New US unemployment claims top 712,000 as mass layoffs continue

Jacob Crosse

Historically unprecedented job losses continued in the US for the 37th straight week with the Department of Labor’s (DOL) latest unemployment claims report revealing another 712,000 first-time unemployment claims filed for the week ending November 28. The figure is a slight decline from last week’s revised total of 787,000, but still nearly three times the pre-pandemic average of 225,000 weekly claims.

The drop in claims owes more to difficulties in reporting due to the Thanksgiving holiday than to a prevailing trend, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a note regarding the claims quoted by CNBC. “Initial claims likely will rebound strongly next week, probably rising above the 800K mark for the first time in eight weeks,” Shepherdson added.

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 out-of-control spread of the coronavirus—the result of homicidal “herd immunity” policies enacted by capitalist governments the world over—has had predictable, terrible consequences in the US with daily new cases regularly exceeding 200,000, hospitalizations of over 100,000 and a daily death total approaching 3,000.

As hospitals reach capacity limits and increasingly resistive and angry health care workers, teachers, and autoworkers begin to organize independently of the trade unions to protect their lives, coworkers, communities and families, some state and local governments have begun to enact criminally belated and limited restrictions without additional financial relief for workers and small business owners, leading to further layoffs and business closures.

The latest unemployment report also showed that 288,701 initial claims were made for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) bringing the combined total of new claims across state and federal programs to once again over 1 million for the week.

For the week ending November 14, the DOL reported 8.69 million people were claiming PUA benefits while another 4.56 million were claiming Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) benefits. Overall, roughly 20.1 million people are claiming benefits across all state and federal programs according to the report, with roughly 13 million enrolled in either PUA or PEUC, both created as part of the CARES Act and set to expire in just three weeks on December 26.

The ongoing job losses are compounded by stagnant job growth in normally high employment sectors around the holidays, such as the retail and restaurant industry, which usually see increased spending. On Wednesday payroll company ADP released its job figures which showed that only 307,000 workers were added to their private payrolls, nearly 170,00 less than what was predicted and 98,000 less jobs than were added in October.

Statistics from the data firm Womply give some indication to the squeeze small businesses owners are under, with an estimated 21 percent of all small businesses closed at the start of November, up 5 percent from June. Womply also found that consumer spending at small businesses declined 30 percent compared to a year earlier, as millions save what little they have for necessities.

Without any available jobs, unemployed workers are forced to continue filing for unemployment. Continuing claims saw a marked decline in the latest report down to 5.52 million, a drop of 569,000 from the 6.1 million reported the previous week. This metric isn’t a sign however that workers are returning to work, instead it indicates that more workers have exhausted state benefits limits, which typically expire at 26 weeks but can be as low as 12, and have moved onto federal programs, or dropped off entirely.

For hundreds of thousands of workers—nine months into the pandemic—the struggle just to receive owed benefits is still ongoing. Thousands of workers in states from Washington to Wisconsin have received letters in the last month demanding they return hundreds, or even thousands of dollars to the state in alleged “over-payments” which in many cases, were never received to begin with.

In Wisconsin, the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) sent an “overpayment” letter to 62,000 people demanding a total of $44 million be paid back. Speaking to TMJ4, Stephanine Russell, an accountant, said the DWD sent her a letter requesting $16,200, an amount she noted she, “never received.”

Russell contends she followed the states instructions “verbatim,” and answered all the questions regarding her application “correctly and honestly,” yet the DWD still insists she owes the money. “It’s not funny at all but it’s almost laughable that they think someone is just going to blindly pay,” she told TMJ4. “And it’s shady. It seems really shady.”

A similar situation is unfolding in Washington where some 26,000 people who were receiving PUA benefits received an “overpayment” letter along with a suspension of future payments, after the state’s Employment Security Department determined that they were ineligible. Receiving a bill for more than $14,000, “definitely [peaked] my anxiety and is nerve-wracking,” Blake Whitmore said in an interview with KIRO7.

For those who have received PUA benefits, some 13 million so far, a Government Accountability Office report released on Monday revealed that 27 of the 41 states participating in the program reported paying out a weekly benefit that was not much, or at all, higher than the minimum weekly benefit. The PUA insurance is supposed to be based off of a claimants’ tax returns and other proofs of income and adjusted accordingly. In 29 of those states the minimum PUA benefit is below the weekly poverty limit with states such as Illinois paying out as little as $51 a week, while the minimum payment for worker in Alabama is a Scroogelike $45 a week.

While millions grapple with pandemic unemployment benefits, the end of the year will also mark the end of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s eviction moratorium, leaving up to 40 million people at risk of eviction, according to the Aspen Institute. Barring action, January 1 will also mark the resumption of collections on defaulted student loans by the US Department of Education; as of June 2019, the national student loan debt reached $1.6 trillion with an estimated 44.7 million people in the US having some debt.

With the virus running rampant, and another coronavirus relief bill purposefully stuck in months long “negotiations” between the two parties of big business in Congress, and a vaccine still months away for millions, the corporations and Wall Street are taking advantage of the crisis by restructuring the labor force through mass layoffs and job cuts, fueling the rise of share values with Thursday’s Dow Jones Industrial Average closing out at a near record 29,969.52.

On Wednesday Southwest Airlines, which received $3.2 billion in CARES Act relief, announced it was sending Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices to 6,828 workers. The company had previously sent out batches of notices earlier in the month leaving 7,273 workers at risk of losing their job between January and April 1, 2021. Despite thousands of workers accepting early retirements and buyouts earlier this summer to avert layoffs, Russel McCrady, vice president of labor relations for Southwest laid the blame on workers for refusing to agree to another $500 million in costs cuts.

“Due to a lack of meaningful progress in negotiations, we had to proceed with issuing notification to employees who are valued members of the Southwest family,” McCrady wrote in a statement. “We are willing to continue negotiations quickly to preserve jobs if we can achieve the support that allows Southwest to combat the ongoing economic challenges created by the decline in demand for air travel.”

Even though the airline industry has received over $25 billion through the CARES Act, a recent US Transportation Department report found that between passenger and cargo airlines, nearly 29,000 fewer workers were employed compared to the previous month. Since March 2020, 81,749 jobs have been eliminated in the industry, with United Airlines, which received $2.75 billion in CARES Act funding eliminating 29,243 jobs or 32 percent of its workforce, while Delta, which received $5.4 billion in grants and low-interest loans through the CARES Act, also cut 32 percent of its workforce, some 28,751 workers.

Joining the parade of layoffs, and after previously announcing layoffs totaling 28,000 across major theme parks, Walt Disney announced last week an additional 4,000 jobs would be eliminated, with roughly 1,800 of the cuts taking place in Florida. The company, which revealed during an earnings call in August that it had $23 billion in cash reserves, reinstated executive pay and salaries following the release of the earnings report. Last year Disney CEO Bob Iger, through salary and bonuses, “earned” $47.5 million.

