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Stand Up for Farmworkers

We Need Farmworkers, We Don’t Need Greedy Capitalists

by Jennifer Lin

COVID-19 is killing migrant farmworkers across the country. Farmworkers cannot socially distance as they work closely together and live in overcrowded housing. Many do not have access to bathrooms or clean water. While these essential workers risk their lives during a pandemic to put food on everyone’s tables, corporate farmers are denying them masks, paid leave, and hazard pay. How dare they, when Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave corporate “farmers” over $19 BILLION to boost their profits.

Over 70% of farmworkers are migrants. Even though they feed us all they do not get unemployment benefits or stimulus checks, food stamps or Medicaid. Because of their terrible working conditions, which can be taken away if unemployed, working or staying home is equally a death sentence. Now racist politicians are blaming them for spreading COVID-19.

Florida governor DeSantis is scapegoating migrant farmworkers for the state’s record surge in COVID-19 cases. He said these workers are “overwhelmingly Hispanic” and “you don’t want those folks mixing with the general public.” DeSantis is not just racist, he’s a liar. The state health department did not provide data to back his claims, and according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, most new cases have occurred in areas with little agriculture and is due to bosses bowing to corporate pressure to reopen and refusing to carry out measures to stop the spread. Beaches, bars, and right-wing churches are packed disease-spreaders. COVID-19 cases in Florida are spreading in migrant communities at a deadly rate because DeSantis and the capitalists do not care about the people. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (farmworkers), have been demanding tests, contact tracing, quarantine spaces, PPE, and relief funds for the county’s farmworkers since April. DeSantis has ignored their demands.

Farmworkers are joining hundreds of meatpacking workers, warehouse workers, healthcare workers, hospitality workers, teachers, firefighters, longshore workers, and more in strikes to demand essential protections. In Wasco, CA, workers in the union United Farm Workers organized a strike and picket line after 150 of 200 workers at Primex Farms, a nut company, tested positive for COVID-19. After ignoring workers’ demands for PPE, social distancing, and sick leave, Primex retaliated against the workers by firing them. But these workers will not back down; they demand to return to their jobs under safe conditions. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the United Farm Workers have started petitions around their demands.

Trump and Democrat politicians are killing essential workers. They are giving billions to agribusiness and Agribanks but withholding benefits to farmworkers. They do not care if we starve or die; they want to send us all back to work so that they get can get rich off our backs. These greedy capitalists are waging war on us, and farmworkers and other essential workers are on the frontline, fighting back. Without farmworkers, we don’t eat. It’s time we stand in solidarity with farmworkers and demand protection for them and all the essential workers who keep us alive!

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COVID-19: U.S. 170,000 Deaths, 5.5 million infections; Socialist Vietnam, 26 Deaths, 989 infections

by Z Petrosian

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.

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Jefferson Parish School Staff & Parents Continue Fight

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…

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New Orleans Hospitality Workers Demand Income Replacement During Pandemic

From our comrades in the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Alliance, their demands of the city to meet the immediate needs of workers during the COVID-19 emergency:

List of Demands

  1. Immediate expansion of unemployment insurance. Change the current eligibility to include those who stay home during this crisis, who do not have paid leave. This should extend to all gig, independent contractors, and freelance workers. 
  2. Expansion of Medicaid to all who need health care.  
  3. Expansion and an increase of food stamps to all workers and families in need.
  4. Testing, ER visits, and treatment for COVID -19 must be free for all and administered at conveniently located test centers that are geographically dispersed. Expansion of testing must be done urgently
  5. Issue an order that no workers be fired for staying home  
  6. Immediate closure of restaurants, retail shops and bars with a guarantee that when the establishment reopens workers will get their jobs back. 
  7. Those who choose to keep working at essential places like pharmacys, hospitals and supermarkets should be given full protective gear. 
  8. Order a state-wide halt to evictions, foreclosures, water, electric and internet cut offs. (Including student loan payments and credit card debt.)
  9. People without homes should be provided shelter and utilities necessary to protect themselves from both contracting and spreading COVID-19. (We have enough houses to shelter every person in the city, and we demand that anybody in need of housing is granted access to one of our numerous uninhabited units.)
  10. Establish a system for no cost food  and other necessities distribution to quarantined people or areas and to sick or self-isolated households
  11. Price controls put into effect to shield workers from the disruptive effects the virus has on the global economy.
  12. Establish easily accessible centers to replace breakfast and lunch for all students. (Currently New Orleans has only set up one school each on the East and West banks. Closing the schools without many food centers will create massive hunger for Louisiana’s children.)
  13. Waive citizenship requirements for state and local benefits  to ensure all workers have the option to stay home and effectively contain the virus.
  14. Immediate release of migrants in detention camps and incarcerated people not convicted of violent crimes. (These sites are overcrowded with limited access to healthcare. This will improve containment of the virus and cannot be ignored. Provide remaining prisoners with free phone calls as visits are being stopped and deposit money in their commissary accounts especially as prisoners must buy their soap, etc.)
  15. Guarantee replacement income for all (on top of the expansion of unemployment)

The eyes of all workers in Louisiana, who are very aware of the huge inequality between legislators and government official’s income and health coverage, are on the actions of the government.  This is the time to suspend state and local corporate tax exemptions to provide resources for these measures. Suspend the city charter which gives $180 million dollars in tourist taxes to private companies, suspend the $300 million dollars in public funds that is being used for a private convention center hotel and the millions being used for the super dome renovation. 

These public funds MUST be redirected towards this crisis immediately!

We hope you will carry out the responsibilities to the people of our state and work expeditiously to enact these necessary measures.

Sincerely, 

The New Orleans Hospitality Workers Alliance

504.444.9096

www.NOHWA.org