Thousands protest Israeli government’s lack of COVID-19 economic aid

Jean Shaoul

More than 10,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital and most populous city, Saturday. It was the largest rally since the start of the pandemic, with protesters demanding economic aid to get them through the crisis.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coronavirus emergency coalition government face a tidal wave of anger and criticism over its failure to make available promised economic aid. Polls indicate growing disapproval of Netanyahu as the Bank of Israel has forecast that the economy is set to shrink by 6 percent—the sharpest decline in the country’s history.

Unemployment has risen to 21 percent, from 3.5 percent in February, while in the West Bank it has risen from 25 percent to 40 percent and in Gaza was more than 50 percent even before the pandemic. More layoffs are expected in the wake of new restrictions imposed since a dramatic rise in infections, thanks to Netanyahu’s criminal return to work policy, announced late April, to restart the flow of profits to Israel’s banks and corporations. A strict lockdown was only imposed early in March.

Healthcare experts have warned that the government has “lost control” of the virus, while public health director Professor Siegal Sadetzki has resigned over the reopening of the economy without adequate safeguards.

Just weeks after lifting the lockdown in May, the number of new cases has risen fivefold. More than 38,000 people have so far tested positive, with nearly 19,000 active cases, of whom 141 are in a serious condition, 49 are on ventilators, and 358 people have died. In the West Bank, there are 5,819 active cases and 34 people have died, while in Gaza, 72 people have been diagnosed with the virus and one person has died.

Many workers, self-employed and young people attended the rally, angry at government-imposed restrictions that have led to huge job losses, particularly in the travel and hospitality sector on which Israel is dependent. Self-employed and small businesses were protesting over the government’s failure to deliver the financial aid promised to them, while others said that what was on offer was totally inadequate.

Two days before Saturday’s protest, a panicked Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yisrael Katz promised a $29 billion rescue package, including an immediate bank transfer of $2,150 for the self-employed. This is too little, too late, under conditions where the 18-month long political paralysis and the new coalition government have been unable to deliver a 2020 budget, in part at least due Netanyahu’s machinations to find a pretext to dump the coalition and precipitate fresh elections.

University students also attended, as many young people have been forced out of work by the pandemic, as did performing arts groups from the hard-hit cultural, leisure and entertainment sectors, and retirees. One retiree, who had lost her part time job, said she had no income support because her predicament was not recognised, and Netanyahu should “remember that whoever put him there can also take him down.”

Demonstrators held up banners saying, “Let Us Breathe,” echoing the rallying call of the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the US and voicing their opposition to the brutality of Israeli police towards the most impoverished layers—Ethiopian, Jews of Arab and North African descent, migrant workers, Israel’s own Palestinian citizens, Bedouins, and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

Several politicians had asked to speak at the rally, but organizers said that they had asked them not to attend as they did not want the protest to be affiliated with any political factions.

The organisers stressed this was not meant to be a show of opposition to Netanyahu. Ronen Maili, head of the Israel Bars and Clubs Association, one of the organisers, told the Kann public broadcaster, “This isn’t a political protest, it’s a protest of the people.”

He described Netanyahu’s financial aid package for small businesses as a “pretty presentation,” but insisted, “We want to see the money in the bank. The period of naivety is over.”

Protest organisers had declined Netanyahu’s invitation to discuss the situation on Thursday.

They called on attendees to observe social distancing measures so as not to give the police an opportunity to ban the rally, while demonstrators posted adverts on social media telling people not to bring their cell phones to avoid being tracked and required to quarantine if they were near a confirmed coronavirus patient.

After the rally, many protesters marched through the city’s main streets, while others sat down in the streets, blocking roads and junctions near Rabin Square. They chanted “Bibi [Netanyahu’s nickname] go home!” The government mobilised 300 police, some on horseback, resulting in a stand-off with protestors at one of Tel Aviv’s main junctions during which the police arrested 20, of whom 16 have been questioned and two are due in court regarding extending their detention. The police claimed that three police officers were slightly injured in the clashes.

Also protesting were thousands of demonstrators, rallying on 170 roads, bridges and junctions across the country, from the so-called Black Flag movement, formed in March by supporters of Gantz’s opposition Blue and White Party, angry at Netanyahu’s supporters’ attempts to thwart a Gantz-headed government of national unity. Ganz is now in coalition with Netanyahu.

They have held a series of rallies, attacking Netanyahu for his corruption, including his successful demand for tax breaks for himself, and turn to anti-democratic measures to shore up his position. Their rallies have met with considerable force from the police, who have arrested several people for public order offences, including Amir Haskel, a 66-year-old, former brigadier general in the Israeli Air Force and one of the organizers of their demonstrations.

In Jerusalem, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox clashed with police during protests against localized lockdowns of three neighbourhoods with high infection rates along with local lockdowns in four other towns and cities. They blocked junctions and threw stones, eggs and other objects at the police, leading to 10 arrests. Some protesters tore down the police barricades.

There were calls from Yisrael Eichler, a legislator from United Torah Judaism, for the two ultra-Orthodox parties—some of Netanyahu’s most loyal allies—to temporarily quit the government to protest what he called “selective” targeting of religious neighbourhoods for coronavirus lockdowns.

Saturday’s protests follow demonstrations in recent weeks against Netanyahu’s deeply controversial and illegal proposal to annex the settlements and the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank.

The widespread if disparate character of the demonstrations expresses the coalescence of the very legitimate anger, frustration, distress and anxiety of Israeli and Palestinian workers. But the resolution of their grievances cannot be left to the centre-left politicians of the Blue and White Party or leaders of small businesses, the impoverished ultra-Orthodox, and the Palestinians.

The self-employed, workers in the hospitality, travel and transportation sectors, the arts and cultural institutions, students, retirees and the unemployed—Israeli and Palestinian—face the same problems as the working class as a whole. The solution lies not in various schemes to tweak the failed status quo, but a united struggle to defend jobs, education, health, transport, culture, led by the working class.

All non-essential work must be shut down, with workers and the self-employed granted full pay. In essential sectors like health care, food and transport, emergency measures must be implemented to ensure workers’ safety and oppose all cuts, closures, and speed-ups. The fight for such essential policies will bring the working class into direct confrontation with all Israel’s political parties, posing for workers a struggle for state power to implement socialist policies.

