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The Great Louisiana Car & Home Insurance Swindle

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER OWNED BY THE COMPANIES
NEW STATE TASK FORCE WON’T SOLVE PROBLEM

By Gavrielle Gemma

Once again car insurance rates went up this year, just like every year before. Some hugely profitable companies got rates hike of 15%. Orleans Parish and Baton Rouge drivers are charged 25% more than surrounding areas. Louisiana homeowners pay 143% higher rates that other states Despite low wages, Louisiana has the second highest car and homeowners insurance rates in the whole country.

Why is this? Because the Commissioner of Insurance, Jim Donelon, like those before him are owned lock stock and barrel by the industry. The Commissioner of insurance is elected every 4 years, but it is hardly democratic. The Insurance industry turned over a million dollars to Donelon. As one opposing candidate Donald Hodge put it : “Louisiana doesn’t actually have an Insurance Commissioner. The insurance companies have an Insurance Commissioner,” This shows once again we don’t have a real democracy, we have a capitalist state that functions to shovel profits to big business at the expense of the workers.

HOW MUCH MORE CAN WE TAKE?
A whopping 18% of our family budget pays for insurance, sometimes more. But in a crisis, it doesn’t even cover our losses. Donelon complains the high cost is because so many drivers lack comprehensive coverage. You need a car for work, but you only make $7.25 or even $11 an hour. We can’t afford even basic liability. A ticket for no insurance and your life can spin out of control fast. Insurance has become a tax imposed by the government to subsidize the insurance industry, which makes record profits.

Louisiana has given exemptions to corporations that have totaled $11 billion in 10 years. These taxes should be collected, and we can set up a people’s insurance fund, with a board of residents to oversee it, all prohibited from payoffs from the companies. This board could insure drivers and homeowners in the event of any catastrophe, accident, fire or flood.

THIS IS CORRUPTION
If the Insurance Commissioner got a free driveway from a company, it is corruption. But in the eyes of the law, if he takes a million dollars in campaign contributions, it’s legal. In actuality, campaign contributions are bribes, and you are guaranteed a cushy job in the industry if you leave the post. Prior to being the Commissioner, Donelon was on the legislatures Insurance Committee, also the recipient of campaign contributions (bribes) to pass favorable laws for them and against the people.

While the rich members of the state legislature have allowed and aided in this corruption they finally had to admit it’s out of control. Their answer is to set up the Louisiana High Auto Rates Task Force. But who is on it? Legislators, insurance companies, lawyers and corporations. They were appointed by guess who? Jim Donelon, the puppet of the insurance industry.

Once again it is clear that independent working class organizing is necessary on this critical hardship. We should be wary, not hopeful, of this Taskforce, which may try to enact measures forcing drivers to buy more insurance or impose more fines.

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Grassroots Organizing Does the Trick – Missouri Workers Win Big

If your only source of news is CNN, FOX, MSNBC, or other corporate-owned (and corporate-oriented) media outlets, you would not know much about the organized peoples’ struggles in this country, and around the world, that are, in some cases, making real advances. The recent union victory in Missouri is a case in point. Workers have achieved something really remarkable, with long-range implications.

The labor movement in Missouri galvanized voters to strike down anti-union, and anti-worker “right to work” legislation in an August 7th referendum. The legislation was defeated with a 2-1 margin. 100 out of 114 counties voted it down, with St. Louis voting 88 percent “no.”

“Right to work” is a policy that is designed to take away workers’ rights. By making union membership optional in unionized workplaces, the power of the union is weakened, tilting the scale in favor of big corporations.

The strength or weakness of unions affects all workers, not just union members. This is born out by the fact that – in “right to work” states like Louisiana and Mississippi – workers have lower average wages, more workers uninsured, and higher rates of on-thejob injuries and deaths. In other words, overall conditions for workers are lowered for workers, and poverty is exacerbated, in states with these anti-union laws.

What is, perhaps, most remarkable, is the ways that the unions went about organizing. Over the course of six months, the unions sent out over 1,000 volunteers (mostly rank and file union members) across the state to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to call a referendum. They actually collected over 300,000.

Almost anyone active in movements today understands the need for having a digital media presence. But these recent union campaigns show that meeting people face to face is still one of the most effective ways to organize. Union volunteers knocked on 770,000 doors (think about that for a moment!) and went wherever workers were gathered.

As Labor Notes reported (labornotes.org), “Robert W. Shuler II, a forge operator and president of IUE-CWA Local 86821 in Centralia, recruited 35 members to go to poker runs, the state fair, bike runs, and festivals all summer.”

