Mauritian seafarers, workers and youth oppose Jugnauth government corruption and austerity

Tom Casey

Last Saturday, July 11, tens of thousands of workers and youth marched in a demonstration on Cathedral Square in the central district of Port Louis, Mauritius, against the government of Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth (Militant Socialist Movement/MSM). While the event included workers from many industrial sectors, multiple organizations representing Mauritian maritime workers and their families were present.

In addition to utilizing the coronavirus as a pretext to carry out austerity measures, the Mauritian government has been one of several around the world responsible for the abject failure to repatriate ship workers since March, when governments worldwide restricted their borders in response to the outbreak of the pandemic.

Protesters held signs in French and English, as well as Mauritian French Creole, the two official languages and de facto dialect in the small island nation situated in the western Indian Ocean.

Signs from seafarers’ families bore slogans such as “Return my father,” “Let my husband come home” and “Citizens have the right of return to their homeland.” Others denounced the pro-business policies of the government, displaying messages such as “People before profits,” “Stop taking public money” and “Stop playing with our future.” A Mauritian worker present at the July 11 demonstration told the WSWS that the rally drew approximately 30,000 to march against the Jugnauth administration.

July 11 March on Mauritian Capital of Port Louis

According to advocacy groups for stranded seafarers, approximately 1,500 Mauritian sailors still remain on cruise and merchant vessels around the globe. Having been stranded for months, hundreds of thousands of cruise ship workers from dozens of nations faced horrendous conditions in which they received little to no information about how they would return home, as the WSWS has reported.

Many workers were left to face financial ruin after having been pushed off company payrolls, with their employers deeming them “non-essential” for ship operation. By May, there were a number of COVID-19 and non-COVID-related crew deaths, and of the non-illness-linked deaths, many were broadly suspected to have been suicides. In June, the Seafarer’s Hospital Society of the UK declared that suicide had become “the foremost cause of deaths amongst seafarers.”

On May 15, the Mauritian National Assembly (Parliament) implemented the COVID-19 (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act and the Quarantine Act in response to the outbreak of the pandemic. The measures authorized by the legislation include warrantless police searches and seizures, the restriction of the country’s borders, as well as sweeping attacks on the living standards of the working class. One such provision eliminated the requirement for employers to pay workers a night shift allowance, a 15 percent bonus for employees scheduled to work outside of regular business hours.

Appleby Global, a worldwide legal firm specializing in services for private companies and financial institutions, explains the restrictions on work stoppages as outlined by the Mauritian COVID-19 Act: “The procedural agreement between employers operating in the transport, customs, electricity, hotel services, radio and television, refuse disposal, telephone, transport of passengers and goods and water supply sectors and the trade union ought to provide the number of workers, their occupations and departments for a minimum service during any strike or lock-out. Before proceeding to a strike or lock-out, the trade union or employer has to ensure that the minimum service is put into effect.”

At the time of the COVID-19 and Quarantine Acts’ passing, a stranded Mauritian cruise ship worker spoke anonymously to the WSWS. “With this bill, they took away our right to strike, and our freedom of expression has been removed. So while seafarers are stuck on board indefinitely, killing themselves, protests in my country have been made illegal. Now the whole population is angry about it.”

On June 10, Foreign Affairs Minister Nando Bodha announced the government plan to repatriate 3,500 of its citizens abroad which included a $1,300 price tag per individual returned. The steep cost for the right to return home was explained to have covered “meals and miscellaneous/ancillaries like tea and coffee” for a 14-day quarantine period, two PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests for COVID-19 and other “support and ancillary services.” The price of one charter flight between London and Port Louis for 150 returning citizens was listed as €215,000.

Mauritian workers returned home via the government’s repatriation plan reported that many of the quarantine provisions were improperly cleaned and insect-infested. In many cases, the meager food rations provided were already rotten or beyond their expiration dates. In other instances, repatriating Mauritians were told that they would be released early from their costly quarantines.

The repatriation plan was coordinated in an exclusive public-private “partnership” between the government and Air Mauritius, a subsidiary of Mauritius Air Holdings Ltd., a major Mauritian tourism corporation, of which the government owns over 43 percent. In other words, the Jugnauth administration and Air Mauritius restricted travel to the island by any other means but its own, including cruise ships passing by the country which contained stranded Mauritian citizens. Then, it gouged the returnees in an attempt to aid the airline’s falling shares.

The annual budget for 2020/2021 announced in early June will impose yet another set of savage austerity measures, aimed squarely at the highest bracket of earners in the Mauritian working class. The so-called “solidarity levy” imposes a massive tax hike on those earning an annual salary of more than 3 million Mauritian Rupees (Rs/MUR)—approximately $75,000.

Shrouding its intentions in the most cynical, left-sounding doublespeak, the report by Dr. Renganaden Padayachy, Minister of Finance, stated, “to ensure more social justice, we are reviewing the solidarity levy. [T]he levy of 5 percent on the excess amount of chargeable income plus dividends of a resident Mauritian citizen will now be 25 percent and applicable as from Rs 3 Million annually. […] This is the patriotic appeal which we make to those who earn most. [W]e expect to receive more than Rs 3.5 billion of additional revenue from this levy. As representatives of the people, we are proud to contribute to this levy.”

The budget also replaces the National Pension Fund (NPF) with the Contribution Sociale Généralisée (General Social Contribution/CSG). While the NPF required all workers earning under 50,000 Rs per month (about $1,240) to contribute 3 percent and their employers 6 percent to their pension funds, the CSG mandates that only 1.5 percent will be required by these workers, while their employers will now be required to contribute only 3 percent. For those earning above this threshold, their employee contributions have been reduced from 5 percent to 3 percent, while their employer contributions have been reduced from 8.5 percent to 6 percent.

The switch to the CSG also introduces the Service Employment Cheque (SEC) system, in which “self-employed,” i.e., casualized workers, will also be required to contribute to the new national pension system. What is touted in the budget by Padayachy as the replacement of an “unfair,” “regressive” system with a “progressive” and “collective” alternative, will in actuality serve as a boon for companies which stand to save millions on pension contributions.

An early June article from Maurice-Info.mu entitled “Rebuilding Mauritius: The New Future?” gives a telling report of the intentions of the pandemic budget. “The Mauritian economy, through its key economic pillars was stuttering during the pre COVID-19 period and the measures announced [in the new budget] allow for the reset button to be pressed.”

The July 11 protest was organized by a “Solidarity Assembly” in which “more than 300 representatives of various movements” participated. Organizations involved in the event included several major industrial trade union groups and agricultural associations, such as the Federation of Civil Service & Other Unions, the Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union (HREU), All Employees Confederation, General Workers Federation, Casino Employees Union, Telecom Workers Union, the Union of Bus Industry Workers and the Small Planters Association.

The Solidarity Assembly issued a patchwork list of demands in the form of an open letter to the Jugnauth administration. These demands included broad appeals for Parliament to restore the rights removed in the COVID-19 Act, as well as calls for the general strengthening of the welfare state, the public sector, workers’ rights and sustainable industry. The letter also stipulated that a union representative should be elected to the board of directors for all government agencies in which public money is concerned, as well as a demand that Mauritius’ tourism sector be “made more profitable for workers.”

