A new report has found that CEO pay is once again skyrocketing, while companies are slashing the median pay of workers. Also, Donald Trump’s allies are growing increasingly concerned about his campaign, with some who are close to the former president saying that its almost like he’s trying to lose. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This […]
France was the birthplace of modern democracy, and it may well be the start of its end. After the surprise victory of the left New Popular Front in this year’s elections, President Macron has betrayed democracy in a deal with the right to make Michel Barnier Prime Minister. Axel Persson, General Secretary of France’s CGT Railroad Union, joins The Marc Steiner Show for a post-mortem of the election, its aftermath, and how the deterioration of French politics reflects global trends in the rise of the right and the erosion of democracy.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to The Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner, and it’s great to have you all with us. Once again, welcome to another episode of The Rise of the Right, and we go back to France, and we go back to a conversation with Axel Persson, who was a train driver in France, General Secretary of the CGT Railroad Union, in Trappes, and joins us once again. Axel, good to see you. Welcome.
Axel Persson:
Thank you, great to see you again. Thank you for having me.
Marc Steiner:
It’s always great to talk to you. I was really happy when I heard we were going to do this again. I promise, the next time we’ll do it, I’m going to fly into Paris to do it.
Axel Persson:
Yes, with pleasure.
Marc Steiner:
Let me just begin in a broad question here. What is the political dynamic in France at this moment that is allowing for the rise of the right, and to the leader of the country, Macron, to fall in line with them? What is going on, and what is that dynamic?
Axel Persson:
Well, the current dynamic is, unfortunately, one that is being observed in many industrial countries in Europe, and including in the United States, as has been manifested, for example, by the first presidency of Trump, or his attempt to gain another term for the upcoming elections, which is actually a reflection of the rise and strengthening of the far right in the political landscape, but also within the very deep fabrics of French society. This dynamic, of course, it didn’t start with the last elections. It has been a long-going process for the past 20, 30 years perhaps, in France. One could argue exactly when this dynamic really started.
The rise of the far right in France is the result of growing disgust amongst the general population, and particularly within the working class, of the disgust over the two main political blocs, the traditional left, the traditional right, that has been basically taking turns at managing the system and implementing policies that are hostile towards working people, and as far as the left is concerned, regular betrayals of the promises they have been making to their electorate, which has led to the rise of the far right, which is also a consequence of the weakening of the traditional labor movement, which has not disappeared by any means, but that has been weakened by these past experiences of left-wing governments in power that have betrayed its electorate.
This has led to the rise of the far right, and of course, that has been fueled by an ongoing orchestrated political campaign that has been funded by very powerful forces in French society, including some of the richest people, billionaires like Vincent Bolloré, who is one of the major CEOs of the country, who have been methodically funding, for example, media empires in France to promote a racist agenda, and have been using the media part they’ve been basically building for the past decade now to instill racist, xenophobical ideas in the general population in order to convince a large swath of the population that all the issues, and I mean really all the issues, whether it be housing, whether it be unemployment, whether it be even job precarity, insufficient wages, dysfunctional public services or even in some aspects, insecurity in some neighborhoods, all of it is pinned not on the capitalist system, but on immigration. Everything is linked to immigration and foreigners.
If your housing is bad, if your social housing is bad, it’s because an immigrant has taken it. If your wage is insufficient, it’s because there are illegal aliens, as I say, who are doing the job for less, or foreigners in other countries who are competing against you. If there’s insecurity, of course it’s because it’s immigrants. If you just feel bad in general, they’ve managed to all link it to immigration somehow. It’s basically just racism. Of course, this racism is not new in France. France is a historical colonial power, so it doesn’t start 20 years ago, but they have been able to strengthen themselves because also of the weakening of the historical labor movement, which has historically been very strong in France.
It’s still strong by many aspects, if you compare it to other countries, but the counter society, the French labor movement that has historically been able to build in the working-class neighborhoods, in the workplaces, has been weakened, and its capacity to produce a counter society, a counter discourse in order to maintain working-class political ideology alive against that has been weakened, and the far right has managed to take the offensive and drive a wedge into society. That’s the situation right now, and Emmanuel Macron is, of course, being heavily influenced by that, and is leaning more and more towards the right. That is just the general political situation in France.
Marc Steiner:
Let me put some of the things you said together here, and explore them in a little bit more depth. One of the things that I think is a dynamic across the globe is the weakening of working-class movements, and the element of racism that also takes place in countries. It seems to me, the way you described this, that this is a huge dynamic in Paris. This maybe is a completely ridiculous digression, but when I was young, Paris was always this place, France was place that exiles from Africa and Asia could come and feel freer, and be part of a different kind of society. But now, with this immigration from northern Africa and other places around the globe, former colonies, the racism has come bubbling up. Talk a bit about how you see that synergy between the disappointment about how the left has responded to this, and the depth of racism you find in France itself.
Axel Persson:
Well, the immigration, of course, is not new in France, as I said, especially given the fact that France is a historical colonial power. It has built its economical power, like for example, Great Britain did, it was built on a colonial empire. After the colonialism more or less ended, and more or less because neocolonialism, of course, succeeded it, much of the French workforce has been, especially the big industrial cities like Paris or Marseille, or the big major industrial areas in France have been relying heavily on what they call workforce originating from immigration, which is basically just immigrant workers, but that’s just a fancy French term for it. French capitalism has relied heavily on it to build its factories, to build the public transport system, to build the roads. They have always been part of French society, but they were organized at the time, when they arrived massively.
It was also the time where the French labor movement was massively organized within the CGT, my trade union, which it still is to some extent. Most importantly, well, not most importantly, but also as importantly I would say, the influence of the French Communist Party was massive at the times, because it was a mass party with millions of members at the peak of its strength, running and controlling municipalities, more than 10,000 cities in France. It was, at one point actually, the biggest single party in parliament, but not just an electoral force. What is really important to comprehend is that it built a counter society in the areas it controlled. Whether it be in the workplaces, where it controlled the unions, whether it be in the working class neighborhoods where the party controlled even your local soccer club, the collective of people who would help children to do their homework at work were run by communist militants.
If you had a problem in your social housing, there would be a communist cell that would help you take care of the problem, and you would even go to holidays, if you couldn’t afford them, through the means the Communist Party had implemented through the mayors, through the municipalities it controlled, or through the funds the union had secured at the workplace specifically for these aspects, which meant that there was this complete counter society with its own media, its own structures that could implement these ideas of solidarity and anti-racism, basically. It doesn’t mean that everything was perfect, because there were many contradictions in these areas, but it meant that there was this identity and very strong class consciousness that kept the far right not inexistent, but much more marginal than it was today, and quite marginal within the working class especially. It doesn’t mean that the entire working class, of course, were like pure idealists. That doesn’t exist, of course.
The far right, at least politically, was completely marginalized within the working class, and that is what has changed since then. It’s not immigration. Actually, there are less people coming in and immigrating in France nowadays than, for example, 60 or 70 years ago. There’s much less, actually. What has changed now, though, is that given the weakening though of this historical Communist Party, which is, in many aspects, its own fault, the far right has basically managed to drive a wedge into the working class without finding this counter organized society. Many of the areas where the far right makes its highest scores are the former strongholds of the Communist Party, especially in northern France. It’s not the only thing, but that’s one of the most significant manifestations of how these dynamics have changed.
This is basically what the working class is facing now. It’s the weakening of the class consciousness, that is basically the whole gist of it. It’s the weakening of the class consciousness and the organizations that kept it alive. It doesn’t mean it has disappeared. It means that the organizations implementing it in a concrete manner have been weakened severely and it has given the far right, basically, a boulevard which to develop itself.
Marc Steiner:
It’s a very complex situation, and we only have so much time. I think we’re going to have do a whole series here to really bear down into what’s going on. France, in many ways, to me is emblematic of the rise of the right, and the dangers that the entire planet is facing. As you just described, the communist movements, the Communist Party and the left of the Socialist Party in France were the bulwark in the underground that fought the Nazis, organizing workers and standing up to them. There would’ve been no resistance without the communists and the socialists in World War II, of any significance.
Axel Persson:
Yeah.
Marc Steiner:
I’m wondering, what’s your analysis about why it fell apart? As you’ve said before, the left movement in France is not living up to its potential with Mélenchon, the new leader of this united left. The Communist Party has dwindled, and the right has really risen around Le Pen and others. It just skyrocketed. Give us your analysis of why that’s happened. Let me stop here, and I’ll have a closing question, but let me just let you explore that for a moment.
Axel Persson:
This development started in the 80s, actually, quite specifically. The beginning of the decline was in the 80s. Of course, it was a quite-long process, but it started in the 80s, specifically with the Mitterrand governments, with François Mitterrand, who got elected in 1981 and who actually got elected for another term. He was president between 1981 and 1995.
Marc Steiner:
Who was a socialist.
Axel Persson:
Yeah, a socialist, a Social Democrat.
Marc Steiner:
Right, Social Democrat.
