Mike Pappas
Mike is an activist and medical doctor working in New York City.
Uvalde Mass Shooting Exposes Police Cowardice: Cops Will Never Keep Us Safe
The mass shooting at Robb elementary in Uvalde, Texas left nineteen children and two teachers murdered. Uvalde police are now being exposed as cowards, choosing to brutalize frantic parents outside the school and watch as shooter Salvador Ramos killed children and teachers in a classroom. Police do not keep us safe and must be abolished.
Mike Pappas
May 28, 2022Resident Physicians Are Unionizing — They Need Fighting Unions
Amid growing pro-union sentiment in the country, resident physicians are unionizing. They need fighting unions that challenge the for-profit healthcare system.
Mike Pappas
May 14, 2022Healthcare Unions Must Take Up the Fight for Abortion Rights
Healthcare unions must take up the fight to make sure everyone has a right to free, safe, legal abortion on demand. Abortion is healthcare and healthcare is a human right.
Mike Pappas
May 12, 2022The Supreme Court Is Poised to Overturn Roe v. Wade — Now Is the Time to Mobilize
In a leaked draft of its upcoming decision, the Supreme Court appears to be prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade. It is absolutely essential that we mobilize now — in the streets, in workplaces, and in our unions — to protect the right to abortion.
Mike Pappas
May 2, 2022A Radical Approach to Psychedelics and Mental Health
The so-called psychedelic renaissance is here. Proponents claim that the drugs can alleviate an array of psychological suffering. But while they try to gain medical acceptance, they ignore the structural factors that cause suffering in the first place. We need a revolutionary approach to these substances as they become more mainstream.
Mike Pappas
March 24, 2022Minneapolis Has Money for Cops’ “PTSD,” But Not for School Counselors
The teachers’ strike in Minneapolis has entered its third week. The Democrat-controlled city can find creative ways to pay out worker compensation claims for cops with PTSD, but it claims to have no funds to provide mental health resources for students traumatized by racist police violence and the pandemic.
Mike Pappas
March 23, 2022Antiwar Russians in the Streets Show the Way Forward. Stop the Repression!
Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine comes as tensions increase between Russia and NATO. But despite repression, many are fighting back against military escalation. Internationally, we need antiwar mobilizations that demand not just the end to war, but also sanctions, which only harm the masses.
Mike Pappas
February 24, 2022Bosses Are Not on Your Team and They Proved It During the Pandemic
Are your bosses issuing an “apology” for how they handled the pandemic? Are they promising to “do better” as an institution? Bosses are trying to save face after having lost workers’ trust. Well, when someone shows you their true colors, you should believe them. No one showed their colors more clearly than bosses throughout the Covid pandemic, putting profit over lives.
Mike Pappas
February 10, 2022California Healthcare Bill Fails: No, Not All Paths to Universal Healthcare Are Equal
As a bill to pass single-payer healthcare fails for the second time in the last five years, the question remains: What path should activists pursue to finally win universal healthcare in the U.S.?
Mike Pappas
February 8, 2022Ending the Pandemic Is Not an “Individual Responsibility”
The Biden administration’s “individual responsibility” directive to “get vaccinated and boosted” is failing. The focus on vaccination only, rather than systemic solutions, is a ruling-class tactic to deflect blame away from bourgeois politicians and the capitalist system that continually places profit over lives.
Mike Pappas
December 28, 2021Cancel Student Debt Now
The Biden administration has confirmed there will be no extension on the student loan moratorium, with repayments set to restart February 1, 2022. The working class should fight not just for extension of the moratorium, but what has always been needed: education as a right that is not commodified. We need a movement to demand the elimination of student debt altogether, along with free public college and university education for all who want it.
Mike Pappas
December 16, 2021Candle Factory Bosses Commit Murder by Tornado
Deadly tornadoes ripped through the southern and midwestern United States on Friday. Reports since reveal that Kentucky candle factory bosses threatened to fire workers if they stopped to take shelter prior to their shifts ending. Under capitalism, candles are even more important than human lives.
Mike Pappas
December 14, 2021Dear Columbia: Denying Student Workers Healthcare and a Living Wage Is the Real Violence
Columbia University’s administration has denounced the “violence” at this week’s completely peaceful picket by student workers. Do not be fooled: the real violence is the university denying student workers healthcare, a living wage, and neutral third-party arbitration.
Mike Pappas
December 10, 2021The Hypocritical Oath: Medical Residency Trains Physicians to Be Tools for Capitalism
Residency training often claims to focus on training effective physicians. In reality, it’s an intricately designed conditioning process to train physicians to be tools for profit maximization. In order to be truly "effective" physicians, residents, in solidarity with other healthcare workers, must organize to challenge the systems that lead to suffering and illness both in health care and around the globe.
Mike Pappas
November 21, 2021Healthcare Workers Must Join the Fight for Trans Liberation
Healthcare workers must join the fight against attacks on the trans community. In the process, we must fight to destroy the capitalist system that oppresses us all.