“Frederick,” a Mauritian cruise ship worker who has been stranded since March, gave a statement to the WSWS using an alias out of a fear of retaliation from both his employer as well as the government. Speaking on the July 11 event in Port Louis, he said, “Mauritians rallied thousands of people, but I really don’t know how much this will help. The government feels powerful, especially since they know that we’re a peaceful people. Corruption is at its peak in the country and the law is only enforced upon the poor. They always seem to be able to get away with anything they want and their answer to the population is, ‘yes, we’re working on fixing it.’” He continued, “We’ve done everything. We wrote a letter to the prime minister, the president and we even had an interview on major American news media—still nothing. If they don’t tell us what they intend to do now, I don’t know what else can be done.”

When asked if he thought that Mauritian workers have a valuable ally in workers around the world struggling against similar conditions, Frederick agreed. “An alliance with the working class of other countries will definitely help, although it’s certainly a difficult route. On the other hand, not much will get better unless we make a major change to the whole political system.” He continued, “I want to follow the updates on WSWS—I hope that Mauritius will be part of the global upsurge of consciousness in the international working class and that Mauritians will stand up for themselves for a change.”

The WSWS urges Mauritian workers to reject all appeals to the agencies of capitalism at home, including those which conceal their programs of chauvinism, protectionism and nationalist economic policy in leftist-sounding phraseology such as the unions involved in the Solidarity Assembly. Instead, workers must form independent rank and file committees of struggle in conjunction with similar workers’ organizations across the globe. These organizations must be uncompromisingly committed to a program which replaces capitalism and the nation state system with an international, socialist planned economy.

Cover-up continues of Manchester Arena suicide bombing

Margot Miller

The state-orchestrated cover-up of the Manchester Arena bombing has deepened, after survivors lost their appeal to attend a forthcoming public inquiry as “core participants.”

This follows a decision last September by coroner Sir John Saunders that inquests into the 22 fatalities could not proceed. Saunders will chair the inquiry, which replaces the inquests, to begin September.

On May 22, 2017, Salman Abedi blew himself up in the foyer of the Manchester Arena after a concert by singer Ariana Grande. The horrific blast killed 22 and injured hundreds, including 600 adults and 340 children, as they were making their way out of the concert hall.

In a judicial review this month, Dame Victoria Sharp, the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, and Mr Justice Garnham, upheld the decision of inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders to deny the survivors the status of “core participants”.

Turning down the original application Saunders had declared, “The injuries, trauma and personal tragedy that the survivors have suffered cannot be overstated and I fully appreciate that this application is borne of the desire of the survivors to ensure that the reasons for the attack are fully understood, the adequacy of the emergency response is examined, and that lessons are learned.”

Counsel to the inquiry Paul Greaney QC made less of a pretence of sympathy, stating that including the survivors might prolong the hearings.

Ruling against the survivors at appeal, Dame Victoria Sharp lamely declared their application “out of time” as it was submitted several weeks beyond the 14-day cut-off date after Saunders’ decision on April 21.

“We would in any event have refused permission to apply on the ground that the claim itself is not arguable,” she said, without explaining why. A full explanation has been promised at an unspecified date.

The survivors, many of whom received life-changing injuries, were seeking the same rights as the police, government, and bereaved families, who will be core participants. While the survivors will be called to give evidence at the inquiry, they will not have legal representation and thus have no control over proceedings or influence over the issues raised.

Martin Hibbert, the closest survivor to the bomb blast, has been left paralysed from the waist downwards after suffering 22 shrapnel wounds. “We were the lucky ones,” he said, “We were there and we survived. So we’ve got a lot of information that we feel is imperative for a thorough investigation so lessons can be learned. We are perplexed as to the ruling given what we’ve seen, what we’ve heard and what we’ve been through.”

Representing the 56 survivors, Saoirse de Bont, Associate Solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, described the decision as “hugely disappointing.” The ruling resulted in “our clients who were seriously injured feeling like they will not have a voice at the public inquiry.”

Since the fateful incident that shattered the lives of so many, the government has been intent on depriving survivors, bereaved relatives and the public, any knowledge about the background to this immense crime.

Salman Abedi, 22, detonated the bomb, with the help of his brother Hashem Abedi, but ultimate responsibility for the murders extends beyond them to the British ruling class and their intelligence agencies. The act of terror on that night at the Arena was a by-product of UK foreign policy in the Middle East. The victims were collateral damage.

In March this year, Hashem Abedi was found guilty along with his brother of the murders, as well as one count of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit an explosion.

The trial heard the Manchester-born brothers worked jointly sourcing the material, including chemicals, screws, and nails to make bombs that would cause as much injury as possible. Over five months, they used 11 mobile phones, and despite neither of them having a driving licence, freely transported components around Manchester in several vehicles. After the blast, police identified Hashem’s fingerprints in a car and locations where traces of explosives were found.

At the time of the blast, Hashem was in Libya where he was arrested the following day. He was extradited to the UK two years later.

As coroner of the Manchester Arena inquest, Saunders ruled the inquests would not proceed after Counter Terrorism Police indicated material relating to the bombing was classified and not open to public scrutiny. His decision followed “public interest immunity” (PII) applications by Conservative Home Secretary Priti Patel and Counter Terrorism Police North West requesting vital intelligence material be excluded from the inquests.

Saunders said the information to be withheld was “relevant and central to the matters that fall to be investigated.” He continued, “Accordingly, my provisional view is that an adequate investigation, addressing fully the statutory questions… could not be conducted within the framework of the inquests.”

He added that “to make public those matters would assist terrorists in carrying out the sort of atrocities committed in Manchester and would make it less likely that the Security Service and CT [counter-terrorism] police would be able to prevent them.”

What is being covered up is that the atrocity committed at Manchester Arena could have been prevented. Saunders admitted as much, saying that the government and police were withholding information that “relates to the issue of whether the attack by Salman Abedi could have been prevented by the authorities.”

The brothers were well known to MI5, which had been informed by the FBI months before the attack in Manchester that Salman Abedi was planning a terrorist attack. It was also reported that he was in contact with a Libyan Islamic State battalion, and that he had twice visited imprisoned convicted terrorist and fighter in Libya and Syria, Abdal Raouf Abdallah.

Salman Abedi regularly visited his parents in Libya. His father Ramadan was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was linked to Al Qaeda and closely tied to the British state. The father and sons are understood to have fought with Islamist forces against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as proxy forces of US and British imperialism in a savage regime change operation. Salman Abedi was investigated by MI5 in January 2014, but the case was closed, then reopened in 2001, and closed again within a day. Four days after a final trip to Libya, he blew himself up at the Manchester Arena. He was not officially considered a terrorist threat.

In 2018, the Daily Mail reported that as the civil war in Libya intensified, the brothers fled Libya onboard a UK Royal Navy vessel, the HMS Enterprise. The Abedis were clearly protected assets, given free rein in Libya, Syria, and the UK.

