German factories and low-income neighbourhoods left exposed to massive COVID-19 outbreaks

Elisabeth Zimmermann

People are getting infected by COVID-19 at especially high rates in workplaces, schools and low-income neighbourhoods in Germany. Several studies and examples testify to this. Nonetheless, they receive virtually no protection and are largely excluded from lockdown measures. This also applies to the recently adopted “federal emergency brake.”

For workplaces in particular, there are almost no protective measures and the few that exist are never reviewed and enforced. The number of workplace safety inspections declined during the first year of the pandemic by 15 percent. Factories must remain open so profits continue to flow, even if this means that workers’ health and lives are put at risk.

Corona Hotspot Cologne-Chorweiler (Image: Superbass / CC-BY-SA-4.0)

The publicly funded media, big business and the trade unions are doing everything in their power to downplay the danger. Even directly affected work colleagues are often never informed about outbreaks in workplaces. Reports are usually restricted to the local media when larger outbreaks occur. Here are two typical examples:

At the kitchen furniture producer Menke-Küchen in Kirchlengen (North Rhine-Westphalia) around 20 workers have been infected, according to the head of the business, Hans-Dieter Menke. This was reported by the Neue Westfälische Zeitung on April 29. The first case was detected on the assembly line one week earlier. Tests by the local health authority then revealed that 20 workers, or one in six of the total workforce of 120, were infected. All of those infected and their contacts were sent into quarantine.

An even larger outbreak occurred at the Brüggen vehicle plant in Lübtheen (Ludwigslust-Parchim district, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania). Almost 200 of the workers, who build truck parts, tested positive. Most of them displayed COVID-19 symptoms. The outbreak is one of the largest to take place at a workplace in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Infections spread exponentially among the production workers. Responsibility for this lies with the British variant of the virus, B.1.1.7, according to local medical officer Ute Siering. The incidence rose in the district to 227 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Five hundred workers, almost all from the production department, were sent into quarantine. This amounts to half of the 1,000 workers employed at the site and more than 10 percent of the entire population of Lübtheen, which has 4,900 residents. A residential block near to the factory where many workers live was placed under quarantine. The production hall was closed last Friday for two weeks. Departments of the business separated from the production hall are continuing to operate.

These two examples are the tip of the iceberg of countless outbreaks in factories, businesses and other workplaces.

No lockdown for big business

The Monitor newsmagazine on public broadcaster ARD reported on its April 29 edition that businesses have been all but excluded from coronavirus protective measures.

The introduction to the segment declares, “Whether in the construction, meat processing, or auto industries, politicians seem not to take the issue of enforcing protective measures particularly seriously. Those who suffer the most as a result are people in precarious jobs; such as cleaners or harvest workers, who are often exposed to the risk of infection without any protection.”

Several examples were provided from the construction industry, which has been excluded from lockdown measures in spite of the high risk of transmission. Even a limited slowdown of operations was dismissed out of hand by the political establishment, as the programme noted:

“We have a series of sectors that are effectively not impacted at all by protective measures. For example, the auto industry, machine manufacturing and various service jobs, where people are going to work as before, and can get infected on their way to work or at their workplace.”

Workers employed precariously are hit hardest of all. A woman who has worked as a cleaner for years told Monitor, “My boss doesn’t bother doing anything. No disinfectant, no masks, no tests.” She spoke anonymously because she feared being let go if she protested openly.

The modest restrictions and hygiene plans that apply to companies are hardly enforced at all. Figures gathered by Germany’s states obtained exclusively by Monitor showed that workplace safety inspections by the authorities during the pandemic actually declined. In 2020, the number of inspections carried out in workplaces fell by 15 percent compared to a year earlier.

The obligation to work from home if possible is not being monitored, and companies who ignore the order are never sanctioned. An investigation by several scientific institutions from last week revealed the number of high-risk contacts of people who work in offices. Twenty-one percent have unprotected contact with more than six people, with one-third of those having contact with more than 11 people. A contact is considered unprotected if they are in the same room as someone without a mask for at least 15 minutes. All of these contacts would be avoidable if the obligation to work from home was strictly enforced.

