Facebook announces political censorship plan in advance of US presidential election

Kevin Reed

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a program of censorship measures on Thursday that the social media platform will take “to help secure the integrity of the US elections” before, during and after November 3.

In a lengthy post to his own Facebook account, Zuckerberg said that he is concerned about “the challenges people could face when voting” and “worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country.”

In motivating his proposed censorship actions, Zuckerberg claims that they are needed to protect “our democracy” by “helping people register and vote,” “clearing up confusion” about the elections and “taking steps to reduce the chances of violence and unrest.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies remotely during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on antitrust on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Washington. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)

Zuckerberg also says that Facebook’s leadership has learned “from our elections work over the past four years and the conversations we’ve had with voting rights experts and our civil rights auditors.” In other words, taking direction from the US government—and the intelligence agencies in particular—the social media giant has spent the last four years developing political censorship techniques aimed at ensuring that the content and dialogue on Facebook do not find a path outside of the narrow confines of the capitalist two-party system.

Among the measures that Facebook will take are refusing to accept any new political advertising in the last week before the election, removing posts that claim people will get COVID-19 by voting in person and placing an “informational label” on content that seeks to delegitimize the election outcome or any candidate or campaign that seeks to declare victory before the official results are published by Reuters and the National Election Pool, a consortium composed of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News.

That the fundamental purpose of Zuckerberg’s announcement is aimed at defending the bourgeois political setup dominated by the Democrats and Republicans and especially at blocking socialist and left-wing politics from entering the public discourse prior to the elections is revealed in the last of the proposed measures. Zuckerberg says that Facebook has already “strengthened our enforcement against militias, conspiracy networks like QAnon, and other groups that could be used to organize violence or civil unrest in the period after the elections.”

Although he does not name them, the “other groups” that Zuckerberg is talking about are those on the left that have been labeled “extremists” and amalgamated with the violence carried out by right-wing organizations and individuals against protesters as well as other crimes motivated by anti-Semitism, racism and fascism.

Zuckerberg continues, “We have already removed thousands of these groups and removed even more from being included in our recommendations and search results. We will continue to ramp up enforcement against these groups over the coming weeks.”

Making it clear that Facebook is fully collaborating with US state intelligence, Zuckerberg concludes his unprecedented statement with references to “coordinated online efforts by foreign governments and individuals to interfere in our elections.” Saying this “threat” has not gone away, Zuckerberg boasts without providing details, “Just this week, we took down a network of 13 accounts and 2 pages that were trying to mislead Americans and amplify division.”

Although Zuckerberg does not go into it, Facebook worked with its security consultant Graphika and US intelligence in an elaborate investigation and report that claimed the “13 accounts and 2 pages” were affiliated with a website called PeaceData that was purportedly set up by the Internet Research Agency and tied to Russian state intelligence. Significantly, among the articles republished by PeaceData—which has denied any connection with Russian intelligence—are those of the World Socialist Web Site .

As the WSWS analyzed on Friday, the US intelligence agencies are once again instigating anti-Russian propaganda on the basis of entirely unsubstantiated claims that Moscow is intervening in the 2020 elections and Zuckerberg and Facebook are fully collaborating in this campaign along with the corporate media.

The connection between Facebook’s attention to “election security” and the anti-Russian propaganda of the entire ruling establishment can be traced directly to a series of meetings held between the tech monopolies and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security since the 2016 elections.

The most recent of these meetings was held on August 12 and included representatives from nine Silicon Valley firms—including the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube (Google) and LinkedIn (Microsoft). No details have been published about the content of these discussions other than a brief joint industry statement that says the platforms “regularly meet” with the government agencies to discuss “trends” with those who are “tasked with protecting the integrity of the election.”

Based on the measures outlined by Zuckerberg, it is clear that Facebook and its handlers within US intelligence are anticipating that the 2020 elections will be accompanied by a significant social and political crisis. Such concerns are well-founded.

The impact of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the protests against police violence across the US for the past three months, the open incitement to violence against this movement by the White House and the moves by President Trump toward a personalist dictatorship all point to the development of an unprecedented crisis for American capitalism.

At the same time, the recent announcement by Facebook that it was changing its Terms of Service on October 1 illustrate the ongoing efforts of the social media corporation to prove itself a loyal collaborator with the state apparatus in every country.

While Zuckerberg was publishing his election security post, Facebook sent all 2.7 billion users a brief notice on Friday that said, “Effective October 1, 2020, section 3.2 of our Terms of Service will be updated to include: ‘We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Facebook.’”

Clearly, Facebook is moving aggressively to control content in order to avoid government antitrust regulation or lawsuits that it is not policing its platform adequately.

On the one hand, the social media giant is facing a threat by the Australian government to ban all news sharing on its platform unless Facebook paid publishers like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia for its content. According to Facebook, the Australian government offered two choices: “removing news entirely or accepting a system that lets publishers charge us for as much content as they want at a price with no clear limits.”

On the other hand, Facebook and the other social media platforms have been threatened by the US Justice Department to have its Section 230 exemptions removed—the law that protects online services from legal liability for the content published by its users—if the company took actions deemed “censorship” by the Trump administration.

Massive speculation fueled by the Fed has driven Wall Street surge

Nick Beams

The turbulence on Wall Street at the end of last week, when markets sold off, has revealed at least some of the rampant speculation that has been at the centre of the market surge since its crash in the middle of March.

The main factor in the surge has been the $3 trillion of support provided by the Federal Reserve through its intervention as the backstop for all areas of the financial market, coupled with its commitment to ultra-low interest rates. This policy was guaranteed for the indefinite future last month when the Fed shifted the parameters of its monetary policy by removing the threat to lift interest rates if inflation rose and unemployment fell.

Its interventions have resulted in a rise in market indexes back to their all-time highs reached earlier this year. But this has been concentrated in the biggest US companies by market capitalisation—Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (the owner of Google), Microsoft and Facebook—with a combined value of more than $8 trillion.

Trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

According to the Wall Street Journal they have been trading at an average of 44 times their expected earnings, a level only exceeded by the 50 times price-to-earnings ratio which occurred during the dot.com bubble at the turn of the century.

There were reminders of the collapse of that bubble last Thursday when the tech-heavy Nasdaq index dropped nearly 5 percent, while the S&P 500 fell 3.5 percent and the Dow was down by more than 800 points or 2.8 percent. There were further, smaller, falls on Friday after the market had moved down sharply earlier in the day but then recovered somewhat in the final hours of trading.

