India Under Narendra Modi

Sandeep Pandey & Rahul Pandey

Narendra Modi’s ascension to power was accompanied with jubilation and expectation. His supporters were expecting an end to era of corruption and initiation of good governance which was described as Achche Din. His party’s adherence to idea of nationalism was believed to make India a vibrant country and guide India to be a world leader. He gave the slogan of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ conveying that his government was for all.

Corruption

The government system is infested with corruption. A minimum of 10% is siphoned off from government schemes and projects, some of which goes back to political party in power and remaining is pocketed by various administrative, executive and political functionaries. This corruption continues and has increased. Now an additional Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh person working as Official on Special Duty or some equivalent position in every government department also has a share in this booty. Narendra Modi government removed the limit of 7.5% of average net profits which private companies could donate to political parties and did away with the requirement of disclosing the names of corporate donors and political parties which received the donations from the companies in a post Right to Information era in India which is tantamount to legitimising corruption. Extradition of Christian Michel in Augusta Westland deal but inability to bring back Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Nitin Sandesara (Sterling Biotech) and Jatin Mehta (Winsome Diamonds) – all of whom are accused of financial fraud and have fled in the past four years – smacks of political expediency. Anil Ambani’s company Reliance Defence, registered 12 days before Narendra Modi entered into a deal with French government, being given the contract for manufacturing Rafale fighter aircrafts gives credence to the allegations of crony capitalism. Rise of businessman Adani from Gujarat to national level accompanying that of Narendra Modi also raises the same suspicion.

Economy

Economy suffered a setback because of ill advised demonetisation and clumsy implementation of Goods and Services Tax. First the government appeared to be manipulating the method of calculating Gross Domestic Product growth rate to show a higher figure and then it got Central Statistics Office to slash the United Progressive Alliance government’s past GDP figures. This government has been continuously fudging data to show an improved performance, for example, villages are being declared electrified even when 100% households don’t have electricity connections. Make in India drive didn’t yield much investment and Skill Development programme wasn’t much successful either. This is evident from thefact that ultimately Narendra Modi government had to resort to the populist measure of 10% reservation in jobs for economically weaker sections from among the segment of population not covered under SC/ST and OBC reservation to contain the resentment of youth with regard to employment situation. The most important skill of farming from the point of view of human existence was not given due consideration and the farmers’ anger reflected in defeat of Bhartiya Janata Party in three big Hindi speaking states. The incomes have gone down across different sectors of economy and people are feeling the pinch.

According to the data published by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the authoritative agency reputed for researching and publishing economic databases in India, 1 crore jobs were lost in the year 2018 and unemployment rate hit 27-month high in December 2018. According to a recent report published by the Azim Premji University, the present rate of unemployment is the highest seen in India in at least the last 20 years, with youth unemployment being the highest. The unemployment situation is made worse by depressed wages, with 82% of men and 92% of women earning less than Rs. 10,000 per month.

Law and Order

Bhartiya Janata Party’s rule has resulted in a state of lawlessness. The cadres of ‘party with a difference’ were frequently seen taking law into their own hand and even attacking the police. Lynching deaths created an atmosphere of terror in the hearts of minorities. If a person from the minority community expressed concern he was told to go to Pakistan by one of the legislators or members of ruling party. The idea of democracy where even the weakest person should feel secure went for a toss and majoritarian rule reigned supreme. The idea of summary justice gained ground. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath publicly declared that bullet will be responded with bullet. While accused criminals were being shot dead by the police, he withdrew permission for going ahead with the criminal cases pending against himself. The BJP MLAs involved in the rape and harassment of women were protected by the state.

Academic Institutions

Academic institutions were the worst sufferers of BJP rule. High positions were occupied by people not because of their academic calibre but because of their proximity to the RSS ideology. Student protests on Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Hyderabad and Banaras Hindu University erupted against the highhandedness of academic authorities who only knew one way to deal with students – to use brute force to quell any dissent. Criticising the government or party in power became a crime and a number of people were ejected from academic campuses because of their dissenting views. The government seemed to be more interested in ensuring the victory of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, student wing of RSS, in university student body elections rather than the academic quality of teaching and research. RSS-BJP functionaries would advise scientists to research how in the past a human head could be replaced by an elephant head. Internationally acclaimed scientists like Venkatraman Ramakrishnan have stopped attending Indian Science Congress since 2015 because of dominance of pseudoscience being broadcast from high pedestals. The fact that PM Modi himself uttered bizarre unscientific remarks on more than one occasion has emboldened several ministers, MPs and MLAs in BJP to openly espouse similar views and deride universally respected scientists and scientific principles. This has created an atmosphere where scientific temper, rational thinking and dissent are publicly jeered and even sought to be punished. On the other hand, pseudoscience and cronyism are being rewarded. An example of academic cronyism is the non-existent Jio Institute being awarded the Institute of Eminence status by the government which makes it entitled to get Rs. 1,000 crore funds for five years.

Sanitation Programme

A high profile Swachch Bharat Mission (SBM) is ongoing. Irony is that government has not cared to provide toilets to some of the lowest level workers in this mission working as volunteers without any honorarium who are being made to motivate others to build toilets. Members of Gram Panchayat level monitoring committees from District Lakhimpur Khiri Shankaria and Hema Malini from Dhakia, Janewmati from Bhuda, Ramawati from Bisenpuri, Ishwari, Baldev, Anjali, Sushmawati, Rinki, Sharda, Sheela from Bhanpuri Khajuria, Guddi from Lalpur Dhaka, Barsati, Savitri, Sunita, Ria, Sabrunnisa from Kamlapuri, Sushila, Sarita, Sandhya of Krishnanagar Bhojhia, Jagdish from Murarkheda, Nirmala Devi from Krishnanagar all from Block Palia are some such examples of torch bearers of this scheme who don’t own a toilet themselves. Bida is the President of her Gram Panchayat’s Monitoring Committee. She took upon herself the responsibility of getting toilets made for villagers. She borrowed cement, iron rods, morang and bajri worth Rs. 1,80,000 and bricks worth Rs. 88,000 to get 60 toilets built in her Gram Sabha Kamlapuri. Now she is finding it difficult to get these payments made from either the Gram Panchayat or the Block Office. In GP Bengalpur of Block Bharawan in Hardoi District 60 toilets have been shown to be built of which 20 are missing on ground. In GP Maharajganj Dheri of Block Moth in Jhansi District two firms have been made payments for construction of toilets whereas in this scheme Rs. 12,000 for construction of a toilet was supposed to be credited to each beneficiary’s bank account. A 2011 baseline survey has been used to achieve the target of Open Defecation Free. As a result even after Villages and Blocks are being declared Open Defecation Free, a number of households are left out to defecate in open. The hurried quality of construction is questionable and a reason why people are not using the toilets even after they are constructed.