As jobless workers go to bed hungry and parents explain to their children why they will not be receiving holiday gifts this year, the uber-wealthy continue to hoard all of the wealth created by the working class for themselves. A recent report by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that between 1979 and 2019, wages for the top 1 percent have increased by 160 percent while wages among the bottom 90 percent increased by only 26 percent over the same period

At the pinnacle of wage earners, the top .1 percent, the growth is even more staggering with a 345.2 percent increase in wealth since 1979. For comparison’s sake, the average worker in the bottom 90 percent earned $30,880 in 1979 and is today only earning $38,923, meanwhile the average member of the upper 1 percent made $291,329 in 1979, now commands a salary of $758,434. For the top .01 percent the level of theft is even more staggering, from $648,725 in 1979, to $2,888,192 as of 2019.

At Germany’s “Auto Summit,” IG Metall backs major corporations in international trade war

Dietmar Gaisenkersting & Ulrich Rippert

The IG Metall trade union is playing the key role on behalf of German auto companies in the international trade war. A week ago, at their so-called “Auto Summit,” the German government—a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD)—agreed with the auto companies and the union on additional billions of euros to support the auto industry. Now the union is pushing for quick implementation of the funding.

On Nov. 17, a number of federal ministers, state premiers, union representatives and the leaders of the governing parties, the CDU/CSU and SPD, took part in a virtual auto summit alongside leading car industry representatives. In June, the German government had already allocated almost €50 billion from its €130 billion economic stimulus package to the auto industry. Now it is providing an additional €3 billion to the auto and auto supplier industries.

BMW headquarters in Munich

“IG Metall welcomes the resolutions at today’s auto summit,” declared IG Metall Chairman Jörg Hofmann. The resolution includes important demands raised by the union, he continued. The issue now was implementing the decisions without delay.

In particular, the union leader was pleased with the government’s support for the “Best Owner Group” investment fund initiated by IG Metall. This private equity fund was set up by the union in the summer and aims to buy up and restructure auto and supplier companies threatened by insolvency. In this way, the fund aims to secure the supply chains for the auto companies while at the same time slashing “overcapacities” or closing down companies completely. IG Metall is using its own financial resources for this purpose and is demanding taxpayers’ money from the government to finance and accelerate the restructuring of the German auto industry.

The German government supports this initiative. It will devote €1 billion for a “Future Fund for the Automotive Industry” so that the industry, the unions and science can work together to develop “medium and long-term transformation strategies for the auto industry,” explained government spokesman Thorsten Seibert.

“But also the other decisions,” according to IG Metall, “such as the acceleration of the expansion of charging infrastructure and the promotion of battery cell production are important impulses.” In addition, the purchase premium of up to €9,000 for purely electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will be extended until 2025, a measure which corresponds to about another €1 billion in aid for the industry. The government had already extended this so-called “innovation premium” this summer until the end of 2021.

A further billion euros is available for the replacement of older trucks. Half of this money is to go to the federal Ministry of Transport to purchase new trucks, and half to companies to renew their own fleets.

Predictably the heads of the German auto industry also welcomed the new billion-euro funding commitments of the government. Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess said he was delighted that Germany would become the “leading market” for electric mobility following the auto summit.

IG Metall claims that the state funding will be used to make the restructuring of the auto industry to produce electric vehicles “socially acceptable” and that this will benefit employees. This is simply a lie.

First, the greed of the auto company executives, owners, shareholders and investment funds that dictate all the important decisions of the auto concerns is boundless. Every aspect of production is aimed at increasing returns, profits, share prices, dividends and personal enrichment. While the corporations collect vast sums of government money, the billions are passed on to shareholders—not only indirectly via rising share prices, but also directly.

Hardly had the first round of the €50 billion aid been paid out in the spring, at a time when all the major auto and supplier plants financed their workforces via state-financed short-time working allowances, than the sports auto manufacturer Porsche announced it would be distributing €952 million in dividends to shareholders. Around half of this, almost half a billion euros, went directly to the Porsche family itself.

Shortly afterwards, BMW shareholders received dividends of over €1.6 billion. A large proportion flowed into the bank accounts of the main owner families Quandt and Klatten. Susanne Klatten is the richest woman in Germany, with assets of €21 billion. Together with her brother Stefan Quandt (assets of €15 billion), she owns just under 50 percent of BMW shares.

When this “dividend payment at state expense” became known in May, the news triggered fierce protest. As a result, further information about the distribution of profits was kept under wraps. When Volkswagen decided to pay a dividend of around €2.4 billion at the end of September, the media remained silent.

Secondly, the state money is being used to prepare the auto companies for a global economic war, to be fought out at the expense of the workforce. The measures divide workers along national boundaries and thereby prevent a common struggle against the internationally operating auto companies. This division of workers is in turn exploited to depress wages and working conditions even further. And finally, based on experience, trade war is only the prelude to military war. Both the First and Second World Wars had their origins in the irreconcilable economic and strategic clash of interests between the major capitalist powers.

In early 2019 the German minister of economics, Peter Altmaier (CDU), had already presented his concept for a “National Industrial Strategy 2030.” It stated: “Industrial policy strategies are experiencing a renaissance in many parts of the world; there is hardly a successful country that relies exclusively and without exception on market forces to accomplish its tasks.” And further: “There are obviously strategies of rapid expansion with the clear aim of conquering new markets for one’s own economy and—wherever possible—monopolizing them. Altmaier stressed the role of state financing to develop “completely new mobility concepts” in the auto industry.

IG Metall expressly supports this national government strategy and its associated trade war offensive. A new start in industrial policy is overdue, explained Wolfgang Lemb, managing member of the IGM executive, in response to Altmaier’s paper. But “promotion based on an indiscriminate watering-can principle” would not be target-oriented. The state had to take on more responsibility; the market alone could not fix the problems. It was important to expand “national industrial policy leeway in competition and public procurement law.” Key industries must be identified and supported “with industrial and policy instruments such as structural funds or a European Investment Bank.”

The trade union is well aware this will involve further attacks on workers’ wages and working conditions. The Altmaier paper already stated that the “considerable lead of German industry in terms of technology and quality,” which has offset the “advantage of much lower wage and manufacturing costs in important emerging markets,” is “slowly but surely” melting away. As a result, “competitive pressure is also increasing in areas where German companies have been unrivaled to date.”

In response, IG Metall is drawing up its own plans for rationalization and restructuring, dressed up as usual with flowery titles such as “Pact for the Future 2030,” but which in fact are intended to cut jobs and workers’ social standards. The union criticizes the auto companies from the right and demands they step up the fight against their international rivals—above all the US and China.

