#Worldwide #Information #Blogger #LucSchrijvers: #Update: #anarchist #information from all over the #world - 31.03.2020

Today's Topics:

   
1.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - press release,
      Covid-19: Women workers on the front line (fr, it, pt)[machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Catalonia communiqué of Embat: Communiqué of Embat on the
      coronavirus and the state of alarm (ca) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1



Whether they continue to work or whether they are at home, women are on the front line in the fight against the pandemic but also the first
victims of the current health crisis. ---- The crisis highlights the essential role of certain sectors of activity (health, education, early
childhood, care professions, agro-food and distribution, cleaning, social work, transport and delivery, etc.). Yet it is women, most often
poorly paid and precarious, who mainly work in most of these sectors. ---- With this crisis, the population is rediscovering socially useful
professions, those which cannot be done without and which meet the essential needs of all. ---- The caregivers give without counting ----
Women, the majority in health, are on the front line among hospital nursing staff, but also in nursing homes, IMEs, ESATs. Poorly paid (the
nursing assistants receive the minimum wage at the start of their career, the nurses € 1,700 gross), disparaged and clubbed when they
mobilized to improve the public service and their working conditions and remuneration, they do not count not their hours today giving up
their holidays and their family life. The government, which keeps repeating how much we must be grateful to them, does not, however, talk
about raising wages or massively recruiting essential staff.

Childminders

In March 2019, wearing the "pink vest", they were fighting to have their rights recognized. They play an essential role. cc Arthur / UCL Gironde
The proffes ensure the social bond
In national education, the personnel (also mainly female, especially in the 1st degree) respond not only by ensuring educational continuity
but also by contacting families who do not have access to digital technology. They take regular news of students, support them in homework,
answer questions from students and their families throughout the day, even in the evening and at weekends. Something that seems to ignore
Blanquer who begins to communicate on a shortening of the summer vacation. Administrative staff, AEDs, APs and AVS also provide a link with
families, especially those most in difficulty in monitoring their children.

The cashiers are there
In mass retail, employees (mainly women there too) are asked to respond to fill the shelves and work at the cash desks, most often without
suitable equipment to meet the barrier measures.

Cleaning continues to be provided in offices (most often empty !), Stations, hospitals, hotels, etc. by precarious employees (part-time work
is the norm in the sector). Poorly paid and in a poorly unionized sector, they therefore have limited means in terms of collective action
and knowledge of their rights.

Supermarket cashiers
Refueling the population is also them !
Double punishment for women
In all of these sectors, women workers face a double penalty. Not only must they continue to work, at the risk of being contaminated and
contaminating their family, but also the users or customers, due to the lack of adequate protection and clear hygiene instructions. But they
also struggle in managing the care of their own children because of the atypical hours and even more when they are in a single-parent family.

Women workers will not pay for the crisis
We can say it now: female workers are out of the question for this crisis. Neither by the massive return of women to the home, nor by the
relaxation of the labor code. Our collective struggles must be up to this backlash from patriarchy!

Libertarian Communist Union, March 25, 2020

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?COVID-19-Les-travailleuses-en-premiere-ligne

