Zero Waste: The Global Plastics Crisis

Graham Peebles

Plastic pollution is everywhere, it litters beaches, clogs up oceans, chokes marine life, is ingested by seabirds that then starve to death, and has even been discovered embedded in Arctic ice. It’s in the air we breathe, the water we drink (bottled and tap), and last year plastic was found in human stools for the first time. Friends of the Earth report that, “recent studies have revealed marine plastic pollution in 100% of marine turtles, 59% of whales, 36% of seals and 40% of seabird species examined.

According to the United Nations Environmental Agency the world produces around 300 million tons of plastic each year, half of which is single-use items, food packaging mainly. Of this colossal total a mere 14 percent is collected for recycling, and only 9 percent actually gets recycled; 12 percent is incinerated releasing highly poisonous fumes. The rest – nearly 80 percent – ends up in landfill, or worse still, is illegally dumped or thrown into the oceans; around eight million tons of plastic finds its way into the oceans annually, and while some of the environmental damage plastics cause is clear the full impact on marine and terrestrial ecosystems is not yet apparent.

Plastic recycling rates are appalling and considerably lower than other industrial materials; recycling of steel aluminum, copper and paper e.g., is estimated to be 50 percent, and plastic doesn’t disappear it just gets smaller and smaller, reducing over hundreds or even thousands of years into tiny micro-plastics and nano plastics.

A Wakeup Call

Levels of plastic waste vary from country to country; based on the 2018 report ‘Plastic Pollution’, daily per capita plastic waste in the United States, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, Kuwait and Guyana is over “ten times higher than across countries such as India, Tanzania, Mozambique and Bangladesh.”

Unsurprisingly, given its huge population (1.3 billion) and large manufacturing sector, China produces the greatest amount of plastic waste in the world, 59.8 million tons per year. However, at just .12 kilograms (4 ounces) per capita per day, this equates to one of the lowest levels of per person plastic waste in the world. The USA (population 327 million – 25% of China) is responsible for 37.83 million tons per year, or .34 kilograms (12 ounces) per person per day, three times that of China. America also produces “more than 275,000 tons of plastic litter at risk of entering rivers and oceans annually.” Germany produces 14.48 million tons per year, which at .46 kilograms (just over a pound) per person per day is one of the highest levels in the world, but unlike the US, Germany has on of the highest recycling rates in the world – recycling an estimated 48% (US 9%) of its plastic waste.

Since the 1980s recycling has been regarded as the environmentally responsible way to deal with the colossal levels of rubbish humanity produces. Throughout developed countries collecting recyclable household waste has become widespread, but for decades the laborious job of actually recycling it has been exported, mainly to China. But on 31st December 2018, China announced it would no longer be the world’s garbage tip, stating, the Financial Times reports, “that large amounts of the waste were ‘dirty’ or ‘hazardous’ and thus a threat to the environment.” The “National Sword” policy introduced by the Chinese government has resulted in China and Hong Kong reducing plastic waste imports from G7 countries, from 60% in the first half of 2017, to less than 10% for the same period in 2018. Overall recovered plastic imports to China have fallen by 99%.

China now only wants waste that does not cause pollution and meets certain cleanliness criteria. It’s a massive change to the recycling model that was long overdue and has caused chaos on many countries in the west, with large amounts of waste that should have been recycled being burnt or stockpiled. Desperate to find an alternative distant dumping ground to China, huge amounts of plastic waste have been shipped to south-east Asia. Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, where the largest quantity has gone; according to Greenpeace, imports of plastic waste to Malaysia increased from 168,500 tons in 2016 to 456,000 tons in the first six months of 2018, most of the rubbish coming from UK, Germany, Spain, France Australia and US.

The influx of such large quantities of toxic waste into these countries has led to contaminated water, crop death and respiratory illnesses. In May the Philippines forced Canada to take back “69 containers containing 1,500 tons of waste that had been exported in 2013 and 2014,” The Guardian reported. Other countries have responded in a similar way, with outrage: Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam have all introduced legislation to stop contaminated waste arriving in their ports. The Malaysian environment minister, Yeo Bee Yin, said, “Malaysia will not be the dumping ground of the world. We will send back [the waste] to the original countries.” Containers of illegal rubbish from Spain have been returned and a further 3,000 tons of illegally imported plastic waste from US, UK, Australia, France and Canada has also been shipped back.

The steps China has taken and the understandable anger of south-east Asian countries should serve as a wakeup call to western states, whose complacency and arrogance is fueling the environmental crisis. It is time that developed countries stopped exploiting poorer countries and accepted responsibility for their own plastic (and other) waste. Recycling needs to be recognized by western governments as an environmental necessity, a social imperative. As a business it is conditioned by business methods and motives; corruption and illegal practices abound, profit and costs become primary considerations and obstacles to environmental sanity; it is a great deal cheaper e.g., to incinerate plastic waste, or dump it in a forest or the oceans, than it is to recycle it, which is labor intensive.

In addition to recycling their own rubbish, developed nations, who are largely responsible for the environmental crisis, need to be cooperating with poorer countries, where most mismanagement of waste occurs. Helping them to design efficient waste management systems and financially supporting such schemes. If plastic pollution is to be reduced and effective recycling systems established, cooperation is essential.

How to shop: Zero waste

The power to bring about fundamental changes through responsible policymaking, investment in green technologies and education rests with governments; they have a duty to act urgently and radically.

Certain fundamental steps need to be taken: drastically reduce plastic use; eliminate single-use plastics altogether; recycle more – 9% is shameful. Invest in high-tech recycling facilities/waste management systems; ensure plastic products can be recycled; introduce national recycling standards (in the UK e.g., what local authorities will/will not accept varies) as well as worldwide agreements, with countries that lead the way on recycling, like Germany and Sweden being widely consulted.

In a positive move last year at the G7 summit, five countries –UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the EU – signed the Ocean Plastics Charter. They pledged “to increase plastic recycling by 50% and work towards 100% reusable, recyclable or recoverable plastics by 2030.” The USA and Japan did not sign. Plastic is the third largest manufacturing industry in America, producing 19.5% of the world’s plastic; President Trump didn’t even attend the G7 climate change and environment talks.

Individuals also have a crucial part to play in dealing with plastic waste and making politicians enact the radical changes required.

