UK civil servants face crucial fight against jobs massacre

Paul Bond & Robert Stevens

Boris Johnson’s Conservative government has set a deadline of June 30 for secretaries of state to present plans for slashing jobs in their departments, as part of a proposed cull of 91,000 civil service jobs.

The civil service covers every aspect of public service and government policy support, encompassing daily necessities for millions of people, including welfare benefits, passports and vehicle registration. Final decisions on a three-year programme of cuts are planned for the autumn.

Johnson announced the jobs massacre a fortnight ago, calling for a reduction of civil service numbers by one-fifth, from 475,000 back to 2016 levels. In 2016, after five years of austerity under David Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition, the civil service employed 384,000, the lowest number since the end of World War II.

Britain's Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg arrives for a regional cabinet meeting at Middleport Pottery in Stoke on Trent, England, Thursday, May 12, 2022. (Oli Scarff/Pool Photo via AP)

Nothing is off the table. Rees-Mogg, the Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, has mooted that the “simplest way” to achieve the job cuts is via a blanket recruitment freeze, as up to 38,000 staff leave the Civil Service each year.

A move towards that was this week’s announcement that the Civil Service “fast stream” is to close for at least one year. The scheme offers a fast-track to senior roles, with more than 3,000 graduates joining via this route over past three years. The decision to freeze the scheme was pushed by Johnson and agreed at a Cabinet Office meeting on May 19.

The scale of cuts will eviscerate and destroy services. Two months ago, it was announced that 42 Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) offices will close, 13 with “no other strategic site nearby” for staff.

An ideological element is undoubtedly at play, with the Tories intent on destroying “big government”. The Daily Mail cited government sources complaining that civil service numbers have ballooned due to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, “We cannot let this bigger state become the new normal.” Labour meanwhile will continue its role of “constructive opposition”, helping Johnson and his cronies to complete the Thatcher revolution.

Johnson and Rees-Mogg have cynically presented their civil service cuts as a move to help those struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. This from a government that has refused even to reinstate the £20 weekly uplift to the main Universal Credit benefit, put in place during the pandemic but scrapped last October. The Resolution Foundation has assessed that an extra 1.3 million people, including 500,000 children, will be left in poverty this year as a result.

As ever greater numbers of people are thrown into poverty, the DWP plans to employ fewer staff to assist them. Therese Coffey, secretary of state for work and pensions, has unveiled her department’s 2022-25 plan that includes a 12 percent cut in staff funding.

In opposing the job losses, workers are being pitched into a struggle not just against the Tories, but against the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). The PCS, with 180,000 members, is the largest union in the sector, with tens of thousands of members in the civil service.

In a consultative ballot held earlier this year, PCS civil service members voted by an 81 percent majority that they would be willing to strike after rejecting a pay offer of just 2 percent along with attacks on their pensions. However, after years of the PCS refusing to fight anything, including throughout the pandemic, members expressed their frustration in a turnout of just 45 percent below the 50 percent required for a ballot to be recognised under anti-strike laws.

The PCS is attempting to stifle industrial action and keep the pay and pensions fight separate from any struggle against 91,000 job losses.

At its conference last week, the PSC put forward an emergency motion on pay and pensions, stating only that, “Conference agrees that we should work towards a national statutory ballot on industrial action in the early autumn, and that the form and scope of the ballot should take account of the consultative ballot results.” With criminal complacency it said, “Conference instructs the NEC to: Declare a national dispute over pay, pensions and the CSCS… [Civil Service Compensation Scheme]: Hold a statutory industrial action ballot to begin in September 2022.”

On the jobs cull, a PCS statement ahead of conference made clear there would be no immediate mobilisation. A statement read, “We have set our stall to protect the civil service by demanding the government fully consults with union officials about its plans…”

Presenting a separate motion on the jobs cull to conference, PCS DWP Group President Martin Cavanagh said it was made, “without consultation with staff or unions.” Ignoring the mass sentiment that already exists in the membership for a fight, the motion merely proposed that “Conference instructs the NEC to: Build a campaign against the government’s planned job cuts and for increased resourcing to deliver adequate public services.” It would, “Work with the PCS Parliamentary Group to advance our campaign.” No industrial action was proposed—even in the autumn—with the resolution stating the PCS would, “Use all means at our disposal to defend member’s jobs and public services including industrial action when appropriate.”

Both motions were passed unanimously by delegates, indicating willingness to fightback against the government’s attacks.

Mark Serwotka (Credit:Trades Union Congress/Twitter)

The PCS has betrayed its members’ struggles for decades. It has long been a base of operations for various pseudo-left tendencies whose members have worked as part of the union bureaucracy. The union is headed by Mark Serwotka, a member of the pseudo-left Socialist Organiser group in the 1980s and early 1990s, who became a supporter of the Socialist Workers Party-led Socialist Alliance, followed by the Respect organisation led by the SWP and George Galloway. With the backing of pseudo-left groups, Serwotka’s speciality is bragging of his constant readiness to fight for his members and the entire working class—alone if necessary—while not lifting a finger to genuinely oppose the decimation of PCS members’ pay, terms and conditions.

At the conference, Serwotka described the campaign against civil servants during the pandemic, “They came for our integrity, accusing us of being lazy because we worked from home. But then they came for our jobs …” #

In fact, at the pandemic’s height, when workers were dying on the job through their criminal exposure to the virus, the PCS held just one union-authorised action over COVID workplace safety. The Swansea office of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency experienced the largest number of COVID infections linked to a single employer or workplace in Britain. PCS members took concerted strike action against management plans to bring hundreds of staff back into the office.