In November 2018, parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) issued a whitewash report stating that “there were a number of failures in the handling of Salman Abedi’s case and, while it is impossible to say whether these would have prevented the devastating attack on 22 May, we have concluded that, as a result of the failings, potential opportunities to prevent it were missed.” MI5 accepted that they “moved too slowly” and made mistakes.

The ISC investigation was intended to complete the cover-up of the UK’s murderous foreign policy dealings, begun with the publication of a report in December 2017 by David Anderson QC.

Hashem Abedi is due to be sentenced in August. Aided by the silence of the Labour Party, the Conservative government hopes that by the end of the inquiry all uncomfortable questions about events leading up to the Manchester Arena atrocity will be silenced and the survivors and bereaved, like the victims of Grenfell and the Hillsborough football stadium atrocity, denied justice.

Executives reap millions in bonuses as US retail apocalypse escalates

Trévon Austin

The retail industry in the United States has been ravaged by an unending wave of closures, bankruptcies and liquidations since the depths of the Great Recession in 2008. The current social and economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to accelerate this collapse, which has been dubbed the retail apocalypse.

A record 9,302 store closures were announced last year and 2020 is on track to see three times as many closures. In April alone, 2.1 million jobs were lost in the retail sector making it one of the worst hit areas of the American economy.

Yet amid this historic crisis, US firms have continued to shower executives with millions of dollars in bonuses while millions of retail workers were laid off. A Reuters analysis of securities filings and court records found that nearly a third of the more than 40 large companies filing for bankruptcy this year awarded bonuses to executives within a month of filing.

Reuters analyzed financial documents and court records from 45 companies that filed for bankruptcy since March 11, the day COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The companies reviewed either held publicly traded stock or debt or more than $50 million in liabilities.

A total of fourteen companies issued bonuses within a month of filing and six cited challenges executives faced during the coronavirus pandemic to justify the handouts. Eight companies, including JCPenney and Hertz Global Holdings, dished out bonuses within as little as five days before filing for bankruptcy. Hi-Crush Inc., which supplies sand for fracking, did so two days before filing on July 12.

A majority of the companies issued bonuses six months before their bankruptcies. Out of the 45 companies Reuters analyzed, 32 gave bonuses within a half year before filing. Almost half authorized bonuses within two months.

JCPenney, which was forced to temporarily close 846 stores and furlough 78,000 out of 85,000 employees, issued almost $10 million in bonuses before its bankruptcy filing on May 15. On Wednesday, the company announced it would permanently close 242 stores. JCPenney claimed the exorbitant bonuses were aimed at retaining a “talented management team.” The annual pay of the company’s median employee, a part-time hourly worker, was $11,482 in 2019, Reuters noted.

Neiman Marcus Group, which temporarily closed all of its 67 stores in March and furloughed more than 11,000 employees, paid out $4 million in bonuses to its Chairman and Chief Executive Geoffroy van Raemdonck in February, and an additional $4 million to other executives just weeks before it filed for bankruptcy. In the company’s proposed plan as part of its filing additional bonuses were already laid out.

In a company filing, Hertz said it had paid senior executives $1.5 million in bonuses, just days before its bankruptcy filing, in order to recognize the uncertainty corporate management faced due to the reduction in travel caused by the pandemic.

Whiting Petroleum Corp. gifted $14.6 million in bonuses days before its filing. Chesapeake Energy Corp. awarded $25 million to executives and lower-level employees in May, about eight weeks before filing for bankruptcy. Both companies stated the extra compensation was in response to falling oil prices sparked by the recent Saudi-Russian oil price war, which scrapped incentive plans in place for execs.

Meanwhile, Levi Strauss’s chief executive has issued a warning that the string of retail bankruptcies announced in the first half of 2020 is “just the tip of the iceberg.” Chip Bergh told the Financial Times “the list [of recent failures] is already pretty long and I expect it’s going to get longer.”

The manufacturer and retailer of the Levi’s, Dockers and Denizen clothing brands has faced troubles during the pandemic like its competitors but has managed to avoid bankruptcy. Its second quarter was the weakest in at least two decades, with net revenues 62 percent lower than last year. Currently, most of Levi Strauss’s almost 1,000 company stores are open, but Bergh worried the retail sector would be disrupted again as coronavirus cases surge. In an attempt to lower expenses, the company recently announced it would cut 700 corporate jobs to save $100 million a year.

The bestowal of millions of dollars to corporate executives, while tens of millions of workers in the US face severe financial insecurity or are being forced to toil in unsafe conditions, is an indication of the absolute criminality of the American ruling class. Its response to the pandemic has been limited to providing trillions to large corporations and banks and ensuring the continued exploitation of the working class. While CEOs rake in millions, workers face financial ruin as the $600 weekly enhanced federal unemployment benefit expires even as new unemployment claims continue to accumulate at the unprecedented pace of more than 1 million every week.

Australian coronavirus surge hits Sydney

Patrick O’Connor

The continued surge in coronavirus infections has extended from Melbourne into Sydney, Australia’s largest city.

Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly revealed on Sunday that the basic reproduction rate (R0) is 1.4 in Sydney and New South Wales (NSW), even higher than neighbouring Victoria, which continues to have the largest number of active infections. This effectively means that for every two people who become infected, three more are catching it from them, posing the dangers of an exponential growth.

Eighteen cases were reported in NSW on Sunday, followed by twenty on Monday. While the absolute figures remain relatively low, it is clear that community transmission is once again underway. Commentators have noted parallels between the current situation in NSW, and that which existed several weeks ago in Victoria, a state that is now recording hundreds of infections every day.

Despite the dangers, the NSW Liberal government, like its counterparts across the country, is proceeding with a pro-business campaign to compel employees back to work in the interests of corporate profit.

This was underscored by the reopening of schools throughout NSW yesterday. Even though state health authorities warned on Sunday of an “inherent risk” connected to public transport, the following day thousands of students and teachers were forced onto the trains and the buses to get to classes. In a particularly criminal move, educators at a high risk of succumbing to coronavirus, including those with suppressed immune systems, have also been compelled to return to schools.

There are now multiple clusters being investigated across NSW, with hotels, restaurants, shopping centres and gyms among the affected venues. The worst remains the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, a working-class suburb in Sydney’s outer west, which has 50 infections linked to the venue. These include 15 people who visited the hotel on July 3 and July 5, as well as 33 people who did not go to the hotel but had contact with those who did.

The cluster is connected with multiple other venues that have been classified as hotspots, with anyone present during affected dates asked to be tested and to self-isolate, even if the test result is negative. Venues include a freight company in Wetherill Park, Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Harris Park and Thai Rock Restaurant in Wetherill Park, where 10 of the 13 new cases in the state that were reported today originate from.

For other at-risk venues, the official advice for people who may have been present at the same time as a confirmed coronavirus case is only to self-monitor for symptoms and to get tested if these emerge. These include Westfield shopping centre in Mount Druitt, Bankstown, YMCA in Revesby, and McDonald’s in Albion Park.