Shuler says that these efforts have fundamentally changed his union local for the better. “We have more attendance at meetings. People are asking about stuff to do. Something like this gives people hope.”

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Coastal Alabama and Mississippi: Coca-Cola Workers Go on Strike

In August, Coca-Cola workers in coastal Alabama and Mississippi carried out a multi-day strike. The strike – organized by the 250-member Teamsters Local 911 union – has affected four Coca-Cola distribution plants. Workers organized work stoppages in Robertsdale, LeRoy, and Mobile, Alabama, as well as in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

This has certainly gotten the attention of the Birmingham-based Coca-Cola Bottling Company United Inc. Since the start of the strike, the company has resorted to the classic union-busting tactic of hiring replacement workers, also known as “scabs.” But, the union has stuck to its guns.

On August 13, protesters gathered along U.S. 90 at Coca-Cola Road in Mobile. Picketers carried signs expressing union solidarity and denouncing the company’s scab-hiring maneuvers.

According to the union, the main complaint is starting pay. New hires could see a pay cut of $5-$7 an hour. Union representatives say that with new hires making so much less than current employees, workplace relations will sour. Workers in the same operation will be divided. And, of course, the company will want want to bring in more of the lower wage employees and force out existing employees who are in the $19 an hour range

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“No Union for Fascists” – Sioux Falls AFL-CIO Bans Fascists

The working class movement and fascism have always been opposed to one another. Even though fascists make appeals to sections of the working class – particularly white workers – this is never more than empty rhetoric; for all of Donald Trump’s talk about blue collar workers and reviving coal country, we can see that his administration has done everything they can to undermine workers’ rights, to the benefit of the bosses. Fascism and white supremacy are props that hold up the power of the capitalist class. Fascist power hurts workers, but workers’ power is the weapon that smashes fascism and white supremacy!

The AFL-CIO in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has reaffirmed this truth. This union local recently amended their constitution, officially banning all fascists and white supremacists from the organization. This move was meant to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the death of Heather Heyer, a union member murdered by a fascist organizer at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

In a message on their website, Sioux Falls AFL-CIO president, Kooper Caraway, stated: “It is our duty to let our fellow workers know that Fascism, White Supremacy, and its organizations have only ever existed to divide us as workers and do the dirty work of the Boss Class. The White Nationalists have always been bought and paid for by those in power, they exist not to fight for any ideal, but to destroy the progress made by us as working class people. That is why the Sioux Falls AFLCIO voted to Ban all Fascists and White Supremacists from our organization.”

In the statement, Caraway cited the long history of struggle between labor unions and the Klan. In the Jim Crow era, hundreds of union organizers were murdered by the Klan. On the other hand – together with civil rights and black liberation organizations – unions have historically helped to keep the power of the Klan and other vile reactionaries in check

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Student Hunger on U.S. College Campuses

By Dylan Borne

36% of students are food insecure, according to a national study published by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab in April of this year. Out of the 40,000 students surveyed at 66 schools, another 36% are housing insecure and a full 9% of university students and 12% of community college students are homeless.

This means tens of thousands of students nationally have to pick between food, a roof, and textbooks. In other words: either you get a meal now or a paycheck later.

On a historical level, what these numbers show is that greater numbers of working class people are attending college. Being a student isn’t just for the privileged anymore, and bosses are becoming more and more demanding for workers with degrees.

But while colleges might be opening their doors to low-income youth, they’re not lowering tuition for them. In fact, they’re taking advantage of working class students’ desperation. Tuition rates are skyrocketing and university administrators are raking in 6 figures or more. The UL system’s President makes $400,000, and at the highest end Tulane’s last president stepped down with an ending salary of $1.6 million.

Pretending they’ve found the end-all solution, some colleges, like Southeastern and LSU, have set up food pantries. But these are just breadcrumbs. LSU only lets students use their food pantry twice a week (when their president is bringing home a $600,000 salary!).

Even with food pantries, what will students do about housing? Healthcare? Crushing debt?

Pantries are surely helpful, but they’re clearly not enough– they don’t grasp the root of the problem.

When schools are run like businesses for administrators’ profit, working class students suffer. Colleges should be run to provide education before anything else, and students need real decision-making power to make sure that happens. A Students’ Assembly should have a say in whether or not a tuition hike or food limit gets passed. It’s impossible to get a real education while you can’t even meet your basic needs, and the school leadership’s greed shouldn’t be getting in the way.

