Why Older Persons Matter Today?

K M Seethi

“No one should be alone in their old age,” Santiago, the protagonist in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea reflects in despair. Fisherman Santiago’s sorrows speak volumes about how loneliness is terrible, yet Hemingway sends the message that there are umpteen ways of coping with the sorrows of loneliness. The lesson in the novel is that no one can stave off loneliness that life may toss on, but one can always make the best of it, as the protagonist in the novel grapples with. That’s surely easier said than done. Battling loneliness and stigma has always been an excruciating agony of the elderly in actual life across countries. Needless to say, this is quite evident in the days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the ‘International Day of Older Persons’(IDOP) is observed on October 1 every year, the United Nations seeks to ensure that the special needs of the elderly people are taken care of by disseminating the key agenda set by the General Assembly way back in 1990 in line with the  ‘Vienna International Plan of Action on Ageing’ and the resolution of the World Assembly on Ageing. In fact, these two endeavours led to the dedicated day for the older persons. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out that as we observe the 30th anniversary of the IDOP, the whole world is absorbed in reckoning with “the disproportionate and severe impact” that the pandemic “has wrought on older persons around the world – not only on their health, but on their rights and well-being” (United Nations 2020a).

As the world body stated, IDOP 2020 will focus on the role of the health care workforce in contributing to the health of older persons, besides underscoring the role of women which is rather unappreciated and, in most cases, they are poorly rewarded. It is quite significant that this year’s observance will also foster the ‘Decade of Healthy Ageing’ (2020-2030) and “help bring together UN experts, civil society, government and the health professions to discuss the five strategic objectives of the Global Strategy and Action plan on Ageing and Health while noting the progress and challenges in their realization.” The international strategy is well integrated into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being of all at all ages” (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2015a).

Admittedly, there has been a drastic change in the very composition of the world population during the last few decades. During 1950-2020, there was a significant rise in the life expectancy worldwide (from 46 to 68 years). Studies say that there are more than 700 million persons aged 65 or over. In the next three decades, the number of elderly persons worldwide will be more than double, and all regions will witness a rise in the size of the older population. This will be seen mainly in the Global South countries. The largest increase will be recorded in Asia, particularly in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia. The fastest increase in the number of elderly is also expected in West Asia and Northern Africa. Among the Global South countries, less developed countries excluding the least developed countries will be home to more than two-thirds of the world’s older population by 2050.

Thus, it is quite natural that ageing and health has become a priority issue globally. The SDGs underlined that “no one will be left behind.” It seeks to ensure “healthy lives” and promote “well-being at all ages” (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2015a; 2015b; United Nations Development Programme 2017). Even though such proclamations remain a distant goal in the neoliberal era—with little hope of blanket promises to ‘social security’ and welfare measures—the state and non-state actors are expected to make commitments to the protection of vulnerable people such as elderly whose number has been increasing in low-and middle-income countries (Seethi 2020b).

Evidently, COVID-19 has already taken a heavy toll of fatalities from the older persons. It is for the first time that the people over 65 are more susceptible to risks and fatalities than they were any time in the past (CDC 2020; WHO 2020c). The pandemic of 1918-19—which killed more than 50 million people and caused more than 500 million (one-third of the world population) infections across the world—was not so fatal for the elderly. The worst victims were the adult population. However, COVID-19 has already set devastating health scenario for the elderly. This is quite evident from the  pattern of COVID-19 deaths in the United States, Spain, England, Italy, China, Brazil, Russia, India and other countries in Europe. There were also some alarming reports, in the early stage of the pandemic, that a section of hospitals in the West had discouraged older people approaching for medical care in the context of declining facilities such as ventilators (Seethi 2020a).

Organisations working for the well-being of older people reported that the COVID-19 has intensified the violence, abuse and neglect of older people around the world across the world (Age International 2020). These cases manifest in diverse ways, such as physical, psychological, verbal, financial and sexual abuse, besides neglect. Older women also remained at higher risks, and people with disabilities and those with support needs also suffer. There were further reports that economic stresses caused by the pandemic situation are intensifying the incidence of economic abuse of older people (Ibid).

The United Nations has admitted that the pandemic has triggered deep anxiety, fear and miseries for the ageing population in the world. As the virus has swept across countries in the Global South, the death rate for ageing population could mount even higher and there will be more and more cases of abuse, mistreatment, humiliation and discrimination (United Nations 2020b).  The UN noted that even before the onset of the pandemic, a significant section of the elderly people around the world were living in poverty and leading a life of social exclusion. In the background of the pandemic, the UN warned that the emerging situation “may significantly lower older persons’ incomes and living standards.” It also noted that the “downturn will most likely have a disproportionate impact on older women, given their limited access to income” (United Nations 2020b; ILO 2018). The world body also recorded that the spread of coronavirus in care homes etc has taken “a devastating toll on older people’s lives, with distressing reports indicating instances of neglect or mistreatment.” It pointed out that the older persons living in refugee camps, informal settlements and prisons “are particularly at risk, due to overcrowded conditions, limited access to health services, water and sanitation facilities, as well as potential challenges accessing humanitarian support and assistance” (United Nations 2020b).

During the current pandemic conditions, the older persons in many countries face age discrimination in the choices on health care, in deciding the urgency and priority of medical attention, and life-saving remedies. The deteriorating COVID-19 situation may also lead to a drop of critical services for other illnesses, further increasing risks to the lives of older persons. It is true that while the pandemic cases have grown in number even after months, overloaded hospitals and medical services contend with challenging decisions around the choices and use of facilities. According to WHO, the recovery from the pandemic is an occasion “to set the stage for a more inclusive, equitable and age-friendly society, anchored in human rights and guided by the shared promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to Leave No One Behind” (WHO 2020b).  However, it is a challenging task for nations and international organisations to provide the older people with the much-needed support to access their social security and other safety measures. No doubt, COVID-19 has vitally affected their life-world situations in a bewildering way. Even as the pandemic persists in recurrent stretches across countries, medical prognosis goes to the level of unsure conjectures if this dreadful coronavirus could be contained now or in the near future. In any case, the longer the bouts of infections, the harder for the elderly across the world. However, not many of them can live in contemplation, as Gabriel García Márquez wrote, that the secret of a good old age is simply an honourable pact with solitude!

Machines Are Not Bodies

Anandi Sharan

Machines are not bodies. A body knows how it feels, a machine does not. The goal and purpose of life for humans and other living beings is to create and contribute to the peace and harmony in our environment so that we can be in touch with the feelings in our bodies and in those around us. To be happy and healthy we need a pollution free environment.

