Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank announce new round of job cuts

Elisabeth Zimmerman

Major German corporations are using the coronavirus crisis to implement long-planned mass redundancies and rationalisation plans. This applies not only to the auto, steel and other industries, but also to the banks. At a time when the German DAX index approaches a historic high, tens of thousands of white-collar and blue-collar workers are forced to pay the price for this orgy of enrichment with their jobs and livelihoods.

In early December, Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank announced new austerity measures involving massive reductions of staff and the closure of many local banks.

Deutsche Bank is planning drastic cost-cutting measures in its retail banking business and the closure of a further 200 branches over the next two years—100 at Deutsche Bank and 100 at Postbank. This was announced by Karl von Rohr, deputy chairman of the management board of Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank still has about 500 branches nationwide and Postbank about 800. An agreement signed when Deutsche Bank took over Postbank stipulated that a maximum of 50 Postbank branches could be closed per year.

Deutsche Bank in Munich, Germany (Photo: Ich fahre hummer/Wikipedia)

Three hundred fifty jobs are to be cut in the bank’s central departments for private customer business in Frankfurt and Bonn. This affects over a third of the current 1,000 staff employed in these centres and inevitably increases fears of even more job losses. Staff in customer and product management and business organisation will all be affected by the measures. In a letter to employees, cited by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, von Rohr justifies the far-reaching cost-cutting measures by arguing that the private customer business in Germany can only be made “profitable and sustainable” by further significant cost cutting.

The trade unions, first and foremost Verdi, are involved in the massive attacks and are energetically pushing ahead with the restructuring process. According to von Rohr, it had been possible to reach an agreement with the unions that job cuts be carried out “as socially acceptable as possible.” This is the phrase which has been used for years to wipe out tens of thousands of jobs.

At Deutsche Bank, a program has been underway for some time now involving the elimination of 18,000 full-time jobs worldwide by the end of 2022, from the current total of 92,000. This should result in total savings of €3.3 billion. The savings achieved to date at the expense of employees have contributed to Deutsche Bank’s net profit of €309 million in the third quarter of this year.

Until recently, Manfred Knof was responsible for Deutsche Bank’s private client business and was a key figure in implementing the executive’s cost-cutting measures. He is now to take over as CEO of Commerzbank at the beginning of next year. The current Commerzbank executive has already begun to wipe out 10,000 jobs, a quarter of the entire workforce. Knof, together with Supervisory Board Chairman Hans-Jörg Vetter, now have the job of revising and intensifying this austerity course. This was confirmed in a report by the Handelsblatt business daily in its November 30 issue.

Both Vetter and Knof have experience in the drastic restructuring of banks. Vetter, for example, was chairman of the board of the Berlin Bankgesellschaft and later the State Bank of Baden-Württemberg, where thousands of jobs were destroyed under his leadership, while billions in taxpayers’ money protected the assets of investors and shareholders.

As the person responsible for the private client business of Deutsche Bank, Knof cut 50 percent of clerical staff. At Commerzbank, the plans of the current executive envisage the elimination of 20 percent of all jobs at its Frankfurt headquarters. This total could now increase when the new chairman of the board takes over.

While thousands of employees of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank fear for their jobs, other players are concerned that the assault on jobs is insufficient and being too slowly implemented. These include the financial investor Cerberus, which helped to draw up the radical restructuring plan for Commerzbank last summer, and also the Verdi trade union.

An interview with Verdi department head Stefan Wittmann published in the German Manager Magazin at the end of July provoked jubilation in financial circles. In the interview, Wittmann accused CEO Martin Zielke and supervisory board chairman Stefan Schmittmann, who resigned at the beginning of July, of being too timid in their approach.

He described the two managers as overburdened, too keen to avoid conflict and as men who had thrown in the towel in a time of crisis. The union, on the other hand, had always worked closely with management and had proposed rationalisation and structural measures at an early stage.

“We have never per se refused to cut jobs,” Wittmann said. “We have also never blocked the closure of branches. But we have always said: digitize the processes first, organise the process properly. Then you can ditch the staff you regard as expendable.”

The Verdi functionary agreed in principle with Commerzbank’s “restructuring plan,” which envisages the elimination of 10,000 jobs, the closure of 800 of the bank’s 1,000 branches and a 7 percent increase in profits. “To cut a high four-digit number of jobs—we can accept that under the right conditions,” he said.

Verdi will invariably support the attacks of the future executive, which likely will be announced at a supervisory board meeting in early February 2021.

In order to defend their jobs, workers at Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank must organise themselves independently of the unions. They must set up action committees that fight for the defence of all jobs and unite across local and national boundaries to counter the increasingly brutal offensive launched by management and the unions. A socialist perspective against capitalism is the prerequisite for a successful struggle.

UK People's Assembly talk “Zero Covid” while doing nothing

Julie Hyland

The deadly toll from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to reach record levels, with over 65 million cases worldwide and 1.5 million dead—more than 10,000 fatalities daily.

The catastrophic health consequences are compounded by the immiseration of working people the world over. Some 75 percent of households report a loss of earnings. Worse is to come. David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), told the United Nations General Assembly last week that the number of people “marching towards starvation” doubled from 135 million to 270 million as the pandemic unfolded, and warned, “Famine is literally on the horizon”, with 2021 anticipated to witness the worst humanitarian crisis year since the UN's founding.

Still the stock markets continue to rise as the ruling elite seize advantage of this carnage to carry out an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich. As the WSWS has stressed, “Freeing the productive forces from the constraints of the capitalist for-profit system and expropriating the wealth of the rich are urgent and immediate necessities, required to combat the pandemic and save millions of lives.”

Jeremy Corbyn speaking at the People's Assembly event

This urgent and immediate necessity found no mention in the “Zero Covid” national conference at the end of November, organised by the People's Assembly, a coalition of the pseudo-left groups, Stalinists, trade union bureaucrats and “left” Labourites.

