Foiled in the Security Council: The United States, Extending Arms Embargoes and Iran

Binoy Kampmark

There are no official policing authorities as such when it comes to international relations.  Realists imagine a jungle of states, the preyed upon and the predators, a grim state of affairs moderated by alliances, agreements and understandings. But there is one body whose resolutions are recognised as having binding force: the Security Council, that most powerful of creatures in that jumble known as the United Nations.

To convince the permanent five on the Security Council to reach agreement is no easy feat.  There are the occasional humiliations in the failure to get resolutions passed, but whether it be the US, Russia, China, France or the UK, wise heads tend to prevail.  Best put forth resolutions with at least some chance of garnering support.  Rejection will be hard to take.

On August 14, a degree of humiliation was heaped upon the US delegation.  Washington seemed to have read the situation through fogged goggles, assuming that it would get the nine votes needed to extend arms restrictions on Iran due to expire in October under Resolution 2231.  Of the 15 members, only two – the United States and Dominican Republic – felt the need to vote for it.  Russia and China strongly opposed it; the rest were abstentions.  Previous warnings that any such quixotic effort was bound to fail had been ignored.

The body most shown up in all of this was the US State Department and, it followed, its indignant chief Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  “The UN Security Council failed today to hold Iran accountable,” he raged on Twitter.  “It enabled the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell deadly weapons and ignored the demands of countries in the Middle East.  America will continue to work to correct this mistake.”  He also called the position taken by Britain and France “unfortunate”, as it had only been the US view to “keep the same rules that have been in place since 2007.”

US ambassador to the UN, Kelly Craft, took it personally, giving the impression that she saw it coming in the diplomatic tangle.  “The United States is sickened but not surprised by the outcome of today’s UNSC vote.  The Council’s failure to extend the Iran’s arm embargo is a devastating blow to the Council’s credibility.” She also promised that the US would “not abandon the region to Iranian terror and intimidation, and when we look for partners in that effort, we will look beyond the UN Security Council.”

The humiliation gave Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi much room to gloat.  “In the 75 years of United Nations history, America has never been so isolated,” he confidently asserted.  “Despite all the trips, pressure, and the hawking, the United States could only mobilize a small country [to vote] with them.”

There was much that sat oddly in this enterprise.  It showed a US effort strongly driven by the anti-Iranian Middle East coven of Arab Gulf states, along with Israel.  That said, the position amongst those states is not uniform either.  In the words of Mutlaq bin Majid Al-Qahtani, special envoy of the Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs for Combating Terrorism and Mediation in Settlement of Disputes, “Iran is a neighbouring country with which we have good neighbourly relations, and it has a position that we value in the State of Qatar, the government and the people, especially during the unjust blockade on Qatar.”

Absurdly, Pompeo has promised to see how the US might rely on a provision in the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it unilaterally left in 2018, which permits a “snapback”.  Triggering it would entail a return to the full complement of UN sanctions against Iran.  This novel take was also given an airing by Craft.  “Under Resolution 2231, the United States has every right to initiate snapback of provisions of previous Security Council resolutions.”

In April, Reuters noted the view of a European diplomat that it was “very difficult to present yourself as a compliance watcher of a resolution you decided to pull out of.  Either you’re in or either you’re out.”  Samuel M. Hickey from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation also warned in May that invoking the snapback provision, especially by a non-party, “would not only underscore US isolation on the global stage, it might also undermine the effectiveness of the UNSC by creating a dispute over the validity of a UNSC resolution.”  Russia and China expressed similar readings: it was a bit rich to trigger provisions in an agreement so publicly repudiated.

Iran, in turn, huffed at the very idea of a snapback through its UN ambassador Majid Takht-Ravanchi.  “Imposition of any sanctions or restrictions on Iran by the Security Council will be met severely by Iran and our options are not limited.”

This entire act of gross miscalculation did its fair share of harm, though not in the sense understood by Pompeo and his officials.  It spoke to a clumsy unilateralism masquerading as credible support; to great power obstinacy misguided in attaining a goal.  It was not the UN Security Council that had failed, but the US that had failed it, an effort that many at the UN are reading as directed at torching the remnants of the Iran nuclear deal.  The assessment of the US effort by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was sharp and relevant.  “You got the Dominican Republic on board (how much did that cost the US taxpayer?)  Not a single other nation voted with you!  The shining city on the hill has been reduced to a glow, like the embers of a dying fire.”

US-backed opposition in Solomon Islands opposes ties to Beijing

Patrick O’Connor

Backed by the US State Department, opposition politicians in the Solomon Islands are continuing their efforts to sabotage the government’s diplomatic switch from Taiwan to Beijing in September last year.

The parliamentary opposition in the capital, Honiara, maintains that Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s recognition of China is illegitimate. A provincial administration in Malaita—one of nine country’s provinces and the most populous—insists that it has the right to maintain its own relations with Taiwan, and refuses to recognise Beijing.

Malaita’s separatist premier, Daniel Suidani, is currently suing the national government after authorities seized a shipment of medical equipment that was en route from Taiwan to Malaita on June 11. The supplies were promoted by the Malaitan provincial government as a contribution to the fight against coronavirus, and reportedly included thermal imaging cameras and medical masks.

After police seized the equipment, Attorney General John Muria Junior explained that the shipment represented an “act of defiance of a government decision” and a possible breach of the Sedition Act.

Malaitan provincial officials receiving Taiwanese aid, Daniel Suidani is seated, front-left (Credit: Daniel Suidani, Facebook)

The police seizure came three days after Daniel Suidani issued a provocative statement praising Taiwan for sending an earlier shipment of food and medical aid. He repeatedly referred to coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” echoing US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s efforts to scapegoat China for the pandemic. Suidani’s statement was denounced by the Solomon Islands foreign minister, and by Chinese embassy officials in Honiara.

The provincial premier responded to the police seizure by promoting a social media campaign aimed at pressuring the government to release the supplies, with the hashtag #MalaitanLivesMatter. His government is now pursuing a legal case in Honiara.

The latest conflict between the national government and Malaita’s provincial administration follows months of tension over the China diplomatic switch.

In May, Suidani denounced two members of the national government from Malaita who visited the island alongside employees of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation. The team conducted a feasibility study on a new road project.

In response, Suidani declared: “We are strongly opposed to PRC [People’s Republic of China] communist ideology and investment.” Without citing any relevant laws, he claimed the authority to deny any Chinese national entry to Malaita and to block any economic activity involving Chinese corporations.

