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Letter to the Editor: COVID-19 Vaccine Can Save Lives. End Racism in Access.

With great fanfare, as if announcing a miracle, the state proudly declared the vaccine was now available to those 70 and above and those with problems that put them at higher risk. It made a good photo-op for the politicians, who receive vaccines, have healthcare, fat pay checks and are allowed to take bribes and get rich at taxpayers’ expense.

Monday, Jan 4, arrived with 7 pharmacies in New Orleans each getting 107 shots to give out. You had to have known about it and have internet access and time to sit waiting for the list to go online. After pharmacies were listed, the phones were instantly busy, and people spent all day calling, even though the appointments were gone in minutes. Hundreds ran to pharmacies, desperate, only to be turned away without a future appointment. Three hours after all appointments were gone, Mayor Cantrell’s reelection PAC announced the vaccinations were available. Anything to look good, except for those who know better.

With only 749 shots available, a disgrace in itself, the most hard-hit Black seniors and at-risk people should have been offered it first. The vaccines should have been made available at community centers within walking distance, not at far-flung pharmacies.

Once again, capitalist medicine has failed to provide real care, given huge profits to the rich, and resulted in lots of inequality. They probably want us to fight each other for the shot, but we won’t; we’ll fight the capitalists instead.

-At-risk senior in the Florida neighborhood.

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Letter to the Editor

From a Library Worker

Since COVID-19 erupted in New Orleans in mid-March, library workers have been fighting for workplace and community safety. We’re very aware of our vital place in the community, and also the enormous potential to contribute to community spread of the virus. Because of our unique position as a public resource and a potential site of infection, we want to do our part to serve the enormous needs of the public as safely as possible. There is so much we can do while mitigating the risk to ourselves and those we serve. This crisis presents an opportunity to reinvent our library system (and our city) as a more tech-savvy and flexible organization that responds to the changing needs of the citizens of New Orleans — if our administration and city government give us the resources and trust to do so. So far, they have lacked the imagination to build a true “City of Yes” or to listen to those of us with the most experience and investment in New Orleans, especially city workers.

Now, Mayor Cantrell and CAO Montano, with the complicity of the City Council, are attempting to kill the library’s independent millage, rolling it into a larger city millage that will cut 40% of the library system’s budget while siphoning our designated tax funds into unspecified “economic development” projects. If this proposal to combine dedicated millages succeeds, they will dole out tax funds to the library, but only what they think we need, and only as long as we comply with their agenda for us and for the City.

Make no mistake – this cut isn’t because the library is overfunded, but because the library has access to dedicated tax funds that the City can’t easily access. These are funds that the citizens of New Orleans overwhelmingly voted to dedicate to the library in 1987 and 2015. The Mayor’s ballot proposal is demanding you say that your own judgement about where your money should go was wrong, that the Mayor and CAO know better how to spend your tax dollars. At meetings last month, City Council members ignored over 900 public comments, most saying “we want our money to go to the library, don’t do this” in order to approve this proposal. Many public comments invoked the global demands of the BLM movement and protests, reminding Councilmembers that the public has called for cuts to the New Orleans Police Department, not the library system. If the proposal passes the Bond Commission, it will be on the ballot December 5, 2020 and your only option will be to VOTE NO to the proposal to kill the library’s dedicated millage. After the public defeats the Mayor’s agenda, we will seek to encourage her to put a true millage renewal on the ballot in 2021.

There is so much we can do before December 5th – contact your Councilmember, the Mayor and CAO and tell them you do not support this proposal to kill the library’s independent millage. Promise everyone you contact that you won’t vote to re-elect them if they support this rampant misappropriation of both city funds and public trust. When you tell others about what they’re attempting, make sure to point out that this is about controlling tax funds the public designated to specific departments, because that’s the part they’re counting on the public not to recognize. They’re using the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic to talk about austerity and budget shortfalls, but this combined millage was proposed to the City Council in 2019, before COVID-19 had affected the City. Their agenda is to kill the dedicated budget of one of the only institutions in New Orleans that exists only to serve the people of New Orleans – each and every one.

