#Worldwide #Information #Blogger #LucSchrijvers: #Update: #anarchist #information from all of the #world - 10.04.2020

Today's Topics:

  
 1.  CABN, CAB: We will not forget! Dictatorship never again!
      (pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Labour pains
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  anarkismo.net: The struggle against Covid-19 is also
      political by WSM - Workers Solidarity Movement - Ireland
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
  
 4.  Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Domestic abuse and
      coronavirus (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  Iberian Anarchist Federation FAI: Faced with the health
      crisis and the authoritarian drift of the State (ca)
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #303 -
      Antipatriarchy, Antipatriarchy: Sunday March 8, consumer strike
      (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  USI: The ‘scientific rigour' which has left our hospitals
      unprepared (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  alas barricadas: Health, social and economic measures in
      light of the current situation (ca) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1



On March 31, 2020, 56 years of one of the most cruel moments Brazilians have ever lived: the Military Dictatorship. ---- Corruption,
persecution, censorship, torture and death. The lack of freedom has stained our history and keeps the pain to the present day, as hundreds
of families still do not know where the bodies of family members of friends imprisoned by the dictatorship are. ---- Therefore, we always
need to remember to never happen again. And with that in mind, we have prepared a list of films on the topic to watch and reinforce:
Dictatorship never again! ---- 1 - Reserved Dictatorship (2012) ---- The documentary tells the story of Edgard Shatzmann and Lucia
Shatzmann, a couple of popular fighters against the dictatorship, it is possible to identify the marks of state terrorism between the years
1964 and 1985, as well as the different forms of resistance of the people below.

Watch: bit.ly/2QVQD5K

2 - A story of love and fury (2013)

The animation takes place on four dates in the history of Brazil: 1500, when the country was discovered by Portuguese explorers, 1800, in
events during slavery; 1970, during the high point of the dictatorship and in the future in 2096, when there will be a war over water.

Watch: bit.ly/2UzUBU5

3 - Retold History: Professor Marcos Cardoso Filho and the Dictatorship at the Technical School, (current IFSC) (2014)

Documentary produced by IFSCTV, based on a report made by IFSC at the request of the State Truth Commission, which discusses the
circumstances of the Military Justice hearing on the premises of the Technical School, in which Marcos participated as a defendant, in the
presence of several of his students and colleagues.

Watch: bit.ly/2QXUUFZ

4 - Fighters of faith: the history of CEB in Floresta (2018)

The documentary discusses the history of community and union struggle with the Ecclesial Base Communities, in Bairro Floresta, in Joinville,
in the second half of the 1970s, when the dictatorship oppressed the people.

Watch: bit.ly/2wRYURh

5 - Baptism of Blood (2006)

The film by the filmmaker Helvécio Ratton, based on the book of the same name by Frei Betto, tells the resistance of the Dominican friars
from São Paulo to the military dictatorship. Driven by Christian ideals, the friars "Tito", "Betto", "Oswaldo", "Fernando" and "Ivo" start
to support logistically and politically the guerrilla group Ação Libertadora Nacional, led by Carlos Marighella at the time.

Watch: bit.ly/2UxodBg

6 - Identification Portraits (2014)

Two former guerrillas who fought against the military dictatorship come across, for the first time, photographs taken by the police at the
time of their respective arrests. Espinosa witnesses the murder of his friend Chael Schreier, under torture, and Guarany recalls life in
exile, without documents, and the suicide of his companion, Maria Auxiliadora Lara Barcellos, in Berlin. The past returns.

Watch: bit.ly/2JuHnl6

7 - Dictatorship created chains for Indians with forced labor and torture

Accusations of vagrancy, alcohol consumption and pederasty threw Indians in prisons during the military regime; for researchers, society
must recognize them as political prisoners.

Watch: bit.ly/3ayQ2yP

8 - Memories of the Lead: Football in the Times of the Condor - Brazil (2013)

Program shown on ESPN Brasil, about football in the days of the Condor, during the military dictatorship in the countries of the Southern Cone.

