Movements in the COVID-19 Pandemic: How 3 Movements Are Navigating Isolation

This piece was written in May 2020 for the course Brands, Platforms, and Movements with Professor Naomi Klein at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, certain social movements have faced unique and troubling challenges while others have found ground to thrive and succeed. In this paper, I will be analyzing the triumphs and troubles of three different movements occuring amidst the global pandemic: the tenant rights movement, the Amazon employee protests, and the anti-quarantine movement. I argue that socioeconomic inequity is amplified during these times, providing a platform for individuals who faced financial problems and unsafe work conditions before the pandemic. At the same time, the pandemic has given individuals a platform for new protest measures, such as the dangerous anti-quarantine movement. These three case studies provide a unique insight to the different struggles the people of the United States are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as housing insecurity and job insecurity. Conversely, these case studies demonstrate the ways in which times of collective shock and struggle lead individuals to mobilize for change. In the case of the tenant rights movement, individuals are mobilizing for temporary change with hopes it can have a tangible, permanent impact. As for the Amazon employee protests, issues of job insecurity and worker safety that existed long before the pandemic have been amplified and brought to public attention more than ever before. Lastly, the anti-quarantine protests have created a platform for those who identify with conservative ideals under a facade built by the pandemic. Each of these movements will be examined by exploring their history, demands, successes, failures, and methods of organizing.

The Tenant Rights Movement

Tenant rights protests and rent striking have existed long before the COVID-19 pandemic struck our nation. Now, these issues exist in the public eye. Rent strikes date as far back as 1907, when a 16-year-old woman named Pauline Newman organized one of the largest rent strikes in the history of New York City (PBS, 2020). In 1907, the first worldwide financial crisis of the twentieth century occurred — this time period is referred to as the Panic of 1907. Parallels can be drawn between the time Newman organized the massive rent strike and now; namely, the aspect of shock and financial insecurity. In times of fear and struggle, these basic issues are brought to light. In times of stability and prosperity, these become issues that only the less fortunate are left to burden. Today, we see the aspects of shock and insecurity causing similar uprisings. “When we find ourselves in that position, without a story, without our moorings, a great many people become vulnerable to authority figures telling us to fear one another and relinquish our rights for the greater good” (Klein, 2017). According to NPR, more than 26 million people have lost jobs due to the pandemic (Zarroli & Schneider, 2020). In April of 2019, 18% of renters did not pay their rent on time. In April of 2020, 31% of renters did not pay on time (Bahney, 2020). This is almost double the amount of late or incomplete rent payments from 2019, and reflects the loss of income that the pandemic has created for the masses.

Tenants who are facing financial insecurity have demanded moratoriums on eviction. In different areas, the demands vary. The basic demands, however, remain essentially the same: cancel and freeze rent payments during the pandemic. According to a pledge created by the Upstate/Downstate Housing Alliance, three main demands are being requested: that rent be cancelled, rent costs be frozen, and the homeless be rehoused (Upstate/Downstate Housing Alliance, 2020). The pledge reads, “If you couldn’t pay your rent on May 1st you are not alone. We’re stronger together and now is the time for tenants to act collectively. Millions not paying rent doesn’t build power by itself; we only build power by making our individual actions public and collective! By joining this movement, we are making a coordinated demand for relief.” Over 14,000 people have signed this pledge to withhold rent payment in the month of May. Activist groups providing organization on a national scale have come to fruition, like Rent Strike 2020. Their mission statement reads:

“​Rent Strike 2020 is an activist organization working to build a nationwide mutual aid community and working class power during the Coronavirus outbreak. We are a disaster relief organization owned and controlled by regular working people. Our demands to every Governor, in every state, are extremely simple: freeze rent, mortgage, and utility bill collection for 2 months, or face a rent strike” (RentStrike2020, 2020).

