Louisiana Workers Councils

02/28/2026

US Workers Don’t Want a War with Iran, No More Blood for Oil

There is not a single reason to support a US war against Iran. Iran has never done anything harmful to US workers or posed any real threat to the people of the United States. This is a war to make the billionaire owners of US oil companies and banks richer at our expense.

The US has interfered in Iran for decades. In 1953, the US overthrew their elected government and installed a brutal dictator, the Shah (which means "king"). They supplied this tyrant with weapons and the CIA trained his brutal secret police (called SAVAK). Why? Because the elected government had taken control of its own oil, and the corporations in control of the US government wanted the oil revenues for themselves. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution got rid of the king and took back its oil. That is the real "crime" of the Iran. This is reason that the US and Israel bombed a girls’ school earlier today, killing at least 165. US billionaires are using terrorism to try to achieve regime change in Iran. Whatever problems exist within Iranian society—much of which are due to US sanctions and CIA covert operations—it is their business to work out for themselves.

Once again, billions of our tax dollars will be drained from the treasury to pay for US weapons of mass destruction to be used against the government and people of Iran. The treasury is already being looted for over a trillion dollars that goes to war-profiteering industries, along with subsidies for oil and gas, and big tech companies that build data centers which destroy farmland and steal our electricity and water, leaving us with the bill. The billionaires looting our tax dollars for war profits are destroying the lives of US workers. They are our real enemy.

The US government whips up anti-Muslim hatred to justify attacking Iran. But at the same time, it funded and armed Al-Qaeda-linked groups, helping install its leader as the head of Syria without an election. The Trump family is making billions of dollars through business deals with the royalty of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. At home, they are trying to impose anti-worker Christian nationalism on us while they claim they want to liberate the Iranians from a theocratic dictatorship.

While Trump boasts in his recent speeches that the economy is great, we workers know the truth. 60% of Americans can’t afford an emergency $1000 expense. While Trump and Congress always find money for war profiteering, they are taking away healthcare for millions and pushing others into homelessness and hunger. They support child labor, are ending rights for women, and scapegoat immigrants and trans people to cover up their own despicable thievery.

Real national security means jobs with living wages, the right to a union, healthcare, equality, social rights, a home, an education, a pension, food, and peace.

We are not living in a democracy but a dictatorship where corporations and war profits come before the lives of children, seniors, and communities. A state like Texas gives secret tax breaks to data centers and for-profit prisons, while taking away a worker's right to a simple water break. And here in Louisiana, we have the highest child poverty rate. New Orleans has the highest level of senior hunger in the country while millions in tax breaks are handed out to corporations by state and local governments.

We in the US are threatened by the thousands of nuclear weapons in the US arsenal, as well as those owned by Israel.
These weapons are capable of destroying the planet many times over, but US war corporations continue to produce more because it is profitable.

We and the Iranian people have the same enemy, and we stand in solidarity with them against this unprovoked attack by the US and Israel.

Stop militarism. Let the people of Iran and the US live peaceful and secure lives.

Say no to war on Iran, no to militarism, and yes to international working-class solidarity.

01/21/2026

Unions and community organizations in the Twin Cities and throughout Minnesota are calling for a statewide economic shutdown on January 23 to reject ICE and to demand justice for victims of ICE terror.

Join the Workers Assembly to show solidarity with our brothers, sisters, and siblings in Minnesota. We join them to demand ICE out of everywhere! Stop the war on immigrants, stop the war on workers. Find Healthcare, housing, jobs, not ICE!

12/03/2025

Across the country, people are standing up to Trump's ICE terror squads. In recent actions in Los Angeles and Louisiana, protesters targeted Home Depot for sanctioning the violent kidnapping of undocumented people on their property. Calls for a national boycott of Home Depot are growing in order to pressure the company to stop collaborating with ICE and Border Patrol forces.

From Charlotte to Chicago, New Orleans to Los Angeles and Minneapolis, people are resisting Trump's fascist attacks on our immigrant siblings. Protests, sit-ins, boycotts, blockades and other forms of community defense will grow. Working-class solidarity can turn the tide.

video courtesy of

11/03/2025

City Budget Deficit Caused by Corporate and Real Estate Tax Exemptions, Special Taxing Districts

Independent Peoples’ Tribunal Needed to Investigate the Budget Crisis, Expose the Truth

Pay City Workers, Use Tourism Taxes for Payroll and Social Programs

Working class residents of New Orleans are being conned and distracted by the city and state from the real issues behind the city budget crisis. While the city council and mayor sling mud at each other, both are responsible for a deficit in a city that is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world.