We can all reduce the amount of waste we produce; aim at Zero waste, embrace simpler, environmentally responsible lifestyles, shop in Zero waste shops, where customers take their own containers and refill them from large dispensers. Western supermarket chains are responsible for colossal amounts of plastic waste and need to radically change the way their products are designed, packaged and sold; in the UK, Waitrose, which has 5% market share, has introduced a pilot scheme in an Oxford branch where food dispensers are being trialed, encouraging customers to use refillable tubs and jars, their own or those freely provided by the shop.

It is a common-sense move that all supermarket chains in western countries need to adopt, it is the environmentally right way to shop and, logically, products not sold in plastic should be less expensive. Zero waste shopping should be the aim, plenty of customers want it, and the environment is demanding it. Plastic pollution is one aspect of the global environmental crisis, a crisis rooted in consumerism and a socio-economic system championed by developed nations, which promotes greed, selfishness and division. Radical systemic changes are required together with changes in lifestyle and values if the environmental vandalism is to come to an end and the planet is to be healed.

How Much Do Humans Pollute? A Breakdown of Industrial, Vehicular and Household C02 Emissions

T. J. Coles

Each year, human beings release an increasing amount of carbon dioxide (C02) into the atmosphere; at present, around 40 billion tons per annum. According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, 8.4 billion tons are attributed to the burning of fossil fuels; primarily coal, gas and oil. The European Commission and Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency lists the most polluting countries (including the EU as a whole and each of its member states). They are China, the US, the EU, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, Canada and Brazil. When measured in terms of per capita emissions, the US and Canada are the biggest culprits, with each Canadian and American emitting an average of >15 tonnes of CO2 per annum (“carbon footprint”). This is a result of commuting, consumption, domestic energy use, leisure and travel.

CO2 accounts for approximate 76 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The US Environmental Protection Agency says that combustion (of coal, gas and oil) is the main human activity that releases CO2. Electrical production, which uses coal combustion for its generation, accounts for 32.9% of US CO2 emissions. Transport accounts for 34.2%, which is where oil comes in, as most transport (cars, trucks, planes and ships) relies on petroleum. Industry is responsible for 15.4% of emissions and residential/commercial for 10%.

One barrel consists of 42 gallons (159 liters) of oil. Each day, 96 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels are consumed worldwide. This equates to 35 billion barrels a year. Vehicles are significant C02 emitters. The majority of vehicles run on oil. There are 800 million cars in the world. According to Automotive Industry Solutions, there are 253 million cars and trucks in use in the US. There are 234 million cars on the roads of Western Europe in a sector that employs 13 million people. The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that half of all carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides and a quarter of aromatic hydrocarbons, released each year can be attributed to transport. The Union further notes that much of the pollution could be easily reduced by clean vehicle fuel technologies. It’s not just the use of vehicles which causes pollution. The Union also points out that from design, to manufacture, to disposal, vehicle-related pollution is significant.

China’s global CO2 emissions are twice those of US emissions. China equaled and surpassed US emissions more than ten years ago. China’s emissions are largely due to the use of coal and are disproportionately larger than US emissions because of the size of China’s population (there are 1.3 billion Chinese compared to 327 million Americans). Despite having a quarter of China’s population, American per capita CO2 emissions more than double China’s. Personal energy consumption is a major factor. The average Chinese person uses 3,500 kilowatts of energy per hour (kWh) compared with the average American, who uses over 12,000. Personal transportation is another factor. By 2011, in China, there were 68.9 motor vehicles per 1,000 people. In the US, were 786 per 1,000. Consider also the impact of food consumption on emissions. By 2008, the average daily calorie intake in China was 2,900. In the US, it was 3,750.8

Among the poorer countries, the biggest polluters (Brazil, China and India) have the lowest per capita emissions compared to the “developed” nations. By far the least polluting continent is Africa, with some of the most Westernized countries (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa) emitting the most C02. It is also worth remembering that the poor countries serve as providers of resources, including oil and other raw materials for the West. Factories and assembly plants that use a lot of energy pollute because they produce goods for export to Europe and North America, making shipping and air travel big CO2 emitters. Liberia’s shipping exports, for instance, make it a significant polluter.

The more Westernized countries become, the more likely they are to pollute. In the 1980s, China adopted US-style privatization programs, agreeing to huge inflows of US capital. Within twenty years, China had equaled America’s record on annual CO2 emissions. By the year 2000, US corporations were investing $11.14 billion in China. By 2007, they were investing $29.71bn. This leapt to $53.93bn in 2008 and climbed to $65.77bn by 2014.

Much of the so-called investment is internal to US corporations, as companies looking for cheap labour outsource to China and other poor countries. For example, in 2010 the trade journal Manufacturing and Technology News reported that “[h]undreds of major American corporations are shipping thousands of jobs overseas,” where workers’ rights, pay and health and safety standards are lower. Some foreign countries offer huge tax breaks and foreign direct investment. Big companies and their subsidiaries and divisions offshoring to China, Mexico and other poor countries with low environmental standards, include: AT&T, Boeing, General Dynamics, Hewlett Packard, IBM, International Paper, Kingston Technology, Motorola, Nordex, Rockwell Automation, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Staples, Tenneco Automotive and Tyco Electronics.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) estimates that air pollution kills 200,000 Americans every year. MIT’s Laboratory of Aviation and the Environment tracked emissions at ground-level, from industrial smokestacks, vehicles, railways and residential heating. Road vehicle emissions alone kill 53,000 and power generators kill 52,000. California has the worst air quality, with 21,000 persons dying prematurely each year. On average, sulphur, carbon monoxide and other pollutants shorten the lifespans of those affected by a decade. Researchers found that congestion is one of the reasons for large numbers of vehicle-related deaths. Where traffic flows in less populated areas, fewer people are affected. Commercial and private pollution was highest in the Midwest, from the industrialized cities and stretching down to or across Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and LA.

According to the World Health Organization, 7 million people die each year as a result of exposure to air pollution. This equates to one in eight global deaths. Air pollution is the single biggest environmental health risk and more than doubles previous estimates. Indoor and outdoor pollution are linked to cancer, ischaemic (artery) heart disease and strokes. Poor and less developed countries have the worst air quality, with particularly toxic air in South and East Asia and the Western Pacific. 3.3 million deaths in those regions are attributed to indoor pollution (including work-related air quality) and 2.6 million to outdoor pollution.

Dr. Flavia Bustreo, WHO’s Assistant Director-General of Family, Women and Children’s Health, says: “Poor women and children pay a heavy price from indoor air pollution since they spend more time at home breathing in smoke and soot from leaky coal and wood cooking stoves.” Coal is a particularly bad pollutant, hence its contribution as the second largest cause of air pollution-related deaths in the US. Dr. Carlos Dora, WHO’s Coordinator for Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, says: “Excessive air pollution is often a by-product of unsustainable policies in sectors such as transport, energy, waste management and industry.”

