Ukraine, Hungary clash as NATO discusses Ukrainian membership

Jason Melanovski

A long-running dispute between Ukraine and Hungary has worsened in recent weeks as the two right-wing governments continue to trade accusations over the status of ethnic Hungarians living in the Zakarpattia region of western Ukraine. The region, which had earlier been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is today home to 1.26 million people, with 80.5 percent ethnic Ukrainian and 12 percent ethnic Hungarian residents.

Kiev and Budapest have been at odds over the status of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Zakarpattia since 2017, when the right-wing nationalist government of former President Petro Poroshenko introduced an undemocratic language law that limited the ability of ethnic minorities to be instructed in their native language and made Ukrainian the required language of instruction for all students in secondary school.

National guard soldiers wearing face masks stand at the parliament building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 17, 2020. (Credit: AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

While the bill was clearly intended to target the use of Russian language in schools and “Ukrainianize” the country’s Russian population, it also angered the country’s other sizable ethnic minorities. Several European Union (EU) member countries, Hungary, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, all filed complaints with the Council of Europe and the OSCE.

The right-wing government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which has used the issue of ethnic Hungarian communities throughout Europe to expand its influence since it came to power in 2010, responded to the language law by distributing Hungarian passports to ethnic Hungarians within Ukraine. Hungary has repeatedly threatened to block Ukraine’s further integration into NATO and the EU and regularly cancels full NATO-Ukraine meetings over the language issue.

The most recent catalyst for a further breakdown in relations was a video on Facebook which showed local government officials in the western Ukrainian town of Siurte apparently singing the national anthem of Hungary during a meeting. Whoever posted the video purposely edited out the officials first singing the Ukrainian national anthem prior to the Hungarian.

The video was quickly exploited by right-wing Ukrainian nationalists who viewed the anthem singing as a deliberate provocation ordered from Budapest and pointed out that the meeting had taken place on November 21, which is known as the “Day of Dignity and Freedom” in Ukraine. The recently created holiday celebrates the anniversary of the beginning of the right-wing US- and EU-backed “Euromaidan” protests in 2013 that later led to the coup against the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

In response to the video, on November 30 the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) raided the offices of Hungarian political and civic organizations in the Zakarpattia region. The SBU claimed that they “were suspected of conducting subversive activity to the detriment of Ukraine in the interests of a neighboring country.”

As a result of the raids, the SBU claimed, “During searches, law enforcement officials discovered printed materials promoting a so-called ‘Greater Hungary’ and the creation of an ethnic autonomy in Zakarpattia.” Kiev also directly accused Hungary, a NATO member since 1999, of supporting Hungarian separatism and stated that it was investigating the Hungarian organization’s “complicity in a foreign government’s subversive activities to the detriment of Ukraine, including by committing high treason.”

Following the incident, Budapest summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to lodge a protest over the raids. In response, the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba summoned the Ambassador of Hungary to Ukraine István Íjgyártó to call Hungary’s claims of persecution “groundless speculation.”

Earlier in October, Kuleba had filed a complaint with Íjgyártó over the supposed interference of Hungarian officials into local elections in the Zakarpattia region.

Two Hungarian government officials were refused entry into Ukraine in November after they were accused of campaigning for the Party of Hungarians of Ukraine in local elections.

The Zakarpattia region is strategically important to Kiev. Ukraine’s natural gas transit system has its westbound outlet there en route to the European Union and the region directly borders the EU and NATO member countries Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. As a result, the region is also home to sizable non-Ukrainian ethnic communities, which are suspect in the eyes of the right-wing nationalist forces that came to power in Kiev in 2014.

The fallout between Ukraine and Hungary came at a particularly inopportune time for the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky as it took place just prior to a meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Brussels on December 1-2.

Despite coming to power with pledges to end the now over six-year-long conflict in eastern Ukraine that has claimed the lives of over 14,000 people, the Zelensky government has doggedly pursued full NATO membership just as strongly as the previous regime of the right-wing nationalist Petro Poroshenko.

This past week Ukrainian Defense Minister Andrii Taran stated that he expects Ukraine to receive a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the next NATO Summit in 2021. Taran also called upon NATO member states to accept Georgia as well and claimed that “Ukraine’s and Georgia’s potential membership in NATO will have a significant impact on Euro-Atlantic security and stability, in particular in the Black Sea region.”

Prior to the 2014 US-backed coup, Ukraine had maintained a nonaligned status in regards to NATO, but after the coup the government embarked on a course of integration with NATO. In February 2019, the Ukrainian government passed a constitutional amendment, stating its commitment to join both NATO and the EU, and in June of this year it became a member of NATO’s Enhanced Opportunities Partnership program.

At the recent NATO ministers of foreign affairs meeting, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke directly on the dispute between Hungary and Ukraine, hinting at the deep crisis within NATO over the potential membership of Ukraine. He said, “I will not go into the details of a classified discussion at the NATO ministerial meeting. But what I can say is that it’s well known that there is a bilateral dispute between Hungary and Ukraine. And I hope that the two countries will be able to solve this bilateral dispute. But I think the meeting today demonstrates that we are able to continue to, of course, strengthen our partnership with Ukraine. We are able to provide more support, and we also are able to meet at the ministerial level to discuss issues of common concern.”

For Hungary, the meeting in Brussels was an opportunity to further condemn Kiev in front of its NATO allies. Speaking via video, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó ominously stated, “Ukraine, a country not a member of NATO, has launched an attack against a minority group originating from a NATO member country. This is obviously a scandal, and it is unacceptable in the 21st century,” Szijjártó said. “Especially from a country claiming to want to draw closer to NATO.”