John Rees from Counterfire (a split from the Socialist Workers Party) said the “left” needed a policy for the pandemic, or people would be left to choose between endangering their health by working or losing their jobs and income.

But how it is that workers have been left facing this “choice” was not addressed. The homicidal herd immunity policy of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government has been supported throughout by the Labour Party. Its de facto coalition with the Tories was in evidence last week, when Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer ordered his party to abstain in the parliamentary vote on the ending of the second limited national lock-down. As for the Trades Union Congress, it is playing the lead role in enforcing the back to work drive, even as the government announced a freeze on public sector wages that will hit more than four million workers.

Silence on this criminal role of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy is fundamental to the purpose of the People's Assembly. Though it presents itself as a “grassroots” movement, it is the construct of pro-capitalist tendencies, hostile to socialism and the working class; a political apparatus in waiting, whose sole purpose is to confuse, divert and suppress any genuine rank-and-file challenge to the existing order in the service of the bureaucracies of which it is an essential part.

That is why its Zero Covid policy has nothing in common with a programme of action to mobilise workers against the moribund profit system that is devastating their lives and livelihoods. Instead, speaker after speaker claimed that what was involved in the fight against the pandemic, which has accelerated the economic and social contradictions of capitalism, is a “battle of ideas”.

Tens of millions, indeed billions, of working people, wrestling with the reality of death, illness, poverty, unemployment, homelessness and even starvation, will wonder at this depiction.

When genuine socialists speak of a “battle of ideas”, it is to politically arm workers in their class struggle against capitalism. The fight for rank-and-file safety committees to ensure Covid-safe workplaces and educational facilities; the expropriation of the financial oligarchy to pay for decent health care and living standards; the conversion of the banks and corporations into public utilities under the democratic control of the working population; these are the elementary prerequisites of any “Zero Covid” policy worthy of the name.

As the Socialist Equality Party (UK) stated in its congress resolution, “Just as the mass slaughter of the First World War was only ended by the October 1917 revolution in Russia, bringing the current pandemic under control and ending the economic catastrophe it has inflicted on the world’s people demands a revolutionary struggle against capitalism, leading to the conquest of state power, the establishment of democratic control by the working class over the economy, the replacement of the anarchy of the market with scientific planning, the ending of the nation-state system, and the construction of a socialist world.”

There were few mentions of capitalism or socialism in the event, and the People's Assembly proposed no concrete action. Its “battle for ideas” is sophistry, which frees the Labour and trade union bureaucracy of any practical obligations. Steve Turner, Assistant General Secretary of the Unite union and Fran Heathcote, National President of the Public and Commercial Services Union, pontificated on the need for “Zero Covid”, even as they propose no measures to be taken against the unsafe working conditions of their members, while the conference as a whole substituted “behavioural changes” and individual protest for class mobilisation.

The political function of the People’s Assembly in opposing a struggle against the Labour and trade union bureaucracy was epitomised by the presence of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on a public platform for the first time since his suspension from the party on manufactured allegations of anti-Semitism, followed by the withdrawal of the Labour whip. Thousands of members have left Labour in response, and Labour's right-wing have threatened the expulsion of thousands more as it seeks to prove itself worthy of steering British capitalism through its deepest crisis in almost a century.

Corbyn had nothing to say on this witch-hunt against himself and thousands of his sympathisers, merely mumbling his appreciation for messages of solidarity, without referencing what had occasioned them.

Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon—both leading members of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs—passed over this McCarthyite attack without comment. The only reference to the Labour Party was directed against the thousands of members quitting in disgust with its overtly right-wing course, with Turner criticising those who would “run away” from their party, rather than those who are driving them out!

The “battle of ideas” presented by the People’s Assembly speaks to the upper middle class layers it represents and whose interests it articulates—drawn from the richest top 10 percent of society, of which the Labour and trade union bureaucracy make up a goodly proportion.

Corbyn said that COVID-19 proved the need for a “debate about the economic direction we take.” He described as “bitter sweet” Chancellor Rishi Sunak's March 11 bailout of the corporations and super-rich—involving £895 billion in quantitative easing measures alone—as a dose of “Keynesianism”.

A political tendency incapable of mounting even the semblance of a fight against the summary expulsion of its sympathisers from the ossified environs of British Labour is incapable of mobilising against an oligarchy profiteering from a deadly pandemic. Indeed, this concern for unity with Labour's right is itself an expression of their fear, cowardice and desire to appease the ruling elite.

In the parliamentary vote on Johnson's ending of lock-down, Abbott abstained while Burgon and Corbyn voted against. None of them made any mention of the Zero Covid policy they had endorsed only days before, neither in parliament nor in the social media accounts of their actions posted hours later.

Thirteen thousand jobs threatened at UK’s Arcadia Group

Jean Shaoul

Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, whose 500 high street fashion stores include Topshop, Burton, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, and Wallis, went into administration November 30. The corporation had debts of more than £500 million and an estimated £350 million hole in its pension fund.

The 13,000 staff at its 444 stores in the UK and 22 stores overseas stand to lose their jobs and at least 10 percent of their pensions if Arcadia hands over its commitments to the tax-payer-backed Pension Protection Fund, with around 10,000 retirees seeing their pensions capped.

The Pensions Regulator is party to this theft, having agreed last year to allow Arcadia to halve its £50 million annual pension contributions to the company’s pension fund as part of a rescue deal to keep the company afloat. In return Tina Green, Sir Philip’s wife and ultimate owner of Arcadia, guaranteed to put £100 million into the schemes over several years. The furore surrounding the collapse has forced her to stump up the outstanding monies within the next 10 days.