Axel Persson:
A Social Democrat, and the first three years of his mandate for his first period actually quite lived up to the promises they had made to the electorate. Starting in 1983, and this is important in the fact that the Communist Party was associated with the government, not only did it participate and give it support in parliament, but its ministers took part in the government, and then were associated with all the decisions, and defended them, even the unpopular ones. In 1983, there was what they called the tournant de la rigueur in French, which we could translate into the austerity update.
They’re saying basically, “What we have been doing has been way too generous towards the workers, and we are not in line with the demands of the financial institutions of the French corporate world, and the public finances of the state are being under attack, basically. We need to re-evaluate our policies in order to satisfy the demands of the European Union institutions, of the international financial institutions, and also and most importantly, the French corporations.” They basically made a U-turn, and all that they had done was basically dismantled, in many aspects by themselves. And then, when the right took turn and won the next elections, they continued it, but when they came back to power, it continued as well. That was the start of the decline of the French labor movement. It hasn’t disappeared, by any means, but that was when it declined.
Marc Steiner:
Let me ask you this piece in the time we have left here. What’s the political reality that has Macron uniting with the right-wing, the far right, to create a government, and probably having have new elections, and not with this massive left-wing presence in the parliament? Why did he unite right instead of left?
Axel Persson:
Well, because what’s interesting, though, that’s why I’m insisting that it’s not dead by any means. The last election, the snap elections that were organized because Macron had decided it, he was the one who dissolved parliament, we could say were won by the Popular Front, the new Popular Front that is a coalition of the working-class historical parties, but also an alliance with trade unions such as myself and many other associations like anti-Zionist Jewish organizations, feminist organizations, associations invested against the police violence, for example, it was a broad Popular Front that won the elections but did not secure an own majority of seats. It secured the most seats in parliament as a coalition, but not its own majority, which gave the possibility to Macron, of course, to see who can build the coalition to have a majority within parliament.
It was quite clear that, given the demands of the Popular Front, which was to abolish the pension reform he had implemented last year, which was to raise significantly the minimum wage, and which was to invest significant amounts in public services, that it was out of the question for Emmanuel Macron, and that he would by any means necessary, to paraphrase Malcolm X but was on our side, to prevent our coalition from even having the possibility of trying to build a coalition in parliament, even if meant compromise on the program. For him, it was unimaginable to even give a chance to that. In that aspect, he united, and he saw that despite the dynamics of the French election, [inaudible 00:14:59], despite the rise of the far right, you could see that there had been a massive reflex of voting against the far right to prevent it from seizing state power. People voted majority for the Popular Front, but some even voted for right-wing candidates against the far right.
The major dynamics, despite our disagreements, was that the majority of the electorate wanted to prevent the far right from getting power. What he chose to see now was to see in parliament, how can we build the coalition that is at least accepted by the far right? That is what happened. Because the Popular Front doesn’t have its own majority, basically, he called on his own troops that have stayed in parliament, even though a small minority now, to seek an alliance with the historical weakened, traditional right, and then sought the far right to see that in order to prevent the Popular Front from happening, and seizing power, can we at least all agree on not overthrowing a government together in order to prevent the Popular Front from even having the slightest chance of exerting state power and abolishing the reforms I’ve made? The far right, despite all their rhetoric of being anti-systems, basically struck a deal with Macron, and said, “We will not join your government, but we will not overthrow him with a no-confidence vote in parliament,” and that is what just happened.
As history has shown on what happened in the twenties, all proportions, of course, I don’t want to make a simple Godwin point, but history shows that once again, the centrist bloc, the right bloc, the traditional right bloc is faced by the threat of a renewed strength in the working class movement, they’re gaining [inaudible 00:16:29] again, allies with the far right, and even is basically paving the way for them to seize power at next elections. Now, he has basically struck a deal with the far right in order to maintain his capacity to control the parliament.
Marc Steiner:
In many ways, you paint this very Orwellian picture. You paint a very Orwellian picture, as in George Orwell, of what’s taking place. Finally, from your perspective as a union leader, as an organizer, as part of the left in France.
Axel Persson:
Yes.
Marc Steiner:
How do you see what happens with the resistance and the ability of the left, the people’s movement, to actually take power in the face of this right-centrist, right-wing power? Where do you see it going from here?
Axel Persson:
Where I see going from here is that whatever happens, this government is… well, the government hasn’t been formed yet. He has just nominated a prime minister that is actually a traditional, known figure in France from the traditional right. The government hasn’t been composed yet, and the National Assembly hasn’t been called to session yet. That will be in October, so then, we will see. Whatever happens, this is going to be a very weak government, and it’s going to be a very unstable political situation. What things have shown also, these past weeks and past months, is that contrary to what the dominant media have been saying, which presented, basically, the ascension of the far right to state power in France as something that would inevitably happen, things have shown that when we intervene, have a coherent tactic and strategy, we can prevent them from happening by building the Popular Front, by organizing in the workplaces, because we campaigned actively all across the country, in the workplaces, in the working class neighborhoods all across the country.
We showed that, actually, we’re not just commentators of what’s happening, we actually influenced the course of history. What has been underestimated also is the fact that despite, yes, it’s undeniable, the far right is [inaudible 00:18:20], and it was, for now, the majority of French society clearly rejects the far right. It doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, the far right, but the majority still has these anti-fascist reflexes that still work.
Marc Steiner:
That’s a good thing.
Axel Persson:
We’re going to need to build on that. We’re going to need to build on that in order to transform this anti-fascist reflex into a political movement that is not only built on the rejection of this fascist program, but on the idea that we can have a better society, we can have a better future. We’re going to have to organize, so what we’re going to do very concretely is, on the 1st of October, we’re going to call for mass demonstrations to demand the annulment of the pension reform for all workers, the raising of the minimum wages, the investment in public services. It’s important, because we as trade unions are probably the only force in French society that is actually able to, at some point, unite the entire working class, including those that either vote for the far right or are influenced by their ideas.
The only situation I’ve seen in France the past years where we actually put in movement, the entire working class, despite the political differences, are on issues, for example, such as the pension issues. Then, when we go on strike and society is massively paralyzed, even workers who were influenced by the far right join our movements. These are actually the periods where the far right, in terms of media, are completely silent. They disappear because it’s not their terrain, it’s not their political terrain. They don’t talk in these periods because they feel very uncomfortable about it, because they cannot distance themselves from workers who are struggling. At the same time, they don’t want to appear towards the system as anything else that the guardian of their interests.
It puts them in a very uncomfortable position, and it’s a terrain into which we can advance, also, our political ideas, and our vision of society. Not only on the specific issues of wages, and for example, pensions, but also this idea that we need to fight together against the real enemy, and not the one they are designating, this poison they’re sowing into their ranks. That is why the strategy we’re going to try to build on is mass movements, because it’s in the mass movements that at least our political ideology can actually really gain a foothold in society, and it’s actually the only means. That is what we’re going to do now, but France is full of surprises. We’re going to see what’s going to happen this year, but everybody knows, actually, that this is going to be a very unstable, critical year in France for the coming year.
Marc Steiner:
Well, Axel Persson, first, let me thank you for always joining us, and for your really deep perspective on what’s happening in France. It’s important for the entire world, given that France is one of the largest militaries around, and it’s a usually a powerful country, and the battle against the right is significant.
Axel Persson:
Yes.
Marc Steiner:
I’m going to stay in touch, write back and forth, and after the demonstration in October, let’s reconvene, and see where we are.
Axel Persson:
Yes, we’ll see what we start there.
Marc Steiner:
As they say in Cuba, [foreign language 00:21:06].
Axel Persson:
[foreign language 00:21:10].
Marc Steiner:
[foreign language 00:21:13]. Thank you so much, Axel, it’s always good to talk to you.
Axel Persson:
Thank you for having me and see you soon. Bye.
Marc Steiner:
Once again, let me thank Axel Persson for joining us today, and giving the perspective from France of the struggle for a just society that is powerful in pushing, and it’s always enlightening to talk with him. Thanks to Cameron Grandino for running the program, audio editor Alina Nehlich, Rosette Sewali for producing The Marc Steiner Show, and the fabulous Kayla Rivara for making it all work behind the scenes, and everyone here at The Real News for making the show possible. Please, let me know what you thought about what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at MSS@therealnews.com, and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thanks Axel Persson for joining us today, and please stay with us as we cover the rise of the right here and across the globe, and talk to those who are fighting for a just world. For the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved, keep listening, and take care.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 13, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
“We’re fighting for every family,” said the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union that represents about 33,000 workers at commercial plane manufacturer Boeing, on Friday, after its members voted to reject a tentative contract offered by the company and go on strike. “We’re fighting for the future of Boeing.”
The work stoppage began just after midnight on Friday after 95% of workers represented by IAM District 751 voted to reject the proposed contract and 96% authorized the strike. The support of just two-thirds of the members was needed to initiate the walkout.
On Sunday, IAM District 751 President Jon Holden had expressed optimism about the tentative deal, which included a 25% raise for workers over the life of the four-year contract, a reduction in healthcare costs for employees, and an increase in Boeing’s contributions to members’ retirement plans.