Tens of millions of Americans struggle to pay rent as unemployment benefits and eviction moratorium near expiration

Alex Findijs

As the expiration of the federal moratorium on evictions looms at the end of the year, millions of working class Americans have fallen significantly behind on rent and utility payments.

According to Moody’s Analytics, 12 million renters will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and utility payments by January 1.

A rental sign is posted in front of an apartment complex Tuesday, July 14, 2020, in Phoenix. (Credit: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that 7.5 million renter households (23.5 percent) that had at least one person working in February of this year have experienced unemployment at some point between March and August. They warn that evictions will increase 50 percent next year as millions struggle to pay back months of rent and utilities at once.

So far, more than 60 million workers have filed for unemployment this year, with 11.1 million currently collecting state benefits.

With these considerable disruptions to the labor market, the International Labor Organization estimates that North American workers have lost 15.3 percent of their work hours. In the United States, two-thirds of this cut in working hours came from job losses, with half of that coming from unemployment.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 159 million workers in November 2019, with an average hourly wage of $28.3 an hour. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that the American working class averages 1,779 hours worked a year per worker.

Using these figures, it can be estimated that American workers worked a total of 282.86 billion hours this year and lost approximately 42.4 billion hours during the pandemic, worth an estimated value of $1.2 trillion, or $10,000 per household.

With such substantial monetary losses for the working class, with the poorest and most disadvantaged certainly bearing the greatest cost, it is no wonder that so many families are struggling to pay their bills and a testament to the failure of the capitalist system to support them.

The Cares Act was signed into law on March 27, providing $300 billion in direct cash payments and $260 billion in supplemental unemployment insurance benefits. The enhanced unemployment benefits lasted for four months, after which rates returned to normal but with a 13-week extension to the maximum number of weeks allowed by each state.

According to data from the Department of Labor, the average weekly unemployment benefits for the second quarter—April, May and June—were just $318, even with the funding for extended benefits.

Four weeks of this sum is not even enough to cover rent alone in many cities. A review by Clever Real Estate found that workers could survive on unemployment insurance in just 12 out of 109 metro areas.

Now, with millions of Americans suffering from the pandemic, the Democrats and Republicans negotiate over pennies, taking turns rejecting deals that do not even come close to alleviating the crisis.

The Republicans, true to form, have offered nothing for housing and utility assistance. The Democrats proposed $50 billion for low-income renters. Ultimately, a $25 billion compromise was reached as part of the $908 billion stimulus package currently being discussed in congress.

Twenty-five billion dollars is a grossly insufficient amount. Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, estimates that there will be $70 billion in unpaid debt by January.

The political parties of the ruling class have demonstrated their complete indifference to the plight of the working class.

In 2019, US renters paid $512 billion for housing. With millions out of work and hundreds of billions of dollars in wages lost, it is impossible to expect workers to somehow conjure their debt payments from thin air by January.

To the extent that the US government offers anything, it is only to prop up the profits of the capitalist system, funneling trillions into the stock market and providing millions to big business through the Paycheck Protection Program, while small businesses owners and workers are left with nothing.

Even with the meager assistance that the federal government is offering, it will be extremely difficult for workers to pay off their debts.

Between 2001 and 2018, the median wage of a renter rose just 0.5 percent while median rent rose 13 percent. More than 8 million renter households pay more than half of their income toward rent, affecting 23 million people.

The Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey found that 83 million adults reported struggling to pay for essentials such as food, housing, transportation and medical care. Now, 66 percent of people receiving unemployment benefits will lose them on December 26 and face eviction at the end of the month.

All evictions must be halted, workers must be given full income support, essential workers must be granted substantial hazard pay and adequate utilities must be provided to all people without charge.

This is what is required to fight the pandemic and ensure that no person is forced from their home. Neither the Republican nor Democratic party can be trusted to provide workers with relief. Only an independent movement of the working class based on a socialist program demanding financial assistance and an end to evictions can save lives and bring the pandemic under control.

Poverty in Germany reaches a new record high

Elisabeth Zimmermann

More than 13 million people in Germany were afflicted by poverty in 2019, pushing the poverty rate to 15.9 percent, the highest measured poverty rate since reunification thirty years ago. These figures are presented in the newest poverty report of the German welfare association Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, published on Nov. 20.

The resurgence of poverty is widespread. Eleven of the sixteen German states have rising poverty rates, including North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Lower Saxony. The state of Bremen is worst affected, with one in four being poor, followed by Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia with poverty rates of between 18.5 and 19.5 percent.

Collecting discarded bottles to redeem deposits, a common sight in Germany (Image: Sascha Kohlmann / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Since 2006 the poverty rate in North Rhine-Westphalia has increased two-and-a-half times faster than the German average. Poverty is most concentrated in the Ruhr Valley region, with a poverty rate of 21.4 percent. According to the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, Germany’s largest metropolitan area is also the poorest.

Of the 5.8 million people in the Ruhr Valley, 1.3 million live in poverty. Since 2006, poverty there has risen by 36 percent. In comparison, in Germany as a whole, poverty rose by an average of 14 percent during the same period. In the urban region of Duisburg/Essen, the increase in poverty during the same period was as high as 48 percent. Last year, the poverty rate hit 21.5 percent, reaching as high as 22 percent in Dortmund.