Living beings are being analysed to death in anatomy classes, dissected when alive, subjected to cruelty in the name of science, destroyed by earthmovers and by radiation generated as a fall out from providing mobile communication. Researchers, the employees, the wage slaves, the greedy directors and the greedier shareholders and owners of legal persons have lost the ability to worship their own bodies and those of other living things. Instead they consider bodies nothing but servants to their greed, to be fixed if there is a problem by surgeons and dispensers of pharmaceutical products.

What is worship? It is nothing more complicated than being at peace and in harmony with our surroundings and marveling at the sheer beauty of living and non-living beings. Together the living and non-living beings create the super-organism known as the biosphere. And the biosphere runs on love. The biosphere is composed of billions of living bodies that send feelings to their brains and make decisions on how to live the next moment of their lives based on such feedback. Noise pollution but also of course pollution of food and water sources interferes with our ability to listen to our bodies and respond intelligently to the feelings that our bodies create.

How could the ability of humans to create words and concepts, which in and of itself is not wrong, become such a runaway disaster that writers and apologists for capitalism routinely liken living bodies to machines?

Just because a man-made object can be understood because it is man made, they think an object running on nature’s love can also be understood. But living beings and the systems that connect them are their own unique form of things that clubbed together are called life. Mankind may have launched a digital revolution thanks to figuring out the mathematics of sending signals with electricity, but this revolution not only does nothing to enhance either the purpose or beauty of living and non-living bodies and their interactions, it is actually making the world a dying hell on earth.

Living bodies are beautiful because we can never understand them, we can only observe them and listen to them. A person knows they have grown up when they have the ability not only to have a huge range of pleasurable feelings but to stop them when they have to. The body sends signals that the mind need not follow blindly. The delight that a human being experiences in such a moment when they realise they have grown up, is beyond the capacities of machines. There is no such thing as “artificial intelligence”. AI is an ideology constructed by capitalism in order to make humans addicted to machines. The biosphere, ecosystems, and living beings in interaction with non-living beings, are intelligent because nature has evolved over around half a billion years to relish its own growth, its own evolution and the interdependence of its billions of parts. Each part is both independent and connected. Each living body is both conscious of itself and of those around it. Every living being and non-living being needs to be some part of the greater whole for its continuance and for its own purpose as nature only knows.

When we are one such creature we know because our body is designed for that knowledge. Judges who are hungry make less humane decisions than judges after lunch. (Ref 1 . I don’t agree with the title of the research paper, but here is the link to the research). The paper provides evidence that there is truth in an old saying that justice is “what the judge ate for breakfast” It is as simple as that. When you are happy you want others to be happy. If there is noise the noise pollution interferes with your ability to be happy or to react to feelings in your body to keep yourself, let alone others, healthy and happy.

Also, consciousness is not a uniquely human thing. Consciousness is simply the ability to manage our lives by observing and acting on the body mind feedback. We share the ability to be conscious of our own bodies and the feelings we generate with billions of other creatures and ecological systems. Feelings are what the body sends us to realise we are alive, and then act in ways to extend our lives and the life of the whole on which we depend and of which we are a part.

So the urgent question most normal humans who are not infected by the industrial civilisation are asking these days is, why would an international civilisation build its self-declared self-image and goal on the ability of its scientists and capitalists and politicians and generals to devise ever more fancy ways of pillaging, destroying and killing living systems and bodies?

Politics is sadly not about matters of the heart. It is a harsh power struggle between workers and capital, landowners and bonded labourers, rapists and victims, evil men and innocent bodies. Because the agenda of humanists has been hijacked by liberals, capitalist legal persons are benefiting from constitutional protection whilst living bodies are being treated like garbage.

One thing we can do in the present political situation is to exercise the small power to intervene in politics that we have by writing letters or making phone calls to polluters, expressing what I have tried to talk about in these few paragraphs above. We must badger every single user and manufacturer of any kind of noisy machine in India and in the world to stop making and manufacturing machines.

Today what happened to me was that after months of peace thanks to the Corona virus, the noise pollution at the back of my house wreaked havoc once again in the neighbourhood. A man, or maybe his daughter, an owner of a legal person, had decided to begin construction of some kind or the other on their site. What this man either did not know or did not care enough about, is that every single machine that is run on an injection engine or some other fossil fuel engine is usually breaking the law. This includes cars, JCBs, bulldozers and generators. The permitted decibels in a mixed commercial and residential neighbourhood in India are the same as for residential neighbourhoods, which is 45 dB at night and 55 dB during the day, whereas these machines just mentioned have dB levels when you are near them of nothing much less than 90 dB, often as high as 120 dB. The closer you are to the source of the noise the louder it is.

If instead of a capitalist system we had a socialist one, we might also have enforcers of the law for the benefit of the public. But we don’t. We don’t have a caring educated elite that wishes to enforce the law for the benefit of everyone and of living beings, we only have greedy pigs running India and the world. (In Switzerland I hollered at a neighbour using a concrete plate vibrator to lay his new garage drive the same as I regularly holler at neighbours violating noise
pollution norms here.) I holler because they are individuals to whom I have already tried to explain patiently many times before. Hollering is noise. It is unpleasant but it can make a person listen. One should not raise one’s voice. I am sorry.

The point is, I consider it my duty to myself and my neighbours to see that anything going on in this world as I experience it complies with the law and the terms and conditions of Government permissions, on matters of noise pollution especially. Noise pollution is not only noise. The noise is a warning, as it would be in a forest, of something dangerous. It is dangerous for living bodies to be exposed to noise. Living beings need certain sounds to help them live, the sound of the voices of their loved ones, the sound of running water because we need water and so we love it, and so on. The noise made by industrial civilisation on the other hand is the noise of hell. As far as I am concerned, noise pollution makes me get up and fight it.

Companies all over the world flout environmental norms during demolition, construction and operational activities in their factories and infrastructure installations and on the roads. It is a disgrace to humanity and to the 200 odd constitutions of the nations of the world. These corporate houses trumpet their allegiance to the constitutions of their country loudly at their head offices, and at site they treat us living beings who are their neighbours or workers worse than garbage. They do not seem to understand that climate change, deafness, heart failure, extinction of animals, soil degradation, hot house earth, malnutrition and respiratory disease and all other illnesses are caused by company owners and employees who do not comply with the law. They have forgotten that to live is by definition to be a worshipper of life and beauty.

If such people do not understand what is good for living beings and themselves, we should consider them uneducated and in need of re-education. If they have no love or respect for the mystery, the beauty and the love that is the source, purpose and meaning of life, we should use our tiny powers as letter writers and users of phones to re-educate such ignorant polluters.

We do not have to pull out the big gun of the threat of climate change only, to persuade them of life’s logic. Peace and quiet when we can meditate, eat, sleep, play, dance, in peace, is good for our human body and that of the other human and animal bodies around us. What more exactly do humans and the biosphere as a whole need except their / our / its health? Machines don’t make us healthy or happy. To be happy and healthy we need a peaceful and harmonious environment, which in this day and age means a pollution free world including a world free of noise.

