Australian statistics show collapse in manufacturing, mounting jobs crisis

Oscar Grenfell

Reports released in recent weeks have underscored the destruction of manufacturing jobs, enforced by successive Australian governments and the corporatised trade unions, and a deepening jobs crisis, especially for young people.

Data from the 2016 census, released this week, showed that the number of manufacturing jobs fell by 24 percent over the preceding five years. The sector now accounts for just 6.4 percent of total employment, the lowest level in history, down by 2.6 percentage points since 2011.

This month’s annual Jobs Availability Snapshot, conducted by the Anglicare charity, found an average of almost five applicants for every entry-level job across the country.

The reports puncture the claims by the Liberal-National government and the corporate elite, based on understated jobs figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, that employment is rising.

The census indicated there were just 683,688 workers employed in manufacturing in 2016, including in part-time roles, down from 902,826 in 2011. The precipitous decline is the result of an ongoing offensive by the major corporations, Labor and Liberal-National governments at the state and federal level, and the unions, against the working class.

The fall was even starker in working class areas that were once industrial hubs. In the New South Wales Illawarra region, centred on Wollongong, south of Sydney, manufacturing jobs fell by 36 percent from 11,858 in 2011 to just 7,000 last year.

Wollongong was previously a steel manufacturing centre. In 2011, shortly after that year’s census, BlueScope Steel announced 1,300 sackings at the city’s Port Kembla steelworks.

The cuts, which followed decades of layoffs and restructuring, were enforced by the Australian Workers Union (AWU). In 2015, the AWU struck a sellout enterprise agreement with the company, mandating a further 500 sackings, the destruction of longstanding working conditions and an unprecedented three-year wage freeze.

The unions have played a similar role in every area. In South Australia, almost 18,000 manufacturing jobs were destroyed over the five-year period. In that state, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) collaborated with General Motors in the destruction of hundreds of jobs at its Holden plant in the northern Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth. This month, the company, the state’s Labor government and the union enforced the closure of the plant, directly destroying over 900 jobs.

At least 5,000 manufacturing jobs were slashed in Victoria between 2011 and 2016. There, the AMWU enforced the shutdown of Ford’s remaining plants in Broadmeadows, Melbourne and Geelong last year, and the end of production at Toyota’s plant in Altona, Melbourne this month. Estimated flow-on job losses from the closure of the entire car assembly industry nationally are as high as 200,000, centred in the car components sector.

Commenting on the census figures, social demographer Mark McCrindle said the “declines in manufacturing employment are unprecedented.” He told the media: “You’ve got an increasing shift from full-time work to part-time or casual work, and that’s all creating a weaker employment market.”

Workers increasingly confront unemployment, and low-paid, precarious work in the “gig economy,” mainly in the services sector.

The number of workers employed part-time over the five-year period grew by 14 percent, as opposed to 4 percent for full-time work. Part-time employment now accounts for a third of all jobs, up from one-tenth 25 years ago.

In South Australia, the number of full-time jobs fell by 10,000, to 435,000, while part-time employment increased by 22,000 to 270,000.

In Sydney, the Daily Telegraph reported that part-time work between the inner-west suburbs of Newtown and Homebush increased by 20 percent to more than 35,000, accounting for almost a third of employment in one of the city’s most densely populated areas.

Employment in the rental, hiring and real estate services industry grew by almost 15 percent to account for over 182,000 jobs nationwide. This was on the back of the ongoing housing bubble on the east coast, fuelled by property investment speculation and a mountain of debt.

Jobs in healthcare and social services, along with education, rose by over 15 percent, apparently based on a proliferation of private education institutions, employment providers and health-related industries.

Successive governments have spearheaded the privatisation of each sector, providing a boon for corporate operators, while creating a mounting crisis of the public health and education systems.

Figures for individual services sector occupations also showed a dramatic rise. The number of baristas and cafe employees grew by 23 percent over five years. The increase was 27 percent for fitness instructors and 25 percent for beauticians.

The growth of these sectors has contributed to wage growth being at its lowest level in recorded history, at an annual 1.9 percent across the private sector, much less than the real cost of living.

Workers in the services industries are among the lowest paid, and many do not receive weekend and overtime penalty wages, often as a result of wage-slashing agreements signed between major companies and unions.

According to figures released by the Department of Employment this week, annualised wage growth in new union-brokered enterprise agreements over the June quarter was 2.6 percent, the lowest since 1991. Across many industries wages do not keep pace with the rate of inflation, in other words, the unions are enforcing effective wage cuts.

Anglicare’s jobs availability report indicated that young people and unskilled workers are being forced to compete for these poverty-level jobs. In May, some 124,000 entry-level job seekers were eligible for just 26,000 positions.

Since 2006, the proportion of advertised entry-level jobs has fallen by 7 percent. In 2012, there were more than 60,000 entry-level jobs advertised. That number is now well below 50,000.

Anglicare noted that successive governments have punished the unemployed, through the expansion of work for the dole schemes aimed at forcing them into menial, unpaid work to receive their meagre welfare benefits.

The Liberal-National government, deepening attacks initiated by previous Labor governments, has initiated an automated debt repayment system. Thousands of welfare recipients have been falsely accused of being “overpaid” and owing the government money.

Underlying the destruction of manufacturing, the growth of precarious employment and the assault on the unemployed is the dominance over society of a capitalist elite, whose soaring wealth is increasingly derived from parasitic financial speculation. This layer is intent on increasing its fortunes through the destruction of “unprofitable” industries and ever-greater exploitation.

Australian troops sent to the Philippines despite end of Marawi siege

Mike Head

As war tensions mount in Asia, driven by Washington’s confrontation with North Korea and its ally China, the Australian government is yet again sending forces into a sensitive strategic zone to support US-led military operations.

Defence Minister Marise Payne on Monday announced that 80 Australian troops would soon be dispatched to the Philippines, ostensibly to train its army in “urban warfare”—skills that the Australian military has acquired in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past 16 years. In what has become the norm since the invasions of those two countries, another far-reaching military commitment has been made without any parliamentary debate, let alone any approval by the Australian population.