Landry Should Shut Up – He Pimps a Poor State Out to Billionaires

First let’s clear up the issue of Landry and the state government. The city is chartered by the state and does not have the necessary independence to provide for its residents. The state forbids the city from raising the minimum wage for everyone, or enacting guaranteed sick days, fair working schedules, and other necessary reforms. The city government has never stood up to this, even though New Orleans is one of the prime economic levers of the state.

Landry sells Louisiana as a haven for low wage paying companies and further entices these corporations with tax write offs. But Louisiana has the highest infant and maternal mortality rates, ranks highest in child poverty, and lowest for worker opportunity, safety, and wages. To Landry, a “fiscally responsible” government is one that bends over backwards for the super-rich and faithfully carries out the anti-people MAGA agenda.

Like most US cities, New Orleans is first and foremost a cash cow for profitable companies. On behalf of their corporate overlords, the state government enforces low wages, racist inequality, lax environmental standards and hostility to unions and workers’ rights. The power dynamic is clearest in the case of the banks who make sure they get their tax-free interest payments (debt service) before residents get city services.

The state government controls much of the revenue that comes into the city and goes to non-elected entities such as the Convention Center, the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District and the French Quarter Management District. They control a majority of the appointed, unelected board members and use tax money to enhance private corporate profits. Landry wants control of New Orleans to squeeze every drop of blood from residents to increase profits for a few of his cronies.

New Orleans City Government Hands Out Tax Exemptions Like Halloween Candy

Residents may love the Saints and Pelicans but most know little of the vaults of cash - our tax dollars - going to Gayle Benson. Benson receives all the money coming in from sales, but pays no sales tax, and uses the stadiums rent free, while public funds operate the Dome and the Smoothie King Center. For all the millions made, the team should belong to the city, not the Benson family, and its revenues should go into the city budget.

The state and city also hand out tax breaks galore to profiteering companies through the Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP) and the city Economic Development Office.

Last year the city council voted to give Shell Oil (2024 profits were $75 billion) a $20 million tax exemption. This was just one part of a package of public funds that were used to set up a new neighborhood – the River District. This escapade by the Convention Center corporate board was given free prime public land and other public funds.

The state of Louisiana offers subsidies, tax exemptions, special land deals, lower electric rates, and the freedom to pollute to oil and gas and chemical companies and tech companies like Meta. Through carbon capture exemptions, they are handing out billions of dollars to these companies, depriving the residents of services and placing the tax burden on working and middle-class residents. Many of the corporations pay $0 in taxes.

In the city, around $200 million dollars is collected in tourism taxes. The vast majority of this sum bypasses the city budget and is handed over every year to unelected tourism corporations whose unelected commissions are made up of hotel and restaurant executives and real estate developers. But this can be changed. In 2019, due to mounting popular pressure, former mayor Cantrell negotiated a $28 million payout from the Convention Center’s account to Sewerage and Water Board. The current mayor’s office can be pressured to reallocate tourism tax dollars also.

The state and city have also authorized special taxing districts for richer neighborhoods who decide what funds are used for, e.g. the CBD, Garden District, Lakeview and Vieux Carre. They hire private police and vote to oppose funding for city projects in Black neighborhoods.

We have been told for decades that if we grant companies tax breaks, they will set up shop in Louisiana and bring good jobs and bring prosperity to workers and our families. But Louisiana and New Orleans are experiencing a crisis of unemployment and poverty. New Orleans is second in economic inequality between Black and white and has the highest rate of senior hunger in the country. Far from rolling in Super Bowl income, we are still paying for being the host.

These issues are covered up by New Orleans mayor’s office, city council, and state politicians all of whom receive money from the parties to the scam.

We need to establish an independent People’s Tribunal of Investigation into the City Budget and have a big public meeting exposing the real issues with the city budget deficit. It should be publicized not only on social media but by getting out flyers in neighborhoods and work sites. We should have a simple petition for people to sign: Repeal Shell Oil Tax Breaks and other Corporate Exemptions – Stop Bleeding the People, No City Layoffs.