People wearing face masks to try to curb the spread of coronavirus walk past the Topshop flagship store on Oxford Street, in London, Monday, Nov. 30, 2020. Arcadia Group, the retail empire of tycoon Philip Green, which owns well-known British fashion chains like Topshop and employs around 15,000 people. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

The store’s collapse also leaves taxpayers to foot the bill for unpaid VAT and other taxes, as well as the cost of redundancy and payments to Arcadia workers. Suppliers are expected to lose up to £250 million.

Meanwhile, billionaire Sir Philip Green is reportedly planning to spend the festive season at a luxury resort in the Maldives where private villas cost up to £30,000-a-night. This is a drop in the bucket for the Greens, who have an estimated net worth of £950 million, according to the Sunday Times Rich List—which only measures identifiable wealth—more than enough to plug the pension fund deficit and pay off Arcadia’s creditors.

The announcement comes in the wake of 500 redundancies at its head office earlier this year, following a rescue deal with Arcadia’s creditors last year that included rent reductions on its stores, 1,000 job cuts and dozens of store closures. Last Monday’s decision follows the failure to agree a £50 million loan deal with Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group.

It was an open secret that Green had been looking to offload Arcadia, whose breakup value has been greater than its value as a going concern for some time. The administration process protects the business from creditors while Arcadia's stores continue to trade and the administrators, global accountancy services firm Deloitte, seeks buyers for all or parts of the business to pay off Arcadia’s creditors, who include Green and his family.

This odious billionaire, once lauded as the “king of retail,” was knighted by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 2006 in recognition of his “services to the retail industry.” His “business model” is the standard rapacious template for corporate looting used across the globe and says as much about the Labour Party as it says about Green himself.

In terms of the production process, it involves paying minimum wages, sourcing supplies from sweatshops at home and abroad, stripping the pension fund and paring down investment so that it is incapable of adjusting to changing conditions.

In line with the financialization practices, it means loading one company with debt—payable to one or other sister companies and secured against its assets—and then siphoning off the cash in the form of dividends to the shareholders, his wife, who resides in Monaco, thereby avoiding UK tax.

He used this mechanism to strip BHS, a rundown chain of department stores that went bust in 2016, of around £807 million. He funneled £252 million of this to its parent Arcadia Group and £414 million in dividends to his wife, the owner of the investment fund that owns the Arcadia Group. In 2005, Green famously paid his wife a jaw-dropping £1.2 billion via a loan taken out by Arcadia, reducing Arcadia’s corporation tax liability, as interest charges on the loan were tax-deductible.

Arcadia’s demise follows that of a raft of retailers that were already ailing before the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns curtailed sales, due to the ferocious competition from low-cost rivals on the high street like Primark, online retailers such as Asos, Pretty Little Thing and Boohoo, and the decade-long fall in real wages. It comes just weeks after Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group, Peacocks, Jaeger and the Ponden Home chain, all part of Phillip Day’s retail empire, went into administration leading to about 1,000 job losses so far, with 7,300 more at risk.

On December 1, hours after Arcadia collapsed, Debenhams, the 242-year-old department store chain, which is home to many Arcadia brands and has already closed more than 40 stores in the last 12 months, announced that its administrators were winding down operations. All 12,000 employees are likely to lose their jobs when the chain's 124 shops cease trading. Debenhams is seeking a rescue deal with Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group. Like the Arcadia Group, it too had suffered in the early 2000s from financialization in the form of a sale and lease back of some of its stores, arranged by a previous owner, a private equity firm, from which it never recovered.

Even before these collapses, the total number of job losses in the retail sector had surpassed 140,000 in 2019, as more that 16,000 shops closed their doors for good, 5,808 through administration. More than half the closures were the result of cost cutting programmes.

Ashley, a billionaire, is expected to bid for some of Arcadia’s fashion brands. He is notorious for his exploitative work practices. A parliamentary report said he ran Sports Direct like a Victorian workhouse, building his success on a business model that treats workers “without dignity or respect,” using “appalling working practices” and treating his “workers as commodities rather than as human beings.”

He is also bidding to take over the collapsed retailers, Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group, Peacocks and Jaegar, where he faces stiff competition from their former owners seeking to buy back the assets while dumping the liabilities, a common practice after companies have been put into administration.

The timing of these collapses is significant. Creditors, including landlords facing rent shortfalls that could drag down share prices, are piling on the pressure in the run up to Christmas when retailers make most of their money. Secondly, they were determined to push these retailers into administration before December 1, when new rules, known as “crown preference,” came into force, to preserve their own position. The rules would rank the claims of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which collects VAT, national insurance, corporation and other taxes, above other unsecured creditors. While the new rules will see suppliers and other unsecured creditors rank below HMRC, Arcadia’s secured and therefore highest ranked creditor—who include Sir Philip’s wife—will continue to take precedence, making it more likely they will recoup their loans.

While broader economic and social changes have undoubtedly affected the retail sector, the fate of these—and many other--corporations was sealed by the predatory actions of their owners who siphoned off or squandered the enormous wealth created by generations of workers while loading the companies they presided over with debt. Yet again, pension obligations are to be transferred to the taxpayer, while the corporate heads’ own tax obligations are wiped out, courtesy of complex debt-financed transactions and off-shore tax havens.

The collapse of these corporations reflects the parasitism and financial skullduggery of Britain’s ruling class. The corporate bosses in every sector have demonstrated time and time again that they are entirely unfit and incapable of running industry, trade or services in a way that satisfies the needs of their workforce, customers, or society at large. Government, regulators, bankers, a compliant media, and trade union leaders have for decades aided and abetted them, while hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs and pensions, the taxpayer foots the bill, and those responsible walk away and continue their champagne lifestyle.

Chinese defence minister visits Nepal to boost political and military ties

Rohantha De Silva

Last week’s visit to Nepal by Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe was aimed at strengthening political and military ties between Kathmandu and Beijing. The landlocked and poverty-stricken Himalayan country has become another focal point in the geo-political rivalry between India and the US on one side, and China on the other.

