Facebook’s Business Model Thrives on the Virality of Hate

Prabir Purkayastha

A recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, “Facebook’s Hate-Speech Rules Collide With Indian Politics,” has blown the lid off Facebook’s unholy alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the right-wing ruling party in India.

In the August 14 article, WSJ reporters Newley Purnell and Jeff Horwitz detail how Ankhi Das, Facebook’s high-flying public policy director for India and South and Central Asia, blocked action against the ruling BJP party leaders. Facebook had tagged these leaders internally as promoting “hate speech” and “dangerous” and with the potential to cause, as Purnell and Horwitz write, “real-world violence.” The reason Das reportedly gave for letting these violations of Facebook’s policy go unpunished was that such action would harm Facebook’s business in India.

Facebook also has recently invested $5.7 billion in leading Indian telecom company Reliance Jio for 9.99 percent of its shares—one of the largest investments ever by any tech company for a minority stake. The largest number of Facebook and WhatsApp users in the world are from India, with Facebook having more than 300 million and WhatsApp in excess of 400 million users. Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014 and has business offerings on this platform, whose rules of engagement are completely opaque. Even more than Facebook, WhatsApp has been the major social media platform for the BJP and its troll army to spread disinformation, as it was for President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

On August 21, Horwitz and Purnell wrote that Facebook has subsequently come under attack internally for its failure to address violations of its hate speech policy in India: “Facebook employees are pressing the company’s leadership to review its handling of hate speech in India, saying [in a letter addressed to ‘FB Leadership’ that] the company has tolerated toxic content by prominent political figures.”

This is not the first time Facebook’s sheltering of hate speech and divisive right-wing figures has been exposed. In a 2017 article for Bloomberg, Lauren Etter, Vernon Silver, and Sarah Frier wrote that Facebook “actively works with political parties and leaders including those who use the platform to stifle opposition—sometimes with the aid of ‘troll armies’ that spread misinformation and extremist ideologies.” They also wrote that “a little-known Facebook global government and politics team… led from Washington by Katie Harbath, a former Republican digital strategist who worked on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign,” has helped specific political parties “from India and Brazil to Germany and the U.K.—the unit’s employees have become de facto campaign workers.” In 2018, a five-article series for Newsclick by Cyril Sam and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta ahead of India’s 2019 general elections investigated the close ties between Facebook executives and the BJP, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s team, and found that the ties went far beyond Facebook’s relationships with other political parties in India.

The August 14 WSJ article identified three prominent BJP figures whose Facebook posts included hate speech: T. Raja Singh, a state legislator from Telangana, had threatened to kill Muslims who ate cows and to shoot Rohingyas, Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar; Anantkumar Hegde, a member of Parliament from Karnataka, posted cartoons and essays on Muslims spreading “Corona Jihad.” (The WSJ reported that after it asked Facebook about some of Singh’s and Hegde’s posts, “Facebook deleted some of… them” and “said Mr. Singh no longer is permitted to have an official, verified account, designated with a blue check mark badge.” Similarly, “Facebook took no action until the Journal sought comment from the company about… [Hegde’s] ‘Corona Jihad’ posts.”) Kapil Mishra, a former Delhi legislator, played an active role in inciting violent riots earlier this year in New Delhi, for which he has been widely condemned by opposition parties, independent groups, the press, and even (though not by name) Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. These three were among BJP figures flagged internally by Facebook’s team implementing its policy on “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations” as worthy of a permanent ban, as was done in other countries including the United State.

The WSJ coverage may make us believe that the problem in Facebook is an individual’s fault, that of Ankhi Das, its policy head for India. The real issue goes far deeper. The power of digital monopolies—Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft—is not merely determined by their wealth. The social media platforms—Google and Facebook—have taken over the media space, not only in terms of advertising revenue, the lifeblood of the media under capitalism, but also in terms of influence. The greater the engagement that you can generate, the greater the likelihood of gaining a significant viewership and following. Purnell and Horwitz reported that “within two months of the video of the speech” by Kapil Mishra—in which he incited physical violence in clearing protesters—“being posted, the engagement for Mr. Mishra’s Facebook page grew from a couple hundred thousand interactions a month to more than 2.5 million.”

Earlier, it was widely accepted that the press—what Thomas Carlyle had called the Fourth Estate in a democracy—has a social role and therefore needs to be regulated for public good. The Press Council of India, however weak it might be in actual practice, has a code that the press is expected to follow. In the U.S., cross-holdings between different kinds of media are regulated.

There are two issues we need to recognize. The first is that the media is not just any other business but is important for democracy. And the second is that monopoly by itself is also a danger to democracy. U.S. Supreme Court Judge Louis Brandeis is widely quoted to have said, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

More than 75 years after Brandeis lived, his words on monopoly were cited in the congressional hearing in July with the CEOs of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. The combined market value of the four companies is nearly $5 trillion. If we compare this to the GDPs of entire countries, they come out above Germany, and behind only the U.S., China and Japan. It is this market power that gives them the ability to bend, or in the case of weaker economies, twist out of shape, their legal and regulatory structures.

Unfortunately, the interests of tech companies with this much capital are less and less often aligning with the interests of society. This is becoming clearest with the case of Facebook, as 98.5 percent of its income is from advertisements. Advertisements depend on the number of views, and the virality of posts and engagement are the main drivers of Facebook’s revenue model. Facebook has discovered, as MIT researchers did, that hate and fake news posts drive virality, and therefore it has no incentive to curb such posts. While it has professed lip service for community standards and healthy discourse, the driving force of its business empire comes from its need to have more eyeballs, and therefore it feeds off hate and fake news. An internal study had found that 64 percent of members who had joined extremist groups did so thanks to Facebook’s recommendation tools.

This pathology of social media is not limited to Facebook. Google’s search engine has shown similar problems, as has its image recognition algorithms. But undoubtedly, Facebook has been the leader in spreading hate politics and fake news in the world.

What Trump, Bolsonaro and Modi have in common, apart from their right-wing politics, is their reliance on Facebook and WhatsApp in their campaigns. Though we have seen the phenomena of troll TV—Fox News in the U.S. and Republic TV in India—penetrating the traditional media space, WhatsApp and Facebook have been the primary playground of trolls, aided by Facebook’s algorithms. While it may seem that the right understands digital platforms better than others, and that is why it has had so much success with them, there is increasing evidence that the support that Facebook provides to various right-wing figures and hate speech is not an accident but a part of its strategy.

In the language of new tech, hate speech is not a bug in the systems of social media but a basic feature. The problem of hate speech cannot be solved by politely petitioning the Zuckerbergs of digital monopoly platforms to behave more responsibly. It needs, at the very least, breaking up their monopolies and regulating them as public utilities.