Following a request for information by Monitor, 14 of the 16 states revealed that despite numerous violations of hygiene regulations and the requirement for employees to work from home, not a single fine has been imposed.

It is also noteworthy that the number of inspections in workplaces declined from 61,864 in 2019 to 50.366 in 2020, which equates to a 15 percent drop. This decline took place from an already low level. Figures from 2018 show that, on average, workplaces in Germany are inspected once every 25 years for workplace protection, with this only taking place every 40 years in some states.

The recently adopted Workplace Protection Control Act proposes that 5 percent of all businesses in a state be inspected by the relevant authorities every year. But this rate only applies from 2026!

High infection rates in low-income neighbourhoods

The coronavirus pandemic is acting as an accelerant to the contradictions of the capitalist system. Social inequality in particular has risen dramatically. The rich and super-rich, banks and major corporations have enriched themselves to unheard of degrees thanks to state-sponsored “bailouts” and rising share prices on the stock exchanges. Meanwhile, workers and their families bear the brunt of the pandemic’s social consequences.

This social polarisation is clearly expressed in infection rates. New studies and investigations demonstrate that in large cities, incidences are much higher in low-income neighbourhoods, while more prosperous districts have low infection rates and sometimes no infections at all.

In Cologne, where the incidence rose to 230, the infection rate varies sharply between different neighbourhoods. In Libur and Gremberghoven, the incidence was over 700 for a time, and it was over 600 in Neubrück. In the low-income district of Chorweiler, where almost 13,000 people live at close quarters, the incidence was over 500. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 963 people have been infected there. In the villa district of Hahnwald, by contrast, not a single infection has been recently reported.

The relationship between poverty, precarious employment, unemployment, cramped living quarters and the risk of being sickened by COVID-19 is obvious.

A disproportionate number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care come from poor neighbourhoods or immigrant families. Intensive care medics have pointed to the social relations to explain this phenomenon: poverty, insecure working relations, cramped apartments, which make it impossible for people to follow social distancing and thus protect themselves. When one person in a family gets sick, all other family members normally get infected. A disproportionate number of people in these families then die from COVID-19.

The intensive care units in Cologne’s hospitals are currently so full that several patients have already been transferred to far-off hospitals.

The number of infected school-aged and kindergarten children was also recently higher than at any time before. The city of Cologne recorded 874 active cases among this cohort. In addition, there were 186 infections among teaching staff and carers. At the beginning of April, the seven-day infection rate among children and young people aged between seven and 19 was 180. Over subsequent weeks, it rose above 400. The share of children as a percentage of total infections also changed. At the end of the Easter holidays, 15 percent of cases were among people aged 20 or younger. It has now risen to 25 percent.

Cologne is not the exception. Similar figures can be cited from almost every large city in Germany.

In Duisburg, the incidence was above 450 during the week of April 19–25 in five neighbourhoods. Many of the areas affected are in the north of the city, including Bruckhausen with 518 and Beeckerwerth with 428. Both neighbourhoods are close to the ThyssenKrupp steel plant. Many steelworkers, retired steelworkers and their families live there. Several neighbourhoods in the Rheinhausen district also recorded high incidences, including Hochemmerich with 469 and Rheinhausen-Mitte with 465. In the South district, the neighbourhood Wedau has an incidence of just 20, while Hüttenheim recorded 375.

The districts Hamborn und Meiderich/Beeck in the north of Duisburg reported almost twice as many infections between November 2020 and the beginning of April 2021 as districts in the south and centre of the city.

Over 26,000 people have been infected by COVID-19 in Duisburg; 612 people have died. In April alone, 60 people fell victim to COVID-19. According to the latest data from the Duisburg local health authority, those who died were much younger than those who died between October and March. Over 100 people are currently being treated for COVID-19 in hospital, including 46 in intensive care.

