truthout--2020-06-08--Protesters Sue Donald Trump, William Barr After Being Tear-Gassed for Photo Op

Protesters are suing President Donald Trump , Attorney General William Barr and a number of federal officials after they were tear-gassed to clear the way for an administration photo-op .
“ This case is about the president and attorney general of the United States ordering the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators who were speaking out against discriminatory police brutality targeted at Black people , ” the complaint reads .
The suit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter DC , along with a handful of individual protesters , by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the Washington Lawyers ’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs , Lawyers ’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Arnold & Porter LLP .
Along with Trump and Barr , the complaint names Secretary of Defense Mark Esper , Army Gen. James McConville and the heads of the Secret Service , U.S. Park Police and D.C. National Guard , as well as dozens of anonymous officials who carried out the action .
The suit , filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia , seeks a court order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ First and Fourth Amendment rights and affirming that administration officials engaged in a conspiracy to deny those rights .
It also demands a court order barring officials from repeating the action , as well as restitution “ for trauma and injuries sustained from chemicals and physical blows.
” “ What happened to our members Monday evening here in the nation ’ s capital was an affront to all our rights , ” April Goggans , head organizer of Black Lives Matter DC , said in a statement .
“ The death of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands of police officers has reignited the rage , pain and deep sadness our community has suffered for generations , ” she added .
“ We won ’ t be silenced by tear gas and rubber bullets .
Now is our time to be heard.
” Approximately 10 minutes before the president addressed the nation in the Rose Garden last Monday — and nearly a half-hour ahead of the city ’ s 7 p.m. curfew — law enforcement officials backed by the National Guard unleashed tear gas , rubber bullets and flash-bang shells @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , clearing a path for Trump to stage a photo-op as he held a Bible in front of historic St. John ’ s Episcopal Church .
“ This appears to be grossly unjustified use of a chemical weapon on protesters and raises serious human rights concerns under international law , ” the ACLU later posted to Twitter .
The White House and Trump campaign later denied that tear gas had been used , and no law enforcement agency has admitted to it .
U.S. Park Police used the term “ tear gas ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walked back the use of the word as a “ mistake.
” At the same time , it admitted that pepper balls shot by officials cause tears .
Reporters on the ground have produced canisters of natural and chemical tear gas agents collected at the scene .
Scott Michelman , legal director of the ACLU ’ s Washington office , was frank in describing the gravity of the moment .
“ It was an attack , ” he told Salon .
“ Just a flagrant assault on our constitutional rights — on these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ We average about 600-700 intakes per year , but that night we received 229 , ” he said , referring to requests for legal action filed with his office .
“ The majority of them were connected to Lafayette and almost all of the rest to Swann Street , ” he added , referring to the Washington neighborhood where protesters were gassed in a private home where they had been given refuge after curfew .
When asked whether there was case law precedent for such an injunction , Michelman pointed out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ courts to issue stays on policies , this circumstances of this incident appear singular .
“ I ’ m not sure anything like this has ever happened , ” he said .
“ It ’ s something like I ’ ve never seen before.
” And the complaint itself makes the case .
“ The peaceful assembly of people seeking systemic change in the criminal justice system , like the assembly of Plaintiffs and others on June 1 , 2020 , in Lafayette Square , is based on a decades-old history of civil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it says , referencing a litany of landmark moments such as the 1965 march on Selma , Ala. “ The Lafayette Square assault was violence against black people and their supporters committed by state actors , ” the complaint says .
“ What differentiates the actions here from the others is that the president and attorney general of the United States ordered the violence.
” The morning of the attack on the demonstrators , Trump , on a conference call with governors , pushed them to “ dominate your city and your state.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ re going to do something people haven ’ t seen before , ” he said .
On that call , the secretary of defense , also named as a defendant in the suit , told governors they needed to “ dominate the battle space , ” meaning the streets of the U.S .
Hours later , federal agents gassed peaceful protesters and helicopters performed counterinsurgency tactical maneuvers over the streets of the nation ’ s capital .
A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Washington Post that Trump had directed Barr to personally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unrest .
“ Bill Barr , the attorney general , the top law enforcement agent in the country , is going along , complicit , ” the ACLU ’ s Michelman said .
Barr is the only defendant sued not only in his official capacity but also his personal capacity , which an ACLU spokesperson indicated in an email was reflected in the portion of the suit seeking damages for injuries and would also be the part of the suit most likely to come before a jury .
Barr personally ordered the protesters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of senior Justice Department and White House officials told ABC News .
Barr “ assumed that any resistance from the protesters of being moved would be met with typical crowd-control measures , ” an official told The Post .
Barr “ basically said : ‘ This needs to be done .
Get it done , ' ” the official recalled .
A short while later , tear gas , rubber bullets and flash-bang shells were unleashed on protesters .
“ This plan was happening , regardless of any plans of the president , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The ACLU ’ s complaint points out that Barr gave the order after several days of the president threatening violence against protestors , such as on the conference call and a tweet that Twitter masked for violating its policy against “ glorifying violence.
” The order was also given in conjunction with a Secret Service notice that the president would visit the church after his speech .
“ President Trump has routinely been sympathetic to protesters whose views align with his own , ” the complaint reads , citing the white nationalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Va. , in 2017 .
The day before the assault , Trump invited demonstrators to Lafayette Square , urging supporters to form a counter-protest .
“ The professionally managed so-called ‘ protesters ’ at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd .
The @ SecretService handled them easily .
Tonight , I understand , is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE ?
?
?
” he tweeted .
The government has two months to respond to the suit .

Protesters are suing President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr and a number of federal officials after they were tear-gassed to clear the way for an administration photo-op.
“This case is about the president and attorney general of the United States ordering the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators who were speaking out against discriminatory police brutality targeted at Black people,” the complaint reads.
The suit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter DC, along with a handful of individual protesters, by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia (ACLU), in conjunction with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Arnold & Porter LLP.
Along with Trump and Barr, the complaint names Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Army Gen. James McConville and the heads of the Secret Service, U.S. Park Police and D.C. National Guard, as well as dozens of anonymous officials who carried out the action.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks a court order declaring that the assault violated the protesters’ First and Fourth Amendment rights and affirming that administration officials engaged in a conspiracy to deny those rights.
It also demands a court order barring officials from repeating the action, as well as restitution “for trauma and injuries sustained from chemicals and physical blows.”
“What happened to our members Monday evening here in the nation’s capital was an affront to all our rights,” April Goggans, head organizer of Black Lives Matter DC, said in a statement.
“The death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers has reignited the rage, pain and deep sadness our community has suffered for generations,” she added. “We won’t be silenced by tear gas and rubber bullets. Now is our time to be heard.”
Approximately 10 minutes before the president addressed the nation in the Rose Garden last Monday — and nearly a half-hour ahead of the city’s 7 p.m. curfew — law enforcement officials backed by the National Guard unleashed tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang shells on peaceful protesters gathered in Lafayette Square, clearing a path for Trump to stage a photo-op as he held a Bible in front of historic St. John’s Episcopal Church.
“This appears to be grossly unjustified use of a chemical weapon on protesters and raises serious human rights concerns under international law,” the ACLU later posted to Twitter.
The White House and Trump campaign later denied that tear gas had been used, and no law enforcement agency has admitted to it. U.S. Park Police used the term “tear gas” in a statement, though it later walked back the use of the word as a “mistake.” At the same time, it admitted that pepper balls shot by officials cause tears. Reporters on the ground have produced canisters of natural and chemical tear gas agents collected at the scene.
Breaking: police canisters gathered by @wusa9 crews Monday night show federal police DID use artificial CS tear gas in addition to natural OC gas on #BlackLivesMatter #WashingtonDCProtests Asking @usparkpolicepio & @realDonaldTrump for response on statements claiming otherwise. pic.twitter.com/ouFi8NWC2s — Nathan Baca (@NathanBacaTV) June 4, 2020
Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU’s Washington office, was frank in describing the gravity of the moment.
“It was an attack,” he told Salon. “Just a flagrant assault on our constitutional rights — on these people’s civil rights and liberties.”