Greek government passes draconian anti-protest legislation

John Vassilopoulos

Thousands marched through Athens and 40 other cities and towns last Thursday to protest a draconian Bill, severely restricting the right to protest and harking back to the repression imposed by the fascist junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

Many held banners reading “hands off demonstrations.” The march was peaceful until it reached the parliament οn Syntagma Square, where the Bill was being debated. There riot police attacked protesters using stun grenades and tear gas. There were many incidents of police violence against demonstrators. A video released by online news site pressproject.gr, shows a group of motorcycle policemen driving into a small crowd of protesters.

The Bill was voted into law after a two-day debate by 187 MPs from the ruling conservative New Democracy party, the social-democratic Movement for Change (KINAL) and the far-right Greek Solution party.

A protester holding a patrol bomb kicks a tear gas canister thrown by riot police during a demonstration against new protest law in Athens, on Thursday, July 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Introducing the Bill, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that with the new law “our aim is to have a framework that is operational”, stressing that currently, “50 people shut down Athens every day whenever they feel like it.”

Τhis chimed with the barrage of media propaganda in the run up to the vote denouncing protests for harming commercial activity, especially in the aftermath of the easing of the coronavirus lockdown in May. In a statement released a week before the Bill was passed, the Athens Trade Association complained that “with 80 marches and gatherings in May when the market re-opened and 53 from the start of June till now, with the centre of Athens closed on average 3 times per working day, all this creates stifling conditions on a daily basis which make the operation of the city and the market impossible.”

Under the new law protest organisers are required to give advance notice of any planned public assembly “to the relevant local police or port authority.” The police or authorities are given the power to impose restrictions and even refuse permission for protests outright on public safety grounds, or if “there is a serious threat to disturb the socio-economic life of a particular area.” Spontaneous protests are effectively outlawed, as “unauthorised” protests and those which do not abide by prescribed restrictions can be put down.

Organisers are required to actively collaborate with the authorities to police a demonstration by “co-operating with the police or port authority liaison and abiding with their recommendations.” They are also required to inform attendants “not to bring along items that can be used in acts of violence,” as well as “request the intervention of the relevant police or port authority to remove individuals who are carrying such items.” They must appoint “an adequate number of individuals who can assist in safeguarding the assembly.”

Anyone arrested for attempting to subvert the peaceful character of the demonstration will be punished by two years in prison, while protest organisers will be liable for any injuries, fatalities or damage caused to property by participants.

The law echoes a 1971 decree, “Concerning Public Gatherings”, brought into force by the military junta. This decree provided much of the pseudo-legal basis enabling the junta to bloodily crush the Athens Polytechnic student uprising in 1973.

The decree was never formally abolished following the fall of the junta in 1974 and until now has officially constituted the only legislation on the statute books concerning the policing of protests. It has been argued that in practice it has “laid dormant”, on the grounds that the right to protest is protected by Article 11 of the 1975 Constitution. However, Article 11 explicitly allows the banning of protests by the police on the same grounds as those cited in the new law. It was this which allowed Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chryssochoidis to dismiss claims that the new law harks back to the junta era, stating that “the law is attempting to consolidate the constitutional right for a citizen to protest so that the right to assembly is fulfilled. All those who believe that the government will be led into far-right paths are mistaken.”

This is belied by the text of the new law, which explicitly makes references to the 1971 decree and a 1972 decree stating that they are both now superseded by Article 14 of the new legislation allowing ministers to issue decrees which “regulate more specific issues in the enforcement of the [law]”. The government therefore has the power to impose additional repressive measures as dictated by circumstances! The mention of the 1972 decree, which established geographical zones in Greek cities where protests were expressly forbidden, is a clear indication of the repressive forms that such decrees could take.

The aim of the legislation is to pre-empt a massive upsurge in the class struggle. In a recent report, the European Commission anticipates that Greece’s economy is set to contract by 9.7 percent in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, while unemployment is set to rise to nearly 20 percent.

Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) leader and former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said as much during the debate in parliament, when, after citing the approach of a deep recession, he asked the government whether the new law was being passed “out of fear of the developments and possible social backlash, which are coming in the autumn.”

Syriza should know. This was the rotten party, hailed by the international pseudo-left, who in 2015 ditched its previous rhetoric about “opposing austerity” to carry out the most savage attacks yet imposed on workers in Greece. Over four years of his premiership, Tsipras had no qualms in employing the full force of the state against the “social backlash” prompted by his imposition of austerity measures at the behest of the EU and the IMF.

Τhe Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE) postures as opponents of the Bill, with General Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumpas responding to the government, “You’re fooling yourselves if you think this monstrosity will be implemented. You will be forced to put it back in the draw even if it remains on the statute books. You will be forced by workers and the Greek people who will annul it in practice.”

Such bluster seeks to cover the KKE’s long history in betraying struggles in Greece. Through its trade union federation, the All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME), it poses as the militant wing of the trade union bureaucracy which has ensured that the countless general strikes over the last decade against austerity, including mass protests in Athens and all the main cities, never got out of the bureaucracy’s control, allowing the punishing measures to pass.

The legislation only formalises the role PAME plays in demonstrations. PAME’s bloc is always notoriously flanked with a security detail armed with bats who are there supposedly to safeguard the protest. Its real purpose was exposed when they supplemented the role of the police in October 2011 during a general strike, as they formed a wall in front of parliament and engaged in scuffles with protesters who tried to get near.

Citizen Protection Minister Chryssochoidis alluded to a specific aim of the new law in preventing demonstrations outside the control of pseudo-left groups in and around the trade union bureaucracy. Referring to PAME, he stated to a parliamentary committee in the run up to the vote, “Are there certain citizens who are something special? Who do not request permission [to protest]? Why does PAME request permission and they [unaligned groups] don’t? Why do we allow this? I don’t accept it.”

Chryssochoidis threw an olive branch to the KKE and PAME following the police attack on last week’s demonstrations, implying that he sees them as enforcers of the new legislation. Responding to complaints by KKE deputies in parliament, he admitted that its members and other demonstrators were tear gassed and described PAME’s conduct as “exemplary.”

