California wildfires expose the wealth divide

Rafael Azul

The California Statewide Fire Summary reported Thursday that 26 major wildfires continue to burn across the state. Currently over 18,000 firefighters from California and elsewhere are battling those fires. Twenty-three new fires were detected Wednesday, all of which were quickly contained, according to Cal Fire. While the weather has tempered, Cal Fire has declared a new Fire Weather Watch for this weekend and next week.

Altogether in 2020 there have been eight thousand fires which have burned over 3.6 million acres in California. The number of wildfires massively escalated on August 15, following thunderstorms, high temperatures and high winds. Since then there have been 26 deaths and 6,700 structures destroyed, including homes and apartments.

In Northern California the weather is now cooler and rain is expected in the northwest corner of the state. Despite this a Fire Weather Watch has been declared for this weekend across the area in expectation of high winds and low humidity, which are critical fire weather conditions. Compounding this danger, a warming trend has been forecast for this weekend and next week across the state.

Included in the latest Cal Fire report is the following warning: “A Fire Weather Watch most often precipitates a Red Flag Warning and tells you that critical fire weather is on the way.”

While the destruction this year exceeds previous records the 2020 fire season is expected to last several more weeks, until the rainy season that generally begins in November.

Many Californians now face an uncertain and desperate future. Thousands of homeowners who can no longer afford wildfire insurance risk losing everything—the 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons provoked massive increases in fire insurance rates—while others have been flat-out denied coverage.

Renters, even those with insurance, face even more dire prospects; from one day to the next many have become homeless under conditions in which the state has a very low housing vacancy rate. While cities across the state have declared moratoriums on evictions, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the destruction of homes automatically cancels lease agreements.

Even tenants of damaged homes are often required to move out while repairs are taking place. Many of those affected are the elderly, pushed out of cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles by prohibitive housing costs. When the fires are finally put out, many of these residents will have to begin over again with meager resources and no significant help from state and federal agencies.

For those households that have not yet suffered direct damage to their homes, planned and unplanned electricity blackouts and brownouts add another burden to their health and living standards.

State fire fighters, currently working an average of 72 hours per week with no days off, and whose pay was cut in July as part of Governor Newsom’s COVID-19 austerity measures, have to deal with a lack of sufficient manpower and essential equipment, such as fire trucks, planes and helicopters. California has appealed for, and received, help from firefighters from Australia, Mexico, Texas, New Mexico and other states.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, “The 50,000-acre CZU Lightning Complex fires raging through Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, Cal Fire had a firefighter for every 49 acres and engine for every 610 acres… the 219,067-acre LNU Lightning Complex in the North Bay, Cal Fire had a firefighter for every 207 acres and engine for every 2,148 acres. And for the even more massive 229,968-acre SCU Lightning Complex, Cal Fire had a firefighter for every 206 acres and engine for every 2,277 acres.”

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who recently witnessed the exhaustion of the fire crews, remarked, “I was down there in Santa Clara yesterday meeting with some San Jose firefighters that looked completely wiped, saying we need more support. They were simply overwhelmed by what they saw.”

This is nothing but crocodile tears. Newsom is as responsible for the utter inadequacy of resources as the rest of the political establishment in Sacramento for consistent cuts to budgets for social programs and fire prevention.

None of these issues are a cause for concern for wealthy homeowners that live in exclusive suburbs and exurbs.

Last October it was revealed that millionaire socialite Kim Kardashian had hired a private firefighting service to protect her mansion in Hidden Hills, California. The Kardashians and other wealthy landowners are increasingly taking similar measures. These companies offer “on-call services” to the well-heeled. Their use has increased as the number and intensity of fires goes up, in areas such as the wealthy areas of suburban Los Angeles and among the mansion owners in the wine-producing region of Northern California.

The wealthy can hire one of the more than 330 and growing private firefighting crews that operate across the US. The companies, which work both to fireproof mansions and to protect them when the fires break out, also offer their services to governments and insurance agencies, part of the elite insurance packages afforded by the wealthy elites.

One company operator told Reuters: “Wealthy people already have their private schools, and they have their private jets. Now, someone with money says, ‘OK, I am going to hire my own private fire department.’”

The wealthy are responding to electricity supply problems by installing their own generators, “going off the grid.”

Just as with the coronavirus pandemic, the wildfires are feeding into the anger of workers, youth and poor people that promises a mass rebellion against inequality and capitalism. While hundreds of homes burn to the ground and essential services are cut, California’s oligarchs save their homes and preserve their “quality of life.”

The 2020 West Coast wildfires confirm what is being exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and by natural and man-caused disasters across the globe: the failure of capitalism and the breakdown of whatever remains of social safety nets for the working class.

Germany’s IG Metall trade union establishes fund to eliminate “overcapacity” in auto parts industry

Dietmar Gaisenkersting

The IG Metall trade union established its own private equity fund earlier this summer to finance the restructuring of Germany’s auto industry. The fund, named “Best Owner Group” (BOG), is headed by the former head of the Federal Work Agency, Frank-Jürgen Weise, and Bernd Bohr, who previously headed the vehicle division at Bosch.

For the start-up capital, IG Metall invested “a few hundred thousand euros of union funds” with the IG Mining, Chemical and Energy (IGBCE) union. Weise and Bohr are now seeking further investments from wealth managers, private investors and hedge funds, as well as from “foundations, producers, business families and the government,” according to a report from IG Metall.

Bosch workers demonstrate against job cuts on March 13, 2019 in Stuttgart

The trade union has set an initial goal of acquiring €500 million. Last week Manager Magazin reported that, in addition, this capital will be leveraged to acquire “a portfolio with a turnover of between €5 billion and €7 billion.”

The BOG is supposed to partially or fully take control of parts suppliers threatened with bankruptcy. On the one hand, this will ensure the maintenance of the automakers’ supply chains, while on the other facilitating the elimination of “overcapacity” or the shutdown of entire businesses.

The BOG fund, in its own words, is “striving” for a “regulated downsizing process for the portfolio companies.” According to IG Metall, a parts supplier that “due to its portfolio will inevitably have to reduce its size in the future and where alternatives such as further training within the company cannot be realised, can be taken over and actively managed until the expiration of the products that are not to be renewed.”

The fund will also be able to issue loans to provide companies with capital at reasonable rates, Tagesspiegel reported following discussions with IG Metall leader Jörg Hofmann.