“We average about 600-700 intakes per year, but that night we received 229,” he said, referring to requests for legal action filed with his office.
“The majority of them were connected to Lafayette and almost all of the rest to Swann Street,” he added, referring to the Washington neighborhood where protesters were gassed in a private home where they had been given refuge after curfew.
When asked whether there was case law precedent for such an injunction, Michelman pointed out that while it is not unusual for courts to issue stays on policies, this circumstances of this incident appear singular.
“I’m not sure anything like this has ever happened,” he said. “It’s something like I’ve never seen before.”
And the complaint itself makes the case.
“The peaceful assembly of people seeking systemic change in the criminal justice system, like the assembly of Plaintiffs and others on June 1, 2020, in Lafayette Square, is based on a decades-old history of civil rights activism in this nation,” it says, referencing a litany of landmark moments such as the 1965 march on Selma, Ala.
“The Lafayette Square assault was violence against black people and their supporters committed by state actors,” the complaint says. “What differentiates the actions here from the others is that the president and attorney general of the United States ordered the violence.”
The morning of the attack on the demonstrators, Trump, on a conference call with governors, pushed them to “dominate your city and your state.”
“In Washington, we’re going to do something people haven’t seen before,” he said.
On that call, the secretary of defense, also named as a defendant in the suit, told governors they needed to “dominate the battle space,” meaning the streets of the U.S.
Hours later, federal agents gassed peaceful protesters and helicopters performed counterinsurgency tactical maneuvers over the streets of the nation’s capital.
A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Washington Post that Trump had directed Barr to personally “lead” the response to the unrest.
“Bill Barr, the attorney general, the top law enforcement agent in the country, is going along, complicit,” the ACLU’s Michelman said.
Barr is the only defendant sued not only in his official capacity but also his personal capacity, which an ACLU spokesperson indicated in an email was reflected in the portion of the suit seeking damages for injuries and would also be the part of the suit most likely to come before a jury.
Barr personally ordered the protesters at Lafayette Square cleared, a pair of senior Justice Department and White House officials told ABC News. Barr “assumed that any resistance from the protesters of being moved would be met with typical crowd-control measures,” an official told The Post. Barr “basically said: ‘This needs to be done. Get it done,'” the official recalled.
A short while later, tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang shells were unleashed on protesters.
“This plan was happening, regardless of any plans of the president,” a DOJ official told The Post.
The ACLU’s complaint points out that Barr gave the order after several days of the president threatening violence against protestors, such as on the conference call and a tweet that Twitter masked for violating its policy against “glorifying violence.”
The order was also given in conjunction with a Secret Service notice that the president would visit the church after his speech.
“President Trump has routinely been sympathetic to protesters whose views align with his own,” the complaint reads, citing the white nationalist protests that turned deadly in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
The day before the assault, Trump invited demonstrators to Lafayette Square, urging supporters to form a counter-protest.
“The professionally managed so-called ‘protesters’ at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. The @SecretService handled them easily. Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???” he tweeted.
The government has two months to respond to the suit.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-06-08--Minneapolis City Council Members Pledge to Abolish the Police Department

A veto-proof majority of Minneapolis city council members pledged on Sunday to vote in favor of a resolution disbanding the city ’ s police force and replacing it with a broad system of community responses to the city ’ s issues .
Nine councilmembers announced their intent to “ dismantle ” and “ abolish ” the police department and system of policing currently in place in Minneapolis during a rally over the weekend .
That level of commitment represents a majority that can not be vetoed by the city ’ s mayor .
“ In Minneapolis and in cities across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe , council president Lisa Bender said at the rally .
“ Our efforts at incremental reform have failed , period.
” Bender added that the council is committed to “ end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.
” In addition to giving a vocal promise to defund the police force , city council members present at the demonstration on Sunday also signed a written pledge to begin the process of dismantling the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clear what the new system for “ public safety ” might look like , and even after the plan is crafted , it will likely need to cross a few more hurdles before being implemented — including a high likelihood of a citywide vote on the issue .
Minneapolis ’ s city charter requires the council to fund the department and to maintain a minimum number of officers staffed in relation to the city ’ s population .
To address this , an amendment to the charter would likely be necessary , requiring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or a full approval of the council , plus the mayor ’ s support , to change the rules .
Because Mayor Jacob Frey has come out against defunding the police , the vote from the people seems to be the only route available to change the charter .
Local organizations that had been pushing for this change for years before the eruption of protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd are celebrating the city council members ’ pledge as a major victory , without losing sight of the fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be overcome to implement the decision .
“ This is a moment that ’ s going to go down in history as a landmark in the police and prison abolition movement , ” Tony Williams , a member of MPD150 , said in a statement released by the Minneapolis-based grassroots organization Reclaim the Block , which has been pushing for the city council to divest from the Minneapolis Police Department since 2018 .
“ There ’ s a groundswell of support for this .
People are grounded in the history of policing in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s visible that police are not able to create safety for communities.
” “ Safety is being able to decide who supports you .
We ’ re not abolishing help , ” Arianna Nason , another member of MPD150 , an organization dedicated to shifting “ the discussion of police violence in Minneapolis from one of procedural reforms to one of meaningful structural change , added .
“ We ’ re abolishing police .
That ’ s very different…We have to do the work to imagine something different and to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and communities want.
” Reclaim The Block also wrote in its Facebook statement that “ Minneapolis makes history by beginning a community-driven process to dismantle its police department.
” And Kandace Montgomery , director of Black Visions Collective , emphasized what it took to get to this point .
“ It shouldn ’ t have taken so much death to get us here .
George Floyd should not have been murdered for so many people to wake up , ” Montgomery said during the rally .
“ It shouldn ’ t have taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these streets , over and over .
I want to honor all of the organizers and communities who — for generations — have dreamed and worked to make this day happen.
” The city council members ’ pledge to defund the police comes after nearly two weeks of protests following the death of Floyd , a Black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes late in May .
Other officers stood by while that officer continued to apply pressure to Floyd ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It took several days of protests before all four were issued criminal charges for their role in the killing .
Last week , Minneapolis schools announced its decision to end its relationship with the city ’ s police department , removing officers from their hallways .
The Minneapolis school board , in a statement announcing the move , said the department ’ s actions “ run directly counter to the values ” of the school district .

The move to defund the police will likely need a change to the city’s charter, too, requiring a city-wide vote.
A veto-proof majority of Minneapolis city council members pledged on Sunday to vote in favor of a resolution disbanding the city’s police force and replacing it with a broad system of community responses to the city’s issues.
Nine councilmembers announced their intent to “dismantle” and “abolish” the police department and system of policing currently in place in Minneapolis during a rally over the weekend. That level of commitment represents a majority that cannot be vetoed by the city’s mayor.
“In Minneapolis and in cities across the US, it is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe, council president Lisa Bender said at the rally. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.”
Bender added that the council is committed to “end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.”
In addition to giving a vocal promise to defund the police force, city council members present at the demonstration on Sunday also signed a written pledge to begin the process of dismantling the department.
It’s not yet clear what the new system for “public safety” might look like, and even after the plan is crafted, it will likely need to cross a few more hurdles before being implemented — including a high likelihood of a citywide vote on the issue.
Minneapolis’s city charter requires the council to fund the department and to maintain a minimum number of officers staffed in relation to the city’s population. To address this, an amendment to the charter would likely be necessary, requiring either a public vote on the issue or a full approval of the council, plus the mayor’s support, to change the rules.
Because Mayor Jacob Frey has come out against defunding the police, the vote from the people seems to be the only route available to change the charter.
Local organizations that had been pushing for this change for years before the eruption of protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd are celebrating the city council members’ pledge as a major victory, without losing sight of the fact that future hurdles will also need to be overcome to implement the decision.
“This is a moment that’s going to go down in history as a landmark in the police and prison abolition movement,” Tony Williams, a member of MPD150, said in a statement released by the Minneapolis-based grassroots organization Reclaim the Block, which has been pushing for the city council to divest from the Minneapolis Police Department since 2018. “There’s a groundswell of support for this. People are grounded in the history of policing in a way that has never happened before. It’s visible that police are not able to create safety for communities.”
