Canada’s Liberal government slashes COVID-19 emergency aid

Roger Jordan

Canada’s Justin Trudeau-led Liberal government is dramatically scaling back the financial assistance provided the millions of workers who have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On Thursday, Chrystia Freeland, the newly-appointed finance minister, announced that the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) will be terminated at the end of September, and that the financial aid for the vast majority of the more than 3 million jobless workers now dependent on the CERB for their livelihood will be slashed by 20 percent.

This attack on working people and their families is central to the ruling elite’s homicidal back-to-work and back-to-school drive, which is aimed at forcing workers to return to unsafe workplaces so as to generate profits for big business and investors.

The majority of those now receiving the CERB, which pays a miserly $500 a week, will be transitioned to Employment Insurance (EI). This change will result in most cases in a 20 percent cut in their weekly assistance, from the lordly sum of $500 to just $400.

In steps that only highlight how impoverished the EI program has become after decades of Liberal and Conservative cuts, the government has temporarily eased the number of hours of work needed to obtain benefits and raised the minimum weekly payout.

However, overall, eligibility requirements remain much more stringent than for the CERB. EI claimants can be required at any time to prove they are actively seeking employment. Failure to do so can result in sanctions, including the loss of all benefits.

Under EI rules, even if they cannot find work, many of those now unemployed will be threatened after just 26 weeks with the loss of all EI benefits and destitution.

All of this will, and is meant, to push the jobless into competing for low-paid, precarious employment opportunities.

That the government is determined to dramatically curtail assistance to those without work or unable to work due to the pandemic is underscored by the modest sums the government has budgeted for its post-CERB worker-support programs. A mere $15.3 billion is being injected into EI, while $22 billion has been set aside for three new makeshift benefits, all of which will last for just one year. The Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) will provide $400 per week for a maximum of 26 weeks for jobless workers ineligible for EI, principally the self-employed and contract “gig workers.” The same requirements for accessing EI, including the need to actively seek employment, will apply to the CRB.

The Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit and Canada Recovery Caregivers Benefit are cheapened replacements for other elements of the CERB program. The Sickness Benefit will provide $500 per week for two weeks to workers who become sick or must self-isolate, but only if their employer does not provide paid sick leave.

The Caregivers Benefit will provide financial support to parents or family members who have to stay home to look after a child or other relative during the pandemic. However, the government has made clear that this benefit will be paid only in the event of COVID-19 closures. Parents who wish to keep their children at home for fear of infection in overcrowded and under-resourced schools will not be eligible for the benefit. Additionally, only one adult member of a household can claim the $400 weekly payment at any one time.

The presentation of the Liberal government’s new package of post-CERB measures was preceded by weeks of internal squabbling that culminated in last Monday’s “resignation”—in reality, forced departure—of Finance Minister Bill Morneau, a former corporate CEO who enjoys close ties to Bay Street.

In the weeks prior to Morneau’s announcement that he was stepping down to seek the post of OECD secretary-general, the corporate media was full of reports of disagreements between Morneau’s office and Trudeau’s staff on various aspects of government policy. These included the decision to raise the wage subsidy paid to employers to help cover workers’ wages from the original level of 10 percent to 75 percent, and over whether the CERB was “too generous” and a “disincentive to work.” These factional conflicts point to the deepening crisis of the minority Trudeau government, which is under mounting pressure from big business to accelerate the onslaught on the working class so as to make it pay for the Trudeau government and Bank of Canada’s $650 billion bailout of the banks and financial markets.

Under these conditions, and with Morneau increasingly discredited by the ongoing WE Charity scandal, Trudeau concluded that a new face with the political clout to impose deeply unpopular measures was necessary. For a week prior to Morneau’s resignation, staff in the Prime Minister’s Office leaked a steady stream of embarrassing details about the finance minister’s disagreements with Trudeau to the G lobe and Mail and other publications.

Trudeau also announced Wednesday he was proroguing parliament until September 23. This anti-democratic manoeuvre is aimed at suppressing further embarrassing revelations about the Liberals’ incestuous, corrupt ties with WE, and enabling the government to seize back the political initiative.

When parliament reconvenes, the government will present a Throne Speech, outlining its plans for the next stage in the “recovery.” Both the Throne Speech and the new shrunken financial support for working people impacted by the pandemic will need to secure parliament’s approval, which means one of the three major opposition parties will have to vote with the government.

The Liberals and media have made much of the fact that Freeland is Canada’s first female finance minister. The real reason for her appointment is that she is a notorious right-winger and war-hawk, touted by the corporate media as a “safe pair of hands,” whom Trudeau calculates can mollify his big business critics and oversee the acceleration of the back-to-work drive.

In her previous roles, Freeland has spearheaded the government’s rearmament program, its courting of Trump in the NAFTA renegotiation, and since last fall’s election its “outreach” to the hard-right provincial governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. Predictably, one-time Trump enthusiast Ontario Premier Doug Ford was one of the first to applaud Freeland on her appointment as finance minister, hailing her as “amazing” and “incredible.” Ford, whose government has imposed savage social spending cuts and real wage cuts on one million public sector workers, added, “I’ll have her back. I’ll help her any way we can.”

In her remarks announcing the winding down of the CERB, Freeland made clear that the Liberal government is curtailing and phasing out even the limited measures it took to mitigate the pandemic’s impact on working people, and is now focused on ensuring “economic recovery,” i.e., boosting corporate profitability. “As we shift from our initial emergency response to a safe and prudent restart, as we shift to living with COVID-19,” declared Freeland, “our approach also needs to evolve.” Underlining that the government plans to unveil a broad range of pro-business measures when parliament reconvenes, Freeland added that the ending of CERB marks only the first step in the Liberals’ recovery plan.

There is nothing “safe” or “prudent” about the policies being pursued by the Canadian ruling elite. The Liberal government has spearheaded the reckless back-to-work drive, which has been implemented most aggressively by hard-right provincial governments in Quebec, Ontario, and Alberta. Workplace safety regulations have been systematically ignored or abused, and the vast majority of complaints filed by workers over unsafe conditions have been curtly dismissed by provincial and federal labour boards.

Freeland’s insistence that workers learn to “live with COVID-19” is in line with the demands of the Trump administration and the Democrats in the United States, who have allowed the virus to run rampant. As deaths in the US rapidly approach the 200,000 mark, a bipartisan drive is well-advanced to reopen schools across the country, subjecting teachers, parents, and students to life-threatening conditions. This criminal campaign is being justified by the need to get back to “normal” conditions, and to learn to “live with COVID-19.”

