Broad Demands for a New Direction for Politics and the Economy 
October 29, 2020. Nurses
at Good
Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles hold vigils for health
care workers who have died of COVID-19.
As
election day draws near, people are bombarded by poll after poll and
reporting of all kinds as to who might win the presidential contest.
The campaigns and media are part of an effort to derail the ongoing
mass movement with its aim for change that favours the people. However,
the scope and determination of the resistance is such that youth and
workers are keeping matters in their own hands and pursuing their fight
against government racism, COVID-19 failures and for equality, justice
and accountability. This is evident in various actions being taken.
Nurses, for example, on the initiative of National Nurses
United (NNU), joined with community organizers to hold vigils across
the country from October 26 to November 1. They honoured and mourned
the more than 2,000 health care workers who have died from COVID-19,
while taking the stand to fight for the living. The names of the 2,000
dead, including 232 nurses, were compiled by the nurses themselves.
While the military keeps record of its dead and wounded, the government
will not do the same for health care workers and all the other
frontline workers who have upheld their social responsibility despite
facing illness and death. Health care workers have
remained on the front lines despite the lack of personal protective
equipment (PPE) and being targeted for speaking out for their rights.
Their vigils took the stand that all elected officials and big hospital
employers must be held accountable for their failures. They brought out
that African Americans, Latinx and Filipinos are disproportionately
impacted, with a significantly higher infection and death rate. They
are demanding that the economy be geared to meet the needs of all
workers for safe working conditions, including sufficient PPE,
staffing, testing and sanitizing and 14-day paid sick leave for
quarantining.  Nurses are
calling on the federal government to use the Defense Production Act
to greatly expand production of all the PPE that workers and the public
more broadly require. Commonly the Act is used for war purposes. Nurses
are demanding instead that the Act be used to ensure production to meet
the needs of the people. They are also calling on the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to provide a National Safety
Standard for pandemic conditions that all private and public workplaces
must uphold. OSHA so far has said regulations already in place are
sufficient. In demanding accountability from the federal government,
and all elected officials, health care workers are also indicating
their desire for a new direction for politics, where government
agencies and officials are responsible for the well-being of the
people, not the monopolies and their narrow private interests.
A number of unions filed a lawsuit against the federal
government October 8 along similar lines. The unions include the
Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the Transport Workers Union (TWU), the
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
(AFL-CIO), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU), the Association of Flight
Attendants (AFA), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). The unions collectively
represent more than 15 million workers in front line industries that
have suffered thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of
illnesses from COVID-19, many as a result of insufficient PPE.
The lawsuit calls on Health and Human Services Secretary Alex
Azar and Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to act immediately to
ensure the manufacture and distribution of PPE. Both agencies failed to
respond to an August petition from these same organizations, along with
others, demanding emergency action to supply PPE to workers. Warehouse,
meatpacking and cannery workers have also organized walkouts and other
actions demanding that their right to health and safety be respected.
 Postal workers
and teachers have been organizing for safe conditions. They have been
an integral part of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and are
fighting efforts to privatize the post office and public schools.
Teachers are standing up for education as a right and a public service,
and postal workers for the post office to be expanded as a public
service. This drive reflects a general recognition of the public and
the concept of public good, something the current direction of the
economy and politics are eliminating. With COVID-19 closures and remote
learning, many teachers, students and parents are looking into
organizing education anew, in a manner that favours all and puts
control and decision-making in their hands.
The
persistent movement against racist police killings and violence and for
equality, justice and accountability has sustained itself without
let-up since May. More than 20 million people from all walks of life
have directly participated. Control over policing and, more generally,
a new direction for what constitutes safety and security in cities and
communities, is a main focus of demands across the country.
People are fighting to be empowered to decide these matters.
They are calling for an economy geared to eliminating poverty and
politics that guarantees rights to housing, health care and a
livelihood -- recognized as important to safety and security. They want
control of budgets, which invariably provide far more funds to
policing, and the violence and racism it entails, than to social
services and meeting the needs of the people. And perhaps more
significantly, as the people's actions have persisted and the
government violence and lack of accountability has as well, discussion
is taking place about the existing political set up, that its
constitution and election fraud do not serve the interest of the people
and block the development of a society that does. Various
organizations, including Veterans for Peace, are calling for a peace
economy, demanding an end to the massive funding of the Pentagon and
the militarization of life. Veterans have been integral to the movement
against government racism and violence, including organizing to protect
the youth from police. The connection between U.S. wars and aggression
abroad and state violence against the people at home has long been
made. People are calling for an end to all the state violence, at home
and abroad, and for non-violent political resolutions of social
problems. This includes the demand for an anti-war government and peace
economy.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 42 - November 1, 2020
Article Link:
Broad Demands for a New Direction for Politics and the Economy
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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