If a company is successfully restructured, i.e., a large portion of the workers are laid off, it will be sold off for a profit. Manager Magazin wrote approvingly, “The long-term rate of return sounds decent considering the modesty of the portfolio: around 5 percent, according to one participant.” The trade union writes on its website, “This operation turns a profit, because many overheads, development costs and new investments are eliminated.”

To date, IG Metall and its works councillors served as co-managers, helping to draft plans for restructuring and layoffs, and imposing them on the workers. Now they are going a step further and dismantling companies independently. Manager Magazin therefore humorously titled its report on the fund “The good vultures of IG Metall.”

The trade union will now be independently finalising all of the meagre social supports, transfer and training companies, part-time working for elderly employees, “voluntary” redundancies, and all the other techniques used to force workers out of a job.

BMW, one of Germany’s largest automakers, has already welcomed “the fund’s basic idea.” Stock purchasers from the company are already “in contact” with the BOG, BMW reported.

With the founding of its own equity fund, IG Metall is preparing for a jobs massacre in Germany, the likes of which has not been seen since World War II. Automakers and their suppliers are ruthlessly exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to put long-prepared restructuring plans into practice.

Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk. Hardly a day passes without an automaker or parts supplier announcing new job cuts. Further announcements were made over the past week.

Opel, for example, which has already said it will cut 2,100 jobs by the end of next year, threatened to impose involuntary redundancies. The works council and IG Metall had originally agreed for the plan to be implemented by means of a “voluntary” programme. But after only about 500 workers “voluntarily” registered for the programme, the company has vowed to impose the job cuts regardless. Anyone who refuses to go “voluntarily” will be thrown out. The main location impacted is the headquarters in Rüsselsheim.

Mahle has already cut 400 jobs in Stuttgart and 770 in Luxembourg. One French and two Italian plants are currently being shuttered, axing 700 jobs.

The Stuttgart-based parts supplier has now announced a plan to lay off 7,600 workers worldwide, including 2,000 in Germany. This equates to almost one in six jobs in Germany, and more than 10 percent of the global workforce of 72,000. Mahle spokesman Ruben Danisch explicitly admitted, “The coronavirus pandemic is not the cause of the measures now announced, but it has certainly acted as an accelerant.”

Mahle is only one of many parts suppliers that have seized on the pandemic to cut jobs. All major automakers have announced the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, including the truck and bus manufacturer MAN. Within the framework of the “company’s new orientation,” the VW subsidiary intends to lay off 9,500 of its 36,000 workers worldwide. Major parts suppliers like Continental (30,000 jobs), ZF Friedrichshafen (15,000 jobs), Bosch and Schaeffler have announced a wave of job cuts.

Many announcements of job losses at small and mid-sized companies are not reported beyond the local media, even though this is where the bloodletting is at its worst.

In June, for example, parts supplier Hella announced the loss of 900 jobs at its headquarters in Lippstadt. In mid-August, motor manufacturer Deutz announced the layoff of 1,000 workers, which amounts to 20 percent of its global workforce of 5,000. Eisenmann, a manufacturer of automotive textiles based in Böblingen, is to close entirely. The 650 workers will be unemployed as of December.

A wave of bankruptcies and job cuts is anticipated among small and medium-sized companies this autumn. “Over 80,000 workers at 270 companies are at a high or acute risk of bankruptcy. And these figures continue to rise,” Hofmann told the Tagesspiegel in June.

IG Metall officials and works councillors are already ensuring that these layoffs take place without any opposition. They typically organise several toothless protests, which are always kept small and isolated.

Last week, more than 300 employees at the parts supplier Norma protested against job cuts in Maintal with a motorcade. In June, the company announced the “liquidation” of the Gerbershausen plant in Thuringia with the loss of 160 jobs, the loss of 250 out of 520 jobs at the Maintal plant, and the cutting of monthly wages by up to €1,000. IG Metall is also demanding a social collective agreement and a “future concept,” meaning it has already accepted the layoffs.

Italian regional elections: Political elite shifts further right

Peter Schwarz

Elections for the presidents and parliaments in six of Italy’s 18 regions were held on Sunday and Monday. The first election since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic was seen as a test for the government in Rome, a coalition of the Five Star Movement (M5S), Democratic Party (PD), and several smaller parties under the leadership of non-aligned Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

The media’s main focus was on Tuscany, which has been governed by the PD and its predecessors for 50 years. The Lega, led by Matteo Salvini, ran the 33-year-old Susanna Ceccardi, a young star in the far-right party, and there was a great deal of speculation that she could win the election. This turned out to be mistaken. The PD’s candidate, Eugenio Giani, finished with 48.6 percent of the vote, well ahead of Ceccardi, who received 40.5 percent.

Conte and the PD therefore celebrated the election victory as a confirmation of their government and pledged to decisively pursue the policies of “reforms.” The result was also observed with relief in Brussels. The Conte government is firmly committed to the European Union and has pledged to use the EU’s coronavirus bailout package, a large portion of which will flow to Italy, to fundamentally restructure the country’s economy. “Reform” is a euphemism for social spending cuts, public sector layoffs, tax cuts for the rich, and further attacks on the working class.

A closer look at the election results produces a totally different picture to the one painted by Brussels and Rome. Mounting anger and outrage among the population, which can find no outlet in the existing political channels, coincides with a sharp shift of the ruling elite even further to the right.

Of the six regions where regional presidents were elected, the right-wing won four, three of which they had previously held. They therefore hold power in 13 out of 18 regions, compared to just three four years ago.

It is noteworthy that a landslide victory by a right-wing extremist candidate in Marche, a region between Tuscany and the Adriatic, was hardly noticed by the European media, never mind treated as an alarming development.

Francesco Acquaroli, the candidate of a right-wing alliance including the Lega, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the Fratelli d’Italia, won the election for the regional president by a wide margin with 49 percent of the vote. The region was previously governed by the centre-left parties.

Acquaroli is a member of the Fratelli d’Italia (FDI), a right-wing extremist party packed with fascists, neo-Nazis and members of the Identitarian Movement. He is an admirer of Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy as a fascist dictator for 21 years. Last year, he took part in an official dinner to commemorate the “March on Rome” organised by the FDI’s provincial secretary. Mussolini’s “March on Rome” in October 1922 marked the beginning of the fascist dictatorship.

Georgia Meloni, the 43-year-old leader of the FDI, is increasingly emerging as a challenger on the far-right to Lega leader Salvini. He has been weakened politically ever since his decision in the summer of 2019 to leave the governing coalition with M5S in hopes of emerging strengthened from early elections. But instead of agreeing to new elections, M5S reached a coalition deal with the Democrats.