One national government member responded by threatening to suspend the Malaitan regional administration, using the state of emergency powers imposed in response to the coronavirus threat.

The government has not done so, though it retains sweeping powers under the state of emergency. The Solomon Islands remains one of the few countries in the world yet to register a coronavirus infection. A surge in cases in neighbouring Papua New Guinea, however, now threatens to spill over into adjacent Pacific states.

Widespread infection in Solomon Islands would quickly overwhelm the impoverished country’s makeshift healthcare system. The situation is an indictment of Australian imperialism, which led an aggressive military-police intervention into the country in 2003, on a spurious “humanitarian” pretext. The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) involved Australian expenditure of $2.6 billion, of which almost nothing went to health and other basic needs of the population.

The World Health Organisation five years ago carried out a comprehensive review of the Solomon Islands’ health system. It found that health centres and clinics in rural areas, where the majority of the population live, had an “urgent need for upgrade, repair or renovation; many facilities were operating without proper water and sanitation, electricity and basic medical equipment.” The report added: “There are serious shortages of clinical equipment and medical supplies at most health facilities, with hospitals often relying on old and poorly maintained medical, diagnostic and surgical equipment.”

In any country, a provincial administration attempting to maintain its own foreign relations in direct opposition to national government policy would be provocative and unlawful. The Malaitan administration’s actions are especially reckless because they threaten to reignite the Solomon Islands’ low-intensity civil war that took place between 1999 and 2003. This conflict, in which the separatist Malaita Eagle Force militia was a central participant, cost around 200 lives and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

US imperialism is playing a crucial role in encouraging Suidani’s provocations. Washington viewed with outrage the Solomon Islands’ diplomatic switch to Beijing as it cuts across American efforts to isolate China. Determined to assert US dominance in Asia, the Trump administration is accelerating its war drive against Beijing.

Shortly before Sogavare officially announced the shift from Taiwan to China, a team of US state department and defence department officials made a secretive visit to Malaita and held behind closed doors discussions with Suidani. The Malaitan premier subsequently declared he would refuse to recognise the diplomatic switch, and launched a campaign against the Chinese government on an anti-communist, evangelical Christian basis.

In January, the World Socialist Web Site warned that the US and Australian governments were preparing a destabilisation campaign against the elected national government. That article highlighted the implications of Republican Senator Marco Rubio’s threat, issued via Twitter, to crash the Solomon Islands’ economy by “potentially ending financial assistance & restricting access to US dollars & banking.”

Since this statement the coronavirus crisis hit the United States and the world, Washington has not moved to implement Rubio’s threat. Nor has Suidani explained whether there has been an official response to his request late last year to the US and Australian governments to “be part of Malaita security.”

US-backed provocations in Solomon Islands will likely be stepped up in the next period. Pompeo delivered a highly-provocative speech on July 23 that effectively declared “regime change” as the overarching goal of the US in China. Within the framework of this aggressive policy, State Department operatives no doubt regard the people of the Solomon Islands as inconsequential and expendable pawns in their “game.”

Canadian provinces and cities confront huge deficits as economic crisis deepens

Omar Ali

Ontario predicted this past week that its deficit will grow to a record $38.5 billion in the 2020-21 fiscal year as a result of massive revenue shortfalls and increased provincial spending due to the coronavirus pandemic. Canada’s most populous province, currently governed by the hard-right Doug Ford-led Conservative government, is only the latest in a growing number of provinces and municipalities reporting record-breaking deficits following the economic collapse triggered by COVID-19.

In a report released late last month, the City of Toronto said it expects to go $3 billion deeper into debt this year and next. The analysis recommended that municipal authorities impose mass job cuts and privatize public assets to balance the books.

One proposal was a voluntary retirement program that would pay workers close to retirement a lump-sum equivalent to three months’ salary in exchange for their taking early retirement. Managers would then have to keep the retired worker’s post unfilled for at least six months, and find ways to offer services with fewer staff. The city has already imposed over $500 million in cost savings this year, including through temporary layoffs.

Similarly, savage austerity measures are being considered across Ontario’s 444 municipalities and in other provinces. The starvation of funds for municipalities, which have suffered significant losses of income due to lockdown measures, is part of a deliberate policy by the ruling elite to enforce austerity measures at all levels of government in order to pay for the bailout of the banks and financial oligarchy carried out by the federal government. Coming after decades of austerity budgets, pay freezes, and job cuts at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels, this policy will prove devastating for already overstretched public services, particularly under conditions in which social inequality and poverty are on the rise.

The Ford government announced in late July that it would provide, in conjunction with the Trudeau Liberals, a miserly $2 billion in funding support to Ontario’s municipalities. This would not even come close to meeting Toronto’s financial shortfall, never mind those of the hundreds of additional municipalities also in dire need of support.

The Ontario government’s funding deal is part of a $19 billion package agreed to between the Trudeau government and the provinces with the aim of accelerating the reopening of the economy, regardless of its consequences for public health. Ford explained that the funding would “help restart our economy and come back stronger than ever before.”

The all-party support for the reckless back-to-work drive, which is being accompanied by the reopening of schools in the face of opposition from teachers and parents, is aimed at making working people pay for the more than $650 billion the Trudeau government, Canada’s central bank and various government agencies have poured into the financial markets and corporate coffers since March to bail out the rich and super-rich.

At the end of this month, the federal government will allow the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to expire. It intends to force the millions of workers still out of a job either on to less generous Employment Insurance benefits or a new makeshift benefit for gig economy, contract and self-employed workers that will provide substantially less than the CERB’s meagre $2,000 per month stipend.

The ruling elite is seizing on increased government deficits to justify its reopening of the economy and gutting of financial aid, even though the real source of the growing public debt levels is the virtually unlimited support extended to the super-rich. Finance Minister Bill Morneau revealed last month that the federal government’s budget deficit is expected to reach $343 billion this year. The projected debt before the pandemic was $34 billion. Proportionately, the 2020-21 federal deficit will be far and away the largest since the Second World War. The overall federal debt is expected to surpass the trillion-dollar mark for the first time in Canadian history, at $1.2 trillion, a figure equal to more than half of the country’s gross domestic product.

The economy is expected to contract by nearly 7 percent, the most severe slowdown since the Great Depression. Morneau tried to paint a rosier picture by pointing out that the government has been able to borrow at low interest rates, keeping the cost of servicing its debt relatively low. The degree to which government debt is an attractive investment is bound up with the extreme volatility of global financial markets that are increasingly relying on massive influxes of capital from the world’s central banks to stave off collapse.