Pakistan’s Choice for an Islamicate Counter-Hegemony

Junaid S. Ahmad

The rapidly shifting geopolitical realities, every new emerging international security situation, and (especially) current circumstances in South Asia behoove Pakistan to treat the Kashmir issue as its top priority – and thankfully Islamabad is doing that. The recent statement by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, concerning the establishment of an alternative Muslim bloc to deal with the Kashmir issue – in the face of Saudi opposition to raising it within the OIC – is certainly historic.

Not for the past half century has Islamabad issued any statement even remotely close to as ‘confrontational’ as this one. There are of course a variety of factors at play, which have led to the culmination of the audacity of the current Pakistani government to be so publicly explicit and candid with the House of Saud.

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s incredibly vocal and relentless pursuit of justice for Kashmiris in the face of Indian annexation and ongoing settler-colonial brutality in the region (driven by BJP’s Nazi ideology)  – and the House of Saud’s immediate blessing of India’s inhumane action is one such factor. The humiliation that the Prime Minister personally felt when MBS vomited all potential threats to Imran and to Pakistan to prevent him from attending the KL Summit proved to be a good lesson of what kind of a ‘friend’ MBS is to him (and to Pakistan).

Simultaneously, there are larger geopolitical tectonic shifts taking place, albeit gradually, that are increasingly enabling Islamabad to commit to affirming its sovereignty, autonomy, and to a process of deepening decolonization.

Certain changes in the international political economic arena have provided Pakistan with a position where interests and future plans of the world’s two most formidable superpowers, both U.S. and China, are completely dependent on Islamabad.  The US, in its typical transactional and opportunistic way, is completely dependent on Islamabad to have some type of withdrawal from Afghanistan. The U.S. National Security establishment is becoming very nervous about Pakistan’s indifference to Washington because of the former’s strengthening relations with China. China, on the other hand, is effectively encircled by American naval ships and bases dead set on some form of confrontation with Beijing at some point – making Pakistan’s Gwadar port literally a lifeline for China to continue its incredible need for energy as well as its preponderant role in global trade and supply lines.

In addition, it is becoming clear that there is something remarkably different about the current political dispensation in Pakistan itself. Both the civilian leadership of Imran Khan and the dominant sections of the military high command are in agreement about much of the foreign policy and national security objectives of Pakistan at this critical historical juncture. Something that many ‘Westoxicated’ liberals in Pakistan aren’t happy with.

Islamabad no longer seems to be handicapped by either the old Cold War framework or the ‘War on Terror’ era that kept Pakistan subordinated and entrapped within the needs of Washington.

The Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal has a predilection to highlight issues of self and sovereignty in post-colonial states such as Pakistan. Now is the right time to reimagine an Islamicate reconstruction embodied in the Pakistani polity.

And crucially, it is at this time when the weaknesses, not the strengths, of global and regional Zionism are on full display. Both Muslims throughout the world as well as the millions upon millions in the Global South and Global North who have been in solidarity with the Palestinians, the Kashmiris, and with oppressed peoples everywhere, see the blatant contradictions by countries like the House of Saud, the UAE, and Egypt. These nations not only refrain from calling out these crimes against humanities that Israel and India are perpetrating but, on the contrary, opt to bestow awards on them (to Modi) and/or legitimize the atrocities (by recognizing Israel in its post-1967 form).

These contradictions can no longer be concealed. Leaders like Imran and Erdogan realize that this is the moment where meaningful Islamicate integration between Muslim nations and societies, seriously committed to social justice, could finally lead to the demise of what many analysts call the curse of Saudi Wahhabi hegemony.

As it is well-understood, this is no easy or small geopolitical maneuvering taking place. It may very well take some time. But the signs are there. The effective enslavement of Islamabad to Riyadh due to economic matters may one day see its pleasant end when Pakistan’s leadership starts taking more trips to Doha than to Riyadh.

It’s a choice that Islamabad needs to make. Having disentangled itself from various humiliating forms of subordination to outside powers, it seems pretty clear that this dynamic of subordination has one remaining irritant left for Pakistanis: that of the House of Saud.

Fortunately, the Pakistani leadership has the choice to be more independent and affirm its own dignity in deepening its integration and cooperation with other Islamicate countries such as Turkey, Iran, Qatar, and Malaysia, as well as with other nations from the Global South. That seems to be the only way forward to deepening decolonization for a real, meaningful independence.

Zooming out we can see a trend of shifting alliances in the world, especially in the Eastern hemisphere. China is leading a bloc joined by Russia and Iran. Turkey and Malaysia are mobilizing too, and it will not be a surprise if they try to jump in as well. Pakistan in such a situation finds itself in a very favorable position both geopolitically and economically. If addressed well, this is arguably the most critical juncture in the country’s history for Islamabad to take advantage of.

Fruits of Illegality: The NSA, Bulk Collection and Warrantless Surveillance

Binoy Kampmark

He has become part of the furniture when it comes to discussions about privacy rights and personal liberties, arguably an odd sort of thing for a man who also dealt in the shadows of intelligence secrets.  But Edward Snowden has been doing his bit to reveal and chip away at the foundations of the national security state that continues to thrive.  The advent of coronavirus and pandemic surveillance will merely serve to advance it, but in June 2013, Snowden’s exposures of National Security Agency practices were raw and unsettling to the wonks of the establishment.

The most troubling of the revelations was not that the NSA conducts surveillance, its natural bread and butter; it was how such grubbily enterprising efforts as the metadata collection program were allowed to flourish with feral abandon.  The forests of paranoia after the 9/11 attacks on US soil proved rich for such legislative instruments as the USA PATRIOT Act.  Section 215, in particular, authorised the bulk collection by agencies of telephony metadata, known in the trade as call detail records.  It had been barely read by members of Congress in a hurry; patriotism can encourage a special sort of dedicated illiteracy.

The NSA program, at least in that form, was ended with the reforms passed by the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015.  Critics were quick to note that section 215 was merely given a trim and a clean.  The original provision permitted the NSA to store call detail records (time, duration, the numbers communicating in a call, excluding the content of the call) and search them as required.  Since the changes, such records are held by telephone companies; the agency can only request them via an order of the Foreign Intelligence Service Court.

The provision, according to Human Rights Watch, “still permits the government to collect a staggering amount of data, in secret and without a warrant, on how people use their phones, chilling freedom of expression and association.”  Between 2015 and 2019, the program cost $10 million and could only boast one significant lead, a palpably poor return for even the most devout surveillance types.

The expiry of Section 215 powers in March 15, 2020 led to a merry legislative jig.  The Senate passed the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act in May.  The oversight measures proposed by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) made it through, expanding the role of independent advisers to the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Service Act of 1978.  But in so doing, the Senate failed to adopt the amendment proposed by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Steve Daines (R-MT), which would have prevented the government conducting warrantless surveillance on internet browsing and search histories.

Wyden was more than a touch irritated at his colleagues.  “The legislation,” he outlined in a statement, “hands the government power for warrantless collection of Americans’ web browsing and internet searches, as well as other private information, without having to demonstrate that those Americans have done anything wrong.”