As brand ambassador of SBM Amitabh Bachchan has been promoting twin soak pit toilets whereas in areas like U.P. and Bihar where water table is quite high there is a danger of ground water getting polluted because of this design. In such areas the safer design is septic tank. But everybody who has got anything to do with SBM is parroting promotion of soak pit design.

As the next general elections approach, the government, having realized that it cannot meet the target of making toilets for everybody, is now engaged in massive wall painting exercise across the country to create an impression that a vibrant SBM is going on whereas one can see garbage strewn over at many places.

Ganga Rejuvenation

Rs. 22,000 were allocated for the high profile NamamiGange project of which more than Rs. 7,000 has been spent. The official data shows that quality of Ganga water has worsened since this project was launched. Moreover, the government doesn’t have a plan to treat all the sewage flowing into Ganga. Saints like Professor Guru Das Agrawal who became a sadhu and adopted the name Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand are dying while fasting and government is not doing anything to save their lives. Three saints, Swami Nigmanand, Baba Nagnath and Swami Sanand, have died. Swami Gokulanand has been murdered. Sant Gopal Das is missing after a long fast and Brahmachari Atmoabodhanand is on fast for close to hundred days now. A day before Professor G.D. Agrawal died at AIIMS, Rishikesh,Nitin Gadkari announced a minimum 30% environmental flow in Ganga which was not in consonance with recommendationsof Indian Institute of Technology Consortium and was not acceptable to Prof. Agrawal. Nitin Gadkari is not willing to stop the construction of dams which have been held responsible for natural calamities as well as for posing threat to quality of Ganga water by various experts.

Fisherfolk in Varanasi are protesting against Cruise which has been allowed to operate by a private company and poses a threat to their livelihood. For the first time the licenses for their boats have not been renewed by the Municipal Commissioner. Fisherfolk are being threatened by government to surrender.

It is quite clear that government under Modi-Gadkari wants to commercially exploit Ganga and is least bothered about its cleanliness.

Cow Protection

This is a classic example of mismanagement of governance by BJP government. After a series of lynching incidents carried out by Gau Rakshaks against Muslims and dalits and government not taking a strong stand against people taking law into their hands, the cattle trade came to a standstill. With nowhere to go and it becoming unaffordable for their former owners to feed them, cattle including old cows, bulls and male calves became stray and started destroying standing crops. Barbed and blade wire fences were set up by farmers around their fields which created more casualty. Villagers started demanding a gaushala in every Gram Sabha which the government was in no position to provide. Some farmers are known to have herded stray cattle from Sitapur district in U.P. and made them cross the Nepal border in north.

Foreign Affairs

Contrary to the perception created among Modi supporters that he has increased India’s prestige world over by his foreign sojourns, India’s relationship has worsened with most countries, especially with its South Asian neighbours. While the US President refused to be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day event, Pakistan has sprung a surprise goodwill gesture of opening up the Kartarpur corridor. Indian government which has taken an official stand to not engage with the Pakistani government for peace talks is now busy taking credit for the Kartarpur corridor. This is similar to the u-turn it took on Sabrimala issue where for first three days BJP was taking credit for the Supreme Court judgement allowing women of all ages entry into the temple but went on to change its stand after observing the mood of tantris and religious bigots.

To sum up, in the past five years we’ve had a government which announced grand schemes, poured money in constant propaganda, made little economic or developmental progress on ground, instead made some economic reverses, promoted crony businesses, protected financial fraudsters, damaged democratic institutions, fueled bigotry and divided its own people.From the past record of other mainstream political parties such as Congress/UPA and regional parties, it’s clear that they too have practiced cronyism, corruption and delivered inefficient implementation of developmental programmes. However, the scale of cronyism, misgovernance, incompetence, vindictiveness and propaganda demonstrated on so many fronts collectively in the past five years has rarely been witnessed earlier.

Portugal’s strike wave intensifies

Paul Mitchell 

January saw an intensification of the strike wave that erupted last year protesting the policies of Portugal’s Socialist Party (PS) government.

The PS came to power as a minority government in 2015, promising to reverse austerity. This fraud was promoted by the Left Bloc (BE), Communist Party (PCP) and Green Party (PEV), which claimed that, in return for their support, the PS could be pressured to oppose the “troika”—the European Commission (EC), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB). The PS could, they suggested, be forced to increase wages, unfreeze job vacancies, impose a ban on promotions and reverse the cuts to vital services its conservative predecessors imposed after the 2008 financial crisis.

Four years later, few of the promises have come to fruition. And those that have, such as the increase in the minimum wage, are desperate attempts acceptable to the troika to stimulate consumption.

According to official figures, the number of pre-strike warnings issued in 2018 totalled 733—double those in 2017. In January, more than 50 new strike notices were announced on top of those already taking place. Virtually all areas of the public sector are involved, including nurses, teachers, firefighters, court officials, judges, prison guards, oil refinery workers and dockers.

Last Thursday, Portugal’s Criminal Investigation (PJ) police announced strike action next month after three years of talks with the Justice Ministry floundered. Just 120 trainee detectives are to be hired—far short of the 1,400 claimed needed.

Workers in private sector companies have also taken industrial action, including the Efacec Group companies, the Navigator paper mill in Setúbal, Beralt Tin and Wolfram mines and Cerealto Sintra Foods.

The anger among workers is so great that the PCP-led General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP) and PS-aligned General Union of Workers (UGT) have been forced to call strikes to prevent an independent movement of the working class. They have sought to dissipate united opposition into regional and sectoral strikes directed at pleading with various ministers, parliament and the president to change course.

For several years, the nurses have been attempting to improve their wages, conditions and status with little success. Last month, they again went on strike for four days after the government broke off talks. The unions have limited it to rolling regional action—the first day, January 22, at hospitals and health centres in Lisbon, the Central region on day two, the North on the third day, the South and Azores on the fourth.

Union of Portuguese Nurses (SEP) leader and PCP member José Carlos Martins said that the strike was “to make the Ministry [of Health] and the government see that nurses are not satisfied, are very unhappy that the ministry is not responding to the counting of [seniority] points, to the hiring of more nurses, to valuing and dignifying the profession, and to retirement issues.”