Meloni is an ultra-right figure, agitates against immigrants and financial speculators (above all those of Jewish origin, like George Soros), is a professed supporter of “god, fatherland, and family,” opposes abortion and LGBT rights, and invokes a national identity. Her declared goal is a strong, authoritarian state where security has priority over freedom, an “illiberal democracy” on the Hungarian model.

Meloni began her political career as a 15-year-old in a right-wing youth group and was Youth Minister in Berlusconi’s government in 2008. She is firmly integrated into the political establishment, which has no problem with her fascist ideas. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which cooperates at the European level with the German governing Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union, stood joint lists of candidates in the regional elections with the Lega and Fratelli d’Italia.

Berlusconi, who was Italian Prime Minister four times between 1994 and 2011, continues to play only a minor role. The 84-year-old was in hospital with coronavirus and Forza Italia crawled to 6 percent in the polls. His most important service has been to assist in the rise and building the reputations of the fascists, which he has done since forming a coalition for the first time with the Mussolini-successor party MSI in 1994.

The Fratelli d’Italia stands in this fascist tradition. In contrast to the Lega, which emerged out of the separatist regional party Lega Nord and continues to contain strong regionalist tendencies, it advocates a strong national state.

The Lega continues to have a strong presence in the north. In Venetia, regional president Luca Zaia defended his post with a record 76.8 percent share of the vote. He is seen as a strong internal rival to Salvini and is backed by sections of big business, including the Benetton concern. His election victory was in large part thanks to the fact that through the introduction of red zones, widespread testing and contact tracing he was able to contain the pandemic relatively quickly and prevent a catastrophe like in neighbouring Lombardy.

The major loser in the regional elections was M5S. In March 2018, it emerged from the parliamentary elections as the strongest party, with almost one-third of the votes. This time around, the party managed to achieve double-digit totals in two of the six regions, and even there it suffered heavy losses. In Apulia, for example, Five Star received 11 percent, compared to 45 percent at the parliamentary elections.

The rise of the Five Star Movement was closely bound up with popular anger towards the established parties, which, regardless if they were right or left, took turns in government and always enforced attacks on the working class. The comedian Beppe Grillo, the party’s founder, appeared in market squares to denounce and curse the political establishment. Although Five Star’s programme was eclectic, it was in essence right-wing. They did not call capitalism into question but instead demanded a downsizing of the state, which ultimately meant massive social spending cuts.

They had barely won the election when the right-wing character of M5S was made clear. They formed a coalition with Salvini’s Lega, which took over the Interior Minister and played a dominant role in the government. The brutality with which the government treated refugees, its refusal to allow overcrowded ships to land, and its acceptance of the drowning of thousands in the Mediterranean, permanently discredited the Five Star Movement.

They are now celebrating as a major victory the fact that 70 percent of the voters supported a proposal in a referendum held simultaneously to reduce the size of parliament. Only 600 deputies will sit in Italy’s two parliamentary chambers, compared to the current 945, and pay for deputies will be cut.

During the 2018 parliamentary election, Five Star promised to reduce “waste and the cost of politics,” and it campaigned in favour of the referendum. The vote in their favour by over two-thirds expresses the widespread distrust of establishment politics. “The vote for a reduction in the size of parliament is a no-confidence vote against the country’s politicians, with whom the Italians have been fed up for years,” wrote German daily Die Welt.

But this distrust no longer identifies with M5S, as shown by its election results. In addition, a reduction in the size of parliament will do nothing to change the government’s reactionary policies. It is instead likely to contribute to the strengthening of the powers of the executive and thus a step in the direction of an authoritarian state.

Italy resembles a social powder keg. Over 300,000 people have been infected with coronavirus due to the government’s irresponsible policies, and 36,000 have died. Unemployment is at 10 percent, the third highest rate in Europe. Young people in particular cannot find work. The economy is in freefall. Bitter class struggles are inevitable. But they require a political perspective and orientation, without which the rotten social conditions will lead to a rise of fascism.

Neither Fratelli d’Italia or the Lega yet represents a fascist mass movement. But they pose a genuine threat. Only an independent movement of the working class, fighting to put an end to capitalism and for a socialist programme, can stop this danger.

Spanish pseudo-left covers for union complicity in back-to-school drive

Alice Summers

With opposition mounting to the Spanish government’s back-to-school drive, the pseudo-left Morenoite group Workers Revolutionary Current (CRT), the sister party of the Argentine Socialist Workers Party (PTS), is seeking to cover for the unions’ complicity in the homicidal reopening of schools. The CRT, and its daily publication Izquierda Diario, is refusing to oppose the return to classrooms, aiming instead to divert opposition to it into impotent channels.

There is an enormous resistance in the working class to the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government’s reopening of schools, as coronavirus cases continue to soar. Within barely two weeks of children returning to classrooms, already over 700 COVID-19 incidents have been reported in Spain’s schools, with numerous education centres having to partially or completely close their doors. Tens of thousands of new infections are being reported every day, with daily death tolls averaging around 100—and rising.

According to the latest report from the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network of Instituto Carlos III, the number of children below age 15 infected rose to nearly 8,000 (14 percent of the registered positive cases) in the week from September 7 to 14, coinciding with the back to school campaign.

Numerous educators’ strikes have already broken out in Spain in opposition to a return to classrooms under these manifestly unsafe conditions. But these strikes have been isolated by the trade unions, which have limited industrial action to one-day or short-duration protests and limiting them to only some of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions.

In this context, the CRT has issued a number of statements on the return to school, including, most prominently, one titled “Starting the academic year with strikes: Prepare a plan of action among workers, families and students.” Despite its radical-sounding rhetoric, the statement provides everything but a program of struggle for the working class, combining “left” demagogy with tacit support for reopening schools and attempts to tie workers to the reactionary union bureaucracy.

While the statement makes certain tactical criticisms about the lack of safety measures in education centres, describing conditions in schools as “precarious and unacceptable,” these amount to no more than window dressing for the CRT’s support for the reopening. The danger to teachers and students cannot be alleviated by arguing over the details of the reopening protocols, but by opposing the Spanish government’s back-to-school campaign itself. The CRT is hostile to this perspective.

“In-person [teaching] in hygienic and sanitary conditions,” the CRT statement declares, “and with appropriate working practices which respect student ratios and safe distances, cannot be guaranteed in the current conditions of precariousness and lack of investment.”

