Trump incites violent police rampage against protesters

Niles Niemuth

Across the United States, hundreds of thousands of working people and youth who have turned out in nearly 100 cities to protest the murder of George Floyd have themselves become the target of violent assaults by massively armed squads of police, backed by national guardsmen.

The nation-wide violence unleashed against protesters is a continuation and escalation of the murderous assault that cost the life of George Floyd. The police are acting with impunity, fully aware that their violent attacks on protesters are supported by the Trump administration.

It is hardly a coincidence that Floyd’s murder occurred in Minneapolis, where President Donald Trump delivered a fascistic tirade last October at a rally attended by hundreds of cops. He denounced “far left” and “socialist” politicians, including the city’s mayor.

Montage of police violence from across the US, weekend of May 30, 2020

Since protests began last week, Trump has repeatedly called for attacks on protesters. On Sunday, he retweeted a post that called for the use of “overwhelming force against the bad guys,” which followed his previous statement that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Trump has demanded that state governments deploy the National Guard and has threatened to unleash the military to “take over.”

With no factual basis, the Trump administration is now declaring that “far left” and anarchist groups are responsible for violence. Both Trump and Attorney General William Barr are threatening to declare Antifa—a politically-insignificant anarchist group that is, in all likelihood, heavily infiltrated and manipulated by police agents—a “domestic terrorist organization.” This constitutionally illegal threat is aimed at criminalizing all working class, left-wing and socialist opposition to the Trump administration.

The rampage by the police over the last several days is among the most violent attacks on democratic rights in the history of the United States. As of Sunday, National Guard soldiers and airmen have been activated to aid in the suppression of protests in 26 states. States of emergency have been declared and curfews implemented in cities and counties across the country, most of which are controlled by Democrats, resulting in the suspension of the right to free speech and assembly.

In the course of the weekend, police beat protesters with truncheons and fired teargas to disperse crowds. Rubber bullets, pepper balls, beanbags, tasers and other “non-lethal” munitions were fired at demonstrators. They also sprayed mace and pepper spray directly into the faces of protesters and journalists. The Associated Press reported that more than 4,100 people have been arrested since Thursday.

One video shot by residents in Minneapolis Saturday night shows police marching behind a National Guard Humvee screaming for people to go inside and yelling “Light ‘em up,” as they fire rubber bullets on a group of young people gathered outside their home. Members of the New York Police Department rammed their vehicles into a crowd of protesters in Brooklyn. An elderly white man walking with a cane was shoved to the ground by riot police in Salt Lake City as they rolled down the street in armored vehicles dispersing protesters.

In Sacramento, California a young black man who was bleeding profusely after being shot in the eye was carried to safety by a fellow white protester. A young couple was tased and pulled from their car by dozens of riot police in Atlanta after they slashed their tires and broke out the windows.

A police officer prepares to fire rubber bullets during a protest Saturday in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

A young woman in Dallas, Texas who was walking home from the store with groceries was shot in the head with a rubber bullet; photos show blood streaming down her face. A young child in Seattle was pepper-sprayed in the face, video posted on social media shows her screaming in pain. Those around her douse her face with milk to ease the pain. Police in Las Vegas charged protesters, attacking them apparently at random, arresting dozens, including two photojournalists.

Journalists across the country were clearly targeted for assault and arrest by the police, in direct violation of the First Amendment’s protection of a free press. MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet while reporting live in Minneapolis. In Louisville, a local TV reporter and her cameraman were targeted and shot with pepper balls during protests Friday. A freelance photojournalist in Minneapolis was permanently blinded in her left eye after being shot by the police with a rubber bullet.

Lucas Jackson, a Reuters photographer who had been shot by a police rubber bullet Saturday and has covered previous protests in Ferguson and Baltimore, told the news organization that it was clear that journalists are being targeted. “Usually if you get hit by this stuff it’s because you are between the police and the protesters—you’re taking the risk by being in the middle. During this they are actually aiming at us,” Jackson said.

It is highly probable that operatives within the White House have been directly involved in instigating attacks on the media, which Trump has repeatedly denounced as the “enemy of the people.”

Trump’s deliberate incitement of police violence has been a common theme throughout his administration. In the absence of a mass fascist movement, Trump views the police as a potential power base for a quasi-dictatorial regime. His actions confirm the warning made by the Political Committee of the Socialist Equality Party following his October 2019 speech in Minneapolis:

Trump’s appearances before police, security personnel and military audiences, as well as his carefully staged mass rallies designed to attract politically disoriented and backward elements, are all part of a calculated effort to create a political constituency upon which he can base an authoritarian regime, operating outside all of the traditional legal boundaries of the US Constitution.

The Democratic Party and the corporate media are responding to Trump’s lies and provocations with their typical combination of spinelessness and complicity. They have accepted, without a shred of evidence, Trump’s narrative that the protests are the work of “outside agitators,” a claim made repeatedly at a press conference held by the Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Sunday morning.

Susan Rice, former National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama, denounced the protests as “right out of the Russian playbook,” claiming absurdly that foreign governments are responsible for stoking domestic dissent.

No Democratic official has denounced Trump’s fascistic incitements. Bernie Sanders, the former presidential candidate who is now enthusiastically supporting Joe Biden, sent an email to supporters Sunday evening that said nothing about the police rampage against protesters and did not even mention Trump.

There could be no greater and more dangerous political mistake than to entrust the fight against Trump, political violence, and for the defense of democratic rights to the Democratic Party.

What terrifies the Democrats above all is the development of a movement of the working class against the Trump administration and the financial oligarchy that both parties represent.