The government is fully aware of the opposition and has made clear its intention to crush it. Health Minister Marta Temido declared that “all the instruments under the law” would be used, including “civil requisitions…to ensure citizens do not become hostages to workers’ demands.”

Firefighters are on strike in Lisbon from January 22 until February 5, opposing proposals to cut their basic salary and increase the retirement age by 10 years to 60. The strike has had the 100 percent support of firefighters, many of whom attempted to occupy the Ministry of Labour.

PCP leader António Pascoal, head of the Lisbon Municipal Workers’ Union, pleaded, “We are in the mood to negotiate every day and every night. Today there has been negotiation and some progress has been achieved in terms of the status of the job, but in relation to the matters that most disturb the firefighters not yet. If the government gives a signal to that effect, we are ready to suspend the strike immediately.”

José Correia, leader of the National Union of Workers of Local Administration (STAL), also affiliated to the CGTP, declared, “I am not very optimistic, but hope is the last thing to die. Our obligation is to continue to negotiate with the government and to account for the firefighters’ dissatisfaction.”

The CGTP is now proposing, through its Common Front of the Public Administration, a public sector general strike for February 15. It demands a 4 percent wage increase with a minimum increase of €60 and reinstatement of various benefits, including overtime payment, subsistence allowances and taxes reduced to levels prior to 2009. A Common Front statement proclaims the PS government is “deepening the destruction of the social functions of the state … paving the way for its privatisation,” is ignoring “more than 600,000 workers, who have no increase” and that precarious work “continues to be a reality, contrary to government claims.”

Despite this, Common Front leader Ana Avoila pleaded, “Striking is always a last resort” and hoped “that the government take note of this.”

Two PS-aligned UGT unions, Fesap and FNE, have belatedly announced their members will join the strike. They are presenting a letter to Finance Minister Mário Centeno on “a great day of struggle that seeks to reverse the trajectory of loss of purchasing power, leading the Government to abandon the policy of low wages, and value and dignify the salaries and careers of all workers.”

The notion that Centeno, rewarded for his efforts in Portugal with the posts of president of the Eurogroup and chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism, will abandon his and the European ruling elite’s policy is laughable. Only the increased exploitation of the working class has allowed a limited economic recovery and bigger profits.

Under the PS, the Portuguese economy has grown by just over 2 percent a year and the budget deficit cut to the lowest level in more than 40 years. Exports have doubled to 40 percent of GDP since 2008, as manufacturers have set up plants to take advantage of the lowest wages in western Europe and masses of casualised labour.

Portugal’s monthly median wage is less than €900 per month, compared to more than €2,000 for the EU as a whole. Some 40 percent of workers are paid no more than 25 percent above the €635 minimum wage. A recent European Commission study revealed that Portugal (and Ireland) had the largest gaps between wage growth and productivity growth over recent years.

It is no wonder the Portuguese stock exchange has the highest rate of return in Europe, according to the Allianz Global Investors’ Dividend Report 2019.

Definite political conclusions must be drawn. Under conditions of the globalisation of capitalist production, the trade unions, which are wedded to a nationalist perspective, are incapable of defending even the most basic interests of the working class. They have been transformed into direct agencies of the corporate-financial elite and the state. Both the PCP and CGTP, with their call for a “patriotic” left aimed at “the sovereign development of our country,” do not represent the interests of the working class but the Portuguese ruling elite.

It is necessary for workers to break from these outmoded and reactionary organisations and build new, genuinely popular and democratic organisations of struggle.

The strike wave in Portugal is a sign that a new period of revolutionary struggle is emerging. This must be prepared consciously through the building of an international socialist movement of the working class to fight for workers’ power and the reorganisation of economic life along democratic and egalitarian lines.

German defence report sparks hysterical campaign for increased military spending

Johannes Stern 

The German government’s latest defence report has sparked hysterical calls for increased military spending in the country’s political circles and the media. The report, presented on Tuesday, paints the picture of a still ailing and broken army. “Too little staff on the one hand, missing materiel on the other,” it says in the first section. Often there are “gaps on top of gaps,” and “the troops [are] far away” from being “fully equipped.”

The parliamentary Defence Commissioner Hans-Peter Bartels (Social Democratic Party, SPD), lists his complaints over more than 120 pages. “There is a lack of materiel in all areas.” There are “barely any operational Leopard 2 [battle tanks],” “no tankers in the Navy” and “a large part of the submarine” fleet was “broken.” In addition, “less than half of the Eurofighters and Tornados are airworthy” and ammunition stocks have been “reduced to a minimum.”

Also, “the spare parts situation” had “not improved,” and there were “far too little basics like personal gear (vests, boots, clothing, modern helmets, night vision devices) to provide for every soldier.” Supposedly, the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) succeeded “only with great effort” to “equip the 8,000 German soldiers with winter clothing and protective vests, who took part in the NATO exercise Trident Juncture in Norway this autumn.”

The establishment media and parties have reacted to the report with anger and indignation. The Frankfurter Rundschau lamented the “disastrous shortages in the Bundeswehr,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung claimed that soldiers would have to mend their overalls themselves, and finance daily Handelsblatt asked provocatively: “Is our Bundeswehr even operational?” In a commentary on the “embarrassing condition” of the troops, the tabloid Bild newspaper raved and demanded “compulsory military service be restored.”

“The Defence Commissioner’s reports are honest and have shown the government the dramatic situation of the armed forces for years,” said the spokesman of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Rüdiger Lucassen. “All the worse,” Lucassen declared, was “the policy of the Minister of Defence.” One could, he noted, “only come to the conclusion that Ursula von der Leyen ignores the Defence Reports and continues her fatal course of German demilitarization.”

The Left Party also attacked the grand coalition of the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and SPD from the right. “What the Defence Commissioner notes here is pretty steep,” said group leader Dietmar Bartsch in an official press statement on Tuesday. The report was “a disastrous result for the Minister of Defence. Millions were spent on consultancy contracts [...] but there is no adequate equipment for the soldiers.” Parliament had “the damn responsibility and duty to equip the soldiers whom it sends into action [...] and also appropriately.”

With the propaganda offensive, the ruling class and its parties in government and opposition are pursuing a transparent target: the implementation of their massive rearmament plans and the preparation of Germany for new, more comprehensive war missions.