Watch: bit.ly/2UNlYsB

https://www.cabn.libertar.org/nao-esqueceremos-ditadura-nunca-mais/

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Message: 2



The contest for the leadership of the Labour Party ends today (Thursday April 2nd) and the results should be announced on Saturday. It is
clear to us in the Anarchist Communist Group that the Corbynist project has failed and that Keir Starmer is due to become the new leader,
orientating Labour towards a Neil Kinnock/John Smith style of leadership. One should remember that Starmer allied with the right to attempt
to oust Corbyn back in 2016. ---- It seems likely that Starmer will now attempt to force sections of the Corbynites out of the Party,
including Trotskyists and self-described "anarchists". ---- It looks like Starmer will almost certainly look to the Labour right to back him
in the months to come. He plans to put Rachel Reeves in place as shadow chancellor, who has gone on record to call Labour to be tougher on
people signing on for benefits and hinting that immigration caused race riots.

But even if the left's candidate, Rebecca Long-Bailey, would have been elected, it would have been a variation on the Starmer theme.
Long-Bailey is herself tacking to the right after the Corbyn defeat and her so-called radicalism is a flimsy affair. As a Catholic she
believes that the law on abortion at 24 weeks on the grounds of disability should be changed, coming out with the asinine statement that
disability and non-disability should be treated equally, although apparently supporting women's right to choose. She is against criticism of
Israel and its policies against Palestinians, equating criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism.

All of this shows that real radical change cannot come through electoralism. Even if successful against the onslaught of a media firmly
biased against anything they see as "left", the election of a social democrat like Corbyn would only end with the state management of
capitalism, with an accommodation to supporting business, continuing austerity measures . Look what happened to SYRIZA in Greece, a
supposedly radical party that initiated worse cuts than the previous government! Look what happened to Podemos in Spain, that is now keeping
a party it swore to oppose, the Socialists, in power- appeasing capital, etc.

We appreciate that many young people, and those a bit older too, had high hopes in a Corbyn victory and had a thirst for radical change. But
that radical change cannot come through the ballot box, it has to come through the creation of mass movements in the workplaces and the
neighbourhoods. We say to them, do not despair, forget the Labour Party and get involved in grass roots agitation. Just because there is a
Johnson government, doesn't mean there cannot be an effective fight against austerity. Look at France, look at Chile, look at Puerto Rico.
We feel convinced that after the end of the coronavirus crisis, an appetite for change can ignite new movements here and around the world.
Forget Corbyn, forget Sanders. No turning back!

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/04/02/labour-pains/

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Message: 3



The Covid-19 global health crisis is one that required a global response led by health workers but with the consensus of almost everyone.
Instead we face a piecemeal response, often in the form of repressive policing solutions that are not even particularly effective and where
the borders between the states have undermined collective action and allowed the virus to multiply in the gaps. ---- Fear has led many to
wish for harder state clampdowns as if a policing apparatus had any hope for substituting for collective solidarity between neighbours. The
very ideology of neoliberal capitalism and its mantra of everyone looking after themselves has cut into the sort of community solidarity
essential to popular enforcement of physical distancing. Thankfully in Ireland we discovered this process was not complete and a sufficient
sense of solidarity remained that almost everyone implemented physical distancing measures before the state backed that process.

This virus is not a threat at the distances of national borders but in the short space between us and our friends, neighbours and fellow
workers. Rather than wishing for the state to get tougher policing that space, we need to think and act collectively to organise this
ourselves by building a common consensus around what needs to be done.

Popular action
This has already happened in some places where popular action was ahead of state action, in Hong Kong in the early days and in Ireland in
March where against all stereotypes popular demands mobilised through social media saw just about every pub close its doors ahead of the St.
Patrick's Day weekend. We would presume there are many, many other examples yet to reach our ears, but stories of people self-organising
seldom make it into the media.