IG Metall complains that Tesla owner Elon Musk, who is building a mammoth factory for electric vehicles in Grünheide near Berlin, as well as the world’s largest auto battery factory, was able to rely on the policies of former US President Barack Obama, who had favored the US auto industry. At the same time, the government of China under Xi Jinping is massively supporting its domestic auto companies and pushing ahead with the expansion of electric vehicles. IG Metall warns the German auto companies against regarding China only as a large sales market, while ignoring the fact that the country is at the same time a powerful and dynamic competitor.

The union agrees with the German government that in view of intensified global competition, the German auto industry must be rationalized and “global champions” developed—with comprehensive state support.

The fact that this “auto pact” is directed against autoworkers is also evident in the current COVID-19 pandemic. The virus is spreading rapidly, with between 120,000 and 150,000 people dying of the coronavirus every month in Europe. Safety measures in many companies are completely inadequate, and many staff are confined to overcrowded buses and trains on the way to and from work, but the union is doing nothing to increase the safety of workers.

On the contrary. In early summer, the IG Metall union called for the accelerated resumption of industrial production and demanded the rapid restoration of supply chains. It opposes any demand to stop production in non-essential operations. Along with the government and corporate management, it puts the profit system above the life and health of the workers.

Union safety representatives on works councils are instructed to keep quiet about company coronavirus infections and deny employees important information about the number of people infected, their immediate contacts and necessary quarantine measures. As was the case at VW at the end of April, the works councils and shop stewards on site glorify the alleged safety at factories, although they know much better.

Under these conditions, it is becoming increasingly urgent for workers to free themselves from the straitjacket of the trade unions and organize and control themselves independently. That is why the WSWS and the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) are calling for the creation of independent action committees to discuss and organize immediate measures not only to improve work safety, but also defend all jobs, wages and benefits.

This requires a political break with the reactionary concepts of Germany’s so-called “social partnership” and co-determination policy. For decades IG Metall and other trade unions spread the lie that the interests of capital and labor could be negotiated and balanced in partnership. Now it is becoming apparent on a daily basis that this propaganda serves only to mask the role of the trade unions as the handmaiden of the corporate bosses. The unions declare that workers must accept mass layoffs, social cuts and COVID-19 deaths in the workplace in order to save capitalism.

Over 40 million people captive in modern slavery worldwide: ILO

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

More than 40 million people worldwide are victims of modern slavery, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). In addition, more than 150 million children are subject to child labor, accounting for almost one in ten children around the world.

“Modern slavery is used as an umbrella term covering practices such as forced labor, debt bondage, forced marriage, and human trafficking. Essentially, it refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power,” the ILO states on its website.

To raise awareness, the U.N. commemorates Dec. 2nd as the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. December 2nd marks the date of the adoption, by the General Assembly, of the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others of December 2, 1949).

The focus of this day is on eradicating contemporary forms of slavery, such as trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, the worst forms of child labor, forced marriage, and the forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.

The ILO further states that private economies earn $150 billion in illegal profits every year out of slavery. Additionally, 150 million children are subjected to child labor – almost one in 10 children around the world. One million children are trafficked each year for cheap labor or sexual exploitation, the report said.

Slavery has evolved and manifested itself in different ways throughout history. Today some traditional forms of slavery still persist in their earlier forms, while others have been transformed into new ones. The UN human rights bodies have documented the persistence of old forms of slavery that are embedded in traditional beliefs and customs. These forms of slavery are the result of long-standing discrimination against the most vulnerable groups in societies, such as those regarded as being of low caste (Hindus), tribal minorities and indigenous peoples.

Alongside traditional forms of forced labor, such as bonded labor and debt bondage there now exist more contemporary forms of forced labor, such as migrant workers, who have been trafficked for economic exploitation of every kind in the world economy: work in domestic servitude, the construction industry, the food and garment industry, the agricultural sector and in forced prostitution.

Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an international document adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on Dec. 10, 1948, prohibits slavery. The document, which enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings, states that “no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”

Some countries have slowed down or slipped backward in their efforts by reducing the number of victims identified, decreasing anti-slavery funding or cutting back on support systems, the report mentioned. While an estimated 16 million people are trapped in forced labor, only 40 countries have investigated public or business supply chains to look at such exploitation, the report implied. In nearly 100 countries, forced labor is not considered a crime or is a minor offense, it said.

Ending modern slavery by 2030 was one of the global goals adopted unanimously by members of the U.N. five years ago. But at today’s rate, achieving that goal is “impossible,” the report said. It would require freeing some 10,000 people each day for the next decade, it said.

Insanity reigns — the US, Israel and Iran

Ron Forthofer

All too often, events occur that make me feel that I am living in ‘Bizarro World’. The recent talk and extensive US corporate media coverage about whether or not the US and/or Israel will soon attack Iran is one of these occasions. The alleged rationale for such an attack is the possibility that Iran might pursue the development of a nuclear weapon. This rationale ignores the religious ruling or fatwa issued by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei against the acquisition, development and use of nuclear weapons.

In its reporting on the possibility of the US or Israel attacking Iran, the US corporate-controlled media usually fails to mention that these threats are illegal under international law. Of course, illegality is not an issue for the media when these two countries are involved.

In addition, also seldom mentioned is the fact that the US is the only nation that has dropped atomic bombs on another country. The US is also a country that many nations claim has not complied with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Moreover, Israel is a country that has not even accepted the NPT and also has nuclear weapons. Also generally ignored is the fact that the US and Israel routinely violate international law with their unprovoked attacks on other nations. These are the two nations threatening Iran over the possibility that it might develop nuclear weapons. Such incredible hypocrisy and the media fails to call it out!

Note that Iran has gone the extra mile to demonstrate its willingness to reach a diplomatic resolution, but that is not enough for the US under President Trump and Israel under Prime Minister Netanyahu. For example, in 2015 Iran agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the US. This deal, also endorsed by the UN Security Council, restricted the development of Iran’s nuclear program. During the next few years, Iran was in full compliance with the agreement.

Even more bizarre, despite Iranian compliance, in 2018 the US pulled out of the agreement. The US then reimposed sanctions and imposed new sanctions on Iran. In an attempt to destroy the Iranian economy, the US also threatened nations that traded with Iran. These illegal and barbaric US sanctions, still in effect during the covid-19 pandemic, have tremendously harmed the Iranian people and the US image. Despite all of this, Iran continued to honor the agreement for a full year after the US withdrawal.