The Defence Commissioner’s report was “always a great incentive for us,” said von der Leyen in an official statement of the Ministry of Defence. Her ministry had undertaken “many modernization steps in materiel, in personnel,” and “the finances are rising.” It was “a fight on many, many fronts, and there, you have to have a long breath and powerfully continue the way forward.” She also wished that “things went much faster, but 25 years of shrinking and cuts in the Bundeswehr cannot be reversed in a few years.” All the more important now was that “the first effects are positively measurable.” “Every week on average, a new tank is commissioned, on average every month a new plane or a new helicopter, and on average every year a new ship.”

The Defence Report provides an insight into the massive scale of rearmament and war plans of the German ruling class. Even with an increase in the defence budget to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—in the coalition agreement, the CDU/CSU and SPD have actually committed themselves to raising defence spending to two percent of GDP by 2024, and thus more than €75 billion a year—“the German defence contribution would lie, in absolute terms, higher than the contributions of Britain [...] and France,” the report boasts.

In addition, the Ministry of Defence had “in the year under review, with the conception of the Bundeswehr and the new capability profile, set the Bundeswehr’s strategy for the future. Accordingly, full equipment should be completed by the year 2031.” With the so-called “trend reversals in the areas of finance, personnel, materials and infrastructure,” the Bundeswehr “should meet the increased demands of national and Alliance defence.”

Terms such as “fully equipped” and “national and alliance defence” are euphemisms for a new German war policy. The “Conception of the Bundeswehr” issued last August by the Minister of Defence leaves no doubt that the German military is preparing for massive operations and a possible Third World War, despite catastrophic outcomes of the previous two world wars.

“For a very large operation, skills in rapid response and follow-up forces are to be planned,” it says. These would have to be able to “work in a hybrid conflict that occurs in all dimensions in the entire spectrum of escalation and activity. At the beginning of a very large, high-intensity operation, the massive deployment of high availability resources is required. There is a personal and materiel provision for regeneration.”

The Defence Report points out that the Bundeswehr plays a central role in NATO preparations for war against Russia. Increasingly, “the Bundeswehr is assuming obligations of Alliance defence in Europe” and, as part of NATO’s “Enhanced Forward Presence” since January 24, 2017, is setting up the Multinational Battle Group as a framework nation for Lithuania.

With more than 500 soldiers the fighting force is “the third largest mission of the Bundeswehr abroad.” For the NATO Rapid Reaction Force, Germany had “brought in 10,000 soldiers in 2018” and “made the necessary preparations” to become the so-called flagship of NATO in 2019.

Since the Bundeswehr took over the leadership of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) on 1 January, the German government is stepping up its threats against nuclear armed Russia and pushing ahead with its campaign for an independent German-European foreign and defence policy. At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, von der Leyen called for greater “European military capacity” and demanded that the continent “be ready to deal comprehensively with problems in our immediate neighbourhood.” This included Russia, which respects “no weakness.”

On January 22, in a foreign policy keynote address titled, “The Future of European Security and Defence,” von der Leyen railed against “the expansive behaviour of Russia” and “an increasingly demanding China.” It was necessary to “strengthen Europe’s military capabilities” in order to be “able to act” and to be able to “act independently.” The implementation of this strategy, which builds on German ambitions in the first half of the 20th century, goes hand in hand with the strengthening of extreme nationalist and right-wing extremist forces.

\Von der Leyen delivered her speech as part of the 2019 Security Policy Review in Vienna, organized by Austrian Defence Minister Mario Kunasek. Kusanek is a member of the extreme right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ,) which currently has five ministers in the Austrian Peoples Party-led (ÖVP) government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

In Germany too, the ruling class is working very closely with the AfD. In the foreword to the Defence Report, Bartels expressly thanks the “Defence Committee and the political leadership of the Ministry of Defence for an open, constructive exchange to the benefit of our soldiers.” In addition to representatives of CDU/CSU (12), SPD (8), FDP (4), Left Party (4) and Greens (3), the Defence Committee also includes five representatives of the neo-fascist AfD.

Facebook’s censor Nick Clegg outlines plans for European elections

Robert Stevens 

Just two months after joining Facebook as its vice-president of Global Affairs and Communications, Nick Clegg gave his first main speech this week outlining sweeping censorship measures to be imposed during the European elections. These are to be carried out in the name of combating “disinformation” and “fake news.”

Clegg is the British former leader of the Liberal Democrats, who stood down as leader after the 2015 general election. The former deputy prime minister lost his parliamentary seat in the 2017 election, after taking part in a coalition government with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015. Busy enriching himself in the corporate world, he receives a reported £4 million per year from the social media giant.

The speech Clegg gave in Brussels confirms why he was hired.

Facebook is still a young company and had “undoubtedly made mistakes and is now entering a new phase of reform, responsibility and change,” said Clegg. Central to this was dealing with “a subject that I imagine is uppermost in your minds … the integrity of elections and specifically Facebook’s plans for the European Parliament elections this coming May.”

Facebook had introduced “important new checks and controls.” Starting “with the US mid-terms last November, we established unprecedented new transparency measures for political advertising.” Facebook “would be deploying similar efforts to help protect the integrity of EU elections …”

To this end, Facebook would set up an “operations centre focused on elections integrity, based in Dublin, this spring.”

The company will play a major role in determining what voices Europe’s population are allowed to hear. In “late March, we will launch new tools to help prevent interference in the upcoming elections and to make political advertising on Facebook more transparent. We will require those wanting to run political and issue ads to be authorised and we will display a paid for by disclaimer on those ads.” The ads would be held in a database for up to seven years.

“This approach will help boost our rapid response efforts to fight misinformation, bringing together dozens of experts from across the company—including from our threat intelligence, data science, engineering, research, community operations and legal teams.”

Facebook’s monitoring will involve “clever engineers that we are going to ship over in an aeroplane later this this year to Brussels.” It would work closely with the highest echelons of the state, including “lawmakers, election commissions, other tech companies, academics and civil society groups to continue the fight against fake news, prevent the spread of voter suppression efforts and further integrate the large number of teams working on these important issues across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.”

In the “last decade when Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were founded ... Attitudes to the internet and social media were in their infancy and they were largely uncritical attitudes. People were fascinated with the novel experience of connecting to friends, family and likeminded strangers online.”

Now everyone had to recognise, “Freedom must come with responsibility. We are at the start of a discussion that is no longer about whether social media should be regulated but how it should be regulated … and we are committed to working with policymakers to get it right.”

In the Q&A period, moderator Ryan Heath, the political editor at Politico Europe, asked how Facebook would work with the intelligence agencies in the EU in censoring content: “And intelligence and security services? Is there some kind of hotline when they identify some new group that is going to be explosive, or violent or dangerous? Can they get on the phone to you and shut it down?”