The pollutants that drive anthropogenic climate change are not only bad for global temperatures and weather, they are bad for human and animal health, too. But hope is not lost. There are major and important changes occurring among grassroots activists, like the Extinction Rebellion, and the possibility of a Green New Deal at the political level. These movements need to endure and expand.

Sanctions Are Genocidal, and They Are the US’s Favorite Weapon

Justin Podur

After withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Iran last year and resuming sanctions last November, the White House in April announced that its goal was to “drive Iranian exports to zero.” To make this drive happen, the White House stopped allowing (my emphasis) countries like India, China, Japan, Turkey, and South Korea to import Iranian oil: dictating to sovereign countries whom they can trade with.

The dictating doesn’t stop there. Last December the United States had Canadian authorities detain and imprison a Chinese executive, the chief financial officer of telecom company Huawei. Meng Wanzhou is currently on trial in Canada, on the allegation that her company violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. Not content with having told China that it cannot trade with Iran, the United States has gotten a third country, Canada, to take a Chinese corporate executive captive in what Trump suggested was leverage for a trade deal: “If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made, which is a very important thing—what’s good for national security—I would certainly intervene, if I thought it was necessary,” he told Reuters in December.

The trade deal with China didn’t come through, and a “trade war” has begun. Meng Wanzhou is still stuck in Canada. And the blockade against Iran is still tightening. Economist Mark Weisbrot assessed some of the damage to the Iranian economy in a recent segment on the Real News Network, noting that when sanctions were imposed in 2012, oil production dropped by 832,000 barrels per day and GDP by 7.7 percent; when they were lifted in 2016 in the nuclear deal, production increased by 972,000 barrels per day and GDP increased by 12 percent that year. In 2018 when sanctions were imposed, oil production fell dramatically again and inflation rose by 51 percent; shortages of dozens of essential medicines, according to a study at the University of California, have followed.

Some basic economics are in order here. A country that does not need to import or export is called an autarky, and in today’s global economy there are no autarkies. All national economies depend on trade: they export, earn foreign currency, and use that to import what they cannot produce. Driving a country’s exports to zero means destroying the country’s economy, and depriving the country’s people of necessities.

Sometimes billed as an alternative to war, sanctions are in fact a weapon of war. Far from precision-guided munitions, sanctions are weapons of starvation, which target the most vulnerable civilians for slow and painful death by deprivation of food and medicine. They are an alternative to war in the sense that unlike the invasion of ground troops or even the dropping of bombs, they pose little risk to the aggressor. This is their appeal to someone like Trump, who revealed the genocidal intent behind the Iran sanctions when he threatened (on Twitter) “the official end of Iran.”

In the 1990s, one focus of the antiwar movement was the impact of the genocidal sanctions against Iraq, which killed 500,000 children (a “price” that Madeleine Albright famously said was “worth it”). Antiwar activists feared that the sanctions were part of a military strategy that would end in even more devastating shooting war. Those fears proved true. Today’s sanctions seem to draw from the same playbook.

International law recognizes that sanctions are a form of warfare, and places the use of the sanctions weapon in the hands of the United Nations Security Council. And so it happened that between the 1990 and 2003 U.S. wars on Iraq, the UN played the shameful role of administering the Iraq sanctions. But today’s unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. circumvent any UN legalities. In the same Real News segment, UN Special Rapporteur on Unilateral Coercive Measures Idriss Jazairy noted that about one-quarter of the world’s population is under some form of unilateral sanctions. Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, Sudan and others are under various U.S. sanctions regimes. Yemen is fully blockaded by the U.S., UK, and Saudi Arabia; Gaza and the West Bank are completely sealed in by Israel; Qatar is blockaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the list goes on.

U.S. sanctions against Venezuela have already killed 40,000 people between 2017 and 2018, according to a report by Mark Weisbrot and Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs. The more intense sanctions imposed in 2019 will kill still more. Venezuela’s electrical grid is damaged, most likely because of sabotage. Maintenance of potable water pumps has become impossible without imported spare parts, leaving millions without water. A Venezuelan professor of economics, Pasqualina Curcio, told a delegation of the End Venezuela Sanctions coalition that sanctions have cost the country $114 billion, “which is nearly equal to one year’s worth of Venezuelan GDP at a typical oil price, or 26 years’ worth of medical imports.”

One of the tactical arguments anti-sanctions campaigners sometimes make is that sanctions “don’t work.” And for their declared purpose of “regime change,” indeed they do not. But when a policy is so widespread, such a first resort, perhaps the declared purpose is not the real purpose. If the purpose is to destroy economies, isolate countries, coerce allies, keep tensions near boiling and maintain a constant threat of war, sanctions are successful. It has been shown time and again that torture “doesn’t work” for obtaining information. But torture is not a technique for obtaining information. It is a technique for breaking a person and, when practiced on a mass scale by an apartheid state or dictatorship, for breaking a society. Sanctions are similar: the point is to break the society, not “regime change.”

Sanctions are Trump’s favorite weapon, but good Democrats are no different. Obama oversaw the destruction of Syria, Clinton laughed about the murder of Gaddafi and the destruction of Libya, and Albright said that 500,000 Iraqi children’s deaths were “worth it.” For the empire, genocide, like aggression, is a normal part of politics. Nuclear planners plan how to commit it. Sanctions officials administer it. And for the most part, human rights organizations take no position on it.

It is possible that at some point sanctions could become self-limiting. If enough countries are sanctioned, they might of course decide to trade with one another. In attempting to isolate so many big countries, the United States could isolate itself, creating a kind of “coalition of the sanctioned.” But from the U.S. perspective, with Brazil, India, and Egypt (the biggest countries in Latin America, South Asia, and the Arab world) all utterly subservient, perhaps this looks like a good moment to try to pressure China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Trump’s planners can rest assured that it is not them, but millions of innocents in those countries who will pay for their power plays.

Encouraging Illegal Planting of Bt Brinjal in India: Political Posturing, Displaying Contempt for the Wider Public Interest

Colin Todhunter 

In February 2010, the Indian government placed an indefinite moratorium on the commercial release of Bt brinjal. Prior to this decision, numerous independent scientific experts from India and abroad had pointed out safety concerns regarding Bt (insecticidal) brinjal based on data and reports in the biosafety dossier that Mahyco, the crop developer, had submitted to the regulators.