The multi-racial and multi-ethnic demonstrations that are sweeping the country are a protest not only against police violence, but intolerable economic and social conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic is discrediting capitalism. One hundred thousand people have already died as a result of the criminal negligence of the Trump regime and the ruling class. The homicidal back-to-work campaign, supported by Republicans and Democrats, and the massive social crisis facing tens of millions of people is politically radicalizing millions of working people within the United States and internationally.

The Trump administration recognizes and fears this radicalization, and is employing the old red-baiting bogeyman of left-wing violence as a pretext for police-state measures.

The entire working class must now come to the defense of all those protesting the murder of George Floyd and all other victims of police violence.

There is a growing mood of social militancy in the working class. Prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, there was a steady growth of strike activity. In recent weeks, workers have organized walkouts against unsafe conditions.

The Socialist Equality Party urges protesters, especially among the youth, to go directly to auto plants, factories, warehouses, distribution centers, building sites, i.e., anywhere there are large concentrations of workers and appeal directly for their support. Such appeals will not be ignored.

As the Socialist Equality Party explained in its October 2019 statement:

The fight against the Trump administration must be connected to the fight against social inequality, the destruction of social programs and infrastructure, the attack on jobs and wages, the terrible conditions facing an entire generation of young people, the vicious persecution of immigrant workers, the degradation of the environment, and the consequences of unending and expanding war, which threatens all of humanity. The opposition of workers and youth in the United States must be connected to the eruption of social struggles among workers throughout the world, who share the same interests and confront the same problems.

The working class—upon which the functioning of society depends—has the power to stop the assault on democratic rights, create a massive political movement to drive Trump from power, break the back of the corporate-financial oligarchy, and begin the restructuring of economic life on a socialist basis.

The China Factor in Pakistan’s Media Landscape

Nowmay Opalinski


Chinese inroads into Pakistan’s mainstream media, and state-level bilateral cooperation on telecommunications infrastructure and surveillance is growing. These developments are taking place against a backdrop of Pakistani state’s growing attempts to censor online content domestically. How does this set of circumstances favour China? Where does China’s big picture media strategy fit into this?

Pakistani Censorship with Chinese Characteristics?Since 2012, the government of Pakistan has been attempting to implement a national firewall to tighten control over content shared online. The introduction of the Pakistan Electronic Crime Act in 2016 was supposed to regulate harmful content like terrorist propaganda. However, it has also been used to censor opposition leaders and critics of the government.

In January 2020, Pakistan adopted a new set of regulations framed under the Citizen Protection (Against-Online Harm) Rules, which entails plans for the Ministry of Information Technology and Communication to appoint a national coordinator in charge of online content regulation. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists denounced this move, and have argued its unconstitutionality. Reporters Without Borders and legal experts highlighted that the vague definitions of harmful contents leaves room for arbitrary removal of content. Application of Article 6(s) also enables potential deactivation of user data encryption as it enforces social media companies to deliver extensive information, including “subscriber information, traffic data, content data and any other information or data.”

This new regulation includes an obligation for all social media companies to open offices in Pakistan, where strict supervision of their ability to remove or block content will be enforced. It empowers the national coordinator to ask online platforms to surrender all information, private or public. These measures could lead to international social media platforms to re-evaluate their operations in Pakistan, as the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) highlighted in their statement to Prime Minister Imran Khan.

However, these new measures could also play in favour of Chinese social media platforms as an alternative in the country. Chinese content censorship on its online platforms is uniformly applicable, irrespective of whether an application is being used domestically or abroad. They could thus easily adapt to Pakistan’s new regulations, and Beijing could even work with Islamabad to define the extent of internet censorship in Pakistan.

While such a cooperation has not yet taken place, China’s growing footprint in Pakistan’s telecommunication infrastructure could enable its occurrence. For example, the new cross-border fiber-optic cable which goes from Xinjiang to Rawalpindi via Khunjerab will involve the routing of internet traffic through China’s regulated network. This could facilitate the exportation of the Chinese firewall system to Pakistan through a direct linkage. China has already exported social media surveillance tools to several countries. It is also showcasing its model of internet control in UN-mandated working groups on international cyber-norms by challenging “Internet freedoms and its multi-stakeholder governance.”

Alignment with China’s Big Picture Media StrategyIn December 2019, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Pakistan’s then special assistant to the prime minister on information, urged Pakistan’s local media to play an active role in promoting the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and to counter “negative propaganda.” Her statement came a month after US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Alice Wells, criticised China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and CPEC.

Since then, China and Pakistan have continued to reiterate the need for closer media cooperation. This is already taking shape, with the China’s state-run Xinhua news agency signing an MoU with local Pakistani media, which includes provision of free content in both English and Urdu to their Pakistani counterparts. While provision of content might be perceived as a good opportunity for the country’s shrinking media industry, it could also be a step towards standardisation of mainstream media information to promote BRI projects in Pakistan.

There is a broader strategy at play here. China is now exporting news production through institutions such as the Belt and Road News Network. It has developed ‘flooding’ strategies, which involve publishing large volumes of online content through various state-sponsored channels. In a recent interview, state-run Pakistan Television Corporation officials reported that a “Rapid Response Initiative System” will be implemented to coordinate the efforts of China Economic Net (a Beijing-based online news organisation) and Pakistan China Institute (an Islamabad based pro-Beijing think-tank) to systematically counter negative views against CPEC. Subsidised trips for Pakistani journalists with training sessions in China are also being organised on a frequent basis. Beijing wishes to promote a new model of journalism across the world, and is holding international conferences such as the Belt and Road Journalists Forum and the China-Pakistan Media Forum to get the word out. Beyond content-related issues, China’s investment in the media sector mainly favours state-owned outlets over independent and/or private entities. In the midst of the Pakistani media’s financial crisis, China’s growing support will eventually strengthen state-run media over struggling independent outlets, thereby serving both governments’ interests.