A central role in enforcing the ruling elite’s reactionary back-to-work agenda is being played by the trade unions and New Democratic Party. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the unions have shut down all expressions of working class opposition, including teacher strikes in Ontario and protests by health workers and others over a lack of personal protective equipment.

At the same time, the unions have deepened their long-standing partnership with the Liberal government and big business, as shown by their participation in a series of closed-door meetings with business lobby groups and government officials to plot the “economic recovery.” A joint statement released after one such consultation in April pledged the participants would work to create conditions so that “Canadian businesses can come roaring back” after the crisis.

For its part, the NDP has provided critical parliamentary support to the Liberal government. In May, it backed the Trudeau government’s move to suspend regular parliamentary sittings until September.

With the “Quebec First” Bloc Quebecois announcing that it will vote against the Throne Speech, the NDP has rushed to signal that it can be “persuaded” to once again come to the Liberals’ rescue.

Even so, such is the state of crisis facing Canadian capitalism, it cannot be excluded that the parliamentary support for the Trudeau government could suddenly evaporate. While some sections of big business continue to believe that the Liberal government, due to its phony “progressive” image and partnership with the unions, remains the best vehicle for imposing their class war agenda; others are dissatisfied with what they consider to be impermissible delays in slashing financial support to workers and using the crisis to step up capitalist exploitation.

The latter faction doubts whether the Trudeau government, weakened by a series of scandals and increasingly discredited in the eyes of the population, is capable of implementing the attacks on the working class they see as essential in the coming months. As Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said with regard to the Liberal government’s proposal to transfer most CERB claimants to EI, “This is just too low a bar for many part-time workers to return to their pre-COVID employment.”

With the official opposition Conservatives selecting their new leader this past weekend, powerful forces within the corporate elite could quickly coalesce behind the drive to bring an even more reactionary government to power to implement sweeping austerity measures.

Postmaster General testifies before a Senate Committee on mail crisis

Shuvu Batta

Reports and images from around the country of torn postboxes, dismantled mail processing machines, live animals delivered dead and the delayed shipments of medicine to elderly and veterans have ignited widespread public outrage. It is now very clear that the drive to wreck an institution older than the United States itself, to justify its privatization and sale to profit-driven corporations, is proceeding at a rapid pace.

The USPS expects to run out of cash by 2021, but it is the delivery crisis, particularly its potential impact on the US elections, which has created a deadlock in Congress, with the Democratic-controlled House passing a bill to provide an additional $25 billion in funding and the Senate Republicans expected to reject it.

President Donald Trump recently denounced this appropriation effort, initiated partly to offset the losses caused by the coronavirus crisis and partly to insure proper functioning during an election in which mail ballots will be critical. Trump claimed, “This is all another HOAX by the Democrats to give $25 billion unneeded dollars for political purposes without talking about the Universal Mail-in Ballot scam … that they are trying to pull off in violation of everything that our Country stands for.”

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before an emergency session called by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Friday. Two competing and false narratives were on display, with the Democrats blaming Trump and the Republicans as sole authors of the postal crisis, while the Republicans essentially denounced the USPS as “a sort of perhaps unfixable problem,” in the words of Senator Rand Paul, which required complete dismantling and privatization.

Republican committee chair Ron Johnson of Wisconsin started the meeting off by pointing out that DeJoy was not a Trump appointee, but rather had been chosen by “the bipartisan Postal Board of Governors.” All of these governors, however, whether Democratic or Republican, were appointed by Trump.

Ranking Democrat Gary Peters scolded DeJoy over the impact of the policies he has implemented since taking the reins in the spring. He revealed that his office had received over “7500 reports of delays from Michigan and around the country in less than two weeks. They have written to me about skipping doses of their medication and their small businesses losing customers or having to lay off employees, all because of changes that you directed.”

Among the changes instituted by DeJoy were an effective ban on overtime, leading to the piling-up of mail in facilities and lengthy delays.

As the WSWS had reported earlier on the hiding of COVID-19 deaths and infections at USPS by management, it was further revealed over the course of the meeting that the USPS leadership is hiding important data which reveal the internal operations of the Post Office.

DeJoy contradicted himself throughout the meeting. He claimed at one point, “We serve 161 million people. We still deliver at 99.5 percent of the time. We have significant efforts to continue to improve on that process,” and then later, “I won’t go as far as to not say that we had maybe a four or five percent hit on our service level for delayed, all sorts of mail, marketing mail, everything, because it got stuck on a dock and we’re drastically bringing that down.”

He even stated at one point, “Theoretically everyone should have gotten their mail faster.”

The Republican Senators received DeJoy with great fanfare and admiration, with former Florida governor and now Senator Rick Scott introducing DeJoy with, “can you just talk about why you’re uniquely qualified” to lead the USPS and, “How does it make you feel when you have people make these unsubstantiated claims that you personally have a goal to slow down the mail?”

DeJoy is a major GOP donor, according to FEC Data since 2016 he has given roughly $1.2 million to the Trump Victory Committee and the Republican National Committee each alongside smaller contributions to Republican House and Senate Candidates. Simultaneously, according to a report by USA Today, he and his wife may claim up to a total $75,815,000 in assets from US Postal Service competitors.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky inadvertently suggested the reality of the situation by asking DeJoy, “If you came in as a venture capitalist and a venture capitalist group took over the post office and named you CEO what would you do that you are unable to do because it’s a government agency?”

DeJoy thanked Paul for the question and answered, “Number one, the legislative reform that I would ask is what I said in my written testimony and opening remarks on integration of Medicaid and pension reform. I would like to be kind of liberated on pricing, it’s a very, very competitive market out there now. I would like more pricing freedom.”

The Postal Service Reform Act of 2018 was a bipartisan bill which had aimed to achieve part of what is outlined, the bill would have led to a retiree paying an additional $1,600 or more per year in Medicare premiums, according to National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association President Richard G. Thissen.

Senator Paul called for further assaults on postal services to his own rural constituents, declaring, “We also need to look at—the easiest way to continue personalized service to each person individually at their house would be to do it less frequently, and frankly, people who live 20 miles down a shell road, if you told them they were going to get twice a week versus six times a week, I think we’d actually live with this.”

In the almost two-hour meeting, a critical element missing was any discussion on DeJoy’s move to centralize his leadership and create a new department responsible for sorting mail during an election cycle, which will be largely decided through mail-in ballots.