Note the US National Intelligence Estimate has repeatedly concluded Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program. Many former high-ranking Israeli intelligence and military officials agree that Iran is not an existential threat to Israel. Thus, in a sane world, wouldn’t there be international pressure being placed on the US and Israel over their nuclear weapons and over their war crimes? Instead, in this ‘Bizarro World’, because the US and Israel demand it, the focus is on Iran and its attempted development of a nuclear energy option.

In addition, given this background of no credible evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program nor of an existential threat to Israel, maybe the real motivation for the US and Israel is not about an Iranian nuclear weapon. Perhaps the goal is for a change in leadership in Iran to someone more compliant with US and Israeli plans. The US has used its illegal unilateral sanctions to cause suffering among the Iranian people in a misguided effort to get them to reject the current Iranian leadership. Despite overwhelming evidence that this approach doesn’t work, the US continues to use this barbaric, illegal and flawed tactic.

Why do the US and Israel continue to play the risky game of needlessly provoking Iran? One possible reason is that Netanyahu would like to see Iran respond in order to draw in the US into a military conflict with Iran. His thinking may be that the US would so weaken Iran, something that Israel cannot do without using its nuclear weapons, that Iran could no longer prevent Israel from achieving hegemony in the Middle East. Perhaps the revenge motive drives Trump and the US neocons. They cannot forgive Iran for overthrowing the Shah and humiliating the US in 1979 as well as for Iran following its own interests.

The recent provocations may also serve domestic considerations for Trump and Netanyahu even if they don’t lead to a military conflict. For Netanyahu, this focus would distract from his criminal trial for fraud, bribery and breach of trust. For Trump, the provocations would make it more difficult for President-Elect Biden to rejoin the JCPOA. Who knows for sure in ‘Bizarro World’?

One crucial concern for the US and Israel is the relationship among Iran, Russia and China. How would Russia and China react if the US and Israel were to attack Iran? Might such an attack lead to a much larger conflict that could escalate to a nuclear war? Thus these needless US and Israeli provocations may be more risky than the dangerous duo of Netanyahu and Trump want to admit.

EU-Turkey tensions mount over Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean

Hasan Yıldırım

The unilateral opening of Varosha (Maraş) in northern Cyprus and calls for a “two-state solution” and an ethnic division of Cyprus into Greek and Turkish zones by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are stoking tensions between the European Union (EU) and Turkey. Once a world-famous tourist destination, Varosha has been in the buffer zone since the war and Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and is a ghost town. On October 8, parts of the region were opened as conflicts mount inside NATO over influence in the eastern Mediterranean.

On November 15, on his official visit for the 37th anniversary of the Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence, Erdoğan visited Varosha together with several ministers, his far-right ally Devlet Bahçeli (chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party, MHP) and Ersin Tatar—the newly-elected president of the Northern Cyprus administration (TRNC), recognized only by Turkey.

In Cyprus, Erdoğan blamed the EU powers and the Republic of Cyprus for the failure of previous peace talks. Opposing further negotiations for the unification of northern and southern Cyprus, he put forward a “two separate states solution” as a new turn in his government’s Cyprus policy.

Erdoğan accused the EU powers of “still lying today… There are two different peoples, two separate states in Cyprus today. A two-state solution needs to be negotiated on the basis of sovereign equality. … The will of the TRNC people has also been manifested in this direction in the last elections. As the guarantor country, neither we nor the TRNC can tolerate diplomatic games anymore.”

The last negotiations collapsed in 2017 amid the scramble over newly-discovered oil and gas resources around Cyprus and increased regional tensions due to NATO wars in Libya and Syria. When the Republic of Cyprus gave hydrocarbon exploration licenses to major energy corporations, Turkey declared that they were invalid and that the TRNC has equal rights to the resources. It deployed its drill ships, escorted by warships, to waters claimed by Greece and Cyprus.

In the October 18 presidential elections, Ankara backed former Prime Minister Ersin Tatar, who supports a two-state solution, against outgoing President Mustafa Akıncı, who speaks for sections of the Turkish Cypriot bourgeoisie proposing “unification” with the south and to join the EU.

Tatar met with his counterpart Nicos Anastasiades at the beginning of November. In the meeting, they promised future negotiations between northern and southern administrations with participation from three “guarantor” countries—Britain, Greece and Turkey—as well as UN officials. Although Tatar claimed that Anastasiades did not exclude a two-state solution, Anastasiades flatly denied this.

Turkish negotiations with Cyprus are inflaming a violent struggle for influence between the major powers across the region that has escalated especially since last year.

The “EastMed” pipeline project to transport gas to Europe via Greece and Italy provoked a bitter reaction last year from Turkey. The EU powers backed this project, but Ankara objected to being excluded and unveiled a “blue homeland” map claiming large portions of the Aegean Sea. Having made a bilateral maritime and military agreement with the Libyan-Islamist Government of National Accord (GNA) in November last year, Ankara is using Cyprus as a bargaining chip with the EU.

The November 22 naval incident in the eastern Mediterranean only intensifies these tensions. As part of the EU mission Operation Irini, German soldiers boarded and searched a Turkish cargo vessel headed for Libya, a move strongly protested by the Turkish government. In June, when the French frigate Courbet tried to stop Turkish ships carrying cargo to Libya, Turkish warships briefly illuminated it with their targeting radar, indicating they were ready to open fire.

Given these explosive regional tensions, and the irreconcilable conflict between Erdoğan’s proposal for a two-state solution in Cyprus and the Greek side’s call for a united Cyprus in the EU, these talks already appear to be headed for failure.

EU officials are stepping up threats to impose sanctions on Turkey. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas declared: “It is up to Turkey what decision will be taken at the EU summit in December.” Calling the Erdoğan’s visit a “provocation,” Maas said sanctions against Turkey will be on the agenda: “If we see no positive signals coming from Turkey by December, only further provocations such as Erdoğan’s visit to North Cyprus, then we are heading for a difficult debate

Maas and his French counterpart Jean-Yven Le Drian also dealt with Turkey in a joint op-ed on future trans-Atlantic relations with a Biden administration in the White House in the Washington Post on November 16, writing: “We will have to address Turkey’s problematic behavior in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond.”

In advance of coming a EU leaders summit on December 10-11, the European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution last Thursday in support of Cyprus urging EU leaders to “take action and impose tough sanctions in response to Turkey’s illegal actions,” according to Reuters.

Although they are “allies” within NATO, France and Turkey in particular are locked in an escalating conflict after Paris militarily backed Athens with fighter jets and other advanced weaponry against Ankara in the eastern Mediterranean. France recently strengthened its ties with Greece, Egypt, Cyprus, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the region, including joint naval drills with Cairo in the Mediterranean. Moreover, for the first time, France and the UAE are participating in the “Medusa” exercises in the Mediterranean from November 30 to December 6, 2020, which is part of the tripartite cooperation between Cyprus, Greece and Egypt active since 2017. Paris and Ankara also backed rival sides in the Libyan, Syrian and the Armenian-Azeri wars.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently denounced Ankara’s actions in the region. In Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, he told the French daily Le Figaro: “We also mentioned [Ankara’s] action in Libya where it also sent forces from third party countries, and its action in the eastern Mediterranean,” adding: “Europe and the United States must work together to convince Erdogan such actions are not in the interest of his people.” Although Pompeo visited Istanbul after Paris, he made the unprecedented move of not meeting Turkish officials.