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Message: 2



A VIRUS THAT UNDERSTANDS BORDERS, CLASSES, RACE AND GENDER ---- The 21st century has brought us a war in the form of a pandemic. Its
management in the Spanish state, and throughout the capitalist world, is being treated as an economic emergency. Tragically dire management.
The Spanish Government insists that "this is not the time to do politics" while trying to give patriotic messages, appealing for social
discipline; But all the victims, deadly or not, have very clear political causes: ---- 1.- The health privatization of the last 10 years
that, ironically, was also the result of another crisis (the one in 2008, in case we had forgotten) that has left a disastrous panorama in
the field of health. A multitude of hospital centers with closed floors, fewer staff and worse working conditions, among others. It shows
that the current privatization model is not only a mistake and a scam but it exposes us and makes us even more vulnerable as a society.
And now that? The State diverted patients to private centers for lack of resources in public centers, instead of nationalizing them, and we
will pay the bills later. Meanwhile, they applaud the professionals whom they have been condemning with the cuts since 2008, both the
Spanish State and the Generalitat de Catalunya.
2.-The centralizing policy that, under the argument that "the virus does not understand borders", refuses to delegate and intervene,
confining the most clearly affected areas: Madrid and Catalonia. Again, the ghost of Spanish nationalism is planted at the center of the
debate, denying the capacity for decentralized action to maintain the unity of Spain. Showing again, how Spanish nationalism is above all,
including lives.
3.-The ineffectiveness of the Government of the Generalitat that continues to play an autonomous role. Victimizing. Instead of managing the
resources you still have in health, education, transportation, etc. Urgent care telephone numbers that communicate for hours and that in
many cases do not respond (in the form of a medical visit, diagnosis or treatment), of imprecise and sometimes contradictory orders from the
Department of Education, exposed public transport workers during days without material or political protection measures, such as limiting
the number of passengers or changing shifts.
It is true that the alarm state is an impediment. But there is always some excuse. This subordinate management to the Spanish State has
generated that the necessary measures are not adopted to contain the epidemic and to avoid the socioeconomic affectation in the population.
It is showing once again that it is useless to generate a rhetoric of unilateralism if it does not become effective and acts as a puppet of
the Regime
4.- The virus is evidencing the class struggle: overflowing public health, neglected social services, precarious workers maintaining basic
services while management positions are protected at home, Temporary Employment Regulation Files in charge of public funds in millionaire
companies, lack of diagnostic tests and means of self-protection for the popular classes and repression of the most precarious to stay home,
or police abuse of all repressive forces, supported by the Government of the Generalitat and by the Spanish State. Meanwhile, a loose hand
with the leaks to second homes, also with companies that are not of primary necessity and compel the assistance of the workers, putting them
at risk, the upper class and politics with private sanitary measures at their disposal,
The expropriation of infrastructure is an obvious need and a class and human responsibility.
5.- Patriarchy and racism so absolutely ingrained in our society. When things are difficult, everyone goes home, and what happens at home
you will manage. Closed with the attackers, or with a lot of roommates sharing a room because there are no more resources, or sneaking out
so that the police cannot verify that I am migrated. Not everyone experiences confinement as a vacation to read and connect to movie platforms.
6.-The collaboration of the PSOE / Podemos government with a savage and predatory capitalist economic model. As many social and union
organizations point out, the management of this pandemic is based on enduring an economic system in which people are in no way the priority.
All the measures that the institutions are promoting, while the population calls for very obvious solutions, aim to maintain the status quo.
Meanwhile, on television, it is sold as a collective effort that must be done for "social discipline". Women workers who are not part of key
sectors, forced to go to work at the discretion of the employer; those that are indispensable, without the sanitary measures and many others
suffering the Employment Regulation Files that the government is facilitating, not only putting public money but allowing companies to stop
paying Social Security contributions. Making it impossible to afford rent and supplies. As the housing movement rightly says: today's
layoffs are tomorrow's evictions.
SUPPORT NETWORKS AND SHOCK PLAN
In the face of this clear politicization, the revolutionary and libertarian left cannot be left behind.
-We encourage participation in the mutual support networks created throughout the territory. Now, more than ever, solidarity.
-The confinement is not an excuse to allow abuses, neither labor, nor macho, nor racist, nor real estate. Let's denounce it and act.
-Demand the establishment of emergency protection mechanisms against sexist violence by institutions.
-Require the establishment of mechanisms to protect all social services by the institutions.
-That the crisis be paid by the wealthy: that all non-basic economic activity stop, that companies provide all the means to guarantee
telework if necessary, and that no worker is left without wages during confinement. In the case of large companies, these wages cannot come
from public funds. And what if the big fortunes and companies are recorded with more taxes?
-Reclaim a moratorium on all rent, mortgage and supply payments. And a basic insertion income for those in poverty.
-This crisis shows us that healthcare can never remain in private hands. Re-nationalization of private and public hospitals and nursing
homes without compensation with public money.
-That the Centers for Internment of Emigrants that have been closed during this crisis, evidenced by their racist farce, should never be
opened again.
- Urgent attention to the situation of the dams, facilitate the opening of the penitentiary centers and the release.
-Confinition of the metropolitan areas that need it as a sanitary measure. Decentralization, therefore, of infrastructure management.
Embat, Libertarian Organization of Catalonia
Barcelona, March 26, 2020

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