The then Minister of the Ministry of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh had instituted a unique four-month scientific enquiry and public hearings. His decision to reject the commercialisation of Bt brinjal was supported by advice from renowned international scientists. Their collective appraisals demonstrated serious environmental and biosafety concerns, which included issues regarding the toxicity of Bt proteins resulting from their mode of action on the human gut system.

Jairam Ramesh pronounced a moratorium on Bt brinjal in February 2010 founded on what he called “a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach.” The moratorium has not been lifted.

In India, five high-level reports have advised against the adoption of GM crops. Appointed by the Supreme Court, the ‘Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report’ (2013) was scathing about the prevailing regulatory system and highlighted its inadequacies and serious inherent conflicts of interest. The TEC recommended a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GM crops.

Prominent campaigner Aruna Rodrigues says:

“In his summing-up of the unsustainability of Bt brinjal and of its implications if introduced, one of the experts involved, Professor Andow, said it posed several unique challenges because the likelihood of resistance evolving quickly is high. He added that without any management of resistance evolution, Bt brinjal is projected to fail in 4-12 years.”

And that is what we have witnessed with Bt cotton. The reason why this crop made it into India’s fields in the first place was due to ‘approval by contamination’. India’s first and only legal GM crop cultivation – Bt cotton – was discovered in 2001 growing on thousands of hectares in Gujarat. In March 2002, it was approved for commercial cultivation.

The pro-GMO lobby, having lost the debate on the need for and efficacy of GM, has again resorted to such tactics. It appears nothing has been learnt from the experience of an ill-thought-out experiment with Bt cotton that put many poor farmers in a corporate noose for the sake of Monsanto profit.

Pro-GMO lobby encourages illegal planting

India is signatory to the international agreement on the regulation of modern biotechnology – the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol. The country also has science-based legal regulations for modern biotech.

The moratorium on Bt brinjal occurred because science won out against a regulatory process that lacked competency, possessed endemic conflicts of interest and demonstrated a lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts.

As we have seen with the relentless push to get GM mustard commercialised, the problems persist. Through numerous submissions to court, Aruna Rodrigues has described how GM mustard is being undemocratically forced through with flawed tests (or no tests) and a lack of public scrutiny: in effect, there has been unremitting scientific fraud and outright regulatory delinquency. Moreover, this crop is also herbicide-tolerant (HT), which, as stated by the TEC, is wholly inappropriate for India with its small biodiverse, multi-cropping farms.

Despite this, on 10 June 2019 a bunch of pro-GMO activists stage-managed an event designed to gain maximum publicity by illegally planting Bt brinjal seeds at Akola in the state of Maharashtra. A press release issued to coincide with this stunt stated that the event was an act of ‘Satyagraha’ (the notion of nonviolent resistance used by Gandhi against British rule).

One of the instigators has even argued that Bt brinjal is ‘organic’, involves almost pesticide-free cultivation, probably uses less fertiliser and is entirely natural. Moreover, the argument put forward is that if organic farming means growing plants without the support of safe and healthy modern technology and this is imposed by ‘eco-imperialists’, the poor would starve to death.

These unscientific claims and well-worn industry-inspired soundbites must be seen for what they are: political posturing unsupported by evidence to try to sway the policy agenda in favour of GM. The actions in Akola display a contempt for government acting in the wider public interest.

Drawing on previous peer-reviewed evidence, a 2018 paper in the journal Current Science concluded that Bt crops and HT crops are unsustainable and globally have not decreased the need for toxic chemical pesticides, the reason for these GM crops in the first place. Furthermore, GM crop yields are at least no better than that of non-GM crops, despite the constant industry claims that only GM can feed the world.

Each genetic modification poses unique risks which cannot be controlled or predicted; as a technology, GM is thus fundamentally flawed. But a food crop isn’t just eaten. There are effects on the environment too. Even a cursory examination of the US cropping system is enough to prove that the legacy of pesticidal GM crops has fueled the epidemics of herbicide- resistant weeds and emerging insecticide resistant pests.

GMOs are not substantially equivalent to their non-GMO counterparts and there is no consensus on GM safety or efficacy among major institutions, despite what lobbyists claim. Genetic engineering is fundamentally different from natural plant breeding and presents various risks. This is recognised in laws and international guidelines on GM worldwide. The claims and the research and ’big list’ studies (claiming safety) forwarded by the pro-GMO lobby do not stand up to scrutiny.

We need to look at GM objectively because plenty of evidence indicates it poses risks or is not beneficial and that non-GM alternatives are a better option. Moreover, many things that scientists are trying to achieve with GMOs have already been surpassed by means of conventional breeding.

Wider implications of GM agriculture

If people are genuinely concerned with ‘feeding the world’, they should acknowledge and challenge a global food regime which results in a billion people with insufficient food for their daily needs. As stated by Eric Holt-Giménez and his colleagues in the 2009 book, ‘Food rebellions! Crisis and the hunger for justice’:

“The construction of the corporate food regime began in the 1960s with the Green Revolution that spread the high-external input, industrial model of agricultural production to the Global South. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment policies (SAPs) followed in the 1980s, privatizing state agencies, removing barriers to northern capital flows, and dumping subsidized grain into the Global South. The free trade agreements of the 1990s and the World Trade Organization enshrined SAPs within international treaties. The cumulative result was massive peasant displacement, the consolidation of the global agri-food oligopolies and a shift in the global flow of food: While developing countries produced a billion-dollar yearly surplus in the 1970s, by 2004, they were importing US$ 11 billion a year.”

Instead, we get calls for more corporate freedom, GMOs and deregulation that coincide with constant attacks on proven agroecolocical methods which have no need for proprietary pesticides or GMOs and thus represent a challenge to industry profits. India has more than enough food to feed its 1.3 billion-plus population and, given appropriate support, can draw on its own indigenous agroecological know-how built from hundreds (even thousands) of years’ experience to continue to do so.

But pro-GMO lobbyists adopt a haughty mindset and assert the world can genetically modify itself to food security. At the same time, they attempt to marginalise safe and sustainable approaches to farming and sideline important political, cultural, ethical and economic factors.

The consequences of GM do not just relate to unpredictable changes in the DNA, proteins and biochemical composition of the resulting GM crop. Introducing GM can involve disrupting cultures and knowledge systems and farmers’ relationships with their environments: changing the fabric of rural societies. We just need to look at the adverse social and environmental consequences of the Green Revolution as outlined by Bhaskar Save in his 2006 open letter to officials. Even here, if we just focus on the Green Revolution in India in terms of production alone, the benefits are questionable to say the least.

