Waste pickers – Wretched lives

Sheshu Babu

In cities and towns, one often comes across heaps of garbage on roadsides and poor – mostly slum dwellers, children – hovering around the pile. These people are mostly ignored by authorities as well as rich and middle-class elites. Waste pickers are the lowest in the hierarchy of urban informal occupation.

The term ‘Waste picker’ was adopted in the First World Conference of Waste Pickers in Bogota, Columbia in 2008 to facilitate global networking and supplant derogatory words like ‘scavenger’ .( Informal Economy, Waste Pickers, weiego.org). Work situation differs greatly across countries but the common thing is that this work is their livelihood and often supports their families.

Estimation

Number of waste pickers in the country is not easily available. Some estimates city- wise have been recorded . For instance, in Ahmedabad, they are estimated to be about 30,000 mostly women and children. In the state of Gujarat, according to a study, there are estimated 100 000 waste pickers. Delhi alone has approximately 100 000 waste pickers according to another study. Pune has 6,000of whom 72% are women according to a study.( Waste Pickers in India, WIEGO , Law and Informality, Law project Country Report, www.wiego.org). Brazil is the only nation that systematically captures and reports statistical data on waste pickers. Data collected by Brazil’s official system found that over 229000 did this work in 2008. (Dias 2010). According to statistics published in ‘ Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture’ (ILO – WIEGO 2013) where wastepickers have been identified, they represent less than 1 percent of urban workforce: 0.1 – 0.4 percent in seven West African cities, 0.7 percent in South Africa ( including both formal and informal waste pickers) , 0.1% in India. These small percentages, however, represent large number of people. Because of the challenges of gathering data on waste pickers, the estimates may be low.

According to some estimates, there are about 1.5 million to 4 million waste pickers in India.( Unpaid and undervalued, how India’s waste pickers fight ….by Swetha Dandapani, November 30 2017, the newsminute.com). They segregate, clean, sort and sell waste to make a living.

Working conditions

The IEMS study found that majority of waste pickers had generally low levels of formal education. In many areas, the work was done by disadvantaged groups. For example in Pune, India, the work is largely confined to scheduled castes.

Waste picking is generally a family business with flexible working hours requiring little or no education. It is highly adaptable and can be learned easily with little training. For the poorest of poor in the world, it is one of the only livelihood options

However, waste workers often face social stigma, poor working conditions and they are frequently harassed. They suffer from occupational related musculo-skeletal problems, respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments. They face problems from both the police and municipal authorities. They have no social security benefits.

According to a study published in the International Research Journal of Environment Sciences titled ‘Studies on the Solid Waste Collection by Rag Pickers at the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation , India, 94% of the 150 waste pickers interviewed in the Jawahar Nagar landfill in Hyderabad stated that they choose this job as no other alternative was available to them (Unpaid and undervalued,how India’s waste pickers fight apathy to keep our cities clean, by Sweta Dandapani, November 30 2017, thenewsminute.com). Thus, many of them are forced to work picking up waste.

Changing trends

With the concept of ‘ e-waste’, solid waste management, recycling waste, have made the work of these pickers more valuable. As metals like iron, copper, etc can be extracted from the waste thrown out, these rag pickers can be a valuable addition to the chain of environmental protection cycle. By gathering the material, they can help not only cleaning cities from garbage but also assist in the process of recycling and reusing material so that waste can be used without destruction. Society must recognize value of waste picker and must show compassion. Activists should struggle for uplifting these poverty- stricken workers and force governments to take note of their sufferings. Many of them even work without a minimum wage. Decent wage and medical facility must be given to them along with education and nutrition to the children who are forced into working to feed their parents. Collection centers in cities should provide equipment for gathering and disposal of waste. For clean and green cities and towns ( and even villages) , waste pickers are crucial and valuable .

Australian government delivers a callous, anti-working class budget

Mike Head

On the eve of announcing an election for next month, the Liberal-National Coalition government last night handed down a blatant vote-buying budget pitched at satisfying the demands of big business and the wealthy, and appeasing voters in vulnerable electorates, while feigning concern for “low to medium income families.”

The first budget produced since last August’s removal of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, it provides a glimpse of the anti-working class agenda that drove the coup by the Coalition’s “hard right” faction, which installed Scott Morrison as his replacement.

Throughout his speech, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg repeatedly declared “no new taxes.” This was designed to assure the wealthy elite that a Coalition government would continue to slash social spending and corporate taxes, whatever electoral lip-service it felt compelled to make to “fairness” to try to head off widespread discontent and anger.

Households on above-average annual incomes over $46,000, and up to $126,000, were promised cash handouts this year of up to $2,160 for a dual-income family, via income tax offsets. It will do nothing to alleviate the mounting pressures produced by falling real wages, collapsing house prices and deteriorating social services and infrastructure.

But for the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, those on less than $46,000, there was nothing at all. For some welfare recipients, there will be small one-off payments of $75 for singles and $125 for couples, supposedly to cover soaring power bills.

All these handouts are cynically aimed at stimulating immediate consumer spending in order to boost retail and related profits, and attempt to stave off a developing economic slump.

With particular cruelty toward hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers, the government rejected calls for a $75 a week rise in the sub-poverty NewStart allowance. The current payment amounts to just $39 a day and has not increased in real terms since the 1990s.

Another $2.1 billion will be gouged out of welfare recipients over the next five years by yet another Centrelink “data matching” crackdown on people trying to augment their pitiful benefits by working in low-paid casual, temporary or part-time jobs.

Equally callous is the massive “underfunding” of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which is the result of disabled people and their carers being unable to access assistance packages, or facing cuts and long delays. By some calculations, the NDIS “underspent” about $3 billion this financial year and the same next year—almost equivalent to the government’s projected $7.1 billion surplus for 2019–20.

“We are six years into the [NDIS] rollout and we have heard of people waiting two years for a wheelchair,” Kirsten Dean from disability advocate group Every Australian Counts told the media.

More “savings” totalling several billion dollars have been achieved by paying out less for aged pensions, as the eligibility age steadily increases to 67, and by cutting thousands of people off welfare payments altogether.

On every front of dire social need, such as the mental health crisis, the dental health disaster, the lack of affordable housing, the chronic under-funding of public schools, hospitals and universities, the budget offered little or nothing. Refugee support services were further cut by nearly $80 million a year.