Payne confirmed the deployment at an annual Southeast Asian defence ministers’ meeting with her Asian, US and other imperialist counterparts, held at the former US Clark Air Force Base north of Manila. Her announcement came some two months after Canberra first publicly “offered” to send troops to the Philippines.

When Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop initially revealed the offer in August, she claimed that Australian troops could assist the fight against alleged Islamic State (IS)-linked forces in Marawi City on the southern island of Mindanao.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull insisted the insurgency was “a real threat” to Australia. “We do not want Marawi to become the Raqqa of southeast Asia,” he asserted.

Now, however, the deployment is going ahead despite the Philippines government of President Rodrigo Duterte this week declaring it had won the Marawi battle.

In reality, Canberra made a US-backed “offer” that the Philippines government could not refuse. US troops are also in the Philippines under the guise of fighting “IS terrorists.”

Washington and the Philippines military seized upon the Marawi conflict, which began as a battle between rival armed gangs, to effectively stand over Duterte, who showed signs of tilting Manila’s foreign policy toward China, from where he hoped to secure investment and aid.

In return for Duterte’s compliance with the US intervention, the Trump administration and its partners have deflected criticism of his regime’s fascistic activities, in which police and vigilantes have killed thousands of people in poor urban areas via a “war on drugs.”

On Monday, Payne gave a joint media conference with Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. Payne said: “The ADF [Australian Defence Force] will provide mobile training teams that will begin providing urban warfare counter-terrorism training in the Philippines in the coming days.”

Payne provided no detail on where the “mobile” teams would operate, only saying the training would be “conducted on Philippines military bases.”

Australia and the US are the only two countries to have Status of Visiting Forces defence agreements with the Philippines, providing access to bases and a legal framework for “enhanced military cooperation.”

In a media statement, Payne indicated that the troop commitment was part of a wider partnership. “As part of the increased cooperation, Australia and the Philippines defence forces will also work together to enhance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the southern Philippines; strengthen information sharing arrangements; and enhance maritime security engagement and bilateral maritime patrols.”

No specifics were provided about the maritime patrols. They could well include “freedom of navigation” exercises to challenge Chinese activities on the islets it controls in the strategic South China Sea; where the Philippines also has territorial claims. Since taking office last year, Duterte has declined to pursue a confrontation with China over the issue, despite his predecessor, Benigno Aquino, taking a US-backed case to an international tribunal to contest China’s territorial claims.

Lorenzana, who is regarded as being closer to the US-aligned Philippines military than Duterte, thanked Australia for its contribution to the Marawi siege, which included two AP-3C Orion military spy planes and intelligence sharing. “From the start, Australia has been providing invaluable support,” he said.

Previously, Payne revealed that Australian troops were already on the ground in the Philippines. “We have increased our engagement—a surge if you like—in the context of the current events,” she said in Manila on September 8 during an earlier media event with Lorenzana.

It remains unclear how long the soldiers have been there, undoubtedly working closely with US forces, whose presence in Mindanao was acknowledged by the US embassy on June 9.

Unanswered questions also still exist about a brazen display of support for Duterte by the director-general of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), Nick Warner, in Manila on August 22.

Australia’s top foreign spy official met with Duterte and Lorenzana at the presidential palace. The president’s office released photos of Warner and Duterte grinning and using Duterte’s signature closed-fist hand gesture, a symbol of his 2016 presidential campaign pledge to kill thousands of “criminals.”

ASIS is Australia’s equivalent of the US CIA. The presence of its chief, who was also involved in interventions in Iraq and Solomon Islands, and previously headed Australia’s Defence Department, was a revealing sign of Canberra’s active intelligence and military involvement in the Philippines.

The Philippines deployment is part of Australia’s escalating involvement in aggressive US military operations globally. In May, the Turnbull government added 30 troops to the Australian contingent in Afghanistan, increasing it to 300. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the Australian military is supposedly providing similar training as it now will in the Philippines.

Behind the back of the Australian population, special forces personnel may also be participating secretly in other US-led operations. The winter edition of the Australian & NZ Defender Magazine has an article on US military operations in the west African country of Niger. It features photo coverage of Australian special forces there, along with US, Canadian and Belgian commandos. The Australians are reported to be involved in “ambush drills, ambush establishment and emergency medical response.”

The five-month siege of Marawi, which has left much of the city in ruins, particularly the eastern half, has provided an idea of the brutal kind of “training” being provided by US and Australian personnel in the Philippines.

Air strikes and thousands of government troops inflicted a savage enormous toll on the city’s population, killing more than 1,000 people and damaging or destroying hundreds of houses, mosques and other buildings. About 400,000 residents were forced to flee their homes.

This week, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis praised Filipino soldiers, declaring they had defeated the insurgents without attracting allegations of human rights violations. Mattis said the United States provided critical tactical intelligence in the Marawi operation, deploying surveillance planes and drones, thermal imaging and eavesdropping equipment.

Germany’s “Jamaica” coalition parties agree on debt brake, tax cuts and privatisation

Ulrich Rippert 

On Tuesday evening, representatives of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU)—collectively known as the Union—the neo-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens met for their first concrete negotiations on forming a future so-called Jamaica coalition government (so named for the black, yellow and green colours of the respective parties and the Jamaican flag).

According to reports in the media, initial discussions held between the various parties last week were aimed at getting to know one another and had mainly an “atmospheric character.” Now, concrete discussions have commenced. Within a few hours and without any major conflicts, the negotiators of the four parties agreed on guidelines for fiscal policy on Tuesday evening.

Three areas were defined in a key document: firstly, compliance with Germany’s existing debt limit (known as a debt brake) and the retaining of former finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s rigid “black zero” savings policy; secondly, tax relief for big business and the rich; and thirdly, comprehensive privatisation measures for companies wholly or partly owned by the state, such as German Rail (Bundesbahn), Deutsche Post AG, Telekom, and airports.

A few hours before these proposals were announced, representatives of all the Jamaica parties had participated in the first sitting of the new German parliament (Bundestag), which witnessed the formal integration of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) into the country’s official policymaking process. There can be no doubt that the AfD also supports the financial policy agreed on at the Jamaica talks. At its pre-election conference last spring, the AfD expressly declared its support for strict compliance to austerity policies together with its opposition to any increase in taxes on the rich.