Puerto Rico declares emergency as drought leaves nearly 150,000 residents without water

Julio Patron

Puerto Rico’s Governor Wanda Vázquez declared a state of emergency on June 29 due to an ongoing drought that has hit the island. On July 2, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) began limiting water services for nearly 150,000 residents for 24 hours every other day in an effort to strictly ration water on the island, including the island’s capital, San Juan, indefinitely.

More than 32 percent of the island is experiencing a severe drought, while another 54 percent is experiencing a moderate drought, according to the US Drought Monitor. This has mainly affected the South and Northeast of the island.

PREPA, the island’s utility company, has warned residents not to stockpile tap water, which has resulted in the limited availability of bottled water at grocery stores as people rush to buy essential reserves.

The drought is made all the more dire by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The US territory has had over 9,600 confirmed and likely cases of COVID-19 and 167 deaths as of July 12. So far, the island’s capital San Juan has been the epicenter. There were 669 cases reported on July 6, the largest daily total to date. Since Governor Vázquez’s return to work policy was enacted back in May, there has been a sharp increase of cases throughout the island.

A lack of consistent running water will make it more difficult to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that everyone wash their hands frequently, and will severely handicap people’s ability to take showers and wash their clothes. The emergency declaration of June 29 prohibits, in most municipalities, watering gardens, filling pools, and the use of a hose and non-recycled water to wash cars. Those who are caught can be fined $250 for individuals and $2,500 for businesses.

The Vázquez administration and previous governments have come under scrutiny due to their role in the current water crisis. Had the governor or one of her predecessors ordered the reservoirs to be dredged, it would have eliminated sediments and lessened the excess loss of water. The island’s water reservoirs haven’t been dredged since the late 1990s and after Hurricane Maria in 2017 no effort was made to maintain them, leading to a further deterioration.

In June, the island’s labor secretary, Briseida Torres, resigned due to public outrage over long delays in unemployment assistance, long lines at the unemployment offices and the unacceptable delays in sending stimulus checks which were supposed to go out months ago.

The economic crisis facing Puerto Rico, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, has left thousands in worsening poverty and destitution resulting in the highest unemployment rate in the United States at 23 percent. There have been around 300,000 workers who have filed for unemployment assistance since the coronavirus pandemic forced the closing of thousands of businesses as well as schools and other institutions. Thousands of residents in Puerto Rico still have not received any assistance during the pandemic, while a large portion of the workforce is ineligible because they work in the “informal” sector of the economy.

Due to the immense job loss and poverty, thousands have turned to food banks and other institutions for assistance. An administrator at Comedores Sociales, a food bank in Caguas, told the New York Times that it received 8,000 requests for food assistance in the first two months of the pandemic alone.

The coronavirus pandemic coupled with the current drought is only intensifying the prolonged economic and social crisis facing workers and youth in Puerto Rico. For over a decade, Puerto Rico has faced a protracted recession and severe austerity measures imposed on the population by successive governments as well the Financial Oversight and Management Board, which was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama in 2016.

The island’s population has been hit by crisis after crisis since Hurricane Maria hit in 2017, wiping out major infrastructure and taking the lives of over 5,000 people due to the stark indifference by the local and federal government to the plight of millions of Puerto Ricans.

In the summer of 2019, then Governor Ricardo Rosselló of the New Progressive Party (PNP) was ousted by a mass movement of over one million workers, youth and small business owners. The protests were sparked by the leak of 900 pages of texts which exposed outright corruption at the highest levels of the Puerto Rican government and the utter contempt Rosselló and his associates had towards the victims of the 2017 hurricanes. “Now that we are on the subject, don’t we have some cadavers to feed our crows?” Rosselló’s chief executive Christian Sobrino stated in one now infamous text.

Finally, since late December 2019, the island has been rocked by unending earthquakes and tremors, with over 9,000 of varying intensity in only 6 months. Hundreds of people have been displaced as the quakes have destroyed already crumbling infrastructure throughout the island. During the earthquakes, pedestrians found an abandoned building full of FEMA supplies such as gas tanks, diapers and other necessities that were meant to be distributed after Hurricane Maria in 2017, further shaking the administration of Vázquez and the PNP.

US Catholic Church received at least $1.4 billion through “small business” loan program

Jacob Crosse

An Associated Press (AP) analysis of the federal loan data grudgingly released by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last Monday revealed that one of largest recipients of government funds funneled through the fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is the US Roman Catholic Church, which received at least $1.4 billion.

This staggering amount is a drastic undercount due to the fact that the US Small Business Administration declined to release information on loans approved for under $150,000.

In addition to the Catholic Church, other religious organizations including Protestant churches, Muslim mosques and Jewish synagogues also helped themselves to government funds, violating the First Amendment’s establishment of the separation of church and state.

Crystal Cathedral, Orange County California (Credit: WikiMedia Commons)

This includes churches connected to President Donald Trump such as the City of Destiny in Florida and its pastor Paula White-Cain, which received a loan worth between $150,000 and $350,000 through the PPP. White-Cain serves as Trump’s personal pastor and as “White House faith adviser.”

While the AP notes that Catholic dioceses, parishes, schools and other ministries received approval for at least 3,500 forgivable loans, the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference, an organization of Catholic financial officers, surveyed their membership and found that roughly 9,000 Catholic entities received loans, nearly three times what the AP was able to uncover.

Coupled with the variance in reporting limits, the AP speculated it is possible that the Church as whole may have received as much, or more, than $3.5 billion in loans, which can be converted into grants if a majority of the funds are shown to have been used to cover wages, rent and utilities.

Terrified of growing socialist consciousness in the working class and under conditions in which states across the country are slashing funding for public education, the US ruling class and their political pawns are funneling billions to the Catholic Church and its schools.

Prior to the passage of the CARES Act and with it the PPP, religious and faith-based organizations were not eligible to receive funding through the US Small Business Administration (SBA). However, after successful lobbying by groups connected to the Church spent at least $50,000, Congress helpfully slipped in a provision within the CARES Act which allowed religious organizations and other “nonprofits” the ability to siphon funds from the program.