The Greek government also denounced Erdoğan’s visit to Varosha, calling it a “provocation without precedent” and demanding EU sanctions. In a November 14 statement, the Greek Foreign Ministry said: “This action adds to Turkey’s ongoing and increasing violations of international legality in the Eastern Mediterranean. We condemn it in the most categorical manner and expect it to be discussed in depth at the upcoming December meeting of the European Council.”

Anastasiades also said such actions also “do not contribute to the creation of a favorable, positive climate for the resumption of talks for the solution of the Cyprus problem.”

Increasingly isolated in the region, Turkey has sought to develop ties with Britain, which has bases in Cyprus as the former colonial power. After joint naval exercises in the eastern Mediterranean with a British destroyer in September, the Turkish defense ministry announced in November that Turkish F-16 jets had participated in exercises with Royal Air Force (RAF) Eurofighter Typhoons. It added that these exercises were the first of their kind between the Turkish and British air forces.

Meanwhile, on November 13, Greek, Cypriot and Israeli defense ministers announced an agreement to step up military cooperation on training programs, intelligence sharing and cyber-security. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said they agreed during talks in Nicosia, Cyprus, to “promote large-scale industry cooperation that will bolster our defense abilities and create thousands of jobs for all three economies.” According to the Middle East Monitor, they are working to involve more parties in their partnership, especially the United States.

New Zealand inquiry suppresses evidence about fascist terror attack

Tom Peters

On November 26, the royal commission of inquiry into the March 15, 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack delivered its final report to the New Zealand government. Fascist gunman Brenton Tarrant carried out mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques, killing 51 people, including children, and injuring 49 more. He was arrested while driving towards a third mosque. The horrific massacres were filmed and live-streamed online by Tarrant himself.

Al Noor Mosque, Christchurch

The deadline for the report to be completed has been repeatedly pushed back, which prevented any discussion of its contents prior to the October 17 election. The Labour Party-led government is expected to make the 792-page report public next week, although it has the power to delay publication and to suppress any parts of the document.

The commission’s web site says it investigated “what state agencies knew about” Tarrant prior to his attack and whether he could have been stopped. Its findings will inevitably be a whitewash, aimed at protecting the police and intelligence agencies, which turned a blind eye to the clear danger of fascist violence in both Australia and New Zealand, and ignored specific warnings about Tarrant.

The commission will also cover up the responsibility of successive Australian and New Zealand governments, along with the corporate media, for stoking Islamophobia to justify participation in the criminal US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ever since the attack, the political establishment and media have suppressed discussion about the political roots of the atrocity. New Zealand’s chief censor banned possession of Tarrant’s manifesto, which expressed admiration for US President Donald Trump and contained racist, anti-immigrant and anti-socialist statements which resemble those made by capitalist governments and parties throughout the world.

In New Zealand, the right-wing populist NZ First, which played a major role in the 2017–2020 Labour-led coalition government, has repeatedly denounced Muslims as potential terrorists and opposed immigrants from Asia, using language similar to Tarrant’s.

Following a request from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s major media organisations agreed not to report on Tarrant’s statements about his fascist motivations during his trial. In the event, Tarrant pleaded guilty, meaning that he did not face trial and has never been questioned publicly.

Even if the government releases the royal commission’s report without redactions, the document cannot be checked against the evidence submitted to the inquiry, which is being kept secret. This includes more than 400 interview transcripts and more than 1,000 public submissions. Only a few submissions, including by Muslim community groups, have been publicly released.

The commissioners, Supreme Court Judge William Young and former diplomat Jacqui Caine, announced that, for reasons of “national security,” submissions by government ministers and senior public servants will be suppressed for 30 years.

This includes testimony given by the police, who granted Tarrant a firearms license despite the fact that he did not have appropriate referees. Police also dismissed a warning from a member of the public about racist and violent language overheard by members of the Bruce Rifle Club, where Tarrant trained for his deadly attack. Tarrant had also been reported to Australian police in 2016 for threatening to kill an anti-fascist protester; police dismissed the complaint.

The intelligence agencies, supposedly subjects of the inquiry, helped to write its report. The commissioners said they received a “substantial amount” of “Restricted, Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret” material. The commission “undertook a process, with the assistance of intelligence and security agencies, to ensure it could include relevant material in the report without damaging New Zealand’s national security interests.”

An interview conducted with Tarrant during the inquiry will be permanently kept secret. The commissioners say this decision was taken so as “not to provide a platform for the dissemination of the individual’s views.” The real aim, as with the censorship of Tarrant’s manifesto, is to prevent public discussion about his fascist views and to suppress information concerning his activities and connections in Australia, New Zealand and internationally.

Muslim community organisations have criticised the extraordinary secrecy. Foundation Against Islamophobia and Racism spokesperson Azad Khan told TVNZ: “We don’t know what information is being suppressed, to whose benefit it is being suppressed. We definitely know it is not going to be to the benefit of the Muslim community,” he said.

Khan said the commission’s statement that evidence had to be suppressed because it could be used as a how-to “manual” by other terrorists was “the lamest excuse I’ve heard.” He noted that anyone “intent on causing maximum carnage” could find “heaps of material online.”

The Islamic Women’s Council released its submission to the royal commission, which stated that police, the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and other state agencies had ignored multiple warnings of escalating fascist violence and threats against Muslims.

The Council has criticised the royal commission’s secrecy and expressed concern that no one within the state apparatus will be held accountable for the failure to prevent the attack. Spokesperson Anjum Rahman told Radio NZ, “We weren’t able to be present when agencies were being questioned, nor able to see their evidence and respond to it.”

Nearly two years after the Christchurch terrorist attack, almost nothing has been made public about how it was prepared and who else knew about Tarrant’s activities. The media has continually presented him as a reclusive “self-radicalised” terrorist, despite his known contacts with fascist groups in Australia such as the Lads Society, which tried to recruit him.

In New Zealand, the far-right Action Zealandia (previously called the Dominion Movement) expounds the same white supremacist views as Tarrant. One of its founding members, a soldier in the army, was charged with espionage last month for allegedly releasing classified information to an unnamed organisation. The soldier’s name and other details have not been made public, including whether he had any contact with Tarrant, whose manifesto mentioned that there were large numbers of fascists in the armed forces internationally.

