Section 44
With live productions no longer safe during the pandemic, workers both in and behind the scenes of the entertainment industry are struggling. In Houston, theater unions have reported massive layoffs, approaching 100% unemployment among their memberships, with as many unmet needs in utilities, rent amnesty and social provision. Long-term problems also exist for the financial […]
As part of a continuing series of interviews with frontline workers in Texas, S.U. spoke with two anonymous Kroger workers and members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, working in different stores across Dallas. Since the onset of the pandemic, organizing in this sector, Anthony Elmo of UFCW Local 1000 told Section […]
On February 20, 2020, GE announced the intent to close this shop with the employees that keep our national electric grid running. Local IUE-CWA members are demanding GE use this facility and its highly-skilled workers to manufacture ventilators, and are calling for increased safety measures to protect them at this time. The plant has won […]
Section 44 reprints and encourages readers to share and contribute towards the following local fundraiser for the family of a fallen worker at the El Paso Psychiatric Center. To donate and share, please follow the link here. You can read more about the Crisis at the El Paso Psychiatric Center here. “Today April 14, 2020 […]
On April 14, 2020, an employee at the El Paso Psychiatric Center (EPPC) died from COVID-19. That came on the heels of several other patients and employees at the center testing positive for the virus. State-wide, more than 108 employees at state-supported living centers and state hospitals have tested positive. The El Paso Psychiatric Center, […]
This is a 4-week reading and discussion group designed for organizers and union members to establish an understanding of the history of labor struggles in Texas. In our current social and political climate of “business friendly” Texas, working class people are disconnected from this forgotten/erased tradition of workers’ organizing to improve conditions. The goal is […]
As the first strikes and wider fightbacks flare amidst a cratering economy and an exploding pandemic, David McNally, a professor of history at the University of Houston and an award-winning author of numerous works including Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance and forthcoming, Blood and Money: War, Slavery and the State, […]
Ralph Bivins, Houston 2020: America’s Boom Town – An Extreme Close Up. Fifth Estate Media, 2018. 160 pp. Review by S.U. Naomi Klein thinks the coronavirus pandemic is another example of disaster capitalism. The concept she pioneered has become enormously influential – even shorthand – for how the Left thinks about moments like our own. The key […]
In light of today’s pandemic and as many Texas cities go under lockdown, Section 44 reprints a petition authored by domestic workers in Laredo, TX on October 19th, 1903 in the Laredo Daily Times. The border town fell under army-enforced quarantine during that year’s yellow fever epidemic, inducing many local elites to flee, taking their […]
Texas Labor History, ed. Bruse A. Glasrud and James C. Maroney. Texas A & M University Press, 2013. 448 pp. Review by Snehal Shingavi Each time an activist movement breaks out in Texas—think for example of the War on Texas Women protests in 2013 or the large protests around the Black Lives Matter movement—the commonsense attitude […]