Clegg replied, “Yes.” He boasted of the “huge volume of material that is removed by Facebook every day because it contravenes the community standards on hate, violence, division and so on and the stuff that is coming down … on Russia related pages and so on, the million fake accounts that we take down before they are even registered every day. You could say we are hardening the parameters in which acceptable content is deemed to be legitimate.”

To underscore the extent of ongoing censorship, Clegg added that the “debate today that is understandably a lot about ‘why do platforms like Facebook leave X, Y, Z up on the platform,’ might very easily topple to … people saying, ‘Why are you taking so much down because a huge amount is coming down.’”

He gave an indication of the staggering resources Facebook is dedicating to actively monitoring and censoring content. It had worked to bolster its content review team, with “more than 30,000 people working around the world on security and safety.” Half of these, “15,000 of whom are dedicated to reviewing and removing content which breaches our community standards.” The “reviewers … deal with millions of comments, videos and comments every day.” There were “huge, huge volumes of content involved, an incredible hundred billion messages are now exchanged on Facebook services every single day.”

Clegg’s acknowledgement that the company is working closely with politicians in framing its censorship, dovetails with the EU’s recently announced plans to step up internet censorship to tackle “disinformation” they claim may affect the outcome of the European elections.

Last October, just weeks before Clegg’s appointment, the EU held a summit at which it announced that censorship of social media would be tightened up in advance of the elections. The European Council said this would include “measures to combat cyber and cyber-enabled illegal and malicious activities and build strong cybersecurity.”

Such measures were required against hacking attacks by Moscow, claimed the EU. In December, European Commission (EC) Vice President Andrus Ansip commented, “There is strong evidence pointing to Russia as a primary source of disinformation in Europe. Disinformation is part of Russia’s military doctrine and part of a strategy to divide and weaken the West.”

The EC wanted to see “Facebook and Google agree to step up efforts to remove misleading or illegal content.” Reuters reported that the EC proposed more resources to “monitor and flag Russian misinformation, raising the budget of the EU’s foreign service EEAS [European External Action Service] for this to €5 million ($5.7 million) from 1.9 million in 2018.”

While welcoming Clegg’s comments in Brussels, EU Commissioner Sir Julian King demanded still more action. Facebook was still taking a “patchy, opaque, and self-selecting” approach. King supported “strengthened efforts to tackle disinformation, including more transparent political advertising, more resources for rapid response, and boosting their capacity to fight fake news.”

The tech giants and the political representatives of the ruling elite are desperate to control social media in order to criminalise political opposition and suppress free speech. In censoring their platforms, they function as the “trusted gatekeepers” for governments and ensure the “correct” interpretation of world events—i.e., spreading real fake news.

Their censorship agenda is driven by fear of a mounting and resurgent movement of the working class on every continent, expressed most clearly in Europe in France’s “yellow vest” movement. Under these conditions, the ruling elite view as an overriding imperative preventing the masses from accessing left-wing views and coordinating their struggles via social media.

No deal reached at US-China trade meeting

Nick Beams 

The two days of top-level talks between representatives of the Chinese government and the Trump administration on trade held in Washington this week have led to a commitment to hold further discussions but no concrete agreement.

The new round of discussions will see a US team led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer travel to China in mid-February to engage with Chinese negotiators led by Vice Premier Liu He. The talks will take place just two weeks before the present deadline for an agreement expires on March 1, after which, if no deal is reached, the US has said it will lift tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent.

During this week’s discussions there was some conjecture, in part fuelled by tweets from US President Trump, that the deadline could be extended.

But a statement issued by the White House at the conclusion of the discussions said Trump had reiterated that the 90-day process agreed to in Buenos Aires was a “hard deadline” and the US will increase tariffs unless an outcome is reached.

The main focus of the talks was not on increasing US exports to China but reducing the trade imbalance between the two countries. China has already agreed to undertake measures such as buying five million tons of soybeans from the US.

The key issues concerned US demands for what it calls “structural reform” of the Chinese economy, centring on the protection of intellectual property rights, the cessation of forced technology transfers and the winding back of state subsidies for major industries that Washington claims are “market distorting.”

These demands form a major sticking point because their essential content is that China subordinate its economic and technological future to the dictates and demands of the US.

There were smiles all round after this week’s discussions, with both sides saying that progress had been made and Liu He floating the possibility of a meeting between Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping. But the underlying tensions were not far from the surface, amid recognition that little change had taken place on the central questions.

The executive vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce, Myron Brilliant, who was briefed on the discussions, said the two sides were far from a deal. Beijing, he said, had not even agreed to list all the subsidies at the central government and local level to domestic firms.

On other key issues, he said: “China hasn’t offered up anything tangible to address ongoing concerns around forced transfer of technology.”

The Chinese negotiators insist they cannot offer anything on that score because “forced” transfers do not take place and that agreements with US firms to make available their technologies form part of commercial deals to gain greater access to the Chinese market.

Following the discussions, Lighthizer, who, together with White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, is the main anti-China hawk in the administration, offered a relatively upbeat assessment.

“We focused on these core ideas, these core concepts and it’s my judgement that we made headway in significant ways,” he said but provided no details.

In its account of the talks, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported that the two sides held “frank and constructive discussion” and had “agreed to further strengthen cooperation” on issues such as technology transfers and intellectual property. But, like the US, it provided no details of any commitments, saying only that the two parties had “clarified the timetable and roadmap for the next consultation.”

While the negotiations have produced no results so far as specific commitments are concerned, they have made clear one of the key demands of the US. It will not accept on its face a signed commitment by the Chinese government or legislative changes regarding issues such as intellectual property. It is insisting that there must be some mechanism established through which the US can directly intervene to assess whether the agreed measures are being carried out.

“If we can get an agreement, it’s worth nothing without enforcement,” Lighthizer said.

The South China Morning Post reported that Lighthizer had summed up one of the crucial components of the talks as “enforcement, enforcement, enforcement.”

This raises the crucial question of how such enforcement would be carried out. The US would not hand over that task to an international body such as the World Trade Organization. The Chinese government could not accept the direct intervention of US officials in the operations of its legal system, or scrutiny of government economic decisions—which would amount to an outright violation of its national sovereignty.

Whatever the twists and turns in negotiations over the next month, the underlying issue remains the drive of the US to push back China’s economic and above all technological development, which it regards as a threat to both its economic and military hegemony.