“Safety is being able to decide who supports you. We’re not abolishing help,” Arianna Nason, another member of MPD150, an organization dedicated to shifting “the discussion of police violence in Minneapolis from one of procedural reforms to one of meaningful structural change, added. “We’re abolishing police. That’s very different…We have to do the work to imagine something different and to listen to what people in different neighborhoods and communities want.”
Reclaim The Block also wrote in its Facebook statement that “Minneapolis makes history by beginning a community-driven process to dismantle its police department.”
And Kandace Montgomery, director of Black Visions Collective, emphasized what it took to get to this point.
“It shouldn’t have taken so much death to get us here. George Floyd should not have been murdered for so many people to wake up,” Montgomery said during the rally. “It shouldn’t have taken young Black folks risking their lives in these streets, over and over. I want to honor all of the organizers and communities who — for generations — have dreamed and worked to make this day happen.”
The city council members’ pledge to defund the police comes after nearly two weeks of protests following the death of Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes late in May. Other officers stood by while that officer continued to apply pressure to Floyd’s neck, resulting in his death. It took several days of protests before all four were issued criminal charges for their role in the killing.
Last week, Minneapolis schools announced its decision to end its relationship with the city’s police department, removing officers from their hallways. The Minneapolis school board, in a statement announcing the move, said the department’s actions “run directly counter to the values” of the school district.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-06-08--Trump’s New White House Barrier Transformed Into Black Lives Matter Memorial

As peaceful protests continued to flower and grow in U.S. cities and around the world over the weekend , a newly-erected security fence established around the White House in Washington , D.C. became what one reporter described as a “ crowd-sourced memorial wall ” — adorned with hand-made signs , posters , and other tributes — that offered a poignant rebuke to the president ’ s “ law and order ” response to the demonstrations that erupted following the murder of George Floyd last month .
Since the new security barrier was established late last week , it has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justice , declaring “ Black Lives Matter ” and “ I can ’ t breathe , ” and naming many other victims killed violently by law enforcement in recent years .
Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on Sunday posted a video of the scene which has since attracted more than 5 million views on social media : Speaking with DCist.com , Kai Gamanya , a surgical technician who participated in protests in the nation ’ s capitol over the weekend , talked about hanging a painting he made on the fence and how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people transform the physical barrier into a symbol of protest and a tribute to lives lost and the justice now being demanded .
“ It ’ s like the whole nation is crying , and this whole fence is crying , ” said Gamanya .
“ And if you were to back up and see it from beginning to end , it ’ s nothing but posters from all the way down.
” While Trump built a large portion of his political brand and 2016 president campaign on his desire to “ build @ @ @ @ @ @ @ southern border , the irony was not lost on those who witnessed the nearly 1.7 miles of new fence put up to surround the White House last week .
But the manner in which demonstrators and visitors transformed the structure for division and separation into a symbol of revolt and passionate expression gave many observers a feeling of hope and pride : “ Beautiful , ” said actor and activist George Takei in a one-word response to the video posted by Natanson .

A structure for division and separation has been transformed into a symbol of revolt.
As peaceful protests continued to flower and grow in U.S. cities and around the world over the weekend, a newly-erected security fence established around the White House in Washington, D.C. became what one reporter described as a “crowd-sourced memorial wall” — adorned with hand-made signs, posters, and other tributes — that offered a poignant rebuke to the president’s “law and order” response to the demonstrations that erupted following the murder of George Floyd last month.
Since the new security barrier was established late last week, it has been adorned with countless protest signs calling for justice, declaring “Black Lives Matter” and “I can’t breathe,” and naming many other victims killed violently by law enforcement in recent years.
Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on Sunday posted a video of the scene which has since attracted more than 5 million views on social media:
Speaking with DCist.com, Kai Gamanya, a surgical technician who participated in protests in the nation’s capitol over the weekend, talked about hanging a painting he made on the fence and how uplifting it was overall to see the people transform the physical barrier into a symbol of protest and a tribute to lives lost and the justice now being demanded.
“It’s like the whole nation is crying, and this whole fence is crying,” said Gamanya. “And if you were to back up and see it from beginning to end, it’s nothing but posters from all the way down.”
The 8-foot chain link fence protecting the White House has become a sort of archive / exhibition of the D.C. protests with signs, memorials, flowers and art. pic.twitter.com/mvr0wBkOy6 — Rebecca Tan (@rebtanhs) June 6, 2020
While Trump built a large portion of his political brand and 2016 president campaign on his desire to “build the wall” along the entire U.S. southern border, the irony was not lost on those who witnessed the nearly 1.7 miles of new fence put up to surround the White House last week.
Here’s @ktumulty with a history lesson on White House fencing and this kicker: “A president who needs to take shelter behind fences and barriers because he feels threatened by his own citizens is not their leader. He is their prisoner.” https://t.co/cOEROhWPh3 — Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) June 5, 2020
But the manner in which demonstrators and visitors transformed the structure for division and separation into a symbol of revolt and passionate expression gave many observers a feeling of hope and pride:
It’s so beautiful to remember, periodically, that the American people are hungry to express creativity and to march for justice https://t.co/oGdXAzAsn9 — Dr. Steven W. Thrasher (@thrasherxy) June 7, 2020
I can’t get over this. Protesters in DC have turned Trump’s disgusting White House fence into this 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/b83DSVMIMf — Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) June 7, 2020
“Beautiful,” said actor and activist George Takei in a one-word response to the video posted by Natanson.
“Whose fence?” tweeted Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “Our fence!”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-06-08--Students and Staff Oppose COVID-Inspired Disaster Capitalism on US Campuses

More than 80 years ago , during the Great Depression , college endowments fell by 26 percent and donations fell by more than 70 percent .
But rather than cutting back on what was being offered on U.S. campuses , the federal Works Progress Administration ( WPA ) hired 8.5 million people to lay more than 9,000 miles of storm drains and sewers , and build 4,000 new school buildings ( most intended for K-12 instruction ) , 130 hospitals and 100 community arts centers .
In addition , during the eight years that the WPA existed ( 1935 to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ universities benefited ; by extending its reach to higher education , WPA laborers built classrooms and dormitories , and installed public artworks on campus lawns and inside buildings .
The goal ?
To entice students to enroll and retain them until they graduated , assuring them of the skills they ’ d need to find work when the economy improved .
Among the beneficiaries of these efforts were Alabama Polytechnic Institute ( now Auburn University ) ; Arkansas State ; Arizona State ; Brooklyn College-City University of New York ; The College of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Howard University ; The University of Iowa ; The University of Pittsburgh ; The University of Rhode Island ; and Virginia Commonwealth University .
Fast forward to today .
Similar to the Great Depression , the current economic crisis is raising important questions about government responsibility and whether or not state and federal lawmakers will use COVID-19 to gut public programs , including access to a high-quality public education , as they push more wealth to the top .
Writer Naomi Klein coined the term “ disaster capitalism ” to describe this phenomenon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or natural disaster to promote privatization and reorder priorities to benefit the wealthiest few at the expense of the many .
The upheaval resulting from COVID-19 is a prime example .
Pauline Lipman , professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago , was part of an online panel sponsored by Labor Notes and the Public Education Workers Network in mid-May that addressed current threats to higher education .
“ Austerity is being rolled out as the administration weaponizes the crisis , but public higher education was already in crisis due @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and increased tuition fees , ” she said .
What ’ s more , Lipman continued , the pandemic “ lays bare realities that were there all along , ” realities that highlight the interconnections between public education , food insecurity , skyrocketing housing costs , available employment , health care access and incarceration — issues that directly impact students at every level , pre-K through university .
Still , if within every crisis there are also opportunities , COVID-19 could be a chance to reimagine and reframe what we mean by “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a new platform to argue for free public education as a fundamental right .
It might also , Lipman reminded us , be an opportunity to advocate for increased faculty governance , including the right to organize , form unions and protect public schools from closure , ban the outsourcing of services and stop privatization .
Winning won ’ t be easy , however , since retrenchment is already underway — and is assumed by many to be inevitable .
