On December 17, fast food workers in New York City became the first in the country to win protections against arbitrary layoffs and reduced hours. NYC passed two “just cause” bills that prevent bosses from firing a worker or cutting their hours without giving a valid reason, either economic or related to job performance. This is a historic win for fast food workers who have been declared essential during COVID-19 but are treated as disposable, forced to work without healthcare, a living wage, hazard pay, and paid sick leave. They are often fired without warning or reason. Like many other essential work forces, the majority of fast food workers are Black and Brown people and women, who have suffered the most from COVID-19 and bear the brunt of the exploitation and lack of job security in the fast food industry. But fast food workers have fought back valiantly. They were the first to hold rallies for a $15 minimum wage and have been rallying and striking across the country demanding safety protections and higher wages since the pandemic. We should celebrate every victory for workers, anywhere and everywhere and never forget that it is our collective power that will help us win our long overdue rights.
General Strike Shuts Down France
Workers Tell Capitalist Government, “Don’t Mess With Us!”
By Nath Clarke
Current French President Emmanuel Macron, who puts the interests of bankers and big business above the people, announced plans to gut Social Security, affecting millions of people across the country. The Yellow Vest movement and many unions have been struggling against his policies (cuts to public spending, increased taxes for the poor, and tax cuts for the super-rich) for over a year. Working French people are not done fighting back against cuts to Social Security, public hospitals, and aid for poor families.
After the government announced plans to reform retirements, several of the most powerful unions offered an ultimatum on December 15th: scrap this law or feel the rage of the people. Since December 3rd, the teachers’ union, the train workers’ union, the bus drivers’ union, the hospital workers’ union, the truckers’, the EMTs’, the airport workers’, the refinery workers’, the firefighters’—and even the lawyers’— unions have issued a call to strike.
The rage of the people is a force to be reckoned with: in Paris, public transportation has come to a halt; only every third train is running across the rest of France; entire refineries have been shut down as their workers walk out. Although the government and corporate media are claiming these unions are just lazy or that these reforms will not affect restaurant workers, cashiers, and other workers in the private sector, nobody is fooled.
Nico, a trucker from the Corbières in Southern France, said that although the strikes have made getting around difficult, he understands that these folks are fighting for everyone. Macron’s reforms will mean that Social Security is a fixed rate. In a country where inflation is constantly on the rise, this will affect all workers, particularly women and folks who earn inconsistent salaries throughout their career.
Edouard, a landscaper who has been going to Yellow Vest protests since last year, told the Workers Voice:
“The government is trying to change the entire system so that different careers get access to different monthly sums based on their supposed societal value. Meanwhile, senators and other politicians will keep their own separate social security system—which receives 1.4 billion euros of funding every year. Cops will also maintain a more beneficial retirement, as France has slowly devolved into a police state under a state of emergency; cops are maiming protesters every week in order to maintain order, while nurses, teachers, servers, and countless other workers are left to starve…This reform is just an attempt to make more money off a system that works perfectly fine… except that it doesn’t generate enough profits for the super rich.”
At the protest on Thursday the 17th, hundreds of thousands of working class folks chanted: “This is democracy,” “Less money for the bankers, more money for the people,” and “Macron, we won’t slow down ’til we stop this reform.” The French government is nothing without the working people whose labor produces all the wealth. It’s the people’s money, and when we unite and fight, we always win.
Pensions Under Attack in U.S.
By Jennifer Lin
Workers’ pensions are under attack in the U.S. In 2014, the Obama administration proposed and Congress passed a new pension law that allows multi-employer pension plans (for example, trucking and construction) to cut pensions for current retirees.
Years ago, pension funds were put in a guaranteed account with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal program ensuring that funds did not go bankrupt. Now employers put pension funds in 401K funds controlled by Wall Street speculators. These speculators profit from investments they make using pensioners’ money, but when the stocks fall, pensioners lose money.
Like the workers in France, we must take to the streets and demand an end to these attacks.
The 2014 pension law allows plan trustees to cut benefits for retirees in order to save the funds they manage from bankruptcy instead of requiring the PBGC to take them over. This ensures that bailout funds are reserved for Wall Street, not workers. Under the new law, 150-200 multi-employer plans covering 1.5 million workers will be drained over the next decade. Retirees, widows, and widowers and domestic partners whose benefits are reduced are banned from filing a lawsuit to challenge the legality of these reductions.
Due to low wages, less job security, and insurmountable debt burdens, workers in the U.S. are retiring later and later in life, only to face declining retirement incomes. In 2017, the median income of retirees age 65 or older was just $19,352.