Like the Green Revolution, GM is not just about ‘the science’; if anything, it is about solidifying the processes described by Holtz Gimenez et al above and a certain type of farming and the subsequent impacts on local economies and relations within rural communities. Before the Green Revolution, for instance, agriculturalists relied on mutual relationships within their villages. After the introduction of Green Revolution technology, they found themselves solely dealing with banks and agribusiness, thus weakening relationships within villages (Vandana Shiva discussed these impacts at length in her 1993 book, ‘The Violence of the Green Revolution’).

If India or the world is to continue to feed itself sustainably, we must look away from the industrial yield-output paradigm and the corporations driving it and adopt a more localised agroecological systems approach to food and agriculture that accounts for many different factors, including local food security and food sovereignty, local calorific production, cropping patterns and diverse nutrition production per acre, water table stability, climate resilience, good soil structure and the ability to cope with evolving pests and disease pressures.

Prominent critics of GM respond

In response to the recent activities in Akola, Aruna Rodrigues issued a legal notice to initiate proceedings against those responsible for the deliberate planting of illegal Bt Brinjal.

Vandana Shiva issued a press release, which can be read on the site seed freedom. She cites numerous peer-reviewed studies to rebut the claims made in support of GM and notes the outright hypocrisy of industry lobbyists who are laying claim to Gandhi’s legacy. She argues that that ‘Satyagraha’ is being degraded and misused: the planting of illegal Bt brinjal is a crime that violates India’s Biodiversity Act.

Of course, one of the most vocal claims of lobbyists is that GM technology offers farmers choice and that ‘activists’ are denying choice.

Writing on the Times of India website, Kavitha Kuruganti says if choices are to be left to farmers entirely, why do we need regulation of chemical pesticides either? What about the choices of farmers impinging upon consumer health and environmental sustainability? What about the choice of one set of farmers (let us say the ones who are keen on adopting GM crops) impinging upon the choice of neighbouring organic farmers whose crop will inevitably get contaminated? She argues there is nothing like absolute freedom without concomitant duties and responsibilities and that applies to technologies too.

Choice operates on another level as well. It is easy to manufacture ‘choice’. In 2018, there were reports of HT cotton illegally growing in India. A 2017 journal paper reported that cotton farmers have been encouraged to change their ploughing practices, which has led to more weeds being left in their fields. It is suggested that the outcome in terms of yields (or farmer profit) is arguably no better than before. However, it coincides with the appearance of an increasing supply (and farmer demand) for HT cotton seeds.

The authors observe:

“The challenge for agrocapital is how to break the dependence on double-lining and ox-weeding to open the door to herbicide-based management…. how could farmers be pushed onto an herbicide-intensive path?”

They show how farmers are indeed being nudged onto such a path and also note the potential market for herbicide growth alone in India is huge: sales could reach USD 800 million this year with scope for even greater expansion. From cotton to soybean, little wonder we see the appearance of HT seeds in the country.

And as for ‘choice’, what choice is there when non-GM seeds disappear and farmers only have GM seeds to ‘choose’ from, which is what happened with GM cotton. Real informed choice is the result of tried and tested environmental learning and outcomes. Then you decide which option is best. However, where Bt cotton was concerned this process gave way to ‘social learning’ – you follow the rest. This, coupled with Monsanto’s PR campaigns within villages and in the national media, did not leave a great deal of space for ‘free choice’.

The ‘free’ market ideologues behind events in Akola talk about ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ and helping the farmer. But the real agenda is to open-up India to GM and get farmers hooked on a corporate money-spinning GMO seed-chemical treadmill.

Indian prime minister boosts strategic ties with the Maldives and Sri Lanka

Rohantha De Silva

Following his recent re-election and swearing-in, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the strategically-located Indian Ocean nations of the Maldives and Sri Lanka last weekend. The trip underlined New Delhi’s increasingly aggressive pursuit of its great power interests in the region and its role as a US strategic partner against China.

Modi met with Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, addressed the parliament and signed six agreements, including defense and maritime during the trip. One of the agreements involves the Indian Navy and the Maldives National Defence Force sharing “white shipping information”—i.e., prior information about commercial shipping. Modi and Solih also inaugurated a Maldives National Defence Force training facility and Coastal Surveillance Radar System.

A joint statement by the two leaders declared that they would remain “mindful of each other’s concerns and aspirations for the stability of the region and not allowing their respective territories to be used for any activity inimical to the other.”

This statement, along with Solih’s reaffirmation of a so-called India First policy, reflects the sharp shift in the Maldives foreign policy following his election as president. Solih came to power last November after defeating the pro-China former President Abdul Yameen. The former Yameen administration had side-lined India while pledging support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative and several Beijing-funded infrastructure projects.

India, the US and EU repeatedly criticised human rights violations by the previous Yameen government and denounced its crackdown on the opposition, including former President Mohamed Nasheed and his Democratic Party of Maldives (MDP). These hypocritical concerns had nothing to do with defending democratic rights but were to undermine the president’s pro-China policy.

Solih was elected president after behind-the-scene manoeuvres by the US and India. He immediately pledged his support for India and begun dismantling several Chinese projects. His government has also launched a so-called anti-corruption drive against Yameen and his top supporters.

Modi made a brief four-hour visit to Sri Lanka last weekend where he met with President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Mahinda Rajapakse.

Sri Lanka is another country in South Asia where India backed a US-orchestrated regime-change operation. In January 2015, India’s ruling elite endorsed the moves to oust President Rajapakse and install Sirisena as president.

The US and India were hostile to Rajapakse’s close relations with Beijing, including the purchase of Chinese arms for the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and financial assistance for various projects from Beijing. The incoming Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration quickly adjusted Sri Lanka’s foreign policy away from China and in favour of the US and India.

Political tensions, however, escalated between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe. Late last year Sirisena attempted to sack Wickremesinghe as prime minister and replace him with Rajapakse. These moves were opposed by Washington and New Delhi with the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court in the end forcing Sirisena to end his efforts to appoint Rajapakse.

Last weekend Modi declared his “solidarity with Sri Lankan people” over the devastating terrorist attack on April 21. While the Sri Lankan government and the opposition have seized on the terror attack to justify unprecedented police-state measures, sharp political infighting has erupted again between the Sirisena and Wickremesinghe-led factions.