Looking AheadAs China and Pakistan bolster their media cooperation, Beijing’s model of controlled internet might become a workable option for Islamabad. Already, over the past two years, criticism of CPEC has considerably diminished in the Pakistani media landscape. A combination of recent censorship measures with Chinese support in the field of surveillance technologies, could ultimately result in a sharp decrease in Pakistani citizens’ internet freedoms.

An India-Japan- Korea Emergency Communications Network for Current and Future Pandemics

Siddharth Anil Nair

An Emergency Communications Network (ECN) is a dedicated system to support unhindered communication and coordination between actors in an emergency. ECNs come into play during any form of environmental, military, or health emergency. These networks operate between departments within a country; or, in some cases, multilaterally between countries.

This article will look at the benefits of establishing an ECN between India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (RoK) for not only the current pandemic but also for forthcoming disasters. India shares a variety of synergies with Japan and Korea in the fields of humanitarian aid/disaster relief (HA/DR), healthcare/pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Tokyo and Seoul have showcased excellent domestic mitigation strategies in response to the pandemic. As such, a trilateral ECN will act as an early warning system and provide best practices if and when a situation calls for coordinated regional pandemic mitigation efforts.

Why RoK?

RoK has become a shining example of what a state should, and could do in the event of a global health crisis. Its immediate border closures, up-to-date communications, and coordinated mitigation strategies with neighbouring countries highlight some of the benefits that could be extended to a state-level ECN with India and Japan.

Seoul’s tracing, monitoring, and testing efforts have also showcased its prowess in biotechnology, medical manufacturing, and overall governance. This testing and manufacturing expertise is of particular interest to New Delhi given its own gaps in capacity. The inability to scale-up production of indigenous kits has required India to place an order of 500,000 RT-PCR kits from Seoul, to be delivered within May-June. Another Korean firm with existing factories in India has been given the go-ahead to manufacture antibody testing kits as well. These are examples of the existing bilateral linkages within the India-South Korea Special Strategic Partnership.

Why Japan?

While Japan has faced substantial criticism for its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, with mask shortages, inefficient lockdowns, and poor financial support to households, its first-wave mitigation effort has been reported as a net positive; with effective tracing, testing, and treatment. Japan’s biotech industry is also prepared to produce accurate testing kits and vaccines. Takara Bio already claims to be on track to produce a vaccine this year.

Finally, and most importantly, are Japan’s relationships with RoK and India. Tokyo is already working with Seoul in bilateral and multilateral groupings to address the pandemic. New Delhi and Tokyo have a history of joint experience in HA/DR, infrastructure development, economic aid, and military missions, and the “Special Strategic and Global Partnership’s” value addition in a “post-COVID world” was referenced by Prime Minister Modi as recently as April 2020, after his phone call with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. There is therefore a theoretical template already in existence for the implementation of a trilateral ECN.

India, Japan, RoK: Existing Synergies

India’s Act East Policy (AEP), based on the three pillars of political-security, economic and socio-cultural cooperation, highlights the need to develop coherent long-term strategies to protect these interests, and subsequent linkages. As such, the concept of an ECN falls right within the normative ambit of economic and human security. The RoK’s New Southern Policy and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Policy share many principles of regional security with the AEP. An ECN will be a complimentary structure to existing HA/DR efforts, i.e. regional communication, infrastructure development, and technical cooperation, dedicated to protection from future pandemics.

Recent strategic agreements and joint-declarations between the three countries have made note of the cooperative space in robotic, bio-tech, healthcare, and pharmaceutical research, which could be optimally operationalised through a joint India-RoK-Japan ECN. Such an ECN can provide those involved with a reliable early warning system, updated healthcare and medical expertise, joint laboratories for testing kits, and vaccine development. It will also act as an impetus for further infrastructure development, and help establish regional pandemic supply-chain networks (PSCN) for medical equipment and personal protective equipment (PPE) in the event of future global health disasters.

Challenges to Implementation

The benefits notwithstanding, there are two immediate impediments to implementing a trilateral ECN between India, RoK, and Japan. One is domestic structural inadequacies across the three countries in setting up a whole new network to monitor and coordinate during a pandemic. This can be offset by developing or strengthening subsystems in existing HA/DR networks. Two, China’s presence in existing platforms such as the ASEAN Plus Three Summit and the Chinese state’s ability to deliver expertise and equipment (as it has in recent months) may have an impact on potential partnerships with India, who is struggling to develop these capacities for its own domestic requirements. However, India’s exports of drugs such as Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), and its expansion of PPE manufacturing can ensure greater contribution to the partnership in the future.

Cooperation is the need of the hour—for states to come together to develop joint responses to such health crises. Effective mitigation is a direct result of effective regional mechanisms, which could be found in an India-Japan-RoK ECN.

Pandemic intensifies social crisis in New Zealand

Tom Peters

The New Zealand government’s Commission for Financial Capability (CFFC) reported on Thursday that a survey of 3,000 people, conducted in April, found 34 percent of households were in “financial difficulty.” A further 40 percent were “at risk of tipping into hardship.”

The survey was part of a study involving eight countries. New Zealand ranked worse than the UK and Norway, where 28 percent and 8 percent of respondents respectively were in “financial difficulty.” Other countries have not yet reported their results.