But Holden said the union’s leadership would “protect and support” however members chose to proceed with the contract, whose terms fell short of the 40% raise they had originally demanded.
The last strike at Boeing lasted 57 days in 2008, and the contract that ended the strike has been extended twice since then—with the union making concessions that resulted in higher healthcare costs and an end to unionized workers’ traditional pension program.
“Workers are extremely eager to claw back lost ground on wages at a moment of crisis for Boeing,” said Lauren Kaori Gurley, labor reporter for The Washington Post.
The work stoppage comes as Boeing is working to increase airplane production amid questions about its safety standards and manufacturing capabilities following an incident in January in which a door panel blew out of a 737 Max jetliner when the plane was mid-flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration required Boeing to limit its production of 737 Max jets after the accident, until it could meet quality and safety benchmarks, but output at the company’s Renton, Washington factory “is far behind where Boeing wants,” The New York Times reported.
Joe Philbin, a mechanic at the Renton facility, told the Post that unionized workers have “a lot of leverage—why waste that?”
“This is about respect,” Holden told members Thursday night. “This is about addressing the past, and this is about fighting for our future… Boeing has to stop breaking the law, has to bargain in good faith, and we will be back at the table whenever we can get there to drive forward on the issues that our members say are important.”
At IAM District 751 Union Hall where inside thousands of Boeing employees have voted on a contract and possible strike. Outside: union members are putting together burn barrels in preparation to strike through the night. pic.twitter.com/ixsNyr08F2
In addition to federal investigations into Boeing’s manufacturing and safety standards after the January incident, the U.S. Department of Justice in May said the company had failed to meet conditions of a deal that shielded it from criminal prosecution over two deadly plane crashes in 2018 and 2019.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Boeing’s ability to maintain workplaces that are safe for employees—and the public that relies on the comnpany’s planes—hinges on its treatment of workers.
“There are no safe planes without union machinists. If Boeing wants to restore its safety culture, its first order of business should be ensuring its workers are fairly compensated and protected from retaliation,” said Markey, expressing solidarity with the striking machinists.
The queue for cooking oil stretches down a Yangon street. Householders turn up before dawn to fill a plastic bottle at a subsidized rate in Myanmar’s commercial capital – the latest evidence of a tanking economy.
“If you can come early, you will get your quota early. If you are late, you might end up with nothing … and have to start all over again the next day,” Daw Htoo, whose real name was changed in order to protect her identity, told RFA Burmese.
“You have to wait for your turn for about two and a half hours everyday,” she said of the palm oil, which costs 20% less than the price of peanut oil sold outside government-subsidized shops. “Some have been waiting since 5 a.m.”
Daw Myint, a resident of Yangon’s Thaketa township in her 70s, told RFA that with the price of peanut oil now more than 20,000 kyats (US$4) per viss, which is equal to about 1.7 kilograms or 3.5 pounds, “we simply can’t afford to use it anymore.”
In a country wracked by conflict since the military takeover three-and-a-half years ago, basic products are becoming more scarce.
People wait in line to purchase palm oil, Sept. 4, 2024 in Yangon. (RFA)
Also, import restrictions are impeding the supply of basic medicines, deepening a humanitarian crisis.
“It’s like we’re going back in time to when you had to line up for everything,” said a Yangon businessman who requested anonymity to avoid trouble with authorities. “Palm oil isn’t a rare product … This commodity is abundant and sold competitively around the world, but it’s being rationed in Myanmar.”
Older residents say it reminds them of life under a previous military regime, led by Ne Win, when Myanmar followed a socialist political model. Under the system, all major industries were nationalized, including import-export trade, leading to price controls and the expansion of the black market to account for as much as 80% of the national economy.
In late July, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced that the country’s current situation is “most suited to socialist-era cooperative systems,” implying that, with Myanmar’s economy in freefall, the population should prepare to make sacrifices.
One such sacrifice is cooking oil, according to residents and business owners in the country’s largest city Yangon.
Major inconvenience
Amid the conflict that has engulfed Myanmar since the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat, local production of vegetable oils from peanuts, sunflower seeds and sesame has dwindled or ceased entirely, forcing consumers to rely on imported palm oil to prepare their meals.
But the junta has put restrictions on the hard currency needed to import palm oil, creating a shortage and a price jump in local markets.
Yangon residents told RFA Burmese that the price of one viss container of palm oil now costs 16,000 kyats (US$3.20) – up from 8,000 kyats in January and 6,500 kyats in December 2023. Meanwhile, the value of the kyat has dropped from 3,500 kyats to 5,600 kyats per U.S. dollar over the same period.
Early this month, a ration system went into effect, through which residents can purchase a maximum of half a viss each day at the subsidized price.
An elderly woman buys palm oil Sept. 4, 2024. (RFA)
An elderly woman in Yangon’s Lanmadaw township told RFA that the ration system is a major inconvenience.
“If we were able to buy one viss at a time, we would only need to line up once a week,” said the woman who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
A restaurant owner in Yangon’s North Dagon township told RFA that she has had to buy palm oil from the local market to supplement what she can buy through the junta’s ration system, because half a viss is not enough to meet her business’s daily needs.
“Not only does it take time for us to buy palm oil [under the ration plan], but we can only buy a half viss at a time, which is only enough to cook five portions of rice,” she said.
Attempts by RFA to contact the office of the junta’s Department of Consumer Affairs in Yangon for further clarification about the palm oil ration plan went unanswered.
‘Life-threatening’
Meanwhile, it has become increasingly difficult for people displaced by conflict to access essential medical supplies due to the junta’s restrictions on medical imports and a national shortage,
According to aid workers and those who have fled fighting, the demand for medicine is particularly acute among those displaced by conflict in Sagaing region, Chin state, Kachin state, northern Shan state, Magway region and Rakhine state.
“We are dealing with cases of seasonal flu and diarrhea here – it’s definitely a life-threatening situation,” said a displaced person from Chin state’s Kanpetlet township. “Access to medicine would be helpful, but it’s simply not available. The biggest challenge is the inability to purchase the necessary medication.”
A pharmacy in Yangon, Myanmar, Jan. 12, 2008. (Patrik M. Loeff via Flickr)
Aid workers said that the transportation of medicine to Chin state, where approximately 250,000 war displaced are located, has become difficult due to road blockades imposed by the junta.
“The main issue is that the junta shuts down the roads whenever fighting intensifies, making transportation extremely difficult,” said one person assisting the displaced. “Pharmacy owners … are required to submit a list of their products to the junta’s General Administration Department and under these conditions, they are reluctant to sell openly. Everything is operating in secrecy right now.”
According to a July 1 statement from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 3 million people are internally displaced across Myanmar due to ongoing military conflicts. They face significant challenges in accessing basic food and healthcare, primarily due to restrictions imposed by the junta, the agency said.
A 2023 survey by the British-based website prosperity.com – which assesses and documents the education, health and security conditions of various countries – ranks Myanmar 143rd out of 167 countries in terms of development status. The site ranks Myanmar 109th in healthcare.
Using traditional medicine
Kachin state, home to more than 200,000 displaced people, is also grappling with a severe shortage of medicine amid the widespread prevalence of malaria.
And in Sagaing, where conflict is raging, junta troops are blocking the transportation of medicine and confiscating it, according to a displaced person in Tigyaing township.
“Drivers are reluctant to carry food, medicine or painkillers because if they are caught, everything is taken,” he said. “As a result, in the absence of foreign drugs, we have to rely solely on Burmese traditional medicine for treatment.”
A medicine distributor in Yangon, who also declined to be named, said that restrictions imposed by the junta on the importation of medicine, coupled with the rising cost of the dollar, have significantly hindered companies’ ability to procure medications.
People line up to get medicine, July 22, 2022 in Yangon, Myanmar. (RFA)
And while in the past, drug importers were able to source medication from neighboring countries Thailand and China, border routes have been closed due to conflict since the coup.
A nationwide shortage of long-term medications for chronic conditions such as kidney disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes – and even basic household medicines – has seen prices surge fivefold, residents said.
Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Major Gen.l Zaw Min Tun for comment on the shortage of medicine were unsuccessful.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
Janine Jackson interviewed the Joint Center’s Dedrick Asante-Muhammad and CEPR’s Algernon Austin about the Black economy for the September 6, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: Corporate economic news can be so abstract that it’s disinforming even when it’s true. The big idea is that there’s something called the “US economy” that can be doing well or poorly, which obscures the reality that we are differently situated, and good news for the stock market, say, may mean nothing, or worse, for me.
A people-centered press corps would spell out the meaning of economic indicators, not just in terms of their impact on different communities, but in relation to where we want to go, as a society that has yet to address deep, historical and structural harms.
JJ: Corporate news media tend to report economic news like the weather. Yes, it affects different people differently, but the source, the economy, is just—stuff that happens.
But there’s really no such thing as “the economy.” There are policies and practices about taxes and lending and wages, and they are as historically embedded, preferentially enforced and as susceptible to intentional change as everything else.