The Senate also refused to prohibit the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and surveillance conducted under the Article II executive power against people in the United States or in proceedings against them, both ideas of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).

Privacy advocates were feeling a touch deflated.  It took a decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down on September 2 to add a spring to their steps, if only after the fact.  The decision in United States v Moalin was not bound to make them break out into a canter.  The facts of the case covered the previous incarnation of bulk surveillance exposed by Snowden.  The outcome was also a tad troubling.  The four appellants, Somali immigrants convicted in 2013 for transferring $10,900 in support of the terrorist group al-Shabaab, had their convictions upheld.

The judges “held that the government may have violated the Fourth Amendment [protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures] when it collected the telephony metadata of millions of Americans, including at least one of the defendants, pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act”.  Unfortunately for the defendants, “the metadata collection, even if unconstitutional, did not taint the evidence introduced by the government at trial.”  The application for suppression of the evidence – what were described by the defendants as the “alleged ‘fruits’ of the unlawful metadata collection,” failed.  Additionally, the FISA wiretap evidence was not held to be “the fruit of the unlawful metadata collection.”

Scattered through the judgment are a few sprinklings of hope for privacy advocates.  Some of these are merely confirmations and recapitulations.  Others are clarifications for the intelligence community.  The government had, for instance, argued that “ordinary criminal investigations” should not be treated in the same context as those in a “foreign intelligence context”.  The Fourth Amendment protections should be applied differently.

Not so, claimed the panel.  The judges acknowledged that the Fourth Amendment required notice to be given to a defendant “when the prosecution intends to enter into evidence or otherwise use or disclose information obtained or derived from the surveillance of that defendant conducted pursuant to the government’s foreign intelligence authorities.”  As the Fourth Amendment did apply to foreign intelligence investigations, it followed that “US criminal defendants against whom the government uses evidence obtained or derived from foreign intelligence may have Fourth Amendment rights to protect.”  The problem for the defendants here was that failure to provide notice by the government did not prejudice them.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s Patrick Toomey saw the ruling as vindicating “that the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ records violated the Constitution.”  The mandatory notice requirement for authorities constituted an essential “protection” in a field of “novel spying tools”.  The Snowden legacy continues to be harvested, if unevenly.

Australian government launches anti-China inquiry in universities

Mike Head

In line with the Trump administration’s escalating anti-China offensive, the Liberal-National government this week announced a federal parliamentary inquiry into alleged “foreign interference” in Australian universities.

Immediately backed by the Labor Party opposition, the inquiry is another direct threat to free speech and also international academic collaboration, which is one of the life-bloods of global research and the development of human knowledge.

It signals a further intensification of the anti-China witch-hunt that has been underway for several years, spearheaded by the US-integrated intelligence apparatus and the corporate media.

The move came just days after Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government announced—also with Labor’s bipartisan support—an unprecedented Foreign Relations Bill, essentially designed to tear up or prohibit all agreements with Chinese entities by universities, as well as state, territory and municipal governments.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton last Sunday outlined the terms of reference for McCarthyite-style parliamentary hearings into “foreign interference in the university sector” in a letter to the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, Liberal Party MP Andrew Hastie.

Dutton commissioned the committee to examine “the nature and extent to which foreign actors are interfering in Australian universities, including staff and student bodies, publicly funded research agencies and competitive research grant agencies.”

Alongside “foreign actors,” the inquiry’s targets include university managements and workers. Dutton said the inquiry will “examine whether the current oversight and reporting requirements in response to these issues are appropriate.”

Hastie, a US-connected former military commander, earlier wrote to Morrison publicly requesting such an inquiry. The deputy chair of the committee, Labor’s Anthony Byrne, supported Hastie’s call.

Byrne told the Murdoch media’s Australian: “It would appear that Australian universities have turned a blind eye to their own academics selling their knowledge to a foreign power through a program that the FBI have identified as a national and economic espionage threat.”

According to the Australian, which has played a key role in fomenting the anti-China hysteria, the inquiry, “will examine how other countries such as the US are dealing with the threat of foreign interference.” And it “is expected to hear testimony from senior figures” in the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and “security analysts.”

Last week, an “investigation” by the Australian set out to blacken the names of 30 Australian academics who had supposedly participated in a Chinese government “Thousand Talents” plan to share research activities with Chinese universities.

The real source of this “investigation” was indicated when the newspaper reported: “In the US, the FBI has launched more than 1,000 investigations into the actual or attempted theft of American technology by foreign powers.” Among the recent cases was said to be a scientist “with access to NASA’s secrets” who was a participant in “China’s Talent programs.”

The inquiry comes on top of a web of investigations, “guidelines” and legislation in which university managements are already working hand-in-glove with the spy agencies and federal police, monitoring academics.

The Australian said the Morrison government “has already launched an investigation into some cases exposed by” the newspaper, with “Education Minister Dan Tehan saying the matters were now operational.” It added: “ASIO has repeatedly briefed universities about the potential risk of programs like the Thousand Talents plan this year.”

While expressing concern, university employers pledged to cooperate with the inquiry. Vicki Thomson, the chief executive of the “Group of Eight” wealthiest public universities, said her universities looked forward to appearing before the inquiry to defend their research partnerships.

Since last August, the university managements have been members of the government’s University Foreign Interference Taskforce, which is working to “identify and analyse emerging threats” and ensure “research integrity” and “cyber security.”

The taskforce steering group is led by “National Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator” Chris Teal, along with a senior ASIO officer, backed by representatives from the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Signals Directorate (the electronic surveillance agency), the Office of National Intelligence, the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation (the satellite spy agency) and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, which monitors financial transactions.

The deputy chair is RMIT University Vice-Chancellor Martin Bean, and the members include his counterparts from La Trobe, Newcastle and Queensland universities, plus Thomson and Universities Australia CEO Catriona Jackson.

This taskforce produced 47-page “foreign interference” guidelines for universities last November. The guidelines require universities to pursue “due diligence activities” and ensure “engagement with relevant Commonwealth agencies on legislative compliance and foreign interference.”

Among the questions posed to universities by the guidelines are: “Does the activity or partnership proposed need to be registered under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme?” and “Do contracts provide for the primacy of Australian laws?”

These guidelines raise the spectre of prosecutions. “Some activities are covered by specific legislation, regulation and codes of conduct such as the DTCA [the Defence Trade Controls Act] and Autonomous Sanctions legislation and the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 [FITS Act],” the guidelines state.

The DTCA, legislated by the last Greens-backed Labor government in 2012, specifically outlaws any publication or sharing of research findings that could affect the US military alliance. People face up to 10 years’ imprisonment for “publishing or otherwise disseminating” research that relates to items covered by the Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty (DTCT) between Australia and the US.