The size of the escalation in tech stocks is indicated by Apple. Last month its market capitalisation reached more than $2 trillion—making it the first company to attain that level —having gained more than $1 trillion in just 21 weeks and $700 million in July alone.

Apple had the biggest loss on Thursday as its shares dropped by 8 percent, causing it to lose almost $180 billion in market capitalisation, the biggest one-day loss for a US company on record. But the extent of its rise is indicated by the fact that this loss was larger than the individual market capitalisation for 470 of the 500 companies listed in the S&P index.

The escalation of the market capitalisation of high-tech companies has given rise to what has been called a K-shaped phenomenon—the movement of a narrow group of companies away from the rest of the market.

This shift was underscored last week when the oil and energy giant ExxonMobil was removed from the list of 30 major companies that make up the Dow Jones index. It was the company with the longest tenure in the Dow, entering it in 1928, and as recently as 2011 was the largest company by market capitalisation in the world.

One of the key factors in the high-tech surge in August has been the use of financial derivatives, most notably call options. A call option is the right to buy a share at an agreed price at some point in the future. The purchaser is then able to make a gain if the share price rises above the contract level.

According to reports in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal last week, the Japanese financial conglomerate SoftBank has been a major buyer of call options in high-tech companies.

Under normal conditions, call options are to some degree balanced by put options, a contract to sell a share at an agreed price as investors seek to hedge themselves against potential falls in the market.

But as the Financial Times noted in the past few months “this has been flipped on its head for mega-cap stocks and there has been rampant buying of call options—particularly on Apple and Tesla” as investors have weighed in with bets that the market will keep on rising.

At present Softbank is reported to be sitting on trading gains so far of around $4 billion. The speculation goes beyond Softbank. According to Goldman Sachs, the overall nominal value of call options on individual US stocks reached a record high in the past two weeks, averaging $355 billion per day, triple the daily average between 2017 and 2019.

Corporate executives appear to be less confident. According to data compiled for the Financial Times some 1,042 US chief executives, chief financial officers and company directors sold $6.7 billion worth of stock in August, the highest level for any month since November 2015.

The accumulation of wealth in the hands of the financial elites is taking place as the conditions for the working class continually worsen as even the limited relief earlier provided is cut off or significantly reduced. The jobs report issued last week has been seized on to continue that policy.

The Department of Labor said employment rose by 1.4 million in August, a figure that was hailed as showing that the economy was on the improve, as Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow virtually ruled out any move to provide further assistance. “Right now the economy is on a self-sustaining recovery path in my judgement and will continue along these lines, and will continue to surprise on the upside,” he said.

The data in the report belie this assessment. There are still 11.5 million fewer jobs than there were in February and the rate of employment growth is slowing. In June employment grew by 4.7 million, falling to 1.7 million in July before dropping further to 1.4 million last month.

Moreover, many of these jobs are part-time or casual as companies cut back on the full-time workforce. The employment numbers for August were also boosted by the hiring of 238,000 temporary census data workers who will soon be laid off.

The data for August also showed that the number of workers who have been permanently axed, as opposed to being temporarily laid off, is on the increase, rising from 2.9 million in July to 3.4 million in August. A report cited in the Washington Post noted that 20 percent of the permanent sackings in May and June had been characterised as temporary a month earlier.

And this trend will continue. As the Wall Street Journal reported last month, a recent study found that “nearly half of US employers that furloughed or laid off staff because of COVID-19 are considering additional workplace cuts in the next 12 months.”

This indicates that the pandemic is being used to carry out “restructuring” operations to boost the bottom line, in combination with measures that have resulted in 10 million private sector workers either having their pay cut or being forced to work part time.

Workers employed in small businesses have been especially hard hit, with one study finding that 50 percent of them furloughed since March have still not been able to find work. The number unemployed for 15-26 weeks is now nearly double what it was in the recession of 2009.

While the billionaires continue to rake in money through speculation, with the potential to set off a financial crash as the downdraft on Wall Street at the end of last week showed, the situation in the real economy is worsening.

According to Deutsche Bank, zombie companies—those that do not earn enough to cover their interest payments—now comprise nearly one-fifth of all listed companies in the US, compared to virtually zero at the start of the century.

Protests against police violence continue across the US

Jacob Crosse

This weekend marked 100 days of protests in the US against police violence since the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police department. Large demonstrations were held in rural towns as well as major cities in the face of new instances of police brutality and murder and an increasingly virulent and violent law-and-order campaign led by the Trump administration, with the complicity of the Democratic Party.

The overwhelmingly peaceful, multiracial and multiethnic protests are being met with tear gas, stun grenades, baton charges and mass arrests by riot police for the most part mobilized by Democratic governors and mayors, while Trump and the Republicans denounce the protesters as anarchists, socialists and terrorists and incite fascistic vigilantes to attack them.

This explosive situation is only the prelude to a mass movement of the working class, driven forward by the death and poverty being meted out by the ruling elite and all of its political representatives in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling corporate-financial oligarchy, even as it enriches itself over the bones of pandemic victims, feels itself besieged. It is terrified at the prospect of a mass movement against capitalism, increasingly exposed before the world as a bankrupt and criminal system.

Police use chemical irritants and crowd control munitions during a demonstration in Portland, Oregon, on Sept. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

The breadth and duration of the protests express the courage and determination of millions to fight for a more egalitarian society, free of racism, repression and social inequality. But this must be elevated into a conscious struggle for socialism that brings together all sections of the working class, from educators to autoworkers, both in the US and around the world.

A recent report from the US Crisis Monitor, associated with Princeton University, noted the global nature of the protests. It stated: “In the weeks since Floyd’s killing, at least 8,700 demonstrations in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement were reported across 74 countries, including the US. Demonstrators focused their outrage on American symbols—including embassies, consulates and Trump properties—but they also rallied around local cases of police brutality and racial inequality.”

Since the protests in the US began in May, at least 19 protesters have been killed, including three within the last two weeks.

Last Thursday, a police task force headed by US marshals shot and killed Michael Reinoehl hours after an arrest warrant had been issued for him in connection with the killing of a far-right Patriot Prayer member during a protest in Portland on August 29. Right-wing vigilante and ardent Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse killed two protesters and injured another in Kenosha, Wisconsin less than two weeks ago.