The findings reflect the dramatic and widespread fall in living standards due to the global economic crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirty-eight percent of respondents, an estimated 679,500 households, suffered a decline in income, with 232,500 losing more than a third.

CFFC head Jane Wrightson warned that “income loss will get worse before it gets better.” In fact, there is no end in sight for what is the deepest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s.

New Zealand is highly exposed to the crisis: its tourism and international education industries are imploding. Households have low savings and high debt levels, many workers are in insecure jobs and social welfare benefits are extremely low.

The country also has some of the world’s most unaffordable housing. The CFFC estimated that 179,000 households, one in 10, had missed a mortgage or rent payment since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.

The survey found that another 40 percent of households “were not in financial difficulty yet but were at risk of financial difficulty” if they lost any more income. Only 26 percent were “financially secure,” with “enough money in savings to meet financial shocks in the future.”

On Thursday, Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft told Stuff he estimated 200,000 more children could be pushed into poverty, bringing child poverty to nearly 40 percent. Already, before the present crisis, 235,400 or one in five children lived below the poverty line, after housing costs were deducted.

Job cuts are accelerating, abetted by the Labour Party-led government and enforced by the trade union bureaucracy. All the claims made over the past three years that Jacinda Ardern’s coalition government with the Greens and NZ First would alleviate poverty and restore “capitalism’s human face” are being thoroughly discredited.

According to Stuff, 53,000 more people have signed up for the JobSeeker unemployment benefit since the week of March 20. This brings the total to 198,000, indicating more than 7 percent unemployment—the highest level in more than a decade. The rate is expected to go well above 10 percent.

In the past week, Air New Zealand announced it is making 4,000 people redundant, up from previous estimates of 3,750. The airline is majority-owned by the government and has access to a $900 million government loan.

Air New Zealand has received tens of millions of dollars in “wage subsidies” from the government. These handouts, falsely promoted as a means of saving jobs, have not stopped businesses slashing wages and sacking workers.

In the tourism sector, Millennium & Copthorne Hotels announced 910 job cuts. Tourism Holdings Ltd, which runs the Waitomo caves and Kiwi Experience businesses, is axing 140 staff. AJ Hackett Bungy will slash about 150, nearly three quarters of its staff, in Queenstown, Taupo and Auckland. Invercargill Licensing Trust, which operates hotels and hospitality businesses, has made 87 people redundant.

Furniture and electronics retail chain Smiths City has sacked 115 people, nearly a quarter of its staff. Retail group H&J Smith intends to shut stores in Dunedin, Mosgiel, Te Anau and Balclutha, with 175 redundancies.

Fuji Xerox, the printing and photocopying company, plans to cut about 100 jobs, 11 percent of its workforce. Its competitor Ricoh is reportedly slashing 80 jobs, despite receiving $2.2 million in wage subsidies.

MediaWorks is cutting 130 staff, mostly across its radio stations and sales team. This follows 200 layoffs last month by NZME, which owns the New Zealand Herald.

Tower Insurance announced 108 redundancies after posting a first-half-year profit of $14.9 million.

ANZ Bank’s New Zealand arm is also attacking workers, despite making a $789 million profit for the six months to March. The bank is cutting pay for about 200 contract workers by 20 percent until the end of September.

Auckland Council is formulating an “emergency” austerity budget for the country’s largest city in response to $550 million in expected lost revenue over the next financial year. Labour Party mayor Phil Goff told TVNZ on May 22 the council was “conducting a review that will result in fewer jobs in our organisation in the coming months.”

Already, about half the 1,100 temporary council workers and contractors have lost their jobs. The council is reportedly in talks with the Public Service Association about imposing a wage freeze.

The Ardern government, facing an election in September, announced an Income Relief Payment (IRP) on May 25 for people who have lost jobs since March 1. The payment of $490 a week is about double the normal JobSeeker benefit, but only lasts for 12 weeks.

The new payment is still not enough to pay for basic needs, particularly in major cities where rents are highest. And people who were already unemployed prior to March will receive no increase to their payments. Thousands of migrant workers remain barred from accessing welfare.

Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff, however, praised the IRP, saying the government was being “nimble and responsive… to meet the needs of our community.” Opposed to any fight in defence of jobs, the unions are echoing the government and employers’ position that mass redundancies are inevitable.

After the election, the IRP and the wage subsidy scheme are due to expire. That will trigger a further wave of layoffs and increased poverty.

There are growing demands from big business for whoever wins the election to slash spending on social programs. Government ministers have made clear that “generations” of workers must pay back the debt incurred from its pro-business subsidies, tax cuts and bailouts.

ANZ Bank economist Sharon Zollner told Stuff on May 26: “A bunch of our sacred cows might be getting reviewed.” They included pension eligibility. The opposition National Party has pledged to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67. The current government has ruled out such a move, but the Labour Party previously campaigned for restricting pensions.

Australia’s “national cabinet” declared permanent

Oscar Grenfell

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced yesterday that the so-called national cabinet, established in response to the coronavirus pandemic, will become permanent, regardless of the progress of the public health crisis.

All the members of the cabinet, composed of the federal, state and territory government leaders, agreed with this major shift in the country’s political order at their meeting yesterday.

Five of the eight leaders come from the Labor Party, which is in opposition to the Liberal-National Coalition at the federal level. They have been at the centre of a de facto national unity government since March, resting on the support of the corporatised trade unions and the federal Labor opposition.

This cabinet has no clear legal or constitutional status—there is no mention of such a body in the 1901 Constitution. Nevertheless, it has ruled by decree, via emergency powers.