A $525 million “skills package” supposedly offering training to youth and jobless workers, contains only $55 million in new money over five years, and follows a $200 million cut last year.

By contrast, the corporate elite has been promised yet more tax cuts. Planned multi-billion-dollar corporate tax cuts will be brought forward by a year. An immediate tax write-off for asset purchases will be raised from $20,000 to $30,000 and extended to companies with annual turnovers of $50 million, up from $10 million.

By 2024, the government pledged to introduce income tax cuts for the wealthiest layers. Its virtual “flat tax” plan would lower the rate to 30 percent for all income from $45,000 up to $200,000 a year. This would give households on and above that level $11,640 in annual tax savings.

In another effort to shore up big business, government corporate regulators will be given $600 million over five years to “restore public confidence” in the financial sector. A royal commission exposed systemic predatory practices and abuses by the banks and finance houses, all permitted by the same regulators.

Under the phony banner of “easing congestion,” a promised 10-year $75 billion infrastructure program will be boosted to $100 billion, primarily satisfying business transport and freight requirements. This spending also features flagrant pork-barrelling. It is highly targeted to local projects in electorates, many in rural and regional areas, that the government fears losing in next month’s election.

More electoral bribes are certain to be offered during the election campaign. The budget sets aside $3.2 billion for handouts, under the heading “decisions taken but not yet announced.”

All the budget’s projections are likely to be blown out of the water, however. Treasurer Frydenberg’s speech began with a patent lie. He became the fifth consecutive treasurer—Coalition and Labor alike—to claim to be delivering a budget surplus. “Back in black,” he proclaimed.

In reality, the accompanying Treasury papers point to an array of “downside risks”—further housing price falls, a deepening construction slump, slowing growth in China, the US-China trade war, the Brexit crisis, and stagnating economies in Japan and Europe. A temporary rise in global iron ore prices, mainly caused by a mine disaster in Brazil, is expected to go into reverse, potentially halving the projected surplus.

The Treasury warned of “ongoing risks to the global economy” and “major economic and financial shocks that may be encountered in the future.” It demanded “strong fiscal management.” In other words, regardless of which party heads the next government, further austerity and profit-driven measures will be unleashed against the population.

In order to prepare for social unrest, the repressive apparatus of the state is being strengthened. Millions more dollars will be poured into further increasing the staffing, resources and surveillance capacities of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the electronic spy agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD).

These agencies have been vastly enlarged already since 2001, as part of the fraudulent “war on terrorism.” Now they are being taken to a new level, in the name of combating “foreign interference” and “cyber warfare.” These are code words for heightened political surveillance, enforcement of the anti-democratic “foreign influence” laws passed last year, and censorship of on-line activity.

ASIO and the AFP will get an additional $571 million, raising their staff numbers by 107 and 312 respectively over the next financial year, plus $35 million to set up a “Foreign Interference Threat Assessment Centre.” The ASD will receive $4 billion through to 2023 for a Cyber Security Response Fund, ostensibly to protect the “integrity” of elections from “foreign meddling.”

These measures also feed into preparations for war, including by demonising China and Russia. Military expenditure will increase by $1.3 billion to $38.7 billion in 2019-20. This will keep rising every year, to reach 2 percent of gross domestic product in 2020–21, to meet commitments made to the US to boost preparations for potential conflicts with China. Procurement of submarines, frigates, warplanes and other weaponry over the decade will cost more than $200 billion, which could build hundreds of schools and hospitals.

UNHRC ignores Sri Lanka’s failure to investigate war crimes

Pradeep Ramanayake

The 40th session of UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last month adopted a new resolution giving the Sri Lankan government two more years to implement its unfulfilled pledges on “transitional justice and accountability”—i.e., war crimes related to the brutal three-decade war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Entitled “Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka,” the March 21 resolution was initiated by the UK and co-sponsored by Colombo, with behind the scenes negotiations by India, Washington’s regional strategic partner.

The resolution praised the Sri Lankan government’s “positive steps” towards the protection of human rights, commitment to release military occupied lands to civilians, and repealing of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

The “positive steps” are a fiction. Ten years after the end of the war the North and East of the country remain under military occupation. While some land has been handed back to civilians, the military has refused to release all occupied land, citing unspecified “security reasons.” As for repealing the PTA, Colombo plans to replace the repressive legislation with an equally draconian Counter Terrorism Act.

The war against the LTTE, which began in 1983, was the culmination of systematic discrimination by Colombo’s ruling elite against the island’s Tamil minority since formal independence in 1948 aimed at dividing the working class along ethnic lines.

The war ended in May 2009 with the military annihilation of the LTTE and, according to UN reports, the killing of more than 40,000 civilians in the final months of the conflict. Other allegations include the disappearance and torture of thousands of Tamils. Successive Colombo governments, which depend heavily on the political support of the military, have desperately sought to prevent any investigation into these crimes.

Washington, the world’s biggest violator of human rights, initiated UN resolutions on Sri Lankan human rights violations after the war ended. Its concerns had nothing to do with democratic rights but were to apply political pressure on Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse who purchased weapons and established close economic relations with Beijing. The US, as part of its efforts to isolate China, wanted Sri Lanka to end its ties with Beijing and align itself with Washington’s geo-strategic plans.

After Rajapakse resisted these demands, Washington sponsored a regime-change operation which brought Maithripala Sirisena to power in the January 2015 presidential election. The current Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga were principal supporters of the operation.

After Sirisena and Wickremesinghe shifted Sri Lankan foreign policy towards Washington and New Delhi, the US in October 2015, moved another resolution in the UNHCR. The resolution dropped previous calls for an international investigation into human rights violations and called instead for an “internal judicial mechanism” under international supervision. In March 2017, Washington extended implementation of these demands for two more years.

When the Trump administration quit the UNHRC in June 2018 over its limited criticism of Israel, the UK took the initiative to develop last month’s resolution in consultation with India.

An article in the Wire, an Indian web site, reported that New Delhi “has been kept informed ‘at every stage’ of drafting of the resolution.” It noted that there were concerns about “the very recent turbulent political history and ‘the fraught ties’ between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe.”

An unnamed Indian government official said: “It was felt that the government required a break” and decide not to “impose any stringent strictures.” In other words, no pressure should be placed on Colombo about investigating the war crimes and other abuses.