The DVLA headquarters in Swansea (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

But the PCS refused to call for any broader mobilisation of its membership, instead criticising the government for prolonging the dispute and preventing an agreement between the PCS and management. The union devoted more effort to isolating and ending the dispute than to safeguarding workers’ health.

The PSC is suffocating any industrial action, fully aware of the collective strength that its members wield. Speaking to the Times as the PCS conference was underway, Serwotka said, “What people would see [with the job losses] is that job centres would close, there would be nobody there overseeing collection of taxes, overseeing the minimum wage; the justice system would come to a halt… We have people at the ports, the airports, checking the passports, issuing driving licences, issuing passports and so much more. So clearly if those people were to take industrial action there would be a huge effect.

“It would certainly be something that the government couldn’t ignore and I think our message will be today that nobody wants to go on strike, but it appears to be that unless we have that vote [at the conference] all our persuasive arguments to government have just been, frankly, ignored.”

One-day general strike against war and social cuts in Italy

Marianne Arens

Large parts of Italy were paralyzed in a one-day general strike organised by grassroots unions May 20. The strike was directed against NATO’s war policy and Mario Draghi’s government, as well as the social consequences of the war that are being imposed on the working class.

Workers of TNT/FEDEX near Milan airport strike against 176 dismissals and the sell-out by the CGIL, CISL and UIL unions [Photo by S.I. Cobas Peschiera Borromeo]. [Photo by S.I. Cobas Peschiera Borromeo]

The strikers also demanded higher wages, a sliding scale of wages to counter inflation (Scala mobile), improved social spending and secure jobs. “When, if not now” and “Get out of the war!” were the main slogans.

Train services were severely restricted nationwide throughout the day Friday, May 20. Public transport in Milan, Rome and elsewhere only maintained emergency services at peak times. Workers running ferry services to the islands, along with many flights and motorway toll booths were on strike.

Many state schools remained closed, as did supermarkets such as Lidl and large parts of the transport and logistics sector. There were also stoppages in industry, for example at commercial vehicle manufacturer Iveco in Turin. Delivery drivers in Milan and textile workers in Prato near Florence also stopped work. Rallies and demonstrations were held in the centres of Rome, Bologna, Genoa, Milan, Turin, Venice, Florence, Naples, Palermo and Taranto, as well as in many other cities.

The call to strike was made by the Italian grassroots unions, S.I. Cobas, Sgb, Unicobas, Cub and others. They have been gaining influence for years because the traditional trade union confederations CGIL, CISL and UIL are losing members in droves due to their pro-government and pro-business policies.

Many factories participating in the strike have been fighting ruthless levels of exploitation for years, such as garment workers in Prato and parcel delivery workers and drivers working for DHL, TNT and FEDEX. For example, FEDEX drivers in Peschiera Borromeo, where Milan airport is located, are on strike against a sellout by the union confederations, which have agreed to 176 redundancies.

The strikes against war and massive social cuts are an expression of the growing militancy of the international working class, fighting against growing inequality, the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the social effects of government war policies.

Moreover, the pandemic is by no means over. On the day of the recent general strike over 26,500 new infections and 89 COVID-19 deaths were reported in Italy.

Added to this are the price increases for fuel and food. The average price of heating gas in May 2022 is almost seven times higher than before the pandemic. The cost of bread has increased by 30 percent, and oil and pasta are also becoming more expensive. Purchasing power has fallen by at least 5 percent in the first quarter of 2022.

The crisis is hitting the Italian working class hard, which is already suffering from unemployment, precarious work and poverty among the elderly. With the approval of the government and trade unions, the corporations have used the pandemic to pile the costs onto the backs of workers in the form of layoffs, wage cuts and extended periods of short-time working. According to the Istat statistics office, more than 3.5 million workers are currently precariously employed; 430,000 were added in 2021 alone. Youth unemployment is officially 24.5 percent, but is much higher in real terms, especially in the south.

State employees, teaching staff and care workers are also coming under increasing pressure. Italy supports the Ukraine war—a proxy war by NATO against Russia—supplying it with weapons and stepping up spending on the Italian armed forces. In this context, the Draghi government has presented a new austerity budget. Among other things, it plans to cut the state education budget and to eliminate 9,600 teaching positions.

The general strike on May 20 was not the first in recent times. On April 22, workers all over Italy stopped work for one day under the slogan “Up wages, down arms!”

On March 14, ramp workers at Pisa airport refused to load weapons and ammunition for Ukraine, which were to be disguised as “humanitarian aid.” At the end of March, an arms shipment was stopped that was supposed to go to Yemen via the port of Genoa. The boycott by dockworkers in Genoa was also joined by colleagues in the port of Livorno.

These strikes are being organised by grassroots unions, which have gained great influence in recent years mainly because the traditional trade union confederations CGL, CISL, UIL, which are linked to the establishment parties, shamelessly support the government. Time and again they have sold out workers.

Shortly after the strikes and boycott actions began, the government organised a police raid on the premises of the grassroots union USB (Unione sindacale di base) in Rome on April 6, ostensibly to search for hidden weapons. It was a provocation and a transparent attempt to intimidate the growing resistance.

All this has contributed to even more workers taking part in the general strikes of April 22 and May 20.