The cabinet has been directly responsible for the criminally-negligent official response to the pandemic, the hundreds of billions of dollars provided by governments to big business and the woefully-inadequate assistance to the unemployed. It is now spearheading a campaign to force workers back into workplaces in the interests of corporate profit, despite the ongoing dangers to their health and lives.

Morrison said the national cabinet will meet fortnightly as the COVID-19 crisis continues, and once a month after that. It will replace the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), which featured irregular gatherings of federal and state leaders.

The move is part of a broader coming together of the entire political establishment, directed against the working class. The purpose of such “national unity” arrangements, not seen outside wartime, is to suppress widespread social and political opposition and to create the conditions for a further pro-business overhaul of the economy.

Through the national cabinet, the constituent governments have activated sweeping provisions in emergency and health legislation, including those allowing for expanded police and military operations. It will undoubtedly seek to maintain these measures, in line with a broader assault on basic democratic rights.

Unlike COAG, the cabinet’s discussions are covered by confidentiality pacts, shielding its actual deliberations from the population. Morrison touted this as providing for “collective responsibility” and “cabinet solidarity” and prevent “political posturing.” In other words, this secrecy is aimed at facilitating the seamless collaboration of the Labor and Liberal-National members of the cabinet, in the interests of big business.

Morrison said the national cabinet would “streamline” decision-making, allowing governments to impose major policies without “a whole bunch of paperwork” or “endless meetings.”

The establishment media welcomed the move. Commentator Michelle Grattan wrote: “Scott Morrison strengthens his policy power, enshrining national cabinet and giving it ‘laser-like’ focus on jobs.” An article in the Australian Financial Review declared: “COAG is dead. Long live the national cabinet.”

Morrison signaled that the arrangement will be critical to “tax reform,” i.e., lowering tax rates for the major corporations and reducing public spending. This is part of a further profit-driven restructuring.

Earlier this month, with the support of all his cabinet colleagues, Morrison outlined a plan to “streamline” tertiary education funding. The state governments will oversee a “simplification” of the TAFE technical college model, reducing the number of courses and gearing them even more directly to the employment needs of big business.

Morrison said the national cabinet’s central mission will be “job creation.” In reality, working with employers and the unions, it has already overseen the destruction of more than a million jobs in the past three months.

The endless invocation of “creating jobs” is aimed at legitimising a far-reaching assault on wages and working conditions.

Governments, the unions and employers’ groups are insisting that workers accept the permanent imposition of changes introduced during the pandemic, including the slashing of penalty rates and shift restrictions across entire industries. With the Australian Council of Trade Unions in the lead, they are preparing a tripartite reshaping of industrial relations, aimed at removing any obstacles to a continuous assault on wages and conditions.

To create the conditions for a resumption of corporate profit-making, the national cabinet is accelerating a dangerous “back to work” campaign, aimed at forcing employees back into all work sites, including schools, factories, offices and universities.

In recent days, face-to-face teaching has been resumed in public schools in New South Wales (NSW) Victoria and Queensland, despite widespread opposition from education workers and parents. Within days of the reopening, two schools in Sydney and one in Melbourne were forced to close last week, as a result of COVID-19 cases among students.

The national cabinet meeting agreed yesterday that it had completed “stage one” of a three-stage removal of lockdown measures. This has included the abolition of numbers of restrictions on gatherings and intrastate travel, as well as the resumption of classroom teaching.

Without even waiting to assess the results, states are going beyond “stage one” already. The NSW government, for instance, is allowing clubs to have 500 people on their premises from next Monday. Such measures render contact tracing, in the event of viral outbreaks, virtually impossible.

The federal government Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy admitted it was not yet possible to determine the health consequences of stage one. In other words, the authorities do not know how widely the coronavirus is circulating.

Morrison restated that there would be “spikes” and “outbreaks.” He again declared that the policy is not to “eradicate or eliminate” COVID-19 transmissions, because he insisted this would be too costly.

The dangers have been underscored by continuing infections, including 12 across the country over the past 24 hours. The possibility of unknown community transmission was highlighted last week by the tragic death of 30-year-old miner Nathan Turner in the regional Queensland town of Blackwater.

After he died, it was determined that he had the coronavirus. The miner had not come into contact with any confirmed cases or recently traveled outside the town. It was previously thought there were no cases in that region.

Investigations are continuing, but one possibility is that Turner contracted COVID-19 from fly-in fly-out miners or contractors. Throughout the pandemic, the multi-billion dollar mining industry has been exempted from key restrictions. Employees have continued to travel to remote and regional sites from major cities, despite the obvious danger of further outbreaks.

An article in the Melbourne Age this morning further pointed to the ruthless role of business in the health crisis. It revealed that workers at Cedar Meats, a Melbourne abattoir that has been the source of over 100 infections, warned management in mid-April that they thought COVID-19 was circulating in the facility. Their concerns were dismissed as “rumour and innuendo.” They were forced to remain on the job, resulting in the largest virus cluster in the state of Victoria.

After ignoring migrant workers’ plight, the Indian Supreme Court now acknowledges unfolding social tragedy

Wasantha Rupasinghe

After two months of ignoring the horrific plight facing migrant workers due to the calamitous, ill-prepared COVID-19 lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP government, the Supreme Court of India issued an order Thursday regulating the transportation of migrants to their home states.

The order came two days after the country’s highest court took suo motu cognizance of the “problems and miseries of migrant labourers who have been stranded in different parts of the country.” The order is motivated above all by the fear among India’s legal authorities that continued failure to take any action could cause the rage building up among millions of oppressed workers and toilers to erupt in opposition to the entire capitalist elite and its state.