While acknowledging that the safety of teachers and students “cannot be guaranteed,” with large numbers of infections already being reported in education centres, the CRT does not call for schools to be closed as a matter of urgency.

Instead, the statement makes vaguely worded references to teachers’ strikes being the “starting point” of a “new series of mobilisations” which would, at some unspecified point in the future, provide “urgent educational measures in the face of the pandemic” and “question 40 years of neo-liberal policies.” This will do nothing to prevent the infections and deaths taking place in the present day, as the virus rampages through Spanish schools and neighbourhoods.

In fact, the unions are doing everything possible to prevent the outbreak of further “mobilisations” and to contain and dissipate workers’ opposition. While the CRT refers to some of the strike calls made by unions such as the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), General Union of Labour (UGT) and Workers Commissions (CC.OO), it makes little criticism of the token character of this industrial action. In fact, the strike called in Madrid by the CGT, CCOO, UGT and the Madrid Union of Education Workers (STEM) for September 22–23 is already a climb-down from an earlier call for four days of industrial action at the start of the month.

Fearful that working-class resistance could develop outside the unions, with the treachery of these organisations plain to see, the CRT proposes the formation of “assemblies of teachers, non-teaching staff, students and precarious and unemployed parents, in order to consider and pursue a whole series of educational, but also (and especially), social concessions, which go much further than the immediate educational and health measures.”

“If we commit to developing the mobilisation and the widest self-organisation,” the CRT statement declares, “we will succeed in breaking and overcoming the short-haul union logic of these bureaucracies. … We must think about revolutionising the methods of organisation and break with the divisions which the union bureaucracies have imposed.”

But while the Morenoites variously refer to the main unions as “bureaucratic” or as imposing “divisions,” they issue no call for a break from these organisations themselves. In fact, they make ludicrous appeals for support not just from the unions, but from parties across the political spectrum: “it is critical that all the political, social and union organisations support them [the mobilisations].”

This is veiled reference to their repeated attempts to form a front with parties with ties to the capitalist state and the current PSOE-Podemos government, like the pseudo-left Anticapitalistas and Catalan and Basque nationalist organizations.

‘Self-organisation” or “assemblies” which do not base themselves on a complete and unequivocal break with the unions, Podemos and their satellites, like the CRT itself, would be no more than adjuncts of the trade unions, organically hostile to the working class.

Concluding their statement, the CRT tries to promote the supposedly more radical unions like the CGT. Izquierda Diario advises the CGT to “position themselves as an alternative to the adaptation of the large union apparatuses.” To do so, the statement counsels, the CGT must “put forward a bold policy that unites social discontent and leads to questioning not only the insufficient measures taken during the pandemic, but to a break with neo-liberal and capitalist politics in their full extent.”

The Morenoites’ only concern is to ensure that the deep-seated opposition in the working class does not escape the confines of the union bureaucracies, hoping to tie workers to the CGT union, which is an integral part of the unions’ campaign to defuse mounting working-class opposition.

The CGT has long worked to strangle opposition from workers disenchanted with larger unions. When they are the majority union, as among bus and metro workers in Barcelona, they are however just as quick to sell out strikes as the pro-PSOE UGT and pro-Podemos CCOO.

The CGT has done everything in its power to prevent a broader outbreak of opposition to the homicidal back-to-work and back-to-school plans. It has joined with the UGT, CCOO and other unions in calling for token one- or two-day strikes.

The way forward for education workers in Spain lies not in appeals to the CGT bureaucracy or to any other faction of the political establishment. The WSWS and the International Committee of the Fourth International have called upon teachers, parents and other workers to form rank-and-file committees, independent of the trade unions, and prepare an international general strike against the homicidal policy of in-person school reopening carried out to boost capitalist profits.

Report demolishes government claims that reopening UK schools reflects concern for disadvantaged children

Margot Miller

Since the reckless reopening of the UK economy from the beginning of July and all schools at the beginning of September, the number of coronavirus cases has escalated out of control.

Weekly figures show a doubling of new infections, directly related to the premature lifting of lockdown before the virus was sufficiently suppressed and adequate public health measures put in place.

As early as May, Boris Johnson’s Conservative government—backed by the Labour Party and the unions—insisted schools be reopened so parents could return to work. Health Secretary Gavin Williamson dismissed the safety concerns and opposition of parents, educators and doctors as “scaremongering,” claiming the government had the best interests of children at heart.

Such nonsense is belied by a damning report by the Social Mobility Commission (SMC), “The Long Shadow of Deprivation: Differences in Opportunity across England.” The SMC is an advisory public body sponsored by the Department of Education. Its remit is to monitor and encourage ways to achieve social mobility in the UK.

Published as schools began reopening their gates, its findings confirm what has long been known—that inequality in educational outcomes is directly related to economic deprivation, over which successive governments have presided. The inequality persists and widens post-education, with children from poorer backgrounds in general earning less than their peers with the same educational qualifications.

Williamson said, “We recognise that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are the ones that are going to suffer the most if we do not bring schools back when we are able to do so.”

The recent A-level assessment scandal, which forced the government into a U-turn with an apology, exposed this hogwash. The exams were cancelled due to the pandemic, and rather than base this year’s grades on teacher assessments, an algorithm was used which favoured children from better off areas. Almost 40 percent of pupils’ grades were downgraded, revealing that the awards were based on social class, not merit. Pupils attending private schools saw their grades rise.

The education of poorer children is of as little concern for the Johnson government as the health of the working class. And neither was it for the last Labour government led by Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown.

Since the 2008 banking crash, education and social welfare suffered draconian cuts to shore up the profits of the mega-rich. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, total spending per pupil in England fell by 8 percent in real terms in 2009–10 and 2019–20. The number of children living in relative poverty has soared by 600,000 since 2012, according to the SMC, which projects an “increase to 5.2 million by 2022.” Black children and children from ethnic minorities are among the most deprived.

The data collected for the SMC report related to young men attending state schools, born in the period 1986–1988, with a view to examining trends in earnings by age 28, in 2014–2016. Young men were the chosen cohort because women would have gaps in employment due to maternity leave.

The report notes “sons from affluent families still typically achieve higher GCSE [secondary school exam] results than sons from deprived families … [they] perform significantly better than those from the most deprived families, scoring on average 41 percentiles higher in the age 16 (GCSE) test score distribution.”