Morneau also cited the government’s expectation that economic growth would rebound to 5 percent in 2021, although this is contingent on businesses returning to something resembling pre-pandemic levels. Much the same can be said for the government’s optimistic prediction that unemployment will drop to 7.8 percent next year from 9.8 percent this year.

In the already depressed economies of eastern Canada, the pandemic has hit public finances hard. In Nova Scotia, the premier announced that the deficit is now $852 million and the debt nearly 40 percent of GDP. In Newfoundland & Labrador, the government is considering allowing desperate residents to dip into their pensions to offset their financial troubles, forcing them to use their retirement funds to ride out the pandemic. Even prior to the pandemic, there was increasing discussion in ruling circles about the need for Ottawa to organize a rescue package to prevent the Newfoundland government from sliding into bankruptcy.

Concerns over the state of Canada’s economy have been growing since the pandemic erupted. In late June, the ratings agency Fitch downgraded Canada’s credit rating from AAA, the highest investment rating, to AA+. It cited the pause of several provinces in implementing their debt reduction plans as something that could impede efforts to stimulate growth moving forward.

Voices in the corporate-controlled media have begun demanding that governments do more to reduce their deficits and overall debt burden. Michael Wernick, a former clerk of the Privy Council, who resigned due to the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal last year, argued that a debt of $1 trillion or more would compel Ottawa to slash federal government employment and services and that this correction must come in a year or two. He argued that the experience of working from home during the lockdown should provide ministers with information on where to reduce staff and spending.

The former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page argued in an interview that austerity would be the inevitable result of the pandemic. He predicted the government would have to increase taxation and cut back programs. The Financial Post meanwhile, wrote that the government must put in place debt ceilings and that, to cover repayments, they must not only privatize state assets but do so at bargain rates. It argued that tax increases should come in the shape of regressive consumption taxes and used the opportunity to call for further reductions to Canada’s already low corporate tax rates.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has also joined in, calling for severe austerity in a May column in the Wall Street Journal. Harper, who was prime minister during the 2008-09 global financial crisis, made clear he would have made similar demands even if the pandemic had not erupted. Looking back at the 2008-09 crisis, he noted that “this time will probably be much worse … Unless we experience a period of astronomical global growth, simple arithmetic dictates that many governments, both national and subnational, will experience debt crises or at least severe pressures, in the years to come. If they fail to practice mild austerity proactively, a brutal kind will be thrust on them.”

Many commentaries have drawn comparisons to the 1990s when Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his finance minister, the future Prime Minister Paul Martin, instituted massive social spending cuts and privatizations, and have pointed to these measures as the way forward. Wernick recalled that the government in the mid-90s slashed “45,000 public service jobs, eliminated 73 federal agencies, reduced foreign aid by 21 percent, and privatized Canadian National Railways.” He predicted that a similar future is now in store for Canadian workers.

Andrew Scheer, the current Conservative Party leader, crudely illustrated the basic interests animating this class-war policy, noting that “coming out of the pandemic, every single country on the planet will be desperately competing for the same opportunities and the same investments, so where is the prime minister’s plan to set us apart?”

As the official opposition Conservatives choose a successor to Scheer next weekend, they are making clear that vicious cost-cutting will be on the order of the day, should they come to power. “Many on the left are going to try to use the pandemic as a justification for a return to the failed policies of the past,” declared Scheer in a Wednesday interview with the Canadian press. To oppose this, he continued, his successor would need to let “people and markets take the lead” by cutting back on government, i.e., by gutting what remains of the public services and social protections the working class won as the result of the mass struggles of the last century.

Heat wave, rolling blackouts affect thousands across California

Peter Ross

As record high temperatures for this time of year crossed the state of California, utility companies conducted rolling blackouts affecting more than 410,000 homes and businesses over the weekend. A total of 20 record highs for August 14 and 15 were set or tied in 15 cities across the state, with the most remarkable being 105 degrees Fahrenheit in the coastal city of Santa Cruz, breaking the last record of 96 set 114 years ago. In a troubling indicator of climate change, 13 of the previous records were set last year.

According to the National Weather Service (NWS), highs in inland areas will continue to reach 100 to 110 F through the middle of next week. The NWS has issued excessive heat warnings for much of the country west of the Rocky Mountains. Maximum temperatures have been 5 to 15 degrees above normal in interior areas, and could rival conditions last seen during the deadly July 2006 North American heat wave, which killed at least 147 people in California, according to coroner reports. A 2009 study in the journal Environmental Research estimated that the number of deaths due to that heat wave was in fact two to three times higher.

As National Weather Service meteorologist Bruno Rodriguez noted in a video briefing, “the cumulative effect from so many days of above-average temperatures is definitely going to act to increase the overall heat risk.” A study this year in the journal Environmental Epidemiology estimated that, nationally, about 5,600 deaths are attributable to heat annually, more than from any other weather-related cause. Extreme heat disproportionately affects children and the elderly, and the vast majority of deaths occur in poor and working class neighborhoods.

In this file photo, Air Force Civil Engineers working with high voltage power lines during a power outage. (U.S. Air Force photo/Jimmie Denton)

A 2019 study from USC, published in Environmental Research Letters, found that 31 percent of residential homes in the Greater Los Angeles area did not have access to air conditioning. “Cooling stations” have been opened in some districts, but with limited capacity due to social-distancing measures. The elderly and people with preexisting medical conditions, among the most vulnerable to both overheating and COVID-19, will now have to choose between extreme heat and exposing themselves to infection. And as sociology professor Eric Klinenberg recently commented to the LA Times, “social isolation combined with extreme heat is a proven killer.”

The heat wave comes during a pandemic which has intensified an already intense crisis for working families. Unemployment was 19.4 percent in LA county as of August 3, almost 1 million people. A 2020 study by UCLA’s Institute on Inequality and Democracy estimated that there are 449,000 individuals who are unemployed, with no income, living in rental housing in Los Angeles county, putting them at high risk for homelessness.

For the millions of people who will be affected by extreme heat in the coming week, not to mention the tens of thousands of homeless, the health risks will be compounded by the negligence of profit-driven utility companies and utter inadequacy of infrastructure. Rolling blackouts affected over 130,000 people in Southern California Friday, after the state ordered utilities to decrease power output by 1,000 megawatts due to the increased demand. Blackouts continued Saturday evening after a 470-megawatt power plant unexpectedly went offline, with utility companies cutting power to 130,000 people in southern California and 220,000 people in the Central Coast and Central Valley areas.