They’re coming for the library’s budget now, but it won’t stop there. Please join us. You can email us nolacityworkers@gmail.com and follow our fight on Facebook at facebook.com/cityworkersnola

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Migrant, Citizen Worker Solidarity is Key

By A New Orleans Resident

The collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans is a clear example of how the blood and sweat of workers are exploited only to make the rich even richer. Because rich bosses hire workers, exploit their labor, and show time and time again that they do not value us, worker solidarity is more critical than ever for the well-being and safety of the working class.

Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma is one of five workers who rightly filed a lawsuit seeking damages for the physical wounds suffered during the building collapse. The workers are taking a stand because they know that the building collapsed as a result of materials that were inadequate and supports too thin and insufficient for the building.

After filing the lawsuit and speaking to the media about the experience, Ramirez Palma was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), preventing him from telling his firsthand experience, preventing him from fighting for his rights, and preventing him from accessing much needed medical attention for the injuries he suffered.

The capitalist system which exploits the labor of workers for the benefit of the rich does NOT care if the labor is provided by Black workers, poor white workers, or migrant workers.

Mourn for the Dead, Organize for the Living: Construction unions, migrants’ supporters gather to honor Hard Rock workers. The Oct. 17 vigil was organized by the Southeast Louisiana Building and Construction Trades Council. These unions should p[ledge to open organizing campaigns in every construction site and open their doors to all workers, including migrants.
The capitalist system uses racism, documented vs undocumented, or gender-based discrimination to create roadblocks to worker unity. In the end, these forms of divisiveness only end up hurting workers. When we come together and turn our attention to those who exploit us, then and only then, will workers win what is rightfully ours.

It’s intolerable that in pursuit of tourist dollars in the city of New Orleans, which already brings in the most tourist dollars in the world, the rich business owners are putting workers, residents, and tourists in harm’s way by cutting corners. They are putting the safety of the workers and the general public at risk.

Migrant workers (and all other workers) gave labor, blood, sweat and tears to rebuild this city, so we must stand together when workers need to speak up, rise up, and fight for rights and safety. This is our duty!

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Income Inequality in New Orleans Charter Schools

By Beatrice Deslondes, Letter to the Editor

Many charter school and charter network leaders are earning upwards of $200,000 per year in a city with a median income of $38,721.

My survey of budget audits for 34 New Orleans charter schools for the 2017-2018 school year reveals:

  • Among charter networks, CEOs received an average salary of $190,743 while managing an average of 4 schools.
  • Among non-network schools, the average principal earned a base salary of $143,417.

The salary charts of the neighboring public school district of Jefferson Parish recommend that a principal earn up to 1.75 times a teacher’s salary. On average, leaders in New Orleans earned 2.96 times what teachers earned.

Most audits stopped including teacher salaries in 2017-2018, but audits for the two previous years reveal a trend of increasing inequality. Between the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 school years:

  • Average teacher pay dropped nearly 1% at non-network schools ($50,644 to $49,768) and 0.2% at networks (from $51,005 to $50,640).
  • Average leader salaries increased nearly 9% at non-network schools (from $144,217 to $155,234) and over 20% at networks (from $156,828 to $176,329).

Teacher shortages are a problem in New Orleans. According to a Cowen Institute report, teachers in New Orleans with Master’s degrees and 5 years of experience would need to spend 44% of their income on rent alone.

Information about pay for paraprofessionals or co-teachers is lacking in the audits. The Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) lists salaries for “Aides” between $18,863 and $23,955.

The school workers who support students’ most critical needs—security, nutrition, and health—are among the worst paid. The OPSB pay scale permits paying nurses and security workers as little as $22,427, while nutrition workers can earn as little as $16,000.

A 2018 report by the United Way of Louisiana concluded that the minimum annual income required to support human life in New Orleans in 2016 was $19,548 for a single adult and $53,988 for a family of four.

Income inequality contributes to high turnover rates in the school system and economic instability in the communities it is obligated to serve. Pay transparency and living wages for all school employees should be required of all institutions receiving public funds.