Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Work in the Time of Coronavirus: Tour Guides Struggling in an Empty City

An NYC tour guide is enraged over the current situation. Capitalism’s “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality won’t help workers put food on the table and pay rent, especially not during this crisis.

Left Voice

March 21, 2020
Facebook Twitter Share
Image: Vanessa Carvalho/Shutterstock

I am a tour guide, and I have no idea how I’ll get through this. For us who give tours, work is very seasonal. We push through the winter and the worst of the hot summer months by living off our spring and fall income. I also survive off the winter-time payments for spring tours. But now that it’s all being cancelled, customers want refunds. So not only am I not earning a paycheck, but every day I get emails asking for money back like I’m the bank on Black Friday. I have a refund fund that can never cover that, I have neither the benefits of an employee nor that of a company. I am also a single mother and I’ve just come out the other end from a bankruptcy. I know all this stress is not good for my health either, and the cheap food we’ll rely on will be another steep price on our well-being. But I don’t even have a vocabulary to express my terror, my anger, my confusion, at this sudden deterioration after years and years of pulling myself up by the fucking bootstraps – because what else was there to do? I don’t even know how to turn this on myself in a good capitalist fashion. What bootstraps am I supposed to pull on? How am I to “stop being lazy” and go work or something? 

I realize now that I’ve made do in our cruel world by turning it on myself and demanding of myself to work ever harder, smarter, better. I always could tell myself that it was my own fault, and at least that way I had some control over the situation: tomorrow, I’ll work harder. But the demand that I not go out and work for weeks has exposed the truth about the myth: that absurd New York City costs of living have nothing to do with my laziness and everything to do with a system in which I’m completely helpless. That the lack of a safety net for rough times is not a problem of the individual but of the social. But what good does facing this do? Anger at the big man takes too much energy, and I don’t have it.

—Frieda Vizel

Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

United States

20 Years Since the U.S. Invasion of Iraq: A Reflection from a Socialist in the Heart of Imperialism

A Left Voice member and anti-war activist reflects on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and how he learned to hate U.S. imperialism.

Sam Carliner

March 20, 2023

Train Derailment in Metro Detroit Illustrates That Capitalist Control of the Railroads Is Fundamentally Unsafe

With the capitalists in control of the railroads, they will destroy the environment and poison and kill workers. The catastrophe in East Palestine will not be the last if we don’t nationalize our railroads and put the safety of people and the environment over profit.

Emma Boyhtari

February 28, 2023
East Palestine, Ohio in the distance at night, smoke and fire springing up due to the train derailment.

The Ohio Train Disaster Is on Biden’s Hands

Just months after President Biden and Congress blocked railway workers from striking over dangerous working conditions, the exact type of disaster that workers predicted has come to pass. The fate of East Palestine must be a wake-up call for the labor and climate movements to fight for the nationalization of the railroads under workers’ control.

B.C. Daurelle

February 15, 2023
US President Joe Biden speaks during a State of the Union address with US Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, right, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. Biden is speaking against the backdrop of renewed tensions with China and a brewing showdown with House Republicans over raising the federal debt ceiling.

Biden’s Populist Speech Can’t Cover Up Capitalist Crisis

Biden tried to paint a picture of a United States that has come back stronger after the pandemic. But despite his populist rhetoric and laundry list of policies, none of these measures can address the real needs of the vast majority of the working class and poor who have been exploited and oppressed for much longer than the last two years.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

February 8, 2023

MOST RECENT

Protesters gather during a demonstration on Place de la Concorde in Paris on March 17, 2023, the day after the French government pushed a pensions reform using the article 49.3 of the constitution. - French President's government on March 17, 2023 faced no-confidence motions in parliament and intensified protests after imposing a contentious pension reform without a vote in the lower house. Across France, fresh protests erupted in the latest show of popular opposition to the bill since mid-January.

Battle of the Pensions: Toward a Pre-Revolutionary Moment in France

President Macron's use of article 49.3 to push through an unpopular pension reform bill has opened up an enormous political crisis that has changed the character of the mobilizations against the French government. We are entering a "pre-revolutionary moment" that can change the balance of power between the classes in France.

Juan Chingo

March 21, 2023

It is Possible to Win: The Pension Reform Crisis in France

A French socialist reflects on the way forward after Macron invites Article 49.3 to pass pension reform.

Paul Morao

March 20, 2023

“We are your economy”: Trans Youth Walkout and Speak Out

The following is a speech by a young trans person as part of an action called for by NYC Youth for Trans Rights.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

March 20, 2023
Three tables full of food, with signs hung above them. One says "The People's Pantry: FREE FOOD." Banners hung from the tables say "Free CUNY" and "Cop Free School Zone"

CUNY Administration Cracks Down on Student and Worker-Run Food Pantry

Students and workers opened "The People's Pantry" seven weeks ago as part of a broader anti-austerity campaign at CUNY, leading to several direct confrontations with the administration.

Olivia Wood

March 19, 2023