camps are run in secret to hide torturous solitary confinement, lack of protection from COVID-19, inadequate food and healthcare, and everyday denial of legal rights.
This summer, the U.S. deported 8,800 unaccompanied minor children. A policy of supervised care for deported children to prevent trafficking has just been stopped by the U.S. government. Amidst COVID-19, these ongoing deportations have been a murderous act of biological warfare, spreading COVID-19 to over 11 countries and deporting over 159,000 people since March.
Forced sterilization, medical experimentation, and separation of children from families is part of the history of the U.S. These heinous acts have been overwhelmingly perpetrated against women of color, the disabled, and the extremely poor. Forced sterilization or forced childbearing and rape was common under slavery. It has been practiced in all U.S. colonies, especially Puerto Rico, and was a tactic of the genocide against Indigenous people.
The U.S. legacy of genocidal racism and torture of women continues. Studies show that Black women in Louisiana are four times more likely to die giving birth than white women. Every day, women are shackled during childbirth and denied pre- and post-natal healthcare in ICE concentration camps and U.S. prisons.
WORKING CLASS WOMEN UNITE AGAINST OUR TERRIBLE CONDITIONS
The current economic depression has hit women, folks, and families harder and driven us deeper into poverty and insecurity. This will eventually bring an explosion from working class and oppressed women. Women are 50% of the workforce, are more likely to join a union, a protest, oppose racism and poverty and become revolutionaries. Our ability to shut down production terrifies the ruling class. Impoverishment, violence, rape, incarceration, and attacks on reproductive and workers’ rights are being enacted to control us.
By fighting back, we can end the torturous cruelty inflicted on migrant women in the name of capitalist profits, just as we can end the police terror that took the lives of Breonna Taylor, Namali Henry, and Sandra Bland. We are clear that it is only through struggle that we can win, not by relying on the on the Supreme Court or any politician in office. We can and we must close all concentration camps including U.S. prisons and jails. None of us are free until all of us are free! End the capitalist war on women! End our impoverishment! Working women of all backgrounds unite! Free Them All!
In the wake of the disastrous port explosion in Beirut, western media outlets have pushed that it was caused by corruption in the Lebanese government. But there is zero mention of the French or other imperialist countries’ massive role in that corruption, no mention of EU or U.S. sanctions that are crippling the Lebanese economy, and literally zero mention of the fact that France created the sectarian system of government of Lebanon in the first place.
Lebanon is a case study of imperialism with former colonized subjects being told they are too incompetent and in need of firm and direct Western disciplining. Every article comes in the tone of a former colonial master lecturing its bumbling natives. Macron, speaking in Lebanon was quoted saying that French aid would not go to “corrupt hands” and that he would be calling on all of Lebanon’s political leaders to establish a “new political pact.” Undoubtedly one where former colonial forces would profit. No mention of the protestors at the same event calling for the release of Lebanese political prisoner George Abdullah.
Macron’s lecturing about corruption is not only to distract from real problems, like enormous debts to western banks, but is hypocritical considering the French leader’s governing party being accused of massive instances of corruption. Even more hypocritical, is the French government’s deep ties with some of the most corrupt elements in the Lebanese government with many of these figures storing stolen Lebanese money in French banks. There is also zero mention of French, EU, and U.S. support for the political campaigns of many of these corrupt leaders.
Disgustingly, Macron declared that he would return to Lebanon to take what he called “my political responsibility.” The same French president who famously told Africans “to get over colonialism” is now being praised as if he were the savior of Lebanon. Later he went on to call for increased sanctions while hundreds of thousands have lost their homes, jobs and lack of food.
Finally, in almost all reporting on Lebanon, like many other formerly colonized countries, the big business media almost always leave out the brutal colonial history that shaped these countries. Lebanon’s sectarian governing system was quite literally imposed on them by the French. The 1958, U.S invasion of Lebanon that prevented the collapse of the sectarian Chamoun government is part of a long history of former colonial powers attempts to keep Lebanon a divided and fractured country dependent on its former colonizers. The fake cries from Western countries about the inept and corrupt Lebanese government in the wake of this latest tragedy should always be understood as just the latest in a string of attempts to impose their dominance over the country.
The U.S. government continues its war against the workers of Venezuela with harsher sanctions designed to create hardship. Whoever wins in the presidential election, Trump or Biden, the US is expected to continue its policy of regime change to oust Venezuela’s democratically elected leader, Nicolas Maduro. In cahoots with a tiny clique of wealthy Venezuelans, the U.S. wants to steal Venezuela’s oil, and claim its national resources for U.S. corporations.
The PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) is strategizing how to combat this wealthy clique of right wingers who hate Maduro and the PSUV for truly involving the workers in building their country to benefit the majority. This is no easy task as the United States continues to impose heavy sanctions and wage violent attacks that are aimed at strangling the country’s economy and threatening its socialist leaders.
U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo is the once owner of a military aerospace company that profited off the $1 trillion U.S. war budget that deprives the people here of critical help—especially during this period of crisis. Pompeo, speaking about his tenure as CIA Director admitted, “we lied, we cheated, we stole.” Recently, conferring with his fascistic Brazilian military counterparts, Pompeo pledged to send even more millions of tax-payer dollars to the wealthy Venezuelan traitor elites. Pompeo also called for more warships to ring the coast, threatening the Venezuelan people with death.
The United States will continue to meddle in the domestic politics of Venezuela during their elections. Because the right wing opposition is so unpopular they call for a boycott in the elections, thereby allowing the PSUV to win an overwhelming majority, afterward claiming that the election was a fraud. This was the excuse for the wealthy to allow the U.S. puppet Juan Guaido to declare himself president. His phony claim was recognized by Trump and Biden even though working class Venezuelans did not even know who he was. Failing these interventions, the U.S. could attempt a military coup. Thanks to the Venezuelan people, prior U.S. coup attempts have been unsuccessful.
The U.S. government was the hand behind the recent coup in Bolivia where another rich ruling class puppet declared herself leader. But the Bolivian masses led by the Movement for Socialism and rooted in indigenous leadership have fought back and are winning.
The persistent Monroe Doctrine policy of the U.S. that declares ownership of Latin America highlights how little respect the United States has for international democracy. Since the establishment of Chavismo in 2002, the living conditions for the working class in Venezuela have improved dramatically. The failed 2018 coup spearheaded by Trump and Venezuela’s capitalist class demonstrates that imperialists only care about seizing and hoarding profits for themselves. As workers in the south, we denounce the U.S. military and economic intervention on Venezuela and recognize the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their own national destiny.
In September, monopoly media corporations such as Zoom, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter censored the voice of Leila Khaled, an iconic symbol of resistance, a socialist, and a militant leader of the struggle to free Palestine and all the oppressed. The Arab studies department at San Francisco State University has been violently attacked, and their hosting of Leila Khalid was canceled by the school.
“I am proud if anyone sees me as a symbol of resistance; it gives me more strength for the struggle. To see a woman anywhere struggling for a just cause gives me hope and courage for my people. Women give their life for the struggle in Palestine and elsewhere”
—Leila Khaled
The U.S./Israeli/UAE/Saudi dictators use U.S. weapons to oppress and steal the homes and lives of Palestinians and destroy the people of Yemen. Yet in the face of jailings, assassinations, starvation, and death by COVID-19, the heroic resistance continues. We join with others across the country to break the silencing of Palestinian voices. Please listen to Leila Khaled speak here.