Modi imposed a three-week nationwide lockdown in late March with barely four hours of warning. The sweeping move was not accompanied by any financial or social assistance for hundreds of millions of migrant workers and other impoverished day labourers who were robbed of their livelihoods overnight.

The government only announced so-called relief measures on the second day of the lockdown. The $22.5 billion package offered a pittance to India’s 1.37 billion inhabitants, with total assistance amounting to a mere 1,200 rupees, or $16 per person. Many workers were either not eligible for or could not access the “relief” because the programs through which it was distributed were tied to their home state or place of birth.

Within a matter of days, horrific images began to appear showing migrant workers left to fend for themselves desperately trying to return to their home villages where they hoped to find food and shelter with their kith and kin. With train and bus services suspended, millions of migrant workers began treks of hundreds of miles to return to their home villages on foot. When the authorities intervened, they did so not to assist the workers, but rather to confine them to prison-like camps on the pretext of stopping the spread of the coronavirus. In reality, the cramped, makeshift living quarters, inadequate food and terrible sanitary conditions created a favourable environment for the virus to spread.

The helpless migrants largely depended on charities and NGOs for food while they were confined.

The Modi government’s refusal to roll out mass testing and provide additional resources to India’s chronically underfunded health care system meant that the lockdown failed to “break the chain” of infections. Modi was therefore compelled to repeatedly announce the extension of the lockdown, now set to end on May 31. In so doing, he offered nothing more to the people struggling to survive on the government’s famine-like relief.

Amid the unbearably brutal conditions in the camps, migrant workers began protesting to demand their right to return home. As the lockdown was eased, various state governments chartered trains and buses to transport the workers. However, in a callous move that sums up the contempt of the Indian bourgeoisie towards the impoverished masses, they sought to make the starving workers pay for their travel. The authorities also made no effort to test the workers for the virus before returning them home, meaning that many likely carried it with them into rural areas across the country.

Many workers who lacked the funds to pay the fares demanded by the government once again took to walking home along highways and railways lines, producing a series of tragic accidents. In one especially horrendous episode, a train ran over 16 migrant workers as they walked home.

Against the background of such widespread human suffering, the Supreme Court felt compelled to state in its order, “As and when the state governments put in a request for trains, railways has to provide them. No fare for train or bus shall be charged from migrant workers. The fare will be shared by the states.” It also said the stranded migrant workers “shall be provided food by the concerned state at places” and given food and water during their railway journey. States should oversee the registration of migrant workers and then ensure they board a bus or train at an early date, the order continued. Finally, it ruled that if migrant workers are found walking on the roads, they should be taken to shelter and provided food and all facilities. The Supreme Court will hold a further hearing on the issue on June 5.

LiveLaw.in, an Indian legal website, wrote that the Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.R. Shah “was not saying that the Centre was not doing anything,” but that “some further steps need to be taken.” Appearing on behalf of the government, Solicitor General Thusar Mehta said that so far approximately 10 million migrants have received transport home—5 million by rail and 4.7 million via road transport. Underlining the fact that the government does not even know the scale of the problem, the Solicitor General admitted that only the states have “exact information” on the numbers still in the makeshift camps. Mehta also arrogantly tried to downplay the terrible conditions faced by migrant workers, calling them “isolated incidents.”

Less than two weeks prior to grudgingly admitting the tragedy that has befallen the migrant workers, the Supreme Court rejected a public interest litigation on May 15 seeking relief for migrants. Responding to the petitioner’s reference to the 16 workers killed by the train, Justice Nageswara Rao, a member of the bench that heard the case, cynically asked, “There are people walking and not stopping. How can we stop it?” Endorsing Rao’s line, the aforementioned Justice Kaul told the petitioner, “Your knowledge is totally based on newspaper clippings and then under Article 32, you want this court to decide. Let the states decide.” Article 32 of the Indian Constitution gives the right to individuals to seek justice from the Supreme Court if they feel their rights have been “unduly deprived.”

The BJP government and Indian ruling elite’s callous treatment of the migrant workers underscores the utter bankruptcy of Indian capitalism. After three decades of rapid capitalist expansion and India’s purported “rise,” all that is left for millions of Indian toilers is hunger, poverty and endless social misery at the hands of a corrupt and brutal ruling elite. That the Indian legal authorities have now intervened has less to do with their concern for the plight of the impoverished workers than it does with their fear that the suffering and death being experienced on a mass scale could trigger a social explosion that the state institutions will be incapable of controlling.

This can be seen in some of the rulings the Court has issued during the pandemic. On March 31, after nearly one week of the lockdown, the Supreme Court uncritically accepted the government’s submission that the mass movement of migrant workers was the result of “panic created by fake news that the lockdown would continue for more than three months.” In flagrant violation of the rights to free speech and freedom of the press guaranteed in India’s constitution, the Court joined the government in threatening media outlets with prosecution for spreading “fake news” if they fail to publicize what it termed “the official version” of “developments”.

The Supreme Court’s latest ruling on migrant workers must also be seen as an attempt to refurbish its badly tattered image as a “people’s institution.” For decades, India’s highest court has connived in attacks on democratic rights and in the ruling elite’s ever more pronounced turn to rabid communalism as a means to deflect social opposition and split the working class.

