US-MEXICO BORDER FACTORIES PRESSURED TO STAY OPEN DESPITE COVID-19 RISK (14 MAY 2020)
The Guardian: When the coronavirus pandemic reached the Mexican border city of Mexicali, operations at first continued as normal at the US-owned factory where Sergio Ayala has worked for the past three years. Eventually, workers went on strike at the Autolite plant, which makes spark plugs for export, in protest at the management’s alleged failure to introduce sanitary measures. The state labor secretary then shut it down.
SOUTH DAKOTA GOVERNOR THREATENS TO SUE OVER SIOUX’S CORONAVIRUS ROADBLOCKS (14 MAY 2020)
The Guardian: Native American tribes in South Dakota have vowed to keep operating checkpoints to protect their people from the coronavirus, despite threats of legal action from the Republican state governor. The Cheyenne River Sioux and Oglala Sioux tribes installed multiple checkpoints on roads leading to their reservations in early April, as part of each sovereign nation’s comprehensive emergency response to minimize the spread of Covid-19.
COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS: CONTROVERSIAL BILL PASSED TO ENFORCE ALERT LEVEL 2 POWERS (13 MAY 2020)
NZ Herald: A bill giving police sweeping powers to potentially enter homes without warrants while enforcing Covid-19 alert level rules has passed. The Covid-19 Public Health Response Bill was rushed through Parliament in time for alert level 2 but came under intense scrutiny from the Opposition. It passed 63 votes in favour with 57 against. The National Party and Act didn’t support the bill, saying it was an overreach of powers, distrusted New Zealanders and didn’t allow for orders to have proper scrutiny.
MUTUAL AID: BUILDING NETWORKS OF SOLIDARITY NOT CHARITY (11 MAY 2020)
Popular Resistance: In the face of the twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic collapse, people are organizing mutual aid networks to provide food, medicines and other basics to those in need. This is done in the spirit of solidarity, not charity, a non-hierarchical empowering approach versus a hierarchical exploitative approach. We speak with Eleanor Goldfield, an activist in Washington, DC who is active in her local mutual aid network and has written about it, about how they are organizing, the response from the community and government and how this fits into the bigger picture of resistance and building alternative systems to meet human needs.
