White House, Congress combine to cut off supplemental unemployment benefits

Jacob Crosse

After meeting for less than two hours on Friday, Democratic leaders and Trump administration officials broke off negotiations on a fifth coronavirus stimulus bill with no additional meetings planned.

Two weeks of fruitless negotiations between Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer on one side, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on the other, have yielded nothing.

Despite the social and economic catastrophe millions of workers and their families face following the expiration of the federal $600-a-week unemployment enhancement and the partial eviction moratorium, neither side felt compelled to reach an agreement. While the $2.2 trillion CARES Act can be rightly characterized as the organized theft of trillions of dollars in social wealth by a parasitic ruling class, the extra jobless pay and ban on evictions included in the law have helped over 30 million jobless workers remain fed and housed over the past four months.

Citing the jobs report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which showed that 1.8 million jobs were added in July, President Donald Trump tweeted out a graphic extolling the supposedly “Great Jobs Numbers!” He also touted them repeatedly in a bizarre press conference at which he threatened to issue an executive order that would temporarily extend the supplemental benefit, likely at a sharply reduced level, as well as the eviction moratorium, but tie these measures to a suspension of the payroll tax, which would halt funding for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The 1.8 million jobs added in July is nearly one million less than the 2.7 million recorded in June and well below the 4.8 million added in May. Overall, the BLS reported that unemployment fell to 10.2 percent, still the highest level in 38 years. The BLS figure for underemployment, a more accurate representation of the objective situation, which includes unemployment, involuntary part-time work and other considerations, is 17 percent.

Schumer and Ron Wyden (Democrat from Oregon) introduced legislation in early July that would reduce the federal jobless supplement in phases as the unemployment rate in a given state drops: a $100 reduction in payments for every percentage point below 11 percent. This means that had the Democratic proposal been signed into law, the federal weekly benefit would be reduced in most states to $500.

Of the 1.8 million jobs added in July, nearly 600,000 were in leisure and hospitality, the sector of the economy most impacted by the pandemic. The second largest growth sector, roughly 502,000 jobs, was in restaurants and bars. Both of these are low-wage sectors with large numbers of part-time and temporary jobs.

The July jobs report showed that the average hourly pay of blue-collar workers declined by 11 cents in July, a sharp drop indicative of the campaign of job destruction and wage cutting launched by the ruling class under the cover of the pandemic.

The expiration of the $600-a-week federal enhancement has reduced the average income of over 30 million jobless workers by between 60–80 percent, leaving millions unable to afford basic necessities. The Urban Institute estimates that 12.3 million households, or 28 percent of the 43.8 million rental units in the US, were covered by the now expired federal moratorium.

Researchers for the National Low Income Housing Coalition, in a report published August 7, estimated that “30–40 million people in America are at risk” of eviction throughout the rest of the year. The researchers bluntly wrote that the US “may be facing the most severe housing crisis in its history.”

The housing crisis is already here, as attested to by surveys conducted by the Census Bureau beginning in late June through July. Survey results indicate that “some 19 million children (more than 1 in 4) live in a household that is behind on rent or mortgage payments, isn’t getting enough to eat, or both.”

Reporters for the World Socialist Web Site spoke to Gerald from Pennsylvania, who was laid off recently. “I was working as a teller,” he said. “It wasn’t a very good job; I was just making $12 an hour and we didn’t get full time. They didn’t trust us. They would move us around from one branch to another, so we never had the chance to get to know anyone.

“When the shutdown started, at first they said it was just going to be two weeks, but that stretched out longer and longer. I checked my account. I got my last extra payment last week. I only get about $180 from the state and they take taxes out of that.”

“I live with two roommates. One’s still working but the other is like me, laid off. Rents are outrageous and we don't know what we will do. Amazon is hiring. They either already have or will be soon opening a new warehouse. They haven’t called me yet.

“They say they are cutting unemployment because people would rather stay home then go to work. That’s not true. There aren’t enough jobs for everyone who is out of work.

“The politicians had all this time to fix things. Trump thinks he can talk his way out of everything, and they don’t want to listen to the scientists. They can give all this money to the banks and corporations, why can’t we have masks and testing?”

“Before this, I never had to file for unemployment,” said Amanda, a former dog walker and childcare worker who lives in Manhattan. “I was self-employed. I only received $182 a week from the state. I did receive the $600-a-week bonus, which was a real help, but that ended last week.”

Asked about the bipartisan ruling-class drive to force workers back on the job without protection from the virus, Amanda said, “It is completely unethical, and the pandemic is worse now. They are trying to shove people back to work. There are no jobs because the service industry is only half open. I think the [benefit] should be extended until we have a vaccine or a solution to the pandemic.

“Now they [the Democrats and Republicans] are fighting and it will take weeks for them to pass anything. I know the Republicans are talking about a $300-a-week benefit, but only half of the Republicans want to pass that. In cities, you can’t survive off $300 a week. They don’t want to extend it, because if they wanted to extend it, they would have done so.

“Working-class people are seeing that they don’t care about us. More people are waking up now. But they are pitting workers who are employed against the unemployed.”

Speaking about the immediate future, she said: “I think it is only going to get worse. Politicians are pretending the pandemic has gone away so they can open the economy back up. But I do have hope. And if the SEP continues to talk to people and workers, I have a lot of hope. The key is to educate them and to tell working-class people that they can change things.”

German schools reopen despite increase in coronavirus infections

Marianne Arens

Although the number of COVID-19 infections are on the rise in Germany, all 16 state governments are pressing ahead with their plans to reopen schools, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of teachers, students and their families. More than 1,000 new infections were reported by the Robert Koch Institute in its daily bulletin yesterday for the first time since May. New hotspots are developing in several regions.

A total of 231 seasonal workers have tested positive for COVID-19 at a vegetable farm in Mamming, Lower Bavaria. This means almost half of the company’s workforce has been infected with COVID-19. In the same area, another 166 workers at a vegetable processing plant tested positive. In Schwäbisch Gmünd in the state of Baden-Württemberg the number of people infected following their attendance at a funeral has risen to 100. In Wiesbaden, 18 attendees at a party tested positive. The test centre at the Rhein-Main airport reported that more than 1 percent of returning tourists have tested positive.