None of this is to deny a potential need for draconian action in self defence. If the anarchist army of Ukraine could summarily execute
those who spread anti-Semitic propaganda to prevent pogroms being triggered we are in no way uncomfortable measures to lockdown the virus.

While we would prefer to be in an anarchist society where these would be by popular consensus this is not yet the world we are living in so
we are no more necessarily against justifiable state measures in this context than we are against laws requiring the observation of traffic
lights or banning drunk driving. Our role thus is not some sort of absolutist opposition but rather to push for popular alternatives and
limits on attempts to expand state power in anything but the most temporary and medically justified way.

On the other hand we don't see the state as a solution and this crisis illustrates that. States in general have made things worse by
covering up and preventing action in several places. State imposed lockdowns have not been very successful where community consensus did not
exist. How would you impose them between neighbours without either popular consensus or a cop in every household. And who then watches those
cops.

Border racism
Of course shut the border racists have tried to use the crisis for fascist propaganda but any reasonable analysis shows this distracted from
the real long distance routes of transmission. The virus did not arrive in Ireland via the highly policed, slow and murderous routes
refugees are forced to follow but via the fast jet travel of wealthier Irish citizens who were taking skiing holidays in northern Italy.
Many of these were school kids, did those who saw closing the borders as a magic solution, were they seriously proposing leaving 10,000
school kids locked out of the country? It is clear that was an impossible ‘answer' to long distance transmission - and distracted from what
was needed and later introduced, a requirement that anyone arriving isolate themselves as far as possible for the subsequent two weeks.

Indeed in a general sense border racism has magnified the threat we all now face. Greece which has over the last couple of years created
super concentrated unsanitary camps where refugees have been packed in and restricted. These camps are places where the people living there
cannot self isolate or even regularly wash their hands. The people in these camps need to be allowed to disperse immediately and hotels and
ferries provided so they can reach ‘own door' shelter where those who become infected can self-isolate. This is not only essential for their
survival but also for ours.

On a local level the long standing acceptance of racist structures has left us more rather than less vulnerable as a collective. In
particular the cruelty of Direct Provision has created overcrowded conditions where self isolation is impossible but out of which a section
of the capitalist class has made huge profits from such suffering. The halting sites where many Travellers live are over crowded and
underfunded, and thus an example where our unique Irish acceptable racism has now magnified the risk we collectively face. Neoliberal
Capitalism and increasing rents have created conditions where we have over 10,000 people in emergency accomodation, and increasing numbers
of people who are homeless in our republic. In such conditions Covid 19 will rip through the most marginalised and discriminated people in
our society.

Profits & rents
A minority making huge profits from rent & low wages has meant many of our often migrant hospitality workers have been forced into living
4-6 to a room and afraid to call in sick when as a collective we need them to be able to. Again a situation that many of us have simply
tolerated as it has worsened over the last decade.

Chronic underfunding of the health service will mean many many more deaths and it's not just ICU shortages, it becomes clear that the HSE
had no stocks and no realistic plans for acquiring PPE equipment in the context of a pandemic. Rather than levelling with health workers,
and telling them the truth as the facts emerged they sought to silence them while lying to the public. Another example of where in this war
we need to dispense with spin and communications gurus and be transparent and honest with the workers and the public. The current hope is
that all volunteer crews of Aer Lingus workers will save the day by flying multiple flights to China to collect essential PPE supplies while
having to live aboard their planes.

What can and should anarchists do? A lot of us are already doing it. Help organise community solidarity, build the power of health and other
frontline workers, guard against state attempts at power grabs that go beyond immediate threat, expose dangerous racist lies that obscure
what needs to be done to halt the virus.

The Direct Provision and overcrowding crisis means that vacant apartments, particularly REIT ones kept empty to evade rent controls must be
put into use to provide homes that small groups can self isolate in. Hotels may be used to allow the population in homeless shelters to
disperse to their own door rather than shared rooms.