The corporate media has increasingly cast the protests as violent and aggressive and portrayed the police as responding to unprovoked attacks by demonstrators. This is belied by the facts. The Princeton report points out that between May 24 and August 22 there were more than 10,600 “demonstration events,” of which over 10,100, “or nearly 95 percent” were peaceful protests, while less than 570 involved “demonstrators engaging in violence.”

The authors of the report noted that in demonstrations that did become violent, aggression was often instigated by right-wing militias and racist gangs such as the Three Percenters, the Ku Klux Klan, the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo bois and the New Mexico Civil Guard.

Demonstrations over the weekend included:

Rochester, New York

Saturday marked the fourth straight day of protests against police murder in upstate New York, following the release of bodycam video showing police torturing and murdering 41-year-old Daniel Prude on March 23 of this year. Over 1,500 protesters marched to the Rochester Police Department headquarters chanting, “No justice, no peace.” In the evening, the police, backed by armored vehicles, fired pepper balls and tear gas into the crowd. The police say they arrested eight people Thursday, 11 Friday and nine more on Saturday night.

Portland, Oregon

Ignoring pleas from Democratic Governor Kate Brown to end the protests, hundreds of demonstrators once again took to the streets, resulting in over 50 arrests Saturday night. Prior to protests on Thursday, Governor Brown issued a statement declaring that “the violence must stop… All who perpetrate violent crimes must be held equally accountable.”

Louisville, Kentucky

Police were nowhere to be found for several hours Saturday as protesters were confronted by over 400 heavily armed “patriots” led by Dylan Stevens, a self-described “staunch supporter of Trump, police, our troops, 2nd amendment, America and the Flag!” Stevens, who in a recent YouTube video defended the Rittenhouse slayings as “100 percent self-defense,” organized a counter-protest at Jefferson Square Park, where protesters demanding justice for Breonna Taylor have peacefully gathered since May 28 to demand the officers involved in her killing be arrested.

After several heated confrontations, including at least two instances where pistols were unholstered by associates of Stevens, the counter-protesters left the park, only to be replaced by over 24 riot police.

The Democratic Party and the presidential campaign of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have remained silent on the recent murders of protesters, while condemning violent protesters and demanding that they be arrested and prosecuted.

In a CNN interview on Sunday, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris did not mention the names of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, both murdered by Rittenhouse, nor did she comment on the police slaying of Michael Reinoehl last Thursday. When questioned by interviewer Dana Bash if she believed Kenosha cop Rusten Shesky should be charged for shooting Jacob Blake in the back seven times, Harris, a former prosecutor, backtracked on earlier statements, saying she thought “charges very much should be considered... but everyone is entitled to due process, everyone, including police officers.”

Innovative financing for women’s health becomes vital when purse strings tighten

Shobha Shukla

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of weak health systems that were ill prepared to withstand the onslaught of the pandemic. As documented by the Pulse survey of the WHO, the pandemic has resulted in disruption of essential health services, including sexual and reproductive health services, in most countries. Weak and perpetually poorly resourced health systems have escalated the woes of the public, more so in low- and lower-middle income countries. This disaster has reinforced the need for countries to not only increase their public health spending, but also explore innovative ways of financing healthcare systems.

More than 50% of countries in the Asia and the Pacific region come under the category of low- and lower-middle income countries. While there has been economic growth in the region resulting in corresponding improvements in health service delivery systems, in many countries these gains are unjustly reserved for the elite few in terms of quality and timely services, says Dr Ashish Bajracharya, Population Council’s Deputy Director for global country strategy and regional representative for South and East Asia. Large parts of our populations still have an unmet need in sexual and reproductive health and out-of-pocket expenditures continue to pay for most of the healthcare expenditures. For Dr Bajracharya, it is critical to work towards universal health coverage and to promote sustainable financing strategies, including heightening of commitments of state resources for sexual and reproductive health.

Dr Bajracharya was Chairing the sixth session of the ongoing virtual series of 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSHR10). Two interesting studies were presented in this APCRSHR10 session from Pakistan and Philippines. The first study was presented by Dr Moazzam Ali, noted epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO), who shared the results of a research project on “demand side financing” implemented in two districts of Punjab province of Pakistan to meet birth spacing needs of the underserved.

What is demand side financing?

Dr Ali explains that the three key components of any demand side financing project are (i) a pre-specified target group, like, pregnant women, children under five years of age, poor households, etc; (ii) a financial transfer to the beneficiaries through the government, the private sector, NGOs or some other mechanism. It can be a direct conditional cash transfer or it can be via vouchers; and (iii) a very clear rationale for the choice of services covered, for example, immunisation, family planning, cancer screening etc. Any intervention that meets these three conditions qualifies to be a demand side financing.

This particular study was done to assess the effectiveness of free, single-purpose vouchers for increasing the uptake, use and better targeting of modern contraceptives among women from the lowest two wealth quintiles in rural and urban communities in Pakistan. The project tried to see if vouchers can contribute in achieving universal health coverage, especially in the context of sexual and reproductive health and, more specifically, for family planning.

The study was implemented across an intervention (Chakwal) and a control (Bhakkar) district in Punjab province. 1276 married women of reproductive age were enrolled in each arm. The single purpose voucher was from Marie Stopes International branch in Pakistan. Services included follow ups/ side effects management, services regarding the modern contraceptives and the removal services (for the implants and Intrauterine devices-IUDs).

Did the intervention enhance equity, especially among the poor?

Project results show that compared to baseline, use of modern contraceptive methods increased by 30% in the intervention area as against 14% in the control area. Specifically, in the intervention area IUD use increased from 2% to 20% (national level use of IUD is 1-2%) and condom use increased from 7% to 13%. Vouchers also resulted in an increase of 16% in current contraceptive use and 26% increase in modern methods use. Intervention area also reported low method-specific discontinuation (13.7%) and high method-specific switching rates (46.6%) amongst modern contraceptive users. The corresponding figures for control area were 26.8% and 13.3% respectively. Many of those who switched to modern methods, switched to IUDs, implants, injectables and pills, which are far more effective compared to the traditional family planning methods. Also, the underserved population utilized the modern methods more than their affluent counterparts.

The study outcomes prove that vouchers increase the use of modern contraception methods (especially the long acting reversible contraception methods) along with other modern methods like pills and injectables. Vouchers also decrease discontinuation and increase switching. Voucher use seemed to reduce the inequality in access to modern methods across wealth quintiles and enhanced equity by reaching out to the poor who began using them more.