These figures underscore the extremely high price paid by workers and the poor for the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, they are affected most of all by job cuts, wage reductions and poor working conditions. Many companies have exploited the pandemic, with the assistance of the trade unions, to attack wages and working conditions.

Papua New Guinea parliament adjourned amid escalating COVID-19 crisis

John Braddock

Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Prime Minister, James Marape, adjourned parliament for four months on April 21, avoiding a vote of no confidence that could have removed him from office.

Marape cannot now be formally removed before the next election. Under the rules, parliament cannot move a vote of no confidence in a sitting PM for 12 months before an election is scheduled, in this case in July 2022.

Medical staff of Papua New Guinea’s Defense Force receiving COVID-19 training last year (Credit: World Health Organization/PNG)

The government justified the adjournment until August 10 following the release of figures indicating a quarter of parliamentary staff and one MP, 42 out of 167 people, had tested positive for COVID-19. As many as seven MPs tested positive earlier this year.

Marape said he was unwilling to “sacrifice the health of our elected leaders” and their families by keeping parliament open. Asked whether a four-month adjournment was necessary given the incubation period for the virus was two weeks, Marape said the end of the incubation period would not stop the spread of the virus.

PNG is grappling with an escalating health disaster. The Pacific nation, with a population of nearly 9 million has, as of May 3, recorded 11,206 COVID-19 cases and 115 known deaths. Due to low testing rates, the true numbers are likely to be far higher.

Over 4,000 cases are in the capital Port Moresby, with over half the workforce at the country’s main hospital having tested positive. The health system is near collapse nationwide with hospital beds fully occupied and oxygen, gloves, antibiotics and other supplies running out.

One health official in the Western Highlands told Radio New Zealand this week: “We really don’t have any real grasp on [the virus]… Numbers are surging daily. The number of positive cases coming in has gone far beyond our surveillance.”

Marape’s purported concern for his parliamentary colleagues does not extend to the broader population. On March 21, following a six-day surge that brought the total to over 4,000 cases, the government implemented a limited month-long isolation strategy. Restrictions were placed on travel, public gatherings and schools, but businesses, including markets and shops remained open, as did government departments. The measures inevitably failed to stem the outbreak, with cases exploding by over 6,000, including more than 40 deaths, during the four-week period.

The adjournment of parliament came after the opposition parties tabled a no-confidence motion and named former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill as their candidate. O’Neill declared the adjournment to be “wrong” and “in breach [of requirements regarding] minimum sitting days… so we will see them in court.”

These maneuvers are part of a deepening political crisis. Last November, dozens of government MPs, including cabinet ministers, defected to the opposition, taking control of parliament and suspending the budget sitting. Marape passed the 2021 budget in an emergency session with the opposition absent—a move the Supreme Court subsequently ruled unconstitutional.

After weeks of political turmoil during which the opposition tried to initiate a motion of no confidence, the prime minister’s majority was restored when a group of the defectors, including National Alliance party leader Patrick Pruaitch, returned to the government’s ranks. Following a court ruling that parliament resume sitting, and with Marape clinging to office, the government passed the budget before promptly adjourning parliament.

When parliament finally returned on April 20, opposition leader Belden Namah moved a fresh no-confidence motion. Declaring the “future hangs in the balance,” he said the country was gripped by the pandemic and the economy was in negative growth. He also cited the government’s handling of the closure of the Porgera goldmine, alleged misuse of international funds meant to aid PNG’s COVID response, and the country’s high debt-to-GDP ratio. Also pointing to the economic crisis, O’Neill said the country could be called a “failed state.”

Before the pandemic hit, including under O’Neill from 2011-2019, the economy was already reeling from a collapse in earnings from the major resources industries. A series of severe budget shortfalls resulted in government debt rising to nearly 40 percent of GDP. Last year Marape reportedly sought a $US2 billion bailout from international institutions, including the IMF and the Asian Development Bank.