The growing readiness to fight raises more and more urgently the question of an independent perspective and orientation. While workers want to fight against the war, social cuts and the government’s herd immunity policies, the grassroots unions organise strike actions in order to keep control of the growing class struggle movement and steer it into harmless channels.

Organisations like the USB and Cobas pursue a nationally limited, syndicalist perspective that has failed in every country and ultimately falls in behind the government and its capitalist policies. Despite their nominal grassroots orientation and federal structure, they are not fundamentally different in political orientation from the hated national trade union confederations.

At the same time, the grassroots unions are closely linked to Italy’s stale pseudo-left and Stalinist parties such as Rifondazione Comunista (PRC, Communist Refoundation), the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI, Italian Communist Party) and Potere al Popolo (PaP, Power to the People), all of which supported the May 20 strike call. For example, USB leader Pierpaolo Leonardi is a member of the PCI, which was newly formed in 2016. The leader of Cobas, Piero Bernocchi, has close links to Rifondazione Comunista, which supported Romano Prodi’s government’s policies of cuts and war between 2006 and 2008.

In the best Stalinist tradition, in their call for action distributed on May 20 the grassroots unions and their supporters appeal to “diplomacy.” They place responsibility in the hands of the UN, with one appeal saying, “We should fully involve the United Nations to envisage an aid plan for the Ukrainian people, international observers and free elections.”

In this way, they appeal to the same capitalist forces that are organising the war; the UN Security Council includes representatives of the US, France and the UK, together with those of Russia and China.

COVID-19 cases rise in the Mid-Atlantic as school districts refuse to impose any safety measures

Pete Salmon

Customers, some wearing face masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus, dine at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Friday, April 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

The Mid-Atlantic United States, home to nearly 60 million people, has seen a drastic increase in the number of people infected with the latest coronavirus variants. However, the official response to this alarming trend has been mostly silence in order to make it so the virus is not as serious as it appears.

Last week, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) began to reinstate its mask mandate in schools. This occurred one month after a city-wide order calling for indoor masking was rescinded, reducing the requirement for masks to a “strong recommendation.”

In addition, the city eliminated its tiered COVID response system. For the week of May 15–21, 592 new cases were reported, representing a gradual increase in numbers from week to week despite low testing numbers. Over 16,100 cases of COVID-19 have been reported since the beginning of the year.

The SDP introduced a “Mask to Stay” option on May 13 where students exposed to COVID-19 but not showing any symptoms would be permitted to remain in school if they wore a mask 10 days following exposure and are self-monitored. Otherwise, the student would have to quarantine for 10 days.

“Requiring students who have been exposed to COVID-19 but are not exhibiting any symptoms to quarantine at home has the unintended consequence of reducing in-school learning,” lamented the SDP.

In Maryland, Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) reported 1,121 cases from May 19 through May 28, including 78 cases at Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle School. The quarantine and isolation period is five days, reduced from 10 days on January 18. Masks have been optional in the BCPS system since March 14.

In the Washington D.C. region, COVID-19 cases have risen exponentially. In the week ending May 26, the District of Columbia reported 11,934 cases in a “school setting.”

The Washington Post week wrote last week, “4,698 D.C. Public Schools students had been identified as a close contact of someone who tested positive within the last 10 days.” But far from taking a public health-conscious approach such as returning to remote learning, “Students who are vaccinated, or contracted the virus in the last 90 days, are not required to quarantine.”

In early May the Post reported that the Democratic Party-led D.C. government had stopped giving its daily case numbers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because “it was time to treat coronavirus less like an emergency and more like an endemic illness.” On April 27, the “sporadic but fairly frequent” reports stopped altogether. Nearly two weeks went by before the city again reported case numbers, with no explanations given for the lapse.

The mask mandate for DCPS was dropped effective March 16. Public schools may choose to utilize the CDC’s “Test to Stay” program, designed to allow people who would otherwise go into quarantine to remain in school, with a negative COVID test and no symptoms. Quarantine period: 0 days for vaccinated people if no symptoms; 7 to 10 days for unvaccinated “close contacts.”

“It reflects the difficult reality for schools more than two years into the pandemic: Covid is still here, even as they seek a return to normalcy,” the Post declared.

The situation is little better in the District’s near suburbs. In Montgomery County, Maryland, the richest and most populous county in the state, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) reported 2,034 cases in the last 10 days as of May 28.

The Montgomery County Board of Education voted to make indoor masking optional during a March 8 business meeting, in line with new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines that no longer recommend universal mask-wearing.

The county, which earlier in the pandemic rejected Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan’s effort to return to in-person learning when cases were roughly 1,000 a day, has initiated a ridiculous campaign, “On or Off, It’s Just Me.” The program, which combines anti-scientific public health advice with the most selfish forms of individualism, purports to be a “reminder that wearing masks may be an individual choice and we must respect each other’s choices.”

Written in the framework of an individual’s “personal space,” the guideline completely ignores the well-being of MCPS’s immunocompromised children and their families. The isolation and quarantine period for students was reduced to five days from 10 on March 1.

In nearby Prince George’s County, 479 separate incidents of COVID-19 were reported between May 18 and 24. Although the county’s indoor mask mandate was lifted on February 28, PGCPS continues to require the use of masks in schools regardless of vaccination status, and claims that schools are cleaned and filtrated daily. Isolation/quarantine is five days, or 10 if the student is unable to wear a form-fitting mask correctly.