Wei’s high-level trip, which occurred as tensions increased between Nepal and its southern neighbour India, is a part of Beijing’s efforts to counter Washington’s economic-strategic offensive. Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi has effectively transformed his country into a front line state in the US war-drive against China.

During his 10-hour visit, Wei, who is a serving People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general and a state councillor, met with Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Army Chief Purna Chandra Thapa, before flying to Pakistan.

China's Minister of National Defence Wei Fenghe in 2018 (Photo: James N. Mattis/Wikipedia)

Oli reiterated Nepal’s commitment to a “One-China policy” and that Nepalese land will never be allowed to be used against China. He also said that his government was committed to recent agreements reached between the two countries and that Kathmandu wanted to learn from China’s “steadfast progress on socio-economic fronts.”

Wei is the most senior Chinese official to visit Nepal since Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip last year and only the second defence minister to visit in the past two decades. The visit, he declared, was aimed at “enhancing mutual military assistance” and further strengthening relations. The general promised to safeguard Nepal’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity. While India was not named, Wei’s remarks were clearly related to Kathmandu’s border dispute with New Delhi.

As the Kathmandu Post reported on November 30, the “major takeaway” of Wei’s visit “is an understanding on resuming Chinese supplies of various non-lethal military aid to Nepal, which had been halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” It noted that the “resumption of training and student exchange programs, and following up on defence assistance” were also discussed.

On arriving in Nepal, Wei went first to the Nepalese Army headquarters where he was received with a guard of honour. He spent two hours there before meeting Oli.

An official Nepalese Army statement said: “Wei and the delegation viewed both the proposals positively and affirmed that bilateral cooperation should resume as soon as possible, including the exchange of high-level visits. Wei also pledged to provide additional assistance to the Nepal Army in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.”

A three-member Chinese delegation arrived in Nepal several days prior to Wei’s visit and raised various “concerns” with Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who are co-chairmen of the Stalinist Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and Bahadur Deuba, leader of the main opposition Nepali Congress.

While the delegation’s “concerns” have not been revealed, they probably discussed an ongoing factional dispute between Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, and allegations by the Nepal Congress that China was grabbing land which belonged to Nepal.

Beijing is heavily involved in efforts to patch up factional differences inside the NCP between Oli and Dahal over the control of the state and party apparatus. Dahal wants Oli to resign as either prime minister or party chair. Chinese Ambassador to Nepal, Hao Yankee, is reportedly mediating between the factions to keep the current government in power.

Relations between Nepal and China were greatly enhanced after the current Oli administration came to power in May 2018 on an anti-Indian platform. Beijing fears that any collapse of the NCP-led government due to factional conflict between Oli and Dahal could reverse its ties with Nepal.

Although India remains Nepal’s largest trading partner, Kathmandu is a member of China’s $US1.4 trillion Road and Belt Initiative and hopes to open up trade and investment opportunities. Kathmandu has also signed a transit treaty with Beijing to use Chinese ports for its foreign trade and reduce its dependence on Indian ports. Nepal has already joined China’s internet service, ending India’s previous monopoly on cyber connectivity in the country.

While Nepal is landlocked and squeezed between India and China, its access to the outside world is mainly through India, a geographical factor exploited by New Delhi to pressure Kathmandu. Nepal’s relationship with India, however, has been strained since 2015 when New Delhi imposed an economically damaging five-month fuel blockade on Nepal, prompting an agreement with Beijing for emergency fuel supplies.

Nepal has also blamed a number of Indian-built dike-like structures along the Indo-Nepal border for the flood damaging of thousands of hectares of land. Relations hit another low in November 2019 when India published a map showing a disputed area in northwest Nepal as Indian territory.

Wei’s visit occurred as India is increasing its efforts to bring Nepal into its geopolitical orbit. Indian army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane visited Nepal for three days in early November following a trip by Samant Kumar Goel, head of India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW)—the country’s external intelligence agency, and a two-day visit later in November by Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Sharing.

India has traditionally considered Nepal, which is strategically located on the Chinese border, within its sphere of influence and is determined to prevent losing Kathmandu to China. In its efforts to woo Nepal, New Delhi is not just defending its own geo-political interests but also functioning as a key military-strategic partner of Washington and its economic and military aggression against China.

India is also a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or QUAD, which includes the US, Japan and Australia, and is aimed against China. This de facto anti-China military alliance has hardened in recent times as indicated by the participation of all four countries in recent Malabar war games sponsored by India.

Washington’s belligerent actions against China are politically destabilising the whole region and greatly enhanced the danger of a major military conflict in Asia-Pacific.

“Red-tagging” accusations at the centre of elite conflict in the Philippines

John Malvar

Political forces associated with the fascistic administration of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines are escalating a McCarthyite “red-tagging” witch-hunt, alleging that legal political organisations are secretly part of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and actively supporting “terrorism.” The dispute is an initial salvo between rival sections of the elite in the mounting political tensions leading up to the May 2022 presidential election.

The Philippine Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation last week concluded a three session investigation into claims that the political parties that comprise the Makabayan bloc were secretly controlled by the CPP.

The Senate committee called witnesses, introduced as former cadre of the Communist Party, who raised charges that the elected legislators of the Makabayan bloc were in fact members of the CPP, which has been outlawed as a “terrorist” organisation.

Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte (Presidential Communications Operations Office/Wikipedia)

The Makabayan bloc is the legislative coalition of the various sectoral political groups under the umbrella of Bayan. Bayan comprises a wide array of groups, including Gabriela (a women's rights organisation), Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU, a labor union group), a peasants’ organisation, multiple youth organisations, student groups, religious organisations of a political bent, etc. The list is extensive.

Over the past six months, a number of activists of these organisations have been targetted for persecution. Some have been killed in extrajudicial assassinations, others have been arrested.