The purpose of Modi’s visit was to send another clear message to Colombo that India is determined to maintain strong military and political relations with Sri Lanka. A statement issued by Wickremesinghe’s office said the Sri Lankan prime minister had held discussions with Modi on “counter-terrorism” cooperation, including more facilities for training Sri Lankan troops in combating terrorism, and expediting long-delayed Indian financed projects.

Reflecting the strategic concerns of India’s political elite, an Indian Express article by Raja Mohan declared that Modi’s “visit to Male and Colombo offers the opportunity to firmly place the Indian Ocean island states into India’s regional geography… [I]sland states and territories—including the smallest pieces of real estate—are coming into strategic play amidst the return of great power rivalry to the littoral.”

India, Mohan added, “needs to develop its own national capabilities—especially in the delivery of strategic economic and security assistance to the island states.”

Working in tandem with Washington, New Delhi’s wants to dominate the vital Indian Ocean sea lanes between Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Eighty percent of China’s of oil imports are shipped through the Indian Ocean.

During the last Modi government, India opened its bases to US warplanes and ships under various logistical agreements and boosted bilateral, trilateral, and quadrilateral strategic cooperation with the US, and its principal regional allies, Japan and Australia. Washington and New Delhi calculate that control of critical Indian Ocean sea lanes will allow them to block key “choke points,” such as Malacca Strait between Thailand and Malaysia, in any military conflict with China.

Last month, against the background of sharply rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, warships from US, Japan, Philippines and India provocatively engaged in major naval engagements in the South China Sea. Under the pretext of “freedom of navigation,” six vessels provocatively passed through the area claimed by China and close to the Chinese mainland.

Like the US, India is hostile to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. China’s multi-billion project, which aims to link the Eurasian landmass, as well as Africa, both by land and sea, is to counter Washington’s increasing aggressive efforts to isolate China.

As Modi toured Sri Lanka and the Maldives, India’s new external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Bhutan, India’s north-eastern neighbour, and met with King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Prime Minister Lotay Tshering.

India and China were involved in a tense confrontation for 10 weeks in July–August 2017 over control of the Donglang Plateau (Doklam) near Bhutan. Both countries withdrew their troops, temporarily defusing the tensions, but none of the underlining issues were resolved. While there was no indication that Jaishankar discussed the Doklam dispute during his visit, New Delhi is determined to keep China out of Bhutan.

The Modi government’s moves to strengthen its strategic relations in South Asia underlines the sharpening geopolitical tensions between India and China, which are being further exacerbated by Washington’s aggressive actions in Asia against Beijing.

Fiat Chrysler-Renault merger talks collapse

Will Morrow

Talks over the proposed merger between Fiat-Chrysler (FCA) and Renault were called off last week after a final agreement on the fusion of the Italian-American and French automotive giants could not be reached. The merger, which appears to have been shelved at least for now, would have created the third-largest automaker in the world by car sales.

Reports by executives from both Renault and FCA state that the deal was blocked at the final hour late in the evening of June 5 by the French government of President Emmanuel Macron. The French state has a 15 percent shareholder stake in Renault as well as double-voting rights on the company’s board, making it the most powerful shareholder.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire requested a five-day delay of a vote, in order to allow time for Renault to seek the support of Nissan for the merger. Nissan is in an alliance partnership with Renault and Mitsubishi. Le Maire’s request was reportedly a response to the announcement by Nissan representatives at the meeting that they would abstain in the vote on the merger. They declared that they needed more time to study its potential impact on its own operations and its alliance with Renault.

Shortly after Le Maire’s announcement, FCA announced that it was withdrawing from the talks. Executive John Elkmann sent a note to shareholders on Thursday evening stating that “when it becomes clear that the discussions have been taken as far as they can reasonably go, it is necessary to be equally decisive in drawing matters to a close.”

Executives from both companies criticized the Macron government for preventing the merger. On Wednesday, at Renault’s annual meeting in Paris, CEO Jean-Dominique Senard stated that the “project remains, in my head, absolutely remarkable and exceptional.” It was “the first time there was a chance to create a European champion at a time when people keep complaining that it doesn’t exist.”

Senard stated that the proposal for Renault to initiate discussion with FCA on a potential merger had been made by the Macron government eight months earlier.

On Wednesday, Le Maire insisted in an interview with France Info radio that the deal was not off the table and that the government remained open to a merger. “It remains an interesting opportunity. But I have always been very clear: that it should be in the context of a strategy to reinforce the alliance” between Renault and Nissan.

A range of geopolitical and corporate calculations appear to have been involved in the Macron government’s decision. The merger of Renault and FCA would have led to the halving of the government’s 15 percent stake and the loss of its double-voting rights. Under conditions of growing trade war between the United States and China and threats by the Trump administration to impose tariffs on European automakers, it is possible that the Macron government did not wish to see its stake in the company lessened.

The calculations of Renault and the French government in a merger with FCA were always closely bound up with strengthening the hand of the company in the alliance with Nissan. Under the complex “alliance” partnership between Nissan, Mitsubishi and Renault, the French automaker owns over 43 percent of Nissan’s shares. However, its ability to directly control Nissan’s decision-making is restricted by a 2015 agreement that limits its voting on the Nissan board.

Nissan, the significantly larger of the two companies by market capitalization, owns only 15 percent of shares in Renault. Any merger with FCA would evidently further reduce Nissan’s control over Renault. A statement released last week by Nissan noted that a merger with FCA “would significantly alter the structure of our alliance with Renault. This would necessitate a complete review of the relations between Nissan and Renault.” Nissan has reportedly requested that Renault and FCA agree to reduce their share in Nissan in exchange for the Japanese automaker’s support for a merger.

An article published last week by Le Monde stated that Renault’s decision to seek a merger with FCA was aimed at “shift[ing] the balance of power with Nissan to allow the French to regain control of the destiny of the alliance signed in 1999.”

The conflict between the two companies has become increasingly sharp over the past year and reached a high point with the decision by Japanese authorities to arrest Charles Ghosn, the chairman and CEO of Renault, on corruption charges last November. Ghosn was replaced by Senard in January.

This week, Renault revealed that it will not provide the necessary votes for Nissan to carry out a planned restructuring of its leadership positions, stating that this would weaken Renault’s position.

It is possible that the merger talks will be resumed and an agreement reached. This would result in massive layoffs and plant closures for workers at both companies in order to eliminate excess capacity and boost profits and further increase the stock portfolios and dividend payouts for shareholders. The proposed merger was estimated to save $5.6 billion of “estimated annual run synergies,” according to a press release published by FCA.