Workers and activists in those sectors will have a much better sense of what should be demanded and routes of implementation but clearly we
can say no one should be in unsafe overcrowding while potential homes lie empty to protect profit. National Traveller organisations are
already trying to ensure provisions are made for Travellers in this pandemic.

We can support actions where workers self-protect - eg in Finland bus workers and elsewhere transport workers refuse to collect fares and
ask that people access & leave the bus by the middle or back doors and not the front door which is beside them. Workers on construction
sites and sanitation workers are still expected to work without it seems even basic steps like the provision of PPE, staggered lunch breaks
& shift starting times to avoid overcrowding and the end of work that cannot be done safely because of the need to maintain physical distances.

Our only power is collective
What the Covid-19 virus does not do is discriminate. All humans can be infected, regardless of wealth, class, where you live, what you do,
or how you think. Therefore, it will not be defeated by us acting as individuals, it will only be defeated by us acting collectively. As
anarchists, we have always maintained that power resides in the collective, and in these conditions, given what we know about this, we the
people are doing the right things, to prevent the virus spreading. This is done from a basis of self-defence, but it also resides on the
foundation of solidarity. Together we are stronger. There is an Irish - saying that goes ‘Ní neart go cur le Chéile' - There is no strength
without unity. That goes back to the 12th century long before Capitalism, but not before plagues like the black death which wiped out half
of all Europeans in the 14th century. Now, in the 21st we face this enemy again, and we know that it is only by facing it as a collective
that we will prevail.

Above all else though we need to prepare for the time after the virus. A lot of things like eviction bans that our rulers insisted were
impossible have suddenly turned out to be almost instantly achievable. The health crisis has laid bare the unequal nature of our society and
the way that inequality puts us all in danger. Authoritarian politicians turned out to be incapable of acting rationally and fast, organic
grassroots responses were swifter and more effective. A lot of people have noticed these things and with all those people we need to draw
everyone into a conversation about what sort of society we want to live in, one that no longer treats the economy as a separate sphere best
left to find its own way. The strength that we will draw on as a collective in this time will be brought to bear on this system which is
proving, at this time of greatest need, to be unfit for purpose.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31807

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Message: 4


The first coronavirus murder has been reported in the UK. A 67 year old woman was murdered by her husband when they were both in
self-isolation. ---- This illustrates the great dangers that women face as a result of lockdown, not just here but over the world. Domestic
abuse cases soared in France, with at least two murders of women. Women's organisations there are warning of worsening situations as regards
domestic abuse. Globally, one in three women face physical and sexual violence, in many cases from someone in their family. In China, local
police stations reported a threefold increase in domestic violence cases in February, compared to the same time last year. In the USA, calls
to some domestic abuse helplines doubled.
Self-isolation won't solve the unequal distribution of domestic tasks and childcare, and women who are now having to telework will still
face the stress of double workloads.

Single parent families are the first to be marked by poverty with many in substandard housing.

Women are facing pressure from their ex-partners to keep them under their control with the desperate situations created by the lockdowns.

Here in Britain, a figure of 1.6 million women in England and Wales was given for cases of domestic abuse for the last year. So
self-isolation for many women will not mean catching up with your reading or viewing box sets but a place of menace and confinement, walled
up with their abusers. Women's organisations here are also monitoring an increase in enquiries about abuse and local police forces are
reporting an increase in domestic abuse cases.

In times not troubled by pandemics, women could have taken refuge with friends or family. This is not now possible . Home Secretary Priti
Patel has said that women can leave the home they share with an abuser to seek shelter in a women's refuge, but one in six of these have
closed since 2010 because of austerity measures.

This highlights the whole nature of a patriarchal system that has been incorporated into capitalism, and raises questions about the
essential nature of families as they exist at present. Domestic violence is an instrument for keeping women in line, of maintaining
patriarchal power relations.