This movement has operated largely through online petitions and pledges to withhold rent. The power of numbers creates solidarity and reassurance that those unable to pay are supported. On a low-tech level, renters have posted fliers throughout their buildings encouraging neighbors in their complexes to join the strike. In Brooklyn, the Crown Heights Tenant Union organized a banner drop. On balconies, tenants dropped banners stating “Cancel Rent, Cuomo” and “Crown Heights Can’t Afford the Rent!” to make a statement (CHTenantUnion, 2020). The same organization encouraged individuals to bang pots and pans outside of their windows to demand a rent freeze. With the help of tech, though, the hashtag #cancelrent has been making waves across the country. This hashtag has helped connect individuals to the Tenant Rights Unions in their respective areas and created a sense of solidarity amongst those unable to pay. Car protests have also taken place, in light of social distancing orders. Since individuals are unable to organize in large groups closer than six feet apart, protesters have found creative ways to be heard. On May 1st, a car protest descended upon the Capitol Building in Albany to demand that Governor Cuomo provide rent relief (Slattery & Parnell, 2020). These demonstrations prove that physical distance does not compromise the power a movement can have. We have yet to see what victories these protests might reap, but it is clear that the people are being heard.

The main difference between “normal times” and pandemic times are that it is not just the impoverished or minority groups struggling to pay rent; it is a vast majority of our country. This struggle has proven to be eye-opening for those who previously had the privilege of housing and income security; it offers a mirror into the lives of renters who have been struggling long before a global pandemic struck. According to research from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, “renters are also more likely to be people of color: while Latinx and Black residents make up 18% and 12% of the U.S. population, they account for 28% and 18% of the impacted renter population, respectively” (Kneebone & Murray, 2020). The same report states that among the groups most likely to be impacted by COVID-19 related income loss, over 7.1 million renters (43%) were already struggling to pay rental costs (Kneebone & Murray, 2020). People outside of these groups are now facing issues that have always been prevalent for minority groups. I speculate that after the pandemic ends, perhaps we will see more sympathy for those struggling to make ends meet.

Unsurprisingly, backlash against the tenant rights movement has come from landlords. This backlash is not happening in the public eye. For the most part, it is happening directly to the tenants who are refusing to pay. One extreme example is Portland tenant Austin Goodrich’s situation. His property manager reached out to him after stimulus checks were distributed by the government. The property manager stated that he knew Goodrich received his check and was wondering when he would be paying his rent. When Goodrich questioned how the property manager knew that he received his check, it was revealed that they had illegally checked through the IRS using Goodrich’s social security number. When asked to comment, Goodrich said “[I] decided to use this opportunity to speak out on behalf of tenants that suffer abuses from their landlords/property managers that this is the time to put your foot down and demand fair treatment of your rights” (Goldberg, 2020).

While most states have not cancelled rent or put a freeze on rent costs, many have put eviction moratoriums in place for the time being. This means that even if tenants cannot pay their rent, they will not be evicted from their homes. Regardless, this does not solve the problem for those who have not or cannot pay. Eventually, they will be held responsible for the costs they are evading. The problem will only go away when there is a complete cancellation and freeze on rent payments. Many people have lost jobs temporarily, but for some the burden will last beyond the pandemic. Without legislation in place that prevents eviction, many could end up homeless when the moratoriums are lifted. We cannot see a clear end date for this pandemic as of now, so it is hard to say how long this could last or what the long term impact of this movement will be.

The Amazon Workers Fighting for Safer Conditions

Between October 2013 and October 2018, emergency workers were called to Amazon warehouses 189 times for “suicidal attempts, suicidal thoughts, and other mental-health episodes” (Zahn, 2019). In 2018, author James Bloodworth went undercover at an Amazon warehouse in the United Kingdom to expose the poor work conditions; he revealed that employees sometimes urinated in bottles to avoid being scolded for wasting time going to the restroom. “Amazon is known to track how fast its warehouse workers can pick and package items from its shelves, imposing strictly timed breaks and targets. It issues warning points for those who don’t meet its goals or who take extended breaks” (Ghosh, 2018). Senator Bernie Sanders lobbied on behalf of Amazon employees in August of 2018, stating “Thousands of Amazon employees are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing because their wages are too low, including 1 out of 3 of its workers in Arizona and 2,400 in Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to The New Food Economy” (Bryan, 2018). Even before the pandemic, Amazon has been in the hot seat for their treatment of employees. This cumulated in a worker strike on Amazon Prime day: July 15th, 2019. Employees at the Shakopee warehouse in Minnesota pledged to cease work for six hours on the day of the company’s largest sale to demand safer working conditions and more job security (Allen, 2019). There are conflicting reports on how many workers ended up striking, with Amazon claiming it was about 15 workers (Peterson, 2019). Regardless, employee protests and backlash are nothing new for Amazon. In the midst of the pandemic, though, these protests have gained significant media traction and the attention of the country.