A college-preparatory high school in Germany [Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

As in other countries, the ruling elite bears full responsibility for the resurgence of cases. The renewed spread of the virus is the product of the premature reopening of the economy, which is aimed at sending workers back to their jobs as quickly as possible and reviving the tourist sector. The return to “normal procedure” in schools is part of this ruthless policy, which will provoke a situation similar to that in March and April, when health care systems collapsed across Europe and tens of thousands died.

The situation in Germany has already changed dramatically, warned Ute Rexroth of the Robert Koch Institute earlier this week. No single district or state stands out any longer as an epicentre, she added. There are “unfortunately many affected ... there were between five and 25 new infections over the past week in 112 districts.”

“We are in the midst of a permanent wave,” stated Frank-Ulrich Montgomery, president of the World Medical Association and former head of the doctors’ trade union. He pointed to the high risk of infection and noted that in countries with poor health care systems, between 10 and 12 percent of those infected would die. But even in Germany, where conditions are “a lot better,” a “single-digit percentage of those infected by COVID-19” will die, he added.

According to the Robert Koch Institute’s official figures, 9,168 people have died due to COVID-19 in Germany. Around the world, over 700,000 people have lost their lives.

In an opinion piece for Die Zeit, Christian Drosten, the chief virologist at Berlin’s Charité hospital, warned that a second wave of the coronavirus would develop an entirely different dynamic than the first. The virus will “spread out of the population,” appearing simultaneously nationwide. It would therefore be “harder to trace.” To combat newly developing outbreaks in a more targeted way, all members of “clusters” would have to be quarantined. “Many could be highly infectious without knowing it,” stated Drosten.

These warnings are being ignored by the state governments and all parliamentary parties. As the holidays come to an end, all previously implemented school closures are being abandoned. In order to ensure the capitalists can turn a profit, all established parties, from the Christian Social Union to the Left Party, are pushing for a return to regular in-person teaching. Schools in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania opened on Monday. Hamburg’s schools opened yesterday, and Berlin, Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein will follow next Monday.

Children are often returning to buildings where classrooms are overcrowded, technology is outdated, and sanitary facilities are dilapidated, which increases the likelihood of infections. Already on the second day of school, a case of COVID-19 was confirmed in a student at a sports high school in Neubrandenburg in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

“Initially, sources around the school stated that everyone would stay home on Wednesday,” reported the Nordkurier. But “this order” was subsequently “changed.” There were also “no additional safety measures taken in the school, no extra disinfectant and no stricter requirement for masks in classrooms.”

The official safety and protection measures adopted by the various state governments are not worth the paper they are written on. A teacher from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populace state, expressed his anger at the approach taken by the state government in a letter to the World Socialist Web Site. As he wrote, the health of all involved “is a high priority in name only,” while in reality it is being trampled underfoot. The North Rhine-Westphalian government’s requirement that masks must be worn in schools, which has been widely praised in the media, is merely “a fig leaf to conceal the total disregard for social distancing.”

Teachers with relatives in at-risk groups are also being exposed to the risk of infection. Teachers with pre-existing conditions do not need to attend school, together with students who have relatives at high risk. However, teachers with relatives at greater risk from the coronavirus are not permitted to do so. “Hardly a word” is uttered in the information leaflet from Education Minister Yvonne Gebauer “about the unnecessary risk of infection created by the normal operating of schools, especially for the large numbers of family members of students and employees. In the view of the ministry, young people don’t play a particularly important role as transmitters of the disease,” wrote the teacher.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Schools Ministry “is also showing with its approach to testing that it does not understand how the coronavirus spreads,” continued the teacher. “Although teachers can get tested on a voluntary basis every 14 days, the ministry simply ignores the hundreds of thousands of students as transmitters of the virus. No tests at all are being made available for students, even though studies from South Korea, Germany and the US demonstrate that children aged 10 and over spread the virus at least as much, if not more, than adults.”

What the ministry refers to as “adjusted in-person teaching” will, in practice, mean that “students will arrive in large class groups in classrooms that are far too small, but will also be taught in mixed groups for selected subjects and project groups ... after primary school. Following up infections is therefore not only complicated and time-consuming due to the use of public transport, but also because of the varied mixing of groups in the schools,” the teacher noted.

Against all scientific advice, school celebrations, excursions and school trips “are not only being approved, but actually encouraged,” he explained. “What the minister describes as cultural life should promote what she believes is the general enthusiasm over the reopening of schools. For example, in music class, wind instruments can even be played with some (undefined) distancing. Group singing is only allowed outdoors or in holiday camps. ... Sports class will take place without any masks or distancing requirements.”

The latter is even planned to take place in indoor sports halls in the autumn. “Although the changing rooms are small, they should just be used by smaller groups (for lessons lasting 45 or a maximum of 90 minutes!) and what will happen with the showers??? Swimming classes are also back on, including with the use of school buses to get there.” None of this is accidental, concluded the teacher. Politicians are deliberately imposing the reopening policy “to complete their experiment of herd immunity.”

Rural America Deserves a Real COVID-19 Response

Gloria Oladipo

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, many rural communities are in a uniquely difficult position.

According to Kaiser Health News, nearly 80 percent of rural America is categorized as a “medical desert,” meaning the nearest hospital is more than 60 minutes away. These hospitals are also much harder pressed to come up with ventilators and personal protective equipment for practitioners — and not to mention COVID-19 tests, which are in short supply everywhere.

Health care in rural America was in crisis well before the outbreak, with higher uninsurance rates in the countryside limiting access to care and financially undermining health facilities. Despite legislation giving financial relief to some hospitals, over 350 rural hospitals remain at high risk of closing.

Rural communities are at risk of severe outbreaks for other reasons as well.

For one, many rural communities lack reliable broadband connections. With so much COVID-19 information being transmitted via the internet, some rural residents may miss out on key updates.