A closer look at the financial policy guidelines of the Jamaica Alliance makes clear they represent a considerable intensification of the anti-social policies introduced by the country’s previous grand coalition of conservative parties (the Union) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). It was these policies that led to a massive loss of votes for both the SPD and the Union parties in the September federal election.

Compliance with the debt brake means a continuation of Wolfgang Schäuble’s brutal austerity policy. The debt brake was the most important instrument in Schäuble’s finance policy. It has had catastrophic consequences for Germany’s schools, hospitals, nursing homes and infrastructure. Introduced in 2010, it bans the federal government, states and municipalities from acquiring new debt, and commits them instead to carry out social cuts, redundancies and privatisations.

Schäuble has fought to impose this same stringent policy across the European Union (EU). His policies have led to economic and social devastation in countries such as Greece, Spain, and Portugal, and this is now the policy that the CDU-CSU, FDP and Greens intend to intensify.

The coalition proposals also envisage substantial tax cuts for big business and the rich, demanded in particular by the FDP on behalf of its business clientele. The depreciation of fixed assets is to be accelerated, tax support for research and development introduced, and the “solidarity” tax on incomes reduced—the measure introduced after capitalist reunification of Germany to provide some support to eastern Germany following the shutdown of most of its industry.

The Greens also stressed that they would be prepared to agree on tax relief for families and children, as well as for low- and middle-income earners, plus support for those renting accommodations and building renovation. This is all smoke and mirrors, however. All policy decisions, which require fresh finance, are subject to strict financing requirements, such as the previously mentioned debt brake.

The Handelsblatt reports that Schäuble had sought to exert pressure on the finance ministry through his confidants, and in particular he agitated for a comprehensive programme of privatisation. State participation in more than 100 companies is to be reduced to a minimum. Plans had already been worked out by the previous government but had been blocked by the coalition partner, the SPD.

The consequences of such privatisations have already made themselves felt in the US, Britain and other countries, as well as from the example of the German Post. Major state companies have been broken up and the most profitable parts privatised and rationalised, with devastating consequences for employees and consumers.

The Greens are playing a key role in the massive attacks that will flow from these economic and financial proposals. The negotiating leaders of the Union and the FDP were surprised at the willingness of the Green delegation to nod their heads in agreement. FDP leader Christian Lindner wrote jubilantly on Twitter that a “major turnaround in financial policy” was now possible. His secretary general, Nicola Beer, spoke of a “surprisingly good result from the talks.”

Jürgen Trittin was the main representative of the Greens in the exploratory talks over economic and financial affairs. The former Maoist had already played a key role in the former SPD-Green federal government headed by Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer. Trittin was environment minister in that government. As a representative of the party’s “left” faction, he developed the arguments to justify Germany’s military intervention in Kosovo, the social attacks bound up with the Agenda 2010 programme, and the dismantling of democratic rights.

He plays a similar role today. Trittin agreed with the financial policy guidelines and then declared on German television the next morning that nothing had been definitively decided. What had been agreed was only an “interim result…under the proviso we get a financial plan and everything is financially viable.”

The talks so far show very clearly that the Greens are striving for a Jamaican coalition because they agree with the FDP and the Union on all fundamental issues. They have already proved their boundless adaptability at a state level, where they are involved in governing 10 different states in eight different political constellations.

The agreement between the Greens, the FDP and the Union is not limited to financial policy. It is even greater in foreign policy, militarism and arming the state. The one-time green pacifists are experts when it comes to justifying brutal warfare on the pretext of defending human rights.

The Greens advocated military participation by Germany in both the Libyan war and Syrian conflict. In 2014, they actively supported the Maidan coup in Ukraine and accused the government of not being tough enough against Russia.

The Greens support the EU, the setting-up of a European army and the plans of French President Emmanuel Macron, who aims to realise his “European vision” through states of emergency and drastic labour market reforms. They have no inhibitions when it comes to financing the massive military rearmament agreed on by the last government.

The Greens are a party of the well-to-do, urban petty bourgeoisie, which closes ranks with the capitalist state when increased international and social tensions threaten their privileged status.

A Jamaica coalition would potentially extend Schäuble’s austerity policy across Europe, possibly with an FDP finance minister and a Green foreign minister pushing for the militarisation of the EU. In domestic and refugee policy, all of the establishment parties are basically in agreement with the AfD. For their part, the SPD and the Left Party, as the possible next official opposition, are preparing to suppress all resistance to these policies.

Trudeau courts Amazon CEO to locate its second headquarters in Canada

Laurent Lafrance

In a missive to “Dear Jeff,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has petitioned Amazon’s mega-billionaire CEO, Jeff Bezos, to establish his company’s second North American headquarters in Canada. In his two-page Oct. 13 letter, Trudeau combined phony “progressive” rhetoric, with boasts about Canada’s business-friendly environment, effectively offering up Canadian workers on a silver platter to the Amazon boss.

More than 230 cities across the US, Canada and Mexico have submitted bids to serve as the site of the second North American headquarters of the Seattle-based electronic commerce and cloud computing company. According to Amazon, its “HQ2” could create as many as 50,000 “high paying jobs” in the chosen city, with the company investing up to $5 billion.

The selection process is itself revealing of the power Amazon wields over governments. Exercising the 21st century version of the medieval royal prerogative, the world’s largest online retailer launched a form of auction in which city officials competed to make the best offer to Amazon, i.e. the lowest operational and labour costs possible, topped off with tax breaks and government subsidies. Key criteria demanded by the company include a prime location, access to mass transit, proximity to an international airport and, above all, a “business-friendly environment and tax structure”. The bidding contest has now ended, with Amazon slated to announce the winner in 2018.

As CEO and the largest shareholder, Bezos has profited handsomely from Amazon’s vast expansion, which is based on the ruthless exploitation of low-wage labour. On one morning in July, a surge in Amazon’s stock price netted him $1.4 billion in little more than an hour—a sum the average Amazon worker would take 54,280 years to make—and briefly made Bezos the world’s richest man. Over the past five years, which have witnessed an uninterrupted rise in stock values as millions of people around the world have been plunged into ever greater poverty and precarious working conditions, Bezos has raked in an obscene $70 billion.