The “turbulent political history” is a reference to Sirisena’s failed coup last October when he removed Wickremesinghe as prime minister and attempted to replace him with Rajapakse. The political manoeuvre was rejected by the US and India who still consider Rajapakse to be pro-China.

When Rajapakse was unable to secure majority support from MPs, Sirisena dissolved the parliament. Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court declared Sirisena’s actions unconstitutional, forcing him to reappoint Wickremesinghe as prime minister.

However, the factional war continues as the ruling elite fights over how best to deal with the country’s mounting economic crisis, the IMF’s austerity demands and increasing strikes by workers, student protests and ongoing unrest among the rural poor. Each faction is preparing dictatorial methods of rule to deal with the mounting anti-government unrest.

Sirisena has withdrawn the support of his faction of Sri Lanka Freedom Party from the UNP’s so-called “unity government” and is seeking re-election as president later this year with the endorsement of the Rajapakse-led Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).

He has also intensified efforts to secure backing from the military and Sinhala chauvinist organisations, reversing his previous support for an investigation into human rights abuses during the war and openly rejecting war crime allegations against the military. Last month Sirisena hypocritically claimed he was unaware of the latest UNHRC resolution and that he rejected it.

Rajapakse and his supporters are building an extreme-right movement, appealing to the military, Sinhala supremacist groups and the conservative Buddhist establishment, in a bid for power. Rajapakse has accused the government of “betraying” the security forces by agreeing to a war crimes investigation and is whipping up anti-Tamil sentiment to divide the working class. The Rajapakse faction is also trying to convince the US and their allies that they are ready to work with those powers.

Not to be outdone, the UNP-led government is continuing its efforts to whitewash the war crimes. Sri Lankan Minister of External Affairs Tilak Marapana, who led the delegation to Geneva, claims that the UNHRC has “exaggerated” the death toll during the last stages of the war and was unfair for insisting on investigations.

The latest UNHRC resolution is another political warning from Washington and New Delhi to both Sirisena and Rajapakse not to destabilise the close military and political relations they have established with Sri Lanka over the past four years.

The outcome of last month’s UNHRC meeting has also exposed the reactionary politics of the Tamil capitalist parties. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) backed the regime-change operation that removed Rajapakse as president in 2015, claiming that the Tamil people could secure their democratic rights with the support of international powers.

Addressing parliament on March 22, TNA leader M. A. Sumanthiran backed the UNHRC resolution while demagogically declaring that his organisation would take steps to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court if it reneged on its promises to the UN.

Former Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran, who was also a former TNA leader, and several other political groups wrote to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. They urged her not to extend the time frame for the Colombo government to comply with “transitional justice and accountability” requirements and to directly monitor the human rights violations.

Irrespective of their tactical differences, all the Tamil parties seek to secure the privileges of the Tamil elite by serving the imperialist powers. These formations are also nervous about the rising unrest amongst Tamil workers and poor in the North and East and the danger of unified action with their counterparts in the south of the island.

Exposure of the war crimes and human rights abuses of the Sri Lanka’s ruling elite are the concern of the entire working class, Tamil and Sinhala alike. However, prosecution of those responsible for these crimes, and the defence of all democratic rights can only be secured by a unified revolutionary movement of the entire working class for a Sri Lanka-Eelam Socialist Republic of workers and peasants as part of a Socialist Federation of South Asia. This is the perspective fought for by the Socialist Equality Party.

Eight miners die from toxic gases in Peru’s northern highlands

Cesar Uco

Eight miners died and three more barely survived after poisonous gases filled the galleries of an informal gold mine in El Toro mountain located in the highlands of the northern department La Libertad, Peru, last weekend. This tragedy is the result of the ruthless drive for profits by the owners of informal mines, operating often without licenses, which have proliferated by the thousands in the Peruvian highlands, from the border with Ecuador in the north to Chile in the south.

The tragedy occurred last Saturday when the miners, after having completed their work, re-entered the mine to collect their belongings. Underlying it are the universally dangerous conditions in which the informal miners operate, without observing minimum safety regulations dictated by the central government.

Most of Peru’s mining sector involves large-scale, capital-intensive operations that are in the hands of transnational companies associated with Peruvian families that have owned mines for decades, investing billions of dollars in Peru.

Such investments are a top priority for Peru’s bourgeois government. Due to its orientation toward international capital, the Peruvian government of President Martin Vizcarra, just like its predecessors, has ignored the needs and conditions of those working in small, informal mines, many of whom are poor peasants working for an owner living in comfort and luxury hundreds of kilometers away in the capital, Lima.

It is reported the toxic gas that killed the miners emanated from a pipeline ruptured as a result of explosive activities that caused a roof collapse in another nearby mine within El Toro mountain itself.

Miners die for the same reasons, facing the same dangerous conditions and exploitation by the capitalist owners all over the world. These latest victims in Peru included Francisco Rondo Baca, Isaias Vasquez Serin, Orlando Valderrama Victorio, Ulises Narro Alva, Cesar Contreras Tandaypan, Hhonatan Fumbajulca Anticona, Jose Sanchez Rodriguez and one more as yet unidentified.

Other miners and community members in the area were the first to give notice of the disaster to the police and public officials of the town to start rescue operations. One of the relatives stated, “We had to take them outside, but they are dead.”

One of the survivors, Cesar Rondo Baca, narrated how when they re-entered the mine they began to feel dizzy, suffered headaches and lost their sense of hearing. He was saved because he managed to crawl toward the exit of the tunnel, which eight of his companions failed to do, staying in the sinkhole that filled with deadly gases.

Upon arrival of the Criminal Investigation Section (in Spanish, SEINCRI), prosecutor Henry Espinoza Urbina from the regional capital, Huamachuco, met the refusal of some relatives of the victims who opposed autopsies of their dead, arguing that the owner of the mine had promised them a reward in the event of a deadly tragedy. Only three were taken to the morgue in Trujillo, the departmental capital.

The disaster that claimed the lives of eight miners is a tragedy that is repeated almost every week in the informal mines of Peru. In particular, the El Toro mine is known as one of the most dangerous in illegal mining. The locals warned that “people die buried in holes or by a bullet. ... In El Toro death is a daily occurrence.” A month ago, one miner was killed and three injured when the roof of a tunnel collapsed due to lack of safety measures.