Rural residents are also typically older, putting them at higher risk of dying from COVID-19. And they disproportionately lack access to healthy food and other necessities, which have become only more scarce in the pandemic.

Given the various risk factors associated with rural communities, a coronavirus outbreak in rural communities would be catastrophic. However, some government officials have not shown urgency.

For one, despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a potential “second wave” of COVID-19 infections, some governments are easing social distancing mandates. For example, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is allowing non-essential businesses to reopen.

Meanwhile, the federal response to COVID-19 has utterly failed. In addition to failing to expand severely limited U.S. testing supplies, the White House has not kept its promises to provide more protective equipment or control misinformation.

Indeed, it’s been issuing a steady stream of its own misinformation, prompting warnings from health officials that no, you should not inject bleach to treat coronavirus. A direct consequence of Trump’s carelessness has been a steady increase of emergency room visits and poison control calls for bleach ingestion.

Rural communities cannot afford to be neglected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments at all levels must coordinate their efforts to educate, protect, and care for rural residents during this uncertain time.

In addition to continuing and strengthening local social distancing orders, local governments must continue making resources — like food, shelter, and medical supplies — accessible and free. Accurate information on COVID-19 must also be made accessible, especially for rural residents without an internet connection.

In addition to government help for rural hospitals, temporary and affordable clinics should be created in high-risk areas with limited hospitals. Nationally, testing and protective equipment such as masks and gloves should be readily available regardless of one’s location.

The response to COVD-19 will be a true test in capability, resilience, and crisis-planning for all those in positions of power. The neglect of rural communities during this pandemic is yet another way this nation’s COVID-19 response continues to fail.

The Plight of Refugees and Migrant Workers under Covid

Graham Peebles

In a world where nationalism and social division is increasing, bigotry growing, are the words refugee, asylum seeker, migrant worker, derogatory labels triggering prejudice and intolerance? Such terms create an image of ‘the other’, separate and different, strengthening tribalism, feeding suspicion, our common humanity denied.

Under the shadow of Covid-19 those living on the margins of society have been further isolated; the refugees and migrants of the world, those displaced internally or in a foreign land, people living in war zones, and the migrant workers in the Gulf States, India, Singapore and elsewhere.

Refugees/migrants and migrant workers are among those most at risk from Covd-19, the economic impact of the pandemic as well as xenophobic abuse linked to the virus. Migrant workers (who universally have few or no labor rights) from Qatar to India have been discriminated against, discarded and ignored. Migrants, particularly those of Chinese or Japanese appearance in the US and elsewhere subjected to violence and abuse, and in refugee camps across Europe and the Middle East, including Gaza, thousands have been left in unsafe camps without medical support.

Homeless, hungry and at risk

Even before the pandemic erupted, to be a refugee, migrant, or migrant worker was commonly to be mistrusted, marginalized and in danger. Whether working as a maid in one of the Gulf States, an internal migrant worker in their homeland or living inside an overcrowded refugee camp these men, women and children are amongst the most vulnerable people in the world. In Europe, where thousands of refugees (many from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan) are packed into camps, their lives already swamped by uncertainty, the fear of the virus hangs heavy. Lacking sanitation and essential services these overcrowded tarpaulin cities are unsafe; the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, for example, was designed to accommodate 2,840, but now has 19,000 people; 40% are under 18, self-harming and attempted suicides are widespread. Compounding the heightened risks Covid has created, since July 2019 asylum seekers throughout Greece no longer have free access to the healthcare system, other than emergency support.

Meanwhile, in countries with large populations of migrant workers Covid-19 and the economic impact of the pandemic is adding additional layers of suffering to already arduous lives, not just of workers, but the families migrant workers support. According to the UN, round 800 million people globally are supported by funds sent home by migrant workers. Families depend on such payments to pay rent and buy food; when this flow stops, as is the case for many now, poverty and the risk of starvation is made more acute. The World Bank is warning of huge drops in global remittance payments of around 20%, resulting from the economic downturn triggered by the pandemic, which they say has impacted on migrant communities particularly hard.

In the Gulf States, which depend on millions of workers from Africa and Southeast Asia, Covid-19 is intensifying discrimination and increasing abuse against migrant domestic workers, including abrupt termination of their contracts. In Kuwait suicide among migrant workers has surged; Saudi Arabia has deported thousands of Ethiopian workers (A total of 2,968 migrants were returned in the first 10 days of April, UN state), without any medical screening, which the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Ethiopia said, is “likely to exacerbate the spread of Covid-19 to the region and beyond.” And in Lebanon (where the majority of migrant workers are Ethiopian) and elsewhere across the region, lower income families unable to cover salaries, cover food costs or provide accommodation have laid off domestic staff; resulting in migrant workers being at high risk of forced labor, including prostitution.

Worse still is the case of freelance (‘live out’) workers, whose work has stopped, leaving them with no income, no food and nowhere to go. In Qatar, (one of the richest countries in the world, with over two million migrant workers) which has one of the highest rates of infections per capita, many of those suffering from the disease are migrant workers. Foreign workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, the Philippines are being laid off or remain unpaid, as the economic impact of the virus hits. Some domestic workers (women) have been made destitute. In Singapore, widely thought to have responded well to the pandemic, migrant workers, employed mainly in the construction industry, were thrown to the wolves. And in India following the hasty decision by Prime Minister Mahendra Modi to lock the country down on 25th March, (giving people four hours warning!) tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of internal migrants working in cities were forced by their landlords to vacate their homes and had no choice but to head back to their native village. Without funds and with transportation suspended, huge numbers were forced to walk the hundreds or thousands of miles home.

Homeless, hungry and at risk of contracting coronavirus, migrant workers were ignored by the Modi regime. Reacting to this wholesale neglect, the UN Special Rapporteurs on the right to housing and on extreme poverty said (4th June), “we are appalled at the disregard shown by the Indian Government towards internal migrant laborers, especially those who belong to marginalized minorities and lower castes…..the Government has failed to address their dire humanitarian situation and further exacerbated their vulnerability with police brutality [which is commonplace in India] and by failing to stop their stigmatization as ‘virus carriers’.”