The PPP has been championed by the administration and both big business parties as a vital lifeline for “Main Street businesses” and according to Mnuchin is responsible for “saving 51 million jobs.”

In reality, last week marked the fifteenth week in a row in which more than 1 million new unemployment claims were filed, on top of 18.1 million continuing claims. The official unemployment rate, artificially deflated by the Trump administration, is still above 11 percent and at least 70,000 small businesses have already declared they will lay off “10 workers or more” once funding for the PPP runs out. This will add at least another 700,000 people to the ranks of the unemployed, as reported by the National Federation of Independent Businesses two weeks ago.

In addition to Congress granting eligibility for religious organizations to apply for the loans through the SBA, the Trump administration also waived the restriction that prevented applicants from receiving a loan if the applicant employed more than 500 workers per physical location. According to the online Catholic news service Crux, in a late April phone call, hosted by Trump and attended by several hundred Catholic leaders, Trump boasted that he was the “best [president] the Catholic Church has ever seen.”

Among the Catholic entities that received millions of dollars in taxpayer funded loans was the Archdiocese of New York, which received 15 loans worth at least $28 million, just for its top executive offices. The diocese was also approved for at least a $1 million dollar loan for St. Patrick’s Cathedral, located on Fifth Avenue.

On the West Coast, the Los Angeles archdiocese received at least 37 loans worth between $9 and $23 million. Four loans worth at least $3 million were approved in Orange County, California, where the Church recently completed renovation of the $70 million dollar “Crystal Cathedral.” The sprawling property features water fountains, the fifth largest pipe organ in the world and a 236-foot stainless-steel mirrored spire standing over 18 stories tall.

Elsewhere, a loan of at least $2 million was approved for the Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, diocese, where an internal Church investigation last year confirmed allegations that then Bishop Michael Bransfield groped children and misused church funds for personal vacations, alcohol and luxury goods.

The AP report noted at least 40 dioceses, which have paid out millions of dollars in compensation to victims of Church abuses, received at least $200 million in PPP funds.

The Saint Luke Institute, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, is a Catholic treatment center for priests accused of sexual abuse. Often used as a stopover for pedophile priests waiting to be transferred to new parishes, the institute received a loan worth between $350,000 and $1 million.

Catholic Charities USA, whose motto is “working to reduce poverty in America,” spent $30,000 lobbying Congress to ensure the “charity” network would be eligible for funds. Their efforts were handsomely rewarded; Catholic Charities USA was approved for about 100 loans worth between $90 and $220 million according to the data.

The AP found that overall, roughly 500 loans exceeding $1 million were approved to entities connected to the Catholic Church and at least eight loans were approved for the maximum amount of funding, between $5 million and $10 million.

Among the loan recipients were also ten groups designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “hate groups,” such as the anti-LGBT American Family Association (AFA), which received the largest loan of the ten, worth between $1 million and $2 million, to allegedly support 124 jobs.

The AFA, founded by pastor Donald Wildmon in 1977 as the National Federation for Decency before changing its name in 1988, proudly proclaims to be “on the front lines of America’s culture war,” where its goal is to “be a champion of Christian activism” directed toward the “preservation of Marriage and the Family.”

An article written by David Lane and posted July 8 on AFA’s website branded “the official BLM movement” as “downright Jezebelic,” an “alliance between the two devils of Nazism and communism” which accepts “transgenderism, homosexuality, abortion” and “thus [is] in direct conflict with the Alpha Male Trump.”

Anti-immigrant hate groups tied directly to Trump’s fascistic advisor Stephen Miller have also received funds. These include the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), both founded by the late John Tanton.

For decades Tanton, a retired Michigan ophthalmologist, played a central role in shaping US immigration policy through FAIR and CIS. Tanton’s racist and eugenic views were exposed in his private papers which are housed at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. In a letter to ecology professor Garret Hardin, Tanton admitted, “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”

Tanton also ran a racist publishing company, the Social Contract Press, which in 1994 republished the novel The Camp of Saints. Le Camp des Saints, first published in 1973 by Frenchman Jean Raspail, is a racist fantasy which depicts an invasion of France by a horde of starving, dark-skinned refugees. The book’s republishing came with an endorsement from Tanton and a special afterword from its author which read: “The proliferation of other races dooms our race, my race, to extinction.”

Jon Feere of CIS and Julie Kirchner of FAIR currently serve as policy advisers to Immigration Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol, respectively.

Canada’s government accelerating drive to cut off support for workers made jobless by pandemic

Dylan Lubao

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberals are scheming with big business to curtail and phase out the meagre makeshift benefits the federal government is providing the millions of workers who have lost their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Canada’s ruling elite considers the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), at least in its current form, to be a major obstacle to its reckless campaign to force workers back on the job, with little to no protections, amid a pandemic that continues to rage across North America and the world.

In recent weeks, tens and possibly hundreds thousands of workers across the country have seen their CERB payments temporarily suspended without warning.

Introduced in late March in lieu of the more restrictive Employment Insurance program, the CERB initially provided $2,000 per month for a maximum of 16 weeks to workers, including gig economy and self-employed workers, who lost their incomes as a result of the pandemic.

Applications for the CERB quickly surpassed 7.5 million, representing close to 40 percent of Canada’s labour force. But in mid-June, the government without warning withheld two weeks’ worth of CREB payments to an as yet unknown number of jobless workers.

Jane Derowin, a former airport worker in Calgary, Alberta, gave voice to the distress caused by the Liberals’ action. In a television interview with CTV, Derowin shows the camera her nearly empty fridge. Visibly distraught, she tells the interviewer, “This is going to leave me with nothing to live on. I can’t pay my rent, I can’t pay my bills, I can’t buy groceries. What am I supposed to do?”

The transparent aim of this callous measure, which was justified by the government as necessary to claw back the extra payments it purposely made in March and April, was to leave workers with no option but to return to work or go without food and shelter.

The unannounced benefit “suspension” came just days after the Liberal government failed to secure a parliamentary majority for Bill C-17, legislation aimed at goading workers into returning to work despite the pandemic.