By educating polluters to worship living bodies and their mysterious ways, or using some other language to convey the amazing bio-logical feedback mechanisms of bodies and feelings, we will exercise a small amount of power in the political realm to defend the beauty and logic of love over hate, and peace over noise. It is not good enough to fine polluters after the pollution has occurred. We need to be active citizens to ensure the pollution doesn’t start in the first place. We need to educate company owners so that they understand that there is no cure for ill-health except peace and happiness. Stop manufacturing and using cars! Cars make us sick because of the pollution including their horrible levels of noise.

Owners and employees of companies should not do things that make animals or humans, ecosystems and the biosphere, sick. They should not further drive forward this hell in the world that is turning earth into a hothouse that will no longer support life. Let us help them re-educate themselves about what it is to be human.

Australian unions plead for continued secretive talks with government and employers

Mike Head

The Australian Council of Trade Unions last week issued an anxious plea for the federal Liberal-National government and employer representatives to prolong their “confidential” talks with union bureaucrats in order to finalise “reforms” of workplace conditions.

For four months now, trade union leaders have been closeted away in five industrial relations (IR) “working groups” with the government and business chiefs, at the invitation of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

At the same time, they have worked together to keep a lid on unrest amid the worst mass unemployment since the 1930s Great Depression and to enforce returns to work in unsafe conditions despite the spiraling global COVID-19 pandemic that has resulted from the same corporate profit drive.

Behind a veil of secrecy, the union chiefs have been discussing how to keep suppressing working-class opposition as impoverishment deepens, while they exploit the pandemic to help impose the destruction of thousands of jobs and the decimation of workers’ wages and basic conditions.

Various tactical differences, however, caused the talks to fail to meet their deadline last week to present their proposals to the government. In response, ACTU secretary Sally McManus appealed for the backroom bargaining to continue in “a new phase of bilateral meetings between the various parties and the Morrison government.”

In her media release, McManus pleaded: “We remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached which will benefit working people and the national interest.” She said it was necessary to “reach common ground” at “a time of unprecedented national crisis.”

By the “national interest,” McManus means the interests of the ruling capitalist class, which is intent on further restructuring the economy at the expense of the working-class as the government cuts JobKeeper wage subsidies and JobSeeker dole payments to poverty levels to coerce workers into low-paid work on worse conditions.

Pledging to keep all the details hidden from workers, McManus criticised some employer groups for publicly opposing aspects of the deals being struck with the unions. “[I]t has become obvious that a number of employer lobby groups no longer wish to respect the confidentiality agreement or engage with this process in good faith,” she complained.

According to media reports, Industrial Relations Minister and Attorney-General Christian Porter is now conducting informal talks with select unions and employers in the hopes of getting agreements over the line after formal discussions ended without clear consensus.

If the last-minute talks fail to achieve agreement among the parties, Porter said the government would take ideas from each working group and “try and build them into a product that can A) grow jobs and B) make its way through parliament.”

Some working groups got close to agreement. McManus reportedly finalised a deal with Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott, representing the largest companies. They proposed to axe the supposed “better off overall test” (BOOT) for registering a workplace pay deal, clearing the way for enterprise agreements to openly reduce the conditions of workers.

In return, union-negotiated agreements would be fast-tracked through the Fair Work Commission—the federal industrial tribunal. This would further entrench the unions as the ruling elite’s preferred mechanism for enforcing cuts to conditions via “enterprise bargaining” and anti-strike laws.

BOOT has done nothing to prevent countless union-imposed agreements that have lowered wages, slashed conditions and facilitated job destruction. However, it became the basis for several legal challenges to sweetheart deals between the unions and major companies, especially in the fast food and supermarket industries.

The abolition of BOOT would remove any impediment, no matter how contrived and cosmetic, to sweeping attacks on jobs and conditions in new union enterprise agreements.

The prioritising of union deals also would take to a new level the corporatist partnership established between the unions and the employers under the Accords of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments of 1983 to 1996.

However, various employer groups, including Master Builders Australia, which represents construction companies, objected to preference being given to union agreements, demanding equal fast-tracking for non-union deals.

Another deal close to consummation is designed to reverse a court ruling that gave some regular casuals access to annual leave and other entitlements reserved for permanent workers, which could cost businesses $40 billion.

Business leaders, the corporate media and the government had denounced the ruling, saying it would reduce employers’ “flexibility” to keep their staff on insecure work arrangements and “cripple” firms struggling with the pandemic.

In the casuals working group, the unions reportedly felt optimistic they could strike a bargain after the small business lobby split from other employers to back a potential compromise. Casuals would get a chance to convert to permanent employment after a set period, perhaps nine months, and in return forgo back pay claims.

Leaks to the media indicated that the unions rejected the proposal because it would only give workers the opportunity to ask for a permanent job, which employers could too easily decline. Nevertheless, “there was general agreement around the concepts,” one source told reporters.

In the group dealing with simplification of industrial awards, Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia (COSBOA) chief executive Peter Strong told the media that his group’s proposal was “still in the mix.”

COSBOA proposed a series of 24 schedules that would allow small businesses greater workforce flexibility. Businesses with fewer than 40 employees could pay a single weekday and weekend pay rate, effectively scrapping after-hours penalty rates, and hire part-time workers without paying overtime rates.

The “compliance” group reportedly failed to reach agreement after unions sought higher penalties for underpayment of workers. The group discussing four-year union-enforced agreements on new work sites apparently could not agree on the size of projects to qualify for such an agreement, which would prohibit industrial action.

Whether or not all the deals are ultimately finalised, the unions will step up their collaboration with the government and big business. They will intensify the attacks on workers’ pay and conditions in response to the “unprecedented national crisis” produced by the pandemic and the worldwide economic crash.

That record is already clear. As soon as the pandemic erupted in March, the ACTU rushed to help the government allow employers to scrap basic conditions under the JobKeeper subsidy, even as big business took the lion’s share of the hundreds of billions of dollars handed out under the scheme and other corporate bailout packages.

In addition, without any consultation with their members, the unions rapidly organised the gutting of pay and conditions for millions of workers in the retail, hospitality and clerical industries.

For her services in supervising these assaults, McManus was personally thanked by Morrison and Porter, who proclaimed her his “BFF” (best friend forever). Once falsely promoted as a “militant” when she was installed as ACTU boss in 2017, McManus became the darling of the media. The Murdoch-owned Australian congratulated her for having “recognised the merit of employer concerns.”