During the six years of the Modi government, it has lurched still further right giving a legal imprimatur to the BJP’s authoritarian and Hindu supremacist polices. Last November, for example, it issued a decision endorsing the violent, decades-long agitation that the BJP and its Hindu right allies have mounted to build a temple dedicated to the mythical Hindu god Lord Ram on the former site of the Babri Masjid mosque in Ajodhya, Utter Pradesh. The 16th century mosque was razed to the ground in 1992 by Hindu fanatics, acting at the instigation of the BJP’s top leaders, and in express violation of Supreme Court orders.

India’s highest court has also greenlighted the BJP government’s patently anti-democratic abrogation by executive fiat of the semi-autonomous constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s lone Muslim-majority state, and its imposition of a six month-long de facto state of siege in the disputed region.

Bangladesh COVID-19 deaths soar past 500

Rohantha De Silva

Yesterday, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Bangladesh rose to 582, with 42,844 confirmed cases, marking an accelerating spread of the pandemic. Over two days, the official death toll rose by 48 and the number of infections by about 4,500, or more than 10 percent.

Both curves are still rising and the real number of victims of the coronavirus must be much higher. Testing remains at very low levels. The health directorate conducted only 9,310 tests on Thursday, in a population of 162 million.

To make matters worse, five people died on Wednesday when a fire broke out in makeshift COVID-19 isolation center at the private United Hospital in the capital Dhaka. The patients, four men and one woman, were aged between 45 and 75.

The reason for the fire is not yet known. But it illustrates how the pandemic is straining the poor health infrastructure. A doctor at the hospital said: “We are already very stressed out at work and the fire only added to our headache.”

Despite the growing virus threat, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government has refused to extend the nationwide lockdown after May 30, even while insisting that citizens must strictly abide by health guidelines.

Like its counterparts in other countries, the ruling elite is safeguarding the interests of big business, saying offices will be open, and just the sick, and pregnant women, can stay home.

Likewise, the government plans a “limited reopening” of public transport—buses, trains and ferries—despite it being impossible to follow health guidelines and adhere to social distancing in the notoriously over-crowded services.

While shops will be allowed to open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., a ban on people’s movement from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. will be strictly enforced, with violations treated as punishable offences. Public gatherings will remain banned.

Bangladesh has only 127,000 hospital beds, including 91,000 in government-run hospitals and 737 intensive care unit beds. A further surge in coronavirus cases will be catastrophic. The Hasina government’s request for hospitals to allocate at least 50 separate beds for virus-infected patients will be totally inadequate.

A calamitous situation is developing in the Rohingya refugee camps, where about one million people live without proper medical facilities. Twenty-nine positive COVID-19 cases had been reported in the camps by Tuesday, after the first case was confirmed on May 15. At least 15,000 refugees are under quarantine.

Entry and exit from the Cox’s Bazar district, where the refugees are camped, were prohibited from April 8 but that did not prevent the spread of the virus. Despite victims being placed in isolation blocks, the refugees are extremely vulnerable to the pandemic. In the desperately-overcrowded camps, with around 40,000 people living in each square kilometre, social distancing is impossible.

Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh to escape atrocities carried out by the Burmese military and Buddhist supremacist thugs. But the Dhaka government considers them an unbearable burden and provides meagre resources, including for education and health care.

The government says it is trying to scale up testing in the camps, which stood at only 188 a day by Tuesday. But the lack of facilities and protection gear means that aid workers themselves fear being infected, Al Jazeera reported.

Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, said there are not enough ICU beds and ventilators, not just for the refugees but also for the local community. Cox’s Bazar district is home to 3.4 million people, including refugees.

The government cut off internet access in the camps last September, resulting in lower awareness of the virus. Many of the refugees know little about how COVID-19 spreads, or how to prevent and contain it. The government cut off the internet to harass the Rohingyas into moving to the cyclone-prone remote Bhasan Char silt island.

COVID-19 has seriously impacted on the Bangladesh economy, especially in the apparel sector. Desperately trying to maintain production and profits in this sector, Hasina has reopened garment facilities. Garments account for 84 percent of the country’s $US40 billion annual export earnings.

There is widespread anger among apparel workers over the unsafe working conditions, as well as job and pay cuts. In the latest protest, on May 22, hundreds of workers from 10 garment factories staged demonstrations demanding full April wages and other allowances. They gathered outside their factories in Gazipur, Ashulia and Dhaka, and blocked roads.

Since the pandemic erupted, Western countries have halted placing orders, causing revenue losses estimated at $3 billion. More than 400 garment factories have remained closed for the past two months and nearly 100 have shut permanently.

With tensions rising between the US and China, the companies hope to get some of the orders that previously went to Beijing, and that employers from Japan, the US, Europe and South Korea will relocate their factories from China. Reportedly, at least 34 Japanese companies have shown interest in relocating to Bangladesh.

The Awami League government is racing against Vietnam, India and Indonesia to attract these companies and is therefore particularly desperate to reopen the economy. Another major factor in the economy, remittances from Bangladesh workers overseas, have dropped sharply since January because of the pandemic.

The Gulf countries and others are sacking migrant workers because of the economic fallout. Hasina’s government plans to bring home 29,000 from the Middle East in several phases. But in Kuwait alone, thousands are detained in squalid and cramped facilities.

Workers in Germany report on corona virus infection risk in workplaces

Ulrich Rippert

New scientific findings suggest that aerosol infection is playing a greater role in the spread of the coronavirus than previously known. This was recently explained by Berlin virologist Christian Drosten on Deutschlandradio.

Drosten explained that aerosols are microparticles—i.e., exceptionally small suspended particles—that can remain in the air like a cloud for a long time in closed rooms and transmit the virus. This new knowledge about the infection mechanism is important, he said, because it requires a revision of the existing behavioural guidelines.