As numerous commentators have pointed out, the measures being undertaken by the Chinese state to promote industrial and technological advancement are similar to those undertaken by other countries in an earlier period.

Writing in the South China Morning Post this week, Regina Ip, the founder of the pro-Beijing People’s Party and a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Assembly, said the conflict with the US could not be blamed on China’s “state capitalism” or its national industrial policy. Beijing’s measures, she insisted, were not fundamentally different from those undertaken by Japan and South Korea after World War II.

“As is well documented by scholars on Japan’s post-war economic miracle, Japan adopted a deliberate strategy of market protection by erecting tariff and non-tariff barriers, grooming ‘national champions’ in selected industries, targeting US rivals and making copycat production by reverse engineering,” Ip wrote.

The same issue was raised by another commentator with a very different political outlook. Henry Ergas, a leading columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s flagship newspaper, the Australian, noted that China’s claim it was following the same road taken by the East Asian tigers in their growth phase was “not unreasonable.”

Ergas commented that it was likely Japan’s NEC, a key provider of high-tech communications, “received far greater public assistance as it moved towards the technological frontier than [the Chinese telecommunications giant] Huawei has.”

But as he went on to draw out, valid as these references to economic history may be, there is a major difference between China’s situation and those countries that followed similar policies in the past. Unlike its predecessors, China is much larger in size, with a much greater impact on the world market, and it is regarded by the US as a strategic threat.

It is these geo-economic and political conflicts which, whatever the moves and counter-moves, underlie the trade discussions as they approach the March 1 deadline.

European Parliament backs US-led coup in Venezuela

Alex Lantier & Alejandro Lopez 

The European Parliament has voted a resolution supporting the brazen US-led coup to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, endorsing the Trump administration’s aggressive policy.

While right-wing oppositionist Juan Guaidó unilaterally declared himself president amid a mass rally in Caracas on January 23, Trump Tweeted: “Today, I have officially recognized the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the Interim President of Venezuela.”

On Thursday night, the EU parliament voted 439 to 104, with 88 abstentions, to support Maduro’s ouster. The resolution “recognises Mr Guaidó as the legitimate interim president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” and urges that EU “Member States adopt a strong, unified stance, and recognise Juan Guaidó as the only legitimate interim president of the country.” It also asks EU states to let Guaidó’s allies take over their Venezuelan embassies, by deciding to “accredit those representatives to be appointed by the legitimate authorities” of Venezuela.

The resolution calls for strong-arming Maduro into holding new elections. It urges EU authorities “to engage with the countries in the region and any other key actors with the aim of creating a contact group ... with a view to building an agreement on the calling of free, transparent and credible presidential elections.”

The resolution “condemns the fierce repression and violence, resulting in killings and casualties,” which it blames exclusively on Maduro.

Venezuelan Ambassador to the EU Claudia Salerno criticized the vote, warning, “The important thing is to ask whether the European Union is willing to take a step forward to bring Venezuela into a situation of civil war; that is the question that must be asked.” She said the EU is not “above the UN Security Council,” where Maduro can rely on Russian and Chinese support.

Pro-coup Venezuelan oppositionist Antonio Ledezma told Euronews, however, that the EU “contact group” should only be used to hasten regime change: “If they’re going to create a workgroup or something like that, then it has to be clear that we would only accept a workgroup to define the terms of the end of usurpation. Not false statements or negotiations that back Maduro.”

Most of the main EU powers endorsed the coup: Germany, Britain, France and Spain all issued an ultimatum, going beyond the EU parliament resolution, for Maduro to step down in eight days. Italy’s right-wing government broke with the consensus, however.

Foreign Minister Manlio di Stefano of the Five-Star Movement (M5S) condemned the coup, declaring: “Italy does not recognize Guaidó because we are absolutely against the fact that a country or group of external countries can define the domestic politics of another country. This is known as the principle of noninterference and it is recognized by the UN.” Citing the 2011 NATO war in Libya, he warned that a coup could lead to war: “The same error was made in Libya; today everyone must recognize that. We must prevent the same thing from happening to Venezuela.”

Di Stefano’s position was publicly contradicted by Junior Foreign Minister Guglielmo Picchi of the neo-fascist Lega party, however. Picchi Tweeted, “Maduro’s presidency is finished.”

EU support for the coup in Venezuela marks a new exposure of the EU’s pretensions to be the gentler, more democratic alternative to US imperialism. It is ultimately no less ruthless and willing to resort to war than Washington in pursuit of its predatory interests. As Washington escalates its confrontation with Russia and China, EU countries are stepping up social austerity and moving to pour hundreds of billions of euros into their own armies to join in the imperialist scramble to plunder profits and markets around the world.

In this scramble, Washington and the European powers are ultimately rivals—a rivalry that in the previous century twice plunged humanity into world war.

As the EU aligned itself with Trump in Venezuela, it announced the launch of a financial instrument to skirt the US dollar and US sanctions against Iran to allow trade in humanitarian goods. Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of a Europe-Iran business forum, hailed it as “an experiment and as part of a bigger project to strengthen EU economic power. … The EU is doing something despite the position of the US, and in opposition to the US. This is something new.”

In Venezuela, however, the EU powers apparently prefer to extend their influence at Russian and Chinese expense by backing a right-wing US coup, for now at least.

Some of their calculations were laid out in a University of Hamburg briefing, titled “China is Challenging but (Still) Not Displacing Europe in Latin America.” It wrote that Europe “still holds the upper hand as the principal investor in Latin America,” with €1.2 trillion invested in the region but only $110 billion from China. However, it worried that while “China has not really displaced Europe in terms of Latin American trade … this might change in the future.”

On this basis, Ouest France sounded the call for a coup to oust China and Russia from Venezuela. Its January 31 editorial, “Venezuela divides the world,” stated: “Russia and China are faithful allies of the regime and will not easily abandon Maduro. Behind the ideological veneer, economic and geopolitical realities come first. Russia is Caracas’s top arms supplier and China its top creditor, lending it over 50 billion euros in exchange for oil. So Nicolas Maduro’s collapse would be a shock for Beijing, which is already facing the greatest slowdown of its economy in 40 years.”

It noted the conflict in Europe between those “more sensitive to Russian and Chinese support, like Italy,” and London, Paris, Berlin, The Hague, Lisbon and Madrid, who “exercise progressive pressure so normal elections take place. Failing that, these countries will recognize Juan Guaidó.”