O’Neill remains deeply unpopular. In 2016, police opened fire and killed four students at a protest demanding that he step down and face fraud charges. Opposition intensified following the 2017 election narrowly won by O’Neill. Police and military units were dispatched to the Highlands region to crack down on violence stemming from the election, which was widely regarded as illegitimate. O’Neill finally resigned in 2019 to be replaced by Marape. He currently faces charges of misappropriation, abuse of office and corruption from his term as prime minister.

The current cynical maneuvering by parliamentarians highlights the vast gulf that separates the poverty-stricken masses from the country’s venal political elite. Marape has resorted to nationalist demagogy, proclaiming he would “take back PNG,” and falsely pledging “regime shifts” in the resources industry, dominated by foreign corporations, to “bring more wealth to the people.”

The PNG working class and rural poor, who are among the world’s most impoverished, remain acutely exposed to the deadly dangers of the COVID pandemic. Already, average life expectancy is just 65 years. Diseases including polio, malaria, and HIV-AIDS ravage the country, contributing to an annual death toll of more than one in every 13 children.

The response of the imperialist powers, including the former colonial power Australia, has been a mixture of indifference and self-interest. Geo-strategic considerations to push back against Chinese influence have been at the forefront.

PNG’s vaccine rollout began very slowly three weeks ago, with a vastly inadequate batch of 8,000 AstraZeneca doses from Australia. Last week, 132,000 vaccines from India, sent through the COVAX facility, arrived in Port Moresby, with small emergency medical teams from Australia, Germany and the US. With the pandemic reaching catastrophic proportions in India and now gripping nearby Fiji, none of this matches what is required to bring the raging epidemic under control.

As the WSWS has noted, vaccines have not been distributed globally “based upon need nor in the pursuit of equity, but rather according to economic hierarchy.” COVAX, purportedly established to provide vaccine access to low-income countries, has supplied only 40 million doses to the poorest nations and is far short of its goal of delivering two billion doses.

The WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, recently cited PNG’s struggle with the pandemic as an example of the importance of “vaccine equity.” He pointed out that one in four persons in high-income countries has received a vaccine, whereas in low-income countries, only 1 in 500 had so far received it.

Thousands flock to community pantries in the Philippines as Covid-19 rapidly spreads

Isagani Sakay

A grass-roots movement of mutual aid, in the form of community pantries, is spreading in the Philippines amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic and the continuation of the herd immunity policy of the ruling elites. The pantries are set up on the side of the street, often on just a wooden table laden with basic food items.

Sections of better off workers, the self-employed, and small businessmen have spontaneously mobilized to give the little extra they have to those desperately poor and the unemployed who, in the hundreds and thousands have endured long lines to obtain food supplies for themselves and their families.

Residents queue for free food at a community pantry in Quezon city, Philippines on Thursday, April 29, 2021 (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

The movement was sparked off on April 14 when Ana Patricia Non, 26-year-old business owner of a small furniture making shop, set up a wooden push cart on Maginhawa street in Quezon City. It had a few vegetables, oranges, canned goods and plastic bags of rice and two signs. One sign read, “Maginhawa Community Pantry” and the second, translated from Filipino, “Give what you can, take what you need.”

On the second day of Non’s initiative, ABS-CBN news reported that among her “customers” was a street sweeper. She had stopped during her cleaning and bagged one head of cabbage, one turnip, a chayote and an orange. She planned, she said, after her shift, to mix the vegetables with sardines for her children. It would be the first produce that she had brought home in two weeks, when she was last paid.

“It’s really been difficult these days. Instead of buying what we want, we have to squeeze it because I have so many children,” the news site quoted her.

The news site also reported that an elderly couple, who had been foraging through the garbage, took bananas, some greens, and a couple of vitamin capsules from the pantry. “I really have nothing, no hope,” said the man, who was on crutches.