Contemporary Slavery

Covid-19 has highlighted a raft of social inequalities and destructive practices throughout the world. As such issues float to the murky surface of human affairs an opportunity presents itself for reform, for changes in attitudes and practices.

There needs to be a fundamental overhaul of employment rights for migrant workers throughout the world, with migrant workers receiving the same protections as native employees, including access to health care, limits on the hours of work, rates of pay, days off etc.

The Kafala System is used throughout the Gulf States, where the UN estimates there to be “35 million international migrants in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and Jordan and Lebanon, of whom 31 per cent were women.” Under Kafala a migrant worker, many of whom are domestic staff and therefore out of sight, cannot resign if an employer is abusive, the work exploitative or the conditions unacceptable. Amnesty International relates, that it “ties the legal residency of the worker to the contractual relationship with the employer.” The system enables employers to essentially own workers, giving them total control of workers’ movements. This legitimization of modern-day slavery must be brought to an end immediately.

Refugees and migrants are human beings fleeing violent conflict (are often traumatized), persecution and economic hardship. The journey into an unknown future is often treacherous, always uncertain. In the vacuum left by governments and regional authorities like the EU, that should be processing asylum applications in designated centers and offering safe passage, criminal gangs control migration routes and methods of travel, which are unsafe and extortionately expensive. Deaths are commonplace, abuse and exploitation widespread. If they survive the dangers and arrive in their destination country, all too often they are viewed with distrust and antagonism, instead of being warmly welcomed. They are pushed into the shadows, the margins of society, offered little or no state support and made to feel unwanted.

This must change; all should be embraced, not only those with skills in short supply. The idea of judging who can and cannot enter a country based on some discriminatory points system related to national need (the Australian way – a country with a shameful immigration record), as the UK government is proposing, reduces human beings to commodities, some of which are more valuable on the ‘open market of immigration’ than others – and is completely abhorrent.

Deal with the causes of migration, help construct a world at peace by cooperating, sharing and building relationships; reject competition and nationalism in favor of unity and tolerance and see a dramatic fall in the numbers of people forced to leave their homeland, whether in search of safety or opportunity.

US retail bankruptcies and closures pile up amid pandemic

Trévon Austin

The retail apocalypse continues to unfold in the United States under the economic pressure of the coronavirus pandemic. Since May, multiple well-known and long-established companies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy including Neiman Marcus, J. Crew, J.C. Penney and Brooks Brothers. Tailored Brands, parent company of Men’s Wearhouse, and Lord & Taylor, along with its parent company Le Tote, became the most recent retail casualties on Sunday.

Prior to filing for bankruptcy, Tailored Brands announced in July that it would close up to 500 stores “over time” and cut about 20 percent of its corporate jobs. According to a public filing, Tailored Brands had about 19,300 employees as of Feb. 1, and 1,274 stores in the US and 125 stores in Canada. The company said it secured a deal with the majority of its senior lenders for a $630 million restructuring plan so it can survive bankruptcy.

Lord & Taylor in Palisades Park Mall West Nyack, NY (Credit: Flickr.com/Mike Kalasnik)

The company's filing is partially a consequence of the trend away from business attire and toward more casual clothing during the pandemic. Millions of white-collar workers have shifted to working from home as offices have been closed and meetings moved online.

Founded in 1826, Lord & Taylor is considered America’s oldest retail store. A company official from Lord & Taylor estimated that about 20 of the company's stores are currently in a liquidation sale. The retailer runs 38 stores in the Northeast with a few more locations in the Midwest and Florida.

Lord & Taylor, which was bought by online clothing rental service Le Tote for $100 million last year, has been struggling in recent years. Under its previous owner, the Canadian-based Hudson’s Bay Company, Lord & Taylor’s chief executive complained that the store was in a fraught “middle space” among retailers because it neither sold high-end luxury nor discount apparel.

The latest additions bring the number of US retail bankruptcies this year to 43. According to S&P Global, 2020 has already seen more retail closures than the past eight years, with five months still left in the year. The last time retail companies recorded similar numbers of closures was 2010, with 48 companies filing for bankruptcy.

In 2008, a record 441 retailers filed for bankruptcy in the depths of the Great Recession. This marked the advent of the series of brick-and-mortar bankruptcies and store closures dubbed the retail apocalypse which has wiped out indoor shopping malls and strip malls around the country.

Retailers already faced severe challenges before COVID-19 forced stores to close and sparked a historic contraction in the economy. Not only were retailers struggling to compete with e-commerce stores such as Amazon and Walmart, but also ever-increasing debts threatened their stability. The arrival of the pandemic only accelerated a process that was already underway.

The coronavirus pandemic pushed retailers further into crisis. Shelter-in-place orders keeping people in their homes for weeks and the sudden loss of tens of millions of jobs facilitated a rapid change in spending habits. Shoppers abandoned malls, where many retailers who filed for bankruptcy are concentrated, as social distancing measures were implemented.

Experts also expect the pandemic to weaken the back-to-school shopping season, a typically busy time for retailers. With many schools engaging in remote learning, what families purchase for students is likely to shift towards electronics and away from clothing and other traditional items.

As the economic consequences of the pandemic continue to unfold, more bankruptcy filings are expected. A report from Coresight Research estimated that as many as 25,000 stores could permanently close in 2020, and about a quarter of all malls in the US could shutter their doors within the next three to five years.

UK government clears the path for “slums of the future”

Julia Callaghan

A major change to UK planning law coming into force at the end of this month allows more non-residential premises to be converted into housing without planning permission. Achieved through the expansion of highly controversial “permitted development” (PD) rights, this will open the floodgates for more substandard, “rabbit-hutch” housing to be created. Developers will use their vacant and redundant office and commercial buildings to profit from the wave of working-class people who are losing their homes along with their livelihoods due to the COVID-19 crisis.

On August 23, the moratorium on new evictions in England and Wales ends, threatening homelessness for the near quarter of a million people who have fallen behind with their rent since the start of the pandemic. On August 31, PD rights will be extended, as part of what Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called “the most radical reforms to the planning system since the end of the second world war,” which, he boasts, will “scythe through red tape.”