Mike Pappas
November 20, 2021Healthcare Workers at Kaiser in Northern California Set To Strike in Solidarity with Striking Engineers
Kaiser Permanente has recently averted a strike of over 50,000 healthcare workers in Southern California, Oregon, and Hawaii after reaching a tentative agreement with workers. In Northern California, though, thousands of healthcare workers from various sectors are still set to strike this week. Striking Kaiser engineers in Stationary Engineers Local 39 have been picketing since September 18. Now, starting this week, around 40,000 workers from multiple unions will walk off the job in sympathy with Local 39. Healthcare worker Mike Pappas speaks with a mental health worker who will be striking.
Mike Pappas
November 17, 2021People are Dying from Mass Incarceration. Doctors and Community Members are Fighting for Healthcare Access
Within the past year, the Department of Corrections (DOC) and Correctional Health Services (CHS) have overseen 14 reported deaths and ongoing human rights violations in NYC jails. Community members have had enough. They are joining together to demand access to patients to prevent more from dying in DOC and CHS hands.
Mike Pappas
November 2, 2021Buffalo Healthcare Workers Strike for Better Patient Care and Fair Wages
Left Voice visited the picket line at Mercy Hospital near Buffalo, New York. Nurses and other hospital workers have been on strike for three weeks, calling for safe staffing ratios and better pay.
Mike Pappas
October 23, 2021Striking Workers Reveal the Big Lie Behind “Family-Friendly” Kellogg Company
Kellogg claims, in ad after ad, to care about kids and their families. But the company’s actions show it couldn't care less — just like capitalism as a system does not care about working families.
Mike Pappas
October 20, 2021Healthcare Workers Are Fed Up And Hitting the Picket Lines
The fight of healthcare workers against poor working conditions and a decreasing standard of living is expanding across the country. It’s time to broaden the struggle.
Mike Pappas
October 13, 2021Firing Thousands of Health Care Workers Won’t Stop the Pandemic
The state of New York is firing thousands of unvaccinated health care workers and replacing them with members of the National Guard. While we support all workers being vaccinated, this is a clear attack coordinated by the bosses and the State against the working class.
Mike Pappas
September 28, 2021Capitalism Breeds Pathogens: An Interview with Epidemiologist Rob Wallace
Evolutionary epidemiologist Rob Wallace speaks with Left Voice healthcare workers Mike Pappas, Tre Kwon, and Cliff Willmeng on the origins of Covid and capitalism’s failure to respond to the crisis.
Mike Pappas
September 7, 2021What Billionaire Space Flights Mean to Healthcare Workers
While the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage around the globe and climate disaster is destroying the planet, billionaires are taking joyrides to space. Two healthcare workers who worked throughout the pandemic respond.
Mike Pappas
August 2, 2021Capitalist Healthcare Killed My Grandparent … And Hurts All Elderly
As a healthcare worker in New York City, I write this as a way to process and grieve, as less than 72 hours ago, another human was killed at the hands of the capitalist healthcare system. In the past, I have written about capitalism’s detrimental effects on our lives, and I have personally seen countless suffer and die at the hands of these systems in the healthcare setting. Today is different, as this death is more personal. This time the for-profit healthcare system under capitalism killed my grandfather.
Mike Pappas
July 18, 2021Capitalist Competition Is Sabotaging the Race for a Vaccine
The global race for a Covid-19 vaccine appears to be in its final leg. The research was publicly funded. But Big Pharma stands to make enormous profits, at the expense of people the world over.
Mike Pappas
November 23, 2020Strike for Breonna, Strike Against Police Terror
It’s official: the officers who killed Breonna Taylor will not be charged. While tragic, this is not surprising — the police, capitalism’s guard dogs, protect capital and the status quo and are therefore protected by the system they serve. Justice for Breonna Taylor and other victims killed by cops will not come through the courts. We must continue to protest and we must strike. We need to take action against racist cops and the capitalist system the institution of policing serves to protect.
Mike Pappas
September 27, 2020SEIU Should Actually Strike for Black Lives
On July 20, unions and their members from around the country signed on to participate in the “Strike for Black Lives” led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In theory, this is a great step forward, but as a member of the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), which is part of SEIU, I have to ask, is SEIU prepared to actually strike?
Mike Pappas
July 18, 2020Labor Must Defend the NYC Encampment and Join the Fight Against Racist Police
The labor movement should fight against police violence and support the City Hall encampment.
Mike Pappas
June 30, 2020“They Are Cracking Down Like This Because They Are Scared of the Movement”: Doctor Arrested by NYPD Speaks Out
Left Voice editor, doctor, and street medic Mike Pappas was arrested for violating curfew on Thursday night while marching against police brutality. He made this video at 2am Friday morning after he was released.
Mike Pappas
June 6, 2020A Healthcare Worker Answers Governor Cuomo’s “Conundrum”
Recent data out of New York City shows a large number of people with COVID-19 have largely been staying home. Governor Andrew Cuomo called this a "surprise." But capitalism is forcing working-class people to spread the virus. A socialist doctor from New York explains the problem to all the Cuomos of the world.
Mike Pappas
May 11, 2020