Portside

The catastrophe demonstrates the results when public health is subordinate to private profit and to a governmental apparatus that adulates the superiority of private over public administration.

Flight attendants are aviation’s first responders. We have now become frontline workers during a global pandemic. For many of us, however, the immediate threat of the COVID-19 virus is not our top concern.

Joe Biden has racked up endorsements from four of the largest — and most politically influential — unions in the past 10 days, a show of force that has bolstered his standing as the de facto Democratic nominee for president.

In some countries, workers will have 90 percent of lost wages covered. In others, residents fear eviction. Nation to nation, rescue plans reflect conflicting ideas of government’s role in a crisis.

Sara Nelson is working overtime to help craft a relief package for the teetering airline industry that keeps all employees on the payroll—a model she says can be “a template” for a national bill to give relief to all workers.

This is an edited version of a piece by Leopoldo Tartaglia of the international department of the CGIL, Italy’s largest union federation. Thanks to Peter Olney for the translation.

When things get dire enough, the working class fights back. In dealing with the outbreak of the coronavirus, people across the United States have organized at their workplaces, and also won major reforms in the housing sector.

It is in our power to decide how to meet this crisis.  We could deepen divisions and set off on the fool’s errand of building “Fortress America.” Or we could use it to build community, forge solidarity, revive internationalism, renovate democracy.

As fallout from the coronavirus pandemic hits the economy, it’s slamming the American workforce: Some 18% of adults reported that they had been laid off or that their work hours had been cut, a new poll found.

As fallout from the coronavirus pandemic hits the economy, it’s slamming the American workforce: Some 18% of adults reported that they had been laid off or that their work hours had been cut, a new poll found.