So how should we read reports about the “best Black economy in decades,” particularly as one question news media rarely include in the daily recitation of numbers is: Compared to what?
JJ: Economic reporting can seem very dry and divorced from life as lived. We read that the country’s GDP is up, or that inflation is leveling off, and a lot of us just don’t know what that means, in terms of whether we are more likely to get a job, or a wage increase, or a home loan. If you can parse that data, though, it does tell us something, if not enough. So let me ask you first, what particular indicators are telling us or showing us that Black Americans are experiencing the most positive economic conditions in generations? What are you looking at?
Algernon Austin: “If you had an additional 1.4 million Black people working, you would…significantly reduce Black poverty, and would help Black households start to build wealth.”
AA: One thing that I pay a lot of attention to is the employment-to-population ratio, or the employment rate, and that’s simply what percent of the population is working. And that’s something that’s very concrete, that people can relate to. And the Black population, historically, has had a significantly lower employment rate than the white population.
So why we’re in the greatest economy on record is because, if you look at the prime age employment rate, that’s individuals 25-to-54 years old, the Black prime age employment rate, the annual rate for the first half of this year has been at a record high. So that is certainly quite positive news, and something that we should celebrate.
But as you pointed out, compared to what? Compared to the white prime age employment rate, it’s still below average. And when you do the full calculation of what I call the “Black jobs deficit,” we need about 1.4 million more Black people working to have the same employment rate as white people.
And what does that mean in terms of income for Black America? If you had an additional 1.4 million Black people working, you would have an additional $60 billion, that’s with a B, $60 billion going into Black America, which would significantly reduce Black poverty, and would help Black households start to build wealth.
So that’s the positive: We have a high employment rate. The negative is it’s still lagging, and that lag, that deficit, is still causing a great deal of poverty for Black people.
JJ: So Algernon, you’ve connected employment and poverty and income right there, which are the key indicators that I’m seeing lifted up in this report. Unemployment is one that is a complicated thing to report because, as we know, sometimes unemployment rates don’t include people who’ve stopped looking for work, and all of that. But you’re saying that unemployment and poverty and income are all connected here. What can you tell us about what those other indicators, the poverty rates, and the income and wealth indicators, what do they add to this picture about good news?
AA: We pay a lot of attention to the unemployment rate, which is valid; it’s an important indicator. But for populations that face persistent challenges finding work —and I just said that there are about 1.4 million Black people who should be working but who aren’t—you see the unemployment rate undercounts joblessness. Because if people have been repeatedly rejected by employers—so imagine someone who maybe was formerly incarcerated—that individual is less likely to be actively looking for work. And if you’re not actively looking for work, you’re not counted as being unemployed. Or if you’re in an economically depressed area and you look around and you say, “there’s no jobs,” and you’re not actively looking for work, you’re not being counted as unemployed.
So the unemployment rate is an important indicator, and the Black rate is typically about twice the white rate. Right now, it’s a little bit less than two times, so that’s, again, another positive sign. But it does undercount joblessness.
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad: Yeah. And in terms of income and wealth, we’ve also seen some positive signs. So I think that’s why we’re saying it’s the strongest Black economy in generations, because we see in many of the major indicators that Blacks are at record high. Also in terms of median household income, Blacks in 2022 were at $53,000 median income for households. And so that is a record high for the African-American community. As well as wealth in 2022, where we have the most recent data, it’s at a record high of $45,000.
Now, just as Algernon had noted, record highs can be great, but relative to what, and what does that mean? The median income for white households is $81,000. So Blacks are still about $30,000 less in terms of median income. And I think most people would understand that $53,000 for a household is not a lot of money.
And we look at wealth. We also argue that $45,000 median wealth is actually a household that is asset poor, that does not have enough wealth to keep them financially secure. There’s been estimates, well, let’s just put forward that white median wealth is $285,000. So you have that $45,000, compared to $285,000, with past estimates of middle-class wealth beginning around $170,000.
So we can see that we’re hitting record highs, but we’re still leaving African Americans in spaces of economic insecurity, and that’s why it isn’t enough and we need to do more.
JJ: There’s been a phenomenon lately where reporters and pundits seem to say, “People are saying they’re not happy with the economy, but they’re wrong, because look at this chart.” It’s sort of like people are maybe too dumb to know how good they have it.
But people aren’t dumb. They know they have two jobs and still struggle. They know they have a fairly good income, but they could not survive one medical emergency. But reporting, and some politicking, seems to suggest that if you aren’t doing well, then maybe that’s a you problem, because, after all, “the economy” is firing on all pistons. But people’s opinion about their economic health and their economic situation, Black people’s opinion, comes from a combination of things, you found?
AA: A lot of the reporting is based on macroeconomic indicators, which are, I’m not disputing them, it’s just that the big picture, national average can mask a lot of variation on the ground, and can be distant from what people are feeling.
So we’ve been through, because of Covid, because of the lockdowns, because of the shutdown and supply chains, because of the war in Ukraine, we’ve seen a massive spike in inflation, I think probably more than we’ve seen in a generation. And that has been quite a shock. And I think that affects people’s views of economic conditions.
So there’s a lot of things for people to be worried about, to be anxious about. And of course there was the Covid recession, which was massive. So there’s been a lot of economic turmoil, and it’s an error to discount what these recent traumatic experiences are, and the fact that they’re not just experiences, there are real economic consequences that people see every day when they go to the grocery store and pay their grocery bills.
JJ: And Dedrick, the report says Black Americans are optimistic, pessimistic, multifaceted and complex in terms of their understanding of their own economic situation, and then when they’re asked about the broader picture; and that makes sense as human beings.
DA: Yeah, yeah. I did think that was an interesting thing pulled out of our paper, was looking at some past surveys and seeing 67% of African Americans expressed optimism, feeling good to somewhat good, about their financial future, while at the same time, in a different poll, in a Pew poll, we saw that African Americans, 70% said they did not have enough money for the life they want. And these are different things, right?
Again, if you’re used to ridiculously high unemployment rates in your community, and then it’s getting a little bit better, that might make you feel optimistic that, oh, well, maybe things can get better in my household. But, at the same time, you can still understand that, “but I don’t have enough money to be a homeowner. I’m having a harder and harder time paying grocery bills.”
So both of those feelings can live within one’s life experience and be real. I think it’s only when you’re trying to just have a very simple explanation of how people feel that we act like they’re in contradiction.
JJ: Algernon has referred a couple times to consistent challenges faced by Black Americans. I think that’s part of what’s left out of a lot of news media conversations. So let’s just talk about, when you say big numbers, macro numbers, can be trending in a good direction, but they’re not enough, and they’re not going to be enough without something else, what are you getting at? What would responsive policy look like?
AA: In response to the Covid pandemic, the federal government expanded the child tax credit, and expanded the earned income tax credit, so that more poor people and more poor people with children would get aid from the federal government.
And what did we see? We saw a dramatic decline in poverty, dramatic decline in Black poverty, dramatic decline in Black child poverty, as well as for American Indians, for Latinos, and for the white population. So we know what works, we know that we have the power to do it, but, unfortunately, conservatives in Congress decided that they were not going to extend the expanded child tax credit and the expanded EITC.
So we’ve seen a reversal. So we’ve seen Black poverty rates—and this is using the supplemental poverty measure, that factors in these tax credits—increase again. So it’s unfortunate that policy makers don’t put the policy agenda to fight poverty, and to produce more racial equality, as a higher priority.
DA: Yes, and I’ll just add to that, I think an important takeaway from this is that though we have some record highs, we don’t need to let up on the economy. We need to put our pedal down to the metal, as the saying goes, in order to continue to build and strengthen. Because even with these record highs, in terms of income, we noted a report that was done last year with the Institute for Policy Studies, that noted that even at the current rate, if you look from 1960 to 2020, it would take hundreds of years before Blacks had equal pay with whites, and it would take almost 800 years for Blacks to have equal wealth with whites.
And so over the last five years, we’re having some important advances. And so what we need to do is do policies that build off of that, right? Whether it’s to continue to strengthen the earned income tax credits and other such types of credit, I think increased home ownership, there’s a lot of conversation on that. We have to make sure any type of home-ownership advancement is something that disproportionately affects African Americans in particular, but Latinos as well. African Americans have never had the majority of their population as homeowners, and that’s the No. 1 source of wealth for most Americans. So if we can do something in 2025 to really strengthen homeownership for first-time homeowners, that could be something substantial that could help break away from these historic inequalities that have made racial inequality, not just something that occurs through prejudice, but something that can be seen through socioeconomic status.
AA: We also need targeted job creation. Subsidized employment is the most effective way, so subsidized employment programs targeted to high-unemployment communities. I mentioned that we still need about 1.4 million more Black people working for the Black employment rate to be the same as the white employment rate. So we need to target those high-unemployment communities with effective job creation.
JJ: When I hear “consistent challenges,” I mean, we’re talking about racism, in terms of economic policy in this country, and the harms have been targeted, historically and presently—redlining, loan denial, all of that, the harms have been targeted. But at this moment, supposedly reforms are not allowed to be targeted, because that would be DEI, that would be unfair.