An April survey of college presidents revealed that 72 percent expect to impose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and halt new construction and renovations on campus within the next year .
As for potential job losses , teachers and administrators , as well as cafeteria workers , maintenance crews , residence hall staff and office workers are targets .
The Boston Globe reported in early May that 345 colleges consider themselves “ in peril , ” at risk of closing due to anticipated under-enrollment for the 2020-21 academic year .
This is largely because of a projected loss of full-paying international students and debts incurred by university hospitals , whose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surgeries due to COVID-19 will result in enormous budget deficits .
The unexpected toll of having to issue housing and meal-plan refunds in spring 2020 also set them back .
• The University of Louisville is “ pausing ” retirement contributions from May 1 to July 31 , imposing a pay cut on those earning $ 100,000 or more , and instituting a two-month salary reduction of 1 percent for all faculty earning between $ 58,000 and $ 99,999 annually ; • Miami University in Oxford , Ohio , announced plans to outsource @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to massive job losses that are scheduled to begin this July ; • Harvard , a school with a $ 40.9 billion endowment , announced in March that it was going to fire approximately 275 dining hall workers .
The administration eventually agreed to pay the workers through May 28 , after a public outcry ; • The University of Arizona is instituting graduated furloughs for those making more than $ 150,000 , stopping new building projects , postponing the development of a strategic plan for the future of the college and delaying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Morehouse College has announced the layoff of 13 full-time employees and has slashed the salaries of 200 others ; • New Jersey ’ s Kean University is eliminating four undergraduate majors : music ; sustainability sciences ; theater and economics ; • In college sports , Bowling Green State University in Ohio is dropping its baseball team ; the University of Cincinnati has cut men ’ s soccer ; Virginia ’ s Old Dominion University has eliminated wrestling ; and Baylor , in Waco , Texas , is delaying the construction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slated to open before the 2022-23 season .
Marisa Allison is a Ph.D. student at George Mason University and the former director of research at the New Faculty Majority Foundation , an advocacy group that organizes support for contingent faculty .
Allison notes that the most vulnerable teachers on college campuses are the non-tenure-track lecturers and adjuncts who often have little to no job security from semester to semester .
Between 51 and 61 percent of those holding these positions are women , Allison says .
In all likelihood , this means that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and reinforce long-standing gender , race and class disparities .
But students and faculty are fighting back .
Activism on Campus and Beyond Most campuses — especially those that are unionized — have adopted a two-tiered strategy : fighting austerity while also extending a hand to those who have lost jobs , both on campus and in the communities in which their colleges are located .
Barbara Bowen is the president of the Professional Staff Congress , a union representing 30,000 full- and part-time faculty employed by the City University of New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that one of the union ’ s main priorities is getting the Shared Help Assessment to Rebuild Education ( SHARE ) Act passed by the New York state legislature .
The SHARE Act , she explains , is a temporary tax on those earning more than $ 5 million a year , with the revenue raised earmarked for public schools and higher education programs .
“ If we don ’ t see this passed , it means that state lawmakers have made a conscious choice to cut hospitals , housing for the homeless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to protect the richest state residents , ” she said .
Nonetheless , Bowen says that she is hopeful because union support for the Act , as well as resistance to cutbacks , has been unusually strong .
For example , when the provost at CUNY ’ s College of Staten Island announced plans to cut 35 percent of adjuncts , department chairs issued a resounding “ no ” and refused to comply .
“ The provost thought the adjuncts would be an easy target , ” Michael Paris , chair of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said at a press conference to demand increased funding for CUNY .
“ We pushed back .
All 10 chairs of humanities and social science departments said that we will not be complicit.
” That said , Bowen admits that it has been challenging to come up with new organizing strategies , since demonstrations , sit-ins and civil disobedience are currently out of the question due to social distancing rules .
“ We had a car caravan that had great energy — folks drove in front of a building where a Board of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s not the same as a loud 2,000-person demonstration .
At the same time , more people are attending virtual union meetings than had previously attended in-person meetings , so we ’ ve had great discussions.
” Bowen is further heartened because what happened at the College of Staten Island has been contagious and notes that department chairs at several other CUNY schools , including Brooklyn College , have also refused to comply with layoff demands .
This pleases undergraduate Michael Matteson .
As a Brooklyn College student in a five-year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and finance , Matteson says that he fears cuts will delay completion of his degree .
“ Already it ’ s hard to get the classes you need , ” he says .
“ I worry that if they cut the number of classes offered , a lot of students will drop out completely .
I also worry that teachers will be less motivated to teach , and larger classes — I registered for one in the fall that allows 130 students — will mean there ’ s no time for one-on-one conversations.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of history at both the University of California , Irvine , and the University of California , Los Angeles , told Truthout that the lack of transparency about budgetary matters has galvanized staff throughout the University of California ( UC ) system .
Nonetheless , he says that getting undergraduates mobilized to stop the cutbacks has been difficult .
“ Students are preoccupied with the shift to digital teaching , the inferior quality of instruction and how onerous it is to do this work online , ” Griffey says .
“ The exhaustion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poor and working-class students has been an extra burden .
UC students , like those at CUNY , are often the frontline workers , the ones facing eviction , the hungry and sick .
COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on those who are low-income , working-class and first generation.
” Add in speculation and uncertainty about the fall semester , and it ’ s not surprising that both faculty and students are on edge .
“ The UC chapter of the American Federation of Teachers , our union , has created an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take selfies holding signs opposing layoffs , ” Griffey said .
“ One good thing is that we ’ ve been able to watch our union bargaining with management online , which has changed a lot of people ’ s views about the school they work at .
Things are still in the early stages , but at least at UC-Irvine , this has lit a fire under people ’ s feet .
At the same time , we know we ’ re up against something pretty profound.
” Each UC campus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan of action .
At UC-Berkeley , according to Griffey , the lack of job security for lecturers , coupled with the fact that their median salary is $ 19,900 , has led to increased militancy and mobilization .
For its part , UC-Davis has organized Strike University , described on its website as “ a training school for a new generation of university unionists , ” and is working to link current calls for austerity to a wider swath of social and political concerns .
According to UC-Davis Ph.D. student and Strike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is an outgrowth of a 2019 wildcat strike by graduate students at UC-Santa Cruz that demanded a cost of living allowance in addition to their monthly teaching stipends .
Citing prohibitively high housing costs in the area , the grad students eventually walked off the job .
Later , hundreds of faculty members throughout the UC system withheld end-of-semester grades in solidarity .
The university responded by terminating 54 of the striking UC-Santa Cruz grad students .
According to Brykalski , Strike University came together in mid-March to offer teach-ins on topics such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and police surveillance , and brought speakers like Cornel West and Tithi Bhattacharya to the student body through Zoom .
A summer “ camp ” is in the planning stages but will tentatively focus on prison abolition .
“ We want people to think about what a society without prisons would look like , ” she says .
Graduate students at the University of Illinois , Chicago , have taken a different tack , organizing — and winning — access to additional paid sick leave , coverage for teletherapy sessions and permission for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the summer if travel restrictions bar them from returning to their home countries .
Likewise , several faculty groups on other campuses have organized to meet the day-to-day needs of their colleagues .
Seth Kahn , an English professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania , is a member of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties ( APSCUF ) .
The 14 campuses that comprise the state system are united in opposing cuts , but Kahn reports that the union agreed , pre-COVID , to a series of retirement incentives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In addition , the West Chester chapter of the APSCUF has organized a financial assistance program , modeled on a strike fund , to help those adjuncts who need help paying for rent , food , insurance or other necessities .
The fund has collected more than $ 30,000 from full-time faculty members and is exclusively for adjunct use .
Similarly , the New Faculty Majority has teamed up with Tenure for the Common Good to demand , at minimum , that colleges and universities not contest the unemployment claims of non-tenured faculty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have had to fight to get unemployment when they are not given summer employment , ” former New Faculty Majority Research Director Marisa Allison said .
“ The Department of Labor assumes that if someone has a reasonable assurance of employment in the fall , they are ineligible for benefits in June , July and August.
” Allison adds that it is high time for contingent faculty — a “ group shrouded in elephant-in-the-room secrecy ” — to be seen .