Under Bill C-17, workers deemed to have “improperly” claimed CERB benefits, including by refusing to return to work when ordered by their employer or to accept a “reasonable” opportunity for work or self-employment, would be liable to punitive fines. The legislation would also threaten workers with massive fines and a six-month jail term if they “fraudulently” obtained CERB benefits, including by misrepresenting their income. However, the legislation’s definition of “fraud” is so all-encompassing workers and youth who refuse to work under unsafe conditions could face jail time. The bill remains on the parliamentary order paper and the government could well seek to pass it at a later date.

Following their failure to enact Bill C-17, the Liberals made a deal with the New Democratic Party (NDP) to extend the CERB program by another two months to October, and the maximum eligibility to 24 weeks, but with stricter conditions. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh trumpeted this extension, which had been expected given the continuing Depression-level jobless numbers, as a boon to workers and on that basis he and his New Democrats once again rallied to the minority Liberal government’s support in parliament.

Left out of Singh’s charade was the fact that with the NDP’s blessing, the government is tightening the eligibility requirements for the CERB. As of July 5, workers must sign an affidavit when reapplying for CERB benefits, acknowledging that they should return to work as soon as possible, and must now reapply for the CERB every two weeks, instead of every month.

Despite these changes, big business is adamant that the Liberal government has not gone far enough. For weeks, business organizations have been denouncing the CERB as a “disincentive” to work, because the income it provides is higher than the poverty-level wages paid by corporate Canada to millions of super-exploited workers.

These denunciations reached fever pitch last week as Finance Minister Bill Morneau presented a “snapshot” of the government’s fiscal position. It projected a deficit of $343 billion for the current 2020-21 fiscal year, due to a collapse in tax revenues and levels of emergency government spending not seen since World War II.

While the corporate media churned out commentary claiming that the “gains” from years of austerity are fast disappearing, Goldy Hyder, head of the powerful Business Council of Canada, demanded the Trudeau government “pivot” from providing “support” to people, to promoting “economic growth”—i.e., business profits.

The sentiments within the ruling class were summed up by Pedro Antunes, chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada, who complained in a Globe and Mail comment, “The CERB as a disincentive for workers to re-enter the labour force is a real risk. Currently, at $2,000 a month, the CERB is equivalent to an average hourly wage of just less than $15 for an average 33-hour work week—well above the minimum wage in most Canadian jurisdictions.”

In other words, the CERB must be slashed and phased out so workers can be press-ganged into low-wage jobs; jobs, moreover, that provide few if any protections from the potentially lethal coronavirus. This system of ruthless exploitation is to be enforced on the one hand by cutting off state support, and on the other by mass unemployment, which will facilitate the driving down of wages and working conditions.

As Rebekah Young, director of fiscal and provincial economics at Scotiabank, put it, “There will be significant unemployment across Canada for the duration of the recovery. The [Employment Insurance system] was not and is not sufficient to cover all Canadians that will be out of work, but the [Canadian Emergency Response Benefit] clearly is too expensive for that duration.”

The Conservatives, echoing the concerns of big business, have proposed a Back to Work Bonus, which would temporarily pay workers 50 cents per dollar earned over $1,000 so as to make low-wage employment more attractive.

A similar scheme has already been implemented by Manitoba’s Conservative government. The Manitoba Job Restart Program pays out a one-time benefit of up to $2,000 to Manitobans who leave the CERB and return to work for at least 30 days—the better to “kick the CERB to the curb,” gloated Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister.

The campaign to phase out the CERB is connected to big business’ insistence that there must not be a second lockdown, even if COVID-19 cases and deaths surge. This point was made bluntly by the Business Council of Canada. Canada, it declared, “cannot afford another shutdown.”

The slashing of wages by companies across the country as they call workers back to their jobs is being facilitated by the government’s Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program. In last Wednesday’s fiscal update, Morneau almost doubled planned expenditure on the CEWS from $45 billion to $82.5 billion. Under the CEWS, the government pays 75 percent of workers’ wages if employers keep them on the payroll. However, there is no requirement for companies to pay the remaining 25 percent. In effect, the dramatic expansion of the CEWS program, which has accounted for just $18 billion in government spending to date, will institute a 25 percent pay cut for large numbers of workers, even as they risk their lives by returning to work amid the pandemic.

The gutting of workers’ wages is a key objective for big business, which is preparing for even more ruthless competition with its global rivals. The corporate press has been full of articles and commentary in recent weeks warning that competition over investments, markets, and raw materials will only intensify amid the ongoing economic crisis.

The fact that the ruling elite can proceed so ruthlessly is above all due to the role played by the trade unions and the New Democratic Party (NDP). They have worked to suppress working class opposition during the pandemic, and forged still closer ties with the Liberal government.

Both the NDP and trade unions have maintained a deafening silence on the more than $650 billion in bailout funding the Trudeau government and Bank of Canada have funneled into the financial markets, banks and big business in order to guarantee the investments of the rich and super-rich.

Since April, the unions have worked hand-in-glove with employers’ organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, to implement a return to work amid the pandemic. In a joint statement co-authored by Canadian Labour Congress President Hassan Yussuff and Chamber of Commerce head Perrin Beatty, the two organizations appealed for the creation of a “national economic task force” to promote “economic recovery” and tackle the “challenges for a trading nation like ours,” including “substantial new public and private debt.” Such a corporatist alliance was necessary, the pair continued, “to stop stakeholders going off in different directions.”

The World Socialist Web Site noted at the time that this and other such statements were meant to send a message to the ruling class: the unions intend to partner with big business to boost the “competitive” position—that is, profitability—of Canadian capital, and will block and sabotage all working class resistance. Less than two months later, the intensification of the campaign to phase out the CERB and force workers back to work on the basis of lower wages and worse conditions of employment underscores how correct that warning was.

Limited lockdowns fail to halt Australia’s COVID-19 surge

Oscar Grenfell

Australia’s COVID-19 resurgence over the past fortnight has refuted the claims of Labor and Liberal-National governments alike that they could contain coronavirus outbreaks by imposing localised restrictions, while pushing ahead with a pro-business “reopening of the economy.”

