Portside

Eric Dirnbach looks at a range of labor movement actions and resources that have developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic disaster. The coronavirus crisis reminds us that workers must organize to save themselves.

“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer, I hear the drummin’ Four dead in O-hi-o…” --“Ohio” (1970) Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Yeah, these bastards plan to shoot eightball while we perish. Certainly these bunkers must come with vaults for the fat cats to put their cash and jewels in what with banks failing as civilization collapses.

In the last month, more than a thousand Cuban doctors and nurses have traveled to twenty countries to join the global battle against Covid-19. There’s historical precedence for this.

As the numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases climb inside the nation’s jails and prisons, incarcerated people and their family members fear for their lives.

“The global struggle against the pandemic has little chance to succeed if personal hygiene, the main measure to prevent contagion, is unavailable to the 2.2 billion persons who have no access to safe water services.”

Marquette University law professor Paul Secunda said he thinks the legal battle over right to work in the state will eventually be decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 5-2 majority. However, Secunda said Wisconsin's right-to-work lawsuit has highlighted "a real free-rider problem" with right to work, and that future lawsuits could raise similar arguments in federal court.

As Verizon employees raise their voices against corporate greed, it’s important that more of us stand up for an economy that works for everyone. If Verizon gets its way, we’re allowing corporate CEOs to rewrite the rules in their favor yet again, instead of ensuring that more of our friends and neighbors can hold the line for family-sustaining pay and benefits.

 The 1994 crime bill was never mostly about crime. It was designed from the beginning as a political symbol. Back in the 1990s, crime was to Bill Clinton as illegal immigration is to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz today: a way of reassuring fearful, alienated white voters. Like other New Democrats, Clinton had years earlier decided that the party’s best hope to win those voters back into the fold was to align themselves with a more conservative criminal-justice policy.

'If you choose to defend the status quo of corruption, there's going to be growing nonviolent resistance in the streets, at the Capitol, at your fundraisers, and in the polls, to say that we will not take it anymore.' Each day has a different theme: Tuesday, “Elders Standing for Democracy Spring”; Wednesday, “Racial Justice Day”; Thursday, “Labor Solidarity Day”; Friday, “Youth and Student Day” and Saturday, “Climate Justice Day.”