The study found variations between different local authorities. In Manchester the difference in educational outcomes was found to be 37 percentiles, compared with 48 in nearby Trafford.

Local authorities with the largest gaps in educational outcomes between rich and poor sons were found to have a difference of over 50 percentiles in the GCSE exams. The gap was twice that in authorities with the smallest gaps.

Explaining these variations in the general trend the report cites, “Local authorities with large educational inequalities tend to have greater school segregation in terms of both achievement and socio-economic status. … They are also more likely to have grammar schools [selective with an entrance exam passed with the aid of private tuition]. Seven of the 10 local authorities with the largest education gaps have grammar schools.”

As its name suggests, the SMC is more concerned with how educational achievement impacts on job prospects, earnings and social mobility. The section of the report, “Education, Education, Education?”—referencing the mantra of the Blair Labour government—examines data comparing the earnings of the sons from affluent parents with those with the same qualifications from deprived backgrounds.

Education was promoted by Blair and Brown as a way out of poverty and the key to social mobility. But under them, the previous Conservative government’s regime of rigorous testing in primary schools continued, along with the proscriptive National Curriculum and privatisation of education continued. It was the Blair government that launched Academy schools (publicly funded, privately run) in the inner cities in 2000, supposedly to drive up standards and replace failing schools.

New Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer is repackaging Blair’s mantra with the slogan “Close the gap”—calling on the Johnson government to guarantee no child will be left behind due to COVID-19. Studies show the attainment gap has widened since the pandemic.

The report deliberately doesn’t use the word class, but its findings show that class differences persist when children enter the jobs market. The report’s key findings highlight, “Where you grow up matters—social mobility in England is a postcode lottery, with large differences across areas in both the adult pay of disadvantaged sons and the size of the pay gap for sons from deprived families, relative to those from affluent families.”

In areas with the highest social mobility, 28-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds earned twice as much (over £20,000 more) as their disadvantaged counterparts in areas with the lowest social mobility. In parts of London and more affluent areas, pay inequalities between children from affluent and poorer backgrounds—with the same educational qualifications—almost disappear, according to the report. Areas with the lowest social mobility had the largest pay gaps, 2.5 times bigger, between the children from affluent parents and those from poor families than areas of high social mobility—when comparing those with comparable qualifications.

Areas with low social mobility—the report singles out Bolton, Bradford, Chiltern, Hyndburn and Thanet—“typically have fewer professional and managerial occupations, fewer ‘Outstanding’ schools, more areas of deprivation.”

Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Knowsley, Kingston upon Hull and Manchester were the local authorities with the highest proportions of neighbourhoods classed as the most deprived in England. Of the Local Authorities in the study, one in six were found to have low pay for sons from poor families as well as large pay differentials between those from affluent and deprived backgrounds equally qualified.

The report offers the following explanation: “State schools in deprived areas may have fewer resources to spend on enrichment and career development activities for their pupils, leaving them relatively ill equipped to enter the labour market. Sons from deprived backgrounds may lack the financial capital available to more affluent sons to explore various job opportunities in the early stage of their career … [with] parental financial backing [allowing them] to pursue unpaid or low-paid internships. Higher costs may also deter people from less advantaged backgrounds from moving to seek good opportunities elsewhere.”

Also, sons from richer families will have “better social networks.”

The report offers no solution to the inequality it exposes, except a vain plea for the Tories to “consider what support can be targeted on these local authorities to improve overall social mobility outcomes.”

Brown University study used to downplay spread of coronavirus in US schools

Bryan Dyne

A new database announced by Brown University and software company Qualtrics is being used to claim that the danger from the coronavirus pandemic in reopened schools is minimal, and that in-person learning should be resumed more fully across the United States.

One of the first articles commenting on the database, known as the National COVID-19 School Response Dashboard, was in the Washington Post. In an article titled “Scant evidence that the pathogen is spreading inside buildings,” it uses the data presented to claim that there are “low levels of infection among students and teachers.”

A para-professional wears a mask decorated with crayons on the first day of school, Monday, Sept. 21, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

The article continues, asserting that “health experts” suggest that “opening the schools may not have been as risky as many have feared.” Drawing from the database, it notes that “0.23 percent of students” and “0.49 percent” of teachers nationwide had a confirmed or suspected coronavirus case.

Similar arguments were made by the Hill , as well as the authors of the Brown study themselves. Emily Oster, an economics professor who helped create the database, noted, “These numbers will be, for some people, reassuring and suggest that school reopenings may be less risky than they expected.”

Translated into actual numbers and extrapolated to the teacher and student population across the country, the infection rate reported by the database corresponds to about 18,620 teachers and an estimated 115,000 students infected with the coronavirus. These cases and any subsequent deaths are the direct result of the reopening of schools amidst a raging pandemic, which has resulted in more than 7.1 million cases in the United States and killed more than 207,000 people.

It is worth pointing out that the total case numbers suggested by the Brown study are four to five times higher than other estimates of COVID-19 in schools. A different database, the COVID Monitor, counts as of this writing only 24,358 cases of the coronavirus among both staff and students. If anything, the data presented in the Brown study is an alarming indication that the data collected so far on school reopenings is inadequate for accurately tracking the virus and keeping it from infecting and killing more teachers and students.

It should not be forgotten that the number of students and teachers infected should ultimately be zero. The fact that a pandemic has so far killed at least 30 educators and is poised to kill many more should not be taken as an unavoidable loss of life. Yet both the Post and Hill articles, as well as the Brown study itself, treat the spread of the pandemic as a fact of life, and not a deadly threat that must be fought against at every turn.

Both data sets are based only on the current reopenings, which are centered in smaller communities. School reopenings in more populated areas such as New York City began this week and will continue through the first full week of October. Larger reopenings, combined with the advent of fall and flu season, are expected to result in even more infections.

The data are also based on only partially available national statistics. A recent article in the New York Times notes that only 14 states report coronavirus cases at the school-by-school or district-by-district level. Fourteen others present only the number of cases in schools at the county or state level, while 22 others do not report coronavirus cases in schools at all. They are lumped together with all cases in the state.

Of those 22 states, eight are run by Democrats, including California and Illinois and much of the US Northeast. In not reporting cases in schools, they are directly contributing to the continued spread of deadly conditions for both teachers and students. The logic of such actions is that virtually every teacher and student will get the disease at some point, with ultimately deadly consequences.