In March, Christopher Smalls was fired from his manager assistant for organizing an employee walkout to demand safer conditions amidst the pandemic. Smalls worked at the JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island for five years before he was fired. He has become somewhat of a figurehead for Amazon employees after publishing an open letter to Jeff Bezos through The Guardian. In the letter, Smalls wrote that his facility was secretive about the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in their warehouse. After demands from he and other employees that the warehouse be closed and sanitized were not met, Smalls knew he had to do more. He tried to contact the New York state health department, the governor, the Centers for Disease Control, and even the local police department to have the facility shut down. But the government had been too overwhelmed to act, so Smalls decided to take matters into his own hands. At this point, he worked with his colleagues to stage a walkout on March 30th.

In an interview with Christopher Smalls, I asked him how he was able to spread the word about his walkout. He informed me that he and his colleagues made fliers to post in the bathrooms, and they organized a social media team to send the message out across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. He said the rest fell on him; “the rest” being his communication with the media. Smalls wrote an article for the New York Post and The Guardian which brought him a lot of public attention. Smalls has undoubtedly become a figurehead for Amazon employees. In Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tufekci talks about the benefits and drawbacks of leadership in a movement: “Leaderless movements are less prone to decapitation by co-optation or, as is unfortunately very common, killing of the leaders” (Tufekci, 2018). I asked Smalls if there was some kind of formal decision to make him the face of the movement in the media. “No. I put myself out there,” Smalls said, “I wanted to make sure that nobody else was going to be retaliated at the way they [Amazon] did to me.”

The retaliation, of course, was to fire Smalls for breaking what he called “quarantine policy.” Amazon tried to “decapitate” this movement with co-optation in the form of firing Smalls — but in this case, it only allowed the movement to grow stronger. Amazon claimed that the walkout Smalls had organized violated social distancing guidelines, but Smalls disagreed in our conversation. He shared that at the Staten Island warehouse, he and his colleagues had no personal protective equipment (PPE) for the entire month of March. I asked if he felt that Amazon had been selectively applying their social distancing rules. Smalls said, “They were very selective, and the only reason they did it was to silence me.” Smalls stated that during the walkout, employees had plenty of room to remain distant in the parking lot which is the size of “fourteen NFL football fields.” When asked if he felt that employees were closer than six feet apart while working in the warehouse, he said that it is “impossible” to be six feet apart working for Amazon. After this, he expressed concern that the warehouses act as a “breeding ground” for the virus. In a leaked memo from an executive meeting, one of Amazon’s lawyers “called Smalls ‘not smart or articulate’” (Ghaffary, 2020). Despite Amazon saying this, Smalls single handedly was able to bring together employees of some of the United States’ largest corporations to protest for better treatment.

On May 1st, this cumulated in an international walkout of Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, Walmart, and Target employees. Christopher Smalls was the lead organizer of this protest, which has been dubbed the May Day Protests. “For the first time, organizers brought together a coalition of low-paid, non-unionized, often temporary employees from some of the largest companies in the US” (Ghaffary, 2020). Across social media platforms, fliers were shared alerting employees and consumers alike not to cross the picket line on May 1st. In our interview, I asked Smalls if he would continue to advocate for Amazon employees. Smalls told me about the May 1st walkout he was organizing. He said, “Until employees are protected, we’re going to continue to speak up more and more until something gets done.” The international walkout was covered by many mass media outlets. The public is now more aware than ever before about the tyranny and unsafe conditions these companies operate under, all thanks to Christopher Smalls and his colleagues.