Behind the red-tagging attacks on Bayan is the powerful apparatus created by the Duterte administration, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). The NTF-ELCAC was formed in December 2018 with an annual budget of nearly 20 billion Philippine pesos ($US415 million), a staggering sum dedicated exclusively to anti-Communist propaganda.

The Anti-Terrorism Act, passed in July 2020, extended the power of NTF-ELCAC. It authorised warrantless wiretapping, surveillance, and arrest without warrant for up to 24 days of anyone accused of terrorism, by the Anti-Terrorism Council, of which NTF-ELCAC is a core member. The Anti-Terrorism Act goes into full effect in 2021.

Duterte is targetting Bayan because he knows that it will play a central role in channelling mass support behind the elite opposition in the next election, and will be involved in any behind-the-scenes machinations for his ouster.

Neri Colmenares, a three-term legislator of the Makabayan bloc, made this point explicitly in a press conference on November 2. He declared that “behind the red-tagging of the progressive party-lists is the government’s electoral agenda to cripple the opposition in the coming 2022 national elections.” He stated that they “would campaign for the opposition” and that “the administration would utilise its resources to remain in power.”

The red-tagging attack on Bayan and its member organisations is a key component of the political faction in the ruling elite. While Duterte, by funding NTF-ELCAC and creating the climate of extrajudicial killings, has sharpened the McCarthyism considerably, “red-tagging” as an aspect of ruling class rivalry has a half-century long history in the Philippines.

Bayan and its affiliated organisations share a common political line with the Stalinist CPP: an orientation to the formation of an alliance with a section of the capitalist class in the name of nationalism. Both the CPP and Bayan insist that the tasks for a revolution in the Philippines are not yet socialist in character but national and democratic only, and that a section of the capitalist class—the so-called national bourgeoisie—will play a progressive role and are a necessary ally of workers and peasants.

In service to this program, the CPP and the legal organisations that follow its political line have concluded alliance after alliance with different sections of the political and economic elite in the Philippines, with disastrous results for working people. There is hardly a single oligarchic family or political party to which the CPP has not at some point been tied.

This fact gives a somewhat farcical and deeply hypocritical character to the entire bloody affair. The CPP and Bayan supported Duterte as mayor of Davao City for decades and enthusiastically backed his first year as president. Representatives of Bayan served on his cabinet and Jose Maria Sison, founder and ideological leader of the CPP, issued numerous statements hailing the “progressive” character of the Duterte administration.

Duterte cultivated this relationship. He delivered speeches in front of a hammer-and-sickle flag, proclaimed himself a “socialist,” and posed with raised fist for photographs with the representatives of Bayan.

The class function of Stalinism, and therefore of the Maoist CPP and Bayan, is to channel working class and peasant opposition behind the interests of a section of the capitalist class. When the party’s relations with Duterte broke down, largely due to the intervention of the Philippine military, the CPP began to look to form an alliance with the ruling class opposition.

During the heyday of Bayan’s relations with the newly elected president, the bourgeois opposition to Duterte denounced his ties to Communists. Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who rose to political prominence as a murderous member of the Philippine National Police, openly engaged in red-tagging. Lacson now chairs the Senate committee investigating red-tagging. He declared that the burden of proof rests on those making accusations against the Makabayan bloc, and stated that he would look into legislation criminalising red-tagging.

The hypocrisy is universal. Duterte red-tags his former allies; the elite opposition, former red-taggers, now decry red-tagging; and Bayan and company denounce as a fascist Duterte, whom they assisted to power, and turn to ally with those whom they previously denounced.

The ruling class opposition to Duterte remains a political minority. It is organised around the Liberal Party (LP) of Vice President Leni Robredo.

Bayan has called for the criminalisation of red-tagging. Their Liberal Party allies in the Senate have declared that they are looking at crafting a bill to carry this out.

LP Sen. Francis Pangilinan said it was “worth looking into.” Sen. Risa Hontiveros, of the pseudo-left Akbayan Party, stated that said she “would consider it.”

A core constituency of Akbayan's founding membership were breakaway groups from the CPP in the 1990s, and Akbayan shares a common nationalist program with Bayan. Akbayan, however, effectively merged with the Liberal Party during the Benigno Aquino III administration, and shares a common slate with the LP. In the past, Akbayan has denounced Bayan as “front organisations” of the CPP, and Bayan has decried this red-tagging. The CPP and Akbayan have now aligned, however, behind the same set of bourgeois interests.

The Senate hearings did not have the result that Duterte sought. On November 30 he bluntly stated in a press conference that the Makabayan bloc were members of the Communist Party. National Security Advisor Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., a leading figure in NTF-ELCAC, declared that they were pursuing “the disqualification of the Makabayan bloc before the Commission on Elections.”

On December 4, the human rights group, Karapatan, a member of Bayan, filed a criminal complaint against Esperon, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Southern Luzon Command chief Lt. Gen Antonio Parlade, and Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy—all ranking NTF-ELCAC officials. The complaint charged them with crimes against humanity.

The McCarthyite allegations of NTF-ELCAC, armed with the power of the Anti-Terror Act, are an imminent threat to the Filipino working class. The full force of reaction and authoritarian rule is being prepared to crack down on any emergence of mass unrest and opposition in the country.

The CPP and the organisations that follow its political line oppose red-tagging as a means of securing an alliance with ruling class opponents conspiring against Duterte. The forces with whom the CPP is currently allied have in the recent past waged a similar McCarthyite campaign.

It is impossible to fight against McCarthyism, red-tagging, and reaction on the basis of the Stalinist program of the CPP. The only way forward for the Filipino working class is to fight for its own independent class interests. This requires a break from every section of the capitalist class and their political props in the CPP and Bayan.