A teacher in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, near the state capital Annapolis, told the World Socialist Web Site that the promises school boards have made in order to lure educators and students back to school were “frankly, a lie.”

“They never improved the ventilation system. There are still many classrooms that are hot during the summer and cold during the winter.” According to the teacher, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of victimization, ventilation improvements were limited to the replacement of air conditioning filters.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) reported 298 active cases on May 28 and over 15,000 in total since the beginning of the school year last September 8; an active case is defined by an individual who tested positive that is “still under isolation. That period is 5 days for students and adults.”

New COVID mitigation “strategies” were put into place on May 23, in which students and staff of any school with a 5 percent positivity rate over a 14-day period would be “asked, not mandated” to wear masks for 10 days.

“Whatever the philosophical disagreements on masking and other issues this school year, there is almost universal agreement on one thing: We should do everything we can to keep students in classrooms, where we know the best instruction and learning takes place,” said school superintendent George Arlotto.

The aversion toward public health measures is strongest in Republican Party-controlled Virginia, where Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin imposed a ban on mask mandates in February. Over 8,000 cases have been reported in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) since the beginning of May, an exponential jump from its previous highs, including over 800 reported cases on both May 16 and May 23.

FCPS made mask-wearing in schools optional effective March 1, as long as community transmission was “low” or “medium” under the new CDC community risk guidelines as explained earlier. FCPS no longer contact traces individual cases.

Even with these alarming increases in cases, the school districts have done little to stem the rising tide, and in some cases intentionally make matters worse, in order to keep the region’s economy open. “With COVID-19, American society has even come to accept the deaths of children from a preventable cause,” states an Associated Press article (“COVID-19, shootings: Is mass death now tolerated in America?”).

The article cites pediatrician Dr. Mark W. Kline, declaring “there was a time in pediatrics when ‘children were not supposed to die.’ There was no acceptable pediatric body count. … At least, not before the first pandemic of the social media age, COVID-19, changed everything.”

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi tours the Pacific

John Braddock

On Monday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi convened a meeting of foreign ministers from 10 Pacific Island nations in Suva, Fiji. It was the second China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ Meeting following its inaugural gathering, conducted remotely in October 2021.

In this photo supplied by the Fiji government, the President of Fiji, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere, right, gestures with the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the State House in Suva, Fiji, Monday, May 30, 2022. (Fiji Government via AP)

All the Pacific countries which recognise China attended the on-line meeting: Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands, Niue and Federated States of Micronesia. Those maintaining ties with Taiwan—Tuvalu, Palau, the Marshall Islands and Nauru—were absent.

China presented a major document, leaked last week, which advanced a sweeping region-wide strategy boosting economic and security co-operation. Despite a direct appeal from Premier Xi Jinping, China announced after the meeting it would shelve the proposals and prepare a “position paper,” so that “going forward” it can “shape more consensus and cooperation.” China’s Ambassador to Fiji, Qian Bo, said there had been “general support” for the plan, but some leaders had concerns about “specific issues.”

Pacific Islands Forum general secretary Henry Puna and Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama emphasised that the major issue for Pacific leaders is climate change. Bainimarama told the joint press conference that “geopolitical point scoring” means “less than nothing” to those threatened by climate change. He had urged China, he said, as he did with all major countries, to make stronger climate commitments.

The meeting came midway through an unprecedented tour of the Pacific by Wang and a 20-strong delegation of Chinese officials. It began in the Solomon Islands last Thursday with the signing of a security agreement between the two countries.

The pact, which was agreed in April, was furiously denounced by Washington, Australia and New Zealand, which claimed it would open the way for a Chinese military base in the southwest Pacific. Beijing has repeatedly said it has no interest in establishing such a base.

Wang’s tour takes place in the wake of a US-led diplomatic offensive in Asia, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) Tokyo meeting and President Biden’s visits to South Korea and Japan, intended to strengthen its encirclement of China.

Beijing is facing the mounting threat of war as the US seeks to prevent any challenge to its global dominance amid a worsening global economic crisis. Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a speech to the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington describing China as “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order.”

The Chinese proposals offered the Pacific states millions of dollars in financial assistance, the prospect of a China-Pacific Islands free trade agreement and access to China's market of 1.4 billion people. It also involved police training, cybersecurity and an expanded place in disaster and humanitarian relief and fisheries.

Beijing sought to shift from a series of bilateral arrangements towards multilateralism. It would appoint a special envoy for Pacific Affairs to advance political relations and a comprehensive partnership, including aligning its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with the Pacific Island Forum’s “Blue Pacific” plans.

The President of Micronesia David Panuelo, who is more closely aligned with Washington, warned China’s proposal could spark a new Cold War in the region. He declared that Pacific Island states risked being pulled into Beijing’s orbit, suggesting they would lose sovereignty and independence.

Australia and New Zealand, backed by Washington, reacted with alarm at what they regard as an intrusion into their “backyard.” Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused China of seeking to increase its influence “in the region of the world where Australia has been the security partner of choice since the Second World War.”

Albanese revealed a “step-up” in Pacific engagement, with $A500 million ($US350 million) in additional aid for defence training, maritime security and infrastructure to combat the effects of climate change.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong was hurriedly dispatched to Fiji days before Wang’s visit. Wong bluntly warned the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat that Pacific leaders should weigh up the “consequences” of accepting security offers from Beijing.