This is no aberration produced by the pandemic. The close personal relations between the unions, employers and government take to new depths the decades-long role of the unions as a ruthless industrial police force, first displayed under Hawke and Keating.

Amid growing social inequality, unsafe conditions and widespread impoverishment, the unions and their “best friends” know that the scene is set for the eruption of major working-class battles. The essential issue for workers is to mobilise independently, against the unions, as well as the governments and the corporate elite. That requires a socialist program to reorganise society on the basis of human need, not corporate profit and private wealth.

Detroit City Council defies public opposition and renews facial recognition contract

Kevin Reed

The Detroit City Council voted 6-3 on Tuesday to extend a software support contract with the provider of facial recognition technology used by the city police department despite broad-based public opposition to the system.

A majority of the Council of nine Democrats voted to approve a two-year, $220,000 upgrade and maintenance contract with South Carolina-based DataWorks Plus from whom the city originally purchased its facial recognition technology platform in 2017.

Promotional image of the case management module of the FACE Plus facial recognition system from DataWorks Plus (Photo credit: DataWorksPlus.com)

The vote at the virtual council meeting on Tuesday was preceded by a one-hour public comment period in which callers overwhelmingly opposed the renewal of the contract with DataWorks Plus.

The opposition to reapproval of the facial recognition surveillance tools used by the Detroit Police Department (DPD) also took the form of a car caravan protest that drove past the home of Councilman Andre Spivey, a proponent of the city’s system, during the meeting.

The previous three-year contract between Detroit and DataWorks Plus for its “FACE Watch Plus real-time video surveillance system” expired in July and the City Council put off a scheduled vote at that time on the renewal amid growing public opposition. Protests against police violence in Detroit, as part of the nationwide movement that was sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, have also taken up the demand for putting a halt to the use of facial recognition by DPD.

With the endorsement of Democratic Party Mayor Mike Duggan, Detroit purchased the facial recognition system for $1 million in 2017 without public review or discussion. The system has been integrated into the much-touted Project Green Light program, a public-private partnership where business owners pay for the installation of video surveillance cameras on their premises, which are connected to the DPD’s Real Time Crime Center in downtown Detroit.

The face images captured on the 600 surveillance cameras across the city are being checked by DPD against various “mug shot” and driver’s license photo databases to identify individuals within minutes. Detroit Police Captain Aric Tosqui claimed on Tuesday that the FACE Watch Plus system was used 106 times this year, resulting in 64 matches and assisting in 12 arrests.

However, in at least two instances, individuals were misidentified by the system and wrongfully arrested by DPD. Michael Oliver, 25, was arrested and charged with felony larceny in May 2019 after police uploaded a cellphone video into the facial recognition system and it falsely returned his identity. Robert Williams, from Farmington Hills, Michigan, was arrested in front of his family in January of this year and falsely accused of stealing expensive Shinola watches based on video surveillance images from a retail store that were processed by DPD.

The use of facial recognition systems by law enforcement is on the rise across the country by city, state and federal agencies despite massive public opposition and the fact that the technologies violate constitutionally protected rights of free speech and against unreasonable searches and seizures. These increasingly integrated systems are gathering face images of everyone 24/7 in public spaces, enabling police agencies to identify where people are, what they are doing and who they are with at all times.

Speaking at a recent public hearing, Art Thompson, Detroit’s Director of Public Safety and Cyber Security, said, “We already own the license to operate the software (and) we already bought and own the software … it is a part of what DPD has access to. It’s no different than buying a cell phone ... for a few years you get upgrades and at some point, when those upgrades stop, you still own the hardware.” The city’s information technology department also said that there were ways to cover the costs of the maintenance contract without council approval anyway.

In other words, the DPD was going to continue using the facial recognition system regardless of the Council vote. This means that the Democrats on the City Council who are in favor of the technology wanted to go on record supporting the invasive system as part of their law-and-order politics.

City Councilman Gabe Leland, who voted for the contract, talked about a “delicate balancing act” between “empowering DPD with more tools, empowering victims and also protecting the general public.” Detroit Councilman Roy McCalister Jr. claimed, “nothing is 100%” and, “People who are just living their daily lives and who are attacked, we want to make sure their constitutional rights and their privileges are just as much protected as well.”

The councilmen are echoing the position of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Chair Willie Bell, who released a statement that said, “Facial recognition is part of 21st Century policing, just as DNA became part of policing in the last century.” Bell claimed that the use of facial recognition tools can be part of “constitutional, community-focused policing and safer communities … working together, and building up each other, our families and our city.”

Many of the most outspoken opponents of facial recognition technology in Detroit are preoccupied with study results that have shown higher error rates by the systems when matching face images of people with darker skin. This fact has fueled a campaign based entirely upon racial considerations rather than the fundamental democratic and class issues posed by secret around-the-clock government surveillance of the public.

Meanwhile, according to a recent report by the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, the accuracy of facial recognition technologies has improved dramatically in recent years. The report says, “As of April 2020, the best face identification algorithm has an error rate of just 0.08% compared to 4.1% for the leading algorithm in 2014, according to tests by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).”

As the resolution and color sensitivity of video cameras have advanced with 4K technology and the processing power of computers, along with improvements to artificial intelligence and deep learning systems, the error rates are dropping dramatically.

As previously explained on the World Socialist Web Site, the preoccupation with racial disparities in facial recognition algorithms is aimed at assisting the state with making improvements to the systems and rendering them less likely to misidentify individuals of all racial groups rather than demanding an immediate halt to the illegal surveillance of the public.

Ukrainian miners strike for better pay and conditions in defiance of the unions

Jason Melanovski

Sixty iron ore miners in the city of Krivoy Rog in eastern Ukraine have spent almost the entire month of September underground, carrying out a strike for increased pay and benefits and against the incompetent oligarch-backed management.

Beginning on September 3, twenty-nine workers refused to come to the surface, occupying the October Mine which belongs to the privately owned Krivoy Rog Iron Ore Company (KZRK). Within days, three other nearby iron ore mines had joined the strike and the number of miners occupying the mines had grown to 393.

While the number of miners remaining underground has fallen due to health issues incurred by staying underground for such long periods of time, workers have continued to strike with the support of their families and the Ukrainian working-class who have carried out protests supporting them both in Krivoy Rog and the capital of Kiev.

The Krivoy Rog Iron Ore Company is jointly owned by financial firms Metinvest and Privat, which are owned by Ukraine’s billionaire oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov and Igor Kolomoisky, respectively.

While Akhmetov has a net worth of over $6 billion, workers at the Krivoy Rog October Mine reported making just $330 a month. They work 1,200 meters underground in extremely dangerous conditions.

After striking in 2017 and receiving assurances that wages would rise in increments, management has recently cut off all raises and reverted to its former poverty wages.