The home can be a terrible place for children as well, and the lockdowns will aggravate the situation. Children can temporarily escape from
violence at home by attendance at school. The closure of schools means that thousands of children are confined with their abuser. In some
homes, even the provision of meals is not guaranteed, something that school meals provided, but which have been temporarily taken away.

The same goes for many LGBTQ+ young people, not just here but around the world. They may be trapped in a home where their family does not
accept their sexual orientation, and suffer a high risk of violence. In Uganda, police have used social distancing laws to arrest 20 people,
14 gay men, two bisexual men and four transgender women.

As a result of all of these ongoing problems aggravated by the coronavirus, suicides may spiral as people cannot cope with worsening situations.

In the West, including in the UK and the USA, a majority of mothers hold down jobs, and will face pressure to give up their paid work. Many
women in a two-earner heterosexual household are paid less than their partner. There will be greater pressure for women rather than men to
devote themselves to full-tim

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/04/02/domestic-abuse-and-coronavirus/

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Message: 5



Since the beginning of the year in Europe and in other parts of the world, we have been facing an acute social crisis due to the COVID-19
virus and the condition it causes, the so-called "coronavirus disease", as it is commonly known. ---- In Spain, this crisis has been
exacerbated by so many years of privatization and the dismantling of public health and other essential services by the political parties
that have been in power both in the central State and in the various governments. regional, legislating in favor of business interests. This
has brought serious consequences as a result of the social crisis in which we are immersed: the lack of personnel and resources to
successfully face the pandemic. In all this process of dismantling, there is a neoliberal and, therefore, class ideology. With the
dismantling of public health, private health has benefited, which has constant drawbacks and reluctance to collaborate with resources and
infrastructure in managing the crisis. Some governments, such as the Community of Madrid, are carrying out the systematic closure of various
primary care centers, leaving thousands of people without access to the most basic healthcare.

Lack of resources and money has given rise to a class perspective when it comes to administering and testing the virus. Thus, while they
sell us that this or that politician or businessman has the virus or not, the workers have been denied the possibility of knowing if we are
infected or not. Until weeks after the declaration of the state of alarm by the Government, in many companies workers we have found the lack
of personal protective equipment (PPE), overcrowding in the workplace and lack of plans in the companies to guarantee safety and health.
This of course has consequences. Workers and our loved ones are the most vulnerable when facing the virus. This vulnerability increases:
without a doubt, the greater the job insecurity, the greater the risk of exclusion, and the greater the lack of resources when facing the
social crisis. The safety and health of us and our loved ones has not been guaranteed at any time.

At a social level, the lack of sanitary devices and other types of emergency personnel has led to the State's inability to meet the needs of
people. This has meant the drastic cut of rights and freedoms, and has further exacerbated authoritarianism by the state's coercive
machinery (army and police) and the exercise of repression and fear. Through the "Gag Law", triple administrative penalties have been
imposed in 12 days than those imposed in Italy in one month. On the internet there are a multitude of videos and testimonies documenting
abuses of power. Even some sectors within the police have denounced "macarrismo" and the lack of control that exists in their institution.
In addition, various media outlets promote and normalize abuses of power, the exercise of social control and neighborhood lynching in the
neighborhoods, always against the most vulnerable groups. This normalization of authoritarianism and coercion, the institutions' calls for
national unity, the warmongering language, the nationalist exaltation and the presence and mediatization of the army, sadly bring us closer
to that dark recent dictatorial past that many people seem to refuse to overcome.

We can only overcome this social crisis by weaving and practicing networks of solidarity and mutual support in our day to day. It is
something intrinsic to the human being the need to associate both to support the people who need it most, and to defend our interests as
workers. It is necessary to support the most vulnerable population, overcoming by various means the feeling of loneliness and uncertainty
that comes with confinement in our homes, isolation and fear. Supporting our neighbors who need us most and our coworkers, both in those
circumstances in which we are obliged to go to work, and outside the workplace.