Management of at least two affected venues were kept in the dark by health department officials. Jack Carter, who runs the Village Inn in the inner-Sydney suburb of Paddington, told the Sydney Morning Herald that he only learned that a potentially infectious person had been at his pub through media reports. Operators of the C1 Speed Go Karting centre in Albion Park were advised by NSW Health inspectors to do a deep clean, but were not told that a coronavirus patient had attended the venue while infectious.

Most of the affected sites are in Sydney’s working-class areas, in contrast to the initial stages of the pandemic when many infections were registered in upper-middle class families returning from international holidays.

The uptick in cases is the direct result of the negligent policies of federal and state governments, Labor and Liberal, which prioritise the demands of big business and finance capital ahead of public health and safety.

Last Tuesday, New South Wales Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared: “We cannot shut down every time we have a cluster of cases… I don’t ever want to be in a situation again where we have to lockdown NSW.” She added this would “create chaos for businesses” and affect corporate “confidence,” and insisted that “we need to accept that people need to go to work.”

This is nothing but a rejection of medical and epidemiological science. Strict lockdown measures have been proven as the most effective way of quickly suppressing transmission of COVID-19, preventing mass infections and mass deaths. Yet governments in Australia, like their international counterparts, are refusing to take the necessary measures in order to maintain corporate profit rates.

Berejiklian, like her counterparts in Victoria and other states, is seeking to lay the blame for the rise in infections on individuals she accuses of not properly socially distancing. This is a transparent effort to evade scrutiny of her government’s refusal to halt large gatherings at corporate venues, such as pubs, clubs and Luna Park.

The federal Liberal-National government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison today announced additional measures to coerce workers back into unsafe workplaces, centred on the slashing of its pandemic wage subsidies and welfare benefits. This threatens to impoverish more than three million unemployed or under-employed workers.

JobKeeper wage subsidy payments will be extended beyond the original September cut-off date for some businesses. But it will be at a rate reduced from $1,500 to $1,200 a fortnight for an additional three months, and then to $1,000 for the next three months to March 30. There will be even steeper cuts to $750, and then $650, for part-time or casual employees on less than 20 hours a week.

At the same time, the $1,115 fortnightly JobSeeker unemployment and welfare allowance will be cut by $300 a fortnight to $805, just marginally above the starvation level of $556 a fortnight for the pre-COVID Newstart jobless payment. This level may be cut further after December 31. In the meantime, recipients will be compelled to actively search for work, despite the lack of jobs, and will be penalised if they reject a job, no matter how poor the pay and conditions.

While meeting the demands of big business for an extension of JobKeeper subsidies, precisely because of the resurgence of COVID-19 in Victoria and NSW, the government was explicit about pushing employees into workplaces despite the worsening danger. It cited Treasury advice that the current payment rates for workers “potentially blunted their incentives to work, or to take on additional hours of work.”

The pandemic meanwhile continues to worsen in the state of Victoria. Limited lockdown measures have been put in place in Melbourne and neighbouring Mitchell Shire, with people only permitted to leave their homes to exercise, purchase groceries and supplies, care for others, or to go to work and study. Wearing masks or face coverings is mandatory from Thursday.

Yet schools remain open, with all Years 11 and 12 students attending, together with many other children, including those with disabilities and those whose parents cannot work from home. In addition, no non-essential industries have been closed, despite the recent revelation that 80 percent of all coronavirus infections since May have occurred within workplaces.

As a result, it remains unclear whether the limited lockdown will work to flatten the curve of infections. Daily positive cases remain at record levels. Earlier today another 374 cases were reported. Of these, only a minority, 62, have been connected to known outbreaks, while 312 are under investigation. This indicates continued large-scale community infection. Three more deaths were also registered in Victoria. Another 174 people are being treated in hospital for COVID-19, with 36 of them in intensive care.

The state’s intensive care capacity is at 82 percent. Unless the infection rate is lowered, the hospital system will soon be overwhelmed.

This danger is being covered up by the state government, which is refusing to comment on either intensive care emergency surge capacity or on the number of infected healthcare workers. According to the Guardian, 429 healthcare workers have contracted COVID-19, with 164 of these active, while hundreds more are in quarantine awaiting test results. President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association, Julian Rait, has demanded “transparency” from the government, with proper reporting of the number of infections occurring in hospitals and medical centres.

Rait also demanded the provision of more effective personal protective equipment (PPE), including fitted n95 masks and face shields. He revealed the extraordinary fact that official guidelines still allow doctors and nurses to deal with confirmed COVID-19 cases equipped only with gloves and loose fitting surgical masks. This is further evidence of the government’s inadequate and neglectful response to the pandemic.

Coronavirus cases rise sharply in Austria

Markus Salzmann

Now that the Austrian government has lifted all restrictions to control the coronavirus, infection rates are rising sharply again. Last Thursday, the Ministry of Health in Vienna reported 157 positive SARS CoV2 tests. This is the highest number since April 10.

The number of confirmed infections per 100,000 inhabitants was 8.2 within seven days, more than twice as high as in neighbouring Germany with 3.0. The number of active COVID-19 cases has risen from below 400 to 1,315 since mid-June. The average number of positive tests is more than four times higher than in mid-June. At that time, the last protective measure against the pandemic had been lifted, ending the compulsory wearing of masks in shops and restaurants. Besides the capital Vienna, Upper Austria, Lower Austria and Styria are particularly affected by the increase.

The responsibility for the renewed expansion lies with the federal government under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, a coalition of the right-wing conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Greens. Measures to contain the virus had been implemented for a short period in mid-March. But the government in Vienna was at the forefront in its “easing policy” as early as mid-April and then the “COVID-19 relaxation decree” lifted all restrictions. The Kurz government thus made it clear that it would not allow the economic interests of big business to be curtailed, although experts warned against a hasty relaxation of the protective measures.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler at a press conference (Photo: Federal Ministry of Finance)

Given the rapidly increasing numbers of infections, the head of the Austrian Medical Association, Thomas Szekeres, is calling for the reintroduction of compulsory masks in closed rooms. Viennese virologist Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stöckl has also long been against ending the compulsory wearing of masks. In Upper Austria and partly in Carinthia, the compulsory wearing of masks has been reintroduced in public places.

Although protecting the general population requires rapid and far-reaching measures, Chancellor Kurz merely told the Austrian daily newspaper Österreich at the weekend that it was necessary to “reintroduce the compulsory wearing of masks in certain areas.” He wanted to discuss which areas would be affected by this with the responsible ministers.

Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens) explained, “The consideration is that one should wear a mask again in the supermarket.” However, Kogler strictly rejected a nationwide requirement to wear masks in public places.

Hardly a day passes without one or more further coronavirus clusters being discovered in the Alpine republic, with almost 9 million inhabitants. Most recently, at least 34 employees of the Dachsberger slaughterhouse in Eggenburg, Lower Austria, were infected. Over 240 people had to be quarantined. Just like the German slaughterhouse Tönnies, the catastrophic working conditions were responsible for the outbreak. The chain of infection could extend as far as the Czech Republic, from where numerous workers commute to the Austrian slaughterhouse.