The rise in poverty is also expressed in the number of people in Germany on social assistance, known as Hartz IV. While the percent of those drawing Hartz IV was 8.4 percent, in Germany on the whole, the rate in the Ruhr region was 15 percent, meaning almost every fourth child relied on government aid. In some cities and districts the figure exceeded even 30 percent. In the city of Gelsenkirchen, 40 percent of children are dependent on Hartz IV.

Regarding the geographical distribution of poverty, the report states: “In terms of geography, poverty in Germany differentiates into two halves—but not into East and West, rather into North and South. In the well-off south, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg have a joint poverty rate of 12.1 percent. The rest of the republic, from the east to the north to the west, has a combined poverty rate of 17.4 percent. Outside Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, an average of more than one in six people live below the poverty line.”

In view of the massively slashed working hours and the announced mass layoffs in the automotive and associated industries, which are heavily concentrated in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, one must expect that poverty will rise in these states as well.

Of the 15 regions and cities with the highest poverty rates, one-third are in North Rhine-Westphalia, predominantly in the Ruhr Valley area. A further third are in Lower Saxony and Bremen and another third are located in Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.

Poverty also increased sharply between 2006 and 2019 in the Rhine-Main region, especially the cities of Frankfurt/Main and Offenbach and in the region around Darmstadt in the south of the state of Hesse. Here, the poverty rate rose from 10.5 (2006) to 15.3 (2019) percent.

The report notes: “High wealth concentrations in a region or state commonly coincide with high poverty rates.” Hesse has the second highest wealth rate in Germany and now has a poverty rate of 16.1 percent, above the national average.

Poverty is defined as an income of less than 60 percent of the average income. Last year, this was 1,074 euros per month for a one-person household and 2,256 euros for a family with two children under 14 years of age.

The unemployed have the highest risk of poverty with 57.9 percent living in poverty. Among single parents 42.7 percent are in poverty and among families with many children the share is 30.9 percent. Those with poor qualifications are affected by poverty at 41.7 percent and people without German citizenship at 35.2 percent.

For all groups considered in the study, poverty in 2019 increased compared to the previous year. The most significant increase in a long-term comparison was among pensioners. Among them, the poverty rate has increased by sixty percent since 2006 to 17.1 percent. The majority of the poor work (33 percent) or are in retirement (23.6 percent).

Widespread poverty is the result of decades of anti-working class policies. A particular impetus for the development of the now vast low-wage sector was provided by the so-called Agenda 2010 and the Hartz laws of the SPD/Green coalition of Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer, which ruled from 1998 to 2005. Since then, all governing coalitions, mostly with the participation of the SPD, have driven these developments forward.

The figures in this year’s poverty report by the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband are from the period before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that time, social antagonisms have only increased and an additional rise in poverty is foreseeable.

The report states: “The effects of the corona crisis are likely to further accelerate this trend [toward inequality]. The impact of this crisis is not a general loss of prosperity, rather it particularly affects those working in the catering sector or in temporary employment, mini-job-holders and the self-employed, which means that the corona crisis will ultimately contribute to greater inequality and more poverty in this segment of society.”

The Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband warns: “There is therefore sufficient evidence that the corona crisis will lead to further growth in inequality and poverty. There is much to suggest that the current record poverty rate of 15.9 percent in 2019 will again rise significantly in 2020.”

The authors of the study criticize that present social security systems for not being sufficient to protect people from poverty, homelessness, poverty in old age and other precarious living situations. The benefits from Hartz IV and other social programs are much too low to finance a dignified existence. They also criticize the fact that of the hundreds of billions of euros that the German government has spent to support the economy, nothing is earmarked for those most affected by job losses and poverty.

No measures against poverty can be expected from the government. On the contrary, the policies of recent years have been and still are characterized by a frontal attack on the working class and its most vulnerable sections. Government action during the pandemic, as in all other countries, has been characterized by immense bailouts to protect the rich and the super-rich at the expense of workers, who are forced to work despite the risk of infection and loss of life.

Schools and daycare centers are kept open so that parents can go to work and generate profits. The last week of November saw the number of people who have been infected with COVID-19 in Germany exceeded one million. More than 15,000 people have died from COVID-19, with no end in sight.

The growth in poverty is the result of a gigantic redistribution of society’s wealth from the bottom to the top. The weekly Wirtschaftswoche from Oct. 7 reported that the rich have become even richer as a result of the coronavirus crisis: “In Germany, after a slump at the beginning of the corona pandemic, the net wealth of the ultra-rich rose to $594.9 billion until the end of July. At the last survey (to March 2019) it was 500.9 billion dollars. The club of the super-rich has since grown from 114 to 119 members. After the outbreak of the pandemic, the number of German dollar billionaires saw the greatest growth in the areas of technology (up 46 percent), health care (up 12 percent) and finance (up 11 percent).”

According to a recently published ranking by Manager Magazin, the Reimann family with an estimated 32 billion euros in assets are among the richest Germans. In second place is Lidl founder Dieter Schwarz with estimated assets of 30 billion euros. Third place goes to siblings Susanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt, who own almost half of BMW’s shares. Their assets have fallen by 1.5 billion euros to an estimated 25 billion euros during the pandemic—a hardly less dizzyingly high figure.

Over 2,200 students at Columbia University threaten tuition strike amid economic crisis

Elliott Murtagh

Students at Columbia University in New York City have launched plans for a tuition strike demanding decreased tuition and increased financial aid in 2021. The petition announcing the strike has grown to over 2,200 student pledges.

Columbia University is one of the most expensive universities in the country, costing over $60,000 a year, has one of the largest university endowments in the country, currently at $11.26 billion, and is one of the largest private landowners in New York City. Columbia recently reported an increase of $310 million to their endowment from returns in the university’s stock portfolio this year.