“Vouchers can be a highly effective tool to increase access to, and use of, family planning and reproductive health services. Long term use of vouchers can strengthen the health system capacity and provide a pathway to the strategic purchasing power such as insurance or contracting in the long run and contributing in the context of universal health coverage in the low and middle income countries”, Dr Ali said to CNS (Citizen News Service).

The second example of innovative financing was from the Philippines on “Public-Private Partnership Bridge Funding”. Loida Almendares, Programme Manager at DKT International in Philippines, shared the concept of “bridge financing”.

What is bridge financing?

The Philippine Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law calls for engagement of the civil society by the government to address the unmet need for family planning. The Department of Health allocates funds for this purpose. However, the process of transferring government funds to private organizations is cumbersome and often results in delays in fund release.

Bridge financing is a mechanism to address this gap and to allow civil society organizations to implement family planning and reproductive health activities without unnecessary delays. It allows family planning services to be provided even while the government is yet to release project funds for the civil society organizations. Bridge financing is a “no interest loan” given to civil society organizations with existing project contracts and is to be strictly used for project implementation. It is to the tune of 30-35% of the total project fund. The money has to be returned to the Bridge Fund provider – which could be any financing entity – at the end of the project at zero interest. Philippines government laws support public and private partnerships or engagement of civil society organizations and private sectors to actively participate in the development processes of the state.

There could be different public-private partnership models utilising the bridge financing mechanism. Almendares shared the outcomes of one such model developed in the Philippines jointly by the Cooperative Movement for Encouraging No-Scalpel Vasectomy (CMEN), Pangasinan Province civil society organization and the government.

This public-private partnership with bridge financing reached more than 13000 women with unmet family planning needs. Of them, 61% were provided with long acting and permanent methods – which is more than triple the national average of 14% for these methods. For the HIV programme, the project was able to reach out to underserved populations, including LGBTIQ+ community, students, pregnant women and people who inject drugs and test 678 people in three months. Persons who tested positive for HIV were then referred to treatment hubs for immediate care. All of the loans received under bridge funding were repaid.

Almendares says that public-private partnership is important to escalate delivery of quality sexual and reproductive health services with financial resources from the government and human resources from the civil society organizations or private sector. She lists several advantages of public-private partnership through Bridge Funding: “It is an intermediate financing to address the gap due to fund delays and allows civil society organizations to provide reproductive and sexual health services to a vast number of people in communities and key populations even while the government is yet to release project funds for civil society organizations.”

COVID-19 has changed the expectations and outlook of healthcare worldwide. India’s public health expenditure is dismally low at less than 1.5% of the gross domestic product and this warrants a drastic increase. Quality healthcare should be a fundamental right of every citizen of our country as well as of other countries.

Innovative health financing makes good business sense

Zahra Fathi Geshnigani, senior gender equality advocate and former CEO of Family Health Association of Iran puts it very succinctly that health enables people to learn and earn, creates jobs, drives productivity, stimulates inclusive growth, and protects economies from the impacts of outbreaks and other emergencies. So innovative health financing that aligns with the vision of inclusive and sustainable health services makes good business sense.

A Long Term COVID Response Plan

Moin Qazi

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a massive toll on the economy: broken supply chains, record unemployment, failing small businesses. Much the same way it is affecting people with pre-existing health conditions more strongly, so is the pandemic-triggered economic crisis exposing vulnerable communities to greater distress. The pandemic has frozen the wheels of economy and affected every aspect of life. Lockdowns and disease distancing measures have dried up wage-work and incomes. The tragedy is as much humanitarian as economic with its cascading social implications. It is a stress-test of our ability to cooperate, learn and adapt in the face of deep uncertainties and rising risks.

This pandemic has inflicted the greatest pain on those who had already been rendered most vulnerable, spurring great hardship and growing unease among low income families and micro businesses. It has uncovered existing inequities and created new ones.

It has revealed both the fragility of our social security and welfare delivery systems and the need to come up with resilient, long-term solutions and more robust systems. The pandemic shows that our social security and welfare delivery systems are under-resourced and underserved, and we need to build long-term, resilient solutions and robust systems

Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized that the pandemic has taught us that we need to be self-sufficient. “It has taught us that we have to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. It has taught us that we should not look for solutions outside the country. This is the biggest lesson we have learnt. Every village has to be self-sufficient enough to provide for its basic needs. Similarly, every district has to be self-sufficient at its level, every state has to be self-reliant at its level and the whole country has to be self-reliant at its level,” he said while interacting with heads of gram panchayats (village councils) through video conferencing on the National Panchayati Raj Day on April 24.

Here are some of the areas where we may have to focus for achieving better results in our relief work for those affected by the pandemic.

ECONOMIC REGENERATION

All crises are opportunities for radical reform, for realigning priorities in pursuit of the common good. As the challenges of COVID19 unfold and governments and civil society scramble to provide relief, one recurring idea is to use this disruption to reimagine the economic architecture. The UN Sustainable Development Goals are expected to suffer a mortal blow if we don’t get to grip with the systemic risks of COVID19. Many of our development gains have been jeopardized, and we must now build a new economic world order which is humane, inclusive, and sustainable.

Can the economy rebound fast enough to make life stable again? Long periods of state inaction have their economic and social costs. With thousands of migrant workers having returned to their native villages, it is extremely necessary to create additional employment to stave off social, political, economic unrest.

LEVERAGING THE SKILL ECONOMY

Some of migrant labourers are considered unskilled, but many are skilled or semi-skilled. A large-scale deskilling could take place if they do not find work quickly, because their skills will begin to rust and diminish if not used.  It all depends on how fast the state responds and what types of stimulus it uses. The first task for governments would be to map the skills of these returned migrants and then work out a long-term rehabilitation plan that uses these skills through necessary upgradation or reorientation. A marriage between their skills and the business acumen of local entrepreneurs can help a great deal.

The Union government has provided direct cash transfers to more than 300 million people in addition to similar cash transfers to famers. These efforts are a lifeboat to help businesses survive the coming months, and for households to continue to cope with daily emergencies as normal economic life stutters through the recession.

INDIAN DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT

Development in India has so far been defined by grand utopian schemes that have brought disruption to millions, wrought by the negative consequences of faulty programmes and impractical schemes. Conventional development policy has always been driven by grandiose plans, moving from one big fix to another, one set of best practices and universal blueprints to the next.