In her first post on Facebook announcing the opening of the pantry and calling for support, Non underscored, “This will not answer the root cause of hunger but this will serve for staving off the pangs of hunger of those in need. It’s hard to work, to study and struggle on a grumbling stomach...” [translation by this writer.]

To date, Non’s post has been shared over 15,000 times and has garnered 32,000 likes. In the weeks since then, this first pantry has served over 3,000 people. According to the Saan May Community Pantry? [Where is a Community Pantry?] website, 725 pantries have been set up around the Philippines. A report stated that a community pantry has even been set up in East Timor.

Images in the media reveal the degree of desperation for basic resources in the population. Crowds of hundreds line the pavement to try to get a few free vegetables and a canned good or two. The lines often begin forming at three in the morning. An old man, who worked as a roadside vendor, died of heatstroke last week while standing in a line to receive a few free items of food. He had been waiting since long before dawn.

The emergence of community pantries and the long lines of the desperate poor underscore the ongoing social calamity inflicted by the ruling elite on the workers and impoverished masses of the Philippines.

In March last year, the government of President Rodrigo Duterte imposed the longest militarized lockdown in the world. This was aimed not at ending the community transmission of the COVID-19 virus, but at regulating its impact on the country’s grossly inadequate and dilapidated health care system. Workers were kept on the job in unsafe factories and offices, ensuring that capitalist profits continued to be generated while placing the financial, social, and economic costs of the catastrophe on the working masses.

Between January 2020 and February 2021, according to ABS-CBN, 500,451 workers were laid off in the wake of nationwide lockdowns. As of February 2021, 4.2 million people over the age of fifteen are unemployed, while 7.9 million are underemployed or worked reduced hours. When the strictest level of the militarized lockdown was re-imposed in late March this year on the National Capital Region and the four surrounding provinces, 118,210 workers were laid off as a result.

The survey group, Social Weather Station, reported that as of their last face-to-face polling in November 2020, an estimated 2 million families had fallen into poverty and 4 million families experienced involuntary hunger. In Metro Manila alone, the country’s capital, 780,000 families were estimated to have experienced going hungry in 2020.

Yet while millions lost jobs and went hungry or were driven back to work despite a raging pandemic, the big Filipino capitalists, like their counterparts around the globe, are raking in record income. Forbes reported that the 17 billionaires in the Philippines increased their combined wealth to over $US45.6 billion. The real estate tycoon and former Senator Manuel Villar, at the top of the billionaire list, increased his wealth by 28.6 percent to $US7.2 billion. At number two, port terminal tycoon Enrique Razon Jr. increased his wealth by 43.3 percent to $US5 billion. And at number three, Lucio Tan, with interests in tobacco, liquor, and banking, saw his wealth leap 94 percent to $US3.3 billion.

As of May 1, the country had recorded 1,046,653 infected with the disease and 17,145 dead. The rate of infection is now higher than when the pandemic began over a year ago.

Despite a massive surge of new infections since an attempt to re-open malls and non-essential businesses in late February, the response of the government continues to be driven by the desire to save money, not lives.

Testing has been limited to around 50,000 a day, far from the 150,000 to 200,000 a day that health experts have stated is required in order to track viral transmission. The positivity rate, as a result, has never gone down to the 5 percent recommended by the World Health Organization and, instead, has hovered at 20 percent. Contact tracing has also been exceedingly limited, at a rate of only 3 contacts for every infected person instead of the recommended 30-35 contacts per case.

The newly approved 2021 national budget allocated a criminally low 5 percent of the total $US93 billion to the health department and only $US42 million for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines for over 70 million people, the target set by the government to attain herd immunity. Just how few resources are being allocated by the ruling class to deal with the pandemic was highlight by a report published by Rappler which indicated that in even the best-case scenario over 36,000 doctors needed to be hired this year to meet the requirements of dealing with the pandemic. The national budget allocated funds for the hiring of just 744 doctors.