Columbia University Low Memorial Library (Wikimedia Commons)

Meanwhile, students face a dire economic situation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is beginning to rage uncontrolled once again in New York City, under Democratic Party leadership. The current threat of tuition strike follows a strike in April by Columbia University graduate workers demanding the university sufficiently address the impact of the pandemic on their lives, scholarship and research.

The strike campaign, which extends to the Columbia-affiliated schools of Barnard College and Teachers College, was initiated by the Columbia University-Barnard College chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA).

The primary demands of the tuition strike call for a reduction of the total cost of attendance by at least 10 percent and an increase of financial aid by at least 10 percent.

Other listed demands include ending university expansion in West Harlem, defunding Columbia’s Public Safety security force, divesting from fossil fuels and from companies tied to human rights violations, protections for international students, and granting union recognition for student workers to bargain for improved compensation and benefits.

The tuition strike, which entails withholding university payments, would be set to begin during the first scheduled payment for the Spring semester: December 14 for Barnard College and January 20 for Columbia and Teachers College students.

A collection of student testimonials in support of the strike points to the dire economic situation and financial hardship facing students as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the administration’s failure to adequately address community demands throughout the year.

One student wrote, “Members of the community are deeply suffering and could use the help of this prestigious and far reaching institute. Many, too many, have gone into financial debt for professions that no longer exist. To work in industries that have completely shut down. We are drowning… There’s no such thing as returning back to normal. For many, ‘normal’ consisted of barely keeping our head above water.”

One nursing student stated, “We are the future generation of healthcare workers. We play an important role in keeping the public safe and fighting this very pandemic, yet our educational needs are not being met. We are asked to sacrifice everything and be selfless, only to be taken advantage of.”

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in New York and New Jersey express our solidarity with all students who are forced to take out massive loans in order to get an education and who are struggling every day to pay them off. However, students who are looking for a way to fight back against the social and economic crisis facing young people today need to understand the political issues involved in this struggle.

Student debt plagues working class youth and their families throughout the country, and in fact, around the world.

For those who have student loans, the average student today leaves college with $37,172 of debt. Nationally, college debt stands at a staggering $1.56 trillion. College tuition has increased by 1,140 percent since the late 1970s. Despite this massive spike in tuition over the last five decades, the median household income has remained the same since 1999.

Students who take out loans to go to college often spend the majority of their lives trying to pay them off. Under pandemic conditions, in which unemployment figures are at the highest they have been since the Great Depression, taking on student debt can quickly lead to financial ruin.

Even if successful, the reduction of tuition at Columbia by 10 percent—from $64,000 to $57,600—will do little to alleviate this immense crisis facing workers and youth at Columbia, let alone the millions of students and their families across the country.

The astronomical rise in student debt over the past several decades is part of an overall attack on education overseen by both Democrats and Republicans. This includes the systematic dismantling of public schools through privatization and the promotion of charter schools and the transformation of universities into profit-making enterprises subordinated to the interests of giant corporations and the military-intelligence apparatus.

Whether it is under Bush, Obama or Trump, these tendencies have continued relentlessly.

The orientation of the YDSA, which initiated the petition, is to the Democratic Party, which has facilitated the relentless destruction of public education, the increases in tuition, and the destruction of jobs and wages.

Christian Flores, a Columbia University graduate student and member of the YDSA and leader of the tuition strike made this orientation clear in an interview he gave to CBS News on Monday, when he noted that it was “quite poetic that tuition is due on January 20th when that is also the inauguration of President Biden.” He added that he hoped the movement would allow students to have a “seat at the table”—that is, that it would help to pressure the incoming Biden administration to take action on student debt.

The student debt crisis will not be solved by getting “a seat at the table” in a Biden administration. If Biden comes to power, the policy that his administration implements will be dictated by Wall Street and the military. Biden has already made this clear in the composition of his proposed cabinet.

The role of the Democratic Socialists of America and its youth movement the YDSA has always been to sow illusions that the Democratic Party can be reformed. After campaigning for Bernie Sanders unsuccessfully for five years, the organization went all in for Biden in the final months of the campaign cycle, mobilizing all their resources to get out the vote.

What is needed to combat the student debt crisis, like all of the major crises facing workers and youth under capitalism, is the independent mobilization of the working class against the capitalist system in opposition to the Republican and Democratic parties.

While President-elect Joe Biden accepts the continuation of death on a mass scale, proclaiming, “I’m not going to shut down the economy, period,” the Democratic Party celebrates his incoming cabinet of thoroughly right-wing imperialist reaction as “the most diverse in US history.”

Combatting the widespread economic and social issues facing students and youth not only at Columbia, but internationally, requires a political understanding that these issues are the direct products of capitalism and are fundamentally class issues. In response, a political program is needed, based on expropriating the wealth of the ruling class to guarantee the right to free education and cancellation of all student debt, free housing, free healthcare, and safe working and learning conditions—that is, the establishment of a society based on social need.

California’s new COVID-19 restrictions place burden on workers and small business owners

David Fitzgerald

New COVID-19 restrictions across several California counties began Sunday night, with more coming into effect over the next several days. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom tied the measures to the proportion of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds available in several broad regions.

The stay-at-home order places the entire burden of the pandemic on workers and small business owners, closing outdoor restaurants and restricting retail shops’ capacity without any financial compensation, while allowing major sources of transmission like large workplaces and factories to remain open for generating profits. While many schools in the state have moved to online instruction, part of the governor’s guidance is that schools that have reopened to in-person instruction will not be closed.