The FITS Act is part of the “foreign interference” legislation introduced in 2018, also with Labor’s support, particularly to target any political activity regarded as pro-Chinese. Under the deliberately vague wording of the FITS Act, anyone who supposedly cooperates with a “foreign” group, including international organisations, must register with the government. For failing to register, a person can be charged with an offence under the parallel Espionage and Foreign Interference Act, punishable by up to 20 years’ jail, for “covertly” collaborating with an overseas organisation or individual.

Behind the sensationalised claims of “Chinese interference,” Australian universities are centrally involved in Washington and Canberra’s military and ideological preparations for war against China.

In 2007, the United States Studies Centre was established at the University of Sydney with US and Australian government funding. Its explicit purpose is to overcome the widespread post-Iraq War opposition to Australian involvement in US-led invasions and military preparations.

Many other universities host “think tanks” and “dialogues” which work closely with representatives of Australian and US military and intelligence forces. In 2016, for example, Lockheed Martin, the biggest US arms contractor, with close ties to the US government, established a new Australian government-sponsored research centre at the University of Melbourne to develop advanced military technologies.

By 2018, 32 universities were partners in the Defence Science Partnerships program, launched by the Department of Defence in 2014 to promote and fund university military research projects.

The latest inquiry marks another step to integrating the universities into the war drive and silencing opposition to Australia’s increasing involvement in the US confrontation with China.

As a result of the bipartisan Liberal-National and Labor commitment to Washington’s anti-China offensive, Australia’s people have been placed in the frontlines of the conflict with Beijing. But concerns remain in Washington about deep anti-war sentiment, and the dependence of sections of Australia’s wealthy elite on exports to China. That is why the witch-hunt is being ratcheted up.

As in the US too, the nationalist agitation against Chinese and other “foreigners” is an attempt to divert the rising unrest being generated by the disastrous, corporate profit-driven response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the soaring levels of unemployment and social inequality.

COVID-19 cases spike in South Korea

Ben McGrath

Since August 14, the number of COVID-19 cases has increased sharply in South Korea with hundreds of new infections per day. Most of these have been located in the densely-populated Seoul metropolitan area, which is home to half of the country’s 51 million people.

As of September 2, there had been 5,679 new cases over almost three weeks. This has brought the total since mid-last month to 20,449, or nearly 30 percent of all cases during the course of the pandemic.

By Wednesday, the number of critically-ill patients had also grown from 12 on August 19 to 124. Hospital beds are lacking, however, despite the ongoing pandemic. In Seoul, there were 55 beds available by the middle of this week for COVID-19 patients in a serious or critical condition and only 16 in the neighbouring Gyeonggi Province. Gangwon Province and North and South Jeolla Provinces, as well as the cities of Gwangju and Daejeon, had no available beds.

In response to the surge in cases, the central government raised its three-tier social distancing scale from Level 1 to “2.5,” enforcing stricter measures in the capital region, but not implementing a full lockdown. Public schools and private academies have been shut for students, while restaurants, indoor gyms, churches, and other places where large numbers gather have been closed or had their hours reduced.

The government is attempting to justify not going to Level 3 social distancing, which would ban gatherings of ten people or more. President Moon Jae-in stated last week that in the event of a lockdown, “Daily lives will come to a halt, jobs will be lost, and we will have to indeed deal with a huge economic blow.”

In other words, Moon is stating that no aid will come to those who lose their jobs, while the actual concern is for the impact on the “economy,” i.e., big business and the banks. In the second quarter of this year, the economy contracted by 3.3 percent. The annual contraction is expected to be 1.3 percent, according to the Bank of Korea.

The government’s implementation of limited social distancing measures is meant to give the veneer of safety while most people are kept on the job and therefore placed in danger. Workers are being forced into factories where COVID-19 has a high chance of spreading. Call centers, shipyards and distribution centers have been at the center of numerous COVID-19 spikes throughout the year.

The Samsung Group, for example, issued a statement on August 24 indicating that no genuine safety precautions would be taken: “At Samsung Electronics, most of the employees in offices and production lines continue to come to work. It is impossible for production-line employees to work from home.”

Hyundai Motors stated that it would respond “flexibly” to new government guidelines, essentially an admission that it would pay lip service to social distancing while also keeping workers on the assembly lines and in danger in order to turn out surplus value. At least one worker from a Hyundai subcontractor earlier this year died after contracting COVID-19.

That measures are being implemented at all is in part due to the fact that safety is a major political issue in South Korea. In 2015, it was one of the hardest hit countries outside of the Middle East during the MERS epidemic. The indifferent response by the authorities at the time helped contribute to the massive protests that broke out a year later.

Workers and youth were beginning to draw the connection that it is capitalism itself that is at the heart of these crises. While the protests were kept within the bounds of bourgeois politics by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which is aligned with Moon and the Democratic Party of Korea, Seoul does not want to risk a new outbreak of social anger.

The Democrats also feared that an outbreak would trigger unrest shortly before April’s general election. The government therefore implemented police-state measures to track patients and invaded the privacy of countless people. Now, with the ruling Democrats firmly in control of the National Assembly, and previously credited as preventing a wider outbreak, it has turned its attention firmly to protecting big business.

The current outbreak has been traced to the Sarang Jeil Church in northeastern Seoul, with 1,083 members testing positive for COVID-19 as of September 2. Many of its adherents participated in a right-wing rally in Seoul on August 15, the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II, which has contributed to the spread.

Far-right churches like Sarang Jeil are bases of support for the conservative United Future Party, the current main opposition. While Christian superstition—such as the belief that the virus can be stopped by prayer—certainly played a role in the transmission of COVID-19 among its members, the government has attempted to place blame for the current outbreak squarely at the feet of the church and its political opponents.

On August 27, Moon stated, “Still, some churches are sticking to face-to-face worship services,” while adding that a “specific church is rejecting and obstructing the government’s coronavirus-related guidelines,” a reference to Sarang Jeil. He continued, “As a result, South Korea’s antivirus fight, which has been exemplary for the world’s antivirus fight, is facing a crisis at the moment, and the whole country is going through big difficulties.”

This is an attempt by Moon to hide the fact that it is the government’s own policies that created the conditions for the spread of the virus in the first place, despite numerous close calls throughout the summer.

Since Seoul seemed to have the spread of the virus under control in March, the government has been content with having anywhere from 20 to 60 new cases a day. There was no mass testing campaign to identify those who may have contracted COVID-19 and were spreading it to others in the event they were asymptomatic.

Only those who are suspected to have come into contact with a positive patient or those showing symptoms have been able to get tested, while the number of new tests has fallen dramatically. The new outbreak is ultimately a result of the government’s indifference towards the working class and its decision to put big business first.

