By Luis Meiners ISL US
With 426,300 cases and 14,622 deaths (8 April) the US is one of the hardest hit countries by coronavirus in the world. After systematically denying and downplaying the effect the pandemic would have, the Trump administration has later set out to use it to further an agenda of racism and capitalist profiteering. But the working class is now fighting back.
Covid-19 has revealed the deeply rooted structural inequalities upon which the world´s biggest capitalist economy is built. It has also proven the extent to which a profit-driven privatized healthcare system poses a mayor health hazard to the vast majority of the population. Workers have been simultaneously labelled as essential and made to keep on working in increasingly vulnerable high-risk situations. At least ten million people have filed for unemployment. Millions more are forced to choose between risking their lives by going to work or losing all income.
As much as the pandemic has triggered an economic crisis that was already on its way, it has shed the masks and unveiled contradictions, changing the concrete life experience of millions in a way that is bound to have strong effects on the present and future of class struggle.
Class, race and gender in the face of Covid-19
Inequalities are at the center of the spread of the pandemic. The virus has had a much larger toll on working class communities all over the US. As studies of cities such as New York, Chicago and St. Louis have proven, people´s zip code is quite an accurate predictor of the chances they have both to become infected and to develop serious illness.
The reasons for this are quite clear. In the first place, the possibility to adopt and maintain social distancing are unequally distributed. Lower income jobs are much less likely to be open to the possibility of working from hope, essentially because many of them require physical presence. For example, while 57.4% of people working in financial activities are able to telework, the percentage drops to 17.2% in construction or 16.5% in retail and wholesale trade. A study by the Economic Policy Institute with data of Bureau of Labor Statistics shows how the possibility of working from home drops dramatically as the earnings descend: 61.5 percent of workers in the highest quartile of the wage distribution can telework, compared with only 9.2 percent of workers in the lowest quartile. Another indicator of these inequalities is paid sick leave. While at the top ten percent of the income pyramid 93% have access to paid sick leave, the percentage drops to 30% in the bottom ten percent.
Workers in grocery stores, delivering food and other essentials, working in food preparation, in warehouses and transportation, healthcare workers and others are all considered essential in the midst of the pandemic and are amongst the lowest payed jobs and have some of the worst working conditions.
The profit-driven healthcare system makes these inequalities even deeper. 12% of the US population is not insured and an additional 33% is underinsured. 79 million people have difficulties paying health related debts. Added to this, Covid-19 poses a greater risk for people with underlying medical conditions, many of which affect lower income communities much harder as they are linked with inadequate living conditions, polluted environments, malnutrition, etc.
As much as these figures show how exposure to the virus increases as income gets lower, they fall short from accounting for the class divide with the truly rich. Billionaires are avoiding Covid-19 in luxury housing and travelling by jet. In January, as the pandemic hit Hong Kong, jet travelling from the island to US and Australia spiked by 214% compared to the same month last year.
The main risk factor that workers face is the relentless corporate drive for profit. The pandemic has proven the extent to which this is systemic condition that will not stop even in the face of the most extreme conditions. Huge corporations have put profits over people. Amazon refused to slow down or stop non-essential work at its warehouses, chose not to alert workers when one of them tested positive for coronavirus, refused to close the warehouse to clean it and finally fired Chris Smalls for protesting. McDonalds and other fast food chains have refused to provide basic health equipment for its workers who are amongst the lowest paid in the economy. General Electric decided to lay off 10% of its workforce while simultaneously outsourcing production to non-unionized locals. Grocery store chains such as Whole Foods refuse to pay sick leave. The same can be said of governments towards workers in the public sector, even in hospitals they have failed to provide adequate protective gear.
Class based inequalities are combined with racial, ethnical and gender inequalities. The numbers show how African American and Latinx communities are being disproportionally affected by the virus. According to data from New York City blacks account for 28% of the Covid-19 fatalities and Latinxs make up 34%, despite the fact that they constitute 22% and 29% of the city’s population respectively. These numbers get even worse in other parts of the country. In Louisiana blacks make up 70% of deaths but only 32% of the population.
Both African Americans and Latinxs make up a larger proportion of those who have no access to insurance or are uninsured. They also have worse overall living conditions which correlate with underlying health problems. They are also at higher risk of catching the virus because of their work. Only 16.2% of Latinxs and 19.7% of blacks can work from home compared to 29.9% of whites.[1]
Women are also disproportionately represented in low income, high risk jobs considered essential. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics women make up 75% of hospital workers and 88% of psychiatric, nursing and home health aides. With children at home and the need to care for sick family members, the unequal distribution of unpaid domestic and care work adds a burden with women doing an average 242 daily minutes compared to 148 minutes by men. Women are also loosing more jobs than men due to the economic crisis. According to Labor Department Statistics women made up 60% of the jobs lost in the first 700,000 layoffs.
Finally, coronavirus has served as an excuse to exacerbate racism and gender oppression. Trump´s repeated reference to it as the “Chinese virus” and increasing racist attacks to Asian Americans has shown once more the extent to which racism is embedded in the DNA of US capitalism. At the same time, Republican governors from Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Alabama are trying to reverse reproductive rights by banning abortion with the excuse that all non-essential medical practices should be postponed.
Workers fight back
This reality is shaping working class response. Sick outs, stand ins, and wildcat strikes are starting to spread as we witness a strike wave that is begging to develop. It is being pushed forward by essential workers in grocery stores, fast food chains, hospitals and distribution centers. Many of them are not unionized, and haven´t participated in protests before. Others have, and their struggles build upon recent experience. The Fight For $15 movement of fast food workers, for example, is now organizing protest actions for health, wages and working conditions across the country.
As workers are forced to continue work in high-risk conditions, we can expect an increasing urgency for action and experiences of struggle at one workplace inspires others to follow. At least 35 wildcat strikes have been registered across the country in the past month[2]. Amazon workers at the Staten Island and Chicago warehouses, gig workers of Instacart, Whole Foods workers, have been amongst the most active fighting back. Workers in the fast food industry organized simultaneous strike action in over 30 restaurants in California. Nurses have staged protests across the country. General Electric workers resisted layoffs and demanded to produce ventilators.
The demands being put forward are focused on the exposure to health risks. Lack of protective gear and social distancing guidelines in workplaces, paid sick leave and safer working conditions are amongst the most recurring demands. As these high risks are combined with low wages, hazard pay is also one of the most urgent demands.
As the crisis deepens and working-class action spreads, the left can play a crucial role. Experiences are already showing how socialists can play a fundamental role organizing in workplaces. The conditions created by the combination of the pandemic and the economic crisis have an enormous impact on the way millions live their day to day life. Millions witness and experience directly how governments and corporations put profit before their lives.
We can expect these changes to have a profound and sustained impact. We must also take into account the impact of global rebellions in the very recent past. In the US strikes had been growing in the previous years, even if from historically low numbers, and radicalization had been developing as can be seen by the increased popularity of socialist ideas.
This of
course doesn´t mean that radical change will come about mechanically. The trend
to social and political polarization of the past decade will increase.
Struggles and radicalization will further develop. This will bring about new
challenges and opportunities for the revolutionary left. It is up to us to
organize and seize them.
[1] Economic Policy Institute – US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
[2] https://paydayreport.com/covid-19-strike-wave-interactive-map/