At the beginning of July, around two dozen cases had occurred in a slaughterhouse near Linz. The plant was then closed for a short time. In Lower Austria, at least nine cases and 270 possible contacts occurred in a church in the town of Wiener Neustadt.

At the weekend, there were further cases in two Serbian Orthodox churches in Vienna, both of which were closed. A total of seven people had tested positive, including four priests and their family members. The churches are to be reopened as of August 1. Neither wearing face masks nor social distancing rules must be observed in the churches.

According to official figures, there have been a total of 20,000 confirmed coronavirus infections in Austria so far, and 711 people have died as a result.

The handling of the pandemic in schools and kindergartens is particularly irresponsible. Here, mass infections are being undeniably provoked, and no further countermeasures are taken.

After several cases of coronavirus in schools and kindergartens in Vienna, which led to the closure of the facilities, the Social Democrat-Green provincial government decided no more closures should be allowed in the interests of big business. The guidelines now merely stipulate that only children who display symptoms of illness should not attend school. All contact persons, including children in the same class or group, can continue to be taught or looked after.

At the same time, there is no obligation to have the child tested for a possible COVID-19 infection. Ursula Karnthaler, head of the medical crisis team, even explained that symptoms such as sneezing, or coughing do not yet need to be investigated, with a test carried out only when the disease has progressed so far that “the child can no longer follow the educational programme.”

Further measures are then only taken when a child has a positive test result when close contacts must be quarantined for 14 days. The responsible crisis team justified this by saying schools and kindergartens almost only recorded “individual cases”; analyses had shown that hardly any infections could be attributed to educational institutions.

Only two weeks ago, schools and kindergartens in Linz and Wels in Upper Austria had to be closed for days after several cases had occurred. Moreover, few tests are carried out in a targeted manner to keep the numbers low. The Green Health Minister Rudolf Anschober had to admit that recently only about 10,000 tests were being carried out daily. At the end of March, Anschober’s ministry had declared that it wanted to carry out between 15,000 and 17,000 tests daily.

Clinics and nursing homes are particularly affected by the rising number of cases. For example, one-third of the people in Austria who have died of COVID-19 or in which it was a contributing factor were residents of nursing homes. Lack of protective equipment and too few tests are mainly responsible for this, as the Bundesverband Lebenswelt Heim association of old age and care homes commented at the beginning of July. The consequences were “uncontrolled infections in nursing homes.” According to the president of the federal association, Markus Mattersberger, there were only four healthy nurses left in one facility to look after 30 residents.

While the population is being exposed to the dangers of the pandemic in the interests of big business, the latter is using the crisis to attack wages and jobs. Austrian Lufthansa subsidiary AUA, for example, is receiving state support from a €600 million aid package. At the same time, the workforce is to be reduced to 80 percent of its current size by 2022, cutting 1,100 jobs. Moreover, the remaining AUA employees are to face salary cuts totaling €300 million. According to AUA management, the loss of wages will amount to 13 to 15 percent for each employee. Currently, large parts of the workforce are on short-time working, which is already leading to considerable losses.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, unemployment in Austria has risen sharply, especially in the retail, catering and education sectors. While 400,000 people were out of work at the end of February 2020, the number had risen to 463,500 by the end of June. Women, often single parents who have already worked in precarious conditions, are particularly affected. The number of short-time workers, which had fallen in recent weeks, has also risen by more than 50,000 within one week.

Ireland heading for second COVID-19 wave

Steve James

Ireland’s National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has warned of a second wave of COVID-19 infection, reaching 150 new cases a day in three weeks’ time, and of hospitals being overwhelmed in the winter.

The team’s modeling chair, Professor Philip Nolan, warned that the “R number” (infection reproduction rate) was already likely between 1.4 and 1.8. Nolan told Nphet’s regular press briefing Thursday, “We are in a position of high uncertainty at the moment.”

The country’s acting chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, warned that such a scenario should have a “very very negative impact on the government’s plans to get our children back to school.”

The Irish Times reported Friday that Health Service Executive (HSE) officials will tell the government that winter flu surges frequently overwhelm emergency units. Patients spending hours and days on trolleys awaiting treatment has been a scandalous feature of Irish hospitals for years. Dr Colm Henry, HSE’s chief clinical officer, said of a second wave during winter flu season, “I can’t see any healthcare service managing that scenario, I couldn’t put it more starkly than that.”

Thus far, 25,698 people have been confirmed as having contracted COVID-19 in the Republic of Ireland (RoI), of whom 1,749 have died. An additional 5,815 infections have been reported in Northern Ireland, of whom 556 died. Lockdown measures, now rapidly being unwound, have reduced weekly deaths to low single figures.

The warnings expose the recklessness of the drive by the Irish government, egged on by business interests, to reopen the economy as soon as possible.

“Phase 3” of the government’s “roadmap” out of lockdown, introduced June 29, re-opened most of the economy, with only requirements for facemasks and some limits on pubs, hotels and large gatherings remaining. Newly installed coalition Taoiseach, Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin, was forced last Wednesday into a token delay of “Phase 4”—due next Monday—until August 10, requiring a few weeks delay in hotels and pubs re-opening.

July’s Central Bank of Ireland’s Quarterly Bulletin outlined the shattering impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy and laid bare the profit interests behind the premature return to work.

Amid mass unemployment and with the R number increasing again, the bulletin’s authors resort to sketching out two scenarios, “baseline” and “severe”, without any indication of the confidence being placed in either.

The lockdown “triggered sudden and large-scale job losses and, allied to extreme uncertainty, gave rise to a severe negative shock to both consumer spending and investment.” While the back to work drive has led to some “rebound”, the “outlook is very uncertain and the path ahead for the economy depends on the scale of the shock and its aftermath.”

Further “containment measures” might be necessary while uncertainty overshadows the immediate and long-term impact on “behaviour and economic activity”, “damage to productive capacity” and “the pace at which economic activity normalises.”

Even the “baseline” scenario is dire. The bank predicts that, this year, private consumption will fall by 10.1 percent. Unemployment, which peaked at 28.2 percent in April, will average 14.5 percent, while investment will collapse by 34.7 percent. Under the “severe” scenario, consumption falls by 13.9 percent, unemployment averages 16.6 percent and investment falls by 44.4 percent.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown, unemployment in Ireland peaked at 14.6 percent.

In terms of public health, the baseline assumes that the strict lockdown in Ireland is “unwound over the coming months,” while “some containment would remain in place.” The severe scenario assumes the disease is not contained, and there is “a resurgence of the virus at some point between now and the end of 2021.” Output losses are expected to be lower in a second phase of “containment” but “such losses would likely be more persistent and thus more damaging to the long run growth rate of the economy”, including a “potential increase in structural unemployment.”

The government has been forced to spend significant amounts in welfare and unemployment benefits to workers in locked down areas of the economy. A COVID-19 illness payment of €350 weekly was paid to self-isolating workers, while a COVID-19 temporary wage subsidy scheme to furlough workers covered 70 percent of wages.

A COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment for laid off workers was initially €350 weekly. From July 7 however, this was reduced to €203 for low waged workers to enforce the return to work.

By contrast, subsidies to business are long-term and generous. While workers are facing immediate reductions in benefit, as rent and mortgage debts pile up, the Irish government has developed a host of schemes benefiting the corporations and rich:

* COVID-19 Working Capital Scheme—a €450 million scheme to provide between €25,000 and €1.5 million for qualifying firms.

* COVID-19 Funding for Future Growth—€500 million making long terms loans, up to 10 years and up to €3 million, available for companies.

* COVID-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme—€2 billion available to small and medium sized businesses loans for up to six years and up to €1 million.

* Pandemic Stabilisation and Recovery Fund offers €2 billion to larger companies.

Additional amounts are available under the Sustaining Enterprise Fund, while a Restart Grant is available to small and micro businesses of between €2,000 and €10,000. Some businesses have had their commercial rates waived.

The emergency payments have drastically impacted state finance. While large sums have been handed out in subsidies and welfare payments, tax revenues have slumped as entire sectors, particularly construction and tourism, ceased functioning.

The bank anticipates the government’s balance sheet to shift from a small surplus of 0.6 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) in 2019 to a deficit of between 12.8 and 17.6 percent of GNI in 2020. Total government revenue is expected to fall by €12.5 billion this year, while expenditure will increase by €12 billion, although some of the deficit will be made up from resources put aside in the aftermath of the previous financial debacle.

The bank bulletin notes that the debt to GNI ratios are likely to remain high for a prolonged period. It warns of the impact of other international factors over which the Irish government has little control, such as “additional shocks caused by Brexit or a decline in corporation tax revenue linked to changes in international tax policies.”

The report includes a comment considering the British government’s intention to leave the European Union (EU) by the end of this year. Earlier in the year, the bank suggested that a basic free trade agreement between Britain and the EU would in the long-term reduce Irish output by around 3.5 percent. If trade reverted to World Trade Organisation terms, the fall would be around 5 percent. A “disorderly” no deal Brexit would have a sharper impact.

The pandemic will have disrupted companies’ preparations for Brexit, with staff unavailable. Firms will also have lost revenue, leaving them less able to deal with losses from Brexit, while “preparations of governments and public authorities are also likely to have been curtailed to re-direct resources to tackling the COVID emergency.”

The unraveling of global supply chains is likely to impact on exports. The bank acknowledges vast levels of uncertainty, based on the progress of the virus, and how “households and businesses respond once containment measures are lifted.”

The bank supported measures taken to bail out US, EU and British corporations, including the US government’s unlimited CARES act, yet considered these “are not sufficient to outweigh the negative impact of the crisis given the range of channels through which the pandemic is impairing growth in the economy.”

Ireland, simultaneously with every other country, is heading into a period of extended and profound crisis, in which the fundamental conflict in society—between the capitalist class and working class will be ever more naked.

Workers in Ireland, including in the meat industry, the health sector and transport, have made determined efforts to defend themselves against the immediate early impact of the crisis, demanding the right to personal protective equipment (PPE), a safe working environment and opposing job losses. To take this forward, Irish workers urgently need new rank-and-file organisations of struggle and their own political organisations to assert their independent interests as part of an international class.

Health and safety of medical workers jeopardized by world leaders’ negligent response to the pandemic

Benjamin Mateus

On July 16, during a memorial dedication in Madrid, Spain, to those who lost their lives to COVID-19 as well as the health workers who helped fight the pandemic, a nurse named Aroa Lopez made a remarkable and impassioned speech that provided the necessary humanity that has been lacking in the response by national authorities.

She said, “We have given it our all. We have worked to the brink of exhaustion. And once again we have understood, maybe better than ever, why we chose this profession: to care for people and to save lives. We have been the messengers of the last goodbye to older people who died alone, hearing their children’s voices on the telephone. We have made video calls, we have held their hands, and we had had to fight back the tears when someone said, ‘Don’t let me die alone.’ I want to ask the authorities to defend everyone’s health care. To remember that there is no better tribute to those who are no longer with us than to protect our health and ensure the dignity of our professions.”

The pandemic is spiraling out of control as public health officials beseech their leaders to act decisively and in concert. The seven-day global average for daily cases of COVID-19 stands at 226,864, and new daily cases have consistently pegged above 200,000. The seven-day daily fatality rate has climbed from the low of 4,112 on May 26 to 5,111 on July 20. The number of cumulative cases has exceeded 14.8 million, adding another million cases every four to five days. The United States, Brazil, and India combined have lately accounted for more than 50 percent of all cases worldwide. Health care workers, who have been at the forefront of this global health crisis, have also faced the brunt of this assault.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaking at the Friday press briefing, noted, “Many health workers are also suffering physical and psychological exhaustion after months of working in extremely stressful environments.” By way of an example, Portuguese health workers were surveyed in April 2020 during the height of the pandemic. Seventy-five percent considered their anxiety level “high” or “very high,” and 14.6 percent were facing moderate to severe depression. Many health care workers are demanding fair pay and compensation for the hazards they face.

July 16 memorial in Madrid to victims of COVID-19. (Credit: Sergio Perez)

The United Nations has announced that over 1.4 million or about 10 percent of all COVID-19 cases globally are among health care workers. A brief list is provided below:

 In the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of July 5, 92,572 health care personnel have contracted COVID-19 and 507 have died.

* The government of Mexico reported 36,327 COVID-19 cases on May 13; 8,544 among health care workers with 111 deaths, representing 3.1 percent of all fatalities.

* Brazil’s health ministry reported that in June, 83,118 health workers were confirmed with COVID-19. As of July 5, there were 238 COVID-19 deaths among nurses; as of May 21, more than 100 physicians had died.

* The United Kingdom reported that by June 26 there were 268 deaths among medical personnel.

* Spain noted that by May 29, health care workers made up 24.1 percent of all confirmed COVID-19 cases.

* Ukraine’s health minister, on June 9, noted that around 18 percent of all confirmed cases were among health care workers.

* Roszdravnadzor, Russia’s health care watchdog, announced unofficially that 489 doctors had died.

Amnesty International, which has been monitoring these developments among health care workers, noted that the following countries had the highest numbers of deaths among health workers: US (507), Russia (545), Brazil (351), Mexico (248), Italy (188), Egypt (111), Iran (91), Ecuador (82) and Spain (63).

Data from the UK has shown that there are elevated rates of death among those in health care professions when compared to the general population. Other occupations with high fatality rates due to COVID-19 include taxi drivers, chauffeurs, bus and coach drivers, factory workers and security guards.

According to Amnesty’s report published on July 13, over 3,000 health workers have died across 79 countries due to COVID-19, a number they cite being a vast underestimation. Meanwhile, many had faced reprisals from authorities and their employers when they raised concerns about their safety or that of their patients in such places as China, Hong Kong, India, Egypt, Malaysia, South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico and the United States. Some have been arrested and subjected to violence.