A person administering a COVID-19 test (Wikimedia Commons)

In fifty-two of the fifty-eight counties in California, the pandemic is categorized as “widespread,” meaning that there are high positivity rates for COVID-19 tests and large numbers of cases per capita. Only 339,811 Californians live in counties where the virus is not widespread in a state of 40,129,160 people.

California is now the worst-hit state in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University, with well over 1.3 million cases as of Monday. New cases have increased by 84 percent in California in the past two weeks. The number of deaths in California has now nearly 20,000, with many cases likely uncounted. Los Angeles county broke single day infection records on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday saw over 28,000 new COVID-19 cases, the highest recorded in a single day. Nearly one in ten Californians who are tested are positive.

Intensive care unit bed capacity has fallen to exceedingly dangerous levels in numerous counties. Southern California is now at 10.3 percent bed capacity, per the California Department of Health. As ICUs are stretched beyond their capacities, mortality rates will continue to climb. Lack of doctors, nurses, other health care providers and intensive care training compounds the crisis dramatically. A September report by National Nurses United revealed that 35,525 California health care workers have been infected, the most of any state. Only in New York and New Jersey have more health care workers died of COVID-19.

The new guidelines and restrictions suggest that residents refrain from holding out-of-household gatherings. Dining at restaurants, whether outdoor or indoor, is now prohibited, while outdoor religious services are exempt from restrictions. Film and television productions are also exempt. Retailers are allowed to conduct their business at 20 percent capacity as long as safety protocols are followed. Outdoor recreation facilities are allowed to remain open, as well as outdoor gym and fitness classes, while playgrounds will be off-limits for children.

None of these new restrictions will have any meaningful impact on the spread of the disease throughout factories, schools and many offices. In fact, childcare, pre-kindergarten and K-12 schools that are conducting in-person instruction will remain open, regardless of the lack of intensive care beds.

A new study conducted by University of California-Merced sociology Professor Edward Orozco Flores and Community and Labor Center Executive Director Ana Padilla reveal the remarkable ineffectiveness of the recent restriction measures by pointing out that counties with high numbers of low-wage workers, especially those deemed essential workers, are seeing far higher rates of infection.

Nearly all of the counties with high worker distress are on the state watch list for those with COVID-19 positivity rates above 8 percent. In comparison, only two of the 37 counties with low worker distress were above 8 percent. Worker distress is directly linked with higher infection rates. Tightly congested work environments, lack of safety measures, the flagrant secretiveness of management, and lack of health care options available to low-wage workers combine to create a public health disaster. The new public health measures will allow the virus to rip through the working class unimpeded.

Padilla emphasized that low-wage workers in agriculture, food services, transportation, and other essential roles have higher rates of infection. She noted that “our findings indicate low-wage work is associated with the spread of COVID-19, and that to mitigate COVID-19 spread it is not enough to simply regulate business openings and public gatherings.” The new restrictions clearly safeguard those who are able to stay at home, while disregarding essential and lower-wage workers.

Despite their limited nature, sheriffs in Ventura, San Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties have announced that they will not enforce the new stay-at-home restrictions. These right-wing sheriffs have been emboldened by California Gavin Newsom’s blatantly hypocritical approach to restrictions.

Newsom has been exposed for eating out at extravagant restaurants in groups larger than state guidelines dictate, and with these new measures places the entire burden of prevention on workers and small businesses. The state’s decision to declare almost every large workplace essential while refusing compensation to small business owners and working class families gives room for these right-wing sheriffs to posture as defending democracy.

During the initial lockdown measures beginning in March, Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors, located in Fremont California in the Bay Area, flagrantly defied government orders to close the factory floor. Musk ranted on Twitter about public health measures and was allowed to continue operations even as numerous cases broke out in his factory. This time around, Alameda County, where the Fremont plant is located, is making no effort to close the it in the face of growing infection rates.

It is clear that the new restrictions are nowhere near sufficient to contain the virus. Nonessential work, including car manufacturing, must be closed while providing full compensation to small business owners, families, and workers. Schools must provide fully-funded remote learning with guaranteed access to high speed internet. It is only possible to do this if workers take matters into their own hands by forming rank-and-file-committees. An incalculable number of lives can be saved through an active struggle of the working class against the financial oligarchy and their murderous “herd immunity” policy.

Florida COVID-19 data scientist whistleblower raided by state police at gunpoint

Benjamin Mateus

“I tell them my husband and my two children are upstairs … and THEN one of them draws his gun. On my children. This is Desantis’ Florida.” - Rebekah Jones in a tweet Monday

Early Monday morning in Tallahassee, Florida state police raided the home of Rebekah Jones, the former Florida Department of Health data scientist turned whistleblower, with guns in hand prepared to fire at any sign of commotion. Jones had the lucidity to stage a camera in the house before letting the police inside.

Former state data analyst Rebekah Jones raising her hands up after she opened her door to the police. (Rebekah Jones/Twitter)

The video shows her opening the door and quickly raising her arms as she is rudely ushered out by the police brazenly wielding their guns. They then enter like a SWAT team shouting, “Mr. Jones, come down the stairs now! Police! Come down now!” The second officer points his gun up at the top of the stairs as Jones can be heard crying, “My husband and children are upstairs. What are you doing? They just pointed a gun at my children!”

