Mask-exploitation

California's governor Newsome gave a press conference the other day about how the state was meeting the Covid Challenge.  His report was full of statements about how the state was "meeting needs on a matching criteria protocol that began to take shape..."

It appears that among those matching criteria protocols was coordinating with private enterprise to increase the production of masks. According to the WOKE Guardian, in late March Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti, the city "partnered with numerous local companies to produce protective gear from frontline workers."

Yay!

But one wonders just how the city and local companies "team up."  Does it mean that city workers will join with other workers on the frontline of sewing machines?  You know an admin clerk or an emergency medical technician taking turn at sewing masks? 

Nah. 

Whenever government and private companies "team up" what is meant is that government provides some form of capital incentive to private enterprise on a "matching criteria protocol" of some sort.  In other words, taxpayer money is shoveled toward capitalists making them even more capital-enriched than before.

Well that's the way capitalism works.  Yep.  And the great thing about this is that as well as providing masks, this "protocol" provides jobs.

Yay again!

Jobs like those at F&G Sewing where one worker said "she makes five cents per mask and eight cents per robe – if she works hard enough during her 12-hour shift, she can make about $5 an hour. She describes workers toiling in a basement with small windows, no ventilation, no soap in the bathroom, and only one or two feet between workers;"

Not surprisingly, Outbreaks at factories now making masks speak to the scale of the problem. LA Apparel has been forced to close its three factories, where county health officials report at least 300 confirmed cases and four deaths.    At F&G  more than a dozen people have sickened. And that number is probably low because F&G has trouble finding out where its subcontracted basement sweatshops are, exactly.

Labor activists say the coronavirus pandemic is "exacerbating longstanding industry issues such as low pay, poor working conditions and the lack of a safety net."   You know, as when one worker lost her mask sewing job when she got sick and then got kicked out of her three-to-a-room shared apartment because her roomies considered her a health risk.

This is what Treasury Secretary Mnuchin meant, also back in March, when he said that Covid-19 presented "great investment opportunities."

Can Murka do ANYTHING without exploiting people and treating them like trash?

No. The country is rotten to the core. 

©wcg