Typically , Allison says , they are invisible to campus administrators because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students .
But while adjunct issues are a major concern , Allison says that she ’ s keeping the big picture in focus — fighting austerity and making sure that colleges serve the students they enroll .
It ’ s a mission she shares with Jasmine Banks , executive director of UnKoch My Campus , a national organization dedicated to fighting undue donor influence on college campuses .
“ The rise of disaster capitalism is not new .
The Koch network has been trying to destabilize public education for years , ” Banks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using COVID-19 to propagate the idea that online and privatized education are timely , that distance learning through private companies is the best way to educate students .
This is the perfect moment for higher ed to look at itself , see how it has been infiltrated , and make education benefit the common good , creating a safe and supportive environment in which to learn and study .
”

Faculty and students are fighting a crisis they say has been exacerbated but was not caused by the virus.
Part of the Series Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19
More than 80 years ago, during the Great Depression, college endowments fell by 26 percent and donations fell by more than 70 percent. But rather than cutting back on what was being offered on U.S. campuses, the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) hired 8.5 million people to lay more than 9,000 miles of storm drains and sewers, and build 4,000 new school buildings (most intended for K-12 instruction), 130 hospitals and 100 community arts centers.
In addition, during the eight years that the WPA existed (1935 to 1943), hundreds of colleges and universities benefited; by extending its reach to higher education, WPA laborers built classrooms and dormitories, and installed public artworks on campus lawns and inside buildings. The goal? To entice students to enroll and retain them until they graduated, assuring them of the skills they’d need to find work when the economy improved. Among the beneficiaries of these efforts were Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University); Arkansas State; Arizona State; Brooklyn College-City University of New York; The College of William and Mary; Delta State; Howard University; The University of Iowa; The University of Pittsburgh; The University of Rhode Island; and Virginia Commonwealth University.
Fast forward to today. Similar to the Great Depression, the current economic crisis is raising important questions about government responsibility and whether or not state and federal lawmakers will use COVID-19 to gut public programs, including access to a high-quality public education, as they push more wealth to the top.
Writer Naomi Klein coined the term “disaster capitalism” to describe this phenomenon: the use of a social calamity or natural disaster to promote privatization and reorder priorities to benefit the wealthiest few at the expense of the many.
The upheaval resulting from COVID-19 is a prime example.
Pauline Lipman, professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago, was part of an online panel sponsored by Labor Notes and the Public Education Workers Network in mid-May that addressed current threats to higher education. “Austerity is being rolled out as the administration weaponizes the crisis, but public higher education was already in crisis due to systemic disinvestment, outsourcing, privatization and increased tuition fees,” she said.
An April survey of college presidents revealed that 72 percent expect to impose layoffs and budget cuts, freeze hiring, and halt new construction and renovations on campus within the next year.
What’s more, Lipman continued, the pandemic “lays bare realities that were there all along,” realities that highlight the interconnections between public education, food insecurity, skyrocketing housing costs, available employment, health care access and incarceration — issues that directly impact students at every level, pre-K through university.
Still, if within every crisis there are also opportunities, COVID-19 could be a chance to reimagine and reframe what we mean by “the common good,” giving us a new platform to argue for free public education as a fundamental right. It might also, Lipman reminded us, be an opportunity to advocate for increased faculty governance, including the right to organize, form unions and protect public schools from closure, ban the outsourcing of services and stop privatization.
Winning won’t be easy, however, since retrenchment is already underway — and is assumed by many to be inevitable. An April survey of college presidents revealed that 72 percent expect to impose layoffs and budget cuts, freeze hiring, and halt new construction and renovations on campus within the next year.
As for potential job losses, teachers and administrators, as well as cafeteria workers, maintenance crews, residence hall staff and office workers are targets.
Cutbacks Already in Motion
The Boston Globe reported in early May that 345 colleges consider themselves “in peril,” at risk of closing due to anticipated under-enrollment for the 2020-21 academic year. This is largely because of a projected loss of full-paying international students and debts incurred by university hospitals, whose administrators predict that the cancellation of elective surgeries due to COVID-19 will result in enormous budget deficits. The unexpected toll of having to issue housing and meal-plan refunds in spring 2020 also set them back.
Budget slashing has already begun. Here’s a tiny sample:
Marisa Allison is a Ph.D. student at George Mason University and the former director of research at the New Faculty Majority Foundation, an advocacy group that organizes support for contingent faculty. Allison notes that the most vulnerable teachers on college campuses are the non-tenure-track lecturers and adjuncts who often have little to no job security from semester to semester. Between 51 and 61 percent of those holding these positions are women, Allison says. In all likelihood, this means that retrenchment will hit the lowest-paid workers hardest and reinforce long-standing gender, race and class disparities.
345 colleges consider themselves at risk of closing due to anticipated under-enrollment for the 2020-21 academic year.
But students and faculty are fighting back.
Activism on Campus and Beyond
Most campuses — especially those that are unionized — have adopted a two-tiered strategy: fighting austerity while also extending a hand to those who have lost jobs, both on campus and in the communities in which their colleges are located.
Barbara Bowen is the president of the Professional Staff Congress, a union representing 30,000 full- and part-time faculty employed by the City University of New York (CUNY). Bowen told Truthout that one of the union’s main priorities is getting the Shared Help Assessment to Rebuild Education (SHARE) Act passed by the New York state legislature. The SHARE Act, she explains, is a temporary tax on those earning more than $5 million a year, with the revenue raised earmarked for public schools and higher education programs.
“If we don’t see this passed, it means that state lawmakers have made a conscious choice to cut hospitals, housing for the homeless and poor, and education in order to protect the richest state residents,” she said.
Nonetheless, Bowen says that she is hopeful because union support for the Act, as well as resistance to cutbacks, has been unusually strong. For example, when the provost at CUNY’s College of Staten Island announced plans to cut 35 percent of adjuncts, department chairs issued a resounding “no” and refused to comply.
“The provost thought the adjuncts would be an easy target,” Michael Paris, chair of the college’s political science department, said at a press conference to demand increased funding for CUNY. “We pushed back. All 10 chairs of humanities and social science departments said that we will not be complicit.”
The most vulnerable teachers on college campuses are the non-tenure-track lecturers and adjuncts who often have little to no job security from semester to semester.
That said, Bowen admits that it has been challenging to come up with new organizing strategies, since demonstrations, sit-ins and civil disobedience are currently out of the question due to social distancing rules. “We had a car caravan that had great energy — folks drove in front of a building where a Board of Trustees meeting was taking place — but it’s not the same as a loud 2,000-person demonstration. At the same time, more people are attending virtual union meetings than had previously attended in-person meetings, so we’ve had great discussions.”
Bowen is further heartened because what happened at the College of Staten Island has been contagious and notes that department chairs at several other CUNY schools, including Brooklyn College, have also refused to comply with layoff demands.
This pleases undergraduate Michael Matteson. As a Brooklyn College student in a five-year dual-degree program in accounting and business administration and finance, Matteson says that he fears cuts will delay completion of his degree. “Already it’s hard to get the classes you need,” he says. “I worry that if they cut the number of classes offered, a lot of students will drop out completely. I also worry that teachers will be less motivated to teach, and larger classes — I registered for one in the fall that allows 130 students — will mean there’s no time for one-on-one conversations.”
Student Exhaustion Impacts Activism
Trevor Griffey, an adjunct professor of history at both the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Los Angeles, told Truthout that the lack of transparency about budgetary matters has galvanized staff throughout the University of California (UC) system. Nonetheless, he says that getting undergraduates mobilized to stop the cutbacks has been difficult.
“Students are preoccupied with the shift to digital teaching, the inferior quality of instruction and how onerous it is to do this work online,” Griffey says.
“The exhaustion, the anxiety, the stress on poor and working-class students has been an extra burden. UC students, like those at CUNY, are often the frontline workers, the ones facing eviction, the hungry and sick. COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on those who are low-income, working-class and first generation.”
Add in speculation and uncertainty about the fall semester, and it’s not surprising that both faculty and students are on edge.