Germany’s IG Metall union organizes job cuts at Thyssenkrupp-Stahl

Dietmar Gaisenkersting

Germany’s IG Metall union and its works council representatives are helping to force thousands of workers out of their jobs at the steelmaker Thyssenkrupp-Stahl. To this end, they are conducting numerous individual talks with steelworkers whose jobs the company wants to shed. Older steelworkers from Duisburg have told the World Socialist Web Site about the enormous pressure the works council representatives are putting on them.

This is how the IG Metall (IGM) and the works council are pushing ahead with the break-up of the company, under an agreement they reached at the end of May with the owners on the Thyssenkrupp AG Supervisory Board. The corporation’s steel operations are to be merged with another steel group or sold off completely. To drive the company’s share price, the IGM’s works council representatives are working hard to cut 3,000 jobs, as agreed between the union and the company in March.

The joint plan provided for 1,000 employees to leave the company by the beginning of August with severance pay or via a so-called “transfer company.” So far, however, only just over 300 steelworkers have agreed to leave. Given 34,000 unemployed (13 percent) and 50,000 working part time in Duisburg alone, as well as the unforeseeable consequences of the coronavirus crisis, many fear they will never get another job.

On September 1, the so-called “Volunteer Programme” once again came into force. Under this measure, workers receive “transfer payments” for 19 months, amounting to a total of 85 percent of their last net wage. The Federal Employment Agency pays 60 or 67 percent (if children live in the household) of this amount, with the company covering the rest.

Anyone who accepts the transfer payments would subsequently receive only an extremely low severance payment of 20 percent of their monthly gross salary for each year of employment. Severance pay of 50 percent of the last gross monthly salary per year of employment, as recognized by every labour court, would only be paid to employees who left their jobs without joining the transfer company. It is also limited to those born in 1964 or later, i.e., employees under the age of 56.

Older employees, those over 60, are not covered by these regulations. Since it was mainly younger employees who left their jobs via various social plans during the continuous job cuts of recent years, there are still around 4,000 workers over 60 in Duisburg alone, almost one in three.

Since they are no longer covered by the partial retirement scheme, they are now gradually being called into the human resources department for personnel interviews. Company representatives and IG Metall works council members then exert pressure on those who are old, often ill, and no longer able to deliver the necessary performance. One works council member told a 63-year-old steelworker he was “no longer acceptable” to the company.

As these older workers are about to retire anyway, they are to be thrown out of the company with a symbolic severance payment of €6,000 to €9,000. The latter allegedly tops up their unemployment benefit to 85 percent of their last net salary until they retire.

Some workers told the WSWS how they had been called and invited to personnel discussions during their vacation. In other cases, works council members had even visited older workers at home and urged them to sign a termination agreement. Many signed, “to finally draw a line in the sand.”

It is all, “To get rid of superfluous workers at the cheapest cost and to the detriment of the workers,” one angrily told the WSWS. “If you’re not interested [in accepting], they put you under pressure.”

Another reported that if you do not accept three offers, you are threatened with dismissal for operational reasons. The IGM works council representatives argued, among other things, that older workers took away the jobs of their younger colleagues since the jobs would be cut—one way or another.

While workers face having the thumbscrews put on them as they are pressed to resign using all means, Duisburg works council representative Peter Trube will continue to pocket money from the company beyond his regular retirement age. Trube, who was released from his job at Hamborn Beeck to carry out full-time works council duties, should retire in November, then receiving just his regular retirement pension. But now, his employment contract has been extended until the next works council election in April 2022. His colleague, 67-year-old outgoing works council member Helmut Schuckardt, is being given a “consultant contract” as a pensioner until the end of the year.

Such IGM functionaries, who act within Germany’s legal framework of “co-determination,” openly enforce the attacks on workers to such an extent that they can easily and without any inhibitions switch over to management’s camp. Especially in the steel industry, this is now a common practice. For example, former IG Metall secretary and deputy chairman of the Thyssenkrupp supervisory board, Markus Grolms, has been personnel director at Thyssenkrupp-Stahl since April of this year. On the Executive Board, he is responsible for job cuts and works closely with his former colleagues in the IG Metall and the works council.

As early as May 2019, i.e., while still an IGM secretary, Grolms had declared that “the restructuring of Thyssenkrupp is unfortunately unavoidable.” This would be “a difficult, but unfortunately necessary path for the company and the employees.” The employees were “willing to endure pain for it,” said Grolms, who is now an income millionaire. Now steelworkers are experiencing first-hand what Grolms meant by this.

The IGM functionaries and their works council members carry out the company’s dismissal and downsizing plans not simply because they are corrupt—even if many of them are. The deeper reason is their unconditional defence of the capitalist profit system, from which they make a good living as well-paid functionaries. Like the management and shareholders, they believe that jobs, wages, and social achievements can only be maintained if the corporation generates high revenues and profits.

After the Second World War, when the German economy grew rapidly, they were able to provide workers with some crumbs from the companies on this basis. This came to an end with the increased globalization of production in the 1980s and the intensification of economic competition.

The unions reacted to this with economic nationalism and their transformation into direct agencies of the corporations. They defend the competitiveness of “their” companies by attacking the workforce. Company restructuring plans are worked out in the think tanks of the trade union-owned Hans Böckler Foundation, concretized in the executive boardrooms of the trade unions and enforced by the host of works council representatives inside the companies.

The defence of jobs, wages and other gains won by the working class can only be successful if it is organised in opposition to the logic and constraints of the market economy. It must be anti-capitalist, that is, socialist. It is not the profits of companies that are decisive for the organization of the economy, but the interests and needs of the workforce, their families and society.

Workers stand in open conflict with the trade unions. They must join together in new action committees that are politically and organizationally independent of the unions and fight for an anti-capitalist, socialist response to the current attacks.

Alberta government’s reopening policies lead to spike in COVID-19 cases

Janet Browning

The number of active COVID-19 infections in Alberta has risen rapidly in recent weeks as a result of the federal Liberal and United Conservative Party provincial government’s drive to “reopen” the economy.

As of Tuesday, there were 1,398 active infections across the province, with 164 new infections recorded in the previous 24 hours. Per head of population, this is one of the fastest-growing infection rates across Canada, which registered 477 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, according to figures from Worldometers.

Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, which has a population of just over 1 million, has been especially hard hit. Last week, the city recorded 56 active cases per 100,000 people. Toronto, Canada’s largest city, with a population of 2.9 million, currently has an active infection rate of 8.93 per 100,000 residents.

Edmonton infection data also point to the fact that lower income neighbourhoods are being disproportionately impacted. Northeast Edmonton had an infection rate last week of 136.1 active infections per 100,000, followed by central Edmonton Northgate (94.7 per 100,000) and northwest Edmonton Castle Downs (92.2 per 100,000). Edmonton’s north side is largely working class and contains the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

The resurgence of COVID-19 in Alberta is the direct product of the hard-right United Conservative Party’s rapid reopening of the economy, which has seen almost all of the public health measures put in place to contain the pandemic removed. On Tuesday, Alberta Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw took this policy a step further by announcing that when schools reopen this week, they will not be required to ensure social distancing among students.