Ardern’s main response to the March 15 attack has been to strengthen the powers and resources of the state censor to suppress online content that authorities deem “extremist.” Ardern has been at the forefront of a global push for internet censorship. Her government has also poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the SIS, the Government Communications Security Bureau, and the police, to significantly boost their recruitment.

The target of these measures is not the extreme right. The state apparatus is being strengthened in preparation to confront a resurgence of working-class struggles against austerity, unemployment and poverty. Meanwhile, the far-right is being emboldened by the Labour government’s promotion of militarism and its draconian anti-immigrant policies, designed to scapegoat foreigners for the economic and social crisis triggered by the pandemic.

Australian court upholds sacking of academic for criticising US and Israeli militarism

Mike Head

A Federal Court judge last week set a chilling and far-reaching precedent for the further overturning of basic democratic rights and academic freedom, especially to express political or other dissenting views.

The ruling backed the University of Sydney’s February 2019 dismissal of Dr. Tim Anderson, an economics department senior lecturer, primarily on the basis of allegations that his criticisms of US militarism and Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people were “offensive.”

Dr. Tim Anderson (Photo source: Facebook)

The court decision is another warning of the poisonous and repressive atmosphere being whipped up to silence opposition to the preparations for Australian involvement in potentially catastrophic US-led wars against China or other perceived threats to the global hegemony asserted by Washington since World War II.

Significantly, the University of Sydney hosts the US Studies Centre, which was established in 2006, with US and Australian government funding, for the express purpose of overcoming popular hostility to US militarism after the massive protests against the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The court’s judgment also exposed the fraud of claims by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) that its enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) with universities protect the essential principle of academic freedom.

Justice Thomas Thawley ruled that the university’s EBA with the union, which is similar to those at most universities, “does not recognise the existence of, or give rise to, a legally enforceable right to intellectual freedom.”

In particular, Thawley declared that EBA “academic freedom” clauses do not protect university workers from being sacked for making comments—even on their private social media accounts—that managements deem in breach of their employee codes of conduct. Instead, EBA commitments to academic freedom were “purely aspirational.”

University of Sydney Institute Building, where United States Studies Centre is located (Photo source: Wikipedia)

This thoroughly anti-democratic decision comes on the back of a similar result in another case taken to the courts by the NTEU. In July, the Full Federal Court upheld the dismissal of James Cook University academic Dr. Peter Ridd, for expressing his views, as a climate-change sceptic, that cut across the university’s reputation.

Anderson’s case demonstrates how far university managements, working in league with governments and the corporate media, can victimise academics, especially those who oppose the wars of US imperialism and its allies, including the Zionist regime in Israel.

Among the charges the University of Sydney made against Anderson was that he tweeted, on his own Twitter account, criticism of the university hosting an address by US Senator John McCain. Anderson described McCain, a backer of every US military intervention for the past three decades, including the brutal neo-colonial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as “a key US war criminal.”

Other allegations included Anderson posting on his personal Facebook account a photograph of a group of friends eating lunch, one of whom wore an anti-Israel badge. Anderson was accused of “promoting racial hatred and/or racism” and charged with violating the university’s Code of Conduct even though he was on leave from the university at the time.

Anderson was further charged with posting to his Facebook and Twitter accounts a denunciation of a video news report by Channel 7 reporter Bryan Seymour that insinuated that Anderson supported racism and the North Korean regime. Anderson’s comment that “Colonial media promotes ignorance, apartheid and war” was declared “derogatory” toward Seymour.

Anderson was also cited for giving a lecture that allegedly featured an Israeli flag with the Nazi swastika superimposed on it, examined media coverage of Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2014, and encouraged students to seek independent evidence of claims of “moral equivalence” between Israel’s deadly aerial bombardments and primitive Palestinian rocket attacks.

This was judged to be “derogatory and/or offensive” and as “reasonably seen as racist towards or seeking to target and/or offend Israelis and/or Jewish people and/or Jewish victims of the Nazi regime.” Yet, critics of the Israeli government, including anti-Zionist Jews, have often compared its persecution of the Palestinian people to the actions of the fascist German regime.

Finally, Anderson was accused of breaching confidentiality orders barring him from even telling anyone that he was facing dismissal, and of failing to comply with “a lawful and reasonable direction” to delete his social media posts.

The judge agreed with the university management’s determination that Anderson’s posts and efforts to fight his dismissal amounted to “serious misconduct” under both the NTEU’s EBA and the university’s Code of Conduct, thus justifying his sacking.

Anderson’s dismissal followed a protracted campaign by senior figures in the federal Liberal-National Coalition government, the corporate media and university management, to demonise Anderson because of his denunciations of wars and military interventions by the US, Israel and other major powers.

In April 2018, Education Minister Simon Birmingham, who was in charge of university funding, demanded an investigation into Anderson for comments he made questioning US claims that the Syrian government was responsible for a sarin gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun.

The Murdoch-owned Sydney Daily Telegraph hysterically denounced Anderson as a “sarin gasbag” and the Sydney Morning Herald later reported that the university was taking disciplinary action against Anderson—a media disclosure that violated its own confidentiality regime.

Justice Thawley found Anderson’s dismissal as justified by the university’s Code of Conduct, which imposes requirements such as “the exercise of the best professional and ethical judgment,” “integrity and objectivity,” being “fair and reasonable” and treating “members of the public with respect, impartiality, courtesy and sensitivity.” The university’s employees must also “uphold the outstanding reputation of the University in the community.”

These formulations are so vague and value-laden that they could provide a pretext for sacking academics or other university workers for condemning government policies, denouncing corporate greed or accusing the US and Australian governments of military aggression or war crimes. Employees could be dismissed for criticising university policies, such as hosting pro-military think tanks.

Virtually every university campus across the country now participates in government-funded programs to tie academic research to the development of new military technologies. Australian universities are being integrated into a vast US-led military build-up, aimed at preparing for war with China and other powers.

The NTEU’s response to the court ruling, as it was to Anderson’s sacking itself, and the massive job cuts ravaging universities, is to oppose any mobilisation of university workers and instead appeal to the employers for a deal.

In a union media statement, NTEU New South Wales division secretary Michael Thomson said: “We call on all Vice Chancellors to come to the table to talk about how we can formulate a legally enforceable right, to provide the appropriate protections for university staff and to avoid these circumstances occurring in the future.”

The Federal Court’s support for Anderson’s victimisation is part of a deeper attack on fundamental democratic rights. It widens the impact of a High Court 2019 ruling that essentially abolished freedom of speech for workers, whether in government or corporate employment. With no dissent, the judges endorsed the sacking of a federal public servant for criticising—even anonymously—the country’s brutal refugee detention regime.