Organization between equals and the practice of solidarity will be necessary to combat the subsequent crisis that will come when the
pandemic is overcome. Only organized can we resist the bosses' offensive to cut labor rights with the excuse of mitigating economic losses,
and overcome the fear of cuts in rights and freedoms by the State to continue consolidating its hegemony.

For anarchy.

Iberian Anarchist Federation

https://federacionanarquistaiberica.wordpress.com/2020/04/03/ante-la-crisis-sanitaria-y-la-deriva-autoritaria-del-estado

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Message: 6



This year, March 8 falls on a Sunday. But it is difficult to ask women who work on Sundays, that is to say the most pressured, to go on
strike. There remains another way of showing our anger and our solidarity: no consumption this Sunday. ---- This year March 8, International
Day of Struggle for Women's Rights, falls on a Sunday. Does a feminist strike on Sunday make sense? An employee cannot work more than six
days a week, and as a general rule the weekly day of rest must be Sunday. The law only concerns female employees, not the self-employed.
There are many exemptions. The permanent exemptions are linked to the type of activity and the needs of the public: all the sectors that
deal with perishable materials, from bleaching straw hats to factories using ovens (lots of sectors with bizarre names); the activities
deemed necessary: certain businesses, furniture, DIY, flowers; hospitals and leisure-related establishments ; services to people. The
contractual derogations are caused by branch or company agreements concerning continuous work, Sunday work is compulsory if provided for in
the employment contract. The exemptions granted by the prefects are temporary. They respond to requests from companies and authorize another
method of taking weekly leave. The exemptions granted by the town halls concern the retail trade and are "limited" to twelve per year (five
before Macron).

No one volunteers to work on Sunday
Derogations linked to geographic location apply to tourist areas and stations. In these cases, the employee must express in writing her
volunteering to work on Sunday. And of course, the bosses have a great respect for volunteering and never exert pressure. How many women
work on Sunday ? Since the mid-1990s the number of people usually working on Sundays has doubled. Not because there are more nurses, or more
services provided to the elderly or disabled, not because we have increased the number of firefighters, just because the period of time we
can open businesses has increased , because capitalism has managed to transform every moment of life into a moment when you can buy in real
stores with real people, the vast majority of whom are women. Commerce, hotels, restaurants... 17% of the employees (more than 70% of them
women) work regularly on Sundays.

What impact on Sunday workers ? No one is really willing to work on Sunday, those who accept it do so to improve wages too low to live
decently. Working on Sunday means being out of step with the rest of society, his or her spouse, his children who attend school on weekdays
and his friends. Women who work in the trade have atypical hours, part-time, mid-day breaks. Working on Sunday means losing leisure time
with your loved ones, without being able to make up for it during the week. To ask women who work on Sunday to go on strike is to ask the
poorest and most pressured to do so. There is a simpler way to show our anger and our solidarity: no consumption this Sunday, nor any other.
If the shops open on Sunday, it's because there are clients. Militating for the strike of household chores is also nonsense. They will have
to be caught the next day.

Christine (UCL Sarthe)

This text talks about women but is written in neutral feminine when everyone is concerned.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Antipatriarcat-Dimanche-8-mars-greve-de-la-consommation

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Message: 7



The following statement, released recently by Italian healthcare union USI on the running down of their national health system, could be a
word for word critique of the British government's own systematic destruction of the NHS. ---- At least €37 billion, or 43,000 workers
(which means the loss of 70,000 beds, including 3,000 in intensive care). In recent years, these have been the cutbacks to the healthcare
system.[Ed's note: The NHS funding gap in England was about £30bn in 2019 and it was short by 44,000 nurses]. ---- For years, we have been
getting ready, with "scientific rigour", to make sure we wouldn't have enough resources to deal with a health emergency like the present
one. In these days of the coronavirus outbreak, the alarm caused by the massive cutbacks to the health system must take centre stage. Now,
every problem is evident, as well as the shortcomings it brings about.