Jones likened the harrowing scene to a Nazi raid intended to terrorize her and set her as an example. “This was Desantis. He sent the gestapo,” she tweeted shortly after the raid. “This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power,” Jones noted in a subsequent tweet.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, the Florida Department of Health filed a complaint against Jones on November 10 alleging unauthorized access to a department messaging system, part of an emergency alert system. During the raid, they seized her phone, all her computers, and equipment that she uses to provide up-to-date metrics on COVID-19 cases in Florida, an alternative source to Florida’s official dashboard which has been notoriously unreliable for tracking the course of the pandemic.

Late Monday afternoon, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement made a press statement that they had issued a warrant “after suspecting Jones of being responsible for a computer hack into the health department website,” as quoted by the Tampa Bay Times. The November 10 message urged health officials to “speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be a part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late.”

Jones, a geographer specializing in Geographic Information System (GIS) data science and responsible for tracking the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida, had garnered national attention for refusing to strategically manipulate the data to align it with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ push to reopen the state for commerce. She was bitterly denounced by the governor’s office, claiming that Jones displayed “insubordination” and “blatant disrespect” for her colleagues. As such, they felt “that it was best to terminate her employment.”

In a letter drafted on June 9 by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association of GIS professionals and sent to the governor’s office, they wrote, “While all the facts have yet to be made public, we are concerned that the actions taken potentially put the public at risk and prevented a certified GIS professional from following the Code of Ethics that guides all GIS professionals working in government, non-profit and private sector positions.”

Within a few weeks of being terminated, Jones launched an alternate Florida COVID-19 dashboard, Florida COVID Action, which uses the same data science software and data extraction techniques she had used to build the Florida Department of Health dashboard, adding an open data platform. The new dashboard provides an enhanced metric that includes hospital bed availability by facility, which was not being made public.

In September, she drew the ire of school superintendents and state officials while speaking in opposition to schools remaining open at a virtual town hall organized by Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried.

She noted that “cases are trending upward for every single age group in the state. We have seen an astronomical increase in pediatric cases. We have seen additional pediatric deaths that the state has not been transparent about. Florida is now one of only a few states in the entire Southeast that is not reporting this information. More than half of all school districts have taken it upon themselves to publish information about cases in their schools every single day because the state leadership has failed to do so.”

In August, she and her COVID Action nonprofit proceeded to launch a second COVID-19 dashboard specifically to track cases in schools across the nation. This is being done in collaboration with Google’s COVID-19 Open Data Project. She explained that the number of school-related coronavirus cases had jumped ten times since the state accidentally released statewide data in August. Needless to add, the state data has since been taken down.

A recent South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation found that Governor DeSantis’ administration has been concealing and spinning the pandemic data to mislead the public on the dangers associated with the virus. Florida has seen more than one million COVID-19 cases and over 19,000 deaths. Cases have been surging again, approaching the summer peak. There has been a 23.3 percent rise in cases over a 14-day average. Hospitalizations and deaths have been following.

According to the paper: “DeSantis, who owes his job to early support from President Donald Trump, imposed an approach in line with the views of the president and his powerful base of supporters. The administration suppressed unfavorable facts, dispensed dangerous misinformation, dismissed public health professionals, and promoted the views of scientific dissenters who supported the governor’s approach to the disease.”

Modi maneuvers as support for Indian farmers’ protest swells

Wasantha Rupasinghe

Indian farmers have called for a four-hour Bharat bandh (all-India shutdown) from 11 AM to 3 PM today to press their demand that the country’s far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government rescind a series of recently-adopted laws that put them at the mercy of domestic and international agribusiness.

Several hundred thousand farmers, some with their wives and children, are currently camped at Singhu and other entry points to India’s Delhi National Capital Territory. Many have been there since Nov. 27, when police, acting on the orders of the BJP government, used tear gas, water cannons and barbed wire barricades to block them from entering Delhi.

The protest has since swelled as other farmers, including from southern India, flock to join, and now constitutes a serious political crisis for the BJP government.

“On TV, I saw the videos of farmers being attacked with water cannons and tear gas,” Vijay Gorle, a farmer from the Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, told the Hindustan Times on December 7. “They needed the country's support, so four of us caught a train to reach Delhi station and from there a cab to reach here on Saturday.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP used the September Monsoon session of parliament to ram through a series of measures long demanded by Indian and international capital, claiming they were needed to revive an Indian economy that had been roiled by the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s ruinous response to it.

These measures include three agricultural bills that are the focus of the farmers’ agitation, and a “reform” of the labour code. The latter illegalizes most worker job action, promotes precarious contract-labour employment, and guts restrictions on mass layoffs and plant closures.

The farmers launched their agitation on Nov. 26, the same day that tens of millions of workers across India mounted a one-day protest strike to oppose the Modi government’s “labour reform” and privatization drive, and to demand emergency financial assistance for the hundreds of millions of impoverished workers and toilers who have been left to fend for themselves amid the ongoing socio-economic disaster.

There is huge popular sympathy for the farmers and an even larger well of opposition to the Hindu supremacist BJP, which is ruthlessly implementing “pro-investor” policies, while relentlessly stoking anti-Muslim chauvinism.

But the Stalinist parliamentary parties—the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and the Communist Party of India (CPI)—and the trade unions are doing everything they can to demobilize the working class, and channel the mass anger behind the right-wing bourgeois opposition and futile appeals to Modi to change course.

The CPM-aligned Centre for Indian Trade Unions, the CPI’s trade union affiliate, the All India Trade Union Congress, and eight other central trade union federations—along with numerous independent unions, including those representing railway and bank workers—have pledged their support for today’s Bharat bandh. However, if they have their way, virtually all workers will remain on the job. Any action in support of the farmers’ will be limited to lunchtime picketing or after work rallies, and in the case of the bank workers to wearing “pro-farmer” badges.