There are more than half-a-million informal miners in Peru. Many have agriculture as their main source of income, but when the price, for example, of potatoes drops, must work in mining under conditions in which they put their lives at risk.

The proposal of the ultra-right Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, founder of the Liberty and Democracy Institute, and follower of the economists Milton Friedman (founder of the monetarist economic policy) and Friedrich Hayek (of the Austrian school that defends classical liberalism), is that the informal miners be formalized obtaining title to their properties. In the past, de Soto proposed applying his “remedy” to pymes (small and medium-size enterprises), but the empirical results discredited his postulates, when it became known that the pymes experiment ended up favoring big capital, due to the high percentage of bankruptcies, with the banks taking over the assets.

Carlos Sánchez, whose brother Gilmer José Sanchez Rodriguez perished inside the mine, demanded justice: “My brother died at the mine. We were notified by the owner of the contract, and we went to the mouth of the mine and picked up the body of my brother. We ask that they close that mine, there are already many dead and everything goes unpunished. We ask for justice.”

For dozens of years these words of demanding “that they close that mine” and “we ask for justice” have fallen on the deaf ears of the centralized bourgeois state in Lima, the capital of Peru.

Informal mining in Peru—and the same can be said for Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile—is the result of poverty, corruption of public servants and ruthless hunger for wealth at the expense of the lives of the miners. Above all, the capitalist state in many Latin American countries limited its presence to the capital and other large cities, ignoring the needs of the natives of Inca and Aymara descent who populate the rural areas. The mine owners operate without respecting safety conditions because they know that it is easy to bribe public inspectors, who themselves receive poverty wages from the government.

The indifference to human life is reflected in an article published in Mining, the magazine of the Institute of Mining Engineers of Peru. On the front page is a photo of the general manager of the main company operating gold mines in El Toro mountain, Jaime Polar, flanked by the flags of Peru and the company. In an interview made a year and a half ago, Jaime Polar indicates that some 5,000 illegal miners exploit the El Toro goldfields.

El Toro is owned by the Corporación del Centro Sociedad Anónima Cerrada (CDC Gold), a Peruvian mining company incorporated in 2010, which houses seven mining concessions and has reserves of 700,000 gold ounces, according to a technical report made by SGS Canada in October 2014.

This reporter called CDC Gold headquarters in Lima asking for information on whether the tragedy occurred in one of its mines. CDC Gold refused to confirm or deny its involvement, refusing to give any information.

In the interview with Mining magazine, Jaime Polar states that his business provided an “example of the transformation of an area where more than five thousand illegal miners operated into a future world-class operation.” This is a transparent attempt to put on a face of decency before national and foreign investors who read the magazine, while on the ground the informality continues because ignoring the lives and safety of the miners, while paying them miserable wages, is the most lucrative way to operate.

The gold-rich mountain has seen conflicts between the owners of CDC Gold and local residents of the region. In May of last year, the Energiminas magazine reported that for several days, protesters “blocked the entrance to the El Toro mining company in Huamachuco, after demanding that they be offered employment, the hiring of personnel from the region and compliance with payment commitments to their suppliers.”

Sears abruptly slashes life insurance coverage for 90,000 retirees

Jacob Crosse 

Beginning March 15, thousands of retired Sears employees were informed via a form letter that their life insurance benefits had been eliminated. Retirees were given two options—either convert all or a portion of the previously held policy into a new plan, and begin making payments, or watch it evaporate. As of this writing, it is unknown how many will be affected; however, the previous policies covered approximately 90,000 retirees across Sears and Kmart.

Sears is at the center of the “retail apocalypse,” which has led to mass layoffs and downsizings throughout the country. In 2019, it is estimated that more than 6,300 stores across the US will close, with tens of thousands of employees losing their jobs. With their employers failing to meet projected profits, workers, pitted against top-performing stores and each other, have been forced to accept wage freezes and benefit cuts, while investors on Wall Street have remunerated themselves fabulously.

Sears staved off liquidation earlier this year in a $5.2 billion February bankruptcy sale to current chairman Edward Lampert, who was also the company’s largest creditor. The sale transferred ownership of Sears Holding Corp. to Lampert and the hedge fund he founded, ESL Investments, which completed the sale. The infamous asset-stripper sold his plan to New York bankruptcy judge Robert Drain as an opportunity to “save jobs,” while operating a “leaner” Sears. This “leaner” Sears has an estimated 40,000 employees today, down from 355,000 in 2006.

The ones made to tighten their belts are not billionaires like Lampert, however. Instead, retirees will be left in the lurch, swindled out of a previously promised benefit, unable to afford a new plan on the “free market.” Life insurance policies increase in monthly premiums as a person ages. This means that a majority of those affected, who are already well into retirement, will be unable to afford a new plan. A vast majority of the 90,000 retirees potentially impacted have been retired for years and are on a fixed income. The previously earned policies ranged in coverage from $5,000 to $10,000.

Ron Olbrysh, chairman of the National Association of Retired Sears Employees (NARSE), told CBS News that for many former employees life insurance was “the last benefit they had.” And while these “last benefits” were eliminated on the 15th, many have yet to receive a letter. Olbrysh himself didn’t receive notification until five days later.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, former employee Tom Dowd, 76, explained that he was hurt not only by the loss of benefits, but also in how the message was delivered. “I spent my adult life there,” Dowd told the paper, “and if nothing else, that requires a little bit of dignity as opposed to a letter saying your benefits are gone, and here’s how much you can pay to get them back.”

According to NARSE, the average policy is between $8,000 and $10,000 in coverage, while the average policy holder is 80 years old. Continuing his interview with CBS News , Olbrysh detailed the plight of a 91-year-old former employee of 37 years whose benefits were arbitrarily cancelled. To maintain his coverage, he would have had to pay more than $3,000 a year. Already saddled with exorbitant out-of-pocket costs for health coverage, an average of $4,300 a year, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, this added unexpected expense is a cruel insult to retirees who dedicated the best parts of their lives to the massive corporation.

This cost-cutting measure, in the name of maintaining profitability, will no doubt be used to further enrich Lampert and “key personnel” occupying top positions in the company. According to Olbrysh, under the previously held life insurance policies, Sears paid approximately $16.6 million in premiums for eligible retirees for the year that ended Dec. 31, 2017. Meanwhile, as part of the court-approved bankruptcy sale, up to $25.3 million in bonuses were made available to executives and high-ranking employees in December 2018.

