{"id":1789,"date":"2020-05-01T15:48:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T15:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/?page_id=1789"},"modified":"2022-03-18T13:38:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T13:38:54","slug":"05-01","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/05-01\/","title":{"rendered":"05-01"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Friday, May 1<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUS Cases 1.12 million
US Deaths 68,144<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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May 1: Despite the reports [shared yesterday, go back one day] about its ineffectiveness and maybe dangerousness, the Food and Drug Administration authorizes<\/a> <\/span>the emergency use of the antiviral remdesivir on COVID-19 patients. States begin to ease restrictions on stay at home orders. The Trump administration replaces HHS\u2019s principal deputy inspector general General Christi Grimm, who published a report criticizing the administration\u2019s response to the coronavirus (see March 23).*<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tFrom the Cutting Room Floor...\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Today is International Workers\u2019 Day (a.k.a., Labor Day) in much of the world outside the United States\u2014ironic since the day is so closely associated with Chicago. On May 1, 1886, around 200,000 workers across the country organized into over 1,000 demonstrations, demanding the same eight-hour workday that many other industries who were not full of immigrant labor already enjoyed. On May 4th<\/sup>, in Chicago\u2019s Haymarket Square, between Desplaines and Halsted, in the heart of the meatpacking district, around 3,000 protesters responded to the call for a mass meeting at 7:30pm. They were protesting police violence that killed four workers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine factory during a work stoppage the day before. Several speakers shouted out from the makeshift stage, and even Mayor Carter Harrison attended, declaring it a peaceful assembly. Around 10pm, it began to rain, and the crowd broke up. Almost 200 police from local precincts surrounded the speaking platform to scatter the remaining protestors, some of which yelled back that it was a peaceful protest and the police presence wasn\u2019t necessary. And then something exploded among the ranks of the police, killing as many as seven and wounding perhaps 60 more. Chicago police opened fire haphazardly, gunning down eight civilians, with many dozens wounded.[1]<\/a> The next day, the Chicago police began rounding up labor leaders from around the city. Even though police offered no concrete proof that some of them were even present at Haymarket that night, the city hanged four of them on November 11, 1887.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was by no means the only violence to come out of those days of protest. Also on May 5, the Wisconsin National Guard, called up by Governor Jeremiah Rusks, fired into a crowd of marchers in front of the North Chicago Railroad Rolling Mills Steel Foundry in Bay View, Wisconsin, killing seven.[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

[read_more id=”1″ more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]
We don\u2019t celebrate Labor Day on May 1 because of what happened as a result. In 1889, an international gathering of socialists in Paris officially declared May Day a holiday honoring workers\u2019 rights, nodding to the events in Chicago and Wisconsin three years earlier.[3]<\/a> Five years later, in the middle of another labor uprising, Democratic President Grover Cleveland decided to support the celebration of Labor Day in September preferred by New York\u2019s Irish workers rather than the one in May celebrated by southern and eastern European immigrants\u2014and recognized by socialists.[4]<\/a> Now many of us get the day off in September to enjoy our hotdogs and to not think too much about how their suffering of workers today is eerily similar to the suffering of workers around the world back then.<\/span><\/p>\n

We also think too little about unions. Unions were once powerful entities that could check the exploits of big business. Now, in our so-called \u201cgig economy,\u201d where company loyalty is secondary, workers find themselves alone and vulnerable to the rapacious whims of rarely seen managers, shareholders, and venture capitalists.<\/span><\/p>\n

That said, labor is not dead. The USA has seen over one hundred labor actions so far in this pandemic\u2014a number higher than all of 2019.[5]<\/a> Mike Elk, Clarissa Le\u00f3n, and Kat Callahan of Payday Report have been tracking all of them.[6]<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

What they report is that when Amazon workers ask for extra pay or extra equipment to meet the demand for extra labor in unsafe conditions, Amazon resists anyway it can\u2014a true exemplar of the American corporation\u2019s \u201cmoral decay,\u201d according to one observer.[7]<\/a> The strikes in the meat-packing industry continue as Smithfield tries to blame its immigrant labor for outbreaks.[8]<\/a> Autoworkers successfully lobbied GM, Chrysler, and Ford to delay opening when assembly lines couldn\u2019t be made safe.[9]<\/a> Workers in nursing homes, are also threatening to walk out if management refuses to help keep them safe and provide hazard pay.[10]<\/a> \u2126 Even workers at the LSL Healthcare, a PPE manufacturing plant in the western suburbs of Chicago, are presenting demands to management after they learned that one of their own was ill with COVID. Management knew but kept it from workers.[11]<\/a>  It\u2019s as if an American armaments manufacturer tried to shirk out on paying or protecting its workers in the middle of a war. Oh wait, that has<\/em> happened before.[12]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

This is just another point in a trend. Workers in jobs deemed essential, many of whom who are people of color and immigrants, stand in the firing lines against this virus, are paid very little for it, and often must fend for themselves. This does not include the now over 6 million<\/em><\/span> people who have lost their jobs. Many of the newly unemployed and their families face eviction and homelessness in a housing system that was already collapsing. It almost seems like these employers are saying the lives of the people in this group don\u2019t matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Essential workers in the clinics, nursing homes, and grocery stores, in the post offices and at the Amazon warehouses, have been working this whole time, desperately trying to do their jobs and not get sick. They are joined now by the delivery truck drivers, contractors, landscapers, manufacturers and retail assistants who have been ordered back to work amidst the \u201cre-opening,\u201d regardless of whether it is safe. If school boards decide to open schools when August rolls around, we will add the teachers to this list of essential workers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the image that comes to me is that of the African American man grabbing dozens of chickens off the feces-covered chicken pen floor outside of Demopolis, Alabama. And the Mexican American worker on the sweaty slaughterhouse line in Sioux Falls, Iowa. And the poor white woman running the mask-making machine in Chicago. And the Puerto Rican woman delivering groceries to an apartment door in Philadelphia. All of them put their health on the line and in doing so contribute to public health and individual thriving of those quarantined at home on Zoom all workday. Nearly all of us are all invisible cogs in some commercial machine. But the machine churns up some cogs faster than others.<\/span><\/p>\n