The shelving of Beijing’s strategic plan has not stopped negotiations with individual Pacific governments. Wang arrived in Fiji from stopovers in Kiribati and Samoa. In Samoa an Economic & Technical Cooperation Agreement was signed, effectively reversing the FAST (Faith in the One True God) party government’s anti-China position at the 2021 election.

In Kiribati the two parties signed documents on climate change, tourism, infrastructure, marine transportation and COVID-19 medical supplies. Wang also spoke with Niue’s Foreign Minister Dalton Tagelagi via video link, both committing to extend cooperation including on the BRI.

The White House revealed last week that Fiji would join Biden’s newly-formed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), the first Pacific Island nation to sign on. The protectionist IPEF is designed to bolster US access to regional markets without offering reduced tariffs or greater access to US markets. The White House said it would enable the US and its allies “to decide on rules of the road.” 

The Financial Times promptly trumpeted Fiji’s involvement in IPEF as “a victory in its [Washington’s] competition with Beijing over influence in the Pacific.” Bainimarama declared he had enjoyed a “wonderful meeting” with Australia’s foreign minister, tweeting; “Fiji is not anyone’s backyard—we are a part of a Pacific family. And our greatest concern isn’t geopolitics—it’s climate change.”

When Wang and Bainimarama met separately on Monday, they signed several agreements to expand cooperation with Fiji over the economy, trade, agriculture, fisheries, tourism, civil aviation, education, law enforcement, and emergency management. Wang said that China would provide assistance to Pacific countries with “no political strings attached.”

Fiji, the second largest country in the Pacific after Papua New Guinea, occupies a pivotal strategic role. Following Bainimarama’s 2006 military coup he established a “Look North” policy towards China and Russia to counter moves by Canberra and Wellington to isolate the regime. He also encouraged other Pacific countries to take a more “independent” line.

With Fiji’s elections due this year, the opposition SODELPA leader Sitiveni Rabuka, who staged two military coups between 1987 and 1995, said China’s influence in the South Pacific will take a “king hit” if he returns to power. Rabuka has been sharply critical of debt repayments, claiming Beijing will take over “some of the public facilities we have, our ports and airports,” adding: “It’s happening around the world.”

The entire region is facing an economic and social catastrophe. According to the Lowy Institute, the Pacific is staring at a “potential lost decade” from the economic and social devastation wreaked by the COVID pandemic. Without an “ambitious and urgent increase in outside assistance,” it declared, the Pacific faces a permanently lower economic and developmental trajectory. The Institute estimates the Pacific will need at least US$3.5 billion over three years in additional international assistance.

Wang’s tour still has nearly a week to run. After he leaves Fiji he visits Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste, all deeply impoverished countries that maintain existing links to Beijing.

Peruvian government uses “slight increase” in COVID numbers to extend state of emergency

Cesar Uco

A recent article in the WSWS examined the threat of a new wave of COVID-19 in South America, focusing on rising numbers in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, which have shot up to several tens of thousands per week.

COVID-19 vaccination in Lima (Credit: (ANDINA/Eddy Ramos)

While conceding the possibility of a COVID-19 fourth wave arriving by the last quarter of 2022, the Peruvian Ministry of Health (Minsa) reported on May 25 what it termed 'small' increases: eight deaths and 369 new COVID cases in the previous 24 hours, and six deaths and 522 new infections the day before that. Further minimizing the uptick, Minsa attributed the increase in new variants to Easter and Mother's Day celebrations. 

Extrapolating, the number of positive cases to a per week basis would be around 3,200 people, and 49 deaths. But to be sure, the actual numbers are well above those reported, due to the decline in testing during the short period of declining infection since the end of last year. 

The myopia of the experts in Lima leads them to ignore the rising numbers in nearby countries, even though different strains of COVID previously arrived in Peru through commerce with these same countries, along with travel to and from them. 

For example, the deadly Brazilian strain, Gamma, originated in the Amazon, exploded in the city of Manaus, and then went up the Amazon River to Peruvian territory. Then it spread to the Andes, crossing them until it reached Lima, Peru’s capital city, where it claimed the greatest number of deaths.

In the past, the pandemic in Peru has been as contagious and deadly, if not more so, than in other Latin American countries. Peru had the highest per capita mortality rate worldwide since the beginning of the pandemic, until it was recently surpassed by Bolivia. Total reported cases last week reached 3.57 million and deaths 213,134.

Peru is also the origin of the Lambda (Peruvian or Andean) variant of COVID, which studies show is highly contagious and potentially resistant to vaccines.

Instead of facing the growing and apparent risks head-on with a panoply of non-pharmaceutical measures, such as increased masking, testing, and contact tracing, Minsa is at present only calling for a third and possibly fourth dose for older adults. 

Minsa says it will not pursue additional measures until there is an increase of additional positive cases for at least a five-week period. Thus, for example, capacity in classrooms and school buses will remain at the current 100 percent.

The government’s current “vaccine only” policy is a recipe for failure. It is motivated by the interests of keeping workers on the job, in order to generate profits for the capitalists.

While diminishing the current COVID risk, the Peruvian government, talking out of both sides of its mouth, is nevertheless using the “slight” increase in COVID cases to order the extension of the national state of emergency decreed as a result of the pandemic, for the first time in March 2020. 

The rule expressly indicates that the measure to continue with the national state of emergency responds to a recommendation from the National Center for Epidemiology, Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) of Minsa.