The willingness of ordinary working people to help out those who are less fortunate is in marked contrast to the malign neglect of the government, the political establishment as whole, and the big businesses that they represent.

Australian reports show deepening social toll as pandemic continues

Mike Head

In the lead up to the May 11 Australian federal budget, reports produced by welfare agencies and charities have pointed to intensifying poverty and social pain as the COVID-19 pandemic continues around the globe.

Far from being exempt from the terrible impact of the failure of governments worldwide to contain the mutating coronavirus, Australia is experiencing a worsening social crisis as the ruling class exploits the pandemic to slash welfare, wages and working conditions.

Workers queuing outside an inner-western Sydney Centrelink office early last year [Credit: WSWS]

At the end of March, the Liberal-National government terminated its meagre JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme, on which some 1.2 million workers still depended for survival, and returned JobSeeker dole and welfare payments to sub-poverty levels of about $44 a day.

The purpose of this twin attack was to coerce jobless workers into lower-paid employment, on casualised and insecure conditions, for the benefits of the wealthy elite, whose fortunes have soared during the pandemic.

The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the peak welfare body, estimated that these simultaneous moves sentenced an estimated three million people to poverty. That counted the more than one million unemployed on JobSeeker, 343,000 single parents, 330,000 young people on Youth Allowance and 80,000 on AusStudy, AbStudy, Widow Allowance and other income support.

“There are also a million people on temporary or student visas who still have no access to income support who continue to suffer,” ACOSS stated.

The end of JobKeeper would see many workers having their weekly income drop from an already inadequate $500 a week to just $314 per week, or $44 a day. “It is unconscionable that about 3 million people will return to extreme poverty,” ACOSS said.

A University of New South Wales study, commissioned by ACOSS, reported a huge surge in demand for services that assist with economic hardship, homelessness, mental health and domestic violence. Temporary relief had been provided by a “coronavirus supplement” that doubled most welfare payments in 2020, from April to December.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government introduced that supplement to avoid a social explosion produced by the worst mass unemployment since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But its effect on poverty levels soon ended.

ACOSS said Australian National University researcher Ben Phillips had shown during a Senate Inquiry into the JobSeeker cuts that before COVID-19, the poverty rate among people receiving Newstart was 88 percent.

When the JobSeeker payments were doubled, this dropped to 26 percent. From April 1, poverty was expected to balloon out again to 85 percent, because payments were returning to close to their pre-COVID lows.

As a result, the ACOSS-commissioned study reported: “One service described, for example, how after a short plateau in demand during mid-2020, demand subsequently spiked and remained 35 percent over the previous year.”

As another example, a migrant support service told the researchers: “People in the community have experienced significant economic loss, often for the first time, leading to increased need for services and supports including emergency relief and family support. New groups of clients, including some who had previously experienced reasonable levels of security, are seeking support.

“Exclusion of international students and people on temporary visas from accessing Centrelink [welfare] payments is putting additional strain on services. We have had to increase our emergency relief and our financial assistance and also our emergency support services, almost three or fourfold.”

By the end of March, moratoriums on evictions and mortgage defaults had also ended, contributing to an affordable housing crisis produced by soaring house prices.

A housing survey by the Anglicare charity found that only three rental properties across the entire country were affordable for a single person living on the government’s reduced JobSeeker payment, and they were for shared accommodation.

The pandemic had reduced rents in some markets but the snapshot of more than 74,000 properties found a dire shortage facing people living on welfare benefits.

When the coronavirus supplement ended, welfare payments fell by $100 a fortnight. The Anglicare analysis used the common benchmark that an affordable home is no more than 30 percent of a person’s household budget.

The Anglicare report said renters faced a “perfect storm” as a result of the combination of welfare cuts and the end of eviction protections. “Some renters have found themselves tens of thousands of dollars in rental arrears. If they can’t afford to repay their landlords, they face the very real prospect of eviction.”

