IV542 - March 2020

These days we have been able to read various articles that ask us to think about what is not always obvious: that this health and social crisis is not having the same consequences for everyone, and that, yes, coronavirus does understand social class. To this it should be added that it also understands gender and immigration status. This statement is based in the situation of domestic and care workers, a sector that is especially feminized and covered by migrants - many “without papers” - who, at this intersection of inequalities, face greater vulnerability to the health and social crisis in terms of class, gender and immigration status.

In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008-2009 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly-mutating, global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities.

Although not yet at the top of the Covid-19 international headlines, Brazil may soon emerge as one of the disaster’s epicenters. A deadly combination of social inequality, racism and sexism, vicious state repression, and a Trumpian far-right president is putting hundreds of thousands at risks. But Brazil’s working-class and social movement are fighting to defend themselves, striking for the right to quarantine. Here, Brazilian socialists respond to No Borders News questions as part of our ongoing international Covid-19 coverage. [NBN, 23 March 2020.]

The British Conservative Party (usually referred to as the Tories) have had considerable success in their decades long project of smashing up working class organisations and atomizing working class communities. Unions are not illegal but the barriers against taking industrial action keep getting bigger. Strikes are rare. The cash in hand, informal, insecure economy employs millions of workers who are difficult to organize, even for those few unions which try.

Many of us have been confined to our homes for more than ten days. Taking out the trash, shopping, or walking the dog have become the three easiest escapes. The truth is, the Covid-19 crisis will probably make us more demanding with science fiction, but it can also make us go crazy on the way. So, I’ve compiled 5 tips for surviving confinement.

As is the case everywhere, the big news in Chile is the rapidly escalating coronavirus contagion. But just last October, Chile’s neoliberal order was shaken to its core when a popular revolt exploded, detonating general strikes, occupations, and mass mobilizations. Pushed into a corner, the mainstream parties were forced to agree to hold a national referendum, scheduled for April 2020, to rewrite the Constitution, a holdover from the Pinochet dictatorship. And just two weeks ago, more than 1,000,000 women struck and took to the streets on March 8 and 9 on International Women’s Day to demand social and economic equality. Now the coronavirus has forced this struggle into quarantine while the government’s only bold action in the face of the pandemic is to postpone the Constitutional referendum. Perhaps nowhere on earth is the class struggle and the struggle against the Covid-19 crisis so intense as in Chile.

This interview with doctor Gérard Chaouat, immunologist, CNRS researcher was conducted by l’Anticapitaliste and published on 25 March.

The COVD-19 pandemic and the attendant economic crisis raise big-picture questions of great importance to socialists. Disasters, natural, human-made or a combination of both, such as wars, famines, economic depressions and epidemics, often trigger great political and social crises affecting all areas of life. This brief article offers reflections on the ways that crises have raised the question of the relationship between self-organization and socialism.

As of March 28, France ranks fifth in global Covid-19 deaths, with 1,995 deaths (365 and 299 on Thursday and Friday respectively) and approximately 33,000 dedected coronavirus infections. As the contagion rages out of control in neighboring Italy, Spain, and Germany, French health workers have battled to treat the sick and dying. Wednesday’s death of a sixteen-year-old girl has only compounded the national tragedy. President Emmanuel Macron has ordered series of belated emergency measures (yesterday calling in the military), yet non-essential businesses continue to operate placing millions of workers at risk. It is too early to tell when the Covid-19 peak will hit France and tens of thousands of lives are at risk in the coming weeks and months.

Compounding the health crisis in France, the coronavirus arrived in the midst of a massive battle over Macron’s attempt raise the retirement age and impose neoliberal cuts on pensions. After large-scale strikes across France in the fall and winter, including the longest transportation strikes in the nation’s history, Macron hopes to ram through his attacks under the cover of effective marshall law. He may succeed in the short-term, but Macron will struggle to suppress the anger fueling recent strikes, a growing immigrant rights movement, and the long-running Yellow Vest protests as the coronavirus crisis drags on.

Late on 24 March, Ireland’s Health Minister Simon Harris announced “For the duration of this crisis the State will take control of all private hospital facilities and manage all of the resources for the common benefit of all of our people. There can be no room for public versus private when it comes to pandemic.” Here Eamonn McCann looks at how production can be reorganized to solve the coronavirus crisis and more. It has been done before and it can be done again.