As a result of their direct confrontation with Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarchs, striking miners and their families have reported being harassed by management, with their personal details and addresses menacingly posted to social media by KZRK’s management. Thugs, who had been tipped off by company management that the workers were not at home and how to best break into their homes, have broken into the apartments of strikers.

While the Krivoy Rog workers are nominally represented by the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, the union has done its best to prevent he miners’ occupation from spreading. It has even refused to call it a “strike” so as not to anger the Ukrainian government. Workers and their families have led the occupation independently from the union, setting up tents outside the company’s headquarters and circulating their own petitions.

Predictably, the miners’ courageous strike has been met with a media blackout from much of Ukraine’s oligarch-controlled capitalist press. The media blackout is motivated, above all, by fear that the strike could spread further throughout Ukraine and to other former Soviet republics. In August, a strike wave, which also included many miners, shook the government of Alexander Lukashenko in neighboring Belarus.

Despite the media blackout, within days following the outbreak of the Krivoy Rog strike, reports surfaced of workers taking inspiration from the miners and carrying out their own actions against the ruling class.

On September 8, workers at the Berdyansk Sea Trade Port, located approximately 400 km southeast of Krivoy Rog, stopped work and demanded the resignation of the port’s management.

Later on September 14, three-hundred workers at a pipe plant in the northeastern city of Sumy likewise stopped work and demanded payment for unpaid wages.

On September 21, workers at the Kremenchuk Automobile Plant, which is owned by another Ukrainian billionaire oligarch Kostyantyn Zhevago, stopped work and took to the streets. They blocked the streets in front of the factory to demand promised wages that have not been paid out in over eight months.

As a result of the ongoing privatization of state-owned enterprises that has been carried by successive Ukrainian governments and accelerated by the current regime of President Volodomyr Zelensky, many Ukrainian workers have seen their wages, benefits, and working conditions plummet. Their factories have been passed from one oligarch-owned investment firm to another, following privatization. Agreed upon contracts are often violated by management and workers in both the private and public sectors can go months without pay.

Like all over the world, the coronavirus pandemic has led a further, massive deterioration in the already miserably low living standards of broad sections of the working class. Ukraine is now in the midst of a second wave and has recorded several new record highs of new cases in the past few days. As of September 30, there were over 202,0000 confirmed cases in the country of just over 40 million.

The strike in Krivoy Rog itself was preceded by a strike of coal miners at the Nadiya coal mine in the western region of L’viv who struck underground and occupied the mine throughout the summer due to unpaid wages. The strike only ended when the Ukrainian government intervened and promised to compensate the miners for unpaid wages. The government also announced that it would investigate the mine’s management for its failure to pay the salaries and selling coal at below-market prices.

Ukraine’s mining industry employs approximately 194,000 workers. Despite extremely hazardous conditions and crumbling equipment and infrastructure, it is still highly valued by international finance capital due to the large amount of mineral deposits present in the country.

According to Innspired Investing News, Ukraine “is home to one of the largest proportions of iron ore deposits on the planet with an estimated 27 billion tons accounting for more than 10 percent of the earth’s reserves.” The country also has the highest titanium reserves in Europe as well as large deposits of coal, natural gas, oil, salt, sulfur, graphite, magnesium, kaolin, nickel and mercury.

Both the current Zelensky government and the previous regime of Petro Poroshenko have carried out a policy of closing Ukraine’s remaining unprofitable state-owned mines while privatizing the more profitable ones, which contain sought after minerals such as iron ore.

President Zelensky, who was born and raised in Krivoy Rog, has neither commented on the miner’s strike nor visited his hometown to speak with the striking workers.

Zelensky is well aware that to do so would anger the very same forces to which he owes his entire political career. Last week it was revealed by the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, that Zelensky’s own Servant of the People party only exists due to the beneficence of the oligarch and Krivoy Rog mine-owner Rinat Akhmetov, who doles out approximately $2.5 million per month to back Zelensky and his party. Above all, Zelensky fears drawing any further attention to a strike that threatens to encourage a much broader movement by the working class.

Protest strikes in German public sector and local transport

Marianne Arens & Andy Niklaus

Protest strikes are currently taking place in day-care centres and hospitals, town halls, government offices, savings banks, garbage disposal companies and elsewhere as part of the collective bargaining round for 2.3 million public sector workers. On Tuesday, public transport workers also struck several federal states at the same time.

The strikers are all “essential” workers who were praised and applauded as “coronavirus heroes” in the spring. They rightly expect not only better health and safety at work in face of the pandemic, but also better salaries and working conditions. “I cannot pay my rent from applause alone,” as one nurse remarked. The vast majority of the population agrees. A recent Forsa flash survey shows that almost two-thirds of those interviewed (63 percent) sympathise with the protest strikes.

On the other hand, the public sector employers are brutally abusing the strikers. Niklas Benrath, the new chief executive of the Federation of Municipal Employers’ Associations (VKA), essentially placed protesting workers in the same category as terrorists. He described Friday’s strikes as an “attack on the general public” and said it was “irresponsible, especially at this time of crisis ... to cover the whole country with a wave of strikes.”

The conflict, however, is marked by a profound contradiction. The token strikes are being led by the same trade unions that support the back-to-work policies of the government and have played a key role in imposing social cutbacks for years. The trade union officials, who also sit on all the major company supervisory bodies, have long been holding backroom talks with politicians to agree on supposedly necessary sacrifices.

Trade union and Social Democratic Party (SPD) members sit on both sides of the negotiating table. Ulrich Mädge, mayor of Lüneburg, who, in his capacity as VKA president, rejects the demand for a 4.8 percent wage increase as “completely excessive,” has been a member of the service union Verdi for many years. Like Verdi Chairman Frank Werneke, he is a member of the same SPD, which under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, implemented the most comprehensive social cuts in post-war German history with the “Agenda 2010” attacks on welfare and labour rights.

After billions of euros were handed over to the banks and corporations through coronavirus aid packages, the public coffers are empty. What the municipal, state and private employers are planning with the help of Verdi is to plug the holes in their budgets at workers’ expense, as was made clear last week in a Facebook post under the hashtag #TVN2020.

According to the post, local transport companies in Mittelbaden-Nordschwarzwald presented a two-page “horror list” of demands which would result in a dramatic deterioration of working conditions. Among other things, they are demanding an increase in weekly working time to 40 hours, the abolition of Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve as days off, a reduction in Christmas bonuses to 70 percent, the abolition of holiday pay and the future permissibility of compulsory redundancies.

The employers’ brazen actions are no coincidence. They feel encouraged by Verdi’s latest oath of loyalty. In the last few days, the service sector union completely sold out the wage dispute at Deutsche Post; the EVG union did the same on the railways. In both cases, they have imposed wage sacrifices and long-duration contracts on workers to prevent strikes in the coming years.