And I know we’ve talked about, for example, the Covid response was not about race. Great Depression, the WPA was not targeted by race. It was actually something that helped Black people, because it helped everyone. But we’re in this present moment that we’re in, where if you say these people are being particularly harmed, and so at least some remedy should be targeted towards them, we know that that’s going to be politically difficult. And I know that’s a weird question, but I wonder what your thoughts are on that.
DA: Clearly, racial equality has always been politically difficult, as the history of this country has shown. So it will continue to be politically difficult. I think we have seen, like the War on Poverty, that sometimes in its name might not appear as something particularly focused on African Americans, but it was coming out of the strong Black civil rights movement of that time period, when we saw a substantial decline of Black poverty in particular, all poverty. But many of the policies I did think had a disproportionate impact on African Americans.
The most effective and efficient way to address disproportionate negative harm is to then put in positive economic impact, particularly on those communities. So we should look at ways of doing that. Sometimes race would be the factor named, but sometimes you can also get it just by focusing on first-time homeowners of certain income and wealth level that would disproportionately have a good amount of African Americans, Latinos, and would have some whites, but would have a disproportionate impact on the community.
So I think if policymakers are willing—and I think our job as the electorate is to make policymakers willing—and we can get forward these policies, whether we call them DEI policies, or whether we call them trying to ensure that America is majority homeowner, or America is fully employed throughout the nation, there are ways of putting this forward.
AA: This is a long struggle. So if you look at the history of the Black civil rights movement, or Black liberation struggle, however you want to characterize it, there have been moments when we’ve moved forward, there have been moments when we’ve moved backwards. So this is just one phase. So it’s important for people to recognize: OK, what’s next? How do we move forward from this particular point? So I think it’s important to regroup and think about how we move forward.
I’m focused on affirmative action policies, and particularly affirmative action in employment, which still exists, which needs to be protected and fought for, because it will be under attack. The second point that Dedrick was making is that there are ways that may be less efficient for racial justice, but there are ways to make impacts that reduce racial inequality.
And we saw it, going back to poverty, the expansion of the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit had a disproportionate positive impact on reducing Black poverty. It also reduced white poverty, and poverty for all other groups, but because more Black people were poor and in hardship, it had a disproportionate benefit. So although that was a race-neutral program, it did have a disproportionate racial benefit.
And similarly, I’ve called for targeted subsidized employment, and notice I said targeted to high-unemployment communities. You can go to Appalachia and find majority white communities that are high unemployment, and we should be concerned about those high-unemployment white communities. But if you target job creation to high-unemployment communities, you will disproportionately benefit Black communities, because that’s where the high unemployment is disproportionately concentrated.
So I think it’s important that we continue on both fronts. Let’s exploit all the race-neutral policies that we can, but also let’s not give up on a race-conscious economic justice fight in addition.
JJ: I just want to ask you, finally, about news media, about reporting. When, Dedrick, we spoke in 2017, I was talking about a Washington Post piece that said that a rise in middle-class incomes was “unequivocally good news,” even as the same report had some sort of notes in between, one of which was, oh yeah, “yawning racial disparities remain.” And that’s kind of par for the course in news, the idea that racial gaps in economic circumstances and options are lamentable but normal, and kind of a footnote to the real story, which holds an implication that a rising economic tide will eventually lift all boats.
And that framing and that absence of complexity, while it’s kind of par for the course in corporate journalism, it reflects a misunderstanding and a misrepresentation of the way economic developments affect different groups, which is what we’ve been talking about. And I wonder, from both of you, if you have any thoughts about the role that journalism currently plays in illuminating this set of issues, and about the role that journalism maybe could play?
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad: “The future of the economy is based on how well minorities do in America.”
DA: Things have changed a lot over the last 30 years, even this idea of racial inequality, minority groups. I mean, now you look at Blacks and Latinos, and Latinos oftentimes, as well, have lower income levels, have lower home ownership levels, and you put these populations together, Blacks and Latino, and they’re about a third of the population. And if you talk about youth and children, you see that the majority of kids in many school districts throughout the country are students of color.
So no longer can it be kind of, well, there’s an issue with a small part of the population, but the rest of the economy is going strong. The future of the economy is based on how well minorities do in America—Latinos being the largest group now, African Americans being the second-largest group. So it will be essential, if we’re looking at how the economy can grow, making sure these communities are getting their share of the growth that would get them at a level of true middle class.
I think that’s one thing I particularly look at in terms of wealth, is that Black America’s never had a strong Black middle class in terms of wealth. You’ve always had a very small population that have had a middle-class economic wealth stability. And, again, the future of reporting on the future of the country really requires understanding those differences, and highlighting that, so we can push the country in the right direction, and how do we move the country forward in a way that is equitable in a manner that it never has been.
AA: I don’t want to appear to be too self-centered or self-serving, but we need the information presented in this report covered, because I feel both parts of the story have not gotten sufficient media attention. One is that we’re at historic highs on so many different measures that I don’t think has been talked about enough, and two, we still have significant inequality that we haven’t addressed. There’s some positive signs, but we obviously need to do a lot more. And like Dedrick said, we need to keep pressing the gas. We can’t take our foot off the pedal.
So that’s one thing. The other thing—I try to stress this when I speak to people—is that we’re talking about the United States, and Black people are part of the United States. Latinos are part of the United States. The American Indian or the Indigenous population are sort of part of the United States; some are independent nations, but they’re also interacting with the US economy.
If you improve the economic conditions of the Black population, you’re improving the economic standing of the United States. If you improve the economic condition of Latinos, you’re improving the economic strengths and health of the United States.
And it’s important that people understand that, because, unfortunately, people tend to go into a zero sum mode, and not recognize that helping Black people, in terms of public policy, is a way to help the entire country, help the United States. So that’s something that I think reporters can also work on communicating.
DA: The one thing I’ll add, in terms of what can reporters do, I think reporters need to focus in on expertise, Black expertise, expertise around racial inequality. I’ll just put forward, as recently new president of Joint Center for Political Economic Study, it’s important that Black institutions are utilized and are put at the forefront of conversations around the economy and these issues.
It’s great that there’s been more conversations around racial wealth divide, and race and economics; there’s been a lot of conversation around DEI—diversity, equity, inclusion—movement, and attacks on it. But I don’t feel that they have enough centered on those who have been at the forefront of highlighting these issues, putting forth policy solutions to address them.
There are a cadre of reporters who have been focused on these issues for the last 20 years, and these reporters need to be at the forefront of the conversation. Too often times, if I do get a call, I’m getting a call from someone who’s reporting this for the first time, and doesn’t even quite understand the reality that there is deep economic inequality, it has been ongoing, and it would take radical change to really get us to a place where we could have some equality. So, again, I think we need to value those who have been focused on this area, and those institutions from these communities, if we really want to report correctly on these challenges.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and with Algernon Austin, director of the Race and Economic Justice Program at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The brief we’ve been discussing can be found at both JointCenter.org and CEPR.net. Thank you both so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
The federal government has filed multiple lawsuits aimed at helping reduce the costs of everything from rent to groceries for consumers. But these lawsuits face a steep uphill battle. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: The federal government has filed […]
A new report has uncovered the disgusting pipeline between the Pentagon and defense contractors – where the Pentagon sends TRILLIONS of dollars worth of contracts to these companies in exchange for getting lucrative jobs for themselves. Then, grocery store chains used the pandemic to raise prices on everything, and those higher prices appear to be […]
This week on CounterSpin: Corporate economic news can be so abstract that it’s disinforming even when it’s true. The big idea is that there’s something called “the US economy” that can be doing well or poorly, which obscures the reality that we are differently situated, and good news for the stock market, say, may mean nothing, or worse, for me. A people-centered press corps would spell out the meaning of economic “indicators,” not just in terms of their impact on different communities, but in relation to where we want to go as a society that has yet to address deep historical and structural harms.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 4, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
“The new jobs of the South will be union jobs,” said Tim Smith, a regional director for the United Auto Workers, after the union announced Tuesday that 1,000 workers at Ultium Cells in Spring Hill, Tennessee had voted to form a collective bargaining unit.
The vote made the electric vehicle battery plant the second Ultium Cells workplace to join the UAW, and the second auto industry plant in the U.S. South to vote in favor of unionization following the launch of a major $40 million organizing effort in the region this year.
Anti-union companies such as EV automaker Tesla have eyed the South as a region to make a manufacturing push, due to its historical antagonism toward labor and low levels of unionization.
But Smith said the vote at Ultium Cells proves that “in the battery plants and EV factories springing up from Georgia to Kentucky to Texas, workers know they deserve the same strong pay and benefits our members have won. And we’re going to make sure they have the support they need to win their unions and win their fair share.”
The first Ultium Cells battery plant to join the UAW was the Lordstown, Ohio location, where employees ratified a contract in June that included a 30% raise over three years for production workers, an immediate $3,000 bonus, and health and safety protections.