What we need instead are policy innovations tailored to local social contexts, economic circumstances and political complexities. Two critical elements are (a) local solutions, particularly in areas like infrastructure – such as local roads and local water storage solutions like check dams, basic healthcare and primary education – and (b) trust in the innate ability and intelligence of the local community to understand and harness opportunities for their social and economic well-being.

Well-crafted development plans flower from the mutual synergy of all stakeholders, and are identified, tested and sustained locally, not by career technocrats using huge sums to assemble and deliver them to “beneficiaries” as a charity handout or dole from on high.

Familiarity with the local context is necessary for a lasting impact and outcomes. Several well-intentioned policies and programmes fail because they are not well grounded, and do not incorporate the perspectives of the local communities, leaving important gaps that cause enduring harm, unintentionally or otherwise.

Any development plan or initiative that seeks to respond to the social and economic damage wrought by COVID19, or to prevent its recurrence, should keep in mind the drivers that made it a pandemic.

FRESH APPROACHES

Tackling the problems of the disprivileged requires a fundamentally different approach: one that starts with the people themselves and encourages initiative, creativity and drive from below. This principle must be at the core of any strategy that hopes to transform their lives; only then that it can be lasting and meaningful.

Approaches to development that respect the inherent capabilities of the people who live in rural areas, and systematically build on their experience, have a reasonable chance of improving their lives. This can include enhancing their capacities to mobilize and manage resources effectively. If people can be given the support, they need to build their own democracies in their own ways, they can do the rest themselves. In doing so, they will not only move their own communities, they will also take the world with them.

The economic reconstruction that will follow the pandemic is the perfect opportunity to provide better nutrition and health to all. The pandemic should spur us to redefine how we feed ourselves, and agricultural research can play a vital role in making our food systems more sustainable and resilient.

Some of the specific activities that can be undertaken as part of a long-term relief plan may include the following.:

Self-help groups: Self-help groups (SHGs) are India’s most powerful conduit for incubating and empowering women to move from subsistence to sustainability. The pandemic has amplified their social and economic resilience and shown how they can effectively articulate a meaningful grassroots response to such a crisis. These groups have risen to the extraordinary challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have been meeting the shortfall in masks, sanitizers and protective equipment, running community kitchens, fighting misinformation and even providing banking and financial solutions to far-flung communities.

As grassroots village-based financial organizations, often comprised solely of women, SHGs have proven to be vibrant, participative, business-oriented and community-based institutions that have the potential to resurrect moribund rural economies. They are playing a crucial role in promoting a shared agenda around education, health, finance and agriculture and making affordable loans available where debt lurks in most rural homes.

Secondary agriculture: Rural India needs to prioritize secondary agriculture through integrated farming activities and a focus on sustainability of production, monetization of farmers’ produce, strengthening of farm extension services, and recognizing agriculture as enterprises.

To make farming sustainable and resilient, farmers must be encouraged to diversify into allied activities. They can be encouraged and financed to build ponds, bunds and undertake Income- generation activities that use crop residues – paddy straw, fodder blocks and crop residue briquette as raw material. The output from the farm should also be put to gainful use- either as fodder or for mulching. Cleaning, sorting and grading of agri-produce to make it saleable must also be promoted as supplementary enterprise.

Livestock economy: When farming fails, livestock can serve as fall back. Tribal communities already keep backyard poultry, ducks, goats, sheep. Bee keeping, mushroom cultivation can be managed by women farmers in the-family. Unlike more valuable operations on farms in India—crops or cattle, for example—goats and sheep are managed almost exclusively by women. They bring them out for grazing, take care of them when they’re ill, and sell them at the market. And the most critical point is that the money women earn from their goats stays in their hands.

The villages are slowly building a cadre of goat nurses known as “pashu sakhis,” which means “friends of the animals”. Pashu sakhis are poor women themselves who are given basic training in how to vaccinate, deworm, and provide other preventive care to goats in their community.

Forest produce : Another important area is forest produce such as tasar silk which is a stable source of livelihood for many tribals The Forest Rights Act is an attractive law but it is very difficult for tribals to benefit from it on account of red tape and the reluctance of forest department to concede its control over forests. Steps should be taken to make the law more roadworthy.  The tribals in the remoter belts don’t know their rights or how the market works and they get into debt with the intermediaries.

FPOs: One of the powerful ways to mitigate farm distress is through a livelihood and development strategy that collectivizes the smaller primary producers through locally-managed Food Producer Organizations (FPOs) and integrates them into an inclusive value- chain. These FPOs or mutual aid organizations, whose members pool their expertise and part of their savings, help the members achieve more together than they can alone and becomes self-propagating in course of time. It enables members see their work through an entrepreneurial lens and confers economies of scale, better marketing and distribution, greater bargaining power, access to credit and insurance, sharing of assets and costs, opportunities to upgrade skills and technology, and a safety net in times of distress.

This is a very good opportunity for Farmer Producer Organisations to make a significant contribution in rural economy. FPOs can be supported to harness the potential of farm economy extensively now. In the past decade FPO movement has gained significant momentum and has shifted the narrative of Indian agriculture to ‘value-led enterprise’ and empowering farmers through market driven initiatives. While the COVID pandemic has intensified and highlighted the challenges in the agri- value chain, it has also brought to fore new opportunities for growth in agriculture where small farmers FPOs play an important role in supporting the food systems.

If thousands of scattered small farms are systematically aggregated, it would help reduce transaction costs of the farms for accessing the value chains and make it easier for small farmers to access inputs, technology, and the market.

MSMEs: For the non-farming sector, MSMEs should come in a big way to absorb the migrant labourers. Villagers can be trained as para-veterinarians, health workers, solar engineers, water drillers, handpump mechanics, artisans, designers, masons and technicians who support the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Agro-processing needs medium-level entrepreneurs. It’s difficult for farmers with a hectare of land or 50 to 200 mango trees to set up an agro-processing unit. Entrepreneurs don’t want to go to small towns, rural areas, because of inadequate infrastructure, transport, electricity. No bank will finance them either.  It is a good time to bring primary processing facilities closer to the farm gates and help producers gather market intelligence and manage the value chain better with digital agriculture tools.