In the public transport sector (ÖPNV), Verdi has reacted to the growing discontent that has recently been expressed in major strike movements in Berlin, Saarland, Hesse and elsewhere. Under the slogan TVN2020 (collective agreement for local public transport 2020), it has taken the simultaneous expiry of the separate collective agreements at the end of June 2020 as an opportunity to call for a nationally uniform collective agreement. This is to apply to 87,000 drivers in 130 transport companies nationwide. According to Verdi, this should put an end to “unequal treatment in the federal states.”

The union links the demand for a national collective agreement with other demands: 30 days holidays, harmonisation of working hours to 36.5 hours with full wage compensation, a membership bonus of €500 for Verdi members. According to the union, such incentives should make both the profession of driver more attractive again in the interest of a climate-friendly “transport transformation” and Verdi membership.

Verdi is supported by various pseudo-left groups, such as Socialist Alternative (SAV), affiliated to the Socialist Party in the UK. They cheered joint appearances by Verdi functionaries with Fridays for Future activists last week as a step towards a “well-financed, developed public transport system with good wages and working conditions.”

The union, however, does not have the slightest intention of fighting for decent wages and working conditions. It is responsible for the miserable conditions which currently prevail in public transport. The situation is the direct result of an orgy of deregulation and privatisation since the 1990s, which was actively supported by Verdi and its predecessor organisations.

They have pitted federal and local authority employees against those of the Länder (federal states) public sector workers against those in private companies and signed hundreds of company collective agreements. Workforces were divided, existing wages were cut and entry-level wages were massively reduced. Since then, more than 15,000 jobs have been lost in local public transport, and hundreds of bus and train companies have been privatised.

Verdi will not consider engaging in any united industrial action worthy of the name. Although the public transport negotiations coincide with those of the rest of the public service, and the protest strikes even coincide with those in the day-care centres and clinics, Verdi conducts the negotiations for both separately.

Last week, the public sector employers flatly rejected the demand for a nationwide uniform collective agreement for public transport. Verdi will accept this and is looking for a formula to gloss over a planned sellout. The third round of negotiations will take place on October 22. Meanwhile, negotiations on urban transport continue at the state level.

The union is miles away from conducting joint nationwide industrial action. Rather, its manoeuvres are aimed precisely at preventing real industrial action and a social rebellion. As the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) has long emphasised, workers can only protect and effectively defend their interests if they take up a fight against the unions. They must form independent action committees and link up with fellow workers throughout Europe to prepare for a European-wide general strike.

Just how little Verdi regards workers’ lives and health can be seen by its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Although the COVID-19 case numbers have been rising rapidly for weeks, it has not tabled any demands for better protection against the virus. Like nursing staff in hospitals and old people’s homes, educators in day-care centres and teachers and social workers in schools, the drivers in crowded buses and trams are being exposed to the virus daily.

Verdi agrees with the government that there should be no further shutdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus. It has embraced the deadly “contagion” and “herd immunity” strategies. On numerous Verdi and German Union Confederation (DGB) websites, under the heading “Coronavirus—What employees need to know,” members are told, “Injuring oneself or contracting an illness are part of general life risks, whether at work or during leisure time. This also applies to employees with a previous illness that does not make them incapable of working, but with which they are exposed to a higher risk of developing a more serious course of illness due to a coronavirus infection.”

One worker told the WSWS that in Munich, union representatives unofficially spread the word that those striking should stay home during the strike—to give the public a coronavirus-correct image. An internal memo instructed them to stay home during the protest strike “because they will be looking at us. The press will be there and the WG [employers] will also see if we comply with the coronavirus rules.”

This instruction was all the more cynical as the union had not yet shown any interest in the coronavirus rules. “Not because of coronavirus—only because of the press and the employers should we stay at home. They don’t care about our lives,” was the worker’s comment.

In another comment, a bus driver wrote how Verdi personnel representatives in Berlin urban transport (BVG) deal with coronavirus: “They are not bothered about representing our interests, only their own. ... This [protest strike] is just a show to attract members. And our personnel representatives have long since given up. They only fight for themselves, so that they don’t have to go out on the road.”

A wave of teacher protests spark staffing shortages and school closures across the US

Emma Arceneaux

School districts across the US are confronting a wave of opposition from teachers and other education staff as they continue to herd students back to campus amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic. According to an independent K-12 aggregate, the COVID Monitor, which tracks cases from school and district reports and verified public reports, there have been 31,584 confirmed cases among staff and students as of September 27. In addition to protests and work actions, states across the US are facing severe teacher and substitute vacancies. Teacher resignations, absences, and walkouts in addition to increasing outbreaks among students and staff are forcing schools to switch back to remote learning, at least temporarily.

Arkansas | Cases: 82,755; Deaths: 1,350

In a brave act of protest, at least 166 teachers in Little Rock, Arkansas refused to go to school for in-person learning on Monday. The teachers, under the representation of the Little Rock Education Association (LREA), are demanding that the school district switch to remote-only instruction, citing safety concerns, inadequate cleaning, inconsistent case reporting, and increasing COVID-19 cases in the district and statewide.

The union has since backed off the demand, after blowback from the school district. Sixty-nine of the teachers who had supported the action received notice they would be disciplined.

In the district, there have been thirty-three positive cases among students and six among staff since September 21. Another 190 have been quarantined. Two schools have had to move to online-only instruction temporarily due to cases. Statewide, there are 717 active cases in K-12 schools and 36 schools are under ‘modified instruction’ due to the pandemic, of which 26 only began instruction last week.

California | Cases: 818,000; Deaths: 15,971

Educators in at least four Orange County unified school districts—Newport-Mesa, Irvine, Saddleback Valley, and Los Alamitos—are standing firm in opposition to returning to work under unsafe conditions, defying their own unions’ recommendations with Los Alamitos teachers who were set to strike September 29. Very little information has been published as to the status of the strike.

In advance of the prospect of teachers not showing up on Tuesday, the board passed an emergency resolution authorizing the hiring of substitute teachers. The board already had 20-30 substitutes ‘in-house’ including counselors, administrators and assistant principals from the district’s schools.

Ten out of 29 school districts in the county have either recently reopened or are reopening this week following Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” order as well as clearance from local authorities.

Colorado | Cases: 70,458; Deaths: 2,058

School districts in Colorado are facing a massive substitute teacher shortage. In Alamosa School District, the substitute pool has decreased by half, down to only 25 teachers. Denver Public Schools, the largest district in the stage, has also lost about half of its substitute pool due to health and safety concerns.