The Kenney government has combined its reckless reopening drive with savage attacks on working people. In March, it announced the layoff of around 25,000 education staff, including bus drivers and administrative employees. It has also implemented authoritarian measures that allow the government to criminalize protests on public property, a measure that is above all aimed at suppressing working class opposition, including to its savage public spending cuts.

The danger that the Kenney government’s policies could lead to a further escalation of infections and deaths is underscored by recent COVID-19 outbreaks and several deaths at two Grey Nuns Community Hospitals. At Misericordia Hospital, where a complete shutdown was necessary on July 8 due to a “full facility” COVID-19 outbreak that has killed 11 patients to date, many patients and staff have been infected. The hospital’s emergency department has been forced to close. Another two hospital staff at the Grey Nun’s Hospital in Millwoods, in south Edmonton, recently tested positive for COVID-19. Dr. Hinshaw said the staff were working in a unit caring for three patients who had contracted the virus in the community.

As of late August, there were two additional deaths and 9 active cases of COVID-19 among residents at the Good Samaritan Southgate Care Centre in South Edmonton, where 31 elderly residents have died so far, and 8 staff members remain infected. 39 residents and 25 staff have recovered since the outbreak began on June 13.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to a worker who asked to remain anonymous, about conditions in her Edmonton workplace, CapitalCare Dickinsfield—an Alberta Ministry of Health seniors’ facility, where two nursing staff and one nursing student had just tested positive. She said all staff were tested and the facility attempted to have nurse aides fill in for the qualified nurses, but the workers refused and the facility was forced to hire replacement nursing staff. Staff have now been given sufficient PPE in an attempt to avoid a repeat of what happened at the Southgate seniors’ facility.

Outbreaks also continue to emerge at multiple Alberta meat packing plants. At Cargill Case Ready in northeast Calgary, five workers out of a workforce of 500 recently contracted COVID-19.

In an Aug. 19 interview with the Edmonton Journal, the head of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, sought to downplay the significance of the new outbreak, labeling it an “anomaly” that won’t require a full plant shutdown. “We haven’t asked for a closure of the Cargill plant,” said local president Thomas Hesse. “The company is showing a measure of co-operation, certainly. Our representatives have had a presence in the plant, there’s been testing happening … and the plant is well-fitted with PPE.”

Another case of COVID-19 was also confirmed at an Olymel meat processing facility in Red Deer, where 13 employees were sent home as a precautionary measure and are being tested for the virus. Rushing to management’s defence, Hesse said, “Olymel, I would say, has done their very best thus far to act responsibly and still be able to maintain production.” Referring to the meatpacking companies, including Cargill, Hesse added, “I think they’ve all come some distance as a result of advocacy and public pressure. There are some encouraging signs that some of these workplace cultures may have shifted.”

In reality, the UFCW is carrying out a despicable cover-up of the criminal role being played by the UCP government and meatpacking companies, who are insisting that production continue at all costs. Just how fraudulent Hesse’s claim that the “culture” has “shifted” was demonstrated last Friday when an Alberta government official ordered the Sofina Foods chicken processing plant in Calgary to remain open even though 18 workers there had been infected. A company spokesman subsequently confirmed that the total number of infections later rose to 27.

Also last Friday, the infection of 38 workers at the Harmony Beef processing plant in Balzac, north of Calgary, was reported. The plant recorded two previous outbreaks in March and May.

The refusal to shut down Cargill’s High River processing plant earlier this year resulted in over 1,000 infections and at least three deaths in what is the worst coronavirus outbreak to date at any single workplace in Canada. The company was ultimately forced to accept a temporary shutdown of the facility due to widespread public anger and outrage among the workers.

Despite widespread opposition among the highly-exploited workforce at being forced back to work under unsafe conditions, the UFCW explicitly opposed waging any struggle to defend workers’ health and lives. Demonstrating that the union bureaucracy prioritizes its cozy relationship with corporate management over the lives of the workers it claims to represent, Hesse adamantly opposed workers taking job action to protect themselves from the pandemic, on the grounds such action would be “illegal” under the state-designed, pro-employer collective bargaining system.

GE Appliances workers in Louisville, Kentucky vote overwhelmingly to strike

Zac Thorton

Demonstrating their readiness for a struggle, workers at the General Electric (GE) Appliances factory in Louisville, Kentucky have voted by 99.2 percent to authorize a strike. The vote comes as the four-year contract covering almost 4,000 workers is set to expire on September 6 with management demanding draconian concessions, including the elimination of employer-paid pensions.

The International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) has made it clear that the strike vote is not binding on the union. Instead IUE-CWA officials hope to retain some level of credibility among workers while they conduct behind-the-scenes talks over yet another concessionary contract. As Julie Wood, senior corporate director of communications for GE Appliances, put it: “Discussions remain productive. This vote is procedural for the union.”

In March, with workers conducting a job action over the outbreak of COVID-19 in the giant facility, Local 83761 President Dino Driskell said the union was “exploring the possibility of taking a park wide strike.” The union, however, quickly dropped any talk of a work stoppage.

The current contract was set to expire in June, however, due to the pandemic, the union and the company agreed to a three-month extension. Workers are demanding better wages and benefits, including better health care benefits, as premiums have outpaced cost-of-living adjustments.

While IUE-CWA officials have not revealed the details of either the union’s or the company’s contract proposals it has been reported that management wants to maintain the two-tier system, albeit with a starting raise for new hires from $12 to $14 an hour. The company also wants to replace employer-paid pensions with a 401(k) fund, largely financed by workers themselves.

GE Appliances was sold by General Electric in 2016 to China-based Haier for $5.6 billion. The company’s Louisville facility, its largest, produces washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and bottom-freezer refrigerators. Louisville itself is a significant manufacturing and logistics hub, with tens of thousands of GE, Ford and UPS workers. GE Appliances is the second largest manufacturing employer in Kentucky, with approximately 6,000 workers. In addition to its plant in Louisville, GE Appliances also has manufacturing plants in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

The company has remained highly profitable throughout the pandemic. In comments published in the Bucks County Courier Times on August 25, GE Appliances spokeswoman Wendy Treinen said, “GEA has seen record demand on certain product categories since COVID-19 began … Freezer sales outpaced supply starting in March as consumers stockpiled goods and demand remains at an unprecedented level. Usage of appliances is higher than ever before.” In addition, she said, “Interest in remodeling and home improvements has sparked orders as well.”

Haier Smart Home, the Haier subsidiary which oversees GE Appliances, published its half-year report on August 31, titled “Revenue and profit recovery following COVID-19 impacts.” The report states: “In H1 2020, the Haier Smart Home achieved a revenue of [almost $14 billion] and net profit attributable to owners [$395 million]. Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company’s performance in H1 2020, the growth rate swiftly revived in Q2, ushering a turning point with increases in both revenue and net income attributable to shareholders in June by 20.6% [year-over-year] and 21.4% [year-over-year], respectively.”