Courageously, however, health care workers internationally have spoken out, protested and gone on strike to demand better working conditions, personal protective equipment (PPE), which remains chronically short globally, and supplies and adequate staffing to care for their patients despite the hazards they have faced from their employers, state authorities and backward layers of their communities.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and 12 other medical and global humanitarian organizations representing 30 million health care professionals issued a report in May decrying the violence against medical workers. They wrote, “[M]any responders are experiencing harassment, stigmatization and physical violence. Some health care professionals and the people they were caring for have been killed. At least 208 reports of such incidents have emerged since the beginning of the pandemic, and each day brings new stories of intimidation and harm.” The present surge and alarming levels of inaction by the governments will only further exacerbate such assaults on those working in the health field as well as create conditions that will devastate communities throughout the globe.

In a report delivered to the United Nations on July 13, Mark Lowcock, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, explained that inaction on the part of industrialized nations to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis caused by the pandemic would lead to series of tragedies that would be more brutal and destructive than the impact of the virus itself. By the end of the year, conditions in fragile and emerging countries would grow more dire as they face starvation and disease. “Decades of development will be undone as the virus runs free,” he said.

“[F]or just $90 billion,” he said in his report, “less than one percent of the stimulus package to protect the global economy, the UN assessed we could protect the world’s poorest 700 million people from the worst outcomes.” One percent of the trillions siphoned from public monies to enrich a handful of parasites could stave off famine and disease for 10 percent of the planet’s population. The national media, the mouthpiece of the oligarchs, prefer to dabble in Russian and Chinese intrigue or spin another racialist narrative rather than address these most pressing of concerns.

At the WHO press briefing, Lowcock said he hoped that the G20 finance ministers would address these issues because inaction had the potential to produce a global calamity. He pointed out that their plan costing $10.3 billion would assist 63 vulnerable countries and cover the global transport costs to deliver relief. He said, “The pandemic risks the first rise in global poverty since 1990—at least 70 to 100 million may be pushed into the extreme poverty category. One hundred thirty million could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of this year, bringing the total to 265 million people—a doubling of people facing starvation.”

He made additional points on the cost of containment measures on education that could generate learning losses that have a present value of $10 trillion globally, not to mention the earnings on individuals and community disruptions that will impact young women most harshly through issues such as teenage pregnancy. The pandemic has also created conditions that will lead to a rise in instability and local, regional and national conflicts, which will further exacerbate the refugee crisis and food insecurity.

The pandemic, a historic trigger event, has not only exposed and exacerbated the crisis of the capitalism system organized under the obsolete nation-state system. It demonstrates that it is entirely indifferent to the suffering of billions of people facing the need for urgent aid and relief. The utter disregard for the conditions faced by health care workers highlights the deep chasm that separates the concerns of the financial oligarchs from those of every person on the planet regardless of their nationality.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres observed, “[T]he pandemic has revealed, like an x-ray, fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built. It is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all…the myth that we are all in the same boat. Because while we are all floating on the same sea, it’s clear that some are in superyachts while others are clinging to the floating debris.”

Growing signs of deep and prolonged global recession

Nick Beams

The chief executive of PNB Paribas Asset Management, one of Europe’s largest investment firms, has said the global economy is facing the “mother of all recessions” as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world.

Reporting on his remarks, the Financial Times said CEO Frédéric Janbon had “poured cold water on the idea of a swift recovery from the pandemic,” pointing to what he called “a very, very substantial drop in activities in pretty much all of the economies around the world.”

Janbon said a V-shaped recovery was unlikely and predicted a long recession before any upturn in economic activity, adding that the escalation of the stock markets since the middle of March did not reflect underlying global economic conditions.

“The huge rally we have seen over the course of the few months from the low point in March is probably a bit fast and probably does not take into account the risk of a second wave,” he said, pointing to the rise in virus infections worldwide.

The reference to a “second wave” is something of a misnomer. In the US, Latin America and many other parts of the world the first wave is still growing. Moreover, even if the virus is brought under control, its impact on the economy will be long lasting. Millions of jobs have been destroyed and will not be coming back.

The Wall Street Journal reported at the weekend that many large US companies have determined the measures they took in March and April are not going to be sufficient. The increase in COVID-19 cases and related shutdowns have dashed hopes for a quick recovery.

Consequently, businesses from airline companies to restaurant chains are shifting their strategies “turning furloughs into permanent lay-offs, de-emphasizing their core businesses and downsizing production indefinitely.”

Amid sweeping job cuts in the airline industry,—American Airlines has said 25,000 jobs are at risk and United is looking to axe 36,000 staff—Delta said it had shelved plans to add more flights over the summer and did not expect business flying to return to pre-pandemic levels.

The article cited remarks by Pret A Manger chief executive Pano Christou on the announcement by the sandwich chain that it had suffered an 87 percent drop in US sales and was planning to close 20 stores. “We cannot defy gravity and continue with the business model we had before the pandemic,” he said.

Summing up the overall situation, the article noted: “Executives who were bracing for a months-long disruption are now thinking in terms of years. Their job has changed from riding out to reinventing. Roles once thought core are now an extravagance. Strategies set in the spring are obsolete.”

That is, processes already underway, in the US and around the world, before the pandemic struck, are now being accelerated by it. Whole industries are undertaking a major restructuring in which millions of jobs will be destroyed. Those who remain will be forced to accept lower wages and conditions under the threat of unemployment as governments start to withdraw the limited support packages put in place in March.

The effects of the crisis range across the entire economy. Bloomberg reported yesterday that global real estate investment fell by 33 percent in the first half of the year. So far the Asia-Pacific region has been hardest hit with investment down by 45 percent from a year earlier.

With international tourism at a virtual standstill, hotel investment plunged by 59 percent in the first half of the year. Investment in retail properties dropped by 41 percent.

The decline in trade is delivering devastating blows to export-dependent economies, most sharply expressed in the massive contraction in the economy of Singapore, which sits at the centre of the trading lanes of the Southeast Asian region.

According to data released by the island state’s Ministry of Trade and Industry last week, gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter declined by 41.2 percent from the previous three months.

Japan, the world’s third largest economy, after the US and China, is predicted to announce a 20 percent contraction in GDP on an annualised basis in the second quarter compared to the previous three months.

The International Monetary Fund has said it expects global gross domestic product to contract by 4.9 percent this year with the total loss of output for 2020 and 2021 to reach $12.5 trillion.

China recorded a 3.2 percent increase in GDP for the second quarter, following a 6.8 percent contraction in the first. The rise was largely a result of decisions by the central government to increase the amount local authorities can borrow for infrastructure projects that led to an increase in steel production. However, retail sales fell by 3.9 percent.

Liu Aihua, a spokeswoman for the National Statistics Bureau, said the figures showed a “gradual recovery,” but pointed to “mounting external risks and challenges” due to the continued spread of the coronavirus.

Despite signs of some revival, the Chinese economy is not going to be able to play the same role it did after the 2008 financial crisis when a massive stimulus package, the result of government spending and increased debt, provided a boost for raw material exporting economies around the world.