According to a decree published May 26 in the official gazette El Peruano, the extension will be extended for a period of 30 calendar days, starting on Wednesday, June 1.

The decree specifies that, during the continued state of emergency, various constitutional rights related to freedom and security, the inviolability of the home and freedom of assembly and transit will be restricted.

This pretext gives carte blanche to pseudo-left President Pedro Castillo’s reactionary bourgeois government to continue to call in the army and police to violently repress the population, which has protested en masse against rising fuel and food prices and hunger since the end of March.

EU blocks Russian oil shipments

Andrea Peters

The European Union announced a ban on the import of seaborne Russian oil on Monday, part of a sixth package of sanctions directed against Moscow. The embargo on tanker deliveries does not apply to oil sent through the Druzhba pipeline, branches of which transit through Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to markets in Eastern and Central Europe.

Land-locked Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are heavily reliant on Druzhba deliveries. Hungary, for instance, gets 65 percent of its oil from the pipeline, and it has refused to endorse the total ban demanded by other EU states.

About two-thirds of Europe’s Russian oil supply makes it way to the continent by ship, but EU officials say that by the end of the year they will actually manage to block 90 percent of imports because Germany and Poland have pledged to stop drawing on pipeline supplies. Bloomberg estimates that the embargo will be a $22 billion blow to Russia. Some Russian sources agree; others say its impact will be nil because Moscow will find other buyers.

In the agreement reached at the two-day EU summit, no deadline was set as to when European purchases of Russian oil coming through the Druzhba pipeline would also have to end. EU representatives made clear that they do not intend to stop at 90 percent but are seeking a 100 percent ban and will try to wring that out of Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic in the coming months. Referring to the exemption granted these three states, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said Monday, “This is a topic where we will come back to and where we will still have to work on.”

The embargo, while not yet formally ratified, will escalate financial pressure on Russia and also drive prices through the roof in Europe and elsewhere. The cost of this will be borne by the working class.

The same day the oil ban was announced, it was reported that in May inflation in Europe hit 8.1 percent, substantially higher than predicted. In many countries it is one and a half times and more of this continental average—Estonia (20 percent), Lithuania (18.5 percent), Latvia (16.4 percent) and Poland (13.9 percent). In the UK it is expected to surge to 10 percent. Everywhere food and fuel are the biggest drivers of the increase.

Russian oil accounts for 30 percent of Europe’s entire supply, and its elimination is provoking tensions within the EU. In Hungary, where it would cost 500 to 700 million euros to convert refineries to handle non-Russian supplies, Prime Minister Viktor Orban tried to allay popular fears in a video on Facebook, “We succeeded in defeating the proposal of the European Council which would have forbidden Hungary from using Russian oil.”

Press accounts of the “temporary” exemption granted his country and the two others noted concerns within the European elite that these states are now poised to gain a substantial advantage over other EU members because they will have access to Russian oil that is currently being sold at steeply discounted rates. The remainder of the union will be forced to buy on a global market, where prices are skyrocketing.

The International Brent crude price surged to $123.48 a barrel after the embargo was announced and could go higher. Prices for oil in West Africa and Azerbaijan are rising sharply as states scramble to find new sources.

The Financial Times reports that should Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia refuse to commit to a final date by which they will stop drawing supplies from the Druzhba pipeline, European Commission officials are considering the imposition of tariffs on Russian oil so that these countries have to pay more. This measure would not require a unanimous vote in the EU, such that the objections by Orban and others could be overridden. Doing so will result, however, in intense intra-European conflicts.

In the lead-up to the EU negotiations over the latest sanctions package, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the CIA’s man in Kiev, vented his frustrations at the fact that, in his mind and that of the US, “second-rate” states had any ability to limit the financial punishment of Russia. “Of course, I am grateful to our friends who are promoting new sanctions. But where did those who block the sixth package get so much power? Why are they still allowed to have so much power, including in intra-European procedures?'

An article in the BBC outlined the EU’s plans for coping with the current Russian oil cut-off, as well as a possible gas cut-off in the future. These include improving building insulation, promoting green energy, getting more oil from Egypt, Israel and Nigeria, constructing pipelines and liquified nature gas terminals and encouraging consumers to use less.

These measures will take years to implement, however, with the possible exception of decreasing private consumption. This can be done quickly but only by increasing fuel costs to the point that ordinary people are crushed and simply cannot put gas in their cars, turn on their heat or light their stoves. In other words, it can only be done by provoking massive social conflict.

A May 31 piece in the Wall Street Journal wrote, “In normal times changing consumer behavior is hard, but there are precedents for collective action in national emergencies. European households, squeezed by high energy bills and shocked by the war in Ukraine, might prove surprisingly fertile ground.” The newspaper went on to hold up the “grow-your-own victory gardens” that helped sustained the US during World War II as the approach that the EU needs to consider. When millions of war-loving European households discover oil wells in their backyards, no doubt it will be headline news in the WSJ.

In addition to the embargo on seaborne Russian oil, the latest sanctions package bans three more Russian broadcasters and removes Sberbank, a majority state-owned bank, from the international SWIFT financial system. And in an attempt to scuttle efforts by Russia to send oil that would have gone to the European market to other locations, it bars insurers from issuing or reissuing policies that cover Russian oil shipments to other countries. This latter sanction will be phased in over the course of six months, as Greece, Cyprus and Malta, major players in the global shipping industry, objected to a move that could cause them huge losses.