“Being unionized will help us reap the benefits as far as better healthcare, better pay, and overall, just having decency within the workplace—not just for us, but future generations,” said Tradistine Chambers, a worker at Ultium in Spring Hill.
Battery workers are seizing their power! Today, 1,000 workers at Ultium Cells in Spring Hill, TN, voted to join the UAW. They are the second Ultium plant built in the US and the second to go union. The first was Lordstown, OH, in 2022. pic.twitter.com/dOlbED34if
General Motors, which jointly owns Ultium Cells with South Korean company LG Energy Solution, voluntarily recognized the new union on Tuesday.
“The workers organized without facing threats or intimidation and won their union once a majority of workers signed cards,” said the UAW.
Trudy Lindahl, a worker at the plant, said it was “a great day for Ultium workers and for every worker in Tennessee and the South.”
“Southern workers are ready to stand up and win our fair share by winning our unions,” said Lindahl. “And when we have a free and fair choice, we will win every time.”
Two months after the UAW launched its organizing drive in the South, workers at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee overwhelmingly voted to join the union. A vote at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama in May failed even though a majority of workers had signed union cards, and the UAW filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board that the automaker had launched a union-busting campaign.
Despite that setback in Alabama, organizer Keith Brower Brown of Labor Notes said the union in Spring Hill could serve as “a potential union anchor for massive factories under construction for the emerging Southern battery belt.”
Tens of thousands of new EV battery jobs are expected to come online across the South in the coming months, including at plants owned by Ford in Tennessee and Kentucky.
The housing and affordability crisis is getting worse, and more people around the country are facing the grim reality of homelessness. Rather than treating housing as a human right and committing to large-scale construction of accessible housing, states like California are responding with police raids of homeless encampments and imprisonment for unhoused people. On this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa discusses non-carceral solutions to the housing crisis with Zachary Murray and Estuardo Mazariegos of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling The Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Joining me today are two men that are very active in advocating, educating, and enlightening people about the state of people that are homeless, among other things. Here today to talk about the state of California are two extraordinary gentlemen.
Introduce y’allselves to Rattling The Bars. Zach?
Zachary Murray:
Yeah, I’m Zach Murray. I’m a statewide campaign coordinator with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment based in Los Angeles.
Mansa Musa:
Estuardo?
Estuardo Mazariegos:
Yeah, good morning. My name is Estuardo Mazariegos. I’m co-director of Los Angeles ACCE.
Mansa Musa:
And what do ACCE stand for?
Estuardo Mazariegos:
The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
Mansa Musa:
OK, thank you.
OK, let’s unpack this. A recent article came out, I neglected to identify the source, but a recent article came out in a newspaper in California that was highlighting the situation in California. And the tagline on it was, if California doesn’t back affordable housing, then you get what you pay for.
All right, so now what is the state of housing in California as it relates to low-income people or people that can’t afford housing? I know California got a serious homeless population, but what is the state as y’all identified in California, state of homelessness in California?
Zachary Murray:
Well that article that you mentioned, it was an editorial that was authored by one of our LA-based members, Maria Briones, and what she was calling out was the state’s underinvestment in solving the housing and homelessness crisis.
Right now, the state of California has over 180,000 homeless people. There’s only 70,000 shelter beds. So that means for over half of the homeless population, there is insufficient shelter. So when folks are being displaced or driven to homelessness, they have nowhere to go. And so, right now we have encampments, we have folks who are living in RVs and cars, and there is no place to go.
Most recently, our governor, Governor Gavin Newsom, following the grant’s past Supreme Court decision, ordered that the state of California would sweep encampments on state property. And he suggested that county and city governments do the same thing.
And so, what Maria Briones was specifically calling out was that the governor knows what it takes to solve the housing affordability and homelessness crisis. It takes more housing, it takes an investment in the creation of affordable housing.
Specifically, in 2022, Governor Newsom made a promise that he would build 1 million affordable homes by 2030. And unfortunately we’ve only made, since that time, about 12% of the investments necessary to get there. In fact, and as is called out in that editorial, last year, alone and over the past several years, the state of California has only spent 1% of its budget on affordable housing and homelessness.
And so, for most people, voters in California, housing and homelessness is an issue that they are concerned about because we all see it, and many of us are experiencing it, either homelessness or being at risk of homelessness because of increasing rents. And so, if the state is going to take this seriously, there needs to be more investment from the state of resources to address the housing crisis.
Mansa Musa:
OK. All right, so Estuardo, Zach laid out something about saying that Governor Newsom said that he was investing in. But now, isn’t the Olympics coming to California, the next Olympics, which would be, what? What year is that?
Estuardo Mazariegos:
2028.
Mansa Musa:
OK so in 2028. He was talking about building 1 million affordable housing by 2030. But now, from what I’m gathering, what is their reaction to the fact that now they have this worldwide, nationwide event coming? Just suppose to add to what Zach just outlined, so do you think this has anything to do with that or is this just the general attitude of California as well as in the nation?
Estuardo Mazariegos:
I think a lot of the issues will be front and center during this world event, if not taken care of before then. And when I mean taken care of, I mean providing folks affordable housing, access to shelter, making sure that people have a place to go, not just sweeping up.
One of the things the governor also did a couple weeks ago was he had an executive order, or a directive, and they were able to use the grant’s passing to say, hey, sweep up, city by city, every homeless encampment that is in your city.
I live in south central Los Angeles, right down the street from Expo Center, which is one of the mega centers that would host the Olympics. The LA Live area with Crypto Arena, LA Convention Center, The Coliseum, BMO Stadium, the Galen Center. A lot of different facilities here will be hosting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. And, at the same time, around these venues you have dozens and dozens of encampments that surround probably thousands of people living on the street, with a concentration of racialized poverty around these places as well.
So you start seeing a lot of pressure from corporations like Airbnb coming in, taking over units and turning them into short-term rentals where there’s already a lot of pressure happening. So it goes hand in hand.
You see the need for housing here in our community is high. We have about 17,000 children living in poverty around these stadiums. And 49,000 people, very low-income folks in that entire community around all of these venues. On top of thousands and thousands not counted for because a lot of the methodology behind the count, the homeless count in Los Angeles, is wrong. So there’s thousands of homeless folks.
So putting the pressure of an event where it’s going to cost about $7 billion to build up in the City of Los Angeles from both private investment. And at the same time you have the city of Los Angeles, which only has invested $61 million for affordable housing production and preservation in 2022. So something’s got to give.
And unfortunately, it’s always the other way where it hurts people instead of helping people. So what we want to see is an event, or we want to uplift our community, and we see this as an opportunity to uplift our community and not displace it, not uproot it.
So the 2028 Olympics and Gavin Newsom is really tied into together. And, as a community, we’re fighting to define the issue. We’re fighting to make sure that we bring resources, but it really does take having the type of political leadership to listen. Right now, we’re seeing that Gavin Newsom just isn’t listening.
So what we do as a community is we organize and we build pressure on the decision makers. So that’s what we’ll start doing from now on out until 2028 to try to really use that as an issue to build up affordable housing in our communities.
Mansa Musa:
And me and Zach was talking off camera about [how] the article reflected that the most vulnerable population, in addition to our children, is seniors. And the article highlighted the seniors, and the senior was saying that, I never thought I’d be in this situation where I’d be homeless. But that the reason why this person found themselves in that state was because the slumlord refused to make repairs in the housing. And the city, as opposed to having oversight and enforcement, chose to remove the person and put them in a shelter.
Is this something that’s going on throughout the state of California? That seems like the slumlords and the city, or the slumlords and the state are in cahoots with each other in terms of displacing people, Zach?
Zachary Murray:
Absolutely. We see, all across the state, a lot of pressure because of the desire of corporate landlords, and landlords in general, to run up the rents. California has very limited rent control protections, very limited tenant protections in so many corners of the state.
And so, in Oakland, where the city government has been struggling to fund its services, our ACCE office there is fighting for proactive rental inspections that aren’t punitive towards the tenants, but really help to force the landlords into a situation where they have to improve the habitability. Because part of the cost of living in a market as expensive as the cities are in California is that people are putting up with living in uninhabitable conditions.
And this particularly affects seniors because of the extent to which seniors live on limited income, Social Security income. And so, the pressure is on for people. And in the event that seniors get displaced, there is no housing that’s truly affordable to them in so many of our markets.
And so, we see this pressure because seniors and, as you pointed out, families with children are vulnerable populations. They don’t have the extra income that’s required to afford housing. And there’s a lot of pressure.
And I know here in the Los Angeles area, ACCE has been fighting to protect tenants from landlord harassment, which is an increasingly really insidious strategy that landlords have taken on to displace people.
Mansa Musa:
Hey Estuardo, what is Sacramento doing then? We’re talking about a number of initiatives that have been taken, a number of initiatives that are being proposed. We know Newsom’s attitude as you outlined, but what about the remaining body of the legislative body of California? What are their positions? Because a lot of them come out these districts where people are being displaced or are living in squalor. Talk about that.
Estuardo Mazariegos:
They’re doing too little, and it’s honestly coming too late. They’re just taking their sweet time to really think about deep and real rooted community solutions for the issue.