The continuous cutbacks to the National Health Service and the systematic reduction of human and technological resources, due to cuts in the
Health Fund, have led to a widespread collapse of the healthcare system. As a result, access to treatment has been reduced for an increasing
number of people. Today it is the coronavirus, tomorrow it could be another virus or even any trivial disease: to maintain only Essential
Levels of Care (ELC) is to sign a death sentence. When deaths take place gradually, it may not be so obvious. But now, deaths because of the
coronavirus are numerous and in a very short time.

Now, at the height of the emergency, the importance of public health is undeniable. Health workers are praised as heroes, but they have
endured abysmal working conditions for years: lots of stress, emotional blackmail, harassment in the workplace and penalties from the
management, which uses report cards to evaluate performance (and their subsequent effect on wages) and appalling contracts that have not
improved for years.

Workers in public and state-funded private healthcare have been affected by a process of deconstruction of the system. Even worse, abandoned
and neglected, they have had to adapt the health response to the country's needs. But, what about the needs of those who provide the
service? More than ten days after the start of the coronavirus outbreak, health workers had to work without masks and with insufficient
protection. As a result, more and more doctors and healthcare workers became infected and at risk of infecting patients and their families.
Healthcare workers who may be exposed to infection are no longer tested. Exhaustion is rife, both physical and mental, and pills are used to
sleep for a few hours between gruelling shifts, when it is impossible to stop thinking about what has been witnessed. Experienced co-workers
are seen crying, patients are abandoned in the corridors, alone, far from their loved ones. Death from coronavirus is a lonesome death.
Health workers are in the front-line trenches, under relentless shelling. We are witnessing a merry-go-round of regulations and protocols,
sometimes contradictory, between regional administrations and the central government. They all complain very loudly about the lack of
supplies, only to mask a chronic shortage that they did not even consider replenishing after the outbreak of the epidemic in China.

We have denounced for a long time, together with other class unions, what those years of devastation of the national health system could
mean. These days of the coronavirus emergency, our reasons to raise the alarm about the massive cuts are making themselves evident.
Governments and politicians in general are to blame, of course, but not only them. Brunetta, the Secretary for Public Administrations under
Berlusconi, used to say that health workers were lazy, parasites, crooks who got paid for doing nothing and other such epithets, and he
enjoyed a good deal of support.

Every time we stood by when a hospital bed was lost, we were feeding our fear and desperation of today. Over the past few years, groups and
strikes in defence of the health system were not supported enough. Now, people are coming to cheer health workers... The legacy of this
pandemic must be a widespread struggle to demand and recover an effective and universal health service, ready to deal with any possible
emergency.

This article was translated by the ICL-CIT website, an international of syndicalist unions which USI is affiliated to. The union's strongest
base is in the healthcare sector in Milan.

https://freedomnews.org.uk/the-scientific-rigour-which-has-left-our-hospitals-unprepared/

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Message: 8



The Regional Confederation Center of the CNT union demands, in relation to Royal Decree 8/2020 of extraordinary urgent measures to face the
economic and social impact of COVID-19, that the pertinent measures be urgently applied to avoid the sanitary and social collapse . We
demand a way out of this health, social, care, climate, ecological and economic crisis that puts life at the center. The union proposes a
series of urgent measures that need to be defended from solidarity, collective organization and mobilization: ---- 1.- Strengthen public
health, universal health coverage and private health intervention without financial compensation. ---- The public health capacity limit has
been greatly reduced due to more than a decade of cuts and privatizations. Therefore, it is essential and urgent to provide sufficient
services to health services. Similarly, personal protection equipment must be provided to all the staff of these centers in order not to put
their lives and that of sick people at risk. The intervention of private health must translate into the mobilization of all private
resources at the service of the general interest and public health. Reversing privatization begins with the repeal of Law 15/97, the law
that produced the current privatization drift.

