Massachusetts Nurses Fight for Safety, Patients' Health
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
AUSTRALIA $1.50 · CANADA $1.50 · FRANCE 1.00 EURO · NEW ZEALAND $1.50 · UK £.50 · U.S. $1.00 INSIDE Presidential election in Peru reflects rising class tensions — PAGE 4 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE Vol. 85/no. 32 August 30, 2021 Defend, emulate Massachusetts nurses fight US rulers end Cuba’s socialist for safety, patients’ health 20-year-long revolution! End Solidarity crucial as strike enters fifth month imperialist war US embargo! in Afghanistan BY SARA LOBMAN by Roy LanDersen NEW YORK — Why does Cuba’s The U.S. rulers’ 20-year war and oc- socialist revolution continue to live, fight cupation of Afghanistan, and the car- and set an example worldwide more nage it inflicted on working people at than 60 years after workers and farm- home and abroad, ended with further ers there took power? What makes class devastation as the Taliban retook the and social relations in Cuba so different capital, Kabul, Aug. 15. from anywhere else in the world today? In the wake of President Joseph Because 62 years ago the working Biden’s April 13 announcement that all people of Cuba were led by a Marxist U.S. forces would withdraw by Sept. 11, leadership to make a socialist revolu- and Washington’s abandonment of its tion, Martín Koppel and Róger Calero main Bagram airbase without any notice told a Militant Labor Forum here Aug. to Afghan government forces, the reac- 14. Both are members of the Socialist tionary Taliban stepped up its military Workers Party; Calero is the party’s can- offensive. The Afghan army disintegrat- didate for mayor of New York. ed after the withdrawal of U.S. army and “The revolutionary government air support. President Ashraf Ghani fled was a new state power — workers Boston Herald/Chris Christo the country. Taliban commanders an- Nurses from St. Vincent Hospital picket in Worcester, Mass., July 6. Some 700 nurses have been power — that organized workers, on strike since March 8. Fight for better nurse/patient ratios is at center of their struggle. nounced the formation of the “Islamic farmers, youth and others,” Koppel Emirate of Afghanistan.” said. “A socialist revolution is marked BY Jacob Perasso job March 8 over dangerous conditions Biden sent 6,000 troops back to Ka- by a different kind of social relations, WORCESTER, Mass. — “We are facing both staff and patients, as well as bul airport to evacuate remaining U.S. based on working-class solidarity, not holding strong,” Jackie Brosnihan, a for respect, wages and benefits. personnel. The airport was flooded capitalist competition.” nurse on strike here at St. Vincent hospi- She was responding to the “last, best by thousands of Afghanis desperately “There were two great socialist revo- tal, told the Militant Aug. 14. Brosnihan and final” Aug. 5 contract offer from Te- seeking to escape the Taliban’s clutches, Continued on page 6 is one of 700 nurses who walked off the net Healthcare, which owns the hospital, some clinging to departing planes at the and its threats to permanently replace cost of their lives. the nurses. The Massachusetts Nurses Of the quarter of a million Afghans Association says the offer “fails to pro- Continued on page 7 Earthquake, decades of US plunder vide the improvements in staffing that nurses need to keep patients safe.” brings social catastrophe in Haiti “We are reaching out to everyone possible for support,” Brosnihan added. Fight for shorter “Just this week Boston Firefighters and Teamsters Local 170 came to bring sup- workweek with port, cooking a meal and walking the picket line with us.” Strikers say numer- no pay cut to put ous union delegations and others have Continued on page 9 us back to work! by TerrY EVans Workers today face an ongoing strug- SWP campaign: gle for jobs, safe working conditions and enough pay to survive. Some are locked out or are on strike over boss demands ‘Workers need to worsen workers’ conditions, includ- ing at the Warrior Met coal mine in to fight to take Alabama, ExxonMobil’s big oil refinery in Texas, St. Vincent Hospital in Mas- political power’ sachusetts and elsewhere. by Roy LanDersen Government statistics, which deliber- “Working people today are keenly ately undercount the real conditions fac- interested in how we can organize to ing working people, still report there are fight to change the disastrous con- Continued on page 9 Misión Médica en Haití ditions we face worldwide — from Cuban medical volunteers treat patients in southwest Haiti after earthquake. Cuba’s interna- tionalist medical mission — 253 health care workers strong — has been in Haiti for 22 years. Afghanistan, to Haiti, to the Middle East and here in mines, mills and Inside by seTH