COVID-19

January 29, 2021

The failures of the DSA are going to get us killed

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Trump supporters breach the Capitol on January 6. I was visiting my mom and we were getting ready for dinner when I received frantic texts from comrades from Mexico City. “What is going in the US? I just saw the videos from the Capitol”. I assumed it was some Proud Boys getting violent as usual but when I turned on the TV and watched thousands of Trump supporters outside the Capitol and an armed stand-off inside, I knew this was different.
As we commented on the chaos over dinner, my grandmother, who is blind, began to tense up, she was getting worried, we were talking about civil war, Donald Trump and running away to Mexico. I tried to reassure them that things would be OK, and that this would be resolved appropriately, but deep down, I wasn’t—I’m not—so sure.

May 25, 2020

by Julian Guerrero

Building tenants’ power in the Bronx: interview with Manny Pardilla

As of May 7th, at least 33.5 million people are unemployed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The poor response by the state and employers is pushing working class people into tension with the pressures of everyday struggles. Healthcare workers are demanding greater protection, housing activists are calling for mass rent strikes, unemployment claims are expected to grow – this crisis will continue to expand. The push by capitalists to re-open the economy, and the state’s unwillingness to face the deadly realities of the pandemic will mean that Covid-19 is generating the conditions for mass struggle in the United States.

The organized labor movement’s timid efforts to push the Federal Government has been uninspiring and with huge swaths of working people disorganized, the descent into further barbarism stands over us all. The tasks faced by the new socialist movement in overcoming this divide stands over it like a mountain. But there are militants on the ground who are doing what they can to organize the people around them and build independent organizations.

May 12, 2020

by Trans Asylum Seekers Support Network

La Hermandad es Primero

La pandemia de COVID-19 ha creado mucho sufrimiento alrededor del mundo, pero también ha creado oportunidades para solidarizarnos. Hoy nosotras – mujeres trans de El Salvador – venimos a informarles de la situación dolorosa que vive nuestra comunidad en estos momentos y para pedir su apoyo.

Yo, Naty, soy una mujer trans buscando asilo en los Estados Unidos. En este momento vivo en el oeste de Massachusetts, pero nací y me crié en El Salvador. Yo, Aislinn Odaly’s, soy una activista trans basada en San Salvador. Desde hace 21 años me he dedicado a luchar por el bienestar de mi comunidad en una sociedad violenta y discriminatoria. Juntas, tenemos profundas raíces en las comunidades LGBTQI+. Conocemos muy de cerca las necesidades de la comunidad trans, que ha sido una de las comunidades más vulnerables del país durante muchos años, aún antes de esta pandemia.

May 5, 2020

by Lupita Romero and Hector A. Rivera

Puntorojo roundtable: What’s next for the Latinx left?

Now that Bernie Sanders has left the race and endorsed Joe Biden, several articles in The Red Nation, New Politics, Latino Rebels and Jacobin, have assessed the campaign and offered next steps for socialists. At puntorojo, we’d like to contribute to this comradely debate by opening up our magazine for others who want to contribute their reflections. In this piece, we offer two reflections from members of our editorial collective and we invite other Latinx and people of color (POC) socialists to contribute their insights and perspectives as we move forward in a post-Bernie landscape.

May 1, 2020

by Colectivo Ollin Calli

Coronavirus y conflictos en las maquilas

En México vamos entrando un camino que los y las trabajadoras de Italia ya han andado: la pandemia del coronavirus se ensaña en los y las trabajadoras de los parques industriales. En Bérgamo, Italia, ya les ha pasado. En Baja California ya estamos entrando pero hay resistencia. Para el 21 de abril, justo cuando el gobierno federal mexicano ha decretado la “Fase 3” de la pandemia, tres conflictos principales se agudizan en la maquila: (1) Trabajador@s vs empresarios maquileros para que no les obliguen a trabajar arriesgando su vida y el de sus familiares por el coronavirus; (2) Gobierno de Baja California vs empresarios maquileros tratando de obligar a las maquilas que no son “esenciales” a que cierren; y (3) Trabajador@s vs empresarios maquileros demandando que les paguen su salario “integro” mientras están en casa por la pandemia, y no sólo el “mínimo” o aun peor que se les despida sin salario.

April 14, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

COVID-19 and Imperialism: the coming disaster and revolt

As the coronavirus spreads across the globe, the impact is winding its way through the hierarchical channels of the global capitalist system. As the richer nations approach the apex of the first wave of the infection, the pandemic is just hitting the poorer nations. The combined catastrophe of mass-infection and economic collapse is going to be more destructive and the effects longer-lasting in societies historically under-developed by imperialism. This refers to the internationalization of the capitalist system by the dominant economic powers, who then divide (and re-divide) and economically exploit other nations through the institutions of neoliberal capitalism.

April 3, 2020

by Norell Martinez

Healthcare workers vs. the virus: an interview with a hospital janitor fighting at the front

Janitors are essential workers yet they are at the often the most underappreciated and least paid in the healthcare system hierarchy. Here, Norell Martinez interviews a healthcare worker who is battling COVID-19 daily, but is one of the thousands of frontline, “essential” workers—many of whom are immigrants—whose labor and stories of sacrifice go unrecognized.

While much attention is being paid to doctors and nurses working on the front-line of Coronavirus crisis, little attention is being placed on the cleaning staff that work in medical facilities.

March 30, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

How to win a rent strike

This communique is specific to the current conditions facing tenants in San Diego, California, but applicable to renters everywhere. There are specific reasons why tenants go on a rent strike, and there are ways to win. Just like workers in labor unions, tenants use the rent strike as a method to apply pressure and gain leverage in negotiations versus ownership/management. Tenants typically use rent strikes to demand repairs, negotiate better contracts (i.e., lower rent increases), and to protest against abusive management.
Rent Strikes can be effective when they are well-coordinated and based on a sound argument. Uninhabitable living conditions, requesting repairs that have gone unaddressed for over sixty days, gouging rent increases, threatening/bullying/abusive management and landlords could all be valid reasons for conducting a rent strike.

March 26, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

Bailouts are class warfare

The global capitalist economy has quickly stumbled into recession, a process already unfolding before the COVID-19 pandemic came into full view. The effects of the spreading virus have led to rolling closures and shutdowns to large swathes of different international economies, inducing a full-blown crisis that is now breathlessly impacting people across the world.