A new time of relaxing government restrictions is now coming upon us. But the whole point of \u201cflattening the curve\u201d by having so many of us stay in our homes was to allow for test development and contact tracing. The United States federal government already dropped the ball in February; now it looks as if March was lost as well.[13]<\/a> The experience of essential workers through the month of April, however, seems to demonstrate that April was another<\/em> lost month. While many of us sat home\u2014binging Tiger King<\/em>, doomscrolling through images of bodies piled in refrigerated tractor-trailers in Queens, raging over every insipid presidential tweetstorm, drooling over cooking shows, mewling over at home manicures\u2014too few tests were deployed, too few procedures put in place, and too few workers were hired to help get us back to any kind of normal. Even if the East Coast megapolis is beginning to look better, 75% of the country\u2019s population spread over 90% of its continental land mass are beginning May in the same place they ended February\u2014misinformed and unprepared.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMay Day\u201d can mean advocating for laborers. But it\u2019s also the urgent call of a pilot whose plane is going down.<\/span><\/p>


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Notes<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Lily Rothman, \u201cThe Bloody Story of How May Day Became a Holiday for Workers,\u201d Time<\/em>, May 1, 2015, https:\/\/time.com\/3836834\/may-day-labor-history\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> David Semenske, \u201c1886: The Bay View Massacre,\u201d Libcom.org, July 24, 2007, http:\/\/libcom.org\/history\/1886-bay-view-massacre.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Amy McKeever, \u201cLabor Day\u2019s Surprisingly Radical Origins,\u201d National Geographic<\/em>, September 4, 2020, https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/history\/reference\/holidays\/history-labor-day\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Jenny Gross, \u201cMcGuire or Maguire? A Tussle Over Who Founded Labor Day,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, September 5, 2020, sec. U.S., https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/09\/05\/us\/labor-day-founder.html; Karen Zraick, \u201cWhat Is Labor Day? A History of the Workers\u2019 Holiday,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, September 1, 2018, sec. U.S., https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/09\/01\/us\/what-is-labor-day.html.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Janine Jackson, \u201c\u2018This Many Strikes Says That Something Fundamentally Is Changing in the Country,\u2019\u201d Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting<\/em>, April 16, 2020, https:\/\/fair.org\/home\/this-many-strikes-says-that-something-fundamentally-is-changing-in-the-country\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Mike Elk, \u201cCOVID-19 Strike Wave Interactive Map,\u201d Payday Report<\/em>, 2020, https:\/\/paydayreport.com\/covid-19-strike-wave-interactive-map\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ross Barkan, \u201cThere Is No Greater Illustration of Corporate America\u2019s Moral Decay than Amazon,\u201d The Guardian<\/em>, April 1, 2020, sec. Opinion, https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/apr\/01\/amazon-coronavirus-new-york-chris-smalls-dismissed.<\/span><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Walter Einenkel, \u201cSmithfield Pork Executives Deflect Blame for the South Dakota COVID-19 Outbreak on Immigrant Workers,\u201d Alternet.org, April 22, 2020, https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/2020\/04\/smithfield-pork-executives-deflect-blame-for-the-south-dakota-covid-19-outbreak-on-immigrant-workers\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Mike Elk, \u201cWith 23 UAW Members Dead, UAW Halts Big 3 Reopening Next Week \u2013 Payday Report,\u201d Payday Report<\/em> (blog), April 24, 2020, https:\/\/paydayreport.com\/with-23-uaw-members-dead-uaw-halts-automakers-reopening-next-week\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Chip Mitchell, \u201cNursing Home Workers in Illinois Move Toward Strike as Deadly Virus Spreads,\u201d WBEZ Chicago, April 27, 2020, https:\/\/www.wbez.org\/stories\/nursing-home-workers-in-illinois-move-toward-strike-as-deadly-virus-spreads\/5c5e983c-fe3f-4e76-8855-8551ee3a97a2.<\/span><\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Arise Chicago, \u201cLSL Healthcare Production Workers Deliver Demand Letter,\u201d Facebook, May 1, 2020, https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/live\/?v=1549147601927303&notif_id=1588348475106617&notif_t=live_video.<\/span><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Wisconsin Historical Society, \u201cRegister of the Harold R. Christoffel Papers, circa 1937-1990,\u201d Archival Resources in Wisconsin: Descriptive Finding Aids, accessed May 1, 2020, http:\/\/digicoll.library.wisc.edu\/cgi\/f\/findaid\/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;view=reslist;subview=standard;didno=uw-whs-mss01046;focusrgn=bioghist;cc=wiarchives;byte=380412756.<\/span><\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Michael D. Shear et al., \u201cThe Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the U.S. to Covid-19,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, March 28, 2020, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/28\/us\/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.html.<\/span>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMassive strike wave across the U.S. by workers who feel unsafe. See link to interactive site below.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tElk, Mike. \u201cCOVID-19 Strike Wave Interactive Map.\u201d Payday Report (blog), 2020. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tVideo\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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