During the 2016 contract negotiations, workers at the Louisville plant rejected by a wide margin a proposed contract that imposed significant concessions, including a two-tier pay scale and higher health care costs. Ignoring workers’ demands, the IUE-CWA accepted an agreement which kept, with only slight alteration, many of the provisions workers adamantly opposed.

In a statement after the strike vote, local union president Driskell admitted that the 2016 contract had severely eroded workers’ living standards, with rising out-of-pocket health care costs for workers far outpacing the minimal wage increases in the contract.

The current contract negotiations are taking place amidst an unprecedented social and political crisis in the US, which is being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers are being forced into unsafe factories, schools and other workplaces, with little to no personal protective equipment or safety protocols. This has led to major outpourings of working class anger and opposition, including among workers at the Louisville plant.

On March 31, after management informed workers of a “probable” COVID-19 case at the facility, workers protested outside the factory complex and demanded that it be shut down, and that necessary safety precautions be implemented.

Prior to this, the company had only halted production for one week in response to the virus. When production resumed on March 30, management assured workers that it had sanitized the plant and reconfigured it to allow for social distancing. Despite management’s rosy assurances, workers returned to find a factory that remained filthy, while lacking such basic necessities as soap and hand sanitizer.

IUE-CWA officials only reluctantly agreed to the March protest because workers were threatening to take matters into their own hands. After his comments about exploring the possibility of a strike, IUE-CWA Local 83761 President Dino Driskell announced the union would abide by the decision of Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, to designate the appliance maker as an “essential business” that had to remain open.

The Socialist Equality Party urges workers to take matters into their own hands by forming a rank-and-file committee, independent of the union, to prepare for strike action. At the same time, this committee should appeal to Louisville teachers, Ford and UPS workers for joint struggle against unsafe conditions and the corporate drive to pump even more profits out of the working class.

French President Macron lays down the law in Lebanon

Jean Shaoul

French President Emmanuel Macron paid a second visit to Beirut in the aftermath of the devastating port blaze on August 4 that killed around 190 people.

This representative of Lebanon’s former colonial master timed his visit to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Lebanese state under French rule as part of the post-World War I imperialist carve-up of the defeated Ottoman Empire, over the heads of the people of the region.

Macron’s aim was to create the conditions for the return to power of French puppet and a member of one of Lebanon’s billionaire corporate and banking families, Sa’ad Hariri, and to eliminate the power of the Iranian-backed Islamist party Hezbollah.

He made it clear that any international financial loans and aid to prevent the pending bankruptcy of the Lebanese state—looted for decades by the country’s plutocrats—would be dependent upon “reforms,” a euphemism for eradicating the influence of Hezbollah and isolating Syria and Iran.

His visit to one of the world’s smallest countries—with a population of six million in the Eastern Mediterranean—is part of a broader French and European Union (EU) attempt to reassert their influence and interests in the Middle East and Africa, in the wake of their failure to effect regime change in Syria via a proxy war.

They are seeking to secure Europe’s energy supply amid the newly discovered gas fields and proposed pipelines in the Levant Basin, as Turkey carries out its own exploration drilling and Turkey, Iran, Russia and China build up their positions in the Eastern Mediterranean via Syria. No small factor in their calculations is the continued undermining of the once dominant position of US imperialism.

France in particular is taking a very aggressive stance, allying itself with the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in backing warlord Khalifa Haftar in eastern Libya against the UN recognized government of Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli that is backed by Turkey, Qatar and Italy.

France has long meddled in Lebanon’s domestic politics, providing a sanctuary when their leaders fall from grace. Most recently, in 2017 Paris orchestrated Sa’ad Hariri’s return to power after his then chief backer, the House of Saud, summoned him to Riyadh, detained him and forced him to announce his resignation as prime minister on television, because of his inability to distance his shaky government from Hezbollah.

Just hours before Macron arrived on Monday, Lebanon’s political parties agreed to put forward diplomat Mustapha Adib, who was selected by the country’s billionaire ex-premiers, as the new prime minister following the resignation of Hassan Diab’s short-lived government. Diab resigned six days after the devastating explosion at Beirut’s port. It had become clear to him that he was being made the scapegoat for the years of criminal neglect and callous indifference by successive governments that had ignored repeated warnings about the dangers of storing ammonium nitrate without proper safety controls so near to residential areas.

Adib, a lawyer and Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany since 2013, is a largely unknown figure. A close associate of Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s richest man, who was prime minister 2011-13, serving as his cabinet chief, Adib has called for the rapid formation of a government and promised to implement reforms swiftly to secure a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In essence, he is being asked to clear the way for a Hariri-led government under conditions where Hariri himself is far too discredited to assume power immediately—having ruled the country for four of the six years when the ammonium nitrate was stored at the port.

Macron kicked off his trip with a publicity stunt, visiting 85-year-old Fairuz, Lebanon’s internationally acclaimed singer and national icon, at her home, where he awarded her France’s Légion d’Honneur. He then made his political preferences clear, inviting Hariri to meet him at the Pine Residence, the French Ambassador’s official residence in Beirut. One hundred years earlier, on September 1, 1920, French General Henri Gouraud had declared the creation of the state of Greater Lebanon from its balcony under the terms of a League of Nations mandate that gave French imperialism authority over Syria and Lebanon. The stately home served as France’s base for running the country until independence in 1943.

The following day, Macron attended a series of events to mark the occasion, planting a cedar sapling—Lebanon’s national symbol—at a forest reserve in the mountains northeast of Beirut as French air force jets flew overhead, leaving trails of red, white and green smoke, the colours of the Lebanese flag.

Later on Tuesday, at a meeting with representatives of all the main political parties at the imperial Pine Residence, Macron issued his demands: a new government within two weeks, “credible commitments” to reform, and transparency within two months, thereby paving the way for an IMF loan to rescue the economy, and parliamentary elections within 12 months.

Macron, speaking at a press conference Tuesday evening, said, “They all, without exception, committed to a goals-oriented government to be formed in coming days,” and that the new government would be formally composed of “competent” unaligned people. He cautioned, “There is no blank cheque,” adding, “If your political class fails, then we will not come to Lebanon’s aid.”

Lebanon’s economic crisis is rooted in decades of corruption and looting by the ruling elite that has created one of the world’s most heavily indebted countries, with a sovereign debt equal to 170 percent of GDP, owed in the main to Lebanese banks that are owned by leading Sunni and Christian politicians. The currency has collapsed, and the banks have prevented small depositors from accessing their savings, even as their value has plummeted. Poverty and unemployment, already high, have soared in the wake of the pandemic and the port blast in a country that hosts the world’s largest number of refugees per capita.