Immediately after Monday’s announcement of the embargo, there were calls for further efforts to strangle Russia as a global energy producer. Poland’s prime minister said Tuesday that non-EU states, such as India, should be made to stop purchasing Russian oil. India, as well as China and other Asian countries, have stepped in to buy up much of Russia’s newly available supply. Their purchases have been so large that Russia, despite having to sell its goods at below-market prices, is drawing in record revenues. Attempts to block Beijing and New Delhi from the Russian oil and gas market will have geopolitically and economically explosive consequences.  

There are also now demands from some within the EU that an embargo be placed on Russian gas, which amounts to 40 percent of Europe’s total supplies. On Tuesday, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas insisted that this be included in the next round of sanctions, although Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer immediately rejected the proposal as not up for discussion.

While the Kremlin has yet to issue a public statement in response to the EU oil ban, it is retaliating against Brussels. On Wednesday, Gazprom cut off supplies to Orsted, a Danish gas company, and Shell, which had contracted with a German firm for 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas. Russia’s gas giant has already halted deliveries to the Netherlands, Finland, Bulgaria and Poland. The EU says that it has the capacity to replace, within a year’s time, about two-thirds of its Russian-origin gas supplies. What happens in the interim, as well as to the other one-third, is unclear.

IG Metall union “social collective agreement” means closure of Vallourec steel tube plants in Germany

Elisabeth Zimmermann

On May 18, the steel tube company Vallourec announced the closure of its plants in Mülheim (750 jobs) and Düsseldorf (1,650 jobs) by the end of 2023. Two days later, the IG Metall (IGM) union announced that it would now use all its power to bring the closure of the two plants to a smooth conclusion.

Vallourec plant in Mülheim an der Ruhr [Photo: WSWS] [Photo: WSWS]

The IGM published a statement titled: “Now we fight for the social collective agreement.” It is an attempt to take the workforce for fools and should be treated accordingly by every worker concerned.

What does “fighting for the social collective agreement” mean?

It means that the IGM and its works council representatives are refusing to mount a struggle to defend all jobs and want to push 2,400 workers into unemployment via severance pay, so-called “transfer companies” and early retirement schemes. With rapidly rising prices, for the workers concerned this means falling incomes and low pensions that are not enough to live on.

Many thousands in subcontracting firms, who will also lose their jobs, are being left empty-handed. The same applies to local shop and restaurant owners and other small traders who will have to close down if the area becomes an industrial desert. In Mülheim, Vallourec is the last major industrial enterprise after Siemens.

A Turkish worker told the WSWS at the factory gate: “I am 52, what am I supposed to do if the factory closes?” There were simply no comparable jobs here, he said. “In [the neighbouring town of] Duisburg, jobs are constantly being cut at Thyssenkrupp.”

Another older worker confirmed this: “I am about to retire. But what about all my young colleagues who still have to work for 30 to 40 years? What are they supposed to do when the factory closes?”

Although the IGM statement says, “We continue to demand guaranteed job retention, investment in the sites and a sustainable industrial concept,” this is just eyewash. The statement also claims that they will demand “severance and exit programmes in the event of necessary staff reductions in the event of an unavoidable closure of the plants.”

Those who talk about an “inevitable closure of the factories” are not prepared to fight to defend jobs. This is clear from the entire statement.

The IGM boasts it has made “numerous attempts to prevent the closure.” In reality, it has consistently refused to fight to defend the jobs and to mobilise workers in other plants belonging to the global corporation.

This was confirmed by Vallourec workers who spoke to the WSWS at the early shift change in Mülheim.

“When they started cutting jobs en masse in France, that should have warned us,” said one. But the works council did nothing until shortly before the end, he added, when the decision had already been made.

Another worker reported that his criticism had been rejected out of hand by the works council. “I often said we can’t put up with this any longer. But the works council said I had no idea and could not have a say.” Now many feared it was too late to turn the tide, he said.

Instead of fighting to retain the threatened jobs, the IGM and the works council have been making deals with the board of directors behind closed doors. The union even hired a high-priced management consulting firm to work out its own “continuation concept.” This also foresaw the reduction of 700 to 800 jobs and was supposed to prove to the company that it could generate high profits in Germany with the help of IG Metall.

When the closure was almost certain, the IGM and the works council organised a petition to company headquarters in Paris, which fell on deaf ears, as was to be expected.

In its statement, the IGM now complains that the company seems to be only “interested in making a quick profit.” As if it did not know that before. What a mockery!

The problem is that the IGM and the works council have only ever had “the quick profit” in mind. The works council and union supervisory board members and highly paid officials, who do not have to work on the production line, are profiting handsomely. They are paid to maintain “social peace,” i.e., to block and suppress any resistance from below. And they insist on keeping it that way.

The IGM statement quotes Vilson Gegic, chairman of the general works council, saying, “When the last person here will leave the plant—that still has to be discussed with us as a works council.” If Gegic were at all concerned about the interests of his fellow workers, he would say, “We as the works council will never allow the last one to leave the plant here.” But that is not what he intends to do.

Ousama Bouarous, works council chair at the Mülheim plant, says, “This is our last industrial action, and we won’t make it easy for the employers.” If Bouarous is assuming this is “the last industrial action”—i.e., that the plant will close afterwards—then that should be taken as a warning.