PD was introduced in 1948 as a bypass for the normal planning process, intended for minor property modifications such as the installation of fences, porches, and small home extensions. In recent years, it has been extended far beyond this purpose and, since 2013, has allowed the conversion of entire office blocks into housing. Since 2015, more than 60,000 flats have been created through PD in England, with almost 90 percent coming from office conversions.

Now, a wider range of commercial and industrial buildings will be allowed to switch to residential use, such as empty premises on Britain’s ailing high streets, including the 245 department stores that have closed over the past eight years.

Defunct buildings may also be demolished and rebuilt as housing, again with no need for planning permission or accompanying scrutiny. Permission is granted directly by parliament, and local authorities may only assess limited issues, such as flood risk, the impact on transport and highways, and external appearance.

Upward expansions of up to two storeys on existing buildings will be approved via the same route.

On the same day the government made its announcement, it published a report exposing the appalling quality of new housing created via PD. “Research into the quality standard of homes delivered through change of use permitted development rights” was carried out by University College London and the University of Liverpool on 3,156 housing units across 11 local authorities. The study concluded that PD creates “worse quality residential environments than planning permission conversions in relation to a number of factors widely linked to the health, wellbeing and quality of life of future occupiers.”

The housing units studied were found to be incredibly small. Only 22.1 percent complied with the “nationally described space standard”, which states that a single unit must not be smaller than 37m2. Many were well below half that size, at 16m2, which Labour MP Clive Betts pointed out is “about the size of the base of the ministerial limousine that [Johnson] gets driven around in each day.”

The flats often had poor window arrangements and little natural light. Some had no windows at all. They were more likely than planning permission schemes to be situated in desolate, under-resourced areas, such as business parks or industrial estates, and just 3.5 percent had access to any private amenity outside space.

In response to the announcement to extend PD rights, the author of the report, Dr. Ben Clifford, said, “We could see even more poor-quality, tiny flats being crammed into commercial buildings lacking amenities and green space…what others have rightly called the slums of the future.”

An infamous example of an office-to-residential PD project is in Harlow, a town in which over half of all new homes in 2018/2019 came from office conversions. With its 214 units, Terminus House is referred to as a “human warehouse,” where a “double studio” starts at just 14.7m2. This is only marginally larger than the 10m2 recommended by the Association for the Prevention of Torture as the minimum size of a double prison cell. With no room to move, many residents live—eating, drinking, sitting, and sleeping—in their beds. Crime, violence, drug abuse, and all the other brutal, tragic social problems that come with poverty and inhumane living conditions are rife. Suicide is common. Last June, a man was found in his room in a state of decomposition, five to six weeks after he had taken his life.

In Watford, the Wellstones PD site had been an upholstery firm, warehouse, and petrol station. A typical industrial building with concrete structure, corrugated roof, and tiny slit windows, directly abutting main roads on three sides, it was approved to be turned into 15 flats, ranging from 16.5m2 to 21m2. Seven flats would have no windows whatsoever, and those on the upper floors no means of escaping in the event of a fire.

It was only with the outpouring of public outrage over Wellstones and other such projects that the government made the reluctant caveat that PD flats must have “adequate” natural light.

PD schemes are exempt from contributing to social or affordable housing, making them an even more profitable option for developers, while further starving communities of housing for those who urgently need it, including the nearly 277,000 recorded homeless people in England.

The government announced yesterday that it was extending this exemption to all small sites, not only PD developments.

Several MPs have expressed outrage about PD and its effects, and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would scrap it altogether. But despite the handwringing, all three major parties have worked together to destroy social housing protections for working people over the past 40 years. Since Margaret Thatcher’s opening shot in the 1980s, with her boast of creating a “home-owning democracy,” the attack on social housing has continued unabated.

Fewer council homes were built during the New Labour years than in a single year of Thatcher’s government. Instead, the door was opened to the private sector in the form of non-profit housing associations. With the Housing and Regeneration Act of 2008, it was Gordon Brown who welcomed profit-making in social housing. Since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came to power in 2010, the building of housing for social rent has dropped by 80 percent, and PD has expanded. Johnson’s further deregulation of the private rental sector completes the handover of society’s most vulnerable individuals and families to some of its most cutthroat capitalists.

Labour’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. Croydon Central Labour MP Sarah Jones has called on the government to scrap PD, despite Croydon having the largest number of office-to-residential conversions in the country, some of which have been commissioned by the council itself. Its cabinet member for housing, Alison Butler, recently said the council is considering further such conversions.

The Socialist Equality Party advances a genuinely socialist housing policy. The SEP insists that everyone has the right to a safe, affordable, and comfortable home—one that promotes, rather than destroys, physical and mental wellbeing. The profits of property developers, along with those of the entire ruling class, are squeezed directly from the lifeblood of the poor. Their billions must be expropriated and used to fund decent homes, quality public services, and infrastructure that meets 21st century needs, and provides a high standard of living for every member of society.

Britain’s National Health Service workers demand pay rise amid COVID-19 crisis

Rory Woods

National Health Service (NHS) workers including nurses, midwives, paramedics, cleaners, porters, and other allied health professionals under the Agenda for Change pay system are demanding a pay rise. They have rejected the Conservative government’s bogus claim that they have recently had a “significant pay rise.”

Hundreds of health workers demonstrated in London last week and dozens of protests are scheduled in cities across the country this Saturday, organised by Facebook groups. These actions coincide with the growing working class opposition internationally to the criminal policies of the governments during the coronavirus pandemic. In the UK, the murderous “herd immunity” policy continues to serve the demands of the financial oligarchy for a reopening of the economy, even as coronavirus spreads through communities and workplaces. According to official figures, more than 46,000 people have already perished, including more than 540 health and social care workers. The UK is among the worst countries in the world in terms mortality and health care worker deaths.

