The Coronavirus pandemic is advancing. While the rich and powerful as well as their families protect themselves in mansions, luxury condominiums, they move in cities in private cars, cleaned, if not in helicopters and enjoy all the necessary assistance from the private health network; most workers and the poor live the insecurity in living in precarious places, without adequate infrastructure, sanitation, treated water, using overcrowded public transport and depending on a scrapped poorly equipped public health service.
The reality is that the world is stopping, people are dying and it is the fault of all governments that for years have tried to dismantle public services with plans for fiscal adjustments and diverted money from health with corruption, while the population, even with the heroic effort of doctors, nurses, nursing technicians, etc. mostly civil servants, for years it has been bitter waiting for an appointment, medication and also treatment to cure their illnesses.
It is an outrage that in the midst of such a crisis, President Bolsonaro and his sinister Economy Minister Paulo Guedes tell us that we have no reason to worry, that we have to go on with normal life and work, and the worst that they try to approve in the National Congress to take away rights and privatise the public service.
Enough anguish and suffering! We need to stop this situation! The poor and hardworking people, responsible for building the country’s wealth, cannot afford to pay the current crisis with their lives while governments and employers protect themselves from the Coronavirus with the wealth produced from our sweat.
If we can’t go out on the streets to protest, we also won’t be working until the cure for Coronavirus has been found and the threat of death from contagion is no longer existent.
During this period we demand:
1. Non-payment of public debt to bankers and immediate revocation of all reforms that remove rights from the population (expenditure cap, labour and social security reform) and the end of all tax amnesty (tax exemptions) given to companies and multinationals.
2. 10% of the GDP (totality of all the wealth produced annually in the country) for Public Health that enable the strengthening of the Unified Health System (SUS). Immediate public tender at the federal, state and municipal levels for health professionals at all levels and functions. Public money for public health!
3. The country is in a health emergency and health does not rhyme with profit. Availability of all beds in the private health network for the population. Private hospitals and clinics that refuse to serve the population must be nationalized without any compensation.
4. Massive investment in vaccine and drug research, funding for universities and public laboratories.
5. Distribution of food and hygiene items in popular neighbourhoods.
6. Prohibit by law of dismissals and suspensions in the public sector and in the private sector.
7. Reduction of working hours, without reduction in wages, with rotation of shifts. Where workers refuse to work due to the lack of health guarantees, not only the allowance for absences is guaranteed, but also full pay without any loss of social rights or payment of unworked hours.
8. IMMEDIATE SUSPENSION OF SCHOOL CLASSES at the national level with the guarantee of all labour rights for workers in education. For countries and guardians who miss work to be with their children, we demand that they have their days paid and their absence from work paid. Guaranteed salary for all workers, formal and informal, who have to leave their work due to force majeure.
9. Residential flu vaccination campaign aiming to immunize and clarify the population about Coronavirus symptoms and treatment.
10. Payment of 1 minimum wage of DIEESE for all the unemployed and who do not enjoy any social rights.
11. Make vacancies available to workers / homeless people in the large chains of hotels, dormitories and motels in all cities as a mechanism to protect the homeless population living on the city streets. Establishments that refuse to comply with this measure must be expropriated and placed at the service of the population, without any compensation.
12. Distribution in all public places and with great circulation of products and instruments that help in the protection of the Coronavirus for the population.
13. Freeze all water, electricity, telephone, internet charges. Freeze all food products in the basic basket.
14. Freezing of fuels, cooking gas, IPTU and IPVA. Income tax exemption for those earning up to 6 minimum wages.
São Paulo, March 16, 2020.
Socialist Alternative / PSOL
Socialist Struggle / PSOL
United to Fight / CSP Conlutas
Feminist Collective Marielle Vive!