This was the first time that state officials were forced to institute rolling blackouts due to an energy shortfall since the 2001 California electricity crisis. The 2001 crisis occurred after market manipulation by energy companies, chiefly Enron, caused energy prices to increase by 800 percent, leading to a series of blackouts that affected millions of people and cost the state over $40 billion.

Of course, for many in California, blackouts have become commonplace, as the state’s wildfire seasons have become ever more severe. In October and November of 2019, Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s utility monopoly, cut power to over 3 million people to reduce the risk of electric ignitions and avoid legal liability for wildfires. Many were without power for nearly a week.

Lisa Murkowski, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told a December 2019 hearing that, “Wildfire blackouts could be California’s new normal for the next 10 to 30 years, or even longer.” In other words, working people should accept decades of regular blackouts as an inevitability, even as the state’s billionaires amass vast wealth.

While ample resources exist to update California’s aging energy infrastructure and prevent wildfires, state lawmakers have no such intensions. The state has systematically cut funding for social infrastructure, and private utilities have intransigently refused to take basic steps to mitigate the wildfire danger. During the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 154 billionaires in the state collectively amassed an additional $174.4 billion, only slightly less than California’s entire $202.1 billion budget for the current fiscal year. Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed cutting $681 million from the state budget for environmental protection.

Extreme temperatures and drought conditions, which lengthen the fire season and increase the risk of wildfires, will continue to intensify as the effects of climate change become increasingly severe. The Lake Fire, which started in Los Angeles County last Wednesday, grew over the weekend to more than 17,000 acres. By Sunday evening it was only 12 percent contained and hundreds were ordered to evacuate.

Across northern California, the heat contributed to high wind thunderstorms, sparking several wildfires and minor evacuations in Monterey County. So far, firefighters have successfully prevented the fires from growing out of control, but these events will be far more likely in the future. A 2019 USC study in Environmental Research Letters found that the number of extreme heat days—those with temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit—will more than double by 2070 in urban South Los Angeles.

Half of UK Early Years learning workers paid less than minimum wage for 25-year-olds

Charlotte Salthill

The stability of the early years workforce in England, a report by the Social Mobility Commission, has exposed extreme levels of exploitation across the sector.

Half of England’s 280,900 Early Years (EY) workers are paid less than the minimum wage of £8.72 an hour for those over 25 years old. Thirteen percent were paid under £5 an hour; 29 percent between £5 and £7 an hour; and 31 percent between £7 and £9 an hour.

Low pay is one of the main reasons given for leaving the job, alongside increasing work demands and a lack of training and continuous professional development (CPD). More than one third (37 percent) of EY workers stay in their job less than two years. This compares to a 47 percent turnover rate in retail and a national average of 29 percent.

Of the 280,900 EY professionals in England, 58 percent are nursery nurses and assistants, 33 percent are childminders and 9 percent are playworkers. The workforce is predominantly young, with 40 percent below the age of 30, and 96 percent female.

There is a pronounced pay gap between those who work in public versus private and voluntary settings (PVI). Of public sector employees, 47 percent earn above £9 per hour compared with 20 percent in PVI. At the lower end of the pay scale, 26 percent in public settings are paid lower than £7 an hour, compared to 47 percent in the private sector.

The report says this situation is compounded by “unintended effects of government policies such as the minimum wage and the 15 and 30 hours of funded childcare”. EY providers rely on Local Authority funding for 30 hours of funded payments, which amounts to just £1,000 per child each year, if the setting has a qualified EY teacher. This is paid on an hourly basis, equating to an average of £4.38 per child, which barely covers costs and guarantees downward pressure on wages.

Many EY staff are poorly qualified for tasks they are asked to carry out. Apprenticeships are a common route into the EY profession, especially for young people unable to shoulder the burden of university and college fees. But the apprenticeships on offer deny young people an in-depth theoretical or pedagogical training and are a form of cheap labour. Those under 19 years of age or in their first year of apprenticeship get £4.15 an hour. This equates to £8,632 a year for a 40-hour week. Average living costs for a single person excluding rent are £9,072 in London and £7,152 in Manchester.

Some EY workers told researchers they had to take second jobs, while others described themselves as living on the edge of financial survival.

The report found excessive work demands are leading to burnout and low morale. Staff cited “long hours of physically tiring work”, poor child-to-staff ratios, excessive paperwork, high levels of responsibility and a lack of resources to help children, including those with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND).

Staff in privately run settings reported they had to pay for their own training and attend sessions outside of paid hours. Managers said they plan to spend 55 percent less on training in the coming years. But staff in PVI settings described their managers as being disengaged and controlling, with little understanding of what the job entailed.

A lack of adequate skills, including literacy, is cited as a problem. One manager explained, “We don’t need somebody that can come in and just babysit children and look after them. They have to be literate, they have to be able to read and write effectively, to do the required reports and observations and things that we require.” But without a massive training programme and value placed on young workers to develop their skills, they are treated as babysitters.

Cuts to local authority budgets are endangering the most vulnerable children. A nursery teaching assistant whose family outreach centre had closed described the pressures on remaining staff, “We’ve got so much going on with safeguarding…We (are) trying to do the role that our outreach colleagues used to do.”

Safeguarding work includes engaging hard to reach families, protection from maltreatment, and ensuring that children suffering abuse or neglect are reported, which are statutory responsibilities.

Quality EY provision is vital to a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development, especially in more deprived areas where parents struggle at home. In the last 10 years more than 1,000 Sure Start centres that provided a variety of services to support children’s learning, health, and well-being, have closed. Tory austerity cuts imposed by Labour controlled councils have forced the poorest families to rely on volunteer provision run by charities and the church.

The Social Mobility Commission’s research was concluded before the COVID-19 pandemic that has plunged the sector into crisis. The report’s authors note that many EY workers have been furloughed, but that even before the pandemic around 45 percent of childcare workers claimed state benefits or tax credits—well above the average among the wider female workforce. They warn this proportion will increase throughout the second half of 2020 and beyond.

A recent survey by the Sutton Trust into the impact of COVID-19 on the EY sector found a staggering one quarter of providers said they were unlikely to still be operating next year, rising to one third of providers in deprived areas.