A warning must be sounded. The ruling class and its agencies, including university managements, are seeking to suppress dissent amid mounting social inequality, war preparations and deepening political discontent.

Hence the federal police raids on journalists for publishing leaks exposing government and military crimes, the prosecution of the whistleblowers involved and the bipartisan backing for the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Canadian government’s fiscal update intensifies criminal drive to keep “economy open” as pandemic rages

Roger Jordan

With Canada in the grips of a “second wave” of the COVID-19 pandemic far larger than the first, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government presented its fall 2020 fiscal update to parliament on Monday. The update was aimed at reassuring corporate Canada of two things—that the federal government is determined to keep the economy “open” so as to ensure their profit-making continues unimpeded and that it will provide them with tens of billions in state funds in 2021 and 2022 to boost the global “competitiveness” of Canadian capitalism.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on screen, participates in a video linked media conference after an EU-Canada summit via video conference at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. (Olivier Hoslet, Pool via AP)

On a day which saw over 6,100 new infections across Canada and 98 further deaths, not a single measure was introduced to curb the spread of the deadly virus. Even as government ministers and opposition politicians alike enthused over the news that mass distribution of vaccines is only a few months away, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland insisted that everything must be done to avoid lockdowns, regardless of the cost in human life.

Implicitly acknowledging that the ruling elite has fully embraced the homicidal policy of allowing the virus to spread unchecked through the population, Freeland told parliament, “We know how to keep most of our economy—from manufacturing, to mining, to jobs that can be done remotely—operating safely, even while the virus is still circulating in our communities. We have learned how to keep many of our children in school.”

There is nothing “safe” about how Canada’s economy is “operating.” While the country’s richest 20 billionaires have increased their obscene levels of wealth by more than $37 billion since the onset of the pandemic, infections and deaths among workers continue to grow at a rapid pace. Just last week, a report revealed that over 26,000 workers have filed workers’ compensation claims because they were infected by COVID-19 at work.

Freeland’s mantra, shared by the entire ruling class, of keeping the economy “operating safely” while the virus runs rampant has led to mass infections and death. In Quebec, more than half of all new infections are work-related, according to the province’s public health authority. In Ontario’s Peel Region, which is dominated by overwhelmingly working class cities like Brampton, the infection rate over the past seven days has reached a staggering 1,200 per 100,000 inhabitants. There have been 116 workplace outbreaks in Peel, which lies directly east and north-east of Metro Toronto, predominantly among low-paid workers in large warehouses and distribution centres.

Schools have also emerged as major vectors for the spread of the virus. Two weeks ago, the dangerous conditions created by the reopening of schools led to the death of a 67-year-old child and youth support worker at a Toronto-area school. Nevertheless, governments at all levels are insisting schools remain open so that parents are available to go to work to generate profits for big business.

As intensive care units across the country approach capacity, the Trudeau government has no intention of changing course. Spurning calls for extra funding for health care, Freeland announced no increases in federal health transfers to the provinces, which have been significantly cut in real terms since the Trudeau government came to power in 2015, and have been falling as a proportion of total state health expenditure for decades.

Instead, the Trudeau government, to use Freeland’s words, is focused on how to “bring our economy roaring back, once this pandemic is beaten.” The centrepiece of this agenda is a $70-100 billion stimulus program that the government claims will establish a “greener, more inclusive, more innovative and competitive economy.”

What Trudeau and Freeland are planning is to provide massive subsidies to the corporate oligarchy, while relying on their close ties with the trade union bureaucracy to restructure class relations to the detriment of working people. A foretaste of what they intend has been provided by the recent negotiations between Unifor, the country’s largest industrial union, and the Detroit Three automakers. After months of backroom talks involving the automakers, Unifor, government representatives, and other corporate interests, the federal Liberal and Ontario Conservative governments agreed to hand Ford and Fiat-Chrysler close to $1 billion in subsidies to convert some of their facilities to electric vehicle production. To consolidate the companies’ “business case for the conversion,” i.e. ensure that it will result in bumper profits and lavish shareholder payouts, Unifor agreed to the gutting of work rules and to allow the automakers’ to flood their plants with low-paid two-tier and temporary workers.

Similar plans for other sectors of the economy are undoubtedly already being negotiated behind the scenes, following on from the close tri-partite collaboration the Trudeau government established with business lobby groups and the trade union bureaucracy at the beginning of the pandemic.

The unions supported the Trudeau government’s $650 billion bailout of the banks, big business and the financial oligarchy and its makeshift ration-style assistance for those unable to work during the pandemic. Then in early April, they began conspiring with Ottawa and the corporate elite on forcing workers back on the job amid the raging pandemic. In May, Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) President Hassan Yussuff and Canadian Chamber of Commerce head Perrin Beatty issued a joint call for the creation of a national economic task force to discuss how to confront “transformational changes,” including high levels of public debt and a rollback of economic globalization, and “avoid stakeholders going off in different directions,” i.e. stop the emergence of working class opposition.

Since then, the unions have collaborated with business and governments of all political stripes to reopen the economy and schools, and suppress all working class opposition. This criminal back-to-work drive has also been backed by their unions’ New Democratic Party allies. The NDP has repeatedly propped up the Liberal minority government in parliament, including by voting for its September throne speech. For its part, British Columbia’s NDP government has presided over one of the most comprehensive reopening campaigns, creating conditions for a dramatic resurgence of the pandemic. In the six weeks since Oct. 20, BC’s seven-day rolling average of daily new cases has risen from 160 to 750, hospitalizations have risen five-fold, and deaths almost doubled.

A critical element in the Trudeau government’s plan to “revive” the economy, and one that enjoys the full support of business organizations and the union bureaucracy, is the provision of “affordable childcare” across the country. This has absolutely nothing to do with ensuring the social and pedagogical wellbeing of young children and their families, which would require the investment of tens of billions of dollars in public education and social services to make up for decades of austerity and the devastating impact of the pandemic.

“Affordable childcare” is a euphemism for the creation of low-cost holding pens for the children of working class parents staffed by precariously employed workers earning poverty wages. Its chief purpose, openly admitted by Freeland and business organizations, is to force working parents to return to their low-paid jobs as quickly as possible.

“Canada will not be truly competitive,” declared Freeland Monday, “until all Canadian women have access to the affordable child care we need to support our participation in our country’s workforce.” The Business Council of Canada responded with enthusiasm to her announcement, noting that it has been advocating just such a policy “for many months.”

The Liberals and their trade union allies are attempting to dress up their anti-worker agenda with propaganda about more “inclusiveness” and “numerous commitments towards workers.” A typical example of “inclusion” was the creation of a $93 million Black Entrepreneurship Program to provide “equitable access” to government procurement programs for “black business owners,” a measure that will no doubt meet with approval among the identity politics-obsessed sections of the privileged middle class.