Since May, operating via a bipartisan “national cabinet,” the federal, state and territory governments have lifted measures aimed at limiting the spread of the pandemic. This has included resuming classroom teaching in schools, reopening retail businesses, easing restrictions on gatherings and driving workers back to their places of employment.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the state and territory leaders explicitly rejected any strategy of eliminating COVID-19 transmission, because the measures required would have too great an impact on corporate profit. Instead, they said it would be possible to create a “COVID Safe” economy, with the virus kept at low levels through expanded testing, contact tracing and localised lockdowns.

Two months after the lifting of lockdown measures began, this strategy—dictated by the interests of big business rather than the health of ordinary people—is resulting in higher rates of infection than at the beginning of the pandemic, increasing hospitalisations and deaths.

In Melbourne, the Victorian capital, transmission is spiralling out of control. Cases are emerging throughout the city, in regional areas across Victoria and elsewhere in Australia.

This morning, Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews announced 177 new cases in the state, following 274 on Sunday. Over the past four days, 956 infections have been reported in Victoria, the largest spike yet in Australia.

While case numbers are, as yet, lower than in the global epicentres of the pandemic, including the United States, India and Brazil, the same tendencies are evident: The government and business “reopening” is causing a disaster.

The vast majority of Victorian cases over the past week have been the result of community transmission, rather than returned overseas travelers, signalling widespread circulation of the virus. The health authorities have described most of those cases as “under investigation,” meaning that the transmission source is unknown. This also indicates a breakdown of contact-tracing.

Melbourne’s clusters have emerged at major centres of infection internationally, such as warehouses, abattoirs, schools and high-density, low-income housing. Some two dozen health workers have contracted the virus, amid ongoing shortages of protective equipment and crowded waiting rooms.

COVID-19 hospitalisations in Melbourne have risen from fewer than 20 at the beginning of this month, to 72. Doctors are warning there is no capacity in the health system to cope with a further surge.

After daily case numbers in Melbourne returned to double-digits on June 15, the Andrews government rejected calls for the reintroduction of restrictions. This was in line with the national “reopening” program that produced the further easing of restrictions in Victoria on June 1.

Only on July 1, more than two weeks after the spike began, did Andrews announce a limited lockdown covering 11 Melbourne postcodes deemed coronavirus “hotspots.” Residents were advised, however, to continue going to work, schools and other places of study.

That measure failed to contain the spread. Rapid transmission occurred outside the initial lockdown zone, including in public housing towers in the inner-city suburbs of North Melbourne and Flemington.

On July 4, Andrews announced an unprecedented “hard lockdown” of nine of the public housing towers. Without any warning, hundreds of police descended upon almost 3,000 residents, telling them they could not leave their cramped apartments for at least five days.

This effective house arrest was carried out in the most punitive manner, with the government displaying complete indifference to the welfare of the vulnerable residents. For days, many were not provided with adequate food, while their requests for hand sanitiser and protective equipment were rebuffed.

Five days later, the Victorian government lifted the hard lockdown at all but one of the towers. When it began, fewer than 50 tenants were infected. By yesterday, that number had soared to 237.

Criminally, residents infected with COVID-19 were not evacuated from the towers, nor were those most susceptible to the virus. Combined with the lack of services, this appeared to transform the overcrowded towers into virus incubators.

A partial lockdown of metropolitan Melbourne came into effect last Friday, as transmission rates grew outside the initial “hotspots.” As with the limited measures imposed in March-April, the lockdown will not impact on most businesses, especially large corporations.

Workplaces posing a high risk of transmission, including factories and construction sites, will remain open, despite clusters being detected at Woolworths and Coles supermarket warehouses, two Melbourne abattoirs and in fast food and retail outlets.

Schools are reopening today for the beginning of term three with a reduced student cohort. Year 10, 11 and 12 students will return to classrooms, along with students at specialised schools. The resumption, supported by the education unions, is occurring in the face of widespread opposition from teachers and principals, and despite infections forcing the temporary closure of more than 30 schools in recent weeks.

The state Labor government is pressing ahead, even though its own medical experts have admitted higher student-to-student transmission than previously acknowledged, with the older cohort that is returning the most likely to spread the virus. Teachers, including those whose students are staying home, are being forced to attend schools, placing their health and lives at risk.

The Melbourne lockdown has not halted the spread of the virus throughout Victoria. Cases have been confirmed in regional and rural areas, including Geelong, Bendigo, South Gippsland and Shepparton. The Australian Medical Association warned yesterday that these outbreaks could grow rapidly, with limited testing in the affected regions.

A border closure between Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) has not succeeded in preventing the virus spreading to other states either. The shutdown, enforced by hundreds of police and soldiers, has created a crisis in border towns. Thousands of people, however, have been granted exemptions.

Yesterday, NSW state Premier Gladys Berejiklian, whose Liberal-National government has lifted most coronavirus restrictions, warned that NSW was at a “crossroads.” An outbreak at a pub in Casula, a working-class suburb in southwestern Sydney, has resulted in 21 infections so far. More than 1,000 people who visited the hotel have been asked to self-isolate.

No new cases have been reported in the state of Queensland, but its Labor government opened it to interstate travel last week in a bid to resume profits in the lucrative tourist industry, creating the conditions for a further expansion of the outbreak.

Government leaders insisted at a national cabinet meeting last Friday that they will proceed with the reopening, regardless of the consequences. The ruling class interests dictating this response found voice today in the Murdoch-owned Australian newspaper. Its lead article said corporate chiefs “are urging national cabinet to provide policy certainty and maintain momentum in reopening the economy.”

The Australian’s editorial advocated the same localised measures that have failed to contain the Victorian outbreak. Citing Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox, it declared: “Despite our best efforts, periodic pop-ups of COVID-19 will continue but we ‘can’t keep taking a sledgehammer to our economy time and time again and expect businesses to survive’.”

What is being promoted is a variant of the “herd immunity” policy that has led to mass deaths internationally. Ordinary people must “live with the virus,” workers must be forced into workplaces so they can be exploited and public health measures must be curtailed, all so that corporate profits can be revived.

This demonstrates again that the fight against the pandemic is inseparable from a struggle by the working class against capitalism and its subordination of every aspect of social and economic life to the dictates of the financial oligarchy.

Merkel in Brussels: Profits before lives and European great power politics

Johannes Stern

Last Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a keynote speech in the European Parliament to mark the start of Germany’s EU presidency. It was her first foreign appearance since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Merkel spoke against the backdrop of new COVID-19 outbreaks on the continent, the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s, and growing tensions between the major powers.