National Health Service (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Last month, the Boris Johnson government announced a miserly 2 to 3.1 percent pay increase for 900,000 “public sector workers.” The Treasury stated, “Reflecting the vital contributions public sector workers make to our country, these pay rises cover the Armed Forces, teachers, police officers, the National Crime Agency, prison officers, doctors and dentists, the judiciary, senior civil servants, and senior military personnel.”

This excludes more than a million health workers in the NHS. In May, Health Secretary Matt Hancock refused any pay award for health workers, claiming that they had already had a “significant” raise. He was referring to a meagre 6.5 percent increase over three years from 2018, dwarfed by the 20 percent fall in the value of their wages over the last ten years.

This “significant pay rise” leaves the average nurse £6,000 worse-off a year, as the accumulated inflation over the last ten years stands at 31.33 percent. This was a result of year after year of pay caps and pay freezes imposed by Tory-led governments and implemented with the tacit support of the health sector trade unions.

Those unions, including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Unite, and Unison, now trying to get a hold on workers’ protests, played a key role in selling out the 2018 pay struggle. The rotten deal reached with the Tory government and sold to the members as “the best deal in 8 years” was expected to be a de-facto pay cut as the estimated combined Retail Price Index inflation hike for the period was 9.6 percent. Pay progression of workers was also tied to performance. Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed the deal for imposing “profound changes in productivity.”

Sickness absence enhancements for low paid workers was slashed and unsocial hours payments went down by several percentage points for workers on band 1-3 of the Agenda for Change pay system. Many workers received only a 1.5 percent pay rise until their incremental pay progression.

Many health workers are outraged by the government’s decision to refuse them a pay rise, against the views of the population. A survey carried out among British adults by Unison found 69 percent in favour of a significant wage increase for health workers in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. A petition demanding a 10 percent pay increase has reached more than 116,500 of signatures. Another calling to scrap spiteful car parking charges for NHS workers has gathered more than 768,000 signatures.

Health workers went on to social media, scathingly criticizing the government’s hypocrisy in calling them “NHS heroes” at the peak of the pandemic and now ignoring their demand for a decent pay increase. Some called the government’s stand a “kick in the teeth” and a “slap in the face.” Many identified that the trade unions are hostile to their demands and on the other side of the barricade in this struggle.

Lynn Grounds wrote in the Nursing Notes Facebook group, “No pay rise is presumably in preparation for more privatisation… selling it off with low salary bill will be attractive to the Conservative Government.”

Charlotte Mclaughlin commented on the same platform, “Indefinite strike until decent pay discussions are finalised and I don’t think the RCN should be involved they sold out the last time and are not equipped with delivering their members requests.”

Commenting on the rotten 2018 pay deal, Nettie Holding said, “I did not vote for this and neither did a lot of nurses. It doesn’t matter what we vote for it happens anyway because nurses are abused by government all the time and shafted by the unions.”

A health care assistant told the World Socialist Web Site, “It is a lie that we had a significant pay rise. As an HCA, on the top of my pay band I received a small pay rise over the last three years as a part of the pay deal. But that cannot recompense the lost value of my wages over the last 10 years under austerity measures. Unions told us that it was a great deal. I knew it was far from the truth. Many of my colleagues realised that it was a total fraud when they received their first pay packet in July 2018 after the deal.”

Even after eight months of the pandemic, NHS workers are still working without adequate protection from the coronavirus. None of the murderous Public Health England (PHE) guidelines which led to hundreds of avoidable deaths of health and social care workers have been changed. Surveys carried out among nurses and doctors highlighted that significant numbers of workers still do not have proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to shield themselves.

There are more than 40,000 nursing vacancies in England and many nurses are thinking of leaving the profession because of low pay and unsafe working conditions. A recent survey of 42,000 members by the RCN found the percentage thinking of leaving the profession has increased to 36 percent, or more than a third, from 27 percent at the end of last year.

Of those nurses who are thinking of leaving, 61 percent cited pay as a primary factor, with others citing the way nursing staff have been treated during the COVID-19 pandemic (44 percent), low staffing levels (43 percent), and lack of management support (42 percent).

The legacy of under-funding, privatization, and attacks on pay, terms, and conditions in the NHS left by both Labour and the Tories could not be clearer. The trade unions have been revealed as tried and tested instruments of the ruling class and its governments. They are not only responsible for the erosion of the social position of the workers but are complicit in implementing unsafe guidelines which have led to hundreds of deaths from COVID-19 across the sector.

NHS workers must act and organise independently of the trade unions and establish rank-and-file committees to unite with all other workers, to fight for better pay, terms, and conditions, and to safeguard health and safety at work. These committees must take up a socialist political struggle to secure the resources needed for a fully functioning health care system, by seizing control of the wealth and resources of the financial oligarchy, banks, big corporations, and big pharmaceutical companies.

Belarus arrests 33 Russian military contractors ahead of presidential elections

Jason Melanovski

Belarus last week arrested 33 Russian military contractors just outside the capital Minsk, in what it claims was a Moscow-backed plot to carry out terrorist activities and foment unrest in the country just prior to presidential elections to be held on Sunday, August 9. Moscow has denied these allegations.

This week, President Alexander Lukashenko, who has served as President of Belarus since 1994, used bellicose language to denounce Moscow, calling the Kremlin’s statements “all lies.” Lukashenko also claimed that he also planned to apprehend another group of Russian mercenaries who had been sent to the south of the country.

The arrested have been identified as members of the Wagner Group, a private military contracting firm that has reportedly sent mercenaries to other countries, such as Venezuela, Syria and eastern Ukraine, in order to protect Russian military and economic interests. The mercenaries themselves have denied any involvement in terrorist activities within Belarus and claimed to be on their way to see the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.

Map of Belarus

In the same speech in which he accused Russia of being “liars” and claimed that instability in Belarus “will explode in such a way that it would reverberate all the way to Vladivostok,” Lukashenko also paradoxically stated: “Russia has always been and will remain our close ally, irrespective of who takes power in Belarus or Russia.”