The CLC—whose website is emblazoned with the heading “In Canada, we’ve weathered the pandemic by sticking together and supporting each other”—waxed lyrical about how the Liberals’ fiscal update gave workers “assurances that their government will help them make ends meet and safeguard their health and wellbeing.”

To the extent that there was any criticism within the political establishment of the Liberals’ pro-corporate agenda, it came from the right. The Conservatives and the Business Council of Canada complained that too much government spending is being planned, and said that a “fiscal anchor” is required to impose spending cuts over the long-term. Underscoring that the disagreement revolves purely around the timing of austerity measures, the Liberals stressed in response that as soon as employment levels rebound, Canada will return to “fiscal responsibility.”

Bipartisan $908 billion “emergency relief framework” receives support from Democratic congressional leadership

Jacob Crosse

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a joint press conference on Wednesday released a statement signaling their support for a bipartisan $908 billion “emergency relief framework” proposal that was first revealed by Republican and Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus on Monday. The caucus includes Democratic senators Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Mark Warner (Virginia), and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), and Republican senators Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Angus King (Maine), and Mitt Romney (Utah).

The proposed four-month “emergency relief package” is another gift to big business and Wall Street and is less than half of the $2.2 trillion package the Democrats had passed before the November election and roughly $800 million less than the $1.7 trillion deal previously offered by the White House. Most important for the ruling class is the bill’s “temporary” liability shield for businesses and other organizations against COVID-19–related lawsuits brought against them by workers or customers who fell ill due to inadequate safety measures.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, left, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrive to testify before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020. (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell however has already poured cold water on the proposal, instead sticking to the $550 billion package he has been pushing for and that has already been agreed upon by President Donald Trump.

“In the spirit of compromise we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations,” Schumer and Pelosi said in their joint statement Wednesday, signaling their support for the bill.

The announcement of the proposal came Tuesday during testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin before the Senate Banking Committee. Both Powell and Mnuchin expressed support for the proposal, with Powell stating that it “sounds like you’re hitting a lot of the areas that could definitely benefit from the help.” Mnuchin stated he looked “...forward to reviewing with you the overall package. I do think that more fiscal response is needed.”

Five months after both political parties allowed enhanced unemployment benefits and housing protections within the misnamed $2.2 trillion CARES Act to expire, leading to food lines, evictions, and death, and less than four weeks until some 12 million lose federal pandemic benefits, the latest murmurs of a possible agreement that leaves out much-needed aid for millions of workers, while protecting businesses from COVID-19–related lawsuits, epitomizes the bipartisan disdain the ruling class has for the lives and safety of workers and their families.

As with the CARES Act in March, the preliminary details reveal a windfall for the financial oligarchy while a pittance is made available for the majority of the population. The framework does not include another round of $1,200 stimulus checks and reduces the enhanced $600 unemployment benefit, which expired at the end of July, to a miserly $300 week.

Left unmentioned in the proposal is the fate of two key emergency economic relief programs—the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, which provides benefits to so-called “gig” workers and the self-employed, and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, which provides benefits to those who have already exhausted their state benefits. Combined, the two programs account for nearly 13 million of the over 20 million people currently receiving some unemployment compensation, and both expire on December 26, the day after Christmas.

The legislation also does not include any renter or mortgage protections, leaving some 30 million people in the US facing eviction in the next two months. The eviction of millions of people and their families with the virus spreading out of control will lead to hundreds of thousands of infections and tens of thousands of additional deaths, with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield already predicting that the US COVID-19 death toll could reach 450,000 by February. Redfield warned that this winter could be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation”

Hailing the $908 billion figure as a “good middle ground” that “hits the major elements,” Democratic Illinois Senator Dick Durbin lent his support to the bill while offering mild criticism of the immunity from liability protections included in the bill, before adding that he didn’t want the liability issue to hold up the bill: “I want to make sure that we pass this COVID-19 bill, as the group has brought together, or something like it, for $908 billion, we shouldn’t be delayed or diverted from this effort over a debate for immunity for liability. It’s an important issue but 38 states have already enacted laws related to COVID-19 liability, the others can certainly do it if they wish.”

Of the proposed $908 billion, the bulk of the money in the proposal, $288 billion, is earmarked to the Small Business Administration, primarily to refill the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

The PPP was created as part of the CARES Act and was sold as a method for paying businesses through forgivable loans in order to keep workers employed through the pandemic. Instead, it has served primarily as a slush fund for big business and a money-printing service for the large banks that service the loans, with previous disclosures revealing millions handed out to major sports teams, multimillionaires and religious institutions, while millions of workers were still laid off. For small businesses that attempted to obtain a loan, the shifting guidelines and paperwork proved a hurdle too high for many, unlike major corporations with dedicated teams of lawyers and accountants who were able to navigate the government bureaucracy.

On Tuesday, the Washington Post revealed through a Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit against the Treasury Department, that of the more than 5 million loans that have been processed so far under the PPP, more than half of the $522 billion allocated went to just 5 percent of the recipients. The top 1 percent of loans accounted for more than a quarter of all the loan value, approximately 28 percent.

The data showed that roughly 600 large companies received the maximum loan amount allowed under the program, $10 million. Some of the companies that received $10 million loans were the parent companies of major restaurant chains such as Uno Pizzeria & Grill, Boston Market and Legal Sea Foods.

Following the nearly $300 billion earmarked for the PPP, the next largest item in the framework is the estimated $180 billion for additional unemployment insurance. Under the current proposal, which is unsettled, the unemployment eligibility window would be increased by 13 weeks, allowing workers to claim through March 31, although it is unclear if they would be able to backdate claims.

The third highest figure—an estimated $160 billion—is reserved for state, local and tribal governments, which have seen their tax revenues evaporate due to pandemic-induced lockdowns and restrictions. The funding is more than $270 billion less than the $436 billion Pelosi had previously demanded in the $2.2 trillion package.

Another notable figure in the bill is the $45 billion set aside for transportation. The pandemic has decimated public transit, leaving several major cities to consider, or already implement, drastic cuts, including the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is threatening to lay off 9,300 workers.

The Chicago Transit Authority is also facing a $375 million budget shortfall in 2021, while Denver’s Regional Transportation District passed a budget in mid-November that included $140 million in spending cuts and the elimination of 400 jobs through layoffs and attrition, along with wage reductions and furloughs.

However, according to Senator Warner’s office, of the $45 billion earmarked for transportation, only $15 billion is for mass transit, with $1 billion for Amtrak and $8 billion for the bus industry, leaving $21 billion for the airlines, which already received $25 billion through the CARES Act and still went ahead with furloughing more than 40,000 aviation industry workers.