“We are all aware that my visit today takes place against the background of the greatest test in the history of the European Union,” said the chancellor. The global coronavirus pandemic had “hit people in Europe hard and relentlessly,” she declared, adding, “We have over a hundred thousand dead in Europe alone.”

She continued: “Our economy has been and continues to be severely shaken throughout Europe. Millions of workers have lost their jobs.” In addition to “worries about their health and the health of their families,” many citizens “are also worried about their economic existence.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the plenary chamber at the European Parliament in Brussels, Wednesday, July 8, 2020. Germany has just taken over the European Union's rotating presidency, and must chaperone the 27-nation bloc through a period of deep crisis for the next six months and try to limit the economic damage inflicted by the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)

Merkel, of course, concealed the fact that the ruling class is fully responsible for this disaster. As the pandemic spread in January and February, she concerned herself not with the health of the population, but with the protection of corporate profits. All of the European governments played down the threat and tried to keep the economy and public life running without any impediments.

It was only when the terrible consequences of the pandemic first became apparent in countries such as Italy and Spain that governments were forced to take measures to contain the virus, driven largely by growing anger in the population. The lockdown was then used to organise the greatest bottom-to-top redistribution of wealth in history. Within a very short time, trillions were transferred to the accounts of the banks, the large corporations and the super-rich in the form of coronavirus “rescue packages.”

At the same time, establishment politicians and the media began an aggressive campaign to revive the economy as quickly as possible so as to resume the extraction of massive profits from the working class. The same companies that received billions in state money are now, with the support of the trade unions, using the crisis to push through the mass layoffs and wage cuts they had long planned.

In her speech, Merkel left no doubt that the policy of “profits before lives” would be aggressively pursued. She cynically described the measures to contain the pandemic, which have now been largely lifted, as a “high price,” entailing an attack on “elementary basic rights.”

The message was clear: despite the massive increase in infections and deaths resulting from the reopening of the economy, there would be no new lockdown. Nothing would be permitted that might endanger capitalist profiteering and the orgy of enrichment on the stock market.

Merkel praised the 500 billion euro European reconstruction fund she had proposed in mid-May, together with French President Emmanuel Macron. Behind her mendacious lip service to “a socially and economically just Europe,” she made clear that the money would be linked to a new round of social attacks. Europe had to be made “more innovative and competitive,” she stressed several times in her speech.

Above all, she reminded the members of the European Parliament, only by working together could European nations defend their global economic and foreign policy interests. Europe was “not just something that has been handed over to us, some destiny that obliges us,” but rather “something living that we can shape and change.”

She stressed that in a “globalised world,” “Europe does not deprive us of opportunities for action. … It is not without Europe, but only with Europe that we can preserve our convictions and freedoms.”

In other words, only through a unified European military and great power policy under German leadership would Brussels and Berlin be able to impose their imperialist interests worldwide.

The “highest priority of the German presidency,” she said, is “that Europe comes out of the crisis united and strengthened.”

The aim was “not only to stabilise Europe in the short term.” Merkel insisted: “We want a Europe that faces the challenges of the present with self-confidence and courage. We want a Europe that is fit for the future, that can assert its place in the world in an innovative and sustainable manner.” It was necessary to “decide for oneself who Europe wants to be in this rapidly changing world order,” a geopolitical environment that underscored “the need for a strong European foreign and security policy.”

As in previous interviews and speeches, Merkel made no secret of the need to transform the EU into a massively armed military alliance capable of acting more independently of the US. “A glance at the map,” she said, “shows that Europe is surrounded on its external borders not only by Britain and the western Balkans, but also by Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, among others.” She noted that Europe was living “in a period of global upheaval, in which the force fields are shifting, and Europe—despite the integration of many member states into the transatlantic alliance—is more on its own.”

Europe had also to bring its weight as a foreign policy power to bear on China. “Even if the EU-China summit set for September, unfortunately, cannot take place, we want to continue the open dialogue with China,” Merkel said. “Strategic relations with China” were “characterised by close trade policy ties, but equally by quite different socio-political ideas, especially concerning the protection of human rights and the rule of law.”

Alarm bells should ring whenever German and European heads of state speak of “human rights” and “the rule of law” in regard to foreign policy, since these phrases invariably conceal imperialist goals inevitably associated with attacks on democratic rights. In Brussels, Merkel called for “effective protection of our democracies against cyber threats and disinformation campaigns”—code words for strengthening the state’s repressive powers, especially against the growing left-wing opposition of workers and youth.

The German bourgeoisie has made it clear from the very onset of its presidency that it is willing to put its words into action. Last week was marked by the announcement by the Ministry of Defence of plans to purchase combat drones and the demand by leading German politicians to reintroduce a form of compulsory military service so as to anchor militarism more firmly in society.

All parties, from the Left Party to the extreme right Alternative for Germany (AfD), are working closely together, along with the media, to fuel nationalism. “Germany is now condemned to leadership, there is no other way,” the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland stated in a commentary.

Behind the increasingly aggressive calls for German leadership in Europe are two developments in particular. First, tensions between the European powers are constantly increasing.

After Merkel's speech, EU Council President Charles Michel warned that in the run-up to the July 17-18 EU summit, stark differences remained among the member states concerning the European reconstruction fund. The proposal that the EU Commission take on debt to give countries at least some money in the form of non-repayable grants rather than loans, he said, was “still difficult, even very difficult for some member states to accept.”

Second, political and social opposition in the working class is growing. The coronavirus pandemic has not only exacerbated tensions between the imperialist powers, it has, above all, exposed the bankruptcy of the capitalist system. Thirty years after German reunification and the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy, the bourgeoisie has nothing to offer the vast majority of the population but mass impoverishment, increasing police state measures, militarism and war. Resistance is developing worldwide in the form of mass protests and strikes, which must now be armed with an international socialist programme.

US ruling class demands deadly reopening of schools

Evan Blake

Last Friday, the United States set a single-day record for new COVID-19 cases at 71,787. On Sunday, Florida set a one-day record for any state with 15,300 cases. Daily reported cases are climbing in 46 states, and the number of daily deaths is again on the rise, with nearly 1,000 each day over the past week.