Senator and 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders sent out a perfunctory tweet chastising the company for its “greed,” while offering no perspective or solutions for those affected. Likewise Olbrysh, who previously served for more than a decade as assistant general counsel for Sears, conceded that while NARSE could take Sears to court, he is already tempering expectations of winning back benefits, pointing out that the company is “dying.”

The choice for workers and youth is clear, the financial aristocracy and the courts that legalize theft cannot be used to win back what was earned or promised. The continued pilfering of pensions, benefits and wages will only stop once workers and retirees take the conduct of the struggle into their own hands and out of the hands of duplicitous capitalist politicians and company lawyers.

Confrontation between Chinese and Taiwanese fighter jets

Peter Symonds 

A 10-minute aerial confrontation between Chinese and Taiwanese fighter jets over the Taiwan Strait on Sunday has once again highlighted the dangers of a war in Asia fueled by the Trump administration, which has deliberately inflamed the region’s volatile flashpoints.

Taiwan condemned what it described as a “reckless and provocative” move by Beijing after two Chinese warplanes crossed the de-facto maritime border in the Taiwan Strait known as the “median line.” The Taiwanese military scrambled its own fighter planes to warn off the Chinese jets.

Taiwanese presidential spokesman Huang Chung-yen declared that China “should stop acting in ways that endanger regional peace and well-being, and not become an international troublemaker.” He said that Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, had been informed and directed the island’s armed forces to “take all necessary combat preparedness measures.”

If Chinese warplanes did cross the median line, it would be the first incursion since 2011 which was judged to be accidental. Beijing is yet to comment on Sunday’s incident, which comes in the wake of a series of US moves that are aimed at bolstering ties with Taiwan and calling into question its adherence to the so-called One China policy.

US President Richard Nixon’s rapprochement with China in 1972 involved the tacit recognition of Beijing as the legitimate ruler of all China, including Taiwan. In 1979, the US formally established diplomatic relations and ended its ties with the military dictatorship on Taiwan established by the Kuomintang (KMT) after its defeat in the 1949 Chinese revolution. At the same time, Washington committed to opposing any forcible reunification with Taiwan by Beijing and to continuing arms sales to Taipei.

Trump, who on assuming office publicly called the One China policy into question, has repeatedly and deliberately provoked Beijing by boosting arms sales to Taiwan, increasing US naval operations in the tense Taiwan Strait, and by signing the Taiwan Travel Act into law authorising top level contact between US and Taiwanese civilian and military officials.

Prior to Sunday’s aerial stand-off, the US military sent two ships—the Navy destroyer Curtis Wilbur and Coast Guard cutter Berholf—through the Taiwan Strait for the third time this year and the sixth time since it resumed such transits last July. The Chinese foreign ministry stated that it had lodged “representations” with Washington and urged caution by the US “to avoid harming Sino-US relations and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

Last Wednesday, Taiwanese President Tsai used a so-called “transit stop” in Hawaii to launch a broadside against China and call for a beefing up of US arms sales to Taipei in remarks delivered via video link to the right-wing US think tank, the Heritage Foundation.

Tsai accused Beijing of trying to “alter the status quo” and “undermine our democratic institutions.” She dismissed China’s “one nation, two systems” proposal for unifying Taiwan with the mainland and declared that China’s actions “underscored the need for Taiwan to increase our self-defence and deterrence capacities.”

Tsai belongs to the Democratic Progressive Party, which is based on Taiwanese nationalism and does not accept the current status quo in relations with China. While stopping short of declaring formal independence from China, which could provoke a Chinese attack, the DPP, encouraged by the Trump administration, has adopted a more assertive stance for Taiwan.

Tsai was touring the Pacific in a bid to shore up Taiwan’s diplomatic relations with three tiny Pacific Island states—Palau, Nauru and the Marshall Islands. The three are among the few countries in the world to maintain relations with Taiwan, rather than China.

The most significant aspect of Tsai’s comments was a call for the US to sell more than 60 advanced F-16V fighter jets to Taiwan, as well as M1 heavy tanks, which she said would “greatly enhance our land and air capacities, strengthen military morale and show the world the US commitment to Taiwan’s defence.”

The US has not sold fighter jets to Taiwan since 1992. While the F-16V fighters are fourth generation, not fifth generation warplanes, they are fitted with advanced radar and avionics, unlike Taiwan’s present aging fleet of F-16s. The US has so far refused to sell its fifth-generation stealth fighters, the F-22 and F-35, to Taiwan.

While the sale would not immediately alter the military balance between China and Taiwan, it would be a clear sign that Washington is strengthening ties with Taipei and would enhance Taiwan’s capacity to take part in a US-led war against China. The island’s strategic location just off the Chinese mainland prompted US General MacArthur to describe it in 1950 as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the event of war.

Bloomberg reported on Monday: “Trump administration officials have given tacit approval to Taipei’s request to buy more than 60 Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16s, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Suggestions that the US sale could proceed have sent shockwaves through Beijing. The Chinese foreign ministry last week said that it had lodged “stern representations” with the US, while the defence ministry warned that the sale undermined the One China policy.

Senior Colonel Wu Qian told the media last Thursday: “Any words or actions that undermine the One China policy are tantamount to shaking the foundation of China-US relations, are inconsistent with the fundamental interests of China and the United States and are also extremely dangerous.”

China’s show of air power over the Taiwan Strait was clearly meant as a warning to both Taiwan and the US.

Taiwan, along with the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea, are among the most volatile and dangerous flashpoints in the world. Yet the Trump administration is recklessly disrupting longstanding diplomatic norms as it escalates its confrontation with China over trade and steps up its military preparations for war.

Trump’s aggressive stance towards Beijing is a continuation of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” aimed at encircling China and building up US military forces in the Indo-Pacific. US imperialism is determined to maintain its global hegemony if need be through military force against China, Russia or any other potential rival.

The danger is that a minor incident in the Taiwan Strait, whether deliberate or accidental, could become the trigger for a conflict between nuclear-armed powers that escalates out of control into all-out war.