Lukashenko’s arrest of the alleged mercenaries was welcomed by the US-backed Ukrainian government. Kiev has called on Minsk to send 28 of the 33 arrested to Ukraine for prosecution on charges of fighting on the side of separatist rebels in the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Speaking to Lukashenko by phone, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated, “I hope that all those suspected in terrorist activities on Ukrainian territory will be handed over to us for prosecution in accordance with the existing international norms.”

While the specific details surrounding the actions and arrests of the Russian military contractors within Belarus are murky, the incident marks a new nadir in relations between the two countries. Unlike other former Soviet Republics, such as Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania, which have morphed into NATO-backed self-proclaimed enemies of Moscow since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus established a “union state” with Russia in 1997, including a somewhat integrated economic zone.

The previous plans for a fully integrated “union state,” including a shared military, currency, and legal system, never materialized. However, both Russian and Belarusian citizens are freely able to travel, work and study in both countries. Under these conditions, the arrest of Russian citizens on Belarusian territory just days before the presidential elections is an obvious signal to Moscow, as well as the US and EU, that the Belarusian ruling class is actively considering a much stronger orientation to American and European imperialism.

The Lukashenko regime is heading into Sunday’s elections amidst a profound crisis. Reports have suggested that Lukashenko, who has easily won previous elections with 75 percent of the vote or more, may be facing the toughest challenge yet to his regime.

In recent months, Lukashenko has alienated much of the population with his claims that the COVID-19 pandemic is nothing more than a “psychosis.” He has done virtually nothing to stem the spread of the virus. Unlike many neighboring countries, Belarus had not even a temporary shutdown of the economy.

According to John Hopkins University, with a population of just 9.5 million the country has reported 68,000 Covid-19 infections and 567 related deaths. Neighboring Poland, which had a limited lockdown, has reported 48,789 cases and 1,740 deaths with a population of approximately 38 million. Lukashenko himself reportedly also contracted the virus.

Moreover, in the past year the Belarusian economy has suffered fall-out from a prolonged spat between Russia and Lukashenko over Russian-subsidized energy supplies to Minsk. The scaling back of Russian subsidies combined with the coronavirus pandemic has created a $700 million deficit in the state budget.

Workers in the country have long been unable to make a living on their wages. As in neighboring Ukraine, many younger workers have been leaving the country to work in Russia or the EU. Last year, Lukashenko admitted that Belarus had lost 8 percent of its population due to labor migration.

Exploiting the growing economic and social crisis, US imperialism and the EU have aggressively intervened in the current elections in Belarus, openly backing and encouraging Lukashenko’s main rival from the pro-Western opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

Tikhanovskaya announced her candidacy after her husband, a well-known opposition blogger, was arrested last May and barred from running. She has presented virtually no political program other than opposition to Lukashenko and empty calls for “democracy” and “free” elections. In recent weeks, the pro-Western opposition has organized several demonstrations that have drawn thousands of people in Minsk.

The Belarusian state has responded by jailing over 1,000 protesters since the beginning of the presidential campaign. Predictably, the United States government, which has been busy jailing, beating and kidnapping protesters off its own streets, hypocritically denounced the Belarusian government. The spokesperson of the U.S. State Department, Morgan Ortagus, tweeted, “We are deeply concerned about the reports of mass protests and detentions of peaceful activists and journalists.”

The United States has had no diplomatic representation in Belarus since 2008, when Lukashenko cracked down on western-backed nationalist and liberal opposition parties.

However, over the past few years, the relations between Belarus and the US have become much closer, as the Washington has sought to exploit and deepen the growing rift between Lukashenko and Moscow in order to turn the strategically important country into another NATO-backed ally. Lukashenko and his defense minister have repeatedly indicated readiness to hold joint exercises with NATO.

Lukashenko publicly supported the US-backed coup in 2014 in Ukraine, and established close relations with the Poroshenko and the subsequent Zelensky governments.

In February of this year, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Belarus for a two-hour long conversation with Lukashenko on the country’s dispute with Moscow over energy supplies. It was the first visit of a US Secretary of State to Belarus since 1993. At a press conference after the meeting, Pompeo effectively reversed over a decade of American foreign policy towards the country, stating that the United States could offer Belarus all the oil it needs. He said, “All you have to do is call us.”

Lukashenko’s precarious balancing act between Russia and Western imperialism has been closely followed by American think tanks, which are debating whether backing Lukashenko might be a viable path for pursuing US interests in the region.

The Atlantic Council, one of the most bellicose think tanks in Washington D.C., warned that Lukashenko could be facing a “Minsk Maidan” after the presidential election. This reference to the heavily US- and German-backed and funded protest movement in Ukraine in 2013-2014, which culminated in a far-right coup that installed a regime that has been totally compliant with the interests of US imperialism, is a clear indication of the strong involvement of the US in the current anti-Lukashenko protests.

Earlier this year, Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, published an article entitled, “Will Belarus be the next Ukraine?” Emphasizing the key geostrategic significance of Belarus for Russia, it noted: “... if Belarus were to pivot westward, Moscow would lose a potential military staging ground and risk seeing Western political and economic influence extend over a population that many Russians regard as part of their own nation.” The piece concluded by urging Western governments to back Lukashenko.

Whatever the outcome of Sunday’s elections, recent events have made clear that Belarus, like neighboring Ukraine and the Baltic states, is at the center of a growing imperialist drive towards war against Russia, a drive which has only been accelerated by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Canadian court rules Safe Third Country Agreement with US violates refugee rights

Laurent Lafrance

Canadian Federal Court Judge Ann-Marie McDonald recently ruled that the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) violates refugee rights and the Canadian constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The decision represents a blow to the Trudeau government, which has falsely presented itself as “pro-refugee” to provide a “progressive” cover for its reactionary policies at home and abroad.

The case was brought by the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canadian Council of Churches, and Amnesty International on behalf of citizens from El Salvador, Ethiopia, and Syria. The most significant case was that of Nedira Jemala Mustefa, a Muslim woman from Ethiopia of Oromo origin, an ethnic group persecuted by the US-backed Ethiopian government. She arrived in the US at age 11 and lived in the country for several years as an undocumented refugee. She graduated from a Georgia high school in 2015. However, because she had arrived after the cut-off date to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, she was unable to obtain proper documentation to continue her studies in the country.