Such dangers are also present on college campuses. A preprint of the study “College Openings, Mobility, and the Incidence of COVID-19,” posted on medRxiv.com, notes that “Most US colleges have reopened campuses for in-person teaching this Fall,” and as a result, the “COVID-19 incidence in the county increased on average by a statistically significant 0.024 per thousand residents.” The study finds no increase of cases on campuses or in their respective counties where classes resumed online.

Overall, this increase translates into 3,219 additional cases of COVID-19 per day across the United States, about 7.5 percent of the current daily total. The authors of the study also note that they did not account for spillover into the larger community, meaning that the broader impact has not truly been captured.

There are many indications, however, that such a broader impact is being felt, or will be felt in the near future, by the cities and towns surrounding campuses. An article published last week in National Geographic noted that young people have become the primary spreader of the pandemic “not because of parties and bars,” but because they more often than not have jobs that can’t be done remotely, such as those who work in the service industry.

This is compounded by the ongoing economic crisis. Tens of millions lost their jobs during the pandemic, and at least half have not been able to get them back. For young people, as the article notes, this places them “in a lose-lose situation: If they can find employment, many feel compelled to take it even if it means putting themselves at risk.”

This is especially true now that the Democrats and Republicans have allowed the extra federal coronavirus aid to expire, on which many young people relied as a lifeline for months.

Many of these are college students, who must work in order to pay for tuition, room, board and school supplies. They thus encounter large numbers of people both on and off campus. As the National Geographic article noted: “So while younger generations are being blamed, in some quarters, for the pandemic’s spread, they are bearing the greatest burden of poverty and the brunt of the transmission risk that comes with keeping the economy going, all with little help in sight.”

Fed officials push for new corporate stimulus package

Nick Beams

Federal Reserve officials have launched what amounts to a full court press aimed at ensuring that Congress provides a further fiscal stimulus to corporations, as the COVID pandemic continues out of control and the limited revival of the US economy stalls.

While Fed representatives always couch their remarks in terms of giving assistance to the economy and even to workers, the fall in the stock market since the beginning of the month—the most significant downturn since the plunge in mid-March, when all financial markets froze—is the underlying concern.

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The push began on Tuesday, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. Powell repeated earlier calls for fiscal action, on top of the more than $3 trillion made available under the CARES Act.

He warned that while many economic indicators had shown an improvement, both employment and overall economic activity “remain well below their pre-pandemic levels, and the path ahead continues to be highly uncertain.”

Powell said the path forward would depend on “keeping the virus under control, and on policy actions taken at all levels of government”—a call for further stimulus measures.

Pointing to the measures taken by the Fed, which amount to an injection of around $3 trillion into the financial markets, he said they were designed to support the functioning of private markets, and stressed that the central bank had only lending, not spending, powers. While some borrowers would benefit from its programs, for others a loan that was difficult to repay might not be the answer, and in those cases “direct fiscal support may be needed.”

Together with the repetition of the commitment, at the start of his testimony, that the Fed would use all its tools “for as long as it takes,” these remarks temporarily halted the market slide, resulting in a slight upturn after a major fall on Monday.

But the downturn resumed on Wednesday, when the Dow fell more than 500 points, or 1.9 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 2.4 percent and the Nasdaq lost 3 percent. Since reaching record highs in August, the S&P and the Nasdaq have lost 9 percent and 12 percent respectively. There was a slight recovery on Thursday after a volatile session.

The market falls brought forward a series of comments by Fed officials on the need for government action, held up in Congress because of disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over the size and direction of any new measures.

In further testimony on Wednesday, Powell said economic recovery would move faster “if there is support coming both from Congress and the Fed. The power of fiscal policy is really unequalled by anything else.”

Others took up the same theme. In an interview with Bloomberg, Fed Vice-Chairman Richard Clarida claimed the economy had recovered “very robustly,” but added that “we’re still in a deep hole.”

In a speech, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said he was less optimistic than others about any recovery, because of both the continuation of the pandemic and the reduced prospects of further government spending.

“Additional support from fiscal policy, which I believe is very much needed, seems increasingly unlikely to materialize any time soon,” he said.

Chicago Fed President Charles Evans told reporters his projection for a fall in unemployment to 5.5 percent at the end of 2021 had been based on the assumption that there would be between $500 and $1 trillion in increased government spending, and that without that he expected higher joblessness and a slower recovery.

Atlanta Fed President Ralph Bostic was another to call for action. He told an Atlanta Chamber of Commerce virtual meeting he was “hopeful that policy makers in Washington as well as at the state level find creative ways to get that support out there.” Without it, he warned, there was a “significant chance” temporary dislocation “can become permanent.”

Cleveland Fed President Lorretta Mester said more government spending was very much needed because of the “deep hole” the economy was in.

But in the absence to this point of any movement from Congress for further bailouts, the comments by Fed officials on the need for more stimulus may be having a destabilising impact on Wall Street.

Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist for Prudential Financial, told the Financial Times: “When you hear that from the raft of Fed speakers, particularly from the top, it is of concern.” The emergence of a second wave of coronavirus infections could have devastating consequences for any recovery and for equity markets, she added.

Krishna Guha, vice-chairman of Evercore ISI, told the Financial Times that the Fed’s “increasingly shrill calls” for more fiscal action were “shaking confidence in the outlook, given the near-certainty that this additional fiscal support will not be forthcoming before January at the earliest.”

As the Fed calls for more government fiscal support, evidence has emerged on how its unprecedented intervention into financial markets, including the indirect and direct purchase of corporate bonds, is aiding major corporations at the expense of workers.

A report prepared by the House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus released on Wednesday found that the Fed had purchased bonds of corporations that have laid off more than 1 million workers, while paying out dividends to shareholders.

In a damning indictment of the Fed’s actions, the staff of the committee said: “Fed Chair Jerome Powell testified in June that ‘the intended beneficiaries of all of our programs are workers.’ However, the Select Committee’s analysis indicates that many large layoffs have occurred among the companies whose bonds were purchased by the Fed, suggesting that the primary beneficiaries of the program have been corporate executives, not workers.”

According to the report, 383 companies whose bonds were bought by the Fed had paid out dividends and 95 had carried out layoffs. Meanwhile, 227 of the companies had been accused of illegal activity sometime in the previous three years.

Confronted by the evidence gathered by the committee’s staff, the subcommittee chairman, Democrat Jim Clyburn, did his best to hold out some prospect for a reform of the Fed’s program.

“I believe that the terms of the Fed’s purchases of corporate bonds could have been improved so that benefits were equitably shared by workers as well as investors,” he said.