Decentralized responses: Our experience of handling such crisis inform us that community-driven development (CDD) programmes, which encourage people to design their own solutions, can be a critical part of the response to the COVID-19 crisis. We need an equitable, whole-of-society approach to tackle a crisis of this magnitude and scale. CDD programmes are usually driven by such approaches.

During a crisis of the covid-19 type, local governments are normally flooded with demands that cannot be met with their limited resources. In this context, community-driven development (CDD) programmes can play a critical role in providing consensus-driven support to prioritise and optimize the resources.

We also need multiple interventions across sectors to address the different dimensions of the crisis. CDD programmes often complement traditional safety net systems by delivering cash and in-kind transfers as well as basic services such as water and sanitation. They do so through participation from communities, people’s representatives, and local governments

How ‘QUAD’ To Counter China On The Lines Of NATO

Haider Abbas

The first-round between China and US, from the past couple of months, has gone to the US side, as surely and certainly a lot is happening in terms of geo-politics, a change in what is called as ‘an old guard’ is taking place, as new blocs are getting formed and new formulations are in vogue, to be put forward, for the world to find, particularly, since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in the world.  If the series of the events are to be enumerated, which have proved to change the political streams in the world, then for sure, it was US president Donald Trump, who took Pakistan PM Imran Khan ‘for a ride’ when he on July 22, 2019 told Imran Khan that Indian PM Modi has asked him to ‘mediate’ on Kashmir, and again on August 2, 2019 reiterated the K word that he would like to intervene on Kashmir if India and Pakistan wanted.  Modi panicked and finished-off the Special status accorded to JK&L under Article 370 on August 5, 2019. A single move, which was to turn the events in history of the world, is what is going-on since then. ‘The step of Narendra Modi government on August 5, abrogating the Article 370 of Jammu and Kashmir, is going to alter the internal and external politics of the country for at least the next fifty years,’ I had written on August 10, 2019, five days hence in Countercurrents.

Imran Khan, who could barely hide his glee on July 23, 2019, when he accorded to Trump ‘a billion people’s prayers’ if he resolved Kashmir issue had to cut a sorry figure as after the abrogation of Article 370, Modi made a visit to a gala welcome in US on Sep 22, 2019 and Modi and Trump regaled before the world and very soon Trump reciprocated to Modi by visiting Delhi on Feb 22, 2020. Kashmir had been thrown to the backburner as the head of the only ‘super-power’ walked hand-in-hand with Modi. But, a challenge to US and India was also coming as China and Pakistan, embittered by India’s move, were together when China supported the issue of Kashmir raised by Pakistan in UN Security Council for thrice in the last year.  Pakistan wanted Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to support Kashmir inside Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) for which KSA had drawn cold-feet and wary of KSA Pakistan foreign minister SM Qureshi announced, on August 6, 2020 that Pakistan was to convene a meeting  of council of foreign ministers on Kashmir outside OIC, which signaled that Malaysia, Turkey, Qatar, Iran and Pakistan, with the support of China and Russia were into forming a new bloc, and which, enraged the KSA crown-prince MbS that he sought the loan of 1 billion USD given to Pakistan be returned, which Pakistan paid, with the help of China, followed by stopping the supply of oil on deferred loan to Pakistan, MbS took the loan back and invested in India and announced annulment of investments in China and invested in India instead. What all was happening through MbS, was of course, to the manipulations of US, as MbS has been personally issued a  summon by a US court on August 11, 2020, that he tried to get killed his intelligence officer Saad Al Jabri, on the lines of which Jamal Khashogi was killed. KSA and UAE have threatened to Pakistan to desist from romancing with a new bloc or else its expatriates are to be packed-off to it.  Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa went running to KSA to salvage the ties on August 17, 2020, two days later on August 20, 2020 Qureshi went to China, thus, all signaled that something anew was to be on the anvil.

Things were moving ‘thick and fast’ as US accused its strongest ally KSA to be hunting for ‘nuclear-weapons’ with the help of China on August 4, 2020, the same day when Beirut blasts happened, to subjugate KSA for no end, and so intimated the Gulf-states became that only ten days later UAE, with the entire support of KSA , announced formal-relations with Israel ( on August 14, 2020) which was to snigger at Pakistan’s independence day, as Pakistan and Iran are the only two nations which have a strong stand towards Israel. Pakistan was to be isolated and that is what USA, through KSA wanted, as Pakistan was thenceforth ‘not-required’ for the job in Afghanistan has been done, where the beleaguered US army was forced to sit with the same Afghan-Taliban across the table against which it had waged a twenty-year war!  Only US could stem such a humiliation.

Pakistan is yet to convene the meeting, Turkey is already scuttled in a tussle with Greece, Iran is battered with threats from Israel and US alike and China is locked up with US in its South China Sea as   well as with India in the Himalayas.  Israel is making an ‘intelligence-base’ at Socotra Island, Yemen, to keep a watchful eye on Gwadar Port, Pakistan, which is likely to become the business-hub of future, as China is to carry out its exports from there.  This is how the first-round has gone to the advantage of US as all the adversaries of US are frustrated, to the advantage of US and allies, which very much include India. It is in this situation, and to balance the moves of China yet, in South China Sea, US has propounded a group on the lines of NATO.

US released its Pentagon report on September 2, 2020 to let the whole world know about the growing China power, in which US too has been left behind in some corners, and acting fast to the prevalent currents, US has taken into confidence Japan and has announced a formation of QUAD on the lines of NATO, which would include Australia, Japan, India and US to counter Beijing.  The importance given to the project can be felt as US made its No.2 diplomat, Deputy Secretary of State Stephan Biegun to announce it (QUAD) on the lines of NATO  or European Union as a counter to China in Indo-Pacific region.  ‘There is certainly an invitation there at some point to formalize a structure like this,” he said.  Known officially as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the grouping is an informal strategic forum of the four democracies that holds semiregular summits and joint military drills, and discusses regional economic and development assistance. It is often credited as the brainchild of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose August 2007 speech titled “Confluence of the Two Seas” provided the foundations for the grouping’, published in The Times of Japan on September 1, 2020.

This news on QUAD came a day earlier to the Pentagon report and US made its diplomat say that US would strategise to push back China in virtually every domain and QUAD is but a part of the overall initiative to contain China. ‘For the first time in the Quad’s history, the stars are aligning for a harder line on China, and the implications going forward could be significant,” said a senior defense analyst “Most importantly, Quad resolve would also no longer be symbolic, but concrete, and this should enhance the deterrence value of the group toward China,” he wrote. Biegun also explicitly noted that “the Quad isn’t exclusive” to the four countries currently involved’.