Senator Kamala Harris, who is a part of the Senate committee, decided to spend her time on the campaign trail rather than question an individual who may have conspired against her campaign. This only demonstrates the unseriousness of the Democrats’ posturing as defenders of democracy against Trump.

In stark contrast to the duplicitous role of the Democrats, who are equally as responsible for the manufactured crisis at USPS, postal workers in Wenatchee and Seattle-Tacoma in Washington have restored into service dismantled mail-sorting units. Workers in Dallas, Texas, have ignored the USPS’ directives.

The Senate hearing was largely political theater. Much noise was made about the $25 billion which USPS needs in order to maintain its function of providing essential items such as life saving medicine to all Americans, but no such noise was made in regards to the $738 billion budget to the US military approved last year, with even the so-called socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voting in favor.

Hundreds of thousands displaced, six dead as 600 fires rip across California

Norissa Santa Cruz

A hellish nightmare has engulfed the West Coast of the United States. Record breaking heat waves, fire and lightning storms have led to the outbreak of over 600 fires throughout the state. The nation's largest and most populous state, and a global breadbasket, has been turned into a deadly inferno fueled by extreme heat waves and weather conditions that sparked fires which have decimated land areas larger than the state of Rhode Island. Currently some 13,700 firefighters are battling the blazes, air pollution is at hazardous levels and at least six lives have been lost.

The dead include a helicopter pilot who crashed while dropping water on blazes in Fresno County, a still unidentified family of three in Napa County, a male Solano County resident and a Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) utility employee working in the Vacaville area.

Two firefighters in Marin County nearly lost their lives on Friday after they were surrounded by flames from the Woodward fire. By chance, a helicopter was nearby and rescued them with minutes to spare. “Had it not been for that helicopter there, those firefighters would certainly have perished,” said Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick.

Scorched homes and vehicles fill Spanish Flat Mobile Villa following the LNU Lightning Complex fires in unincorporated Napa County, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Rare August thunderstorms last week above the Northern California Bay Area produced more than 20,000 lightning strikes that hit trees and vegetation, at a time when vegetation is at its driest, resulting in fires and “complexes” of numerous fires that have merged into major conflagrations in parts of the state. As of Saturday night, more than 140,000 people in the Bay Area have been evacuated while many are choosing to stay behind and attempt to protect their home from approaching walls of fire.

The group of fires known as the L.N.U. Lightning Complex in Napa Valley, burning across the counties of Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Yolo and Solano is the second largest fire in California history. Fire has burned through more than 341,000 acres and consumed 845 buildings and damaged another 230 and is only 17 percent contained as of midday Sunday.

At least 20 fires continue to rage East of Silicon Valley, also known as the S.C.U. Lightning Complex group fires, affecting locations in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. The S.C.U complex fires have grown to 339,968 acres and are now the third largest fire in state history, primarily overtaking less-populated areas. They are only ten percent contained.

The CZU Lightning Complex started August 16 from lightning strikes in San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties. The complex has charred 71,000 acres, 24,000 structures are threatened, and it is eight percent contained as of Sunday. The River Fire in Monterey County has scorched 42,583 acres, up from 10,000 acres Wednesday, and is 12 percent contained.

The Lake Fire near Lake Hughes in Los Angeles County has continued to burn since August 12 when it began near the Angeles National Forest. So far, it has destroyed 12 structures and 21 outbuildings, damaged six structures and threatens 1,329 others, and has consumed a total of 30,763 acres. By Sunday evening it was only 52 percent contained. Full containment is not expected until early next month.

81-year-old Vacaville resident Hank Hanson lost everything in the fires. He told the Independent, “Tuesday night when I went to bed, I had a beautiful home on a beautiful ranch... By Wednesday night, I have nothing but a bunch of ashes.”

Added to this is the painful devastation of Big Basin Redwood State Park—the oldest in California where 1500 to 1800-year-old living redwood giants and remains of their over 2,000-year-old ancestors became towering kindling over the weekend.

While the extent of the devastation has already hit near records, CAL FIRE expects conditions to worsen this week with dry heat, low humidity, and potential dry lightning expected to begin Sunday and continue over the next several days with another round of thunderstorms that will produce little rain. The National Weather Service issued a red-flag warning of extreme fire danger from 5 a.m. Sunday to 5 p.m. Monday, stretching from Sonoma County all the way through Monterey County.

Hundreds of thousands have been ordered to flee their homes as dozens of wide scale evacuation orders have been called in many areas throughout dozens of counties. Schools and fairgrounds have been hastily turned into shelters. In the time of COVID-19, residents have been forced to flee one deadly situation to another, leaving behind homes and all possessions to enter into crowded fairgrounds and school sites—many of which are at capacity.

More than 77,000 people were forced to evacuate due to the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire in Santa Cruz County, but the main evacuation center is at max capacity due to COVID-19 social distancing with seventy-nine evacuees and their families living in tents inside the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. The vast majority are forced to live in their cars or rely on family. State provided hotel vouchers were quickly depleted. Evacuee Liz Jackson told KGO-TV ABC News 7, "We are frustrated and desperate... feeling like we're not in control, it's been horrible.”

Hazardous smoke from the hundreds of fires is flooding the Bay Area and Southern California, endangering the respiratory health of millions of residents in the metropolitan areas. In San Jose, Concord and Vallejo, the air quality index has surpassed 150, threatening everyone in the region.

Many residents have chosen to stay behind to battle the flames and risk their lives, with the full knowledge that if they lose their homes, they will struggle for years with displacement, insurance battles—assuming they are covered—and the rebuilding of a life from scratch under economic conditions akin to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Cheryl Martin, a 61-year-old high school teacher in Santa Cruz County, told the Washington Post that she and her husband packed up to flee their home on Tuesday when the smoke became so unbearable that she needed a mask in the house. Her husband waited until she was on the freeway to tell her he was going to stay behind to try to save their home. Only on Thursday did he end up fleeing at the last minute, when he could see glowing flames approaching.

Daron Wyatt, public information officer for the California Interagency Emergency Response Team, told reporters, “That’s one of the biggest problems is people decide that they want to stay that they’re not in great danger and then if it does, the situation does change, the firefighters have to shift their focus from fighting the fire to try to protect life.”