The Anti-Quarantine Protests

The pandemic has given rise to many new movements and protests, but none as divisive as this. It is hard to come up with one name to address all of the concerns this movement has; it has been referred to as the anti-stay-at-home order protests, the anti-quarantine protests, and the open the economy protests, to name a few iterations. According to my research, the first anti-quarantine protest took place in Lansing, Michigan on April 7th, 2020 (Mauger, 2020). Protesters congregated in front of the Capitol wielding signs saying things like, “Give us back our freedom,” “Government is non-essential,” and “Protect public health and the constitution.” The protest, which was organized by a group called Michigan United for Liberty, was in response to Governor Gretchen Whitmer requesting to extend her emergency declaration for another 70 days (Mauger, 2020). On the Michigan United for Liberty Facebook page, the group stated, “We do not agree with or consent to our unalienable rights being restricted or rescinded for any reason, including the COVID-19 pandemic” (Michigan United for Liberty, 2020). There are so many problems with this mindset, but most salient is that at the time of this protest, Michigan ranked third in the United States for having the most coronavirus related deaths (McGann, 2020). COVID-19 is a highly contagious virus that has taken the lives of over 70,000 people in the United States already (Centers for Disease Control, 2020). The unsafe and irresponsible organizing of these protesters (who often refuse to wear personal protective equipment) puts them at a higher risk, and makes COVID-19 seem less dangerous than it is.

After the Michigan protests, more and more anti-quarantine protests popped up around the nation. Mainstream media outlets like Fox News have made these protests seem more accepted by the United States than they truly are, and even our own president has endorsed them. On April 17th, 2020 at 11:22 AM, President Trump tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” (Trump, 2020). Fox News also aired images that confused and encouraged viewers to join the protests, including a map depicting “Emerging Rallies/Protests to Reopen Economy” that showed 24 participating states (McGann, 2020). In Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tufekci talks about authority figures using media to disguise censorship and authoritative suggestions. “Producing information glut, inducing confusion and distraction, and mobilizing a networked public of counter-movements, rather than imposing outright censorship, are becoming parts of the playbook of governments that confront social movements” (Tufekci, 2018). Despite the media attention these protests have received, it is clear that the vast majority of Americans are not on board with the mindset of these groups. “81 percent of Americans told pollsters for a Politico/Morning Consult poll that the country ‘should continue to social distance for as long as is needed to curb the spread of coronavirus, even if it means continued damage to the economy’” (McGann, 2020).

I do not intend to underscore the amount of protests happening in other states, but Michigan has proven to be an interesting and prevalent part of this case study. On April 15th, two different groups protested at the Michigan Capitol: Michigan Conservative Coalition and Michigan Freedom Fund. Michigan Freedom Fund is linked to Education Secretary Betsy Devos (Burns, 2020). On April 30th, 2020, hundreds of anti-quarantine organizers descended upon Michigan’s Capitol yet again. Many in attendance were not wearing facial masks, but many did wield weapons. These protests have become divisive and undoubtedly reflect political motivation. Instead of being about the health and recovery of our country, these protests have become a place for Trump’s supporters to convene. “In Michigan, they [the protests] appear to be in part in reaction [to] polling showing severe declines in public support for President Trump” (Marshall, 2020). Similar to the Tea Party movement, these protests are somewhat of a mirror of their previous demands. “The call to “take our country back” or to “rebuild the American Dream” is a way of protesting social and economic inequalities without having to question the entire political and economic system” (Jaffe, 2017). There is more than meets the eye to these protests, which on the outside reflect a disdain for government control of our inalienable rights, but upon further inspection reflect the divisive nature of our current political climate.