GalInsKY greed that has siphoned billions of other workplaces across the U.S.,” Virginia teacher fired for view The capitalist press in the U.S. pres- dollars in profits into the coffers of John Studer, Socialist Workers Par- ents the social catastrophe unfolding foreign corporations and left 60% of ty national campaign director, told on sex vs gender back on job 3 in Haiti since a 7.2 magnitude earth- Haitians earning less than $2 a day. the Militant. “We all face a relent- Protests demand end to US quake ravaged its southwest Aug. 14 Even before the earthquake, some less offensive by the capitalist rul- as a natural disaster. But there is little 66% of the population had no access ers, whose dog-eat-dog profit system colonial rule in Puerto Rico 4 that is “natural” about the more than to electricity. drives them to attack working people ‘Fidel belongs to working 1,900 dead, 6,000 injured and over An earthquake in 2010 killed at home and abroad.” 37,000 families homeless. 300,000 people and destroyed Supporters of SWP campaigns on people of the world’ 6 The depth of the destruction is 100,000 structures. Nothing has been the West Coast from Los Angeles to –On the picket line, p. 5– the consequence of over 100 years done since then to prepare for more Seattle are organizing a coordinated of imperialist plunder and capitalist Continued on page 2 Continued on page 3 Quebec strikers need solidarity in fight against Olymel bosses Social catastrophe hits Haiti Continued from front page plunder and the U.S.-backed dictator- earthquakes, much less strengthen ship of the Duvalier family, which existing buildings. lasted from 1957 until 1986. “I don’t expect any help, we’re on In 1986 workers and farmers rose our own,” Michel Milord, a 66-year-old up and overthrew the Duvalier re- farmer in Toirac, who lost his wife and gime. They have often taken to the his house, told the New York Times. “No streets since to protest against anti- one trusts the government here.” working-class measures of succes- At one collapsed three-story apart- sive governments. ment building in Les Cayes the only The capitalist class and its backers help that arrived rapidly to look for in Washington haven’t been able to survivors and the dead were poorly create a stable government. On July equipped volunteers. 7, Haitian President Jovenel Moise “All we have are sledgehammers was assassinated in his home under and hands. That’s the plan,” Canadi- circumstances that remain uncertain. an volunteer Randy Lodder, director Prior to his killing, Moise had refused of the Adoration Christian School in to call new elections and was ruling Haiti, told The Associated Press. by decree, rejecting opposition party Haiti has roughly 20 doctors per claims that his term had expired. 100,000 people, a lower percentage The terms of almost all the mem- AP/Joseph Odelyn People gather outside Petit Pas Hotel, destroyed by Aug. 14 earthquake in Les Cayes, Haiti. than Afghanistan. Some 75% of child- bers of Haiti’s legislature expired in Impoverished by U.S. imperialist plunder, thousands were killed, injured or made homeless. births take place without the presence October 2019, but no new elections of any trained health workers. Until have been held. U.S.-backed neuro- with them to begin transporting relief. here as long as the country needs us.” July Haiti had not received a single So far aid from major capitalist pow- In addition to the internationalist mis- COVID-19 vaccine dose. 20 as prime minister, leaving the post sion, the Cuban government has pro- Not only are doctors and nurses in of president vacant. inadequate, like it has been every time vided university education to 1,583 Hai- short supply, but there are not enough The U.S. Department of Commerce Haiti has been hit by earthquakes, hurri- tian students since 1998, including more basic items like bandages, anesthesia touts Haiti as a great place for capitalist canes or other disasters. The United Na- than 1,100 medical students. Currently and antibiotics to treat people injured investment, calling it “one of the most tions has allocated only $8 million. 127 Haitians are studying in Cuba. in the quake. open economies in the Caribbean” Haitian working people are justly with “few government controls.” Hai- Cuban volunteers set an example proud of Haiti’s history as the site of tian tariffs on rice and chicken were As in past disasters, Cuban medical Malcolm X, Black - rescinded in the 1990s, at the insis- volunteers are setting an example for Liberation, & the Road bellion, which defeated the French tence of President Bill Clinton, dev- to Workers Power in 1804 and put an end to slavery. astating the livelihood of thousands of quake, 253 Cuban doctors, nurses and However, the French empire was able peasants.