We need our own independent investigation. We should mobilize and link the city workers with all the workers of New Orleans to fight for a people’s program for the city.

10/26/2025

10/24/2025

Fund Food Stamps, not Big Tech, Oil & Gas, and War Corporations

Trump and Landry are threatening to cut food stamps for 800,000 Louisianans, the majority of whom are seniors and children. There is no lack of funds, as they claim. They are using the excuse of the government shutdown to hold hungry families hostage. Their goal is to cut health coverage for 22 million people.

Orleans Parish already has the highest rate of senior hunger in the US. As the holidays approach, tables will be bare. Grants for pantries and federal funds for school lunches have already been cut.

As Trump threatens to withhold SNAP funds, $1 trillion is being handed over to the war-profiteering Pentagon and $107 billion to DHS and ICE to attack our immigrant brothers and sisters. Trump is taking food out of our children’s mouths as he gives the ultra-rich $3.4 trillion in tax cuts. Both the federal and Louisiana governments are giving billions of dollars in tax breaks to subsidize AI, carbon capture, oil and gas companies, LNG ports, and cryptocurrency scams that enrich the Trump family.

As we struggle to feed our families, Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA coverage are all being cut. 1,000,000 people in our state are losing health coverage totally or partially as costs soar.

Cutting SNAP hurts the entire community economically. People will be unable to pay rent, utilities, or for medicine. Food production, transport, and grocery workers will face cuts and layoffs. For every SNAP dollar spent, $1.50 goes into the economy.

Real security is meeting people’s needs, not having troops in our streets. Our tax dollars should be used to expand healthcare access and food aid to immigrants, not to attack them.

Fund food, healthcare, good schools, child and elder care, higher wages, and jobs—not prison and war profiteers.

06/29/2025

When our communities are under attack, what do we do? STAND UP FIGHT BACK!

06/08/2025

Free David Huerta
Stop ICE Terror
Close the Immigrant Prisons
Stop the Deportations

ICE is a threat to all workers. Remember the union slogan: an injury to one is an injury to all

UPDATE: David Huerta has been released from the hospital but remains in custody.

His words: "We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice. This is injustice."

Free David Huerta. Free them ALL.

06/05/2025

Stop the Cuts to Medicaid, Put the People First

Louisiana Senate Bill 130 is designed to kick people off Medicaid by requiring more paperwork, more eligibility checks, and more surveillance by big tech companies. Around 200,000 have already been dropped since 2023—many due to problems with the recertification process. Most Medicaid recipients are children, elderly and disabled people. Like Trump’s big bad billionaires’ bill, SB 130 is one of many bills that the ultra-right-wing Louisiana legislature is using to push more people into poverty and desperation.

Heather Cloud is SB 130’s sponsor. Backed by big oil and gas money, her office has pushed to expand the number of children in adult jails, lower the wages of migrant farmworkers, and hand out millions of dollars of contracts and subsidies to oil and gas for dangerous “carbon capture” projects. She also sponsored a bill that would boost the profits of her own trucking company which has a $500,000 government contract in her district.

Opposition to state and federal DOGE efforts is growing. More and more, people are waking up to the truth: Trump, Musk, Landry are taking food out of our children’s mouths to fill the pockets of their billionaire buddies. We are many and they are few. Together we can push them back. Reach out to be a part of this effort.

05/22/2025

Trump and the millionaires’ club in Congress are waging an all-out war on the working class in the form of the Big Bad Billionaires Budget, a version of which was published by the US House of Representatives last night. As it stands, war profiteering corporations will get 75% of the budget while at least 8.6 million will lose health coverage. Now it goes to the Senate.

Louisiana depends more on federal funds for survival programs than any other state. 200,000 Louisianans stand to lose Medicaid coverage under the current bill. Already 175,000 have lost coverage due to Landry's attacks on the program.

Single moms who were exempt from Medicaid work requirements will now lose that protection once their kid reaches 7 years old (instead of 18). The work requirement age is raised from 50 to 64 years old.

Trump and Congress are purposefully hiding and downplaying their criminal cuts out of fear that we will rise up to challenge them. Here are some fact sheets that spell out the truth. Reach out for PDFs to print for your family, co-workers, and community.

Reach out get involved in the Put The People First campaign. We can stop these attacks on us and our families.

05/07/2025