Food prices, waste rise as food insecurity affects tens of millions in the US

Alex Findijs

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption to the food supply chain in the United States. Farmers who lost their markets have been forced to let millions of pounds of food waste even as tens of millions of workers suffer from food insecurity.

In 2019, 35 million Americans suffered from food insecurity. Two-thirds were able to obtain enough food to eat through food assistance programs or altered eating patterns, while one-third suffered from a reduction in food intake.

Researchers from Northwestern University believe that the number of food insecure households has more than doubled this year, affecting 23 percent of all American households. Households with children have seen this rise to 29.5 percent.

El Rancho grocery store in Dallas, Tuesday, May 12, 2020. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

This immense food crisis for the working class has been caused by sudden job loss, the refusal of the United States government to provide sufficient financial aid during the pandemic and a significant increase in food prices.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported an average inflation of four percent for food items in 2020, double the 20-year average.

Throughout the year, food prices were incredibly volatile. The consumer price index (CPI) for food rose by 2.7 percent in April alone—the largest one month jump since February 1974—and the cost of groceries rose by 5.6 percent between June and July according to Food Business News.

The cost of dairy products collapsed by 17.4 percent from January to May before soaring back up by 24.5 percent in June. The collapse in price was accompanied by millions of gallons of milk being dumped every day by dairy farmers who could not find markets, all while millions went hungry.

The USDA expects 2020 to close with a price increase for fresh vegetables between two and three percent, while the price increase for meat products will average between seven and eight percent.

The rise in food prices places an incredible burden upon working class families who were already suffering before the pandemic.

The bottom 20 percent on American households spent an average of $4,400 on food in 2019, totaling 36 percent of their income. With the Congressional Research Service finding that more than half of households making less than $75,000 a year experienced some loss of income this year, these price increases in food will have a considerable impact.

However, while prices for consumers rose considerably, the prices that farmers received did not.

The futures prices for important farm products like corn, wheat and livestock have fallen by five to nine percent. In August, the retail price for beef was around five percent higher, while the farm price was twenty percent lower.

USDA chief economist Robert Johansson expects cash receipts for farmers to decline by $31 billion this year compared to predicted figures from before the pandemic.

A significant portion of this loss has been offset by government farm assistance programs that have provided tens of billions of dollars to farms hurt by the pandemic. In total, government farm assistance payments amounted to $46.5 billion for fiscal year 2020, 52 percent more than in 2019.

This funding could help save many US farmers from financial ruin, but which farms received this money is a different matter.

Little information is available about who received how much of the funding, but data on farm income provides an insight into how wealthy farmers may have benefited the most from these programs.

The average net cash income of farms grossing over $1 million dollars in sales—3.9 percent of all farms—is expected to be $858,000 in 2020, a 21 percent increase from the previous year and a 19 percent increase over the USDA’s forecasts from February 2020.

Increases in retail prices cannot explain this phenomenon alone, especially considering the overall loss in expected income that has occurred.

Meanwhile, 80 percent of farms sell under $100,000 worth of products and are expected to average just $8,000 in income this year. This is an increase from the prediction in February that small farmers would lose $2,600, but it is clear that large farms benefited the most.

The volatile and unpredictable economic situation that farmers have faced has also resulted in the loss or destruction of millions of pounds of food throughout the pandemic.

In May and June, the Dairy Farmers of America was reporting that farmers were dumping 14 million liters of milk every day as demand for milk products imploded.

After meat processing plants temporarily slowed production, farmers with nowhere to sell livestock euthanized hundreds of thousands of pigs.

The Washington Potato Commission estimates $1 billion in losses for Washington State’s gross domestic product. Farmers lost $29 million from the 2019 harvest and the lack of demand going into the 2020 pandemic.

As a result, farmers cut production for 2020 by 13 percent, or 729,120 tons, with the potential to see farmers lose a further $300 million.

A study on agricultural production losses during the pandemic in the United States published this October by William Ridley and Stephen Devadoss found extensive financial losses in vegetable and fruit production.

They estimate upwards of $48 million dollars in total losses this year for major produce such as apples ($5 million), lettuce ($16 million) and grapes ($4.5 million). While these losses are measured in dollar value, they are related to disruptions in the labor force and the ability to harvest and sell agricultural products.

The total amount of food lost during the year is unknown, but these figures provide an insight into the scale at which the food supply chain in the United States has been disrupted and the immense losses that American farmers and workers have suffered as result of the ruling elite’s criminal response to the pandemic.

The unseen plight of undocumented workers in the US during the pandemic

Melody Isley

The United States marked another grim milestone this week, reporting a record 2,921 deaths due to COVID-19 on Thursday. The country has recorded a total of over 288,000 deaths since February and 15 million total cases.

Despite these horrific numbers, there still remain hundreds of thousands of unreported infections and thousands of deaths that are left out of official counts. Undocumented workers in the US are at a unique risk of being under-reported, as their lack of citizenship and the ever-present threat of detention and deportation prevents them from seeking assistance, medical or otherwise.

During the crisis triggered by the pandemic, the undocumented, a particularly abused and exploited section of the working class, face even greater challenges than before. These workers live not just in fear of deportation, homelessness, or destitution, but are increasingly forced to suffer the prospect of contracting COVID-19 alone, unseen, and denied care.

Workers at an apple orchard in Yakima, Washington, June 16, 2020 (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Making up nearly 6 percent of the American workforce, undocumented workers fuel industries like agriculture, manufacturing, meatpacking and animal husbandry, as well as the broader service industry, which includes food services, building and outdoor maintenance, and construction.

Across the United States, more than 2.5 million farm workers and almost 2 million food service workers are undocumented immigrants, constituting almost half of all farm workers in the United States and almost a quarter of food service work. Undocumented workers provide up to 30 percent of the labor in the service industry in California.

Despite the “essential” label tacked onto these industries during the pandemic, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has refused to require or enforce any kind of COVID-19 safety measures for workers.