Trudeau made clear in his letter that he wants to help this social parasite amass an even greater fortune. Although Canadian cities are legally barred from offering Amazon company-specific tax breaks as some cities in the United States have done, Trudeau argued that this should not be an obstacle because Canada can offer other advantages. In addition to a “deep pool of highly educated prospective workers” and “stable banking systems,” Canada “enjoys a universal health care system,” which means corporations do not have to worry about funding healthcare provisions, “and a robust public pension plan which help support our excellent quality of life and lower costs for employers,” Trudeau assured him.

On top of this, Canada’s corporate tax rates are far below those in the United States and the lowest in the G-7.

The letter is typical of the Liberals’ efforts at covering up their right-wing, pro-corporate agenda with “progressive” rhetoric. The Prime minister touted Canadian cities as “progressive, confident, and natural homes for forward-thinking global leaders.”

Trudeau made implicit references to Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, contrasting them with Canada’s “multiculturalism” and “inclusion.” “We have,” added Trudeau, “introduced dedicated immigration services, allowing companies to attract highly skilled global talent through an expedited review process to quickly recruit for the skills they need.” In reality Canada has a discriminatory, “merit-based” immigration system, explicitly tailored to the needs of big business. Trump has himself praised it, calling it a model for US immigration “reform.”

The true attitude of the Liberal government towards immigrants is demonstrated by Trudeau’s attempts to discourage Haitian asylum seekers fleeing Trump’s anti-refugee policies from coming to Canada. More recently, Trudeau exploited a knife assault on an Edmonton police officer by a mentally-disturbed Somalian refugee to lay the groundwork for a further clampdown on refugees.

Trudeau’s bluster about “diversity” and “inclusion” echoed the criticisms made by giant US tech companies such as Microsoft and Facebook of Trump’s decision to end DACA, a program protecting almost a million young migrants from deportation. However, the billionaire CEOs’ attack on Trump was not made out of concern for the migrants, but because they would lose a large number of low-paid immigrant workers.

Trudeau avoided in his letter favouring one or another Canadian city, writing instead that all the contestants had “the full support of our government.”

The competition to woo the tech transnational is fierce. While many US candidate cities and states did not reveal the content of their financial pledges to Amazon, some did. For instance, New Jersey proposed $7 billion in potential credits against state and city taxes, while California’s state assembly introduced legislation that would grant Amazon $1 billion in tax breaks over the next decade. The mayor of Stonecrest, an Atlanta suburb, went so far as to pledge his city would use 345 acres of industrial land to create a new city called Amazon with Bezos being its mayor for life.

Most of Canada’s major cities—including Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Halifax—have entered the competition and are likewise trying to outdo each other in offering Bezos and other Amazon investors the biggest incentives possible. Toronto boasted of its lower business costs relative to American cities of similar size, expanding infrastructure and low crime rates.

Calgary Economic Development has launched a $500,000 marketing campaign to attract Amazon. Among other things, it bought a full-page ad in the Seattle Times saying they would fight a bear for the company and even wrote chalked messages onto local sidewalks such as “Hey Amazon. We’d change our name for you. Calmazom? Amagary?”

In 2016 Amazon had revenue of US$ 135.98 billion and currently has market capitalization of around $470 billion. Jeff Bezos is the second-richest member of the Forbes 400 with a net worth of US$ 67 billion. From 2005 to 2014, the company received more than $750 million in local government subsidies to build warehouses and data centers.

Bezos is also highly influential in US politics through his ownership of the Democratic Party-aligned Washington Post, which is playing a central role in the neo-McCarthyite anti-Russia campaign. This campaign, based on unsubstantiated and sensationalist allegations that Moscow hijacked the 2016 presidential election, is being spearheaded by sections of the military-intelligence and political establishments to shift politics even further to the right, including by agitating for confrontation with Russia and censorship of the internet and social media.

Bezos’s wealth mainly comes from the super-exploitation of tens of thousands of warehouse workers across the globe, who work in sweatshop conditions and for poverty wages. Even the professionals employed by Amazon—engineers, software developers, etc.— are pressured into working grueling hours so as to meet quotas and subject to intense performance evaluations.

In 2016, an employee placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), a status that means likely termination, attempted suicide at the Seattle headquarters, an event that shed light on the realities of the “new economy” in the US and the working conditions at Amazon.

While municipal officials are gaga over the economic “dividends” that will come to the city selected as the site of Amazon’s second headquarters, the mega construction project and the influx of higher paid professionals will have a socially disruptive impact, driving up housing prices and the overall cost of living. The Seattle Times recently reported that the median price for a house in August in Seattle was $730,000, up almost 17 percent in a year.

Trudeau concluded his letter by telling Bezos that the US and Canada “enjoy the longest, most peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship of any two countries in the world.” With this, Trudeau made clear that the establishment of HQ2 in Canada—in addition to boosting Amazon’s bottom-line—would contribute to strengthening the economically and military-strategic partnership between Canadian and US imperialism.

One final aspect of Trudeau’s groveling appeal to Amazon that cannot be passed over is the devastating exposure it provides of the trade unions, which in the years prior and since his 2015 election victory have endeavored to paint the Liberal Prime Minister as a “progressive” and “labour friendly” politician. As prime minister, Trudeau has routinely been feted at union conventions and top union bureaucrats like Unifor President Jerry Dias and Canadian Labour Congress head Hassan Yussuff boast of their unprecedented access to Trudeau and his ministers.

Trump administration silences government environmental scientists

Daniel de Vries

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) abruptly canceled talks by three scientists just days before a planned workshop Monday in Providence, Rhode Island. The move heightened concerns of scientific suppression at the agency, in particular related to climate change research.

The workshop Monday capped a three-year long assessment of Narragansett Bay, funded in part by EPA, to help improve water quality in the million-acre watershed. The scientists barred from speaking were Autumn Oczkowski, a Research Ecologist in EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, who was set to give the keynotes address which addressed the issue of climate change; Rose Martin, a postdoctoral fellow who works with Oczkowski; and Emily Shumenchia, an ecologist contracted by EPA.

A key component of the assessment, and one that conflicts with the political agenda of the Trump administration, is the documentation that climate change is already impacting the environmental health of the Bay and recognition that it will pose significant challenges in the future.