Research by the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) shows that 71 percent of nurseries expect to operate at a loss over the coming months, putting thousands of childcare places at risk. The charity Pregnant Then Screwed found 81 percent of employed mothers need childcare to work and that 51 percent of these do not have childcare in place to return to the workforce.

The pandemic has revealed an existential crisis for early years education that has been long in the making. Mass closures and job losses are the product of a decades-long assault by the ruling class on public education. Capitalism is incapable of providing the care, nurture, and stimulation that young children need from the earliest ages. Billions must be seized from the financial oligarchy to build nurseries, creches and pre-schools in every neighbourhood, and to fund well-paid jobs and training for all who work in the sector.

Scotland’s schools reopen as COVID-19 infects students

Steve James

Scotland’s 700,000 students were sent back to class at almost 2,500 primary and secondary schools last week by the Scottish National Party (SNP) government.

SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Education Secretary John Swinney ordered the return of more than 50,000 teachers. The move is a trial run for the Johnson government’s homicidal back-to-school drive across the UK.

Schools were reopened despite a resurgence in coronavirus infections.

On Friday, 65 new COVID-19 cases were reported across Scotland, while 253 people are in hospital with the virus, three of them in intensive care. More cases have been identified in the first two weeks of August than in the whole of June and July. Fifty two cases were reported on Tuesday alone, although no deaths have been reported for 29 days. On August 13, however, Sturgeon reported the “R” number, which charts the number of new infections arising from any single case, stood at around 1.3.

In Aberdeen, an outbreak led to a partial lockdown, with almost 200 cases. Pubs, cafes, and restaurants have been closed and some professional football matches have been cancelled. The Aberdeen outbreak led to cases in nearby North Angus. Five cases were also reported in Orkney.

Most concerning are reports of outbreaks among school students. Eight pupils at Bannerman High School in Glasgow have tested positive for COVID-19, although none had yet returned to school. Despite the cluster, the school reopened last week.

On Saturday, the Herald reported that Bannerman High’s cluster was related to an outbreak among senior management at a McVities biscuit factory in Glasgow, with four managers sent home. Workers at the Tollcross factory have repeatedly raised concerns over unsafe working conditions. One worker tested positive in April.

Two pupils at St Ambrose High and one at St Andrews High, both in Coatbridge, tested positive. Two had returned to school for what was described as a “relatively short period of time.” Two staff at Peterhead Central primary school in Aberdeenshire tested positive prior to the reopening. The school will remain closed for one week.

These outbreaks presage an inevitable surge in COVID-19 cases among pupils, teachers, and other staff, driving wider community transmission.

Numerous scientific reports confirm that school age children can develop symptoms of COVID-19 and transmit the coronavirus to others.

In all, some 19,238 case of COVID-19 have been reported in Scotland, with 2,491 deaths. Excess deaths, most of which can be attributed to COVID-19, run to as many as 4,885, with nearly half in care homes.

The Scottish government accelerated its plans to reopen on August 11, rejecting even minimal social distancing measures. Proposals floated in June for a “blended” return—including reduced class sizes and just one or two days of face-to-face classes per week—were shelved. The government has even encouraged retired teachers to return to work, despite the clear risk to their health.

Both the SNP and the Labour Party insisted on a full return to school. Former First Minister Jack McConnell of Scottish Labour, now Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, led these efforts, and was joined by former SNP health secretary Alex Neil. The pair exploited their position as former teachers to browbeat parents fearful for the safety of their children.

There is huge concern among parents and teachers over the SNP government’s measures. A survey of 29,867 teachers by the Educational Institute for Scotland (EIS), Scotland’s largest teaching union, found that:

* 61 percent felt unsafe or somewhat unsafe about returning to work.

* 83 percent believed that social distancing of 2 metres could not be maintained in schools.

* 80 percent did not believe there was “Transparent and shared evidence that the spread of infection is under control and that schools and educational establishments are safe places to work.”

* 74 percent felt that “track and trace” measures, essential for understanding the scope of outbreaks and implementing measures to suppress them, would not be in place when schools reopened.

* 68 percent were not confident, or even somewhat confident, that necessary social distancing measures, risk assessments, and hygiene measures would be ready.

However, reflecting the mis-leadership of the trade unions, the lack of an alternative, and media propaganda and misinformation, 60 percent supported schools reopening, while remaining concerned about the spread of COVID-19. A further 27 percent of teachers opposed re-opening entirely.

A separate survey by the Secondary School Teachers Association (SSTA) found that:

* 65 percent were not or were only slightly confident their workplace was safe.

* 67 percent had little or no confidence that their employer could keep their school safe.

Despite teachers’ well-founded concerns, neither union made any attempt to delay or prevent schools from re-opening. Both the SSTA and EIS survey results were only released a few days before the August 11 deadline for reopening.

The unions’ efforts were directed towards pressuring the Scottish government and local authorities into marginal changes in safety procedures. They placed full responsibility on individual teachers to look after their own conditions.

EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan called on teachers to return to school, insisting only that updated risk assessments should be carried out “by the employer and that staff and teacher trade unions are fully consulted on their content.”

Throughout the pandemic, the trade unions have been central to ensuring workers are corralled behind the needs of the corporations. Internationally, the reopening of schools is the lynchpin of government efforts to force parents back to work, regardless of levels of coronavirus transmissions. Schools are being transformed into holding pens, with teachers, students and their families treated as guinea pigs.

More than 2,500 early learning centres and nurseries were reopened by the SNP government in July, despite the impossibility of social distancing.

The Socialist Equality Party rejects the claim that the only alternatives on offer to school students, parents, and teachers are either poor schooling from home, or dangerous schooling in class.

We call for teachers, classroom assistants, school staff, bus drivers, parents and school students to form rank-and-file committees. All schools and non-essential workplaces must remain closed until the pandemic threat is over, with full income protection.

The demand for a general strike must be raised to halt the reopening and safeguard teachers and other school staff, pupils, and their families.

We call for a vast expansion of testing and contact tracing to show an R number of less than 0.1 percent before any school reopens—based on carefully considered and impartial scientific advice. Resources, extracted from the bank accounts and private wealth of the super-rich and the major corporations, must be poured into schools and online learning systems to ensure neither students nor education workers suffer until the pandemic is fully suppressed.

A risky game with health and lives as schools reopen throughout Germany

Gregor Link

Millions of children and hundreds of thousands of teachers are beginning to return to schools. Full attendance is mandatory, with everything that goes with it—overcrowded classrooms, cancelled lessons, run-down sanitary facilities and crowded public transport and school buses on the way to school.