Macron insisted that there would be no international aid if they failed to follow their own “road map” for sweeping changes to the state and financial system. He gave them till the end of October to make the necessary changes. Should they fail to do so, this arrogant imperialist, aping Donald Trump, kept open the threat of sanctions as a stick with which to beat politicians such as President Michel Aoun’s son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, the leader of the mainly Christian Free Democratic Party, and Hezbollah, which has the largest bloc in parliament.

Macron announced that he would return to Lebanon in December after a visit by Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in November and that France would organize two Lebanon-related conferences in mid-October. One would focus on reconstruction aid, and the other to be held in Paris on “building international support” for Lebanon’s reform agenda and “shielding Lebanon from regional power plays.”

For all Macron’s talk of curbing corruption, what he really meant was curbing the power of Hezbollah. He said that the next round of “reform” talks would focus on the group’s arsenal of weapons that rivals that of the Lebanese army.

As Macron left Beirut, protesters took to the streets with clashes with security forces taking place near the parliament building. Some chanted “Down with [President] Michel Aoun” and “Revolution,” while others said they were protesting foreign interference and Macron’s visit.

As part of Macron’s broader aim of taking a more prominent role in pursuing France’s geo-strategic interests in the region, he flew on to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Macron was the first international leader to visit the country—and this was the third visit by French officials—since Mustafa al-Kadhimi was elected prime minister in May.

His purpose was “to launch an initiative alongside the United Nations to support a process of sovereignty,” an indirect warning to Turkey, whose military incursion into the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in June—aimed at disrupting Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants—angered Baghdad and Erbil.

Ford to slash 1,400 jobs as auto industry cuts widen

Tim Rivers

Ford Motor Company will eliminate 1,400 salaried jobs before the end of the year, the company announced Wednesday, advancing its years-long, multi-billion dollar restructuring plans. The cuts will begin via early retirement buyouts, targeting older, better paid employees, but intensified attacks on jobs and working conditions throughout Ford’s workforce will inevitably follow.

Ford’s president for North America, Kumar Galhotra, announced the buyouts in an email to employees Wednesday, stating, “We’re in a multiyear process of making Ford more fit and effective around the world. We have reprioritized certain products and services and are adjusting our staffing to better align with our new work statement.”

Ford Motor Company Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. (Credit: Dave Parker)

As has become standard practice, layoffs are threatened if Ford doesn’t reach its target of voluntary buyouts. “Our hope is to reach fitness targets with the voluntary incentive program. If that doesn't happen, involuntary separations may be required,” Galhotra concluded.

The stock markets responded positively to Ford’s announcement of job cuts, boosting the company’s share price 1.76 percent Wednesday.

Even as Ford and other major corporations are forcing workers back into deadly working conditions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, they are using the economic crisis to engineer further restructuring measures and carry out a jobs bloodbath. Also on Wednesday, United Airlines announced that it would indefinitely furlough over 16,000 employees at the beginning of October.

Ford’s own cost-cutting efforts are set to accelerate with the ascension of Jim Farley, currently COO, to the role of CEO in October, replacing current CEO James Hackett, who has been under fire by major investors for years. Despite overseeing tens of thousands of layoffs and billions in cost cuts, Hackett has been viewed by Wall Street financiers as insufficiently aggressive in carrying out the attacks.

In 2019, Ford had announced 7,000 salaried job cuts, along with the layoff of 12,000 workers and the closure of five plants throughout Europe. Expressing the ruthless drive for profit of the financial elite, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said last year that Ford would not reach the profits the company was promising and instead stated that an additional 23,000 white-collar jobs were needed.

The depth of the crisis at the company, which was long seen as a mainstay of global auto production, can be seen from key figures on its balance sheet just over the last two years. Ford’s net income has fallen almost continually since the end of 2017. In its first quarterly earnings net loss since 2009 during the Great Recession, the firm recorded a loss $2 billion for the first three months of 2020, and has projected a net loss for the full year. Analysts have also been quick to point out that Ford has been losing money in every market except North America and the company’s debt was cut to junk status by ratings agency S&P in March.

At the same time, Ford is sitting on a pile of cash on hand, $39.3 billion, up $2 billion from last year’s amount, and was in the top 10 US companies with the most cash available near the end of 2019, behind only the tech behemoths Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Nevertheless, in the frenzied competition to dominate new and emerging technologies, global automakers are racing to slash costs and ensure massive sums of money continue to flow to the largest investors. Incoming CEO Farley has said that the company is targeting a profit margin of 10 percent in North America, up substantially from last year’s 6.7 percent margin. Such an outcome could only take place through an immense intensification of exploitation of Ford’s workforce.

In response to Ford’s job cuts announcement, numerous workers posted comments on the web site thelayoff.com, pointing to the further job cuts waiting in the wings.

“If this September 8th offer is true,” one wrote, “it only means there will definitely be a heave hoe coming after the voluntaries.”

Another added, “The voluntary packages will be followed by involuntary packages, the involuntary packages will again target those employees nearing pension milestones and the highly compensated employees. Those of you a few years shy of 30 years and not yet 55 will be primary targets.”

After years and decades at the corporation, workers who had once held the expectation of a well-paid lifetime career are now facing the stark reality of suddenly being cast into poverty.

“Ford claimed that you could keep your benefits until eligible for Medicare, but they have since raised the monthly cost and co-pays so much that it’s unaffordable,” reported another worker. “I know a few people who thought they could afford to take the buyout but are now stretched because of the increased cost of Ford benefits. I don’t believe you could qualify for unemployment after nine months because you technically quit your job.”

Along with the record stock prices endlessly touted by the Trump administration, a wave of job cuts is slicing through major corporations worldwide. More than 200,000 job cuts and buyouts have been announced in recent weeks, and corporations globally anticipate more blood-letting as furloughs implemented early in the pandemic are transformed into permanent layoffs.

Germany-based automaker BMW is also cutting salaried positions in the US, and last week announced plans to cut some 400 jobs at its Mini car plant in Cowley in the United Kingdom. The company earlier this year announced plans to cut 16,000 positions globally. Both Volkswagen and Daimler AG have also signaled plans to carry out mass job cuts, and a wave of layoffs has been spreading throughout Brazil’s auto industry.

In the airline industry, more than 400,000 workers had been fired, furloughed or told they could lose their jobs in the immediate future by the end of July. More reductions have been announced since, including American Airlines, at 19,000 workers, and United’s 16,000. Lufthansa is working on more cost-tightening measures that could see another 20,000 jobs destroyed. Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury said last month that a plan to cut 15,000 jobs was not the worst-case scenario.

Earlier this year, agricultural equipment giant John Deere announced its own round of early retirement buyouts of salaried employees as part of its “Smart Industrial” restructuring, along with the layoff of production employees in Iowa. The job cuts via voluntary retirements were followed last month by the termination of an undisclosed number of white collar workers.