There has been major backlash to these protests. In a video from NowThis News, nurses in St. Paul, Minnesota are shown organizing in response to the anti-quarantine protesters. In an attempt to get Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to end the state’s stay-at-home order, hundreds of anti-quarantine organizers drove by for what they called “Operation Gridlock Minnesota” (NowThis News, 2020). When a protest at the state Capitol attempted to gridlock the streets near a major hospital, nurses stood outside in solidarity with their colleagues and patients. One nurse said, “I’m feeling a little ashamed that this is more of a political rally than it is about public health” (NowThis News, 2020). A similar rally happened in Phoenix, Arizona on April 20th, 2020. In another video from NowThis News, anti-quarantine protestors are heard calling the nurses who were counter-protesting “fake nurses” and “actors,” and chanting “Trump 2020!” (NowThis News, 2020). These nurses are counter-protesting in the name of public health and in support of their fellow healthcare workers, yet there has been significantly less media coverage of the counter-protest efforts than there has been of the anti-quarantine protests. Thankfully, most Americans are not on board with the agenda of the anti-quarantine protesters as the data shared earlier shows.

Final Thoughts

The COVID-19 pandemic is unlike anything our country has seen before. It has given rise to economic issues, housing insecurity, labor inequality, and a collective sense of paranoia that has driven all three of the movements discussed in this paper. While tenants fight for housing security and rent cancellations, Amazon employees fight for safer working conditions and compensation for their essential work, and anti-quarantine protesters fight for their “unalienable rights” and the opportunity to work, a majority of the public sits locked in their homes watching it all unfold on social media and television. While movements such as the Amazon employee protests and the tenant rights movement existed before the pandemic, the anti-quarantine protests materialized as a result of the pandemic. Now, because of the collective desire for information as we all remain distant, these causes are reaching more eyes and ears than they possibly could have before the pandemic. The country is watching from all angles, and it is an interesting moment to be locked up in our homes with all of the information in the world at our fingertips. It will be intriguing to see the way these causes demands, successes, and failures evolve in a post-quarantine world. Creative methods of making voices heard have been birthed by the orders of social distancing, like car protests and banner drops, but it raises questions that we will not find answers to until the unforeseeable end of the pandemic. Will these movements reap the victories they have sowed for? Will they gain more traction in a world where a virus is no longer threatening us? Will they be forgotten? Will everything go back to normal? And what will “normal” look like after this?

It is impossible to predict, but it is undeniable that we are living in a historical moment. In previous pandemics, society has not had access to advanced communication technologies in the way we do today. Previously, “movements often faced having their causes trivialized or distorted by mass media, with no chance to talk back. Mass media’s near monopoly on attention often meant that the two were conflated, and an analysis of attention would often be confined to analyses of media” (Tufekci, 2018). Some argue that social media is detrimental to movements in some cases, but in the moment we are currently living in, these platforms are absolutely crucial. Even with the advent of fake news, which is certainly a detriment, there are still so many reasons why technology and social media are crucial to the world we live in. No society has ever been as connected as we currently are, and the amount of information any one person has access to is massive. “Internet activism does not and cannot exist in a bubble but rather responds to the larger media and activist ecologies of specific historical and technological moments” (Jackson, 2018). All three of the movements mentioned in this paper have utilized technology to their advantage. Without this technology, it would be hard to say if some of these movements would even be covered by mass media outlets. Since individuals have the ability to share ideas and mobilize at the tap of a screen, coverage of these movements spread like wildfire in this version of the world where most of our connection comes from wireless data and internet plans.

Overall, the pandemic has opened the eyes of millions to inequalities and injustices that were occurring in more private settings before. It seems to have leveled the playing field, despite the field requiring us all to stand at least six feet apart. More interesting than the current moment we are living in will be the results of these movements; some, like the tenant rights movement and the Amazon employee protests, are already seeing changes. As for the anti-quarantine protests, perhaps they will call an eventual safe opening of the country and economy a victory. Perhaps they will continue to protest up until that time, or perhaps action will be taken to prevent these kinds of protests. Regardless, there might never be a “normal” again when this all comes to an end, and maybe that is a good thing. Maybe the injustices that were swept under the rug like housing insecurity, job insecurity, unsafe labor conditions, and anti-union ideology will see victories that last long beyond the present moment. Sometimes, a disruption in the mundane systems we operate under can open the door for a better future.

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