Like thousands of migrants fearing Trump’s brutal anti-immigrant witch-hunt, Mustefa attempted to cross to Canada in 2017 at the official border at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec. She was questioned for 30 hours before being delivered back to US authorities and “immediately imprisoned.” She was detained for one month, alongside people who had criminal convictions, in a maximum-security prison in upstate New York known as “Little Siberia” for its frigid conditions. She was locked in solitary confinement for the first seven days, which she described as “a terrifying, isolating and psychologically traumatic experience.” Her dietary requirements as a Muslim were not respected and she lost 15 pounds.

In her ruling, McDonald wrote that Canadian officials had handed Mustefa over to the US knowing she would be imprisoned, knowing in other words, that she would be deprived of her fundamental rights under Canadian law. Justice McDonald concluded, “The evidence clearly demonstrates that those returned to the US by Canadian officials are detained as a penalty,” which is a violation of their “right to liberty and security” as stipulated in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A spokesperson for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said, “We are aware of the Federal Court’s decision and are currently reviewing it.” The federal government argued before the court that the US has a “fair” detention review process, citing Mustefa’s eventual release by American authorities. But that argument was rejected by the judge as not providing “sufficient evidence of minimal impairment” of her rights.

Mustefa is only one among thousands who have been sent back to the US after unsuccessfully seeking protection in Canada. Even before Trump’s ascent to the presidency, the US was notorious for its mistreatment of asylum seekers. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) routinely separates children from their parents and has imprisoned tens of thousands of innocent refugees in military-style prisons where they are subjected to abuses, violence and even rape. Under “deporter-in-chief” Barack Obama, and now under Trump, the US has deported millions of desperate migrants fleeing war, persecution and economic hardship in their home countries, which have more often than not been ravaged by US imperialism.

The court’s decision, which further exposed the federal government’s collaboration with Trump’s crackdown on migrants, could not have come at a worse time for the Liberal government. Trudeau is at the center of a scandal which has divulged a web of incestuous and corrupt ties between the top ranks of the Liberal government, including Finance Minister Bill Morneau, and WE, a “philanthropic” charity that has powerful corporate backers.

The cultivation of Trudeau’s image as a “refugee-friendly” and “humanitarian” leader has proven invaluable in covering over the criminal activities of Canadian imperialism at home and abroad, including the growing involvement of the Canadian Armed Forces in a series of US-led wars, intrigues, and provocations around the globe. At home, Trudeau has developed a corporatist partnership with the trade unions and big business to drive workers back on the job amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and to prepare the political groundwork for imposing massive austerity and increased exploitation to make working people pay for the hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout funds the state has provided the rich and super-rich.

As part of Ottawa’s close collaboration with the Trump administration, the Trudeau government has followed in the footsteps of the previous Conservative government of Stephen Harper and adopted a series of reactionary measures targeting refugee rights and expanding “border-security” cooperation with Washington. This includes the Trudeau-Trump pact announced as the pandemic erupted last March, according to which all asylum seekers attempting to cross into Canada—including those who used a “loophole” to escape the reactionary provisions of the STCA by entering Canada “irregularly”—would be immediately sent back to the US. This is a clear violation of international law.

While the court’s decision sheds light on Canada’s complicity in the mistreatment of refugees, it also seeks to preserve the false portrayal of Canada as a more humane country than the US. Judge McDonald granted the Trudeau government some breathing space to refurbish its image by suspending the effect of her ruling for six months. During this time, the government can ask parliament to make some cosmetic changes to the agreement in order to satisfy the court. In other words, the STCA is still in full effect, and Canada can and will continue to deny asylum seekers the right to claim refugee status and immediately return them to the US.

Signed in 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack and officially adopted in 2004, the STCA is part of Canada’s efforts to maintain and deepen its military-strategic partnership with Washington. It is an integral part of a Canadian immigration system so closely tailored to the needs of big business that it has won high praise from Trump and leaders of Germany’s far-right opposition party, the AfD.

The STCA stipulates that any refugee entering Canada at an official entry point from a so-called “safe country”—that is, one where basic democratic rights and the rights of refugees are supposedly protected—can immediately be returned there without having the right to file an asylum claim in Canada. However, those crossing outside official checkpoints have the legal right to file a claim. In the last three years, thousands of asylum seekers have used this “loophole” to avoid being sent back to the US, and risked their personal safety by crossing into Canada on foot. This influx still represents a drop in the ocean of a global refugee population numbering more than 70 million.

The Conservatives and the chauvinist pro-Quebec independence Bloc Québécois have long demanded that the “loophole” be closed and the entire US-Canada border be declared an official entry point. The Liberals resisted this, at least until last March, saying such a change was unnecessary because most “irregular” entrants to Canada are deported anyway.

According to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, of the roughly 58,000 irregular migrants who have crossed the border since February 2017, 14,500 have been accepted and 12,000 have been rejected. Some 29,600 claims are still awaiting a decision.

The Canadian Council for Refugees and other human rights organizations celebrated the court ruling as a great victory. They are claiming it could push the government into scrapping the STCA, and enable refugees to enter via official checkpoints without fear of immediate deportation.

Even in the extremely unlikely event such a change were made, it would barely begin to address the plight facing refugees and immigrants. Among those who are successful in their effort to stay in Canada, poverty, unemployment and homelessness are rampant. According to a report by the City of Toronto, as of October 2019, approximately 40 percent of all shelter users in the city’s permanent shelter system were refugee/asylum claimants, with an average of 15-20 new claimants entering the shelter system each day.

Thousands of migrants have been detained without charge in various immigration holding centers or provincial prisons. According to the site Neverhome.ca, the Canadian government jailed over 87,317 migrants without charge between 2006 and 2014, including more than 800 children. This trend has continued in recent years. According to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), there were 6,609 people detained in immigration holding centres in 2017-18, up from 4,248 a year earlier. There were 1,831 detainees held in jails last year, compared to 971 in 2016-17.