He got short shrift from Powell in his remarks in response to the report. Powell said the corporate bond-buying program had been designed to restore the functioning of private markets and had achieved that goal, as evidenced by the record amount of debt being issued in capital markets.

In its report, the Wall Street Journal said, “Powell implied that the program wouldn’t have achieved such an outcome if it had instead been conditioned on encouraging firms to borrow money in order to save jobs.”

Powell’s dismissive response underscores the fact that actions of the Fed and the Trump administration have never been about saving jobs. They have been directed entirely to maintaining corporate profits, via government bailouts, and providing free money to Wall Street, enabling speculators, investment houses and share traders to rake in money at the expense of workers.

Social distress mounts in the US as new weekly jobless claims rise to 870,000

Shannon Jones

For the twenty-seventh week straight first-time claims for unemployment benefits continued at historically unprecedented levels, with a seasonally adjusted 870,000 workers filing for benefits the week ending September 19. This number is up from 866,000 the week before, according to the US Labor Department. Another 630,000 filed under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program that provides assistance to the self-employed and other “gig economy” workers.

At the same time, continuing claims for unemployment assistance fell to 12.6 million for the week ending Sept. 12, a decrease of 167,000. This slight decline may reflect the fact that some workers are exhausting their unemployment benefits, which provide a maximum of 26 weeks, or even less, in most states. As of the beginning of September, another 11.5 million were claiming benefits through the pandemic assistance program.

Pedestrians wearing protective masks wait on line for food donations during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Corona neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

The large number of active unemployment claims, 24.1 million total, far surpasses anything seen in the Great Recession, which never exceeded a level of seven million. The current numbers understate the extent of the crisis as they do not reflect workers who are facing reduced hours or on furlough.

The largest weekly increases in new filings were in New York and Georgia. New claims in New York rose by over 9,000 last week and first-time filers in Georgia increased by more than 6,000. California alone had over 230,000 new filings, an increase of 4,400.

The number of jobs in the hospitality and leisure sector, which includes bars, restaurants, hotels and theaters, is still down 25 percent from pre-pandemic levels. New job openings are scarce, with 2.5 job seekers for every open position.

Despite the reopening of the economy pushed by President Donald Trump and enacted by Democratic and Republican governors, mass layoffs are continuing to hit workers throughout the country.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has made voluntary separation offers to more than 10,500 employees as it moves to slash administrative costs. Real estate company Brookfield Properties announced a 20 percent across-the-board staff reduction. Its retail arm employs 2,000 people.

Faced with major budget deficits, public school systems are carrying out staff reductions, including Baltimore City Public Schools, which has sent layoff notices to 450 and the Schenectady City Schools, which is cutting 60 positions. Colleges are also carrying out job cuts as they face major budget strains, including University of Akron, which is cutting 70 staff and San Francisco State, which is cutting 130 positions. Many community colleges have also announced cuts.

Responding to the latest jobless numbers, David Zhao, an economist with employment website glassdoor.com, noted in a statement Thursday, “Economic recovery propelled by sheer momentum can only go so far amid a pandemic.” He added, “This stagnation signals enormous ongoing churn underneath the labor market as layoffs continue.”

The continued high level of new unemployment claims speaks to enormous economic distress amidst the pandemic, with daily new infections remaining high and moving upwards. These numbers stand in contrast to the boasts of the Trump administration about an easing of the crisis, touting the decline in the official unemployment rate, which fell to 8.4 percent in August, more than double what it was in February.

In a cynical legislative charade, in which each party blames the other for failing to act, the Democrats and Republicans in Congress are blocking the extension of emergency funding to the unemployed. Further, the stopgap weekly payments of $300 funded by money diverted by the Trump administration from Federal Emergency Management Agency funds are due to run out this week.

The deliberate starving of the unemployed is a policy being carried out with the support of Democrats and Republicans to help enforce the homicidal return-to-work policy of the ruling class. This policy is dictated by Wall Street, whose overriding aim is to restart production in order to meet the profit demands of big business and the finance houses. The brutal idea is to create such economic hardship that workers will have no choice but to work under unsafe conditions as COVID-19 infection are being allowed to again surge upward with the reopening of schools, colleges and workplaces.

The cutoff of assistance to the unemployed stands in stark contrast to the financial bonanza reaped by US billionaires through the flooding of government money to prop up the markets, $3 trillion since March. The US Federal Reserve has now pledged to pour another $120 billion a month, $1.5 trillion a year, to purchase financial assets. However, even these massive amounts are not enough to satisfy the appetites of Wall Street, which is demanding even more.

Meanwhile, despite official homilies to entrepreneurship, small businesses are being allowed to go bankrupt by the thousands, having long run out of money from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), even if they were able to qualify after most money appropriated by Congress was gobbled up by big corporations.

The cutoff of the federal supplement is putting further pressure on renters and homeowners whose jobs have been impacted by the pandemic. According to the US Census Bureau, in August more than one in four renters said that they did not think they would be able to meet rent in September. Figures published by the Washington Post reveal the number of eviction filings surged in many cities, including Kansas City, Missouri; Richmond, Virginia; and Fort Worth, Texas.

While the US Centers for Disease Control issued its own eviction ban for certain properties on September 4 following the end of the federal ban, it only lasts to the end of the year. Meanwhile, Congress has not appropriated any additional funds for rent assistance, meaning millions will still face eviction without any possibility of payment in just three months.

NBC News cited an analysis by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who estimated that US households owe over $25 billion in back rent, which could surge to $70 billion by the end of the year.

The continuing demand on food banks, another sign of social distress, is straining capacity. Local news channel 19Now spoke with Melony Samuels, the director of the New York food bank Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger, who said that they were not prepared for a crisis of this length or depth. “Here we are six months now, devastated, still panicking and it seems to be just getting worse.” In April, the charity was providing 250,000 meals a week. It is now providing 315,000 meals a week.

According to Feeding America, between March and June four out of ten people visiting food banks had never used a food bank previously. The organization reports that more than 54 million in the US, including 18 million children, may face hunger this year. Already strained food banks faced an average 50 percent increase in demand nationwide since the start of the pandemic. According to a data analysis of US Census and Department of Agriculture figures, the proportion of children facing hunger is 14 times higher than it was last year.

Additional strains are being put on food resources by the ongoing wildfire disasters on the US West Coast and Hurricanes Sally and Laura that struck the Gulf Coast.