That answers a lot of language year in and year out. Our organizations and our movements come to Sacramento with packages of bills where we’re like, hey, make it harder for landlords to harass tenants. Make it harder for landlords to do these ridiculous rental increases of 10%. Or make it harder for corporate landlords to take over our communities. And year in and year out, we find that, even with representatives coming from areas that are directly impacted by the housing crisis, by price gouging, by corporate landlords, have the corporate landlords in their ears.
And it’s harder and harder every year to get anything passed that makes any common sense. And every time we show up with a policy and we say, hey, this could really keep thousands of families in their homes, by the time that we’re done with the political and policy process in Sacramento, it is so watered down that it makes small differences, it improves some people’s lives, but the original idea behind it always gets watered down.
So right now, Sacramento needs to really develop a bench of leaders that are willing to buck the traditional political powers in Sacramento, meaning money, [inaudible] interest, and listen to its community.
So as of right now, I would say at best, Sacramento is doing small, minor changes. What we need is big changes. We need to make housing a human right in California and spend more than 1% on affordable housing. 1% is insane in the middle of the housing crisis. You know where they’re spending the most money though? In prisons. So who have a housing policy? And guess what it is? It’s prisons. Inhumane.
Mansa Musa:
Talk about going forward where y’all strategy as far as mobilizing the state around this issue. Because as it stands now with Corporate America being involved and California being slated for this Olympics, I know they’re going to invest a lot of money into the infrastructure to accommodate world athletes. I know they’re going to invest a lot of money into the police to police the population that’s disenfranchised and dissatisfied with the state.
So talk about, going forward, what’s y’all strategy going forward? Because, as it stands now, y’all saying in the article, if you don’t invest in housing, then you get what’s coming down the pipe. So what’s coming down the pipe?
Zachary Murray:
I can talk about the state level work, and Estuardo can talk about the local work that’s happening. Well, I’ll just say this: the governor threatened $3 billion in cuts, and ACCE along with our coalition partners turned out over 600 people to Sacramento back in April to protest that and to demand very specific action. And that resulted in $2 billion of funding being restored.
But the reality is that in order to solve this crisis, the state needs to invest $18 billion annually. Now, we know we just sent a $20 billion check to Israel to conduct the actions that they’re doing in Gaza. So the money’s there. We’re calling on the State of California to invest, to step up the revenue and the money that goes into affordable housing so that we can get to $18 billion in affordable housing investments annually so that we can build a million homes by [2030].
And we’re working to build a large coalition of housing advocates, homeless advocates, folks who are focused on the climate to help address this crisis because even though, as Estuardo pointed out, our prison population in California has actually declined, the amount of money that we’re investing in prisons continues to increase every year.
And so, we know that the funding is there. What’s not there is the political will. And so, we’re organizing our members and organizing with member-based organizations across the state to make this demand. And we have a month of action that’s going to be taking place in September where, in communities across California, there are going to be town halls, candidate forums to call in these elected officials and folks who are running for office to commit to this million homes campaign.
And we’re also going to do some direct actions, including some direct action at the state Capitol to bring this issue right to the governor’s backyard because right in Sacramento today, the City of Sacramento is displacing an encampment of elders. And so, we want to bring this right to the governor and say, we need solutions right now.
Mansa Musa:
OK. Estuardo?
Estuardo Mazariegos:
At the local level in Los Angeles, we have some bright spots. We have one of the most progressive taxes,, or transfer taxes called ULA, which is essentially a transfer tax on property that is being sold that’s worth $5 million or more. And this, it’s really infusing hundreds of millions in dollars into LAHD, the LA Housing Department, which is in charge of staffing and planning a task force that will go out and inspect any tenant harassment, or any slum housing conditions, or just keep up code with apartments. And also rent control. They’re the ones in control of rent control.
And one of the most exciting parts of ULA is that it’s bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars to build affordable housing and alternative housing, alternative model housing. Meaning housing that isn’t on the market, basically, that’s community controlled, and it stays affordable and community controlled forever. So common sense housing, or a lot of people would like to call this social housing. So community controlled housing, alternative models of housing.
So it’s really awesome that we have that in place already. We passed it last year and then… Well, we’re one year and a half in now, and we’ve already raised about $380 million, close to $400 million I believe, on that transfer going into LHD. And this is no sunset, meaning that it’s going to go on forever. So we potentially could see billions of dollars coming into the city of LA to build affordable housing and to staff the programs that help our community and tenants in the areas that we organize in have dignified living conditions.
And it’s still not enough. We still have to look for more buckets of resources. And look, to be honest, the state of California is what, the fifth-largest economy in the world? There isn’t a reason why we have so many folks living in the street. There isn’t a reason why we have so many children living in slum housing conditions. We can afford it. It’s just about asking who isn’t paying up.
And we all know who it is. It’s the big corporations, it’s those big landlords, the folks that are buying up our communities, displacing our people, and profiting from our people suffering.
Mansa Musa:
Monetizing poverty.
Estuardo Mazariegos:
Yep, yep, yep.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. And you know what? How can our listeners and viewers support or get more information on what y’all are doing going forward? Either one of y’all or both of y’all.
Zachary Murray:
The campaign that we’re doing statewide has a website, which is one, it’s the number one spelled out, onemillionhomesca.org. And folks can find out about the statewide organizing to get 1 million homes, to get the state to invest in affordable housing there. And like I said, there’s a calendar of events for folks who are in California that is available on that website. ACCE is hosting a number of events including a statewide town hall that’ll be virtual if folks are interested in plugging into the work that we’re doing. It’s on Sept. 7 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Estuardo Mazariegos:
And locally in Los Angeles, if you’re listening in LA or have family or friends in LA, we constantly have organizing. So if you look for us at calorganize.org, go to the Los Angeles page and you’ll find our information. If you know you need some housing rights clinics, we will hook you up.
And we’re always out in the street. So whenever we hear tenant harassment, we’re out there making sure that we bring attention to that. And we are also mobilizing all the time to create that political will.
So our next big mobilization is Sept. the 28. We’re calling it the Raise the Wages Lower the Rent March. So if you’ll be in LA that Saturday, join us 10:00 AM at Pershing Square.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. The real news, Rattling the Bars. I recall somewhere in my history of this country, it said that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But we’re finding now in this day and age that corporate America has deprived people of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by pre-meditatively displacing people and putting them into a homeless situation where they’re either going to die off or go in prison.
But however, we have some people that’s organizing to prevent this from happening. And we applaud y’all for y’all work, and thank you for joining us because y’all definitely rattled the bars today. Thank you very much.
Kamala Harris has made it clear that, while a new name is now at the top of the Democratic ticket in the 2024 elections, the party policy on immigration and the border has not changed and will not change. At the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Harris and other speakers continued to adopt the language of Donald Trump and Republicans when speaking about immigration policy and the “crisis” on the US-Mexico border. Harris also declared her commitment to signing the Bipartisan Border Security Bill, which Republicans and six Democrats killed in the Senate earlier this year, into law; the bill would, among other things, require hundreds of millions of dollars of unspent funds to be used to continue building a wall on the border. However, prominent voices within the Democratic party are speaking out and urging the Biden-Harris Administration and the Harris campaign to change course on immigration and border policy. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Juanita Martinez, chair of the Maverick County Democratic Party in Texas, about how the so-called “immigration debate” is shaping this election, and who and what is being left out of that debate.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino Post-Production: David Hebden
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
We’re back here in Baltimore after an intense week of filming inside and outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The 2024 DNC concluded on August 22nd with Kamala Harris officially accepting the party’s nomination, and addressing the convention laying out her platform and her vision for the country. But one of the things that was made abundantly clear in Harris’s speech is that, while a new name is now at the top of the Democratic ticket in this election, the party policy on immigration and the border has not changed and will not change. To loud applause, Harris declared her commitment to signing the bipartisan border security bill, which Republicans and six Democrats killed in the Senate earlier this year, into law. Take a listen.
Kamala Harris:
Last year Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The Border Patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security, and here is my pledge to you. As president, I will bring back the bipartisan board of security bill that he killed and I will sign it into law.
Maximillian Alvarez:
The border security legislation would grant presidential administrations greater power to turn migrants away from the border in mass. And it would require hundreds of millions of dollars of unspent funds to be used to continue building a wall on the border. Moreover, as Chris Walker reported for Truthout earlier this year, “The bill expedites the processing time for those seeking asylum which can sometimes take several years to just six months. It also removes the process from immigration courts potentially denying asylum seekers their due process rights. And would raise legal standards by which asylum seekers can apply for temporary or permanent entry in the US.”
Democrats openly admitted that the bipartisan border security bill was a political gambit. It was an attempt by Democrats to counter criticisms from Trump and the Republicans that the Biden administration is too “Soft” on immigration by effectively adopting the Republican platform on immigration. And it was a stunt designed to offer Republicans what they say they want on immigration and border policy just to prove that Trump would direct the party to kill the bill so as not to give Democrats a political win. But who exactly would win if this bill is signed into law? And what are we as a country, as a people losing? Who is “Winning” now that there is a clear bipartisan consensus on the “Border crisis” and the “Immigration debate?” And that the terms of that consensus have been set largely by Trump and the far right themselves.