Amazon Air cargo flight crashes after vicious cost-cutting

Erik Schreiber

It will take more than a year to determine the cause of a recent Amazon Air crash, according to Robert Sumwalt, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). “This seems to be very much a mystery, but the NTSB has 52 years of experience solving such mysteries, and I’m confident we will get to the bottom of this,” Sumwalt told Flying magazine.

Amazon Air was established several years ago as a way for Amazon, the Internet retail giant, to increase profits by cutting its growing shipping costs. In 2015, Amazon began leasing aircraft from companies that also provided employees to fly, maintain and insure them. Amazon owns no planes, and the pilots who deliver its cargo are not legally its employees. In the process of establishing Amazon Air, Amazon has shown its usual disregard for worker training and safety, maintaining its laser focus on the bottom line. The crash is the company’s first.

The accident occurred on February 23. Atlas Air-operated Flight 3591 from Miami to Houston crashed outside of Houston, killing all three people on board. Captain Ricky Blakely and First Officer Conrad Jules Aska were delivering cargo for Amazon and for the US Postal Service. Mesa Airlines Captain Sean Archuleta was riding in the jump seat as a commuter.

After the plane encountered turbulence, its engines increased to maximum thrust and its nose turned upward. Alarmed, the crew pushed the nose down at a 49-degree angle, which caused an exceptionally steep descent. The plane accelerated and dropped from 6,525 feet to 3,025 feet in 30 seconds.

This prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue an alert notice. To steady the aircraft, the pilots pulled it up to a 20-degree angle. Although they did not issue a distress call, they began communications consistent with loss of control of the plane, according to the NTSB’s preliminary review. The plane went down approximately 30 miles southeast of Houston’s George Bush International Airport.

Speaking to the press, pilots have said that the crew’s maneuvers during the flight were unusual, and even counterintuitive. “Obviously, going 49 degrees nose down is beyond a radical move. That’s not something an airplane should be doing, especially at that altitude,” said Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer for Boeing, in an interview with the Associated Press.

The accident is not the first for Atlas Air, which has had several irregularities over the past year. A cargo plane operated by an Atlas Air subsidiary swerved off the runway at the Northern Kentucky Airport in October 2018. Another Atlas Air plane had a hard landing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in July 2018. The flight inspection subsequently found significant damage to the jet.

Mere weeks before the deadly crash, pilots for Atlas Air and Air Transport Services Group (ATSG), which also contracts with Amazon Air, told Business Insider that an accident was inevitable. They said these companies paid so little, they were unable to attract experienced pilots, even though Amazon is requesting more and more flights. The pilots also said the training their companies provided was inadequate. Many pilots were overworked, fatigue was common and employee morale was low.

Atlas Air and ATSG were grinding down their collective workforce before Amazon Air was founded, but the rapid expansion of the latter made the existing problems worse. The exponential growth of Amazon Air has forced pilots who are responsible for training new-hires and educating them about safety to work at reckless speeds.

Business at Atlas Air and ATSG is booming as a result of Amazon, and safety standards are slipping. Veteran pilots are appalled at the companies’ hiring decisions. “We have guys in the [first officer seats] who have no business flying airplanes, and certainly no business flying heavy jets,” a pilot who has flown with ATSG for 23 years told Business Insider.

The quality of training has been deteriorating, according to pilots. The FAA has at least twice warned ABX Air, which is owned by ATSG, about creating “a disruptive and confrontational atmosphere” during pilot training. In a letter to ABX, the FAA alleged that David Soaper, the company’s president, recently interrupted a training session to shout at crew members. Unsurprisingly, one of the workers abruptly walked out of the session.

Pilots for Amazon Air have reported that they do not have regular work schedules. Instead, they are often asked to work mere hours before their flights are due to depart. Pilots have been called in on their days off and forced to work overtime. One pilot for ABX reported that he was away from home for two months at a time in recent years. The schedules are so punishing that some pilots are worried about their peers’ mental health.

Pilots who fly for Amazon Air have been involved in contract disputes with their employers for almost five years. They have not received a raise in almost 10 years, and their benefits have declined.

The last contract for ABX and Atlas was finalized during the financial crisis that began in 2008 and includes many painful concessions. The workers endured a pay cut, lost vacation days, and the freezing of pension contributions and matched contributions to health care plans. On average, Amazon Air pilots with the most experience make approximately 33 percent less than pilots at UPS and FedEx who have the same experience and are flying the same aircraft. Yet the pay of the top four executives at ATSG increased by more than 100 percent from 2015 to 2017.

The Airline Professionals Association, a division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, represents the pilots. For decades, the Teamsters union has collaborated with management at various companies to extract more labor and profit from its members. In October 2018, the union forced a contract with United Parcel Service on members who had rejected it by a vote of more than 62 percent. Union officials, meanwhile, have maintained their political influence and salaries that keep them in the top 5 or 10 percent of earners.

Podemos could lose half its seats in Spain’s general election

Alejandro López & Paul Mitchell

Support for Spain’s pseudo-left Podemos party has slumped ahead of the April 28 general election as a result of its pro-austerity, pro-Socialist Party (PSOE) policies.

Polls suggest the share of the vote for the Podemos-United Left coalition has crashed from 21.1 percent at the last election to 12.3 percent, and that it could lose up to half of its 71 seats in Congress.

Some of its support has gone to the PSOE, which is polling just over 27 percent, up from 22.7 percent at the last election in 2016. The Popular Party (PP) is polling 19 percent, down from 33 percent.

The fascist Vox party could enter Congress for the first time with 10 percent of the seats—mostly at the expense of the PP and the right-wing anti-separatist party Citizens, now at 17.7 percent. It is possible a right-wing coalition government involving the PP, Citizens and Vox could come to power.

A major reason for the drop in electoral support for Podemos is mass abstention, particularly among the youth who no longer identify the party as a radical alternative. According to polls, only 49.5 percent of the population below 25 will vote on April 28.

Podemos emerged as the decades-long two-party set-up, involving the PP and PSOE, crumbled following the 2008 global economic crash and was further discredited during years of austerity. Guided by Stalinist-influenced academics and theoretically rooted in a postmodernist rejection of Marxism and the revolutionary role of the working class, Podemos articulated the interests of affluent layers of the middle class.

It sought to divert opposition to the social counter-revolution against the working class behind criticisms of the cronyism and corruption of the PP/PSOE “caste,” claims of opposing austerity and talk of nationalising the top companies and banks.