“The UC chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, our union, has created an online ‘picket line’ where we take selfies holding signs opposing layoffs,” Griffey said. “One good thing is that we’ve been able to watch our union bargaining with management online, which has changed a lot of people’s views about the school they work at. Things are still in the early stages, but at least at UC-Irvine, this has lit a fire under people’s feet. At the same time, we know we’re up against something pretty profound.”
Each UC campus, he says, has determined its own plan of action. At UC-Berkeley, according to Griffey, the lack of job security for lecturers, coupled with the fact that their median salary is $19,900, has led to increased militancy and mobilization.
For its part, UC-Davis has organized Strike University, described on its website as “a training school for a new generation of university unionists,” and is working to link current calls for austerity to a wider swath of social and political concerns. According to UC-Davis Ph.D. student and Strike University organizer Tory Brykalski, the project is an outgrowth of a 2019 wildcat strike by graduate students at UC-Santa Cruz that demanded a cost of living allowance in addition to their monthly teaching stipends. Citing prohibitively high housing costs in the area, the grad students eventually walked off the job. Later, hundreds of faculty members throughout the UC system withheld end-of-semester grades in solidarity. The university responded by terminating 54 of the striking UC-Santa Cruz grad students.
“The Department of Labor assumes that if someone has a reasonable assurance of employment in the fall, they are ineligible for benefits in June, July and August.”
According to Brykalski, Strike University came together in mid-March to offer teach-ins on topics such as HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, environmental justice and police surveillance, and brought speakers like Cornel West and Tithi Bhattacharya to the student body through Zoom. A summer “camp” is in the planning stages but will tentatively focus on prison abolition. “We want people to think about what a society without prisons would look like,” she says.
Graduate students at the University of Illinois, Chicago, have taken a different tack, organizing — and winning — access to additional paid sick leave, coverage for teletherapy sessions and permission for international students to stay in dorms over the summer if travel restrictions bar them from returning to their home countries.
Likewise, several faculty groups on other campuses have organized to meet the day-to-day needs of their colleagues.
Seth Kahn, an English professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, is a member of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF). The 14 campuses that comprise the state system are united in opposing cuts, but Kahn reports that the union agreed, pre-COVID, to a series of retirement incentives to “trim the head count.” In addition, the West Chester chapter of the APSCUF has organized a financial assistance program, modeled on a strike fund, to help those adjuncts who need help paying for rent, food, insurance or other necessities. The fund has collected more than $30,000 from full-time faculty members and is exclusively for adjunct use.
Similarly, the New Faculty Majority has teamed up with Tenure for the Common Good to demand, at minimum, that colleges and universities not contest the unemployment claims of non-tenured faculty who file for them. “Adjuncts have had to fight to get unemployment when they are not given summer employment,” former New Faculty Majority Research Director Marisa Allison said. “The Department of Labor assumes that if someone has a reasonable assurance of employment in the fall, they are ineligible for benefits in June, July and August.”
Allison adds that it is high time for contingent faculty — a “group shrouded in elephant-in-the-room secrecy” — to be seen. Typically, Allison says, they are invisible to campus administrators because the only people they interact with are students.
But while adjunct issues are a major concern, Allison says that she’s keeping the big picture in focus — fighting austerity and making sure that colleges serve the students they enroll. It’s a mission she shares with Jasmine Banks, executive director of UnKoch My Campus, a national organization dedicated to fighting undue donor influence on college campuses.
“The rise of disaster capitalism is not new. The Koch network has been trying to destabilize public education for years,” Banks told Truthout. “They’re using COVID-19 to propagate the idea that online and privatized education are timely, that distance learning through private companies is the best way to educate students. This is the perfect moment for higher ed to look at itself, see how it has been infiltrated, and make education benefit the common good, creating a safe and supportive environment in which to learn and study.”
Correction: This article was updated on June 12 to reflect that the University of Arizona pay cuts are in place for those making $45,000 a year or more.
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truthout--2020-06-08--Worker Surveillance Is on the Rise, and Has Its Roots in Centuries of Racism

As technology advances , so do the ever-watching eyes of the world ’ s largest companies .
High-tech workplace surveillance is troubling to workers who are organizing for a union and now have to work around not just management , but also seemingly omniscient machines .
But as public conversation around workplace technology focuses on automation , a whole realm of technology is being developed so that companies can surveil their workers in order to manage their productivity , make hiring and promotion decisions , and even predict their health outcomes .
According to a recent Business Insider report , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interactive “ heat map ” to track unionization risk .
The surveillance tool uses a simple yet invasive methodology to see how likely employees are to organize for better working conditions .
The heat map is used to monitor more than 95,000 employees in over 510 stores .
As Hayley Peterson reports : This is particularly relevant as companies and governments ramp up surveillance efforts in response to both the COVID-19 pandemic and the largest nationwide uprising since the 1960s .
In such a critical moment , it is worth understanding the racialized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a tool to quell collective organizing .
Companies Already Spied on Low-Wage Workers Using Advanced Technology In 2013 Nordstrom came under fire for employing tracking technology on customers .
Automatically connecting to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled phones , the company collected individual MAC addresses ( your device ’ s fingerprint ) which are then indefinitely stored in the company ’ s servers .
Less known , however , is that Nordstrom was also using that technology on their employees .
Euclid Analytics , the company contracted by Nordstrom in 2013 and later acquired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analytics technology that promises to watch employee behavior and make them more productive .
RetailNext , based in San Jose , California , is another firm that develops technologies for bosses to spy on their workers .
The company sells technologies that enable big retailers to collect and analyze data from their workers .
Utilizing a technique called “ direction mapping , ” RetailNext-contracted companies can analyze how their employees move and behave in the store , and how they interact with customers .
Employers can combine this tool with “ frequent high-resolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assets are placed throughout the store while also capturing employees throughout their daily workflow .
According to its website , Ulta , Sephora and Bloomingdales are among the many retailers using these technologies .
At least one Sprouts Farmers Market location installed a similar technology .
“ Every time you clocked in , you had to look into a camera and it would take a picture of you and that would be your evidence of clocking in , ” said Paul Packer* who is employed by Sprouts in Whittier , California .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the company for its use of the technology in the store .
“ There was a lawsuit pending , because it [ facial-recognition technology ] was taking photos of people , and since there were people in the background of the photos , technically they were using them without people ’ s consent , ” Packer said .
He told Truthout that rumors circulated about the camera recording at all times , but it was impossible to know because employees are not privy to information about the surveillance technologies used on them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offer high-tech tools to track and collect data on workers .
Walmart , for instance , purchased technology from Everseen AI that uses facial recognition technology to identify workers , customers and even stocked items .
In 2017 Walmart installed Everseen AI ’ s facial recognition technology in at least 1,000 stores in the United States alone .
Particularly troubling is the intention behind worker surveillance .
Believing workers are inherently untrustworthy , bosses spend big money on surveillance technologies aimed at monitoring their workers ’ every move .
Alan O ’ Herlihy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states that the impetus for founding the company is based in his distrust for his own employees , recalling that his dad ’ s grocery store “ experienced so much loss over the years that we even joke that one of our cashiers built a house with the money they stole.
” As for the AI technology itself , O ’ Herlihy said it “ becomes smarter over time , learning the specifics of each individual store it ’ s in , ” including the spatial layout of the store , customer shopping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ Herlihy ’ s claims , Walmart employees privately emailed journalists at WIRED in January 2020 denouncing the technology and showing evidence that it was flawed and produced false results .
Due to advances in workplace technology following World War II , the productivity of the workforce has skyrocketed .
Yet wages grew to a lesser extent until 1973 , when output soared and wages stagnated even further .
Since 1978 , CEOs ’ salaries have increased by 970 percent , making nearly 300 times more than their average worker .
While companies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , workers aren ’ t seeing any corresponding increase in their wages .
Instead , those profits are going directly into the pockets of corporate executives .
Tracking Technology , Like Union Busting , Is Never Race-Neutral A second group of metrics collected by Whole Foods measures factors that the company believes predisposes workers to unionization efforts .
Those metrics include a “ diversity index ” that ranks racial and ethnic diversity per store .