COVID-19 has ripped through the agricultural industry and its “essential” workers. Research by Purdue University estimates that more than 145,000 farm workers have tested positive for COVID-19. This number, while staggering, does not include temporary laborers as well as those who could not be tested—most likely undocumented workers.

The Immokalee Region of southern Florida, a region known for its significant immigrant population and year-round tomato growing, reported more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases in October. At a watermelon farm in Florida’s Alachua County, 90 of the farm’s 100 workers tested positive for the disease over the course of a month.

According to a recent study from UC Berkeley, farm workers in California have contracted coronavirus at nearly three times the rate of other workers. In the San Joaquin Valley of Central California, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world and by far the most active in the US, one county reported almost 28,000 cases and 522 deaths, with rates growing astronomically between August and December. More than 1,180 agricultural workers in Santa Barbara County have tested positive, revealing only a fraction of the actual scale of the spread.

Like in agriculture, meatpacking workers and others in food production have a significantly increased risk for contracting the virus. California’s Central Valley also set another US record with the largest outbreak from a single farm when 400 employees tested positive at a poultry farm in Merced County. In Los Angeles, the Farmer John meatpacking plant, the largest such facility in the state, racked up tens of thousands of dollars in wrist slap fines for unsafe conditions which resulted in more than 300 employees contracting COVID-19 during the month of November alone.

Tyson Foods, the world’s second largest meat processing company, recently made international headlines after managers placed bets on how many workers would contract the deadly virus at a pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa. The company has reported that more than 10 percent of their 100,000 employees have contracted the virus—a record for the industry. In Perry, Iowa, home of one of the largest Tyson facilities, more than 730 workers have tested positive, making up more than 10 percent of all cases in rural Dallas County.

All told, eight percent of all COVID-19 cases in the US so far can be linked to meatpacking plants. When there is an outbreak at a farm or packing house, these “essential” workers are unable to physically distance at work and also at home due to cramped living quarters. As these cases develop, it becomes a distinct possibility that half if not the majority of workers at a given facility will contract the virus.

Compounding the existing pains of financial instability and the constant fear of deportation, undocumented workers face amplified challenges during the present crisis as they have no access to state or federal financial assistance, no opportunities for remote work, and are likely to take on whatever low-paying, precarious position they can find in the labor market, risking their lives in the process.

Miguel, an undocumented restaurant worker for more than 10 years, painted a devastating portrait of the difficulties facing undocumented workers across the US in a recent interview with the World Socialist Web Site .

He explained that while many undocumented workers are left behind and harassed by the US government, they still “work those jobs that American citizens don’t want to do. We clean toilets, we clean the offices, we’re doing the hard labor to keep this country running. We keep it clean, we keep it fed… and no one sees us.” Despite being on the front lines of the pandemic and fueling much of the US economy, undocumented workers are given even less resources than others, while also being actively terrorized by the government.

Many undocumented workers have lost their jobs, forcing them to move-in with three or four other families to afford a place to stay. “A lot of them have become homeless during COVID,” Miguel explained. “They don’t have a place to go, they don’t have a place where they can get help.”

According to the US Census Bureau, immigrant workers are over four times more likely than US-born citizens to live in overcrowded conditions—a situation that already is troubling but is even more worrisome during the COVID-19 crisis and contributes heavily to the disproportionate rate of infection in immigrant communities.

Miguel worries that “kids from undocumented families are going to be left behind because they don’t have the resources.” As undocumented parents are denied resources, their children, including those who are US citizens, suffer alongside. He explained that since many parents are unable to afford to pay for internet service, children risk falling behind academically as classes move online. "Kids are being forced to go to Starbucks to sit outside on the sidewalk or sit outside the library to do their homework and go to their online classes," Miguel noted.

While some workers have the limited ability to take time off for testing or quarantine, undocumented workers lack even these insufficient measures. Miguel said, “We are disposable. You get sick? You get fired. And that’s the end of it.”

In San Diego, the family of one undocumented farm worker spoke to CBS8 about their struggle. The children of the farm worker reported that their father had contracted coronavirus from a coworker in the fields and developed severe symptoms, leading to his death.

The family, undocumented and citizens alike, feared that testing would pose a serious risk to their safety as COVID-19 testing requires a certain amount of personal information to be aggregated into a national database. The father died without access to testing and had been actively barred from proper resources and care due to his undocumented status. The family is now forced to grieve in anonymity due to continued fears of deportation. Their father’s death will be unreported by the government and unseen in the official death toll of the pandemic.

Many undocumented people live in mixed-status households, and more than 90 percent of immigrant parents have children who are American citizens. Living in a mixed-status household puts every member of the family in a precarious position. Even if some are citizens, they often report feeling unable to ask for help from any government affiliates, ranging from local police to local hospitals and financial relief agencies, for fear that they could potentially put their undocumented family member at risk for identification and deportation.

These fears are entirely justified, considering that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted some of its largest raids in history during the pandemic. The WSWS reported in September that a record-breaking raid saw more than 2,000 immigrants taken into custody, primarily from their homes since a pandemic stay-at-home order was in place.

A scientific and humane response to the COVID-19 crisis would include free and abundant access to resources like rapid testing and treatment for all people, as well as widespread financial assistance for all workers and their families, regardless of citizenship or work status. But this is not possible under capitalism in which everything, including workers’ lives, is subordinated to the demands for ever greater profits. Workers must take up the fight for socialism to reorganize society under the democratic control of the international working class to meet the needs of all, rather than the financial interests of a few.

Medical workers protest across Mexico as President AMLO continues to downplay pandemic

Andrea Lobo

Exhausted after eight months of the pandemic, fearful of a new surge, and threatened against speaking out, health care workers across Mexico have been involved in a growing wave of demonstrations against unsafe conditions, lack of pay and over other demands.