In Europe, the European Central Bank (ECB) has forecast a contraction of close to 13 percent in the second quarter with a rebound in the third. But following a meeting of its governing council last week, ECB president Christine Lagarde warned that the loss of income and jobs, as well as “exceptionally elevated uncertainty,” would weigh on consumer sentiment and business investment.

Leaving the ECB’s monetary policy on hold, while announcing it would continue with its asset purchasing program of €1.35 trillion until June next year, Lagarde urged leaders of the European Union to waste no time in reaching agreement on a €750 recovery fund for countries hit by the pandemic.

EU leaders then held their second longest meeting in history. Starting on Friday and reaching into the early hours of Tuesday morning, it was marked at times by bitter exchanges before reports emerged they were “closing in” on a deal.

The main conflict was with the so-called “frugal four”—the Netherlands Austria, Denmark and Sweden—that demanded a significant reduction in the allocation of grants to economically weakened countries from the €500 billion proposed in the initial French-German plan.

The intensity of the disputes led Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to comment at one point that failure to strike a deal could lead to the “destruction of Europe’s single market.” The rift may have been covered over for now but divisions are certain to re-emerge under conditions of deepening recession.

Democrats, Republicans prepare to slash workers’ unemployment supplement

Shannon Jones

Some 25 million US workers are facing a reduction or outright elimination of a $600 weekly federal addition to state unemployment benefits when the supplemental payment authorized by Congress under the CARES Act expires on July 25.

In the midst of a raging pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with at least 30 million out of work and new jobless claims surpassing one million a week, the supplement is all that has been keeping many families above water. Coinciding with the impending end of a federal moratorium on evictions and the expiration of state moratoriums, the cut in jobless pay will propel millions into destitution and homelessness.

One survey found that 37 percent of renters and 26 percent of homeowners feared they could be homeless by the end of the year. Researchers at Columbia University say they expect US homelessness to increase by 45 percent compared to 2019.

Hunger, already on the rise, will spiral further upward. Feeding America reported that the vast majority of food banks were still experiencing a big increase in demand in early July compared to a year ago. Almost 30 percent of those lining up for food were new clients.

Congress has convened this week in advance of the August break to consider a new coronavirus stimulus bill that will contain, in addition to another mammoth handout to big business, either a sharp reduction or total elimination of the unemployment supplement.

Congressional Republicans want either the elimination of the supplement or a reduction to between $200 and $400. The Trump administration is calling for the elimination of the supplement and a cut in the federal payroll tax, which would slash funding for Social Security and Medicare.

Both the White House and congressional Republicans are demanding corporate immunity from coronavirus-related lawsuits. This amounts to a carte blanche for companies that refuse to take measures to protect workers who are being given the “choice” of returning to unsafe jobs or starving.

The Democrats have introduced a bill tying the supplement to the official unemployment rate in each state. It would cut the benefit by $100 for each percentage point decline in a state’s unemployment rate, starting at 11 percent. That would mean an immediate cut in many states.

As part of his war against science and coronavirus testing and tracking, President Trump is also demanding that no additional funding go to the Centers for Disease Control.

There is a strong possibility that the $600 supplement will be allowed to lapse before a new bill is passed and signed into law. One thing is certain: workers’ living standards will be slashed in order to break down resistance to returning to workplaces such as meatpacking plants, auto plants, Amazon distribution centers and schools that are breeding grounds for the deadly virus.

The corporate elite and its political stooges in both parties are irate that many workers are actually taking home more money with the current federal unemployment supplement than they did working for the near-poverty wages that prevail in most workplaces.

That is why the supplement has come under attack by both Democratic- and Republican-aligned newspapers, from the New York Times and Washington Post to the Wall Street Journal. In a particularly cynical opinion piece, the Times called for turning the $600 supplement for the unemployed into a supplement for employers to encourage them to hire laid-off workers.

The Democratic governor of Connecticut, Ned Lamont, won press accolades for a speech opposing an extension of the supplement on the grounds that it “discouraged work.”

While Congress dithers when it comes to a supplement that has enabled millions of workers to keep a roof over their families and put food on the table, it snaps into action and joins hands across the partisan aisle when it comes to extending the Paycheck Protection Program, a slush fund for millionaires and billionaires packaged as a boon to small business. Last week the program was extended by a unanimous vote.

Corporations are using the pandemic as an opportunity to carry out a brutal restructuring involving wage cuts and the elimination of millions of jobs. Companies that received billions of dollars in the CARES Act corporate bailout—justified in the name of “saving jobs”—get to keep the handouts even as they announce huge layoffs.

The airline industry, which received $25 billion in federal bailout money, is leading the way. American Airlines has announced that it will furlough up to 25,000 workers once the federal Payroll Support program ends on October 1. United is threatening as many as 36,000 job cuts. Delta is demanding that pilots take a 15 percent pay cut.

Meanwhile, the pandemic is allowed to explode out of control as the ruling class pursues its criminal policy of “herd immunity,” i.e., killing off “excess” workers, especially older people who are no longer a source of surplus value and profit. Wall Street applauds as the Dow rises in tandem with the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths, buoyed by unlimited cash supplied by the Federal Reserve.

Since the start of the pandemic, the overriding concern of the US ruling elite has been to protect its wealth. Once the CARES Act bailout package was signed into law in March, the main focus of both big-business parties turned to forcing workers back into the factories to produce profit and back up the ever-expanding mountain of debt.

The homicidal back-to-work campaign is entering a new and even deadlier stage with the drive to force teachers and school workers back into unsafe and dilapidated schools. The ruling elite could care less how many workers are sacrificed in the manic drive for profit and the further expansion of the fortunes of corporate oligarchs.

The attack on the $600 unemployment supplement is a major component of a policy of class war directed against the entire working population. The slashing or termination of the jobless benefit is a weapon in this war.

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote on July 16:

It would be hard to imagine a more corrupt social order than currently exists. The pandemic has become a favorable factor for enriching the financial oligarchy. As long as the crisis provides the pretext for massive bailouts by the Federal Reserve, there is no incentive to bring it under control.

The Socialist Equality Party and its candidates in the 2020 elections—Joseph Kishore for president and Norissa Santa Cruz for vice president—demand an end to the premature and unsafe back-to-work and back-to-school campaigns.

The SEP candidates call for the repeal of the CARES Act and the seizure of the trillions handed over to the corporations and the banks. That money must instead be used to protect and expand jobless benefits to the unemployed and halt all layoffs. Full income must be guaranteed to nonessential workers sidelined by the pandemic, along with a safe workplace and hazard pay for essential workers who remain on the job.

The money must also be used to finance a globally coordinated effort to contain and eradicate the coronavirus, carry out a crash program to expand and refurbish the health care system, organize on an international and nonprofit basis the development of curative treatments and a vaccine, and provide quality and equal medical treatment for all those affected.

The capitalists’ response to the pandemic has exposed the bankruptcy and rottenness of the entire system. There is no way out of the miasma of disease, death and poverty outside of a direct struggle against this system, the class of parasites who rule over it and the parties and politicians who do their bidding.