Dr. Megan Sandel, from the Boston University School of Medicine told the Intercept, “What I see every day from the pandemic is amazingly increased numbers of severely underweight children coming to our clinic, and parents really panicked about how they’re going to find enough food.”

There is no actual shortage of food in the US. In fact, 31 percent of food is thrown away at the retail and commercial level with a value of $161 billion, twice as much as the government spends on food assistance.

Student protests against herd immunity policy spread across Greece

Alex Lantier

Greek high school students marched Thursday in protests against the government’s herd immunity policy as occupations of high schools and strikes by doctors and transport workers spread across the country. This upsurge of social opposition comes as Athens hospitals, devastated by decades of European Union austerity, find themselves swamped with 580 COVID-19 victims as young as 17, including 70 intubated patients.

Amid a total blackout in the international media, students at hundreds of high schools and broad layers of workers are joining the struggle against the EU’s back-to-school campaign, led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ right-wing New Democracy (ND) government. The return to school has proceeded without opposition from the trade unions or the main bourgeois opposition party, the pro-austerity Syriza (“Coalition of the Radical Left”).

Doctors take part in a rally during a 24-hour nationwide strike by state hospital workers outside the health ministry in Athens, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Protests by high school students against the ND government’s guidelines for the return to school continue to accelerate. While on Monday dozens of high schools joined a movement to occupy the schools that began last week, by Tuesday 100 schools were occupied. Yesterday, Kathimerini reported that over 200 schools were occupied across Greece, mainly in the Attica region around Athens, Thessaloniki, Crete, Achaea and Magnesia.

Anger is mounting among workers and youth over the lack of social distancing and conditions, such as large class sizes in poorly ventilated classrooms, which ensure that the virus will spread. The main demands of the protesting students include limiting class sizes to 15 and hiring on the basis of permanent contracts the number of teachers necessary to reduce class sizes, along with additional cleaning staff.

Sections of workers are taking strike action in solidarity, while also demanding wage increases and contract revisions. On Thursday, a strike at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, shut down all traffic, including both merchant shipping and ferries, for 24 hours. From Monday to Wednesday, Olympic Air was forced by strike action to cancel 58 domestic flights between Athens and various Greek islands.

On Thursday, students, joined by teachers and parents, marched in Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece’s two largest cities, criticizing both herd immunity policies and the military buildup against Turkey being carried out by the Mitsotakis government, in alliance with France.

Protesting students in Athens spoke to Greece’s Press Project of how they would speak to Mitsotakis if he were present: “You tell us we are closing schools, but your policy has turned them into health bombs and is resulting in the closure of one after another due to COVID-19! You are telling us that we are right, but that we should sit at home to do you a favor and give up our rights. You have the audacity to tell us that you will satisfy our demands if we back down—while at the same time claiming that nothing can be solved, that we are asking for too much if we demand safe schools.”

Protesters also chanted slogans against moves to increase military service to 10 months starting at age 18, and the recent massive arms deal between Paris and Athens, which is aimed at Turkey.

The Coordination Committee of Athens Students, an umbrella organization overseeing student protests and school occupations in the Athens area, echoed this sentiment in a statement criticizing the militarist budget of the Mitsotakis government. The statement read: “The ND government says it will buy 16 Rafale warplanes from France this year at a cost of nearly €4 billion. Then we are told there is no money to hire teachers who are badly needed to reduce the number of students per classroom.”

Many students note that the €4 billion spent on French weapons to prepare a fratricidal war against Turkey would be enough to hire the 300,000 teachers needed to cut class sizes to 15.

The Greek Communist Youth (KNE), linked to the Stalinist Greek Communist Party (KKE), reported that some school principals and officials are trying to blockade occupied high schools and “slander protesters as ‘mask deniers,’” claiming that they deny the necessity of wearing masks for safety during the pandemic. The KNE said that students are simply making the point that masks will not be enough to halt the spread of the virus between students who spend long periods of time in the same classroom.

On Thursday, in addition to protests by students, Greek hospital doctors protested in Athens outside the Ministry of Health to demand more staff and a scientific approach to fighting the pandemic. “We are here because the government has not taken any actions to help the National Health System,” they told Greece’s Press Project. “We will not tolerate becoming a danger to our patients because of the intensification of workloads and our exhaustion. There must be an urgent mass recruitment of permanent staff in hospitals.”

The doctors emphasized their opposition to sackings of temp nursing staff, demanding that all health staff immediately and unconditionally receive permanent employment. They also called for the hiring of one doctor and four nurses for every new intensive care bed that is opened.

“We are here because the government, as at all previous times, whatever its policy, says that scientists suggest but they legislate,” doctors told Press Project. Pointing to the rising death toll from the resurgence of COVID-19 in Greece, they denounced “health protocols written to satisfy the requirements of the hotels and the tourist industry… We are seeing the result of a policy that subjugates science to the savage laws of the market.”

Greek officials made clear they intend to ignore the protests and continue EU herd immunity policies. Even with 342 cases and nine deaths on Thursday, Development and Investment Minister Adonis Georgiadis said there would be no lockdown to halt the spread of the virus. “The lockdown will not take place tomorrow or the day after,” he said. “We are fighting to avoid it. It is the last recourse. It is not the advisory committee on infectious disease that rules, but the government.”

Mitsotakis echoed the comments of Georgiadis in a televised appeal yesterday, demanding that the public wear masks. He said the choice was between “self-protection and lockdown.” He added that “lockdowns mean closed businesses and unemployment,” basing himself on plans for the billions of euros in bailout funding to go only to the banks and major corporations, rather than to workers and small businesses.

As for Syriza leader and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras, he said Syriza should not provide “any opportunities for the government and Mr. Mitsotakis to escape the difficult situation in which they have placed themselves and the country.”

In fact, Tsipras himself bears central political responsibility for the crisis now unfolding in Greece. Elected in 2015 based on pledges to end EU austerity, he betrayed these promises and implemented billions of euros in social cuts that devastated Greek hospitals, schools and other institutions now threatened by COVID-19. Syriza and its allies in the KKE and the Greek trade union bureaucracy are directly implicated in the current disaster.

The alternative for Greek youth and workers is a turn to the European and international working class. Explosive anger is building across Europe and beyond at the financial aristocracy’s herd immunity policy, and protests have already broken out in Madrid.

The political task facing the working class is to prepare general strike action across Europe against herd immunity policies, to take control of the resources necessary to fight the virus, and to bring down anti-working class governments across Europe as part of a common struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe.