To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
April 26, 2020
Re: The COVID-19 crisis: the world is not going back to normal
by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers' Voice
COVID-19 isn't only a world health disaster, but it is also intensifying existing economic and political crises. Faced with catastrophe, many governments are doing things that they would not have thought of doing just a few months ago; trillions of dollars are being laid out in relief bills. But the class nature of the governments hasn't changed. In the US, the relief packages give a lot to the bigger corporations, and are spotty at best with help for working people. The poor are dying disproportionately; millions of people have lost their jobs; and essential workers face the threat of infection. Meanwhile major cutbacks in state budgets and social services loom, with the states facing the possibility of bankruptcy.
As far as COVID-19 itself, stay-at-home orders provide some necessary protection for the public health, but workers and minorities have been left largely to fend for themselves. And so, even in the midst of mass unemployment, a number of protests and short strikes have taken place across the country. Workers are seeking to ensure that their workplaces take measures to protect them. Medical workers are protesting inadequate medical supplies, the lack of personal protective equipment, and the cover-ups by hospital administrations. Prisoners have gone on hunger strikes.
And things aren't going to go back to normal in a few months. COVID-19 is likely to leave permanent changes in the economy. This underlines the importance of the protests taking place now, albeit they are modest in size. They take place at a time when millions of people are seeing their lives ruined unexpectedly. They are taking place at a time when many governments around the world are taking repressive measures in the name of fighting COVID-19. We are entering not just a period of one crisis after another, but a period of major change, albeit it won't be immediate and it's not clear in which direction the change will be. If the working masses are to have any influence on what is to come, it is important that they develop struggle on their own behalf.
This is especially the case in the US, but also true for most countries around the world. In the US, there haven't been enough tests, protective equipment, space in the hospitals, or public health personnel. There was no planning for how to preserve people's livelihoods in a crisis, and what to do about rents, mortgages, schools, food supplies, and access to needed goods. Indeed, there was no planning in advance about how to preserve supply chains of essential goods.
The countries that have done best so far with COVID-19 learned
something from previous coronavirus outbreaks such as SARS (severe
acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003 or MERS (Middle East respiratory
syndrome) 2012-8. But despite the experience of dealing with HIV, SARS,
MERS, Ebola, Zika, and other viruses, and repeated warnings by doctors
and researchers over the years, most of the neo-liberal world was
unprepared. There is little profit in being prepared for disaster. The
rich must have figured that it didn't matter, since in the past it's
mainly the poor who have suffered. So just as the capitalist world
dithers as all-out climate catastrophe gets closer and closer, so it
shrugged off the threat of pandemics.
Even when stay-at-home orders are eased, other measures against COVID-19 are likely to remain for some time. Even a vaccine might not bring everything back to normal: there are flu vaccines, and yet every year there is a flu season, and so some measures to control COVID-19 may be around for a long time. Trump keeps hoping for a silver bullet -- be it drinking disinfectant, using untested drugs, or blaming China -- that will make the crisis go away, but the death toll keeps rising.
Meanwhile, the economic shutdown caused by stay-at-home measures have closed schools and various social services, led to layoffs and loss of income, and shattered ordinary life for many working people, particularly the most disadvantaged. It threatens to bankrupt pension plans, which are losing their income; many people may lose their homes; many hospitals and social services also face bankruptcy; and state and local governments may be slashed. All this will leave scars that will last a long time even if COVID-19 disappears.
And yet, COVID-19 is only one in a series of 21st century disasters. Millions of people have already been afflicted by wars, austerity, and climate disasters since 2000, and there are more catastrophes coming. Before the world recovers from one disaster, another comes alone. Everyone is being affected, albeit quite unequally. Intermittent crisis is the new normal.
The American government is spending trillions of dollars to keep the economy afloat. Yet economic devastation is coming. The problem isn't just that these measures funnel money to corporations and through banks. It's not just that while the bailout measures are promoted as providing aid to the unemployed and self-employed the fine print has one restriction after another, and the unemployment agencies are overwhelmed.
It's that there needs to be direct material planning of the economy, not incentives to big business and banks. Direct planning must be used to ensure needed supplies. The privatization of government functions must end. Government agencies must directly aid people and communities; they must be more transparent; and working people and minorities must be directly involved in the running of the programs.
This is not just a COVID-19 crisis, but a crisis of neo-liberalism, privatization, and the free market. The trillion dollar relief packages are only a superficial departure from neoliberalism; there needs to be a more fundamental break from market fundamentalism.
COVID-19 doesn't affect everyone equally. The death rates for minorities in the US are much higher than the overall rate. Structural racism has led to minorities having more physical ailments, living in more polluted communities, and having more precarious lives, and this increases how deadly it is when COVID-19 strikes. Moreover, minorities, lower-paid workers, and women are disproportionately subjected to conditions where they might pick up COVID-19. The poorer the worker, the less likely that they can work from home. Essential workers are disproportionately women or minorities. The ability of children to continue their schoolwork from home depends on whether they have a connection to the internet, whether they have suitable space at home, or even whether they are homeless, as quite a few are. Undocumented workers aren't eligible for relief checks. The reality of life in capitalist America is exposed by what's happening to people in COVID crisis.
This inequality is global. Poorer countries may have less hospitals and doctors, or not be able to afford the necessary medical supplies. In some, cities are such that large numbers of people simply don't have the space for social distancing. They also face other crises at the same time, such as the gigantic locust swarms in East Africa. Despite everything, there has been a greater emphasis on contact tracing in some of these countries than in the US. Nevertheless, they face disaster as COVID-19 spreads into them.
Mass layoffs, stay-at-home orders, and social distancing regulations have put a damper on protest in general. But despite the difficulties, people aren't just waiting for the authorities to act. Protests have broken out around the country. They are modest in size, but widespread. This is one of the most important developments during the COVID-19 crisis.
These protests have taken place as workers have been faced with intolerable conditions, threatening both their lives and their livelihood. In workplace after workplace, the capitalists have shown no respect for the health of their workers. Hundreds of workers were infected in the Smithfield food processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and they constituted a majority of COVID-19 cases in that state. In Detroit, it took a one-day strike by bus drivers to get the city to take some measures to protect them. 68 transit workers have died from COVID-19 in New York City, and about 2,500 have tested positive. [1] Grocery stores have been slow to provide protections for shoppers and store workers.
In response, there have been short strikes to fight for serious protection from COVID-19 among auto workers, bus drivers, sanitation workers, Instacart delivery workers, Amazon warehouse workers, construction workers, Whole Foods and other grocery workers, etc. This has taken place at hospitals as well. Hospital administrators, far from being better than other executives, have sought to muzzle doctors, nurses and staff to prevent them from talking about the lack of protective equipment and inadequate conditions. The New York Times reports that "In New York City, the epicenter of the crisis in the United States, every major private hospital system has sent memos in recent weeks ordering workers not to speak with the media, as have some public hospitals ... Similar lines are being drawn nationwide." [2] Nevertheless, there have been strikes and protests among nurses at a number of hospitals around the country, and a list of nurses who had died treating COVID19 was read at a demonstration on April 21 outside the White House. Indeed, some medical workers have counter-demonstrated in opposition to right-wing protests against state stay-at-home measures.
There have also been rent strikes in New York City ("Can't Pay May"), Denver, California and elsewhere, as more and more laid-off and unemployed workers can't pay rent. The state and federal bills that provide rent or mortgage moratorium postpone payment, but don't cancel it, so renters will be faced with gigantic bills that they can't pay once the moratorium period is over. Evictions may be postponed, but will still take place.
The overcrowded jail and prison system fosters the spread of COVID-19, and a number of inmates have died of it. Prisons in turn are a source for the spread of COVID-19 throughout communities, as prisoners leave jail and as guards are infected as well. There have been demonstrations demanding the release of nonviolent prisoners, while in a number of prisons, inmates have demanded measures against COVID-19. Meanwhile the Trump administration is still filling immigration detention facilities as fast as possible, and these are hotspots for the spread of COVID-19. Three hunger strikes took place at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. A dozen more strikes have taken place at other facilities around the country. [3]
(To be continued)
(1)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/20/us-bus-drivers-lack-life-saving-basic-protections-transit-worker-deaths-coronavirus
(2)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/business/coronavirus-health-workers-speak-out.html
(3)
https://mailchi.mp/jerichony.org/pnews-people-detained-at-the-northwest-detention-center-spell-out-distress-signal-sos-as-they-begin-the-third-hunger-strike?e=d7d93f45a3
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Posted April 27,
2020
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