Despite its invocations of democracy, Ouest France made clear it looks to the Venezuelan generals to oust Maduro, hailing “the decisive role of the army.” After noting “the absence, for now, of shifts from the army brass in favor of Guaidó,” it added: “But the situation is fluid, including among the officers. And US pressure is very strong.”

EU condemnations of repression in Venezuela are utterly hypocritical. Beyond their support for a coup in Caracas, their own regimes at home are turning themselves ever more into authoritarian police states deploying violence against opposition in the working class. While it denounces Maduro’s repression of right-wing protests in Venezuela, the EU is silent on the repression by the French government—with thousands of arrests and hundreds of casualties—of “yellow vest” protests against social inequality.

The Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) government, which holds multiple political prisoners after cracking down on the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, aggressively campaigned for regime change last week in Latin America. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stopped in Santo Domingo to denounce the Nicaraguan Sandinista government, after working to expel it from the social-democratic Socialist International. He then traveled on to Mexico to pressure it to back the Venezuelan coup.

Top PSOE official Alfonso Guerra made clear what methods Madrid is considering in Venezuela with remarkable comments endorsing the bloody 1974-1990 dictatorship of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet. While military dictatorships are “at least effective in the economic field,” Guerra said, Maduro is “useless.”

Citing surging inflation in Venezuela, Guerra added: “Between the horrible dictatorship of Pinochet, and the horrible dictatorship of Maduro, there is a difference: in one place the economy did not collapse, in another it has.” Guerra’s preference for a military regime carrying out mass murder over Maduro is an unambiguous signal that the EU supports a bloody coup in Venezuela.

Matamoros strike grows as Mexican ruling class warns of national strike wave

Eric London & Andrea Lobo

The strike of tens of thousands of Matamoros workers spread beyond the maquiladoras this week to new industries as workers in water purification, milk production, and Coca-Cola bottling walked out of their Matamoros workplaces Thursday and Friday.

Several additional auto parts maquiladoras also joined the strike at the end of the week, including at Spellman, Toyoda Gosei Rubber and Tapex. Although over a dozen plants have returned to work after the companies granted the 20 percent wage increase and $1,700 bonus, more than 25 remain on strike, costing the mostly US-based companies a whopping $37 million per day.

At the same time, a strike of 30,000 teachers in the state of Michoacan neared the end of its third week with thousands of teachers blocking train tracks linking industrial hubs with the critical Pacific ports at Lázaro Cárdenas in Michoacan and Manzanillo in Colima. Last Monday, thousands of teachers in Oaxaca joined the strike.

Noticieros Televisa wrote Thursday that the teachers’ blockades “impact not only national industries but also their principle trading partners in Asia. In Guanajuato, the auto industry already reports an impact to supply lines.”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) attacked the teachers in a press conference Monday, ordering them to get back to work and absurdly calling them right-wing: “This has nothing to with left-wing politics,” he said. “This radicalism has everything to do with conservatism.”

The Mexican ruling class is terrified of the growing strike movement.

In an article titled “The end of labor stability,” Mexico’s main business paper, El Financiero, warned on Thursday that “not in decades has Mexico been presented with 44 strikes in only one blow.” In comparison to recent weeks, the six-year presidential terms of Vicente, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto saw only 49, 40 and 23 strikes respectively.

“As easy as one two three, the labor stability which we have maintained for decades, with hundreds of thousands of successful contract negotiations, is broken. And it won’t stop there,” El Financiero wrote, warning that the future will bring “polarization” and “a growth of the contradictions between capital and labor. It is the end of labor peace.”

An Associated Press report published Friday exposes AMLO’s anti-working class role in seeking to break strikes and suppress wages. According to business representatives cited in the AP article, AMLO and leaders of his Movement for National Regeneration (Morena) “actively discouraged the Matamoros union from seeking the pay increase.”

It wasn’t the union which demanded the wage increase, but the workers themselves who organized independently and against the explicit threats of the union. Now, the ruling class is leaning desperately on the trade unions and their backers to block the development of a nationwide strike movement.

Milenio newspaper warned that “there is a fear of a contagion in the border region, where millions hope for an increase to their incomes.” The paper quotes an anonymous business leader who said, “This is without precedent. We are all involved in what here will mark what will be the future of manufacturing in this country.”

The industry website Manufactura.mx reported that a corporate representative said industry workers were “contaminated” by the demands for a 20 percent wage increase and that companies anticipate the strikes will spread. The business representative said, “We have an excellent relationship with the union” and hoped the union would help the company avoid a strike.

According to Noticieros Televisa, in “the maquiladora industry in Baja California [where the largest maquiladora city, Tijuana, is located] there is a fear that workers will launch a strike for wage increases.” Noticieros Televisa reports that maquiladoras are “maintaining dialogue with the unions of the industry with the goal of avoiding a labor stoppage.”

Workers are both excited by the growth of the strike and concerned that the companies plan to betray whatever agreement they reach.

One Matamoros striker said, “We all have to go out together. The union is afraid that we are uniting. The majority of us are already out. The problem is that the union hasn’t helped us and hasn’t represented us. Now we have to go out and organize guards. We are not asking for gifts, only what we deserve.” The worker said a union official told her “you are nobodies for being out here.”

A striking Kearfott worker told the WSWS, “I’m glad for the new strikers. This is for all workers across the border that have that clause in their contracts” requiring wages increase in parity with the minimum wage. “The same companies put it there and now they have to pay. We are the most exploited and least rewarded class. I think that it’s time for them to give back to us what they have taken.”

A worker at Autoliv explained to the WSWS that after the company agreed to workers’ demands, “as soon as we went back to work, they began to fire people.”

A worker at Tyco, which also agreed to the wage increase and bonus, also told the WSWS there is a growing mood to strike again to protect their coworkers from retribution:

“At Autoliv, they are firing a bunch of people without severance or bonus. The manager fires workers and mocks them, telling them that they are not going to pay their bonus or severance. They are being sent to the conciliation and arbitration board and are told that they’ll have to wait half a year or a year to resolve things. Obviously this board is on the side of Autoliv.

“I think that the majority that are now working, many who didn’t even participate in the wildcat strikes, should all strike again to support their fired co-workers. They are already getting their bonus and raise. We are a new generation that didn’t know how to strike. We have won respect whether people like it or not. Maybe it’s not all the respect we need, but this is our first strike and if things don’t get better, our second strike will be more organized.”

Though the US business press is beginning to report on the impact of the strikes in Mexico from an economic standpoint, the websites of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and Socialist Alternative as well as the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Jacobin magazine have all ignored the strike entirely. None of these anti-working class, anti-socialist organizations has published a single article on the rebellion of Mexican maquiladora workers.