Ajusco Medio Hospital workers march on November 30 (Facebook, Myriam Lira)

The country has reported several new records of daily cases since November 25, while the seven-day running average of daily deaths has nearly doubled since mid-October to 570. In total, the country has reported 1.1 million cases and 108,000 deaths, the fourth highest death toll in the world. But testing is remarkably low, with about half of tests coming out positive.

Hospitals are rapidly filling up again. After nearly 150,000 health care workers have contracted the virus and almost 2,000 have died, they still lack the necessary protective equipment.

On Monday, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Mexico is in “bad shape” and that rising cases and deaths were “worrisome.” Alluding to Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO), who often doesn’t wear masks in public and constantly minimizes the danger of the pandemic, the WHO chief added, “We would like to ask Mexico to be very serious … and we expect leaders to be examples.”

Since early November, protests in hospitals have included rallies, marches and several threats of strikes. These have concentrated in the two main hotspots of the pandemic in the country, Mexico City and the state of Chihuahua, which borders Texas.

As countries all over the world face spikes due to capitalist governments refusing to carry out the necessary shutdowns to contain the virus, recent weeks have also seen an upsurge in strikes and other forms of protests among health care workers internationally—from Spain to Chile, South Africa, Kenya, and the US states of Pennsylvania and New York.

Protesting workers in the Mexican capital and its metropolitan area have denounced insufficient protective equipment, personnel and medicines. A worker at the Carlos MacGregor Sánchez hospital in Mexico City said COVID-19 patients are being intubated while conscious because of a shortage of anesthetics, while there is a ratio of one specialist per 10 patients. At the José Vicente Villada Hospital in the State of Mexico, a worker explained to Noticias por el mundo: “We are not at 100 percent capacity because patients are dying quickly. Five died on Friday and were taken to the refrigerated truck.”

Throughout November, workers at the Ajusco Medio Hospital in Mexico City have carried out several marches and roadblocks to demand the formalization of all contracts on an equal basis, and to protest the lack of any wage increase in 10 years.

Ajusco Medio Hospital workers marching on November 30 (Facebook, Angel Mora Martínez)

Medical workers at the Women’s Hospital of Chihuahua carried out a demonstration to protest lack of equipment and personnel—exposing the fact that this had resulted in deaths of patients and even postponed births due to a lack of gloves. The union SMEEICH has threatened to strike.

Workers at the ISSTE Hospital in Chihuahua city carried out a demonstration occupying an entrance this week, denouncing the administration and the trade union, which both simply ignore their demands. One nurse revealed that a co-worker died of coronavirus while waiting in line to be attended, while another explained, “The staff works tooth and nail; we all suffer a lack of equipment and are worried about our health. At least four people are dying each day; the areas are saturated.”

The National Union of Workers for Mexico’s Health (UNTSM), a group of health care workers organized on social media in response to the pandemic, organized a mobilization in Mexico City on November 27.

José Benito Gómez Velasco, a nurse who traveled from Chiapas to Mexico City for the UNTSM protest, demanded the formalization of nurses’ contracts with all social benefits. “We demand a stop to repression by the authorities for asking for protective equipment,” he said. “The reinstallation of all health care workers fired during the pandemic is urgent.”

In Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, hospital workers have also carried out several marches and threatened strikes. They are demanding the payment of a promised COVID-19 bonus, and the stipulated Christmas bonus and aguinaldo —an end-of-the-year bonus paid across Latin America and Europe that in Mexico involves the payment of an extra fortnight. “They are withholding those payments. We need them to pay our bills and we can’t afford them without our bonus and a guinaldo ,” said a nurse to Border Report .

Doctors at the Women’s Hospital in Chihuahua have also told reporters that, just like the factory workers and others who show up at their hospitals sick, they too are denied tests, forcing them to get tested at their own expense.

Doctors at the Regional Hospital of Chihuahua also carried out several days of protests outside the building during breaks to demand unpaid bonuses. “What we know is that in Chihuahua they tell you: there is no money, and there is no money,” said a doctor to reporters.

Nurses at the Central Hospital of San Luis Potosí took to social media on December 1 to protest against being overworked, while not getting paid salaries, the aguinaldo and other benefits.

Nurses protest unpaid salaries and bonuses at the Central Hospital of San Luis Potosí

On Wednesday, in response to the growing pressure from medical workers and the WHO, AMLO, the Mexican president, likened any lockdowns to “dictatorship,” insisting “the fundamental thing is to guarantee liberty.” He then relativized the need to wear masks, claiming, “Everyone is free. Whoever wants to wear a mask and feels safer is welcome to do so.”

Meanwhile, the National Guard his government created is being deployed across the country against protests, including by medical workers. Just last month, six guardsmen were arrested for persecuting and shooting down farmers protesting a hydroelectric plant causing a drought near Chihuahua City. They killed one woman.

Also on Wednesday, the AMLO administration began its “Programa Paisano” which will receive approximately half a million Mexican citizens living in the United States and Canada for the holidays, despite an existing ban for nonessential travel across the US-Mexico border. The United States is currently seeing record cases.

López Obrador, who has aligned himself with the efforts of Donald Trump to establish a presidential dictatorship in the US underpinned by fascistic anti-immigrant forces, published a video on social media encouraging the migrants to risk their lives and those of their loved ones for the holidays. “You deserve the best of treatment, to be received like heroes—our migrant countrymen,” he said.

The only “best treatment” and “liberty” his administration is defending is that of the corporate elite to extract profits from workers facing unsafe conditions and of Wall Street to keep plundering Mexico’s public treasury, with AMLO prioritizing debt payments over health expenditures and social assistance during the crisis.

The overwhelming of the hospitals, and the infections and deaths among health care workers are the direct result of these deliberate policies of social austerity and reckless reopening of nonessential businesses, which subordinate the lives of workers to the profits of the ruling class.