The fact that many are choosing to risk their lives or face destitution in a terrible economic crisis is a complete indictment of the capitalist system. In fact, thousands were never made whole and are still homeless and displaced from the record-setting wildfires in 2018 which claimed 84 lives, wiped out the entire town of Paradise, California and produced apocalyptic scenes of people forced to exit their vehicles and run for their lives on gridlocked highways as flames engulfed rows of cars.

It was only in June of this year that PG&E, the Northern California energy utility, pleaded guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter and one felony count of unlawfully causing the devastating Paradise fire. The agency routinely failed to inspect and repair its power lines for years and attempted to declare bankruptcy to escape its debt obligations and other legal liabilities.

While the annual fires are portrayed as being purely environmental and unpredictable, nothing could be further from the case. Like clockwork, every year the fire season arrives between April and October, and every year lasts longer, but also like clockwork the state is always unprepared, with firehouses grossly underfunded and understaffed, while annually the summers get hotter, vegetation drier, and more days with extreme weather are added every season, the result of man-made climate change, which is causing more frequent and severe heat waves in the region and ever larger wildfires across the West.

The current heat wave throughout the state is extremely deadly and breaking records. The temperature at Death Valley National Park hit a scorching 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 Celsius) last week, marking what is likely the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth. In coastal Santa Cruz, temperatures reached 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius) and along the agricultural Central Valley they exceeded 110 degrees F (38.3 C).

Exposing the poor state of infrastructure, many utility companies have enforced rolling blackouts in the middle of the deadly heat wave, cutting power to 130,000 people in southern California and 220,000 people in the Central Coast and Central Valley areas.

The journal Environmental Epidemiology estimated that across the US, some 5,600 deaths are attributable to heat annually. Extreme heat disproportionately affects farm and agricultural workers, children and the elderly, with the vast majority of deaths in poor and working class neighborhoods that lack access to cool spaces. Heat stroke is the leading cause of work-related death among farm laborers.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee predicts that wildfire blackouts could be California’s “new normal for the next 10 to 30 years, or even longer.” A 2019 University of Southern California environmental study 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.

So far in 2020 there have been over 6,000 wildfires of varying sizes throughout California, including the hundreds that are currently burning, compared to over 8,000 in 2019. Despite the predictability of the annual fires, there is nowhere near the number of fire crews, airplanes and helicopters needed to put out the fires. While the state relies on over 2,200 cheap prison laborers to risk their lives battling fires for $2-5 dollars a day, many are currently unavailable due to an early release initiative aimed at limiting the spread of coronavirus in the state’s prisons.

California Governor Gavin Newsom reported Saturday that his office has sent for firefighters from the East Coast and Australia, cynically stating that “These are unprecedented times and conditions, but California is strong—we will get through this.” In line with the push to reopen schools and the economy, Newsom’s callous statement amounts to an acceptance of mounting devastation and death from wildfires.

Newsom recently proposed cutting $681 million from the state budget for environmental protection.

The state has systematically cut funding for social infrastructure, fire department budgets continue to be slashed, and nothing has been done to mitigate the wildfire danger.

In the wealthiest state, home to 154 billionaires—the largest number in the US—as well as Silicon Valley and the Hollywood film studios, the resources more than exist to adequately prepare for the annual fire season by injecting billions into the fire departments, upgrading the states aging energy infrastructure and carrying out controlled burns to clear dry vegetation, but these are not the priorities of the ruling elite.

States and counties across US conceal COVID-19 outbreaks at schools

Evan Blake

Using the fraudulent pretext of “protecting medical privacy,” a growing number of states and school districts across the United States are deliberately concealing information from the public on COVID-19 outbreaks in schools that have reopened. These include the states of Maine, Virginia and Oklahoma, as well as Camden County, Georgia, and Orange County, Florida. In Tennessee, Louisiana, and many other states, the decision is left to each individual county, and an unknown number of county officials are concealing outbreaks in schools from the public.

Following an outbreak in Camden County in early August, Deputy Superintendent Jon Miller sent a district-wide email to administrators, writing, “Staff who test positive are not to notify any other staff members, parents of their students or any other person/entity that they may have exposed them.” The district has not publicly confirmed a single case, while the virus is raging throughout the state, and there have been rumors of infections at multiple schools.

This criminal policy of concealment has become the modus operandi across industries—including in logistics, auto, meatpacking, health care, and more—and serves as a primary mechanism for implementing the homicidal return-to-work campaign of the ruling class. If cases are concealed and no one knows whether their coworkers have been infected, the powers-that-be can justify reopening while the pandemic spreads even more rapidly.

Washoe County Schools Superintendent Kristen McNeill talks to students returning to Greenbrae Elementary School in Sparks, Nev., on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020 (AP Photo/Scott Sonner).

The American ruling class, like its counterparts in Sweden and many other countries, is actively seeking to develop “herd immunity” based on infecting huge sections of the population, which will produce further mass deaths. Already, over 180,000 Americans have been killed as a result of this murderous policy. In Sweden, authorities deliberately kept schools open in pursuit of “herd immunity,” producing a per capita death rate nearly 10 times that of its neighbor, Finland, which in contrast closed schools and most businesses.

The drive to reopen schools is now the linchpin of the broader campaign to resume production in the US and globally. In order to force parents back into unsafe factories and workplaces, the ruling elites in the US, Brazil, Britain, Germany, Australia and a growing number of countries are determined to force educators and children back into unsafe classrooms. Setting a precedent of not reporting COVID-19 outbreaks in schools in the US will have immense ramifications for the working class internationally.

Since late July, there have been well over 2,800 reported infections of students and staff from at least 800 schools in 46 states. Dozens of schools in Florida have reported infections, with at least 1,200 confirmed cases. In Mississippi, 71 of the state’s 82 counties have reported outbreaks of COVID-19 in schools, and at least 200 students and 250 teachers have tested positive statewide.

In Georgia, at least 84 schools have already had outbreaks, with a combined 337 confirmed cases. In the Cherokee County School District alone, nearly 2,500 students and 62 staff members have gone into quarantine.

No doubt authorities also fear that the release of information about new outbreaks will provoke teacher strikes and student walkouts. The drive to reopen schools has already encountered enormous opposition. Since the beginning of July, there have been hundreds of protests in nearly every state. Last week, nearly half of all teachers and support staff in J.O. Combs Unified School District, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, carried out a wildcat sickout strike.