At the same time, whatever the precise form that this takes, the driving force behind the proposed merger between the automotive giants remains the global restructuring that is now underway in the automotive industry and that confronts autoworkers internationally with a deepening assault on their jobs, wages and conditions.

A decade after the 2009 bankruptcy deal of General Motors and Chrysler orchestrated by the Obama administration—which fueled record profits, based on stepped-up concessions and the slashing of wages for new-hire US autoworkers—a new stage in this onslaught is underway. Since December last year, layoffs totaling 15,000 have been announced by General Motors in North America, 5,000 by Jaguar worldwide, and more than 7,000 at Volkswagen in Germany. As far as the financial investment funds that control the automotive giants are concerned, this is only an initial downpayment.

The increasingly bitter conflict among the global auto giants is being driven by a slowdown in sales, particularly in China, exacerbated by the Trump administration’s trade war measures. This is added to the turn toward electrical vehicles, which requires major investment in research and development of new technologies, an area that FCA was seeking to obtain via its merger with the technologically more advanced Renault and Nissan alliance.

The closest allies of the corporations and governments in imposing these layoffs are the trade unions. In France, the CGT and CFDT union federations responded to the proposed merger with FCA with a combination of corporatism and nationalism aimed at preventing any unified resistance by Italian, American and French autoworkers to the offensive being prepared.

The CFDT published a statement on May 27 that could have equally well been signed by the CEO of Renault. It stated that the union “estimates that this [merger] is an opportunity for the company and the Alliance,” hailing the “synergies of our two groups”—the same phrased used by FCA executives to refer to the billions of dollars to be slashed from operational expenses.

The CGT criticized the proposed merger from the nationalist and pro-company standpoint that this “merger will exclusively benefit FCA. In addition to realizing a strong financial operation, it will benefit from the technologies that Renault has developed, in electric technology …” Its statement sought to promote illusions that the Macron government, currently deploying police to shoot down “yellow vest” protesters opposing austerity and inequality with rubber bullets and tear gas, would act as an ally of French workers.

The greatest fear of these corrupt bureaucracies is that autoworkers will break out of their control and respond to the global assault underway with their own internationally organized struggle. This requires the formation of new organizations of struggle, independent rank-and-file committees of workers, to establish direct communications with autoworkers internationally.

Austrian billionaire takes over leading German chain store

Marianne Arens

The Austrian billionaire and investor René Benko is taking complete control over the major German department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof. The decision will result in more branch closures and cuts to jobs and wages.

The current concern was formed just eight months ago by the merger of Karstadt with Galeria Kaufhof. Benko’s Signa Group will now take over 49.99 percent of the company and the remaining shares in its real estate portfolio, which previously belonged to the Canadian Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), for a total of €1 billion. The Canadian corporation will retain only its department stores in the Netherlands, while the Inno concern in Belgium will also be taken over by Signa. In future, the German head office will be concentrated in the former Karstadt headquarters in Essen. The headquarters of Kaufhof in Cologne is to be closed.

The complete takeover of the department store giant with 240 premises across Europe and around 30,000 employees awaits approval from the same antitrust authorities which easily approved the previous merger last November.

In his plans to rationalise and downsize the workforce, Benko can rely on the loyal cooperation of representatives of the Verdi services trade union. Verdi responded to the latest takeover in typical fashion. Verdi’s retail representative Orhan Akman said: “We expect the right decisions for a convincing future concept worthy of the name.”

Behind this cautiously worded comment is the fact that Verdi has been involved in talks since the beginning of the year. At that time, a top-level discussion took place in Berlin, where René Benko and his German managers presented their “future concept” to the leaders of the central works councils of Kaufhof and Karstadt. The national chairman of Verdi Frank Bsirske and Verdi federal executive member Stefanie Nutzenberger also took part.

Afterwards, Verdi promoted the deal that had been reached, i.e. Signa-Holding would “provide a three-digit-million euro cash injection in spring if workers were prepared to make a 70 million euro contribution to the company’s recovery.”

On May 17, just three weeks before the full takeover, Verdi and the company works councils signed an agreement and redundancy plan to slash 2,000 full-time jobs—1,000 management and administrative staff (mainly in the old Kaufhof headquarters in Cologne) and another 1,000 full-time jobs in shops. The deal struck with Verdi was an important step for Benko.

In the Kölner Stadtanzeiger the head of the works councils for Kaufhof, Peter Zysik (Verdi), reported with satisfaction that “only 1,000 of the initially announced 1,800 jobs” would be lost. In fact, the total number of jobs threatened is much higher, because department stores employ many part-time workers. In the merger last fall, several reports cited a figure of 5,000 jobs to be eliminated, i.e., one fourth of the current workforce of just under 20,000 in Germany.

In addition, the employees remaining will once again be expected to accept wage cuts. The contracts for the retail industry no longer apply to the workforce. Galeria Kaufhof resigned from the official contract bargaining agreement in March 2019, which Karstadt had quit some years previously.

Ten years ago, the union agreed to a special “restructuring contract” at Karstadt, which forced employees to accept wage cuts and waive their holiday and Christmas bonuses. Verdi also started negotiations at Kaufhof in November 2017 on a “restructuring agreement.” As a result, jobs and wages have been cut and branches closed. Wages and working conditions are well below contractual norms.

In the past few weeks, and as part of the current contract negotiations, Verdi has called short-term strikes and some protests. Its officials have verbally denounced the cuts at Kaufhof-Karstadt and demanded normal contractual wages, but these actions are aimed merely at letting off steam and suppressing any real resistance.

Verdi is prepared to support the company in all attacks on employees. While Verdi activists organise toothless protests, leading union representatives sit on all the company’s executive boards and often work out the plans for cuts themselves, which they then sell to the workforce as the “best possible solution.”

Verdi has been working with the former Karstadt boss and today’s CEO Stephan Fanderl for years. According to the Karstadt works councillor Jürgen Ettl: “Mr. Fanderl tackles things consistently.”

Time and time again Verdi have claimed that job and wage cuts were necessary to avoid the closure of individual branches. The latest developments confirm the utter hypocrisy of such claims.

In June, the shops that were transferred to the Saks-Off-5th chain just two years ago are to be shut down. This applies to Saks-Off branches in Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Bonn, Heidelberg, Cologne, Hanover, as well as in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. At the end of January 2019, Benko closed down the Kaufhof branch in Hof. Other closures will follow.