So to talk about this I’m honored to be joined today by Juanita Martinez, chair of the Maverick County Democratic Party in Texas. I got to meet Juanita at the DNC in Chicago. And while we were unable to find time to record an interview at the convention, we felt an urgent need to have a post-convention discussion here about the role the so-called immigration debate is playing right now in shaping this election, and about who and what is being left out of that debate. So Juanita, thank you so much for joining us today on The Real News Network, I really appreciate it. And I wanted to just jump right in here and ask, now that both conventions are over, the Democratic Convention and the Republican Convention, what role do you see immigration playing in this election? What is each party offering to address it? And what is not being addressed here?
Juanita Martinez:
Well, to be honest, I did read most of the immigration bill that they were trying to pass. Many of us that have been involved with immigrants and seeing their strife and seeing their suffering here directly, eyewitnesses on the border, we’re not happy with it at all, at all. But I understand why we had to do something drastic. Not this past October but the October before, I went to the DNC meeting. It was held in Philadelphia. Yes, it was in Philadelphia. I stood there because I was going to shake President Biden’s hand but he actually let me speak. And I told him, “Mr. President, there’s a humanitarian crisis on the border we’re going to need help. And you know the Republicans are going to use that against us during the election.” And, of course, he was very kind. Oh my gosh, he is the kindest person in the world.
I mistakenly called him Joe because there were signs … There were posters everywhere that said Joe. And then I was just so embarrassed and I said, “I’m so sorry I meant Mr. President.” And he just tapped my shoulder he said, “You can call me Joe.” Such a simple, nice, everyday guy. I just fell in love with him at that point. I advised him that the situation on the border was getting worse and we needed to do something about it because that was going to be a weapon against us during the election by the Republicans. Of course, nothing was done. Exactly as I had said, that’s the only issue that they have running on. Making people afraid and telling people how there’s a invasion on the border, there’s a crisis on the border.
We have been living it here in Eagle Pass because Governor Abbott has decided to make this his stage for his political propaganda. For people to vote Republican just to keep us safe because there there’s a crisis, we’re getting invaded, they have to protect the United States. That’s bull shit. This thing about continuing with the border wall, I can tell you right off … My daughter, Dr. Adriana Martinez out of the Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, she was doing an article way past … Way before this. We spoke to some immigrants and I went with her.
And she was interviewing some immigrants and asking, “What did they think of the border” which was at that time barely being built. I’ll never forget one man that said, “They can build the border” … He had been deported from Austin, Texas. In Austin, Texas he had his family, he had his children and they had deported him because he was illegal in the US. And he told my daughter, “They can build the wall all the way up to the heavens and we’ll just dig under it like a gopher. There is nothing they can do to keep me from going back to my family where I have to support them, where I have to work for them.” That just tells you their determination.
The concertina wire is just brutal, and just vicious, and inhumane. Because this bill has that as part of it, a lot of the Democrats … I’m serious that I’ve talked to several people, especially those of us dealing with the actual situation here, we were very sad about it, about many parts of that bill. Because you hear these people that came from Venezuela, and the harshest part, the hell that they go through crossing Mexico, and then finally reaching the river where there’s some hope for a better life for their children. How is it that now they’re just going to turn them back, on this river, to where they came from? There has to be a better solution, sir. There has to be a better solution. And this bill is not the right way to go. It is my personal opinion. Of course, I 100% support Kamala Harris and I am going to work like crazy here to get … To make sure that monster Trump does not get near the White House.
However, when you talk about that issue I do have a problem. What can I tell you? This issue is very close to our heart. When you saw me there at the … Doing the interview outside the stadium at the convention, I was reaching out to a family that we helped them get there, her name is [inaudible 00:09:52]. I lost contact with them. But one morning I woke up to a message from her that said, “I am [inaudible 00:09:59], Mrs. Martinez. I want to let you know that we’re in Chicago and my husband is already working, the children are in school, and I’m going to go interview for a job at a cafeteria.” This family is the family that their little boy has a horrible scar, has a terrible scar on his leg. Their identical twins. And I always do the speech and say they are no longer identical because one of them bears the Abbott scar from that concertina wire.
Now when I went to the national convention … To me, I went for a purpose. And I felt like there’s a reason why I’m the first person from my community, from my county to represent the congressional district, it’s because I had a message and I had to spread it, I had to say it to everybody there at the convention. I took my canvas because I paint a little bit. I painted a canvas and I attached a piece of actual concertina wire from the Rio Grande, from the edge of the river so people can see what Abbott has put in our river. Besides militarizing our river he has put that and it’s just plain wrong. That’s why I feel very passionate about this.
And there’s a reason why I was there. I always think there’s a reason for things to happen the way they did. And that’s when you saw me interviewing with that Spanish network outside, that’s exactly what I was telling them. And I say this, and I want people to listen and know what’s happening on the river here, what Abbott is doing to us, to my small community. Nobody knew where we were until he decided to make us his stage for his false propaganda. I have seen a father and his daughter face down in the river where he was still holding onto her. And all these people want is to cross into the US and have a better life for themselves and their children. That’s why they risk it all because they’re suffering from hunger. Who wouldn’t do that? Me as a mother, if my children were hungry, my children were facing war violence, of course, I would risk everything I could for their future. That’s just something I feel very strongly about, sir.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And I could hear it in your voice there in the United … Outside the United Center and here now. It affects me deeply, as I told you there in Chicago, as well not only as the son of immigrants but as the foster father of an undocumented daughter myself as well. But also I think just as a human being with a heart to see what people are going through, flesh and blood human beings are going through to cross the border, to find that better life, to see the conditions that they are fleeing. And our own country’s complicity in creating those conditions and seeing the humanitarian crisis across the board. I just feel like you can’t have a heart and not want to approach this in a human way. And yet on the policy level that is not what we are getting.
And I wanted to ask you just two questions here because I know I got to let you go in a minute. Is first, could you just say more about the reality that you and your neighbors are seeing there on the ground, on the border over there in Texas? And the disconnect between what you’re seeing and experiencing and what you’re hearing in the media, what you’re hearing from Trump and the Republicans, but also what we were hearing on the Democratic National Convention stage. Can you talk a bit about that disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality on the ground? And what would a more humane immigration and border policy look like for the Democrats? What would you like to see this party do to counter the fear and hatred that Trump and the Republicans are pushing right now?
Juanita Martinez:
Well, just to give you an example. There was a caravan that came from North Texas, I don’t know how far they were from … That they came down because they heard of the invasion on the border, and it was in Eagle Pass. When they got here guess what? They were so disappointed. They even told the reporters, “Well, it’s not what we expected.” Well, duh, pendejos, of course, it’s not. You’re being lied to, you’re being lied to. They were very disappointed. They saw themselves with their rifles going up next to the river, fighting off the immigrants that were trying to rush into the United States.
These people are poor, these people want a better life. They are humble, poor people they sure as hell don’t have weapons. They don’t have weapons, they barely have what they can survive on. You’ll go to the edge of the river and find the wet clothes. Where they had another set of clothes that was dry in a plastic bag where they change right by the river. You’ll see little kids shoes just filthy with mud where they trotted across the bank of the river and they leave them there. And just searching for a better life.
They were very disappointed, let me tell you. And they went back knowing that they had been lied to. If it’s true, if it’s true that immigrants do not hurt our economy, and do not hurt the United States, and that if … And that they’ve proven they’re the ones that are bringing the drugs across … It’s US citizens that are drug traffickers. And if it’s a blatant lie that they’re all liars and murderers like the Republicans say then what the hell? Let’s make a process where they can come across without risking their life but without them having to cross all that Mexican territory. Come straight from Venezuela into the United States, if that is the process, if they want to come work.
There’s a big problem in Venezuela, what are we going to do go after the government in Venezuela to make their situation better? Climate change. A lot of this has to do with climate change. A lot of this has to do with climate change, that … What’s happening down there. There has to be a better process. But this turning them back from the river when they struggled so hard and they fought their way through Mexican cartels and Mexican deserts to get to the river and then to turn them back, that’s just inhumane, inhumane. That should not be happening. There has to be a way to take care of this. And if it’s not turning them away let them in. Every single worker at the hotel where I was staying, there in Chicago, were from Guadalajara, Venezuela. All of them were immigrants, okay? There was a real nice chef, his name is Robert, who was super nice, he was from Chicago. But every other worker that was working there was from Guatemala, from Guadalajara, from Mexico, from South America mostly. So they’re here and they’re working. We need them here.
So there has to be a better way than what is proposed in that bill. That bill should not, should not happen. But like I said, it was a forced bill by the Republicans. Because just as I told President Biden to his face, “That one time in Philadelphia, this is going to be their only weapon, the only issue they have to run on, and they’re going to juice it.” And that’s exactly what they’re doing.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work so please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