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The Craige Cultural Center Fights to Stay Alive

By Michael “Quess?” Moore

One of the least considered, yet most divisive aspects of gentrification is the way it splits communities and pits folks against each other. Quite often this rift results from the mad scramble for dwindling resources in communities under siege by hyper capitalist agendas. Here in New Orleans, we’ve watched public housing transition to “mixed income” housing as the black middle class and a mostly black City Council looked on apathetically displacing their own people. We’ve watched the education system sold off to the highest bidder in the mad rush to privatize schools into charters. And amidst it all, we’ve watched our community institutions get sold from under our feet while we looked on seemingly unable to do anything about it.

The Craige Cultural Center at 1800 Newton St. on the Westbank is one such institution. For 43 years, the community center has served as a hub for black folks on the Westbank (and beyond) to receive community services ranging from chiropractic treatment (the founder was a doctor), to job training (i.e. IT training), to GED Prep, to cultural education events featuring renowned African scholars like Anthony Browder and Professor James Smalls as well as several renowned locals poets, singers, rappers and artists. Founded by Thomas Craige and Loyce V. Craige in 1974, the center has been managed by their two sons Vince and Todd for the last 14 years.

On July 26, 2018, the center was sold behind the owners’ backs in a sheriff sale only hours after a temporary restraining order and only minutes after a preliminary injunction had been issued to have any potential sale stopped. This backdoor deal culminated a year and a half process of shady dealing in attempts to sell the property against the owners’ will. According to the lead curator of the space, Vince Craige, “They must rescind the sale due to negligence and investigate how this horrendous act could have occurred as the injured party had two judges signatures and a court date. The Craige Center could very well be victims of an orchestrated land grab.”

A rally attended by some 100 community members was held on August 3to support the Craige brothers’ center and promote their court date that took place on August 8, Vince’s birthday. The rally ended with the son of the black woman that purchased the center behind the Craige’s backs, making a case for why he deemed his mother’s greedy capitalist land grab to be justified. To follow and support the campaign to “Rescind the Sale!” and keep the Craige Center alive, follow them on Facebook on the Craige Cultural Center page. And most importantly, come out to their court date on September 5 at 1:30pm at Civil District Court at 421 Loyola Ave. Section J, New Orleans, LA 70114. This could be the difference between losing or keeping a cultural institution. COME THROUGH!

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Puerto Rico Teachers Fight Against Privatization and Low Wages

Members of the Puerto Rico Federation of Teachers marching through San Juan

The people of Puerto Rico (or Borinquén, in the indigenous Taíno language) are in a situation all too familiar to New Orleans. The island is still in a state of crisis nearly a year after Hurricane Maria made landfall, thanks to the criminal negligence of the U.S. colonial government. On top of that, the working class is under intense attack in the form of budget cuts imposed by the federally-appointed Fiscal Control Board.

As with other spheres of life in Puerto Rico, the education system is threatened by the budget cuts. If the Fiscal Control Board has its way, the public educational system will be completely gutted and replaced by private schools.

Educators are resisting, however. They are demanding an end to the school closures as well as increased pay and an overall better allocation of resources to education. On August 15, the Puerto Rican Federation of Teachers carried out a work stoppage and marched through old San Juan. The march started at the Plaza Colón and went to the governor’s office.

According to the union president Mercedes Martinez Padilla, “The public education system,… the students and their teachers, have suffered the most brutal attack in history. Secretary of Education Julia Keleher has decreed the closure of some 450 schools in two years and has reduced the number of educators from 31,000 in 2016 to around 22,500 today. The government is poised to push the creation of dozens of private charter schools, subsidized with public funds.”

So far, over 250 schools have already been closed, including many that were in perfectly functional condition. Instead of keeping these schools open, Keleher is having them spend millions on FEMA trailers for classes that each cost over $42,000. Many special-needs children have not been given assignments. Many children are meeting in gazebos and buildings/trailers without AC and have not been provided with transportation for their new school assignments.

Given these extreme attacks, the educators have much to fight for.

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Indigenous Peoples of Peru Strike to Defend their Lands

By Meg Maloney

Indigenous people have long been at the front-lines of resistance against multinational corporations who pollute the environment through deforestation and mineral, oil and gas extraction. The indigenous peoples of Atalaya are demanding action be taken to stop extractive industries from further polluting their territories. Atalaya is the largest of four provinces in the Central Amazon Rainforest in Peru. Natural resources are being given to corporations without the consent or consultation of the indigenous people. Gas and wood are being extracted without the permission of the people who have lived on these ancestral lands for over 7,000 years.