At the same time, the number of new COVID-19 infections in Germany is at its highest level since the introduction of protective measures. In the last two days alone, 1,226 and 1,445 people were infected with the deadly coronavirus. In the USA, where a patient dies every one and a half minutes of the virus, parents or students now have to sign a statement exempting the school management from any liability if a child at school falls ill with COVID-19 and dies.

Against this background, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert outlined two goals in dealing with the pandemic at a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday. “One is to keep the economy running as well as possible and the other is to get schools and the entire educational system back on track.” Seibert did not explain how many deaths this policy will cause—and the journalists present did not ask him.

Pupil Moritz is on his way to the first day at his new school in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Seibert was summing up the attitude of the entire ruling class. On Saturday, in a joint statement, four major business associations declared with remarkable frankness, “It is high time that the regular operation of Berlin schools starts again.” It is “in the interest of employers and their employees” to send children back to school as soon as possible.

The return of children to school so that parents are available for work sets the course for a further devastating spread of the pandemic, which will cause countless new deaths and unspeakable suffering. More and more studies show how dangerous it is to resume attendance at school. The claim that children are not infected or do not pass on the virus has been clearly refuted.

In the USA, 97,000 children tested positive for coronavirus in the last two weeks of July alone, and according to a recent report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the number has risen to 338,000 since the beginning of the pandemic. The German state governments are preparing for similar conditions by reopening schools.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where schools opened already at the beginning of last week, a grammar school in Ludwigslust and a school in Rostock had to be closed again because teachers and students tested positively. There were similar cases in Hamburg.

In Berlin, where classes resumed on Monday, coronavirus infections have been detected at eight schools, as the Senate (state) Education Administration informed local radio station rbb. One, the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Gymnasium in Treptow-Köpenick with 800 students, was closed again on Thursday.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, where the school year only began on Wednesday, a day-care centre in Dortmund and an elementary school in Essen were closed again due to coronavirus infections. Other schools remained open despite positive tests.

Nevertheless, the state governments are ruthlessly reopening schools. In Schleswig-Holstein, which is governed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), even teachers with a medical certificate showing they are at risk are being forced to teach. Of 1,600 teachers belonging to coronavirus risk groups, only 32 have been exempted from teaching. All others must teach, even if an infection means a possible death sentence for them.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, where 200,000 teachers and 2.1 million pupils returned to classrooms on Wednesday, there is compulsory school attendance even for children of high-risk parents. “As a matter of principle, pupils are obliged to take part in face-to-face teaching. The general provisions on compulsory schooling and participation apply,” the NRW Education Ministry states.

State Education Minister Yvonne Gebauer (FDP) has already openly admitted that COVID-19 victims are an integral part of her school reopening concept. “We cannot protect people from falling ill with COVID-19,” she said in a radio interview. There will “always be diseases.” The government can only ensure that “our hospitals are prepared, that enough intensive care beds are available, that enough ventilators are available. But we cannot protect all people.”

With more than 2,370 new infections in the last seven days (413 new infections within one day alone), North Rhine-Westphalia now has the highest infection rate in Germany, with around 52,600 cases. In Bochum in the Ruhr Area, the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants, averaging 30 over the last seven days, is dangerously close to 50, at which point a regional lockdown is imminent.

“What I can’t get into my head, is regular schooling in the face of rising infection rates, demonstrably even during the holiday season,” Martina R. from North Rhine-Westphalia commented on Facebook. “Actually, for at least three weeks, lessons should be designed in such a way that as few people as possible are infected. Previously ill people, for example, should generally be taught in home-schooling, the rest in a mixture of attendance and home-schooling, especially smaller groups are necessary.”

With a view to the new infections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Hamburg, Martina added, “It is already apparent that regular [school] operations cannot function in this way. Politicians have no conscience—and children cost money, but do not contribute anything to the coffers, nor do they have a lobby. In any case, regular operations have nothing to do with science.”

Education Minister Gebauer and State Premier Armin Laschet (CDU), who are hated for their particularly ruthless coronavirus policies, represent the only state government to have felt compelled to make wearing masks compulsory in NRW, introduced at short notice, but not for primary school pupils. In all other federal states—including Thuringia, which is led by the Left Party—the regulations do not mandate the wearing of masks.

Brigitte, a teacher from Rhineland-Palatinate, explained to the World Socialist Web Site, “So far, officially on Monday, in our state, we will continue with limited regular classes. What exactly this means was not clear before the holidays. More detailed instructions will not be available until tomorrow. Otherwise: full classes, frequent airing, wearing masks outside classrooms in the corridors and the schoolyard. In classes—where it is already quite cramped—there should be no compulsory wearing of masks. I was usually happier to go to school on my first day than this year.”

Brigitte’s colleague Maria reported similar conditions in Hesse. “Before the holidays, the Education Ministry issued a ‘timetable’ that classes should be similar to those before the coronavirus. That means full class sizes and a full timetable—but hand washing should be maintained. Whether or not masks should be compulsory in the schoolyard is to be decided by the respective school management. There was no progress towards digitalisation. We’ll start again on Monday, and I doubt that anything will come of it.”

Scientific studies from Israel and Japan, as well as investigations by the Berlin Charité, have proven that conditions such as those found in classrooms, gymnasiums and changing rooms pose a particularly high risk of so-called “cluster infections” and “superspreading” events, in the course of which, hundreds of people fall ill within a very short time.

Barbara, a high school teacher from Lower Saxony, said in an interview with the WSWS, “A mass outbreak at school—that would mean school closures—just like a mass outbreak in the city. We had that in June and therefore had to teach online for two more weeks.”

Although Barbara’s secondary school is also scheduled to resume regular operations next week, she has not yet received any information about how lessons are to be organised in concrete terms or what measures are to be taken. “Yesterday we received our lesson plans. Timetables are not yet ready. I would be happy if we had to wear masks compulsorily in class and in the teachers’ rooms for the first two weeks. Many colleagues and students have been on vacation—that’s pretty scary to me personally.”

The case of Bavaria shows just how far-reaching the efforts of the state governments are to get back to business as quickly as possible in the interests of making profits. There, the state health office had not informed 44,000 holiday returnees of their results until yesterday, who had voluntarily had themselves tested for the coronavirus since 30 July. Among those tested were about 900 infected persons, who had thus remained undetected for days.