According to the company , the lower the diversity , the higher the risk of unionizing .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , corporations actually have a rich history of exploiting racial difference to break worker solidarity and bust unions .
It is no surprise then , that companies build off of internalized racial prejudices to prevent workers from taking collective action .
Dianne Feeley describes the fight between Henry Ford and the autoworkers in Detroit who attempted to unionize and win better working conditions .
Although other auto-manufacturing companies unionized earlier , Ford was able to fend the union off until 1941 .
“ Determined to combat the rising labor militancy that challenged the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ he hired Harry Bennett to direct Ford Motor Company ’ s Service Department , which was responsible for the surveillance of workers.
” They were surveilling workers not just to make them more productive , but also to crush any effort of collective organization .
At the time , auto manufacturing companies didn ’ t hire Black workers .
Capitalizing off that crisis , Ford Motor Company hired a mass of Black workers they hoped would be willing to work for less pay and in harsher and more dangerous conditions than their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most important , motive was to break the union effort that was bubbling among the previously all-white workforce .
At first , it worked .
The union effort was stunted and Black workers saw an 11 percent negative pay differential between their white counterparts .
Eventually , however , Black and white workers stood together and won their union , signing their first contract in 1941 .
Workplace Surveillance Has Its Roots in Slavery and the Modern State In 1750 , wealthy slave owners in Jamaica and Barbados would meticulously track and manage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ productive output .
What business schools today call “ scientific management ” actually has its very roots in the trans-Atlantic slave trade .
Plantation owners were determined to extract every last bit of labor they could get from enslaved workers , meticulously tracking , documenting , and analyzing their every move in order to maximize productivity and profit .
According to Harvard Business School researcher Caitlin Rosenthal , these techniques were then adopted widely in the United States after a slave owner named Thomas Affleck advanced those surveillance techniques to include “ sophisticated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a standardized way , ” thus allowing “ planters to determine how far they could push their workers to get the most profit.
” After years of capitalist development , the plantation owners and capitalist executives of today are armed with more intelligent technology that can , in a millisecond , do what Affleck once did with only his eyes and a hand-written spreadsheet .
High-tech corporate monitoring of workers today undoubtedly stems from this legacy of meticulous and detailed tracking of enslaved workers in order to extract the most profit from them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collective action .
Just as slavery is enmeshed with the state from its chattel form up to today ’ s prison form , ubiquitous surveillance has also long been practiced by the state .
Rob Lucas notes that since its beginning , “ the modern state was an information-gathering apparatus , ” and that “ once mechanical and then electronic means of data storage and processing became available , they merely facilitated what had already long been happening.
” The automation of data processing — a staple practice in modern management ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ descended from the Hollerith punch card which was used not only in Nazi concentration camps but also in U.S.-operated Japanese-American internment camps .
“ Computer-based surveillance , ” Lucas explains , “ per se has roots in this longue durée history , which is helpful to keep in view when attempting to periodize developments closer to the present.
” Surveillance technology did not create the desire to track and manage workers .
That impulse existed since the formation of a class society where one group owns the means of production and is responsible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ namely , their workers .
In that kind of economic system — where growth is synonymous with survival — bosses necessarily have to use all the tools at their disposal to extract as much productivity and value as possible from their workers .
The advancement in surveillance and algorithmic technology has only fanned the flame of capitalist desire , allowing surveillance to permeate every minute detail of a worker ’ s life .
Unions have been able to win some regulation of surveillance technology in their contracts , such as “ right-to-know ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how they are being monitored and what data is being collected .
However , those protections are few and far between , and the majority of workers have no legal right to know how they are being tracked , much less have any say over the technologies being employed on them .
In 2018 , California passed a landmark consumer and worker privacy bill called the California Consumer Privacy Act ( CCPA ) .
The CCPA outlined several privacy and data protections for workers and consumers , although in 2019 , a tech @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the CCPA and ultimately succeeded in exempting employees from the bill ’ s purview until January 2021 .
Still , the majority of union and non-union workers have no agency over what technologies are used on them .
So what can be done about it now ?
One proposal is to win legal rights for workers to democratically control the technologies used in their workplace .
This would mean being able to ban invasive tools like facial-recognition technology outright , and being able to regulate the use of algorithms in decision-making .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such as those used by Whole Foods as an unfair labor practice , which would make invasive surveillance illegal under the National Labor Relations Act and allow the National Labor Relations Board to investigate and remedy violations .
Such rights would make the case for democratic worker control over more aspects of their work .
This decision-making could take place at the level of sectoral bargaining , so that workers are able to set standards across industries , rather than just in their own shop .
“ If we ’ re going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than harm them , we ’ re going to have to figure out the question of governance , ” said Dr. Annette Bernhardt , director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the University of California , Berkeley .
“ Workers need to have a direct say over which technologies are used , to which ends , whether it ’ s through collective bargaining or legislation or new mechanisms we haven ’ t dreamed of yet.
” With the spread of COVID-19 , tech companies are taking advantage of the crisis to sell technology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ originally developed for use by police — to businesses to better track their workers ’ whereabouts .
The state and private corporations have become so intertwined that to regulate the use of technology in one area would necessitate a whole societal shift .
On the other hand , any long-term solution needs to address the root causes of intrusive worker surveillance and scientific management .
That would require a deep look into the reason why bosses are so motivated to extract every last drop of profit from their workers , and why chattel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conditions and industries today .
As long as our society is organized around an ever-increasing thirst for profit , companies like Whole Foods will continue to surveil workers to break their solidarity and place them under increasingly invasive monitoring and control .
* The worker requested a pseudonym due to the recent uptick in retaliation against whistleblowers .

As technology advances, so do the ever-watching eyes of the world’s largest companies. High-tech workplace surveillance is troubling to workers who are organizing for a union and now have to work around not just management, but also seemingly omniscient machines. But as public conversation around workplace technology focuses on automation, a whole realm of technology is being developed so that companies can surveil their workers in order to manage their productivity, make hiring and promotion decisions, and even predict their health outcomes.
According to a recent Business Insider report, Amazon-owned Whole Foods is now using an interactive “heat map” to track unionization risk. The surveillance tool uses a simple yet invasive methodology to see how likely employees are to organize for better working conditions. The heat map is used to monitor more than 95,000 employees in over 510 stores. As Hayley Peterson reports:
The stores’ individual risk scores are calculated from more than two dozen metrics, including employee “loyalty,” turnover, and racial diversity; “tipline” calls to human resources; proximity to a union office; and violations recorded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The map also tracks local economic and demographic factors such as the unemployment rate in a store’s location and the percentage of families in the area living below the poverty line.
This is particularly relevant as companies and governments ramp up surveillance efforts in response to both the COVID-19 pandemic and the largest nationwide uprising since the 1960s. In such a critical moment, it is worth understanding the racialized history of workplace surveillance and its use as a tool to quell collective organizing.
Companies Already Spied on Low-Wage Workers Using Advanced Technology
In 2013 Nordstrom came under fire for employing tracking technology on customers. Automatically connecting to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled phones, the company collected individual MAC addresses (your device’s fingerprint) which are then indefinitely stored in the company’s servers. Less known, however, is that Nordstrom was also using that technology on their employees. Euclid Analytics, the company contracted by Nordstrom in 2013 and later acquired by WeWork in 2019, offers spatial analytics technology that promises to watch employee behavior and make them more productive.
RetailNext, based in San Jose, California, is another firm that develops technologies for bosses to spy on their workers. The company sells technologies that enable big retailers to collect and analyze data from their workers. Utilizing a technique called “direction mapping,” RetailNext-contracted companies can analyze how their employees move and behave in the store, and how they interact with customers. Employers can combine this tool with “frequent high-resolution snapshots” to see how products and assets are placed throughout the store while also capturing employees throughout their daily workflow. According to its website, Ulta, Sephora and Bloomingdales are among the many retailers using these technologies.