Within a year of its creation in 2014, Podemos was challenging the PSOE and PP as Spain’s most supported party (polling more than 25 percent of the vote). However, the working class has now witnessed first-hand how Podemos rules in the local “Cities of Change”—with the imposition of austerity, and cuts estimated at €2.3 billion, strike breaking and attacks on migrants. One of the party’s main promises—to stop the rapid increase in rents (Barcelona by 48 percent between 2013 and 2017, and in Madrid by 30 percent)—has not materialised.

Since its creation, Podemos has functioned as an adjunct to the PSOE. It helped to bring to power a PSOE government in June 2018 under a supposedly “left” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

During its eight months in power, the PSOE proved indistinguishable from the former PP government, implementing austerity measures, showering the military with billions of euros, supporting the US-led regime-change operations in Venezuela, intensifying the crackdown on migrants and continuing the repression of the Catalan nationalists.

Podemos would still be supporting that administration had it not been for the Catalan nationalists withdrawing their support for the 2019 budget, forcing Sánchez in February to call a snap election.

Internally, Podemos is imploding, riven with factional disputes, desertions and a collapse in membership. Last December, the party, which claims 507,250 members, re-elected Pablo Iglesias as general secretary with just 60,000 people voting. This was less than a third of the turnout in the last referendum on Iglesias’s leadership a few months earlier in which 190,000 voted.

The Stalinist-led United Left (IU) and regional nationalist parties that rushed to ally with Podemos when it was riding high are abandoning it. The IU, while continuing to ally itself with Podemos at the national level in Unidos Podemos (renamed in the grammatically feminine form, Unidas Podemos, in time for the election), has decided it will not stand with Podemos in local and regional elections on May 26.

IU congressional deputy Manuel Monereo, a Stalinist and very close to Iglesias, announced that the Podemos project was “finished” and called for something new to be created to give the necessary “hope and freshness.”

In Galicia, the “left nationalist” En Marea alliance has rejected Podemos participation with one of its deputies declaring, “I’m outraged that we have the largest representation in the history of Galicia but we are losing influence.” En Marea is expected to go from five seats in the last election to three seats.

The Valencian nationalists of Compromís announced that it will not repeat its alliance with Podemos. Compromís leader Mónica Oltra said, “It is not intelligent to repeat the same formula that diminishes our electoral possibilities.” Compromís is expected to lose three of its four seats.

The past months have also seen desertions of top Podemos leaders. Iñigo Errejón, long-time number-two of Podemos, has created a new party with Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena, More Madrid (Más Madrid), with the explicit aim of forging alliances with right-wing parties. The general secretary of the Podemos Madrid region and founding member, Ramón Espinar, has resigned, saying, “When you have no room to lead and do not share the course, you have to go.”

Last week, Podemos Congress deputy Pablo Bustinduy, who served as party spokesman in the Congressional Commission of Foreign Affairs, quit as a candidate for Unidas Podemos in the May European Union (EU) elections.

At a March 23 rally, Iglesias, returning to political activity after a three-month paternity leave, confessed, “I know I have disappointed many people. … We have brought shame on ourselves with our infighting for seats, positions [in the state machine] and visibility. We have acted like any other party.”

“We have not been able to change the rules of the enemy’s game. We have supported measures that could alleviate problems but they do not solve them. We have not come to apply patches.”

Iglesias’s appeal that Podemos stop applying “patches” does not signal a genuine change of course. Podemos will continue to play the “enemy’s game.” He wants Podemos to take ministerial positions in a PSOE-led government, rather than propping it up from the outside, claiming that this will enable him to exert pressure more directly and somehow turn the PSOE to the left.

Podemos spokesperson Irene Montero insisted that Iglesias was “the only candidate” that defended the working class and the only one “who can sit in front of those in power and say to them that their privileges have ended.” Claiming that without Podemos the PSOE would “never have looked to its left,” Montero said that “we have never been closer to installing Pablo Iglesias in the Council of Ministers” and that, if they receive enough votes, they will attempt to renegotiate a government with the PSOE.

In less than 24 hours, the PSOE, which is trying to outdo the right-wing parties in a law-and-order campaign directed against the Catalan nationalists, replied to Podemos. PSOE Organisation Secretary José Luis Ábalos made clear the party was seeking an alliance with Citizens, which “was preferable to the [Catalan] separatists to bring Sánchez to power.” Citizens’ support is “always preferable to those who question the unity of Spain and the constitutional framework.”

While the PSOE is preparing a right-wing government with Citizens that openly advocates for austerity and police state rule in Catalonia, Podemos is claiming that only it can push the PSOE to the left.

The great unmentionable in these elections is the growing levels of poverty, precariousness and the preparations for further austerity and police state measures to respond to the international upsurge in the working class.

The Bank of Spain has already alerted that the next government will have to implement €25 billion in cuts to satisfy Spain’s commitments to the EU, slash the public deficit from an estimated 2.5 percent now to 1.3 percent at year-end and 0.5 percent in 2020. At the same time, economic growth is expected to slow from 2.2 percent to 1.7 percent in 2021.

Comedian Volodomyr Zelenskiy leads first round of Ukraine Presidential Elections

Jason Melanovski & Clara Weiss

With 95 percent of the ballots counted, comedian Volodomyr Zelenskiy emerged as the clear front-runner in first round of Ukraine’s Presidential elections which took place on Sunday. According to Ukraine’s Central Election Committee, Zelenskiy led the first round with 30.2 percent of the vote. Current president and “chocolate oligarch” Petro Poroshenko finished second with 15.9 percent, and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko placed third with 13.4 percent of the ballots cast.

Approximately 63.4 percent of voters took part in the election. Zelenskiy and Poroshenko will now move to the run-off elections to be held on April 21.

The presidential election campaign took place under conditions of an extraordinary political and social crisis, with the Poroshenko regime whipping up an atmosphere of war hysteria. Before the official start of the election campaign, the Poroshenko regime provoked a confrontation with Russia in the Azov Sea and then used it as a pretext to declare martial law in several regions of the country.

In the weeks prior to the elections, far-right thugs from the Azov Battalion, which was elevated to a major role in Ukrainian politics through the coup in 2014 and is now associated with Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, violently attacked Poroshenko’s office in Kiev, and forced the president to flee his own campaign event.