Since taking office in February, EPA head Scott Pruitt has initiated a multi-pronged effort to rollback and suppress the agency’s work on climate change. Those two words are being scrubbed from agency web pages. The newly released 38-page draft EPA Strategic Plan for 2018-2022 omits any acknowledgment of a warming planet.

On the regulatory side, Pruitt this month signed a formal proposal to withdraw rules requiring power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. And despite the administration’s diversionary claims that the causes of global warming are an unsettled question, their proposed budget hammers the agency’s Air, Climate and Energy research program with 50 percent cuts.

An EPA spokesman confirmed the decision to prevent the scientists from speaking at the workshop Monday, but refused to give a justification—a tacit admission that political motivations lay behind it.

“It’s definitely a blatant example of the scientific censorship we all suspected was going to start being enforced at EPA,” John King, a co-chair of the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program science advisory committee told the New York Times. “They don’t believe in climate change, so I think what they’re trying to do is stifle discussions of the impacts.”

Immediately after arriving at EPA, Pruitt instituted a new policy to require that all staff submit details of upcoming events for central vetting. Previously decisions to speak at conferences and workshops were made by supervisors and program managers, only rarely elevated in controversial cases. The muzzling of scientists in Narragansett marks the first instance that has come to public light. It is unknown how often the agency has denied speaking engagements in the ten months since Pruitt’s appointment.

Among the panels on which the silenced EPA staff were to appear was one titled, “The Present and Future Biological Implications of Climate Change.” As the title suggests, the warming waters, rising sea levels and more intense rainfall documented locally are intimately tied to the ecological health of one of New England’s largest and most diverse estuaries. While water quality in Narragansett Bay has improved significantly over the previous decades largely as a result of improved wastewater treatment, this progress is under threat from a changing climate.

The observed local climate impacts, including changes in species due to warmer water, are expected to lead to more severe consequences in the future. Among these include “potential ripple effects on the food web” as the amount and type of phytoplankton in the Bay alter. The report also notes amplified risks of flooding as rising sea levels and bigger storms combine with urbanization trends which reduce the capacity of the watershed to retain water.

Such conclusions directly contradict the interests behind the Trump administration’s environmental program, in which no amount of scientific evidence can outweigh the short-term profit interests of American corporations.

European Central Bank to continue bond-buying program

Nick Beams 

In what was described as its most important meeting of the year, the European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday decided to extend its program of bond purchasing until at least next September, with no date set for when it might come to a conclusion.

German representatives, together with others on the governing council, favour setting a definite time for the ending of the quantitative easing policy initiated in 2015. But, as ECB president Mario Draghi made clear a number of times during his press conference yesterday, there was a “large majority” in favour of keeping the program “open-ended.”

As a result of the meeting in Frankfurt, the rate of bond purchases will continue at €60 billion per month until the end of this year and then be reduced to €30 billion a month from January.

The ECB also will maintain its policy of ultra-low interest rates, with no indication of when they might be increased. The main rate was left at zero, with the ECB deposit facility set at minus 0.4 percent. Draghi’s opening statement to the media conference repeated the phrase used in the past that interest rates would remain at present levels “for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases.”

One of the most significant features of the media presentation was Draghi’s emphasis on the ECB decision to reinvest in bonds that are maturing, on top of any additional purchases. Draghi recalled that back in December 2015, when he said the central bank would undertake this measure, there was little reaction. “Now, since then we have bought a lot of bonds,” he continued.

The ECB’s stockpile of bonds has grown to €2.1 trillion, meaning that the ECB has become the key pillar of European financial markets. Draghi said the reinvestment program “is going to be massive.”

While no details were provided—the amount will depend on what assets are maturing in any given month—ECB vice president Vitor Constâncio said “we are talking about many billions per month, on average” and the stock was “also important for the transmission of monetary policy.”

The official rationale for the ECB policy is to secure a lift in inflation close to, but below, the target rate of 2 percent. Draghi claimed the policy was working. Eurozone growth was on the rise and the output gap—the difference between potential and actual growth—was closing, with more than 7 million jobs created over the past four years.

Despite the improvement in official unemployment data, this is having little impact on wages and inflation rates, largely because many new jobs are part-time or casual, paying relatively low rates.

This trend will continue. Draghi insisted, as he has repeatedly at press conferences, that “structural reforms”—the code phrase for attacking working conditions and job security and therefore wages—must be “substantially stepped up” in all euro area countries.

Draghi has said the threat of deflation has been pushed back, but the ECB estimates for inflation show no persistent rise. Inflation is expected to be 1.5 percent this year, before falling to 1.2 percent in 2018 and rising to 1.5 percent the following year.

The outcome of the governing council meeting was another win for Draghi’s faction, which favours a “prudent” and “persistent” return to what are considered more “normal” policies. There was broad “consensus” on the outlook for an improved position in the eurozone economy.

The Financial Times noted a “surprisingly muted” reaction from Germany, where economists, bankers and government representatives have criticised the low-interest rate regime, saying it is distorting financial markets and adversely impacting on savings. The newspaper noted that Berlin has “recently scaled back its criticism of Mr Draghi amid hopes that the head of Germany’s Bundesbank Jen Weidmann could succeed him in 2019.”

While presenting a positive picture for the eurozone, Draghi said downside risks remained, related to global factors, that is, political turbulence, and developments in foreign exchange markets.

On the issue of political turbulence, one questioner at the press conference noted that the Catalan government had sent emails to the ECB and a letter to Draghi warning that political turmoil in Spain could have an impact on financial stability there and in the entire eurozone.

Draghi said it would be “premature” to conclude there was a risk to financial stability. It was necessary to “see what’s going to happen,” but the ECB was studying the situation “with attention, great attention.”

One of the issues in foreign exchange markets and the financial system more broadly is the divergence between the policies of the ECB and the US Federal Reserve, which has started to raise interest rates, with a further increase expected before the end of the year.

There is also a contradiction in the ECB’s policies. On the one hand, any increase in eurozone economic growth tends to lift the value of the euro in international markets. On the other hand, a rising euro tends to push down inflation and keep it below the target rate of close to but below 2 percent.

The picture presented by Draghi, both in his presentation and his answers to questions, was one of measured calm—suggesting that the ECB was proceeding with persistence, patience and prudence.