It becomes increasingly clear that a new bloc is round the corner and if India or China or Pakistan would go for a war, it would be construed to be a war with Japan, Australia and US, and all the QUAD nations would jointly come to the rescue of each other, and this is what India can rightly expect as it is ranged against both China and Pakistan. Other nations which are to follow in QUAD membership are likely to be Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand, Philippines, with Israel as a formidable buddy to add to the strength of US.

How China and Russia will counter this US move is for the time to tell, but certainly the first-round has added to the stimulus of US where India is very clearly heading for an advantage over China and Pakistan. Will Pakistan abandon OIC and scoff-off from KSA, as it is very much that KSA and UAE are to throw-back its citizens from their lands very soon as Israel is now to call the shots from the Gulf-states. It is at this juncture the world is never so poised for a spark which might trigger an all-out-war-in-the-world, as a small nation like Philippine has daunted China that it would invite US navy to its rescue if China threatens its sovereignty.

New Zealand Greens in crisis over private school funding

Tom Peters

A crisis erupted in the New Zealand Green Party late last month after co-leader James Shaw boasted that the Labour Party-led coalition government, which includes the Greens and the right-wing NZ First Party, would give $11.7 million to the private Green School in Taranaki.

James Shaw in 2014 [Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Shaw, who is associate finance minister, said the funding would create construction jobs and help the school expand “to meet growing demand from parents all over New Zealand, and the rest of the world, wanting to enrol their children.”

In fact, the Green School is an elite institution with domestic student fees ranging from $16,000 to $23,000 a year and almost double that for international students. Its website says it aims to shape “the leaders of the future” in “a world of huge environmental threats and massive entrepreneurial opportunities.”

Shaw’s enthusiastic announcement triggered a significant backlash from working people. Teachers and public school staff, who held nationwide strikes last year over chronic understaffing and a funding crisis, were particularly angered. Marfell Community School acting principal Kealy Warren sent Shaw and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern an open letter demanding equivalent funding for her school to fix leaky classrooms, upgrade technology and address other urgent needs.

On September 1, Shaw publicly apologised, saying he made “an error of judgement” in violating the Green Party’s policy, which states that “public funding for private schools should be phased out and transferred to public schools.” In an attempt at damage control, the Green School said it could accept some of the money as a loan instead of a grant.

Far from being an anomaly, however, the funding decision is completely in line with the government’s pro-business response to the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The money for the Green School came from a $50 billion Covid Response and Recovery Fund (CRRF). The fund, fully supported by the Greens, is being distributed to businesses in the form of wage subsidies, tax concessions, handouts and loans.

The Reserve Bank, meanwhile, has allocated up to $100 billion for quantitative easing, i.e., buying back government bonds from private banks in order to prop up their profits.

As economics commentator Bernard Hickey recently wrote in Newsroom, “the Labour-led government has delivered the biggest shot of cash and monetary support to the wealthy in the history of New Zealand, while giving nothing to the renters, the jobless, students, migrants and the working poor who mostly voted it in.”

A historic social crisis is unfolding as a result. Mass redundancies have pushed tens of thousands more people into poverty. Median incomes have plummeted by 7.6 percent in the past year and the Ministry of Social Development expects 16 percent of the population will be on welfare by January.

Conscious that workers and young people are shifting to the left, the Green Party is seeking to market itself as “progressive” in the lead-up to the October 17 election. Shaw and co-leader Marama Davidson both acknowledged that the Green School funding scandal could make it harder to return to parliament. The party is polling around 5 percent—the minimum required to gain seats.

The Greens’ first policy announcement in June called for everyone not employed, including students, to receive at least $325 a week, $75 more than the current unemployment benefit. This would be funded by a small wealth tax—just 1 percent on any assets over $1 million and 2 percent for assets over $2 million—and slightly higher income tax for people earning more than $100,000.

These modest reforms would not raise enough money to reverse decades of austerity, and in any case they will never be implemented by a Labour-Green government. The Ardern government has betrayed its promises to alleviate poverty and inequality, which were worsening even before the pandemic.

Prior to the 2017 election, the Greens agreed with Labour on a set of “Budget Responsibility Rules,” which promised to pay down debt and cap government spending at 30 percent of gross domestic product, about the same level as the 2008–2017 National Party government. This ensured ongoing austerity, leading to a worsening crisis in public hospitals, schools and other public services.

The Greens’ most high-profile policy achievement in government was an essentially meaningless “Zero Carbon Act,” implemented last year following climate strikes involving tens of thousands of school students. It sets the goal of making the country carbon-neutral by 2050 and contains exemptions for the agriculture industry, New Zealand’s biggest source of emissions. The government’s main mechanism is an emissions trading scheme—a market-based tool which will do nothing to stop the threat of catastrophic climate change.

As part of the Ardern government, Shaw and Davidson have worked closely with the right-wing and anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party. Ardern gave NZ First a major role in government, including the roles of foreign minister, defence minister and internal affairs minister.

Late last year, Shaw, in his capacity as minister for climate change, joined NZ First’s Ron Mark, the defence minister, in releasing a climate change policy for the armed forces. Shaw presented the government’s $20 billion plan to upgrade the military, including new aircraft and navy vessels, as necessary to respond to natural disasters caused by climate change.

In fact, the spending is to assist New Zealand’s integration into the US-led war preparations against China. While the Greens sometimes posture as antiwar, they have previously backed New Zealand’s role in the occupation of Afghanistan, as well as the Australian-led interventions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

A number of former Green MPs, including Catherine Delahunty, Mojo Mathers and Sue Bradford, have criticised Shaw for undermining the party. Bradford wrote: “Just when you think the Greens might be sticking to their principles after three compromising years, Shaw gifts $11.7m to a private school.”

Some of the Greens’ pseudo-left supporters called for Shaw to step down to give the party a more “left” image. Emilie Rākete, from Organise Aotearoa, tweeted that Shaw “needs to resign,” adding that co-leader “Marama Davidson stands with working class and brown communities.”

Socialist Aotearoa’s Elliot Crossan similarly wrote on Facebook that “a Marama Davidson-led Green Party would be a force for good that the left could (critically of course) support,” whereas Shaw was a “neoliberal” who should be “booted out.”

