With Reopening, the Crisis Is Just Beginning
In recent weeks, the depth of the economic crisis, triggered by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has become increasingly become apparent to all. As restaurant workers, we know that ‘business as usual’, with low wages, nonexistent benefits, and no job security to speak of, is intolerable. At the same time it is impossible to ignore how ‘business as usual’ is not on the horizon. Instead, we are confronted with the certainty of mass layoffs, historically high unemployment, and the inevitability of an offensive by the bosses, who will do anything in their power to ride out the economic crisis on the backs of workers.
The course of recent events has dispelled any hope of a swift economic recovery following reopening. In much of the country, the pandemic still rages, with seven states [1], many of which have eagerly reopened their economies, reporting historic increases in COVID-19 case numbers. At the same time, unemployment remains at unprecedented levels not seen since the Great Depression, with estimates ranging from 13-20%. In the meantime, states have rejected 44% of unemployment claims overall, and 60% of claims from tipped workers, while millions of undocumented workers do not qualify for unemployment benefits at all.
This past week, as most states continued to reopen, the Department of Labor reported 1.5 million new unemployment claims. Instead of seeing millions of furloughed and temporarily laid off workers returning to work, we saw images of hundreds of people lined up for hours — in some cases even overnight— outside unemployment offices, suggesting that the economic crisis is having effects beyond the immediate consequences of state shutdowns. As necessary restrictions persist, and bosses struggle to turn a profit during the crisis, massive, permanent layoffs have become a fact.
With Phase II of reopening beginning Monday, June 22 in New York City, which allows for outdoor seating restaurants, de Blasio has predicted that up to 300,000 workers will return to work. However, the logic of the bosses is unforgiving, and has no respect for de Blasio’s optimism. The possibility of seating a handful of patrons on the sidewalk, in the middle of an ongoing pandemic and historic economic catastrophe, will not see us all back to work. Instead, beginning this Monday, temporary unemployment for many of us will become permanent unemployment.
While millions of workers are thrown on the street, the bosses attack those who are still working. In every economic crisis, capitalists pit workers against each other, lowering wages, cutting benefits, and creating dangerous working conditions. At a McDonald’s in Oakland, California, workers walked off the job after they were given coffee filters and baby diapers to use as face masks, and after seeing their co- workers forced to work despite obvious COVID symptoms. Countless restaurants in states such as California, Arizona, and Florida have closed down as workers tested positive for Coronavirus, leaving them without work after being exposed to COVID-19.
In this grave situation, we can expect no help from the bosses, their political representatives, or from false friends of the working people. As the bosses subject us to dangerous conditions, politicians in Washington are currently working to protect business owners from liability if workers or patrons fall ill with Coronavirus. At the same time, the National Restaurant Association, representing thousands of restaurant owners large and small, is demanding a federal bailout of $240 billion dollars. As Pandemic Unemployment Assistance is set to expire in less than six weeks, our “progressive” city government, together with Non-Governmental Organizations like One Fair Wage, are preparing to bribe restaurant owners with millions of dollars on the condition that they “commit” to “high-road employment practices” within 5 years of receiving funds.
To see ourselves through this crisis that is likely just beginning, we restaurant workers must begin to build our strength, our camp of struggle, our UNION. With the collective strength of both employed and unemployed workers, we can beat back the attacks of the bosses and transform our weakness, the result of our division, into collective strength, and take the conditions of our lives and our work into our own hands.
[1] These states are Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, and Texas.