At least one Sprouts Farmers Market location installed a similar technology. “Every time you clocked in, you had to look into a camera and it would take a picture of you and that would be your evidence of clocking in,” said Paul Packer* who is employed by Sprouts in Whittier, California. One of his co-workers allegedly filed a lawsuit against the company for its use of the technology in the store. “There was a lawsuit pending, because it [facial-recognition technology] was taking photos of people, and since there were people in the background of the photos, technically they were using them without people’s consent,” Packer said. He told Truthout that rumors circulated about the camera recording at all times, but it was impossible to know because employees are not privy to information about the surveillance technologies used on them.
There are several other firms that offer high-tech tools to track and collect data on workers. Walmart, for instance, purchased technology from Everseen AI that uses facial recognition technology to identify workers, customers and even stocked items. In 2017 Walmart installed Everseen AI’s facial recognition technology in at least 1,000 stores in the United States alone.
Particularly troubling is the intention behind worker surveillance. Believing workers are inherently untrustworthy, bosses spend big money on surveillance technologies aimed at monitoring their workers’ every move. Alan O’Herlihy, Everseen AI’s founder, states that the impetus for founding the company is based in his distrust for his own employees, recalling that his dad’s grocery store “experienced so much loss over the years that we even joke that one of our cashiers built a house with the money they stole.” As for the AI technology itself, O’Herlihy said it “becomes smarter over time, learning the specifics of each individual store it’s in,” including the spatial layout of the store, customer shopping patterns and employee behavior. Despite O’Herlihy’s claims, Walmart employees privately emailed journalists at WIRED in January 2020 denouncing the technology and showing evidence that it was flawed and produced false results.
Due to advances in workplace technology following World War II, the productivity of the workforce has skyrocketed. Yet wages grew to a lesser extent until 1973, when output soared and wages stagnated even further. Since 1978, CEOs’ salaries have increased by 970 percent, making nearly 300 times more than their average worker. While companies are increasing their profit with these technologies, workers aren’t seeing any corresponding increase in their wages. Instead, those profits are going directly into the pockets of corporate executives.
Tracking Technology, Like Union Busting, Is Never Race-Neutral
A second group of metrics collected by Whole Foods measures factors that the company believes predisposes workers to unionization efforts. Those metrics include a “diversity index” that ranks racial and ethnic diversity per store. According to the company, the lower the diversity, the higher the risk of unionizing. While this might seem shocking at first glance, corporations actually have a rich history of exploiting racial difference to break worker solidarity and bust unions. It is no surprise then, that companies build off of internalized racial prejudices to prevent workers from taking collective action.
Companies build off of internalized racial prejudices to prevent workers from taking collective action.
Dianne Feeley describes the fight between Henry Ford and the autoworkers in Detroit who attempted to unionize and win better working conditions. Although other auto-manufacturing companies unionized earlier, Ford was able to fend the union off until 1941. “Determined to combat the rising labor militancy that challenged the open shop,” Feeley notes, “he hired Harry Bennett to direct Ford Motor Company’s Service Department, which was responsible for the surveillance of workers.” They were surveilling workers not just to make them more productive, but also to crush any effort of collective organization.
At the time, auto manufacturing companies didn’t hire Black workers. Capitalizing off that crisis, Ford Motor Company hired a mass of Black workers they hoped would be willing to work for less pay and in harsher and more dangerous conditions than their white co-workers. Their second, and most important, motive was to break the union effort that was bubbling among the previously all-white workforce. At first, it worked. The union effort was stunted and Black workers saw an 11 percent negative pay differential between their white counterparts. Eventually, however, Black and white workers stood together and won their union, signing their first contract in 1941.
Workplace Surveillance Has Its Roots in Slavery and the Modern State
In 1750, wealthy slave owners in Jamaica and Barbados would meticulously track and manage enslaved workers in order to maximize their productive output. What business schools today call “scientific management” actually has its very roots in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Plantation owners were determined to extract every last bit of labor they could get from enslaved workers, meticulously tracking, documenting, and analyzing their every move in order to maximize productivity and profit. According to Harvard Business School researcher Caitlin Rosenthal, these techniques were then adopted widely in the United States after a slave owner named Thomas Affleck advanced those surveillance techniques to include “sophisticated calculations” that “measure productivity in a standardized way,” thus allowing “planters to determine how far they could push their workers to get the most profit.” After years of capitalist development, the plantation owners and capitalist executives of today are armed with more intelligent technology that can, in a millisecond, do what Affleck once did with only his eyes and a hand-written spreadsheet. High-tech corporate monitoring of workers today undoubtedly stems from this legacy of meticulous and detailed tracking of enslaved workers in order to extract the most profit from them, and to quell potential rebellion and collective action.
High-tech corporate monitoring of workers today stems from this legacy of meticulous and detailed tracking of enslaved workers in order to extract the most profit from them, and to quell potential rebellion and collective action.
Just as slavery is enmeshed with the state from its chattel form up to today’s prison form, ubiquitous surveillance has also long been practiced by the state. Rob Lucas notes that since its beginning, “the modern state was an information-gathering apparatus,” and that “once mechanical and then electronic means of data storage and processing became available, they merely facilitated what had already long been happening.”
The automation of data processing — a staple practice in modern management’s ability to surveil the workforce — actually descended from the Hollerith punch card which was used not only in Nazi concentration camps but also in U.S.-operated Japanese-American internment camps. “Computer-based surveillance,” Lucas explains, “per se has roots in this longue durée history, which is helpful to keep in view when attempting to periodize developments closer to the present.”
Surveillance technology did not create the desire to track and manage workers. That impulse existed since the formation of a class society where one group owns the means of production and is responsible for extracting value from another group — namely, their workers. In that kind of economic system — where growth is synonymous with survival — bosses necessarily have to use all the tools at their disposal to extract as much productivity and value as possible from their workers. The advancement in surveillance and algorithmic technology has only fanned the flame of capitalist desire, allowing surveillance to permeate every minute detail of a worker’s life.
Solutions
Unions have been able to win some regulation of surveillance technology in their contracts, such as “right-to-know” clauses which mandate that companies inform workers how they are being monitored and what data is being collected. However, those protections are few and far between, and the majority of workers have no legal right to know how they are being tracked, much less have any say over the technologies being employed on them. In 2018, California passed a landmark consumer and worker privacy bill called the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The CCPA outlined several privacy and data protections for workers and consumers, although in 2019, a tech industry-backed bill attempted to remove workers from the CCPA and ultimately succeeded in exempting employees from the bill’s purview until January 2021. Still, the majority of union and non-union workers have no agency over what technologies are used on them.
So what can be done about it now? One proposal is to win legal rights for workers to democratically control the technologies used in their workplace. This would mean being able to ban invasive tools like facial-recognition technology outright, and being able to regulate the use of algorithms in decision-making. It could also mean designating algorithmic union-busting tools such as those used by Whole Foods as an unfair labor practice, which would make invasive surveillance illegal under the National Labor Relations Act and allow the National Labor Relations Board to investigate and remedy violations. Such rights would make the case for democratic worker control over more aspects of their work. This decision-making could take place at the level of sectoral bargaining, so that workers are able to set standards across industries, rather than just in their own shop. “If we’re going to make these technologies work for workers rather than harm them, we’re going to have to figure out the question of governance,” said Dr. Annette Bernhardt, director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the University of California, Berkeley. “Workers need to have a direct say over which technologies are used, to which ends, whether it’s through collective bargaining or legislation or new mechanisms we haven’t dreamed of yet.”
The majority of workers have no legal right to know how they are being tracked, much less have any say over the technologies being employed on them.
With the spread of COVID-19, tech companies are taking advantage of the crisis to sell technology such as tracking bracelets — which were originally developed for use by police — to businesses to better track their workers’ whereabouts. The state and private corporations have become so intertwined that to regulate the use of technology in one area would necessitate a whole societal shift. On the other hand, any long-term solution needs to address the root causes of intrusive worker surveillance and scientific management. That would require a deep look into the reason why bosses are so motivated to extract every last drop of profit from their workers, and why chattel slavery still exerts influence over our working conditions and industries today. As long as our society is organized around an ever-increasing thirst for profit, companies like Whole Foods will continue to surveil workers to break their solidarity and place them under increasingly invasive monitoring and control.
* The worker requested a pseudonym due to the recent uptick in retaliation against whistleblowers.
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