The closure in Hof graphically reveals the background to the many years of transactions. The property of the branch in Hof was sold off to a Hamburg real estate owner. The latter refused to extend its lease with Kaufhof because he preferred to hand over the property to a hotel chain planning to build a four-star hotel on the site.

This sheds light on the real interests at work in this game of department store monopoly: Investors are particularly interested in the real estate of the shops, which are mostly situated in prime locations in inner cities. They are less interested in the department store business, which is under strong pressure from online retailers such as Amazon and Zalando. Traditional department stores are struggling with falling sales and profits while property prices are rising. Ownership of the land and building is increasingly being separated from the department store business. The real estate is being sold separately, and then the department stores are forced to lease back their sites for ever higher prices.

Those able to survive will be the most exclusive and profitable department stores whose employees raise the necessary funds for leasing through increased workplace exploitation. According to Verdi, the various “reorganisation tariffs” agreed during the past few years have increased the company’s coffers to the tune of well over €1 billion.

Workers’ wages, jobs and conditions can only be defended on the basis of a socialist program: by expropriating the big banks, corporations and billionaire investors, and organising the economy to satisfy social needs, rather than the interests of shareholders and speculators.

This is impossible, however, as long as workers remain subordinated to unions such as Verdi and their works councils. This is shown by the way in which Verdi board members have welcomed and applauded the billionaire René Benko, as well as his predecessors, Nicolaus Berggruen and Thomas Middelhoff, as “white knights” and saviours.

Like Berggruen, Benko was able to take over the then loss-making Karstadt Group for a symbolic euro. Despite the years of salary waivers by employees agreed by Verdi in 2010, Karstadt has continued to make losses, while Berggruen received €7.5 million annually—from the Karstadt naming rights alone. Berggruen had originally acquired the rights for a one-time payment of €5 million. Now the same theatre is being played out under Benko.

French hospital workers strike against Macron’s health cuts

Anthony Torres

While the Senate adopted the 2022 health bill on Tuesday, hospital strikes against the deterioration of the health system that began in March in Paris are now spreading throughout France.

Health Minister Agnès Buzyn and President Emmanuel Macron have turned down all the demands of hospital staff despite rising anger among workers. Already, Macron has refused to make any concessions to demands of “yellow vest” protesters that he put an end to his policy of austerity and war. He reacted by launching riot police against the “yellow vests,” leading to mass arrests of thousands of protesters, dozens of whom have been mutilated by the cops.

On Monday on the set of the BFM-TV news channel, faced with demands for an increase in staff and salaries, Buzyn dismissed out of hand “the idea of a new salary increase for carers.” She bluntly said, “But when the concern is purely about wages whereas it is the entire system that doesn’t work ... honestly, the problems won’t be solved just because I pay you more.”

Despite €400 million investments to create medical assistant positions and finance rural or territorial health care, the 2022 health project plans to cut €3.8 billion from health budgets. There is rising anger and concern among hospital staff, who fear a drastic deterioration in working conditions.

Hospital staff began striking in Paris in March, and these strikes have now spread to 95 emergency wards across France. Demonstrations are planned in Paris and in the provinces.

Faced with rising anger in the hospitals, the trade unions have called strikes to protest against the lack of resources at the University Hospital of Bordeaux, as well as of Libourne, Agen-Nérac and Pau. All hospital staff in the neurological and cardiological services at Albi are also on strike to demand “a better quality of care and acceptable working conditions.”

Staff at Lariboisière Hospital, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, mounted a sickout in the night from Monday to Tuesday.

Terrified by this growing movement, the Macron government deployed police-state measures against hospital workers, with requisitions issued by the gendarmerie to deprive staff of their constitutionally protected right to strike and require a return to work. In the emergency room of Lons-le-Saunier, health workers were requisitioned by order of the police prefect. The authoritarian methods first used against “yellow vests” are being deployed against all workers in struggle.

WSWS reporters spoke to Fanny and Chloé, nurses at Saint Louis Hospital in Paris, who denounced the lack of beds and staff when there are more and more people who need them. “Before, people arrived at the hospital, and we had beds for them in separate rooms,” one said.

Chloé added: “Over the past year, a year and a half, that has changed. There are no more beds, they’re full. People sleep on stretchers in the emergency corridor all night long.”

Fanny pointed out that three or four years ago there was one caregiver for every 10 people, but now it’s one for every 14. “The problem is money. There is money, but it’s the politicians who decide what to do and we the people, we have no power to decide. We don’t feel anyone listens to us at all. Our work is not recognized in fact, but it is essential for the population. Our salary has not changed since 2010.”

Fanny told the WSWS that they can earn almost €1,700 a month, but have to work on several public holidays and weekends. She compared the deterioration in the working conditions and living standards for hospital staff to that of other civil servants: “My sister is a teacher. They always cut classes and there are more children in the classes. It’s like us, because they’re closing down the services.”

The WSWS also spoke to Maryline, who works as a doctor in Nancy. She said that ruling circles “do not want to invest in hospitals. ... They are happy that public hospitals are deteriorating and that there are more private clinics, and that only those who can afford them can go to private clinics.”

She added, “There is now a crisis in the hospital system. They offer doctors 1,500 euros for 24 hours of work if they come to regions where there is a shortage of doctors. If someone doesn’t come to work, there’s a problem. But many employees have health problems, and in some services there are working conditions that are difficult, and people do not stay. Nurses are paid only 1,300 euros per month, but they have many responsibilities. We need more nurses and more caregivers. We can’t treat people like this anymore. When people wait, their health deteriorates.”

Fanny explained that there is plenty of money, but the Macron government and its predecessors are setting out to destroy social rights established by previous generations of workers struggles, looting the education and health system to extract more money from them. For the first time in 18 years, the Social Security system is running a surplus. This is due to the gutting of retirement pensions and family benefits in 2019 and 2020.

The policy adopted by the Macron government in its “social dialogue” with the union bureaucracies is deeply regressive. These austerity cuts in healthcare and the surpluses generated are used to finance Macron’s tax cuts for the rich and to finance the massive military spending increases, so that France and the EU can wage neocolonial wars in Africa and the Middle East.

The creation of a public health service that meets the needs of the masses requires a broader struggle of hospital staff, mobilizing together with other sections of workers in France and internationally. To this end, workers must create their own organizations of struggle, independent of the trade unions, to defend social rights and lead a political fight against war and the police-state preparations.