The news that districts are keeping COVID-19 cases secret was widely shared in the dozens of Facebook groups that have formed to oppose school openings. In one group in Rhode Island, which has over 15,000 members, a member commented, “By staying hush, they are aware that basically, it could kill people. I can’t believe what’s happening.” Another wrote, “This makes tracing impossible. Absolutely irresponsible and dangerous. Denial is just going to make a bad situation worse!”

Last week, the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee was founded to organize the immense opposition to the drive to reopen schools and the assault on public education. Safety committees, which are independent of the unions, are being built on district and state levels. These committees demand the immediate release of all known and suspected COVID-19 cases at every school and workplace, and comprehensive testing and contact tracing programs, which are the prerequisite of any rational plan to contain and eradicate the virus.

Even the most basic right to information can only be secured through the independent initiative of educators, parents and students. The teacher unions at every level, and both the Democratic and Republican parties, have made clear that they will facilitate the covering up of this vital information, and do everything they can to keep educators isolated by district and state.

The situation is now critical. The lives of hundreds of thousands are on the line. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security quietly branded teachers and all education workers “critical infrastructure workers” on the instructions of the Trump White House. The DHS is the same agency that oversees the paramilitary BORTAC forces which Trump deployed in Portland and other cities last month, as part of his preparations to erect a presidential dictatorship.

By attaching this label to educators, Trump is enabling state and local officials to invoke “national security” and use their repressive state apparatus to force teachers and school workers back to work, even if they are known to have come into contact with someone infected with COVID-19.

Demonstrating the manipulation of science in the interests of the ruling class, last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued updated guidelines that fully sanction the reopening of schools. Where outbreaks of COVID-19 occur, the guidelines advocate the short-term suspension of individual classes and the cancellation of events and afterschool activities, rather than the shutdown of the entire campus.

While acknowledging that “children of all ages are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the CDC falsely claims that the children “might play a role in transmission.” This is despite multiple comprehensive studies proving that children do transmit the virus. The CDC concludes that “in-person learning is in the best interests of students,” ignoring the permanent physical and emotional damage that will be inflicted upon children who spread the disease to teachers, parents and grandparents, dwarfing any disruption caused by online learning.

In the struggle for their health and safety—and for the social interests of the vast majority—educators, parents and students must base themselves on the latest science, which proves demonstratively that reopening schools is a deadly endeavor.

The Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee is working to coordinate a unified opposition to the nationwide campaign to reopen schools. We will do everything in our power to assist in the building of local rank-and-file committees in every school and neighborhood, to unite with broader sections of the working class in preparation for a nationwide general strike to halt the reopening schools, stop the spread of the pandemic, and save lives.

Amelia Earhart Fellowship 2021

Application deadline: 15th November 2020

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Women from Any Country

To be taken at (country): Any University or College offering Accredited Degrees in any country.

Subject Areas: PhD/Doctoral degrees in Aerospace-related Sciences and Aerospace-related Engineering

About the Award: Zonta International established the Amelia Earhart Fellowship in 1938 in honor of legendary pilot and Zontian, Amelia Earhart. Today, the Fellowship of US$10,000 is awarded annually to 35 talented women, pursuing Ph.D./doctoral degrees in aerospace-related sciences or aerospace-related engineering around the globe.

Offered Since: 1938

Type: PhD/Doctoral

Eligibility

• Women of any nationality pursuing a Ph.D./doctoral degree who demonstrate a superior academic record in the field of aerospace-applied sciences or aerospace-applied engineering are eligible.
• Students must be registered in a full-time Ph.D./doctoral program and completed at least one year of that program or have received a master’s degree in an aerospace-applied field at the time the application is submitted.
• Applicants must not graduate from their Ph.D. or doctoral program before April 2022.
• Please note that post-doctoral research programs are not eligible for the Fellowship.
• Members and employees of Zonta International or the Zonta International Foundation are also not eligible to apply for the Fellowship.
• Note that previous Amelia Earhart Fellows are not eligible to apply to renew the Fellowship for a second year.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Benefits of Fellowship:

• Fellowship of US$10,000 is awarded annually
  
• The Fellowship enables these women to invest in state-of-the-art computers to conduct their research, purchase expensive books and resource materials, and participate in specialized studies around the globe.
• Amelia Earhart Fellows have gone on to become astronauts, aerospace engineers, astronomers, professors, geologists, business owners, heads of companies, even Secretary of the US Air Force.

Duration of Fellowship: One year (current fellows can reapply to renew the fellowship each year)

How to Apply: The Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship Committee reviews the applications and recommends recipients to the Zonta International Board of Directors. All applicants will be notified of their status by the end of April.

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Important Note: Please note that post-doctoral research programs are not eligible for the Fellowship. Members and employees of Zonta International or the Zonta International Foundation are also not eligible to apply for the Fellowship.

The Historic Bastardization of “Freedom” in the US

Peter F. Crowley

The bastardization of liberty and freedom is nothing new in the United States. It extends far beyond the recent “Liberate” protests in response to pandemic lockdowns, the result of which have borne fruit in an earlier than predicted second wave of Covid-19. It is not confined to just the 21st century, during which all three presidents have directed acts of war against Iraq, Libya, Iran and Venezuela, in part, so that the people there may live in “freedom.” Nor is the specious use of these terms merely associated with tax cuts or the supposed “freedom” of the lobbyist.

It extends back to the earliest days of the British colonies and speeds full tilt ahead from there.

Following England’s 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Royal African Company’s monopoly on British slave trade eroded, following persistent pressure from merchants and colonial planters (p. 44-45). Such “free trade” (p. 43) deregulation caused the number of British colony slaves to exponentially multiple. Disproportionate numbers of black slaves compared with whites led to slave revolts and fear of it, causing the concept of whiteness (p.12) to burgeon at the end of the 17th century (though this remained tenuous due to imperial rivalries with France and Spain, and the rebelliousness of Scots and Irish).

Fast forward to the 1770s, when the desire for independence from Britain was brewing in the 13 colonies. Colonists were fretting about two court cases in Great Britain that seemed to indicate that colonists’ “liberty” to enslave people of African descent would be barred by an increasingly abolitionist mother country.

In 1772, British officers boarded the Gaspee in Newport, Rhode Island to investigate illicit slave trading. Viewing this as an infringement on their trading rights, the colonists rioted. An enslaved black man, Aaron Briggs, was made the chief witness against the rioters in an English court (p.202-203), causing a general clamor in the colonies over the fact that an American black slave was treated on equal footing in Britain. Then there was the Somerset case, where the American slave James Somerset was found in bondage on the Thames River. The abolitionist mood in London helped lead to his emancipation after a contentious trial (p. 209-212).