The Colorado Sun reports that one district has resorted to asking parents to volunteer as substitutes. Other districts are turning to their own teachers, staff and administrators. Alamosa is offering teachers a paltry $25 dollars to forego their planning periods to cover other classrooms. Many schools worry that a single coronavirus case could lead to a temporary closure.

Georgia | Cases: 300,000; Deaths: 6,836

On September 17, teachers in Fulton County used their lunch break to protest the district’s plan to return to in-person instruction. Around thirty teachers at Riverwood High School walked out during lunch. Disparate reports have down that dozens or more teachers at multiple other schools in the district also walked out in solidarity. French teacher Brett Edeker, referring to the illegality of collective bargaining and strikes by public employees in Georgia, said, “We’re trying to play within the rules of our job, we’re fearful of retaliation, so we’re trying to do it at a time that doesn’t impact students.”

A survey conducted by the district found that 83 percent of teachers “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that schools should remain online for the foreseeable future; 72 percent of staff felt the same. In a letter to employees of the district, Superintendent David Dude acknowledged the overwhelming lack of support by teachers and staff for a return to in-person instruction but suggested this was due to an erroneous lack of trust in the district’s consideration of the current data about the virus.

Addressing the concern among teachers, consistently voiced by educators across the country, that concurrent teaching (of botch in-person and online instruction) would be extremely taxing, Dude callously said, “Of course we can find examples where it is not going well, but since when do we focus on the poor exemplars?”

Hawaii | Cases: 12,436; Deaths: 133

Already facing a teaching shortage before the pandemic, the situation in Hawaii as accelerated dramatically. Dozens of teachers are taking medical leave this year. In a Facebook group dedicated to safe school re-openings, teachers have commented on an advertisement for teaching positions in Hawaii. One comment reports that the Board of Education and the Department of Education have begun hiring high school graduates to be substitute teachers. Another reads that the ad should include “Warning: full disclosure of coronavirus occurrences may or may not be given in your district. And you must bring your own gloves.”

Dayna Inouye, 49, a school clerk at Dole Middle School in Hawaii, died last Wednesday of the virus. Inouye is from a family of school teachers. She leaves behind three daughters and her partner of 27 years.

Nearly 200 of Inouye’s fellow teachers and educators spoke out on the conditions they face at schools at a local school board meeting held online and partially made public in the aftermath of Inouye’s tragic death. More than 100 gave written testimony, which has been compiled by the HSTA and is publicly available.

Kansas | Cases: 59,921; Deaths: 650

Baldwin City United School District (USD 348) is facing a teacher and substitute shortage so severe that it may have to shut down as a result. Many staff members are quarantined but the district only has four substitutes remaining. Superintendent Paul Dorathy sent a message to parents and staff explaining that substitutes are not taking jobs right now because they are, “concerned for their own health.” He added that in addition to substitutes, they are shortages with cooks, secretaries, and bus drivers.

Louisiana | Cases: 167,000; Deaths: 5,490

East Baton Rouge Parish Association of Educators is calling for school employees to take next Monday off, in order to prompt better cleaning and sanitizing of school buildings. In a survey they conducted, 82 percent of teachers supported the call for “a day of action.” Announcing the planned action on Facebook, local union president Anita Augustus declared, “We do not like to take a day of action, because it inconveniences our parents… but we do not want a single child or adult to get COVID because things were not sanitized.”

This action will coincide with the district moving elementary students from two to five days per week in-person instruction. No matter what cleaning protocols the district ends up committing to, students and staff will be at risk for contracting the disease if they are in classrooms.

Last week, hundreds of teachers in Livingston Parish participated in a similar day of action to protest unsafe conditions. Neither the statewide Louisiana Federation of Teachers nor the Louisiana Association of Educators worked to combine these two struggles.

Maryland | Cases: 125,000; Deaths 3,946

Carroll County Public Schools officials have stated that nearly 300 teachers have put in leave requests ahead of the district’s plans to resume in-person instruction on October 19. The district is scrambling to hire substitute teachers and are also assigning other employees to classrooms as well as hiring temporary workers.

Mississippi | Cases: 97,638; Deaths: 2,957

Long Beach Middle School in Long Beach, Mississippi is in quarantine after more than a dozen students contracted the virus. The entire student body will be quarantined for two weeks after “35 percent either tested positive or were exposed” according to a statement by health officials. This follows the closure of Biloxi High School in late August due to similar circumstances.

As of September 25, there have been 2,776 confirmed cases of the virus in K-12 schools, 1,836 among students, and 940 among staff. There have been over 20,000 quarantined as a result. These numbers are incomplete because the Mississippi Department of Health is only collecting infection data from between 720 and 861 of the 1,063 schools in the state.

New York | Cases: 248,000; Deaths: 23,814

Students in New York City returned to campus in the largest school district in the country this week. Rank-and-file teachers at Hunter College Campus Schools, an elite K-12 school administered by the City University of New York, voted to authorize a strike to protest unsafe conditions on Tuesday. The school has very few windows and a history of ventilation problems.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the local union, quickly stepped in to prevent this independent action by the teachers. After the strike was voted on, CUNY agreed to allow an independent inspection of the building, which included, according to a spokesperson, “representatives from the PSC Chapter, CUNY Central Office, Hunter College and a health and safety specialist from the American Federation of Teachers. They corroborated what we have been saying all along: That the school is ready and safe for occupancy.”

PSC sent teachers back to the classroom on Tuesday, declaring a “win” for the minor concessions made by CUNY including “regular” COVID testing and the installation of HEPA air filters in the windowless classrooms.

North Carolina | Cases: 209,000; Deaths: 3,511

Two schools in Cumberland County, NC will be closed for “deep-cleaning” after multiple staff tested positive for the virus. Despite all students learning remotely, staff and faculty have had to work on campus. District officials are seeking to place blame on the staff themselves, saying that they don’t believe the virus was spread on campus. “We know that employees, they often times over the weekend and throughout the week, they go other places. So, when they come back to the building, if they are positive, in many cases, depending on who they are around at the school building, they may have to be quarantined as well,” a spokesperson for the school district said.

Texas | Cases: 781,000; Deaths: 15,994

Teachers at Austin Independent School District (AISD) in Austin, Texas made a pledge not to return to school on October 5, when students are scheduled to return to campus. Dozens of cars drove to the district’s headquarters on September 26th to protest the reopening. An anonymous teaching assistant told local news KXAN, “I am curious to see how they will continue working without a lot of the staff and teachers. I am seeing a lot of resignations. I am seeing good teachers leaving because they are not giving these choices.”

With less than a week before students return, the district is also behind on processing medical accommodation requests from teachers and staff who want to continue working from home. As of Monday, there were 472 pending requests.

At the same time, the AISD’s Chief Business Officer Larry Thorn stated at Monday’s school board meeting that enrollment was down by 5,000, which could lead to the district laying off around 230 teachers and staff.