Zelenskiy won the most support in the central and southern regions of the country, while Poroshenko performed best in the western Ukraine, which is traditionally the stronghold of Ukrainian nationalism. Yuriy Boyko, candidate of the Opposition For Life Party led in the eastern regions of the country where ties with Russia are strongest, including in the separatist controlled Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.

It appears that the Poroshenko regime will accept the results as Ukraine’s Central Election Committee reported that “no systemic violations” had taken place. However, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who finished third, has claimed that the exit polls were being manipulated. According to her campaign, Tymoshenko actually came in second and won 18.06 percent compared to just 14.74 for Poroshenko. Tymoshenko’s staff promised to spread their projected results “faster” than the Central Election Committee.

It is unclear at this point whether Tymoshenko will call her supporters onto the streets to protest the results. Tymoshenko is regarded a close ally of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. As head of the National Police and government militias, Avakov holds significant power within the country and has close ties to various far-right organizations. There has been speculation that Tymoshenko could use Avakov and his ties with right-wing forces such as the Azov-battalion related National Militia to dethrone Poroshenko if she did not make it to the second round.

The success of Zelenskiy was an overwhelming rebuke to the right-wing nationalist regime of Poroshenko, who was brought into power in the imperialist-backed, far-right coup in early 2014 and ran a thoroughly nationalistic and militaristic campaign on the slogans of “Army. Faith. Language.” It is an initial, if distorted, expression of growing mass opposition to the imperialist-backed war by the Ukrainian armed forces in East Ukraine and their ongoing war preparations and provocations against Russia, as well as anger over the social catastrophe in the country.

In poll after poll, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians indicated that they were mainly concerned with jobs, wages, corruption and ending the war in Eastern Ukraine that has claimed the lives of at least 13,000 people.

Over the past years, significant sections of the population have seen their wages and living standards plummet as increasing sums of money were spent to continue the war against separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine is now Europe’s poorest country, and the average Ukrainian earns about 350 dollars a month. Millions of Ukrainians have fled the country to work abroad. Ukraine is under IMF directed orders to slash social spending or risk default on billions of dollars in IMF loans.

Poroshenko’s campaign was also rocked by a report revealing a high-level corruption scam related to military procurement. In November of 2018, a preliminary presidential poll reported that 50 percent of Ukrainians would refuse to vote for Poroshenko “under any circumstances.”

Under these conditions, Zelenskiy was able to capitalize on popular discontent over corruption, as well as over Poroshenko’s promotion of Ukrainian nationalism and escalation of the war, and by presenting himself as a candidate who, unlike Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, stood outside the “establishment”.

Zelenskiy supported the coup in Kiev in February 2014, and has insisted on the “return” of Crimea and the eastern separatist provinces to Ukraine. In an attempt to appeal to widespread anti-war sentiments, however, he has also made overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin, signaling that he would be willing to negotiate with Russia over ending the war, and calling for a ceasefire so that negotiations can resume between the two countries. Vladimir Putin for his part has rejected any possibility of negotiations with Ukraine should Poroshenko be re-elected.

However, while trying to appeal to the anti-war sentiments among broad sections of the working class, Zelenskiy has made clear that he is a supporter of the Ukraine joining both the EU and NATO, steps that would significantly escalate tensions with Russia.

Zelenskiy has also been purposefully vague on his economic plans other than promising to end corruption and enforce new laws on offshore bank accounts. Despite his campaign promises, should Zelenskiy be elected, he will continue the austerity measures dictated by the IMF to which the country now owes over $12 billion.

Whatever his talk about opposing “corruption“ and not being a figure of the “establishment“, Zelenskiy will defend the interests of the country’s oligarchy and is prepared to continue its close alliance with US imperialism.

Zelenskiy is said to have been backed financially by the oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi and has admitted that he enjoys a “working” relationship with the billionaire. He reportedly also stated that he shared a “common mindset“ with French President Emmanuel Macron, who is now mobilizing the army against Yellow Vest protesters.

Germany: Tens of thousands demonstrate against climate change

Iason Stolpe

Tens of thousands of school pupils, parents and students took to the streets of Berlin last Friday, under the slogan “Fridays for future”, to demonstrate against climate change. The protests began last August and have since mobilised increasing numbers of young people. On March 29 around 25,000 demonstrated in Berlin alone. The main speaker in Berlin was the initiator of the protests, Greta Thunberg from Sweden.

The front of the demonstration

The mood at the demonstration was political and militant. Many participants had brought homemade anti-capitalist banners. “The problem is capitalism,” one read. “System change, not climate change” stated another.

“The issue of climate protection is very topical today, because it’s about more than just the emission of pollutants. The situation has now progressed to the point where people who are not really radical are taking to the streets demanding radical solutions,” Anke said.

Anke

Anke was convinced that the current radicalisation would intensify as more people protest in opposition to the right wing and far right and the growth of militarism: “Just take a look at the US. What is lacking is education and enlightenment, but nobody is doing that. If you explain questions to people and motivate them, then they will become much more radical.”

A banner at the rally

Like many other demo participants, Anke had no confidence in the established parties or the big business elites. “We cannot wait until political and business leaders agree on any compromise. The broad masses have to come up with a solution, in opposition to the current policy.”

Manuel travelled with friends from the West German state of Schleswig-Holstein to participate in the demonstration. “I am standing here today to ensure that the climate goals are finally met,” he said. “There are big concerns everywhere, which receive lots of money from the state and then go onto produce extreme levels of CO2.”

Manuel

To implement these goals, however, it is important to work together internationally and not against one another, he added.

Another demonstrator commented, “We can all connect to the internet today. This protest was also organised over the internet. Unlike in the past, we are no longer restricted to one city, but can organise across Europe as we are doing today.”

Kim and Lian also saw international cooperation as a prerequisite for a successful climate policy. The major powers invested billions in military and trade war, while companies were adopting anti-climate policies, e.g. in the US, they said.

“We all have to work together internationally, no matter where we come from, irrespective of skin color, religion or origin. This is the only way to oppose trade wars.”

Part of the protest

This was view was echoed by two pupils passing by with a poster saying, “Tomorrow was yesterday”. They had made the banner to criticise current policies and politicians, they explained. “We deliberately left the wording open to provide food for thought for those who are not only concerned about the climate, but also about a policy to secure peace or social equality.”