The same information policy is also being applied in schools. Ricarda, who is due to return to her school next Monday, told us, “I don’t even have a timetable. The school management is waiting for new instructions until the last minute. I have already set up the desks individually. Then, during the introductory days, I will do a targeted Iserv training [online training system] with the students, in case the school is closed again. Students should bring their equipment and I practice with them. I hope that’s enough.”

Prominent lawyers and legal associations demand Assange’s freedom

Oscar Grenfell

A group of 152 eminent legal experts from around the world, along with 15 lawyers’ associations, this morning issued an open letter to the British government documenting a litany of abuses perpetrated against Julian Assange by the country’s judiciary and all the governments that have pursued the WikiLeaks founder for the past decade.

The 10-page document is a meticulous review of Assange’s case, including the current attempt to extradite him from Britain to the US where he faces life imprisonment for publishing evidence of war crimes and global diplomatic conspiracies.

Its conclusion, backed by extensive citations of relevant legislation, is unambiguous: the campaign against Assange has been based upon gross violations of domestic and international law, and the WikiLeaks founder must be immediately released from prison.

The signatories write that the recipients of the letter—British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Home Secretary Priti Patel—are legally obligated to grant “Mr. Assange his long overdue freedom—freedom from torture, arbitrary detention and deprivation of liberty, and political persecution.”

Julian Assange

The letter was publicly released just days after Assange’s last British court appearance on Friday which took the Kafkaesque character of previous proceedings to new heights. As has been the case throughout the coronavirus crisis, the press was effectively excluded from the hearing by means of a faulty dial-in connection. The US prosecutors did not show up, and Assange was only brought in by video conference at the eleventh hour.

Most egregiously, US prosecutors submitted to the British authorities a new indictment of Assange two days before the hearing began and a new extradition request the day before it was held. This is more than a year after the deadline expired for the US to submit its final charge sheet, and just weeks out from Assange’s scheduled extradition hearing in September.

Assange has not yet been re-arrested on the basis of the new indictment. To all intents and purposes he is in a legal limbo, being detained on the basis of a previous indictment that has been superseded. As the WSWS commented on Saturday, the new indictment, which contains no new charges or evidence, confronts Assange’s lawyers with an impossible dilemma: either they accept that the September hearing will proceed despite the filling of an indictment after the defence had finalised its case, or they appeal for a delay, prolonging Assange’s detention.

Today’s letter demonstrates that this unprecedented situation is the culmination of ten years of legal abuses.

The opening sections of the document outline the blatant illegality of the attempt to extradite Assange to the US. If handed over to his American persecutors, Assange “faces a show trial at the infamous ‘Espionage court’ of the Eastern District of Virginia before which no national security defendant has ever succeeded.” He would be denied the right to a trial before a jury of his peers, instead being judged by a handpicked collection of intelligence agents and government patsies.

Assange’s rights to legal privilege in such a proceeding, the letter writers note, has already been violated by the well-documented surveillance conducted against him as a political refugee in Ecuador’s London embassy by the US Central Intelligence Agency.

This included unlawful recordings of his discussions with attorneys, constituting an “irremediable breach of Mr. Assange’s fundamental rights to a fair trial under Art. 6 of the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] and due process under the US Constitution.” The protection of legal privilege contained in the ECHR, has, the letter states, long been recognised in English common law, while the inalienable right to a fair trial is enshrined in the United Nations Model Treaty on Extradition.

The dispatch of Assange to the US would be unlawful under the existing treaty arrangements between the US and Britain, which explicitly prohibit extraditions for political offences. Assange has been charged on the basis of explicitly political legislation, the US Espionage Act.

The political character of the prosecution has been further demonstrated by the “essence of the 18 charges” against him, which are all based on his “alleged intention to obtain or disclose US state ‘secrets’ in a manner that was damaging to the strategic and national security interests of the US state, to the capability of its armed forces, the work of the security and intelligence services of the US, and to the interests of the US abroad.”

The signatories cite the warnings of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer that Assange would inevitably face “torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” if extradited. He would be imprisoned under “Special Administrative Measures,” to which many convicted terrorists are subject in the US, involving total isolation and conditions described by rights organisations as a “living death.”

This would breach international law prohibitions on the refoulement of political refugees to those responsible for their persecution. Assange’s status as a political asylee was repeatedly upheld by the UN, and its abrogation was carried out by the Ecuadorian and British authorities last year in violation of international law.

The letter writers point to the broader implications of Assange’s case. A successful US prosecution would overturn the principles of press freedom, undermining not only the American Constitution, but the legal protections of journalists in Europe and internationally.

The latter half of the letter details the abuses that have been perpetrated against Assange by the British judiciary, acting under the direction of the country’s government. These are almost too numerous to detail at any length. They include, however, the fact that the British authorities have done nothing to address UN official Melzer’s finding that Assange is already being subjected to “psychological torture,” including as a result of the conditions of his detention and the blithe dismissal of warnings that his health has deteriorated to the point he may die in prison.

Violations of the WikiLeaks founder’s right to a fair trial include the fact that the Chief Magistrate, Emma Arbuthnot, has a clear judicial conflict of interest as a result of her close connections to the security and intelligence apparatus; the “inequality of arms” expressed in Assange’s inability to prepare his own case and the denial of his ability to direct his legal team or even to properly follow the proceedings against him.

The signatories, to their credit, do not blunt their weapons. They “condemn the denial of Mr. Assange’s right to a fair trial before the UK courts” and conclude by insisting that the “the UK government bring an end to the US extradition proceedings against Mr. Assange and ensure his immediate release from custody.”

Those who have initiated and supported the letter carry significant weight. The legal associations that have endorsed it include national lawyers' and jurists' associations from countries as diverse as the United States, India, the Ukraine and Brazil. Among them are bodies that represent legal professionals across entire continents including the African Bar Association and the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights.

Two of them, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and the Association of American Lawyers (AAL), have consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the highest UN status granted to NGOs.

Individual signatories hail from around the world, and include such distinguished legal experts as the British Lord Hendy QC and Australian barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside.

The letter is further proof, if any were needed, that Assange’s persecution is a travesty of justice threatening legal and democratic norms that, at least on paper, protect the rights of millions, if not billions of people around the world. It is no exaggeration to state that the lawlessness of his treatment by the British authorities recalls nothing so much as the actions of the dictatorial regimes that came to power in western Europe amid the last period of capitalist breakdown in the 1930s and 40s.