2.-Nursing homes:

The kidnapping decreed for the elderly in non-medicalized residences -with the excuse of protecting them against the visit of relatives- has
been their death sentence. Their families were given no option to take them home. An extermination resulting, also, from the denial of
transfer to hospitals, non-intubation, or simple sedation of those who could enter the hospital. In Madrid alone, 1,100 of them have been
killed, workers, abandoned to their fate, infected by their own caregivers. His relatives and friends have not been able to say goodbye with
a minimum of decency. The autonomous governments must assume their responsibilities.

3.- Protect essential service workers:

Most of these people are workers with precarious conditions and little socially valued jobs. During the first week of the state of alarm
from all these sectors, complaints of corporate irresponsibility, the lack of security protocols and the practical absence of personal
protective equipment have multiplied. The situation in sectors in permanent contact with risk groups such as residences or the collapsed
home care service is particularly worrisome. The situation of extreme vulnerability of migrant day laborers and migrant farmworkers in the
Andalusian countryside is also worrying. Or the situation of abandonment and vulnerability of domestic and care workers.

4.- Retroactivity of the measures, prohibit dismissals and approve a basic income of universal and unconditional quarantine:

Two weeks before the State of alarm, ERTEs had already been dismissed due to the crisis. Especially layoffs in temporary contracts. These
workers need to be protected.

In order to prevent employers from taking advantage of the current situation to bear the costs of this crisis on the backs of the working
class, it is urgent to prohibit the dismissals and cancel those that have occurred since the start of the state of alarm.

But without work or contractual work, no one can be without income for the duration of the health emergency because otherwise the social
consequences would be devastating. That is why it is essential to approve a basic quarantine income that guarantees income universally and
unconditionally while the state of alarm lasts.

Access to this basic income must be guaranteed to all people regardless of their nationality, residence status or administrative situation.

5.- Suspension of the payment of rents, mortgages and basic supplies while this situation lasts and without accumulating the debt. And in
the same way, paralysis of all evictions.

6.- Resources for intervention in sexist violence:

We demand shock measures that keep activated and strengthen social resources for the prevention and detection of male violence. Which is
more likely to occur in these situations of forced confinement.

7.- Immediate release of prisoners who are classified as a risk population due to their age or previous illnesses.

8.- CIE closure, end of deportations and repeal of the Aliens Act:

Prevent special measures from the state security forces from being used to cover racist raids. The protection of reception centers must be
ensured and special attention must be paid to the situation of unaccompanied foreign minors.

9.- State of alarm and repression:

We cannot consent that repression by the security forces is given free rein in the state of alarm. And raise awareness among our neighbors
so that they are not participants in this repression.

10.- Guarantee sufficient public resources for the application of all these measures:

The measures approved so far by the government are based on an increase in public spending and at the same time in the exemption from paying
taxes, that is, there will be a decrease in income with an already strongly regressive tax system. The thousands of ERTE could empty the
social security box to protect the benefits of large private companies.

CNT demands a tax reform that forces those who have more to pay more. And, at the same time that banks assume their responsibility in the
current context. The bank must return to society the unpaid ransom amounting to 65,725 million euros (in 2019 the bank declared benefits of
more than 23,000 million euros).

Finally, the union emphasizes that, now more than ever, the individualism that characterizes neoliberalism must be broken. In these
difficult times it becomes more evident than ever that in order to get out of a situation as complicated as the one we find ourselves in
(and the one to come), the self-organization of society is essential. CNT urges society to support the social networks and movements that
are being organized to help the most vulnerable neighbors. That it supports and counts on the unions to face the labor abuses that are
taking place. May we be more civic than ever and take care of ourselves collectively. That they support all the workers who are supporting
us (toilets, cleaners, pharmacy and supermarket workers, transporters, farmers, etc.).

For this reason, the union encourages us to practice mutual support, solidarity and self-management more than ever. Because unfortunately
there are more missing among us than we can bear, let's remember their memory with the affection that we always profess for them, let's
encourage their relatives who mourn their loss. The intention is not to leave anyone behind. Only the people save the people.

http://alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/43439

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