The pro-emancipation zeitgeist in Britain is an important and often overlooked factor in the US’s founding. Settlers worried that African slaves, who were relied upon for generating much of their wealth, would soon be manumitted by the Crown. To a certain degree, this caused their revolt; and, ironically, the slaveholding colonists themselves often claimed that they were being treated like “slaves” to Britain.

While Americans have long heard the founding mythology that a desire for liberty alone led to the Revolutionary War, the rebels’ contemporary, Samuel Johnson, mused (p. 242), “how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?” In other words, how could colonists claim that liberty caused them to revolt against the Crown when they were preventing the liberty of wide swathes of the population because they were black. Exiled Massachusetts colonial governor Thomas Hutchinson wondered, “if the rights were so ‘absolutely inalienable’,” as stated in the Declaration of Independence, then how could people of African descent be deprived of them (p. 238).

Later on, after the founding of the republic, American settlers flooded into the Mexican territory of Texas. After Mexican independence in 1824, the new government soon passed laws to end the slave trade and slavery, but allowed Texas an exemption. Fearing that this exemption would be temporal and they would be deprived of human property (limitations on slavery is cited as Anglo-Texans’ “greatest problem under Mexican rule” in the Republic of Texas Constitution), the Anglo-Texans revolted to maintain “liberty.” As the “Ballad of Davy Crockett” goes, “To the Texas plains he jest had to go / Where freedom was fightin’ another foe.” Once again, the prattle of liberty and freedom was an obfuscation to maintain a system based on the most inhumane form of human exploitation: slavery.

Since then, we have seen liberty and freedom used throughout American history in various efforts towards furthering unfreedom. The Confederate leaders claimed they wanted constitutional liberty to maintained a slave system. William McKinley wanted to bring freedom to Filipinos, just as Lyndon Johnson did for the Vietnamese and Reagan for Chile. With the most pro-lobbying laws in the Western world, US courts and legislators have consistently misappropriated the First Amendment allowing for the legal purchase of politicians with money, culminating in Citizens United in 2010.

Today, with the Covid pandemic, there is unending drivel about liberty and freedom by those who want to reopen everything, without restriction, and who refuse to wear masks in public places. Just as with rebel colonists’ citing of liberty to maintain a slave system and lobbyists’ advocating for free speech rights to diminish citizens’ political power and freedom, the plandemic acolytes act in ways that hasten the spread of Covid-19, causing societal freedoms and well-being to diminish. Yet, unlike slaveholding Texas and colonist rebels who directly benefited from bastardizing the concept of freedom, the plandemic advocates gain next to nothing, other than the ability to walk into a mall, restaurant or bar without restriction.

This may speak to the extent that unreality, untruth and illogicity has inundated many Americans’ minds today. However, in bastardizing the concepts of freedom and liberty, there is a long trail of precedent.

Australian national cabinet exploits pandemic for economic restructuring

Mike Head

Despite continuing COVID-19 deaths, especially in Australia’s chronically-underfunded aged care facilities, yesterday’s meeting of the bipartisan ruling “national cabinet” focused on further reopening the economy for the benefit of corporate profit.

The federal, state and territory government leaders paid lip service to the aged care catastrophe, which had claimed 302 lives by today, and to the hundreds of infections daily in the state of Victoria.

However, the cabinet’s priority was clearly to exploit worsening unemployment and financial distress facing working people to ram through the further restructuring economic and workplace relations.

The meeting’s media statement, issued by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, decreed the need for a “coordinated focus from all levels of government on three key areas”—all of them designed to boost corporate profits.

These consisted of extending the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme for employers, pouring billions of dollars more into business-related infrastructure projects and “greater ease of doing business through lower and efficient taxes and less regulation.”

Another prong announced in the business “recovery” program was the resumption of the Seasonal Worker Programme and Pacific Labour Scheme, which enable agricultural employers to exploit workers from nine impoverished Pacific Island countries and East Timor as cheap crop-picking labour. These highly vulnerable workers will be offered temporary 12-month visas, exempt from a general ban on international arrivals.

Yesterday’s meeting further demonstrated the unified front being maintained by Morrison and his Labor Party counterparts in their de facto coalition government in the face of rising discontent over the toll of death, disease and job destruction being inflicted on working people.

Citing unnamed sources, the Australian Financial Review reported a “fiery” discussion inside the meeting on the demands of big business for the removal of state border controls, as part of the “reopening” drive. But at the post-meeting media conference, Morrison emphasised the level of agreement between the leaders. He again went out of his way to praise Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews, whose government has presided over the worst resurgence of the pandemic so far.

All the leaders duly agreed to take steps toward lifting or relaxing border controls to meet the needs of big business, starting with agricultural exemptions and a narrowing of restrictions on people residing in COVID-19 “hotspots.”

The meeting committed to expanding the stimulus packages that have already handed billions of dollars to the corporate elite. According to the media statement, the federal packages now total more than $314 billion, with another $48 billion provided by the states and territories.

During the meeting, the states and territories were called upon to contribute another $40 billion over two years in “purposeful” expenditure designed to “achieve the maximum economic dividend.” Over coming months and years, these colossal sums will be clawed back through deep cuts to essential social spending, including on health, aged care and pubic education.

The real “purpose” of these packages was underscored by the revelation, in today’s Australian Financial Review, that some of the country’s largest companies received hundreds of millions of dollars from the JobKeeper wage subsidies, while axing thousands of jobs and fattening their profits.

At the top of the list was Qantas, the former government-owned airline. It obtained $267 million from JobKeeper by June 30, despite standing down 20,000 workers and yesterday announcing the dismissal of another 4,000 of them.

So far, companies listed on the stock exchange have reported receiving at least $625 million in JobKeeper payments. In some instances, companies reported profit booms based almost entirely on these subsidies.

The newspaper reported: “Profit growth across Domino’s Pizza, Southern Cross Austereo, K&S Corporation, Adairs, ARB, Ingenia, and Korvest has averaged 70 percent and yet they have reported a combined $57.5 million in JobKeeper payments.”

Morrison defended these bonanzas as the intended outcome of the JobKeeper scheme, “for the benefit of those workers.” In reality, as the figures confirm, the lion’s share of the benefit goes to employers, not the workers trying to survive on wage subsidies of just $750 a week, only to find that many of their jobs will disappear.