Significantly, the signatories have formally constituted themselves as “Lawyers for Assange.” This follows the establishment last year of “Doctors for Assange,” a group of more than 200 medical experts, and “Journalists speak up for Assange,” which has been endorsed by 1,498 reporters in 99 countries. In July, dozens of privacy, human rights and press freedom organisations issued an open letter to the British government demanding Assange’s immediate release.

Taken together, these initiatives provide a glimpse of the real global public opinion on the Assange case, which is usually suppressed by a pliant corporate media. For those who defend democratic rights, the actions of the US and British governments are those of “rogue” states, with no respect for the rule of law. Assange is a heroic journalist being persecuted for publishing the truth.

The determination of the major powers to proceed with the prosecution of Assange demonstrates how much is at stake in the case. It underscores the fact that to free the WikiLeaks founder requires nothing less than the mobilisation of the working class internationally, the objective basis for which exists in the resurgence of the class struggle and the immense social and political disaffection everywhere.

Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 16th November, 2020 at 23:59

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: African countries

About the Award: Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance is a platform for highly educated young African social, business and political entrepreneurs, attending leading universities in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Our mission is to capture, inform and engage Africa’s global intellectual capital in the development of Africa.

Type: MBA


Eligibility: 

• Born in Africa and current passport holders of an African country
• Exhibited entrepreneurial leadership in their field of interest
• Two or more years of work experience
• Hold a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent
• Candidates must arrange to have official university transcripts, letters of recommendation and standardized test scores arrive at Yale School of Management by the appropriate application deadline

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

• Fellowships and Grants from our partners
• Scholarships (Fletcher / Oxford Skoll / Yale / Oxford Pershing Square)
• Mentors
• Venture Capital
• The Harambean Network

How to Apply: 

• Candidates must complete online HEA Application by November 16, 2020 HERE

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

The Pandemic and Withering Away of the Working Classes in India

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

The ordeals of the migrants and other working classes are not going to end if they survive from the COVID-19. The central and state governments are making sweeping changes to the labour laws to lure capital investments. There is no ideological difference between the BJP and Congress party when it comes to assault on rights of labourers. Both these national parties consider that capital and its interests are sacred whereas workers are disposables. The nationalism and patriotism are new drugs found in Indian politics, where ruling classes are addicted to uphold the interests of capitalist classes. The evil regimes of central government in New Delhi and state governments in Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan Karnataka, Punjab and Odisha are leading in labour laws reform processes in response to worsening economic situation during the pandemic. The economic situation was battered by the wrong economic policies and misplaced priorities of Modi government before the outbreak of the Coronavirus. The unplanned lockdowns have further accelerated the grave economic downturn. Instead of finding sustainable alternative policies and programmes for economic revival, the governments are on overdrive to please capitalist classes at the cost of workers lives and livelihoods. The pandemic gives an undemocratic legitimacy to the governments to enforce legislative changes with ordinances, which are detrimental to working class people.

The Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat governments have suspended thirty-eight labour laws in support of industries for next three years.  The Madhya Pradesh and Odisha governments have reformed the Factories Act-1948, which provides various protective measure to the workers. The labour reforms are not only diluting the laws but also suspending it and exempting companies from following laws that safeguard workers’ health, safety and wellbeing in industrial workplace. Several other state governments are also amending their labour laws to increase working hours and overtime work limit policies. Hire and fire is the sole motto of these labour reform policies. Such regressive and reactionary labour reforms are branded as untapped opportunities for employment generation and economic growth while it violates the ILO conventions and international commitments on protection of labour. The labour market reforms in India sends a strong and wrong signal to the working classes that the states and governments are is going to stand with capital and not with people. The lives and livelihoods of working classes are less significant than the mobility of capital in India.

The labour market deregulation is a deference to consolidation of capital by corporate power. It renunciates the idea of welfare state and redistributive government by accelerating the orthodoxies of neoliberal disposition in the name of reforms, which disempowers the masses. The consequences of comprehensive labour reforms are going to defeat its twin purposes; increase productivity and mobility of capital. It is empirically well established that the productive power of labour diminishes with the weakening of workers protection, low wages, reduction of other entitlements and incentives of labour. The low labour morale creates low productivity trap which weakens the mobility of labour. So, the short-term luring of capital is neither in the best interests of capital nor in the interests of labour in the long run. So, the pandemic led labour reforms are thoughtless, nasty, illusionary and myopic. The economic framework of labour market reform is based on false economic promises to both labour and capital. These labour reforms are not only weakening labour but also slumping the economy.  It weakens the republic too. Capital is attracted to productive and skilled labour market and not to the unemployed army of cheap and unskilled labourers. In a bid to avoid such a situation, the states and governments must reassert its protective and welfare responsibilities in the interests of the country and its people by reversing the unwanted labour reforms.  It is the duty of every democratic and welfare states and governments to stand with its most vulnerable population during the global health crisis triggered by the Coronavirus pandemic. But the pandemic infused crisis is an opportunity for the ruling and non-ruling classes to further disenfranchised the working classes in India.

It is workers sweat that transformed into capitalist profit in the excel sheets of their bank accounts and immovable assets. The labour is central to production process and economic growth. But the labour market reform framework is repositioning the working classes as secondary to capital. Such ideological praxis is the hallmark of right-wing political economy dating back to early 19th century. It is a great leap backward in terms of its objectives, analysis and outcomes. The economic and political logic behind these reforms lack social and economic rationales due to lack of historical understanding of labour and capital relationships even within capitalism and the declining relevance of illiberal laissez-faire political economy. The formidable resistance to right wing political and economic onslaughts on working class is unavoidable for the sake of India and Indian workers. The organised struggle against the anarchy of capitalist loot is the only alternative for the survival of the working people in India.

The security to wages, work with dignity, and secure workplace is a fundamental right of workers and precondition to egalitarian economic growth and civilised development in India. History is the witness to the fall of civilisations due to adverse economic conditions, social and political breakdowns. India is at a critical crossroads today due to directionless economic governance, arrogant politics, ignorant government, and majoritarian dominance of society by the Hindutva forces. It is time for the labour movement to fight and ensure security of work in a secure workplace and move beyond the politics of wage bargain. It needs to engage with broader realities of India, where the divisive Hindutva politics is destroying working class unity. Unless this broader agenda is not undertaken urgently and seriously, the failure to represent inclusive working-class interests creates the conditions for the rise of reactionary politics of Hindutva with its capitalist spirit and actions. The labour market is a serious warning sign for the future of working class lives and livelihoods. The future of the country depends on halting the forward march of such a reform with united struggles in defence of working people in India.