Central banks tighten interest rates amid warnings of social crisis

Nick Beams

Central banks around the world have begun the most aggressive round of interest rate rises in more than two decades, according to a survey conducted by the Financial Times (FT), with more increases to come as inflation continues to surge in every country.

Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell, Bundesbank head Jens Weidmann (Sources: Graeme Jennings/Pool via AP; Wikimedia Commons)

An attempt is being made to blame the soaring cost of basic items such as food, natural gas, and petrol on the Russian invasion of Ukraine by dubbing them “Putin’s price hikes.” But the surge, which was exacerbated by the war, began well before February 24.

The price rises are the outcome of the refusal of capitalist governments to take action to eliminate the COVID-19 pandemic through the necessary science-based public health measures. This led to supply chain constrictions and a massive expansion of the money supply by central banks which accelerated after the market meltdown of March 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

According to the analysis by the FT, there have been more than 60 interest rate increases by central banks in the past three months, the most since the start of 2000.

The interest rate hikes are being led by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. The European Central Bank is set to start lifting its rate in July from the below-zero level it introduced after the 2012 euro crisis.

Despite the recent rises, which are being carried out in developed and less developed economies alike, the FT noted that “rates are still low by historical standards” with economists warning that “the recent rises are just the beginning of a global tightening cycle.”

So far so-called emerging markets have been hit the hardest by the rate rises and the strengthening of the US dollar which has increased the debt burden on dollar-denominated loans. Money is flowing back to the major financial markets while emerging market bonds record their largest losses in more than three decades.

David Hauner, the head of emerging markets strategy at Bank of America Global Research, told the FT he expected the situation to worsen.

“The big story is that we have so much inflation in the world and monetary policymakers continue to be surprised by how high it is. That means more monetary policy tightening and central banks will continue until something breaks, either the economy or the market.”

Some of the biggest rate rises have come in Latin America as central banks attempt to stop the outflow of capital. The interest rate in Brazil has been raised 10 times in the past year and now stands at 12.75 percent compared to just 2 percent in March 2021. Other countries including Mexico, Chile and Peru have also lifted rates.

However, the financial problems are not confined to the less developed economies. The latest Financial Stability Review, issued by the European Central Bank (ECB) last week, has warned of greater financial instability.

It pointed to growing dangers on a number of fronts. It said higher inflation and lower growth could increase market volatility and “challenge debt service capacity as financing costs rise.”

Such developments “might not only amplify but could also trigger the materialisation of pre-existing financial vulnerabilities” previously identified, including “heightened debt sustainability concerns in non-financial sectors or the possibility of concerns in both financial and tangible asset markets.”

It reported that large increases in commodity prices had posed “challenges” for liquidity management for some derivative market participants.

Derivatives are widely used by commodity traders as a kind of insurance against rapid movements in prices. But the markets have become so volatile the amount of money these traders need to place with banks, known as a margin, to finance their operations has risen sharply. Increasingly, they are now either eschewing derivatives altogether or making them in riskier parts of the market.

The ECB review also warned that while investment funds have so far been able to manage outflows in the wake of the war in Ukraine, “euro area non-banks remain vulnerable to a further market correction” because of liquidity and credit risk.

“Non-banks also have large exposures to weaker corporates which may be especially vulnerable to higher inflation and lower growth,” it said.

At the macro-economic level, the review said governments in some euro area countries may have limited ability to provide support to the economy in the event of further shocks because of the high levels of debt they have already incurred because of the pandemic.

Coupled with concerns over debt sustainability this could spur “fragmentation pressures in sovereign bond markets.” This refers to the situation in which interest rates on government bonds issued by weaker and more indebted economies, such as Italy and Spain, rise well above those on bonds issued by the stronger euro zone economies, such as Germany and the Netherlands.

In 2012 such a fragmentation threatened the existence of the euro as a single currency. The crisis was only ended when the then president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, pledged to do “whatever it takes” to maintain the euro.

There is now the possibility of such a crisis re-emerging. According to the review: “To the extent that higher sovereign vulnerabilities coincide with fragilities in the corporate and banking sectors, risks materialising in any of these sectors (in isolation or in combination) may lead to adverse feedback loops between sovereign, banks and corporations.”

In other words, problems in the corporate sector could be transmitted to the banks which have financed them and in turn become a problem for the indebted governments which stand behind the banks.

When examining the growing economic and financial problems it is always necessary to remember that the official data on inflation, debt etc. are the expression, in the final analysis, of class relations and are the driving force for issues fought out in the class struggle.

These issues were highlighted in an article published last week by the UK-based Byline Times based on an anonymous interview with a “senior investment executive” at a “leading Wall Street firm” who pointed to the discussions going on behind the scenes in financial circles.

“All the major banks know that the cost of living crisis is out of control,” the financial executive said.

“The pandemic was bad enough and highlighted how certain groups of people were going to be worse affected, the poor, minorities and so on. But the combination of energy and food shocks are a tipping point that will push Western societies over the edge.… So we are anticipating dangerous levels of civil unrest that could spiral into an unprecedented social crisis.”

Over the past decade and more, governments and central banks to some extent been able to stave off financial and economic crises by bailing out corporations and injecting still more money into the financial system. But that was under conditions where inflation was at historically low levels. Now it is rampant, and that method is increasingly unviable.

“There isn’t anything left in the toolbox of the existing financial system,” the executive said. “We’ve run out of options. I can only see the situation worsening.”