But if one steps back from the immediate situation, a very different picture emerges—one of a complete transformation in the operation of European and global financial markets. Nearly a decade on from the eruption of the 2008 global financial crisis, the program of “accommodation” for financial markets continues, with no sign of when it might end.

Moreover, in a historically unprecedented situation, the world’s central banks, particularly the ECB, no longer function as external forces acting on financial markets to stabilise them. Rather, they are central players in their day-to-day operations. With the eruption of another financial crisis, they will not be on the outside but in the very eye of the storm.

Madrid's talks with Catalan premier collapse as Spain threatens military rule

Alejandro López

A last-ditch attempt by Catalan regional premier Carles Puigdemont yesterday failed to halt Madrid's moves to invoke Article 155, dissolve Puigdemont's government and install an unelected, military-backed regime in Catalonia in the wake of the October 1 Catalan independence referendum.

As the Spanish Senate began its two-day debate on approval of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's proposed measures against Catalonia, it was announced yesterday morning that Puigdemont would call snap elections in Catalonia to forestall a Catalan declaration of independence. This followed a seven-hour meeting of Catalan officials, lawmakers and politicians the previous night held to formulate a common position on Article 155. Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) politicians had indicated that the calling of Catalan elections might lead them to drop their support for Article 155.

Leaving a Catalan government meeting yesterday, lawmaker Eduardo Reyes told the media that Puigdemont would call snap elections. Soon after, Jordi Cuminal and Albert Batalla, two lawmakers of Puigdemont’s Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT), resigned in protest at the decision. Batalla tweeted, “I respect the decision, but I do not share it at all,” while Cuminal tweeted, “I do not share the decision of elections.”

PDeCAT allies similarly expressed their disapproval. The Executive of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), PDeCAT's coalition partner, said that if Puigdemont called snap elections, they would leave the Catalan government.

The pro-independence Popular Unity Party (CUP) of lawmaker Carles Riera said, “We believe that the only possible scenario is to make an effective declaration of independence, because this is what the people have asked for. Failure to do so is disloyalty to the people.”

As tens of thousands of university and high school students took to the streets to protest Article 155 and demand the freedom of the two arrested separatist leaders, Jordi Sanchez of the Catalan National Assembly and Jordi Cuixart of Omnium Cultural, Puigdemont announced and then repeatedly rescheduled a public address. Many youth gathered in Plaça Sant Jaume, the seat of the Catalan government, chanting slogans denouncing Puigdemont’s “treachery.”

Finally at 5 p.m., Puigdemont appeared in the government palace and read a short statement ruling out snap elections. He said, “I have no guarantee that would justify, today, calling legislative elections.” He said that he had been willing to call elections “in a normal manner,” but this was impossible: while he had explored all possibilities for dialogue, he had “not received a responsible answer from the Popular Party,” the ruling party of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Puigdemont did not say what “guarantees” he would have needed to receive in order to call elections. However, El Confidencial cited Catalan government sources as saying, “The two requests made by Puigdemont were limited to securing the release of the president of the ANC and of the Òmnium Cultural—Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart—and to be guaranteed that 155 would not be applied and that, therefore, there would be no suspension of Catalonia’s self-government.”

According to the same source, Madrid offered only to suspend the implementation of 155, even though the Senate would continue the debate, design and vote on enforcing Article 155 and taking over the Catalan government. Separatist leaders Cuixart and Sánchez would remain in prison.

With the two-day debates in both the Catalan parliament and the Senate finishing today, the political situation in Spain is explosive and the danger of a bloody military crackdown in Catalonia is very great. In the Senate, Article 155 is expected to pass. In the Catalan parliament, the ruling Catalan nationalist coalition might make a unilateral declaration on independence ahead of Senate approval of Article 155.

An increasingly predominant factor in Madrid’s drive towards military intervention in Catalonia, endorsed by the European Union, is the fear that the Catalan independence referendum and the clash between the Catalan population and the police on October 1 has undermined the authority of the Spanish police and capitalist state.

El País explains that “European political chiefs are clearer than ever... that Catalonia will be the forerunner of a divisive movement, one that runs against the efforts of unification that have guaranteed social well-being and peace in Europe after the end of World War II.”

El Español branded the Catalan crisis a threat to “social peace,” saying that “the problem is that however much [Catalan nationalists] invoke the peaceful nature of their protests, the state should not stand idle, the social divide already exists, and the instinctive nature of propaganda and victimhood can unleash situations of tension and violence.” In this situation, the daily calls on the government to be ready to “manage all scenarios.”

It concluded that if such a situation arises, “the government's priority must be to protect property and persons” rather than worry about being labeled “authoritarian.”

The ruling class is watching with increasing fear and outrage as student protests grow and ever broader sections of workers, including firemen, teachers, Catalan public media workers and other civil servants, make public statements declaring their opposition to Article 155. This underlies the statements of the Spanish press denouncing the threats to “social peace” emerging from Catalonia. They also fear that mass opposition could rapidly escape the control of bourgeois parties like the PDeCAT, the CUP, ERC and separatist groups like Ómnium Cultural and the ANC.

After a decade of deep economic and social crisis in Spain and across Europe since the 2008 Wall Street crash, the European ruling elite is terrified of a new mass eruption of protest and opposition to the militarism, austerity and the authoritarianism of the financial aristocracy.

The class gulf between the super-rich who dominate society and the masses of ever more impoverished workers they exploit is reaching explosive dimensions. As the conflict between Barcelona and Madrid reached new heights, a report of the consultancy firm PwC said that the total wealth of the Spanish billionaires increased by 10 percent in 2016, reaching $124.7 billion from $113.2 billion the years before. This wealth is shared between 25 people.

This is why Rajoy is gambling on an attempt to radically restructure class relations in Spain, imposing military rule in Catalonia and potentially a national state of emergency and promoting Spanish nationalism to shift official politics far to the right.

Similarly, the EU is backing Rajoy and the invocation of Article 155 as the major European powers all seek to carry out a similar turn to the right and to promote the EU on the world stage as a unified imperialist bloc rivaling US imperialism and rising Asian powers like China and India.