GM to lay off 4,250 salaried workers in North America starting Monday

Shannon Jones 

General Motors will begin laying off 4,250 North American salaried workers Monday morning as part of a sweeping restructuring announced in November that includes the closure of five plants and the elimination of 15,000 jobs. The plan includes the destruction of 15 percent of the company’s 54,000 North American salaried jobs.

According to one press report, the jobs massacre will take the form of “rolling layoffs” that will continue until the end of the month. Three assembly plants—Lordstown, Ohio; Detroit-Hamtramck; and Oshawa, Ontario—along with Warren Transmission in Michigan and a propulsion plant in Maryland—are slated to close by the end of the year, devastating entire towns and cities.

One report said that GM management was determined to begin the layoffs before the company releases its fourth quarter 2018 and full year 2018 earnings reports on Wednesday, which are expected to show a drop in profits. This underscores the fact that Wall Street is cracking the whip on GM and the rest of the auto giants to press ahead with cost-cutting and stepped up attacks on the workers in order to drive up stock prices and the speculative profits of the banks, hedge funds and big investors. GM has said the job cuts and plant closings will free up $6 billion in cash, but the automaker has spent $10.6 billion since 2015 buying back its own shares in order to fatten the portfolios of the financial oligarchs.

The cuts have generated enormous anger and opposition among autoworkers in the US and Canada, who have never recovered from job cuts and concessions imposed with the collaboration of the auto unions as part of the Obama administration’s 2009 forced bankruptcy and restructuring of GM. The cuts will further impoverish regions in both the US and Canada that have been ravaged by decades of deindustrialization.

Last month, workers at the Oshawa assembly plant staged a five-hour sit down protest after GM CEO Mary Barra announced that she would not reconsider the decision to close the factory. Workers took the action independently of Unifor, terrifying the union officials and sending them scrambling to quash the rebellion.

February 9 demonstration in Detroit against GM plant closures

The World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter and the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Rank-and-File Committees have called a demonstration for February 9 outside GM headquarters in Detroit in opposition to the plant closings. It has called on workers to mobilize independently of the UAW and Unifor to defend their jobs and living standards and link up with the struggle of 70,000 Mexican autoworkers in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, who have been carrying out a wildcat strike for nearly three weeks.

The demonstration is not an appeal to GM and the corporate bosses, but rather a call for workers to mobilize their strength and fighting determination through the formation of rank-and-file committees independent of the pro-corporate unions and the corporate-controlled politicians and parties.

The call has garnered widespread interest and support. A central theme of this action is the unity of US, Mexican and Canadian workers against job cuts and concessions and against all attempts to divide workers along national lines.

This means an implacable struggle against the economic nationalism promoted by the unions. The response of the United Auto Workers and Unifor in Canada to the plant closures is to spew nationalist poison. This week, the United Auto Workers announced that is joining a boycott of GM vehicles assembled in Mexico previously initiated by Unifor.

These same organizations oppose any industrial action by GM workers to fight the layoffs. They plan to use the threat of plant closings to blackmail workers into accepting new concessions that will be demanded by the auto companies in contract negotiations later this year.

The call for a boycott targeting the jobs of Mexican workers is an attempt to divert workers from a struggle against the real enemy—the transnational auto companies and the profit system as a whole—and instead channel their anger against their fellow workers south of the Rio Grande. In this way, the unions line up behind the Trump administration’s fascistic attacks on immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America.

The announcement of the GM closures takes place against a background of growing worker militancy around the word, including strikes by autoworkers in Hungary, yellow vest protests in France, a general strike in India and a walkout by 30,000 teachers in Los Angeles.

Of particular concern to the UAW and Unifor is the strike by the maquiladora workers in Matamoros against sweatshop conditions at auto parts manufacturers and other industries. To this date, the UAW has not said a word about the heroic actions of the Matamoros workers, who launched their strikes independently of and in opposition to the official unions.

A worker at the Ford Sterling Axle plant outside of Detroit told the WSWS in response to the UAW’s call for an anti-Mexican boycott, “It is not the fault of Mexican workers. It is corporate greed. They just want more profits.

“We haven’t heard a word from [UAW President] Gary Jones since he got elected. He doesn’t want to piss off the car companies because he is afraid of losing perks. They are invested in GM through the retiree health care fund.”

Referring to the blackout of reports about the strikes in Matamoros, he said, “They don’t want us to get any ideas. What the Mexican workers are doing is sticking together and saying enough is enough. They don’t want us to find out because they don’t want us raising our own demands.”

A General Motors worker at the Delta Township assembly plant near Lansing, Michigan said he planned to attend the Feb 9 demonstration. “It is not the Mexican workers’ fault. They are trying to provide for their families.

“GM is closing five plants, but they are making record profits. They are trying to force the older workforce to retire by placing them in other plants and making them drive long distances. It leaves them little time for their families. They can’t just relocate and buy new homes. It forces them to retire.

“You haven’t heard anything from the UAW about Canadian plants being closed. We should work on how you hurt them by sticking together. You should have Mexican, Canadian, US workers all united together.”

In another demonstration of the UAW’s lineup with the Trump administration, on Thursday UAW President Gary Jones announced his support for Trump’s executive order titled “Strengthening Buy-American Preferences for Infrastructure Projects.” In a brief statement Jones declared, “Companies like General Motors have an obligation to build where they sell and stop exporting jobs abroad.”

Meanwhile, Unifor says it plans to run ads promoting its anti-Mexican boycott during this Sunday’s Super Bowl football game. These ads are extremely costly, reportedly $5.25 million for a 30 second spot, or roughly the equivalent of the monthly dues contribution of 100,000 workers.

The nationalist “Buy American” and “Made in Canada” campaigns of the UAW and Unifor are both reactionary and absurd. They ignore the global character of production, which makes it impossible to determine the “nationality” of any given vehicle.

After ignoring the strikes in Matamoros for weeks, Unifor President Jerry Dias announced his “support” for striking Mexican autoworkers in a perfunctory statement this week. This followed determined attempts by the establishment media, pseudo-left groups, Unifor and the UAW to black out all news of the strike by Mexican workers.

The launching of mass layoffs by GM gives added urgency to preparations for the February 9 demonstration in Detroit. The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Party call for the widest possible mobilization of autoworkers as well as other sections of the working class, teachers, auto parts workers, Amazon and United Parcel Service workers as well as students and youth against the plant closures and layoffs.