Staying in closed rooms, in particular, carries a high risk of infection. Constant, thorough ventilation is at least as important as wiping and disinfecting surfaces. In this context, Drosten warned against staying in crowded train compartments, trams and buses, but also in poorly ventilated classrooms, restaurants, offices and production spaces.

Instead of welcoming these findings and taking the warning seriously, a veritable smear campaign is taking place in the media against the Charité scientist, led—as so often when reactionary propaganda is involved—by tabloid Bild-Zeitung. In the interest of the economy, attempts are being made to intimidate and silence serious scientists in an effort to resume production despite the great danger of infection.

Against this background, the call by the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) to set up action committees to ensure safety in companies is gaining great importance. The SGP says:

“Without a careful plan to implement a safe return to work, based on science and rigorously enforced, there will be an enormous increase in the rate of infection, resulting in serious illness and death.

“The COVID-19 virus will spread rapidly through factories, warehouses, office buildings, shopping malls and all other places where large numbers of people congregate. There is an immense danger that workers, unknowingly infected on the job and not yet showing symptoms, will return to their homes and neighbourhoods and transmit the disease to their families, loved ones and friends.”

These risks are very real. Transport workers from several cities have reported to the WSWS about completely inadequate coronavirus protection measures in bus and train operations.

From Munich, a tram driver describes how, despite protests by employees, trains with open cabs are still being used where the driver is not separated from the passenger compartment. Retrofitted Plexiglas walls offer just as little protection as the old felt curtains. When changing drivers, no additional time is allowed to thoroughly disinfect the driver’s cab. Providing enough ventilation and fresh air supply is also difficult.

In Berlin, Andy Niklaus had already pointed out serious safety deficiencies at public transit provider BVG in March. Although the ridiculous demarcation of the driver’s area using red and white tape has since been replaced by Plexiglas in some buses, even that does not provide any safety. It does not change the fact that drivers spend hours in a largely enclosed space with passengers and the risk of aerosol infection is extremely high.

Many so-called safety measures are purely placebo in nature and only exist in an effort to keep the anger of colleagues and passengers at the irresponsible behaviour of the BVG management under control.

Drivers are still being given face masks that do not meet the required standards and are permeable to the coronavirus. The World Health Organisation has warned against the use of these masks because they give a false sense of security. Even the cleaning of the vehicles is still not carried out by professional cleaners equipped with special anti-virus disinfectants.

Meanwhile, the already poor hygienic conditions in the toilets at the turning points—if they exist at all—are still not being improved. Drivers at some turning points are not even able to wash their hands properly. Soap and paper towel dispensers are often empty. There is no disinfectant. There is also no testing of drivers, which is necessary to contain the virus.

A temporary worker from BMW in Leipzig described the catastrophic conditions at his workplace to the WSWS. He had been working in the car factory’s paint shop but did not want to continue there because of the danger of infection. His changing room and washroom were about 700 metres away from his workstation. He had to walk down long corridors and stairs, whose railings were not professionally cleaned, not to mention the doors and door handles.

There was only one toilet near his workstation, with only cold water and no disinfectant. In the past, he had worked in food processing companies for many years and knew very well that hygiene standards could be maintained. However, this also requires specialist companies that professionally disinfect all important rooms and transit points several times a day.

At the beginning of May, his temporary employment agency Adecco-Personaldienstleistungen informed him in a “Staff Information-BMW Leipzig” about the imminent resumption of shift work. As for safety measures, the usual hygiene rules were mentioned—maintaining a minimum distance, avoiding shaking hands and bodily contact, repeated hand washing and coughing into the crook of the arm.

The Adecco letter says, “The changing rooms and showers are closed until further notice due to the risk of infection. It is therefore recommended to put on work clothes at home.” This is not feasible at all, the painter stressed, since he works in a so-called clean room, which must be kept dust-free. Also, it was an unreasonable demand to travel the long way to the plant in a work uniform. He would not do this under any circumstances.

A former salesman from a consumer electronics store in Rostock spoke to WSWS reporters and welcomed the establishment of action committees to ensure safety in companies. “I think this is absolutely right and important. Health must come first. Without the initiative of the employees, companies always think only about profit and not about the staff. If everything speaks against resuming work because the risk of people becoming infected is too great, why is this being enforced? How profit-hungry must a state be that does this to its people?”

Above all, coronavirus tests for all workers were important, because it was only by doing so that you could determine who was infected and who was not. “The government and authorities must provide medical masks that have been proven to be impervious to the virus free of charge to everyone,” the former salesman said. “Infected people must not come into contact with healthy people, to effectively contain the pandemic. I firmly reject the issue of herd immunity; it leads to mass infection and countless victims.”

The urgency for workers themselves to take the initiative to control and demand safety standards in their respective companies is shown by the constant stream of reports of infections in the workplace. Not only are mass infections in slaughterhouses and the meat industry increasing daily, but the number of those infected is also rising in courier services and at supplier companies.

At Hüttenwerke Krupp-Mannesmann (HKM) in Duisburg, seven workers tested positive for coronavirus. A statement by the management says, “The operational processes in the coking plant are not endangered by the coronavirus cases.”

It was already known weeks ago that several employees of a Turkish subcontractor had tested positive at the large construction site of the Stuttgart 21 railway project. Quarantine was then ordered for more than 90 men. The magazine FAKT reported a dispute between the affected construction workers and their superiors. In it, the workers complained about conditions on the site. “We have said it several times, we need disinfectants,” one of the men said critically. In response to the demand for masks, the company spokesman replied, “There are no masks.”