On top of this Trump & Co. are threatening social security. All this proves that the U.S. government serves Wall Street financiers, not workers. In France, millions of workers and family members have shut down the country to defend their pension laws. Like the workers in France, we must take to the streets and demand an end to these attacks.
Billions for Agribusiness and Seafood Bosses, Nothing for the Workers
Bail Out the Workers!
By Joseph Rosen
The year through May 2019 was the wettest 12-month period on record in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Floods affected 14 million people during this time. The Mississippi River carried floodwater and agricultural runoff deep into the Gulf of Mexico, precipitating a “catastrophic regional fishery disaster,” according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. In response Congress has appropriated $165 million for damages. However, these funds are earmarked for “eligible fisheries,” not for the workers who have lost jobs or wages as a result of this latest capitalist-caused climate change disaster.
The workers deserve a bailout of their own. After all, they are the source of all wealth generated by the seafood industry.
Floodwaters killed 95% of oysters in the Mississippi Sound and toxic algae blooms forced Mississippi beaches to shut down for the entire summer season. As a result, the director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources reported a loss of $150 million to businesses ranging from restaurants to hotels and seafood processing plants. In Louisiana, Gov. Edwards announced that the fishing industry suffered a loss of $258 million.
These figures only reflect a loss of business revenue. What about the loss of wages for deckhands or for workers in seafood processing, food preparation and hospitality? According to the Louisiana Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board, more than 25,000 people work in the Louisiana seafood industry alone. While businesses are awaiting their bailouts, workers have suffered setbacks to their health and their housing because of the loss of work.
If the bailouts look anything like those going to agribusiness to pay for Trump’s disastrous trade war, the bulk of the federal funds—aka tax-payer dollars—will go to big monopoly companies leaving workers by the wayside. Last year the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture set up the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) to shield so called “family farmers” from the loss of revenue due to retaliatory tariffs. The U.S. government has already disbursed $14.4 billion in relief through MFP. The top one-tenth richest recipients have received the majority of all payments. Meanwhile, the National Retail Federation predicts that 67,000 jobs will be lost in the agricultural sector due to Trump’s anti-China trade war.
Big seafood companies are already being subsidized by taxpayers. Omega Proteins, a company whose workers harvest almost all of the menhaden (pogies) from U.S. waters, has received $2,910,958 in tax subsidies from the state of Louisiana since 2010. In that time, at least 5 workers have been killed by unsafe working conditions on Omega’s watch.
The $165 million earmarked for fisheries should be used to help laid off workers get back on their feet. We workers need to fight for our right to a decent, stable, and safe job; the bosses are never going to do that for us.
Italian Port Workers Block Weapons Shipment in Solidarity with the People of Yemen
Dockworkers at the Italian port of Genoa went on strike on May 20 to protest the Italian government’s decision to harbor a cargo ship carrying weapons to the Saudi government. The workers refused to load shipment onto the ship ‘Bahri Yanbu’ which was set to further arm the Saudi monarchy in their genocidal war on the people of Yemen. In solidarity with refugees fleeing the wreckage of imperialist wars, they demanded that the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini “open the ports to people and close them to arms.”
Earlier, on May 9, peace activists had prevented the loading of an arms shipment at the Le Havre port in France.
“We will not become complicit in the deaths of Yemeni civilians.”
In a joint statement with Potero al Popolo, a coalition of anti-fascist political organizations, the dock workers and transport workers from the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL) in Genoa stated, “we believe this resistance is our small contribution to resolve a big problem for a population that is killed daily in wars…We will not become complicit in the deaths of Yemeni civilians.”
The U.S./Saudi war on Yemen, which started in March 2016, has caused at least 50,000 deaths and has pushed 13 million Yemenis to the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations. The relentless airstrikes by Saudi Arabia—with arms and support supplied by the U.S., Britain and France—have targeted and destroyed vital civilian infrastructure like hospitals and sewage treatment systems.
Worldwide, dockworkers have played a historic role in defending the international working class. Here in the U.S., the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has shown what it means for union workers to take seriously the slogan that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” As part of the international struggle against apartheid South Africa, for 10 days in 1984 they carried out a strike, refusing to unload cargo from a South African ship—an act of solidarity recognized by Nelson Mandela. In 2014, in support of the Palestinian fight against apartheid Israel, members of the ILWU Local 10 prevented the docking of an Israeli ship at the Port of Oakland.
The leadership of organized, class-conscious dock and transport workers shows the awesome potential of workers’ power: without us, the world stops. We can stop their wars.