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told Portuguese television, “In Catalonia, we are not dealing with a human rights problem, because the Catalan citizens... are not being oppressed by Spain.” He added that for the EU, “the biggest threat is nationalism. There is an urgent need to do everything possible so that Europe has power and nationalism is a poison that prevents Europe from acting together to play an important role in world issues.”

As US moves to abolish estate tax, world’s billionaires pile up another $1 trillion

Andre Damon

The Swiss bank UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), two leading global advisors of the ultra-wealthy, have released their annual Billionaires Insights report, showing that the total wealth of the world’s billionaires shot up 17 percent last year.

Driven by a roaring global stock market, the total number of billionaires increased by 10 percent, to 1,542, while their combined wealth increased by nearly a trillion dollars, hitting $6 trillion, or more than the GDP of either Germany or Japan.

The growth rate for the wealth of these billionaires was three times higher than the rate of global economic growth, and more than twice the rate of growth of the global stock market during this period.

According to the report, financial speculation was the main driving force. “Movements in financial markets and currencies dominate the picture from year to year,” it states.

Asia now has more billionaires than the United States, including 318 in China, up by 67 since 2015. However, the US still has the largest number of billionaires of any country by far, with 563, including 25 new billionaires in 2016. Almost half of the wealth of the world’s billionaires, $2.8 trillion, is concentrated in the US.

The dizzying enrichment of the financial oligarchy is matched by growing poverty and social misery on the broad mass of the population, expressed perhaps most directly in the declining life expectancy in the United States amid an epidemic of what one researcher called “deaths of despair.”

While the top-tier wealth advisors who put together the report are looking forward to the massive fees they will receive for managing this hoard of wealth, the report nevertheless strikes a worried note.

Its authors say the world is in a new “gilded age,” and are troubled about the prospect of it coming to an end. “This period of great wealth creation is now approaching the longevity of its predecessor, which according to most historians lasted from 1870 to 1910. In our opinion, today’s started in 1980 and has lasted for more than 35 years.” The report concludes, “We believe that great wealth creation has cycles, tending to move in S-curves rather than growing linearly.”

Commenting on this analysis, Josef Stadler, head of global ultra-high net worth at UBS, told Business Insider, “The last gilded age led to the Sherman [Antitrust Act of 1890] Act,” which broke up monopolies. “We’re at the peak point again now,” he said, “Will that happen next?”

The biggest problem, according to the report’s authors, is how the wealth piled up by the billionaires is to be passed on. “The biggest idiosyncratic risk is succession,” Stadler told Business Insider.

More than two-thirds of American billionaires, the report notes, are self-made, having created their wealth during the period since 1980, which has seen a phenomenal run-up in stock markets and social inequality, fueled by policies of deindustrialization and easy money in the US and other major capitalist countries.

Few of the top ten richest people in the world were born into extreme wealth. Bill Gates, worth $88 billion, now 62 years old, was the son of a lawyer. The biological father of Jeff Bezos operates a bike shop in Glendale, Arizona. Bezos, aged 53, has a net worth of $83.5 billion. The father of Spanish business tycoon Amancio Ortega, now the world’s fourth-richest man, was a railway worker.

These billionaires are now growing older, with more than half of all billionaire wealth in the US controlled by those over 70.

The UBS/PwC report notes, “The individuals on our database are getting older and wealthier. Over the coming 20 years, we estimate that those who are 70 years old or more will transfer USD2.4 trillion, up by 16% on the previous year,” noting that this will be a “huge windfall” for their heirs.

Oddly enough, however, “There does not appear to have been any significant wealth handover in the past year,” begging the question, why billionaires are “leaving it late to hand wealth to the next generation.”

The report only hints at the answer when it complains about “complex tax laws” that have made planning wealth transfers “increasingly convoluted.”

A central component of the Trump administration’s tax plan, which it is currently working to push through Congress, is the effective abolition of the estate tax, which applies to wealth being passed down through wills, and can be as high as 40 percent. The Democrats, for their part, have repeatedly stated their openness to working with Trump to “simplify” the tax code.

This plan took a step forward Thursday with the passage in the House of a budget bill allowing for Trump’s tax proposal to be fast-tracked through Congress, with some lawmakers calling for its passage before Thanksgiving.

It doesn’t take an economist to figure out that the world’s billionaires are biding their time for governments in the US and the world to abolish estate taxes.

The abolition of the estate tax would be a major step toward making the United States a hereditary oligarchy, in which wealth is passed down dynastically without any diminution, in the form of Europe’s prerevolutionary aristocracies.

Of course, as the study’s authors admit, such a scenario, which would further impoverish the great mass of the American population and sound a death knell for what remains of democratic forms of government, is far from inevitable. The last “gilded age” led to a wave of revolutionary uprisings throughout the world, whose highest expression was the Russian Revolution of 1917.

What will be the outcome of this new “gilded age”? If the financial oligarchy has its way, it will be the transformation of the United States and the rest of the world into the modern equivalent of medieval Europe, in which the elite has the power of life and death over the working population.

But there is another, socialist, path open to humanity. Instead of allowing the wealth piled up by the financial oligarchy to enslave mankind, the trillions of dollars under their control can, and must, be expropriated and used to solve every social problem, from unemployment to starvation and disease, under the democratic control of the working population.

Washington exploiting Green Beret deaths to escalate Africa intervention

Bill Van Auken

More than three weeks after four special operations troops died in a firefight in Niger, the Pentagon has yet to provide a coherent account of what led to this military debacle.

Combined with President Donald Trump’s initial silence on the deaths, followed by his repugnant public debate with the widow of one of the slain soldiers, the incident has cast a spotlight on a rapidly expanding US military buildup in Africa that has been carried out behind the backs of the American people and with no public debate, much less authorization, by the US Congress.

The Trump administration has made no real effort to sell this burgeoning American military operation—conducted under the badly frayed banner of the “war on terrorism”—to the American public.

Meanwhile, leading figures in the US Senate, including Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have claimed, however implausibly, that they knew nothing about the approximately 1,000 US special operations troops deployed in Niger and on its borders.

Trump himself provided an entirely credible claim of his own ignorance as to what is happening in Africa. Asked by reporters on the White House lawn whether he had authorized the mission in Niger, he said he had not, declaring idiotically: “I have generals that are great generals. These are great fighters; these are warriors. I gave them authority to do what’s right so that we win.”