Another expression of the national cabinet’s indifference toward working class lives was Morrison’s defence of Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck at the post-meeting media conference.

Colbeck had been unable to even tell a Senate committee that morning how many people had died in the federally-funded aged care homes and how many infected residents remained. Yet Morrison declared that Colbeck was doing a good job, supposedly in preventing “far worse” from occurring.

The 302 deaths of aged care residents represent more than 60 percent of the national death toll. Most of the deaths have occurred in recent weeks in Victoria—a direct product of the rush to lift safety lockdowns, compounded by years of government under-funding, privatisation and casualisation of the poorly-paid staff.

Horror stories of elderly people being left to die, some even denied meals and basic care, have resulted from the refusal of the federal and state governments to arrange alternative workforces to replace the thousands of aged care workers who have become infected or had to quarantine, or who quit for fear of infection.

During his Senate testimony, Colbeck confirmed he had received a report in April on one of the first deadly outbreaks, at Dorothy Henderson Lodge in Sydney, which noted that almost all care staff had been furloughed. On April 12, he had issued a press release falsely claiming that the government had “plans in place” for such “worst-case scenarios.”

In a damage control operation, yesterday’s cabinet meeting announced a token “Aged Care Emergency Response Plan.” This consists of just $171 million in spending over coming years, making a total of $1 billion announced since April—a pittance compared to the business handouts.

Most of the new funds are allocated to “increase nation-wide workforce surge support for aged care providers.” This includes already promised “workforce retention payments” to try to convince workers to return to the infected facilities, which have nearly 1,700 active cases linked to them.

Morrison’s praise of Colbeck was a graphic example of the “return to work” offensive being mounted by the national cabinet as a whole. It was in line with Morrison’s claim that Australia was better off “than anywhere else in the world” because “we have this optimistic way of looking to let’s keep this place open.”

The insatiable corporate greed behind this “optimistic” push to fully “open” the economy was voiced by Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce. He called for the lifting of travel restrictions to restore the airline’s profits, even as he unveiled more job cuts and restructuring.

Equally revealing was Tourism Accommodation Australia chairman Martin Ferguson, a former Australian Council of Trade Unions president and Labor Party cabinet minister. He told parliament’s COVID-19 committee it was crucial to get people moving around the country right now to revive the tourism industry.

Justice Department accuses Yale of discriminating against Asian American and white students

Trévon Austin

The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued Yale University a Notice of Violation last week, alleging discrimination against Asian American and white students. According to a letter from Eric Dreiband, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Yale is guilty of violating federal civil rights law in its undergraduate admissions with respect to the two racial groups.

On April 5, 2018, the DOJ notified Yale that it was opening a Title VI investigation into alleged discrimination in undergraduate admissions in response to complaints from applicants. Since then, the Justice Department has undertaken a lengthy review of documentation related to Yale’s undergraduate admissions process and interviewed admissions officials.

Dreiband argued that the extensive investigation revealed that Asian American and white applicants only have “one-tenth to one-fourth of the likelihood of admission as African American applicants with comparable academic credentials” at Yale.

Yale University campus [Credit: Pixabay]

Additionally, every year from 2000 to 2017, the rates of Asian American applicants offered admission were below their ratio in the undergraduate applicant pool. The rates of admission offers for white applicants were also similarly disproportionate in a majority of years. Yale admitted African American and Hispanic applicants at rates higher than their representation in the applicant pool throughout this time.

Other analyses show Yale is also purposefully racially balancing its freshman class, with the representation of racial groups remaining relatively stable for the last decade. Dreiband demanded Yale remedy its admission policy by August 27 or face a civil lawsuit.

The Trump Administration’s action comes approximately a month before similar arguments are set to be heard before the Supreme Court in a case challenging Harvard University’s racially biased admission practices. The timing is no accident and aims to influence the direction of the debate.

Initially filed in 2014, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Corporation revolves around many of the same accusations recently directed against Yale. The plaintiffs, represented by right-wing legal activist Edward Blum, accused Harvard of running an admission process that amounted to an illegal quota system, with incoming freshman classes showing similar racial composition over the years, and allegations that Harvard favored black and Hispanic students at the expense of others.

Indeed, Harvard was engaged in a remarkably rigid balancing act. For several decades, the school maintained an ethnic composition in which admitted students were 40-50 percent white, 17–20 percent Asian American, 7–10 percent Hispanic, 7–10 percent African American, 10 percent resident alien and less than 10 percent American Indian, mixed or unknown ethnicity. Between 1994 and 2008, African American and Hispanic enrollment only deviated by 0.3 percent and 0.4 percent respectively.

The trial relating to Harvard heavily featured testimony of longtime Harvard Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William Fitzsimmons, who was questioned about the university’s preferential treatment of wealthy applicants. Fitzsimmons would regularly meet with Development Office employees at the university, demonstrating the donation-driven admissions policy Fitzsimmons said was “important for the long-term strength” of Harvard. One can expect similar policies are in place at other elite universities.

The investigation into Harvard’s activities expose certain truths about the relationship between higher education, wealth and politics in America. In certain respects, the institutions operate as financial institutions first and educational facilities second. With its $36.4 billion endowment, Harvard could afford free tuition and board to over 600,000 students for a year.

There are a number of interrelated processes at play here. On one hand, the cases involving Harvard and Yale illuminate the reactionary and antidemocratic nature of affirmative action, which seeks to pit minority youth against white youth for a limited number of positions. This conflict becomes particularly acute at those institutions, like Harvard, Yale, and other elite American universities, where a degree is treated as virtual admission ticket to the upper class.

At these elite colleges, “legacy” admission preferences offered to the children of alumni exacerbate the conflict for positions by reducing the number of admissions for non-legacy students of all races. At Harvard, about 30 percent of legacy applicants are offered admission, which is roughly five times the rate at which all other applications are accepted. Unsurprisingly, children of Harvard alumni are more likely to be wealthy and less likely to be minorities.

But these institutions also reserve positions for the affluent minority children as well. The racial quotas in place are the result of a policy adamantly pushed by the Democratic Party and minority sections of the upper-middle class. Understanding that elite schools act less as institutions of higher education than gatekeepers to high positions in bourgeois society, these layers squabble for access. They feel that privileged minorities should have the same right to extract wealth from the populace as those already entrenched in the upper echelons of society.