Texas has confirmed 3,720 cases among K-12 students and 3,053 among staff since schools reopened in August.

Wisconsin | Cases: 127,000; Deaths: 1,312

Staffing shortages caused by the pandemic have led Adams Elementary School in Janesville to move to fully virtual instruction until October 9. The school does not have enough staff for in-person instruction after multiple teachers were quarantined.

This follows an independent sickout by teachers in Kenosha earlier this month that forced seven schools in the district to switch to remote-only instruction for a week. Over 270 teachers called in sick, and the local union, Kenosha Education Association, refused to voice support for the action despite its president advocating in-person only instruction.

While the number of cases in K-12 schools is unclear, the Wisconsin Department of Health has reported that 206 schools, universities or daycares have had two or more confirmed cases. USA Today reported that “since Wisconsin students returned to K-12 and college classrooms in late August and early September, the state has repeatedly set new single-day and seven-day records for confirmed cases and the percent of new tests that have come back positive for COVID-19.”

Explosive outbreak of COVID-19 at British universities

Simon Whelan

The return of two million students to Britain’s universities has produced a massive rise in Covid-19 cases. As of Tuesday outbreaks had taken place in at least 45 universities around the UK from a total of approximately 130, according to research by Sky News. This represents a more than doubling of the 20 universities reporting outbreaks at the weekend. With around 2 million students in higher education (HE), cases will only grow.

Almost a third of universities have had Covid cases already with the new term just getting underway, and with more students still returning. By September 29, at least 865 Covid-19 cases have been identified among students and staff since HE reopened, according to Sky News. Thousands of students are self-isolating as the new term begins. At Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) approximately 1,700 students were told to isolate for 14 days after 127 tested positive for the virus; at Glasgow University 600 are students isolating after 172 tested positive and at Queen's University Belfast another 100 are isolating after 30 tested positive for the virus.

A statement from Labour Party-run Manchester City Council last Friday said a decision had been taken with the university and Public Health England to "implement a local lockdown for student accommodation at [MMU’s] Birley campus and Cambridge Halls" to "stop the transmission of the virus among students and prevent it getting into the wider community."

Students living in two main dorms were told via email to self-isolate in their residences for 14 days, regardless of whether they have symptoms. Further testing revealed that 140 students have tested positive for the virus.

Students are being kept under conditions that will facilitate the uncontrolled spread of the virus. They are stuck in a confined space, having to share communal areas including kitchens. Other students now find themselves living under curfews and banned from the local pubs.

Lawyers are challenging the legal basis of a two-week lockdown. Levins Solicitors said it had seen recordings showing security and accommodation staff stopping students from leaving blocks. Jon Heath, a partner at Levins, accused MMU of operating “a shadow enforcement regime”. He is acting pro bono for nine students who want “urgent clarification” of how they were wrongly told on Friday that if they left their halls they “would be breaking the law”.

Students around the UK have protested their conditions on social media and by putting up statements of protest in the blocks. At the Murano Street Student Village in Glasgow, one sign read, “Students Not Criminals.”

MMU apologised after reports of students being told via email to remove protest signs from their windows. It said the email "didn't reflect the University's view" and it respected "the rights of students to express themselves," before threatening, "the posters must not break the law or they'll have to be removed."

Many students did not have time to do shopping for basic necessities before being told they were not allowed out. University authorities have done next to nothing to help. MMU Vice-Chancellor Malcolm Press offered locked down students two weeks’ rent, plus a £50 voucher to spend at a supermarket. The University of Glasgow has made a similar financial offer.

A living support assistant told the Glasgow Guardian, “I was on duty the other night and I had a girl phone me saying she hadn't eaten anything for 24 hours because she's high risk and can't leave her room, and no one's left her a food bag or anything…

“The student was given a food parcel made up of pasta, pot noodles, tinned foods, oats and juice. There's really nothing you can make a meal with in there, it might do you for an hour or two, but you certainly wouldn't be able to survive off that.”

The mother of a fresher at the University of Edinburgh took to social media to denounce university authorities who gave her daughter a “Mars bar and a croissant for dinner”. Her daughter was unable to eat the food as she is a vegan.

Many are refusing to accept being locked down in student halls and are heading home. The Guardian reported how Dan Johnson, studying drama and contemporary performance, said seven of his nine flatmates left the MMU Cambridge halls Sunday evening. They had been isolating for 11 days when the measure was announced, after one person tested positive on September 14.

The government knew the start of the academic year would bring about a resurgence of the virus but continued nevertheless as part of its herd immunity policy. There is no mass testing and tracing arrangements for schools and universities, except at the elite Eton school and Cambridge University. Higher education was reopened when all medical bodies argued against it and urged a switch to online teaching. Had the necessary resources been mobilized, students could have begun their studies at the family home. Instead, students and staff were told that learning must be delivered in a ‘blended’ manner with online sessions “complemented” by face to face classes. As with every calculation made by the Conservative government since the beginning of the pandemic, business takes precedence over science, logic, and reason. The HE business model, based on the intensified marketisation of education, revolves around students paying exorbitant fees for their courses and being milked for high rental accommodation costs.

Under conditions of an explosion of the pandemic, the University and College Union's (UCU) general secretary Jo Grady said only, "Students must be allowed to safely return home if they wish to and without fear of financial penalty for leaving their student accommodation.” After the union collaborated with the Johnson government and universities to facilitate reopening, Grady cynically complains, "Health and safety should have been the number one concern.”

The National Union of Students has done nothing to prevent a return to campus and on its website only asks whether students' shopping habits had been negatively affected by the pandemic. The only advice given to students are a list of safety measures to take in their accommodation, and on campus.

The UCU is calling on their members to continue teaching and take responsibility for their own safety. A letter sent to branch members at MMU by the UCU headed, “Urgent advice to all members teaching face to face on campus” states, “In the attached room plan analyses, you will see that colleagues sitting at desks meant for the lecturer, are NOT 2 metres away from students.” It continues, “You cannot rely on your desk and chair being set at a 2 metre distance from students, even when the risk assessment documentation says that it is. You must check for yourself.”

It advises members to “bring in a tape measure and check the distance from where your head will be to where the heads of the students sitting in the front row of seats will be.”

If “you have taught in a class where you were less than 2 metres from your students for longer than 15 minutes,” then “this is a close contact” and “You should self-isolate”. If “you have been told that there have been cases in your class, but you do not need to self-isolate because you were at a safe 2m distance from your students,” lecturers should do nothing other than “check the floorplan of the room where you were teaching.”

The message ends in larger point size wording, “UCU does not recommend that any member refuses to teach. We are not currently in dispute with our employer.”