Posted on

Louisiana Workers March Against Evictions

On September 8, the New Orleans Workers Group organized a rally and march demanding that the city reinstate a ban on evictions.

People marched down the streets chanting, “Don’t starve, fight! Housing is a human right!” and “No More Rent!”. Speakers at the rally emphasized the need for unity between the employed and unemployed to build a militant organization of the working class to combat not just evictions but all the murderous policies the ruling class has used to wage war on us workers, from forcing us to return to work and denying people unemployment benefits to cutting social programs and giving huge bailouts to businesses.

When asked what brought them out to the march, one worker said, “I’m here to support the workers of our community. It’s absolutely inhumane that the city is willing to put people out on the streets during a pandemic.” Another worker remarked, “This state prioritizes landlords’ rights over renters’ rights. Housing is a human right. New Orleans already had a huge eviction rate before the pandemic, so now I’m very frightened and concerned about what might happen. I’m also concerned about the evacuees from Lake Charles. How long will they be displaced? Hotels are open for tourists now. But what kind of care are residents from Lake Charles getting?”

30,000 families in New Orleans are at risk of eviction. The majority of these households are Black, brown, women and children. Already people have been pushed out on the streets. Housing is our human right, but it’s going to take an organized mass struggle for us to win it.

Posted on

Nurses Demand Safety Protections, Relief: “We Aren’t Hospital Propery”

On August 5, members of National Nurses United (NNU) held more than 200 actions inside and outside hospital facilities across the country. They are demanding emergency production of PPE and cash payments, extended unemployment benefits, and daycare subsidies through the end of 2020 to support families in crisis.

“Nurses know that this country’s rampant social, economic, and racial injustice has been killing our patients all along. COVID-19 is just forcing us as a society to face these problems,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN and NNU executive director. “These recent COVID surges and uncontrolled infections and deaths, the failure of employers to protect our nurses and other workers, the outrageously high rates of unemployment and hunger, the totalitarian crackdown on protesters — every crisis we are seeing now can be traced back to our failure to value human lives over profit.”

“Nurses are still at risk,” said Mary C. Turner, an intensive care unit RN and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, whose members are participating in the actions. “We still reuse PPE that was meant to be discarded. We still care for COVID-19 patients and non-COVID patients at the same time. And we still struggle to protect ourselves so we can protect our patients.“

“COVID has exposed everything that has been wrong with our system,” said Zenei Cortez, RN and a president of NNU. “The old way was a huge failure. Now is the time to reenvision a world based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community.”

Source: National Nurses United

Posted on

In Demonstrations Around the World, Workers Say “No U.S. War or Sanctions on Iran!”

North Texas Chapter of Veterans for Peace.

The U.S. on behalf of the super rich, oil companies, banks, war profiteers and the whole capitalist class is once more threatening the lives of millions of people in the Middle East and at home. U.S workers, youth, and oppressed people have no stake in another rich man’s war.

Funeral and protest in Iran, Jan. 6.

We are not threatened by our sisters and brothers in Iran or Iraq or elsewhere, who have every right to defend themselves. Our national security is threatened by the White House, Congress and the assault on every social benefit we have won for ourselves. Trump and his white supremacist regime are the real threat to workers.

Protest in Philippines.

Boston, Massachusetts.

 

Posted on

Gun Violence Should Not Turn a Profit: A Revolutionary Take on Guns in the US

 

By the New Orleans Workers Group

Dear fellow students and workers,

We congratulate the youth movement for taking the first steps to fight gun violence. We are all grieving and outraged by the school shootings in Parkland and throughout the United States.

But more than thoughts and prayers, what we extend is Solidarity. As much as we grieve, we work for a solution.

This work begins with the question: Why? Why do we have a culture of gun violence?

Our answer: Because arms dealers make a killing off it.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in Newton, while families were burying their children, gun corporations were laughing their way to the bank. During that year following the shooting, the three largest gun manufacturers (Sturm Ruger, Remington Outdoor, and Smith & Wesson) saw their profits skyrocket 70%. As a whole, the gun industry adds up to $8 billion.

Where do these profits go?

Arms dealers live in luxury. Firearms tycoon Ugo Beretta lives in a mansion, walls decorated with elephant tusks and buffalo heads, Venetian chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. He drives a Maserati, has a private butler and cook, and his wife had a teddy bear made for her out of cash—and his gun company is only the 9th largest.

Everything that doesn’t fund the arms dealers’ blood mansions floods the NRA’s multi-million-dollar bank vaults.

Then the money-making cycle restarts as the NRA funds America’s profitable gun cult. Gun lobbyists have politicians at every level of government in the palm of their hand, all the way up to Donald Trump, who received $30 million from them. In some states, like Florida, lobbyists skip the politicians and just write the gun laws themselves. It’s there that the NRA pushed through the “Stand Your Ground” law, which justified the murder of Trayvon Martin and basically legalized hate crime. It’s not just political: the NRA wants to make violence a part of everyday culture. Their ads are just propaganda putting the mask of “freedom” on gun violence. Their million-dollar donors get the NRA’s “Golden Ring of Freedom”— which comes with a fancy blazer and a lifetime of lavish receptions and parties. This is nothing short of a glorification of America’s violence.

What do we think is the fix?

The New Orleans Workers Group believes gun control misses the main point. It treats the symptom, not the disease: profit, and the culture of violence it creates. Even if we have gun control, the (rich white) people who can afford guns will still find ways to get them because they’re in such a profitable market. Meanwhile the poor will be left defenseless. Everything from background checks to buyback programs will hit working class communities the hardest. Black communities will have nothing to protect themselves against hate crime and police violence.

At the end of the day, we can’t solve the gun problem as long as arms dealers can turn a profit.

We also believe that this point is for the entire culture of violence and can’t be separated from police brutality or war profiteering. No kind of arms dealer should make profits– whether they sell to shooters, racist cops, or the US military empire.

No massacre is too big or too small for them: if militarizing a racist police force or launching a war will make money, they’ll make it happen.

Racist cops and war are just as much of cash cows as school shootings. Glock, a top 10 gun corporation, sells 2/3 of all police handguns, the same handguns that the police uses to murder 1,000 people per year (hundreds of them black and indigenous). General Dynamics, Raytheon, BAE Sytems, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin (the top 5 military arms dealers) make a grand total of $133.9 billion yearly. They’re the biggest money-makers, responsible for the biggest bloodbath: the “War on Terror” that’s so far killed 4 million Muslims, mostly innocent civilians. But that’s 4 million lives they’re ready to spare if it lines their pockets.

There’s no way around it: The solution to the capitalist culture of violence involves eliminating guns for profit and wars for profit.

If the government can regulate profits made off things like medicine, it can make it a crime for arms tycoons to exploit violence to line their pockets. It’ll be up to the students and workers to build a movement to make that happen.

Love and Solidarity,

The Students and Workers of the New Orleans Workers Group