The All India Motor Transport Congress, which represents owner-operator truck drivers and truck companies, has by contrast called on its members to keep their vehicles off the road in a show of support for the farmers. According to an AIMTC representative, 65 percent of their members’ business involves the transport of farm goods.

What the Stalinists are above all determined to prevent is the working class intervening as an independent force, using the crisis the farmer protests has provoked to fight for its own class demands and to advance a socialist program to rally India’s toilers behind it in a struggle against the Modi government and the entire Indian capitalist order. Such a program would defend not only the farmers, but all the rural masses—first and foremost, the impoverished agricultural workers and landless peasants—from the encroachments and privations of big business.

Last week, Kerala Chief Minister and CPM Politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan tweeted: "We urge the Government of India to listen to the protesting farmers and resolve the issue in an amicable manner. The whole of our country needs to come together on this; because farmers are the lifeblood of this country.”

On Sunday, the CPM and CPI issued a joint statement with the Congress Party—until recently the Indian bourgeoisie’s preferred party of government—and various regional parties, including the Tamil Nadu-based DMK, Uttar Pradesh-based Samajwadi Party, and the Maharashtra-based Nationalist Congress Party. The statement expressed support for today’s Bharat bandh and denounced the BJP government’s agricultural laws, saying they “threaten India’s food security, destroy agriculture and our farmers” and will subject farmers and consumers “to the caprices of multi-national agri-business corporates and domestic corporates.”

This is a cynical fraud. When in government, all of these parties have themselves implemented similar “pro-market” reforms. Indeed, from 1991 till 2014, when the Modi government came to power in Delhi, Congress-led governments did much of the heavy lifting in instituting the Indian ruling class’ “new economic policy,” and its corollary, the pursuit of closer ties and ultimately a “global strategic partnership” with US imperialism.

The opposition’s “support” for the farmers is aimed at ensuring their agitation does not serve as a catalyst for a broader working class-led challenge to the Modi government and the bourgeoisie’s class war agenda. They also hope to be able to exploit it to push back against the BJP, which has systematically squeezed them from positions of political power and influence.

While feigning support for the farmers, the Congress Chief Minister of Punjab, whose farmers have been in the forefront of the agitation against the BJP’s “agricultural reform” laws, met last Thursday with Amit Shah, India’s Home Minister and Modi’s chief henchman, to seek “an early resolution to the impasse.” At the conclusion of the meeting, Captain Amarinder Singh said he had urged Shah to make concessions to the farmers “soon,” because the farmers' action "affects the economy of my Punjab as well as the security of the nation.” He then appealed to the farmers to “just as urgently find a solution to this problem,” repeating that it is “impacting national security.”

Singh’s remarks about “national security” highlight the fears within the political elite that the farmers’ agitation could spark a much broader opposition movement or result in a violent clash between the protesting farmers and security forces that would further discredit the Indian state in the eyes of the masses.

The BJP government hoped to snuff out the “Delhi Chalo ” (Let’s go to Delhi) farm protest at the outset through a massive state mobilization on Nov. 26-27 that saw much of Haryana, the BJP-ruled state that neighbours Delhi and Punjab, turned into an armed camp. But that failed, as tens of thousands of farmers managed to get through the police gauntlet to the borders of the capital territory.

Since then the government has been maneuvering, hoping to defuse the crisis through promises of a handful of cosmetic changes to the bills. At the same time, it continues to prepare for a possible massive security operation involving the army to suppress the farmers’ protest. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has joined Home Minister Shah at all high-level government consultations on the farm agitation.

The Modi government and big business, as evidenced by numerous editorials in the major dailies, are adamant that the farm bills not be repealed. Speaking Sunday, Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary reiterated that the most the government is willing to offer are “amendments.” As the government has done throughout, Choudhary sought to blame the agitation on the opposition parties and “agitators.” “ I don't think the real farmers, working in their farms, are bothered about” the farm laws, he declared.

BJP representatives have also sought to paint the agitation as limited to Haryana and the majority-Sikh Punjab, going so far as to smear the movement as being infiltrated if not led by “Khalistanis,” i.e. supporters of the creation of a communalist Sikh state. While the anti-farm bill agitation has been centered in those two states, it has support across wide swathes of rural India.

To date, five meetings have been held between farm leaders and BJP government officials, and a further meeting is planned for Wednesday.

The protests have been supported by small and marginal farmers, but the movement is politically led by better off farmers with connections to the political establishment. They have sought to appeal to the government by calling for “politics” to be kept out of the movement, and while welcoming the support of the opposition parties have said that their supporters should not raise party banners or flags when participating in today’s Bharat bandh.

The Delhi police, which is directly under Home Minister Shah’s authority, has vowed to deal sternly with anyone who attempts to disrupt people’s movements or “forcefully” shut shops during today’s protest. BJP-ruled Gujarat, Modi’s home state, has imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Code, banning all gatherings of more than four people. Madhya Pradesh’s BJP chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, told a BJP rally, “We won’t spare those elements who may try to create chaos in the country under the cover of farmers’ protest.”

Coronavirus outbreak at Amazon warehouse in Troutdale, Oregon exceeds 100 infections

Tom Carter

As of the end of November, more than 100 infections have been reported in a major coronavirus outbreak at an Amazon warehouse in Troutdale, Oregon. The outbreak at the PDX9 Fulfillment Center, an 855,000-square-foot building, is still considered “active.”

Oregon’s health authorities reported last week that since the start of the pandemic, there have been 61 deaths and 11,139 cases associated with workplace outbreaks in Oregon.