The indefinite strike which began August 15 is to protest the negligence of national, regional and local authorities who allow the Ucayali and Urubamba rivers to be polluted by extractive industries. “We want the central government to enter into a dialogue with us,” said Edwin Jumanga an indigenous rights activist with AIDESEP. The groups involved have stated that they will block the routes used to transport cargo through the rivers. Through unity and organization, the Quechua, Aymara, Ashaninka and other indigenous peoples are resisting large multinational corporations and armed groups. The strike will continue until Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra agrees to meet with the affected communities and their representatives.

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Venezuelan President Survives Assassination Attempt

Working Class, Oppressed Masses Rally to Support Maduro

By Quest Riggs

In early August the world watched as Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, narrowly survived an assassination attempt. While he was giving a speech to soldiers of the Venezuelan military, two large explosions detonated in the air injuring seven military personnel. The two bombs were attached to small drones that were on course to the stage where the president and his wife were standing, alongside many of the highest ranking officials of the government and military. In this way, this terrorist attack was not only an assassination attempt on the president of the Republic: it was yet another coup attempt by the farright bourgeoisie of Venezuela in cooperation with North American imperialism.

In a speech after the attack, Maduro asked, “What would have happened if this attempt on my life was successful? What would be happening today in the streets of Venezuela?” He went on to say, “I tell the Venezuelan opposition that I guarantee you can live in this country peacefully. If something happens to me, you will have to face millions of Campesinos and humble people making justice with their own hands.”

The next day, thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to show their support for the government and their willingness to mobilize in defense of their revolution. Thousands of workers, peasants and students marched dressed in red, and they were joined by the armed community militias who organize to defend Venezuela’s independence. They rally because of the social improvements for many workers and poor people in Venezuela in housing, education and wages during Maduro’s presidency. But their main objective is to protect Venezuela’s independence from North American imperialism, which is in the offensive to dominate the workers of South & Central America and the Carribean.

Across the continent the forces of imperialism and capitalism, the richest people in the Americas, are murdering poor workers- especially those who organize and fight for their communities. They are plotting to strip all of the independence fighters in Latin America of power and tear down all barriers to their profits and domination. But the people, the workers, will never lie down in the face of oppression and exploitation!

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U.S. Hands Off Iran! Build a Anti-Imperialist War Movement

By Malcolm Suber

Ever since May 8 when the Trump government announced that the US was pulling out of the 2015 agreement between world imperialist powers and Iran over its nuclear program, the US government has launched an aggressive offensive of speeches by members of the state department and the US military threatening war on Iran. The US aims to force Iran to end its nuclear program and its support for the Syrian regime and the Houthi freedom fighters in Yemen.

The Trump government, in typical gangster fashion, is using sanctions against the Iranian regime in an effort to starve Iranian people into submission to US imperialist dictate. The Trump regime believes that as the last remaining superpower it has the political right and military might to reorder the entire globe to its liking. The US sanctions against Iran are meant to disrupt the Iranian economy by requiring that its junior imperialist powers in the European Union and Great Britain support the US sanctions or have their trade with the US disrupted as well.

The aim of the US campaign against Iran is to clear the entire Middle East of regimes which are hostile to US domination of the oil-rich region. The US also requires recognition of the Zionist state of Israel. Already, the US is supporting Saudi Arabia’s bombarding Yemen with the most up to date military planes and battlefield equipment, sold to them by the US military industrial complex.

The war mongering assault by the US is a complete violation of the sovereignty and the right to self-determination of the Iranian people and state. Why should the US have the right to pick and choose who should rule in the other countries of the world? Why should only some countries have the right to nuclear weapons while claiming that others should be denied that right? Clearly the US imperialist government, which is the only government that has used nuclear bombs in war, can’t be that arbiter.

Trump has gotten on Twitter and created a straw man by announcing that the US government will go to war with Iran if they threaten the US. He wrote: “Never, ever threaten the US again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before”.

Of course Iran has not threatened the US; it has condemned US incursions on its territory and warned that it will defend their territory as is their right as a sovereign country. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hit back at Trump’s tweet. “Color us unimpressed. The world heard even harsher bluster a few months ago. And Iranians have heard them- albeit more civilized ones- for 40 years. We’ve been around for millennia and seen the fall of empires, including our own, which lasted more than the life of some countries. BE CAUTIOUS!”

The US working class must take seriously Trump’s threats to wage war against Iran. We have a duty to oppose all US war plans by building up the anti-imperialist war movement here in the US. The Iranian people and state are not our enemies. Iran and other oppressed countries like North Korea and Venezuela are trying to live independent lives not dictated by US imperialism and need our support. The New Orleans Workers Group will work tirelessly to educate workers about our real interests and our internationalist duty to oppose US imperialist war.