Even as top politicians say they do not know what is going on and the public has been kept completely in the dark about US troops fighting in Africa—not to mention why they are there—the Pentagon is setting US policy. It is orchestrating a steady drumbeat to exploit the October 4 incident in Niger to push for a qualitative escalation of the US intervention.

This was reflected in a USA Today story Thursday that was evidently planted by its principal sources, unnamed Pentagon officials, who argued that “US counterterrorism efforts are likely to focus more on Africa now that the so-called Islamic State has been ousted from its de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria.”

This same message was echoed by members of the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday following a closed-door briefing by the US military brass. Both Republican and Democratic senators emerged from the meeting talking about the “rising terrorist threat” in Africa and the need to provide the US military there with “more resources.”

Specifically, the US military is seeking the rapid deployment of armed Reaper drones in Niger for a campaign of assassinations and massacres throughout the Sahel region of central West Africa.

US imperialism is preparing to inflict upon the African continent the levels of carnage that it has already wrought upon the Middle East, where the dead and wounded number in the millions and those driven from their homes in the tens of millions, while entire societies have been shattered.

This new stage in the global eruption of American militarism has been prepared through the extraordinary and largely secretive buildup of AFRICOM, the US regional military command set up under the Bush administration in 2007 and rapidly expanded under Obama. Today, some 6,000 US troops are spread across 24 African nations, carrying out some 3,500 exercises and operations a year, according to AFRICOM’s own figures

AFRICOM drew its first real blood in the US-NATO intervention to bring down the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, claiming the lives of some 80,000 Libyans and leaving the entire society, over six years later, still in shambles. The regime-change war in Libya destabilized the entire region, igniting longstanding conflicts between the Tuareg people and the governments in Mali and Niger, and strengthening various Islamist movements, which were armed and supported by the US and its allies as proxy ground forces against Gaddafi.

As is in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, the so-called terrorists that the US military is purportedly being deployed to fight represent the direct instruments or products of US imperialism’s own wars of aggression and regime-change, providing the pretexts for new and even bloodier interventions.

Behind these pretexts, however, lie the unmistakable geostrategic interests of US imperialism. These interests were spelled out fairly bluntly in a statement to Congress earlier this year by AFRICOM commander Gen. Thomas Waldhauser:

“Just as the US pursues strategic interests in Africa, international competitors, including China and Russia, are doing the same. Whether with trade, natural resource exploitation, or weapons sales, we continue to see international competitors engage with African partners in a manner contrary to the international norms of transparency and good governance. These competitors weaken our African partners’ ability to govern and will ultimately hinder Africa’s long-term stability and economic growth, and they will also undermine and diminish US influence—a message we must continue to share with our partners.”

The invocation of “international norms of transparency and good governance” by a senior military official of a military-dominated regime in Washington that wages wars behind the backs of the American people and conspires to topple any government getting in its way is, of course, pretty rich. But the thrust of the general’s remarks is clear.

AFRICOM’s rapid expansion and the shift of the “war on terror” to Africa are directed first and foremost at countering the rise of Chinese influence on the continent. It is among the sharpest expressions of the global drive by US imperialism to counter its declining economic influence by means of armed force.

China surpassed the US as the continent’s largest trading partner in 2009 and has continued to widen its lead. China-Africa trade has soared more than 20-fold from just $10 billion in 2000 to $220 billion in 2014. In 2015, Xi Jinping, China’s president, pledged $60 billion for African infrastructure projects in three years. Unable to compete with China economically and desperate for new sources of profits, US imperialism is resorting to military might.

Twice in the 20th century, Africa was the arena for savage armed conflicts between major imperialist powers for the control of colonies, markets and sources of raw materials and labor. In advance of World War I, Germany, demanding its “place in the sun” as a world power, sought to expand its dominance at the expense of the British, French and Belgian colonialists. It is estimated that one million people died in East Africa as a direct result of the war.

In the Second World War, Allied and Axis troops suffered over 400,000 casualties in the battles that raged over North Africa, while more than one million African troops were dragooned into military service on behalf of their European colonial oppressors.

It is not only the United States that is launching its military into a new scramble for Africa, but also the old European colonialists. France has deployed some 4,000 troops across its former Sahel colonies of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters of a century after the defeat of Rommel’s Afrika Korps, Germany has some 1,000 troops deployed in Mali, a major component in the resurgence of German militarism.

The crisis of world imperialism, and above all that of the US capitalist system, threatens to turn Africa once again into an arena of bloody global struggles.

ACI Foundation International Fellowship in USA & Canada for Undergraduate and Graduate Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 3rd November, 2017.

Eligible Countries: All

To be Taken at (Country): ACI Foundation Fellowships can be awarded to anyone in the world; however, you must attend a U.S. or Canadian university during the award year.

About the Award: The ACI Foundation offers several Fellowship and undergraduate Scholarship opportunities for students and E-Members. ACI Foundation Fellowships and Scholarships are awarded annually to help students with an interest in concrete achieve their educational and career goals. The student must be considered a full-time undergraduate or graduate student as defined by the college or university during the award year. Applications will be accepted from anywhere in the world but study must take place in the United States or Canada during the award year.

Fields of Study: Structural Design, Materials, Construction

Type: Undergraduate, Graduate (Masters, PhD)

Eligibility: Before beginning the application have the answers ready for these four questions.

• When submitting the application, what is your educational status (undergrad, grad, or PhD)?
• When the award year begins next fall, what will your status be (undergrad, grad, or PhD)?
• Following the application season, can you attend an interview at the Spring ACI Convention on March 25, 2018? Travel and hotel arrangements will be made through and paid for by the ACI Foundation.
• Can you fulfill a 10 to 12-week internship the summer before the award year?

During the award year, you must be a full-time student for the regular school year.

Selection Criteria: Based on essays, submitted data and endorsements, the Scholarship Council of the ACI Foundation will select scholarship and fellowship recipients who appear to have the strongest combination of interest and potential for professional success in the concrete industry.

How to Apply: Now Open! Apply Now!

It is important to go through the Application instructions on the Scholarship Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for more details

Award Provider: American Concrete Institute