The Trump administration’s decision to intervene in this conflict is for its own ultra-reactionary purposes. This is a president who declared COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” and an administration which regards foreign students from China as a mass of Beijing spies. This makes them an unlikely ally for Asian American students denied admission to Ivy League schools. Here the fascistic right makes use of the Democrats’ obsession with race for their own reactionary—and brazenly racist—purposes.

Studies show that the best method for increasing minority enrollment—and meeting the purported educational goal of racial diversity—is the elimination of “legacy” admission preferences offered to children of alumni.

A number of universities, including Texas A&M University, the University of Georgia, and the entire University of California system (which includes Berkeley and Cal-Tech), greatly increased their student bodies’ ethnic diversity by ending both legacy preferences as well as racial preferences.

Wayne State University administration announces pay freezes and layoffs

Valery Tsekov

Wayne State University (WSU) President Roy Wilson published a statement on the school’s website in early August announcing pay freezes and layoffs to its staff in the coming year. The statement spelled out several possible “solutions” to WSU’s budgetary crisis being considered by the university’s board of directors.

All of the scenarios place the burden of the budget cuts squarely on workers and students. The measures include pay freezes, layoffs, and furloughs to lecturers and other staff members, as well as budget reductions to the university’s various academic departments, and a reduction in the retirement contributions which are provided by the university to its tenured staff. These measures constitute an austerity attack on education professionals and on the quality of education provided to the attendees at the university. This comes on top years of tuition hikes for students over the past decade.

WSU is an inner-city college campus whose residents and attendees are mostly young people of a working-class background, many of them commuting to their classes from home.

Wayne State University Old Main building

Several of the austerity measures announced in Wilson’s statement on August 4 had been under consideration since before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the United States. In other words, the WSU administration is using the crisis to push through long sought after “cost-cutting” attacks on workers and students.

This is most starkly expressed in the situation facing lecturers. In February, 38 percent of lecturers at WSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences received “notices of non-renewal.” At the time, the notices stipulated that while not all of these lecturers would be definitively laid off, all of them would not be teaching this coming semester. The notices also indicated that their salaries, if they got called back to work before the end of the fiscal year, would see a proportionate or partial reduction from whatever it was in their contract at the time. In the meantime, the board of directors would give “more consideration” to the question of who should be laid off and who should stay.

As the WSWS stated at the time, “Wayne State University has been subject to ongoing funding crises, which the board of directors has sought to fill through tuition hikes, greater utilization of adjunct faculty, and other regressive measures.”

Wilson’s announcement on August 4 claims that these measures will be implemented temporarily for the fiscal year 2021. However, no suggestion was made that staff members who will be laid off would ever be reinstated at some point in the future whenever the COVID-19 pandemic would presumably be under control.

A specific figure on how many people will be laid off has yet to be given. Wilson’s announcement simply states that “both our preferred budget solution and our contingency budget solution include layoffs, though at very different levels. Ultimately, the degree to which we will need to implement layoffs will be determined by our ability to lower compensation of all employees through pay freezes and furloughs.”

The operational definition of “furloughs” in Wilson’s announcement is “a percentage reduction in work hours and a corresponding reduction in salary.” The details of this plan will be settled in the near future through the “bargaining process,” a reference to negotiations that have yet to be finalized between WSU’s board of directors and various unions representing the university’s staff and lecturers.

The targeted budget reductions for the college campus was considered, analyzed, and developed by the university’s Budget Planning Council and the Finance Subcommittee. Both of these bodies consist of designees appointed by Wilson himself, other executives of WSU, union bureaucrats, and so-called “university stakeholders” according to the university’s website, who no doubt include wealthy donors. The class interests which pertain to the members of these bodies who make important decisions affecting workers and students are irreconcilably hostile to the needs of the working class community in metropolitan Detroit.

The preferred budget solution which these bourgeois overlords of the university have in mind includes a salary freeze for all employees including tenured professors, a reduction in the administrative division of the budget by 7 percent, and a reduction in college campus expenditures by 5 percent.

The school’s deans and members of the cabinet have also agreed to take a 5 percent reduction in their salaries, a mostly meaningless gesture made in an attempt to feign solidarity with workers who will be affected by the implementation of this budget solution. Wilson specifically will accept a reduction in his salary of 10 percent, which amounts to $50,000, leaving him with a still overblown salary of $450,000, allowing him to continue a luxurious upper-middle-class lifestyle that he already enjoys.

Members of the board of directors of universities generally receive six-figure incomes from their position within the campus hierarchy and have other sources of income which they collect casually, such as the dividends on their stock portfolios. Investors in the US stock market, in particular, have been receiving enormous windfalls during the coronavirus pandemic, which were ensured earlier this spring through the federal government’s injection of trillions of dollars into the stock market with the passage of the grossly misnamed CARES Act.

The real attitude of the ruling elite towards college educators was on display at WSU in late February of this year, when dozens of protesters held a demonstration on campus in support of the lecturers who had received the notices that their contracts would be allowed to expire this year. The demonstrators at that rally gathered outside of the Faculty/Administration Building to present a petition to Wilson, signed by 800 staff members from WSU and other universities, demanding the reinstatement of the targeted lecturers. Wilson refused to accept the petition in person and ordered campus police to prevent the demonstrators from entering his office.

Universities across the country are carrying out similar austerity measures, laying off faculty members and cutting the pay of their employees as they prepare to reopen under the deadly conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Council on Education has predicted that colleges and universities nationwide will experience a $23 billion decline in revenue during the upcoming fiscal year, which will have a devastating impact on their budgets.

The University of Wisconsin stands to see a potential collapse in its revenue of $100 million dollars, which will surely lead to a steep drop in its $650 million budget. Missouri Western University announced earlier this summer that it is laying off 25 percent. The University of Hawaii is preparing for a decline in its operational budget for the upcoming year of up to $181 million. Their current budget is $1 billion. Kalbert Young, the official in charge of developing the school’s budget solutions, told the university’s board of regents in a meeting, “There will be prolonged, possibly perpetual changes to how this university is run.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the vast social crisis facing the working class, which is rooted in class antagonisms that are inherent to the global capitalist mode of production. Part of this social crisis involves the placing of high-quality and higher education increasingly out of reach for the working class, burdening students with loans that might take their entire life to pay off, and attacking the living standards of educators and education workers.

All of this demonstrates the urgent need for the independent mobilization of the working class to defend its right to a high-quality education, ensure the social well-being of educators and education workers, and demand the full funding of institutions of higher learning. These objective social needs need to be secured alongside the safety of students and college staff from the deadly illness caused by the novel coronavirus.