This catastrophe is the outcome of the campaign led by the Trump administration but supported by the entire political establishment to force workers back into factories and workplaces without any serious effort to contain the pandemic.

The drive to reopen the schools in the fall, under conditions of the explosive spread of COVID-19, is a key element of a conscious, bipartisan policy of class war, in which lives are sacrificed for the sake of corporate profits.

A father helps his child with a mask in front of Bradford School in Jersey City, New Jersey on June 10, 2020 (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

The American ruling class is indifferent to human life. It is prepared to sacrifice the lives of countless students and teachers to facilitate its homicidal back-to-work policy, which requires that children be herded into unsafe schools so their parents can generate corporate profits in unsafe factories.

In this context, the New York Times, which speaks for the Democratic Party and the sections of the financial oligarchy allied with the Democrats, joined hands with Donald Trump in pushing the reopening of the schools in an editorial published over the weekend entitled, “Reopening Schools Will Be a Huge Undertaking. It Must Be Done.”

In March, the Times’ leading columnist Thomas Friedman coined the phrase used by Trump to justify reopening the economy, “The cure can’t be worse than the disease.” Now the newspaper is stepping up its efforts to provide legitimacy for the ruling elite’s class war policies.

The editorial begins by stating, “American children need public schools to reopen in the fall. … They need food and friendships; books and basketball courts; time away from family and a safe place to spend it.”

This is sophistry. What is the absence of “time away from family” compared with the trauma of losing a parent, grandparent or teacher to the pandemic? The Times does not care about what children need. It cares only about what Wall Street needs. And Wall Street needs kids in school so their parents can slave away for the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

The newspaper hints at this, writing: “Parents need public schools, too. They need help raising their children, and they need to work.” Further on, it notes: “The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that 27 million American workers require child care, which includes schools, to return to full-time work.”

As for the schools providing a “safe” haven from the pandemic, the claim that the dilapidated, underfunded and generally filthy schools in America are safe for children or educators is a criminal lie.

A report last month by the Government Accountability Office found that 41 percent of school districts need to update or replace the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in at least half of their schools. A 2016 report by the Center for Green Schools found that 15,000 schools in the country have poor indoor air quality deemed unfit for students and staff to breathe.

Under conditions where the World Health Organization has concluded that the coronavirus is airborne, and nearly a third of educators are at higher risk of dying from the virus, the mass reopening of schools threatens the lives of tens of thousands of educators as well as students. On June 26, Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, 61, died after she and two other Arizona teachers contracted COVID-19 while sharing a room in summer school.

In an internal document leaked to the press on Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that fully reopening K-12 schools and universities would create the “highest risk” for the spread of the coronavirus.

The Times echoes the hypocritical statements of Trump and his far-right billionaire Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos bemoaning the harm to children caused by their absence from the classroom. Who do they think they are kidding? Administration after administration, Democratic and Republican alike, backed by the Times and the rest of the corporate media, have laid siege to public education, slashing funding, closing schools, laying off teachers and promoting for-profit charter schools.

The Times focuses its proposal for reopening the schools on acquiring “more money and more space,” suggesting that Trump “could work to get money to schools.” The bankruptcy of this proposal was underscored Sunday when DeVos stated on the “Fox News Sunday” program, “If schools aren’t going to reopen ... they shouldn’t get the funds.” Instead, she said, federal funds should be used for school vouchers to pay tuition at private schools.

To acquire more space, the newspaper proposes the “repurposing” of “gyms and cafeterias,” holding classes “in the open air” or “under tents with no walls,” and even “closing streets around schools and holding classes there.” One’s jaw drops in the face of such reactionary rubbish. What the Times is talking about has nothing to do with real education. It is rather a “modest proposal” for shunting children into deadly holding pens in the interests of corporate profit.

All over the world, the pandemic has exposed the irreconcilably opposed interests that separate the capitalist class from the working class. No humane or rational solution to the pandemic is possible outside of a direct assault on capitalist property and political power.

In response to the homicidal policies of the ruling class, opposition is building among educators, parents and the broader working class internationally. The hashtag #14DaysNoNewCases has been trending on Twitter, with parents and educators denouncing the unsafe reopening of the schools. Facebook groups have been formed to oppose the reopening of the schools from Britain to South Africa. “Texas Teachers United Against Reopening Schools” has nearly 6,000 members.

Over the weekend, striking nurses in Joliet, Illinois rejected a sellout contract negotiated by the Illinois Nurses Association (INA). Autoworkers across the Midwest are forming rank-and-file safety committees in the plants, in defiance of management and the thoroughly corrupt United Auto Workers (UAW). Strikes and protests have taken place internationally in opposition to unsafe working conditions.

The trade unions that claim to represent teachers and educators, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) in the US, have signaled their agreement with the campaign to reopen the schools, expressing only minor tactical differences while claiming that electing Joe Biden will solve everything.

The Socialist Equality Party calls upon educators to break with the NEA and AFT, and their state and local affiliates, and form independent rank-and-file safety committees in every school and neighborhood to mobilize against the unsafe reopening of the schools. Such committees must fight to unite educators with the broader working class.

Preparations must be made for a nationwide strike of teachers and school workers to block the unsafe reopening and demand a crash program to rebuild the schools and hire the necessary staff to provide high quality, safe and equal education for all. No teacher or school should be penalized for refusing to work under unsafe conditions. There must be no loss of income as long as the pandemic continues.

A nationwide strike of educators would have a profound impact on the development of the class struggle and would draw in wide layers of the working class, including autoworkers, logistics workers, healthcare workers and all those told to sacrifice their lives at the altar of private profit.

As seen in the global wave of protests following the police murder of George Floyd, the development of a nationwide strike in the US would send shock waves throughout the world.

As the World Socialist Web Site has noted, the pandemic is not only a public health crisis. It has triggered a social and political crisis of vast dimensions. The ruling class, having worked out its strategic response to the pandemic in February and March, has carried out an unrelenting assault on workers ever since. The working class must respond with equal determination and ruthlessness. It must fight for the socialist overturn of the capitalist system, which threatens the lives of millions of workers and youth around the world.