Such statements are nonsense. As the record shows, the Greens, like their counterparts in Australia, Europe and elsewhere, are a party of the upper-middle class, backed by significant sections of big business. In 2020, the party has received tens of thousands of dollars from Peter Kraus, a multi-millionaire shareholder in healthcare company Ebos; Phillip Mills, founder of the Les Mills chain of gyms; and Bruce Copeland, who owns software development company Sandfield.

Shaw, a former advisor to PricewaterhouseCoopers and HSBC bank, was elected as co-leader in 2015, not by mistake, but because he embodies the capitalist politics of the party. If the Green Party is still part of the government after the election, it will continue to support an agenda of austerity, handouts to businesses, militarism and anti-immigrant policies.

Unions enforce takeover of Virgin Australia by private equity firm

Martin Scott

Virgin Australia creditors yesterday voted in favour of a $3.5 billion buyout by private equity firm Bain Capital after union leaders urged workers to back the deal.

While the sale will allegedly allow Virgin employees to receive the approximately $451 million owed to them, it will not result in the reinstatement of the 3,000 workers sacked last month, or guarantee the jobs of the remaining 6,000 Virgin staff.

Virgin CEO Paul Scurrah said yesterday that while further cuts were not planned in the short term, if there are “changes” to the federal government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy, “clearly our position on that will have to be reviewed. We cannot give any guarantees at this point in time.”

Virgin Australia Airbus A320 at Christmas Island International Airport [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

In other words, the airline’s remaining workers will keep their jobs for only as long as its owners continue to receive massive sums of public money. JobKeeper is being progressively wound back, beginning this month, meaning that Scurrah’s statements are a virtual guarantee of further mass sackings.

The Australian Federation of Airline Pilots (AFAP), which covers most Virgin pilots, called on workers to support the Bain deal, claiming that the only alternative was liquidation “which would mean millions in lost entitlements for thousands of employees.”

Despite the recent sacking of one third of Virgin’s crew, AFAP has not flagged any action beyond a nebulous vow to “focus on holding Bain and CEO Paul Scurrah to their commitments to grow the airline once the pandemic subsides.”

The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA), which represents 350 Virgin maintenance workers also urged its members to support the deal.

The ALAEA, along with the Transport Workers Union (TWU) previously objected to Bain’s plan to appoint former Qantas executive Jayne Hrdlicka in a leadership position. Hrdlicka ran low-cost Qantas affiliate Jetstar between 2012 and 2017, during which time the group slashed more than 5,000 jobs. In reality these “voluntary redundancies” were executed with the backing of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Services Union, which also helped the company impose an 18-month pay freeze on thousands of employees.

The TWU threw its support behind the deal after Bain promised to create a “union advisory council” at the resurrected Virgin. The body, which will comprise three union representatives, Bain, and Virgin CEO Paul Scurrah, will further entrench the unions as an arm of management.

Bain has a long history in the parasitic practice of “leveraged buyouts” in which cash-strapped companies are bought up, huge management fees are accrued, assets are stripped and workers are thrown on the scrapheap to prepare the company for quick resale.

The union advisory council will enforce this agenda. It will insist that workers continue to accept sackings and reduced conditions, in a never-ending regression based on a lie that this will “protect” some jobs.

TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine said he hoped to use the advisory council to influence the makeup of the Virgin board, flagging the union’s intention to subordinate unrest among workers to appeals to upper management.

In an August 25 statement, the TWU “welcome[d] the administrators creditors’ report on Virgin as another milestone for the airline.” The union made no criticism or demands of the company, instead laying the blame for the wave of job losses at Virgin and Qantas at the feet of the Liberal-National federal government.

The statement read: “We will hold the Federal Government to account over its failures on Virgin. It has provided little direction or assurances on the future despite the fact that tens of thousands of jobs are dependent on Virgin getting back up and running.”

In other words, the union is calling for a further transfer of public money into the coffers of big business based on the premise that Virgin is “too big to fail” and must be propped up.

Virgin has already claimed an estimated $156 million in wage subsidies from the falsely-titled JobKeeper scheme, despite sacking thousands of workers and compelling others to take their accrued leave during the pandemic. The company also shared in a $715 million federal relief package for the airline industry announced in March.

Prior to the announcement of “JobKeeper 2.0,” the administrators handling the Virgin sale warned the federal government that leading bidders had threatened to pull out if the wage subsidy was not extended beyond its original end date of September 27.

While airlines throughout the world have been severely impacted by COVID-19, the reality is that Virgin had been running at a loss for years before the pandemic. In August last year, Scurrah announced 750 jobs would be slashed after the airline recorded its seventh consecutive annual loss.

The devastation in the Australian aviation industry is not limited to Virgin. Despite receiving at least $515 million in government handouts and wage subsidies, Qantas last month announced that it would shed 2,050 ground-handling jobs—on top of 6,000 cuts issued in June—while its Jetstar will let go 370 workers.

The cuts follow strikes in December and January by Jetstar pilots and baggage handlers. The TWU and AFAP collaborated with management to minimise the impact of the industrial action, engaging in only rolling stoppages, and halting the strikes over the busy Christmas period.

In response to the latest cuts, the TWU has called for Qantas CEO Alan Joyce to “step down and let some civilised, moderate, responsible leadership take place at Qantas.” This characterisation of the assault on workers as the product of an individual CEO promotes the illusion that a change in management could provide fair conditions and stable employment for workers.

The reality is that the attack on jobs and conditions currently being carried out under the guise of the coronavirus pandemic is the inevitable result of businesses being operated solely to serve the profit interests of their shareholders.

Contrary to the claims of the unions, no change in management, “advisory council” or corporate bailout will protect jobs in aviation or any other industry. The establishment of the “advisory council” demonstrates that the unions are the direct agents of the most predatory and rapacious sections of finance capital.

The fight to defend jobs and conditions means a rebellion against these corporatised, anti-working class organisations. New organisations of struggle, including independent rank-and-file committees, must be established throughout the industry, to develop a genuine industrial and political counter-offensive, uniting all aviation employees and turning out to other sections of the working class facing similar corporate attacks.

The issue of an alternative political perspective is bluntly posed by the situation itself. The unending cuts to jobs and wages show that the defence of the most basic social rights is incompatible with the private ownership of the airlines. They must be placed under public ownership and democratic workers’ control. This means the fight for a workers’ government and for socialism.