The inside of an Amazon factory (Wikimedia Commons)

The outbreak at Amazon’s Troutdale warehouse is the fourth largest in the state. The largest three are at prison complexes: the Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario (550 cases); the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton (520 cases); and the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem (192 cases).

The PDX9 warehouse was, even before the coronavirus pandemic, among the most dangerous of all Amazon’s notoriously unsafe workplaces. According to Amazon’s own records, which were analyzed at the end of last year by the Portland Mercury newspaper, “26 out of every 100 workers at PDX9 sustained an injury in 2018.”

This is the same warehouse where management is forcing workers to sign a broad “non-disclosure agreement,” which was the subject of a report last week in the Willamette Week newspaper.

While Amazon’s practice of forcing workers to sign such agreements dates back many years and is not limited to the PDX9 warehouse, these agreements take on a new dimension in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.

Throughout the pandemic, Amazon management has sought to conceal the extent of infections in order to lull workers into a false sense of security. When workers demanded specific information regarding their workplaces, management insisted that the data was protected by privacy laws and refused to make it available. Spontaneous walkouts and sickouts over the spring and summer were frequently triggered by workers’ independent discovery of a case that had been covered up by management.

In the face of the management coverup, workers took to social media to gather and compile their own statistics. Former Amazon worker Jana Jumpp, who prepared the most comprehensive count, told the World Socialist Web Site in June that her count of 2,000 infections represented “just the tip of the iceberg.”

At the end of September, Amazon quietly posted data indicating that nearly 20,000 US employees, including warehouse and Whole Foods workers, had tested positive.

The Troutdale “non-disclosure agreement,” which was described in the Willamette Week report, subjects workers to civil liability if they disclose “proprietary or confidential information of Amazon in whatever form, tangible or intangible, whether or not marked or otherwise designated as confidential, that is not otherwise generally known to the public, relating or pertaining to Amazon’s business, projects, products, customers, suppliers, inventions, or trade secrets.”

Since information about the health and safety conditions relating to the coronavirus inside Amazon warehouses is “information. .. pertaining to Amazon’s business” that is “not otherwise generally known to the public,” this suggests that workers could face a lawsuit for talking on social media about the number of infections in their workplace.

These types of agreements can have a powerful chilling effect, regardless of whether Amazon’s expansively vague and tendentious terms would hold up in court. Workers do not have the ability to pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend themselves against armies of lawyers working for a multinational conglomerate with limitless resources. Managers can threaten to sue workers who raise concerns, and rather than risk a lawsuit, workers may simply choose to remain silent.

Amazon is bloated with huge profits resulting from the pandemic, as demand soared for the delivery of goods during lockdowns around the world. While millions of businesses closed their doors and tens of millions of workers added their names to the unemployment rolls, Amazon expanded its operations by hiring hundreds of thousands of workers.

Buoyed by a 74 percent rise in share prices this year and the bipartisan Wall Street bailout engineered by the Democratic and Republican parties in the US, Amazon’s market capitalization has risen to $1.58 trillion as of yesterday. The soaring price of Amazon stock has resulted in the world’s richest person, Jeff Bezos, adding around $80 billion to his personal fortune, which is now estimated at approximately $200 billion.

Amazon now faces mounting anger within its own workforce, as workers around the world demand to know why they were kept at their stations and worked to the bone without adequate safeguards, while Bezos, from the safety of his mansions, added mountains of cash to his fortune on a scale exceeding the national budgets of large national governments.

Management’s campaign of surveillance and repression is motivated above all by fear of a looming insurrection of Amazon workers around the world. The use of “non-disclosure agreements” is only one facet of this oppressive framework.

Amazon has formed its own industrial police and intelligence agency, dubbed Global Security Operations Center (GSOC), which is tasked with targeting industrial actions by Amazon workers around the world that might pose a threat to company profits. This agency is being staffed with veterans of the repressive apparatus of the American state: the police, the intelligence agencies, and the military.

The efforts to anticipate and block an insurrection by Amazon workers includes extensive spying on Amazon workers and invasions of their privacy, including the monitoring of private Facebook groups and listservs by management spies.

Amazon was exposed last month for sending spies from the notorious Pinkerton detective agency into a warehouse in Poland. And recent reports from the Spanish media outlet El Diario point to the use of Pinkerton agents last year in Spain, in the context of a broader transport strike in Catalonia.

According to the report in El Diario, which Amazon management has denied, the spies were used on October 30, 2019 at a warehouse in El Prat de Llobregat, in the province of Barcelona.

Anonymous reviews left by workers on the employment web site Indeed paint a devastating picture of working conditions at Amazon in Troutdale.

Workers summarized their experiences as “Repetitive, boring, strict,” “Horrible work experience,” “Physically demanding and no support,” “Exhausting,” “Boring and treated as a machine,” and “Tedious, repetitive work.”

The only “upside,” many workers wrote, is that they made enough money to pay rent. “Fast-paced, fast burnout,” wrote one worker. “Definitely a place where people are encouraged to work hard, work extra hours, and keep up the pace.”

“They work you to near death,” wrote an IT support technician at the same warehouse. “They make sure you are left with no life in your body at the end of shift ... if you do good, they raise your requirements.”

“It’s all about productivity there. You as a person don’t matter,” another worker wrote. “The upper leadership only pays lip service about caring about health and safety of employees.”

“Personally, I hate it,” wrote one current worker. “I’ve worked there two years and I want to kill myself every time I walk in the building.” Another worker wrote, “They don’t care about the employee, just the money!!”