The charity called on the federal government to lift welfare payments to the poverty line and for governments across the board to meet a shortfall of social housing, which Anglicare estimated at 500,000 units nationally.

Homelessness support services have reported skyrocketing demands for help, many from people who had never asked for assistance before. Maria Leebeek from Queensland’s Gold Coast Youth Service told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “Basically, there’s no housing, or no affordable housing.”

Leebeek said shelters for young people, or women and families fleeing domestic violence, were all full. “The whole rental crisis isn’t just the people coming through the doors. It’s also my own staff. I’ve talked to other services in the region … I know one service said, ‘well, our staff are homeless while we’re supporting homeless people.’”

The latest data on national rental rates from property analysts CoreLogic showed rents rose by 3.2 percent over the first quarter of 2021, the largest quarterly increase since May 2007. In part, this is due to soaring property prices.

While slashing welfare payments, the Morrison government and the Reserve Bank of Australia have cut interest rates to near zero—an all time record low—and pumped billions of dollars into corporate subsidies, generating vast share and property speculation.

Over the year, for instance, median Sydney house prices have jumped by 12.6 percent to $1,309,195—the sharpest rise since such records began in 1993.

This is accelerating the housing affordability crisis. Since 2010, even before the latest surge, official inflation has risen 21 percent but residential property prices had gone up 44 percent.

The corporate media has largely buried any coverage of the “social cliff” produced by the end of JobKeeper and the JobSeeker supplement. There was no reporting at all of the payroll and wages data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) last week.

The figures provided the first glimpse of the employment and pay impact. Payroll jobs fell by 1.8 percent in the fortnight to April 10, probably representing about 120,000 jobs, and total wages paid decreased, even more, by 3.1 percent.

Young workers were worst affected. There was a 2.9 percent fall in jobs held by 15 to 19 year-olds, and drops of more than 4 percent in accommodation, food services, arts and recreation services.

In its budget submission, ACOSS urged the government to lift welfare payments to at least $65 a day “so that the millions of people struggling without paid work or enough hours are at least living above the poverty line.”

By ACOSS’s own admission, that minimal rise would still leave millions of people barely surviving. The opposition Labor Party has refused to commit even to that miserable level, let alone the full and adequate social support needed to protect working people from the impact of the pandemic and from capitalist exploitation beyond that.

Australian McCormick Foods dispute part of global restructuring drive

Martin Scott

Workers at the McCormick Foods factory in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton South have now been on the job for more than three weeks since the United Workers Union (UWU) declared their six-week strike over on April 7. But the workplace enterprise agreement (EA) invoked by the UWU to shut down the stoppage still has not been published.

As a result, workers at the plant, which produces and packages sauces and spices for major fast-food and retail outlets, still do not know the details of the agreement negotiated by management and the union.

McCormick Foods factory in Melbourne (Source: WSWS Media)

Contrary to the UWU’s claims, the meagre 9 percent pay rise over three years that it says is contained in the agreement can hardly be described as a victory. It follows a wage freeze since April 2016.

The workers are currently earning 7 percent less in real terms than they were in 2016 and, according to Trading Economics’ consumer price index forecast, would still be earning 3 percent less after the third proposed pay bump took effect in 2023.

While the UWU claimed that “ALL previous conditions the company wanted to remove including the 4 day week roster” were retained in the new agreement, it made no mention of the introduction of a new night shift, which workers have told the World Socialist Web Site the union agreed to. Also unclear is whether the final agreement will include a ten-year cap on redundancy entitlements, under conditions of major restructuring efforts and a drive to automation within the company and throughout the economy.

In its recent sellout of workers in the Smeaton Grange dispute, the UWU made it abundantly clear that it will enforce the stepped-up offensive against jobs, wages and conditions. The union isolated the 350 workers at the southwest Sydney Coles warehouse and refused to provide strike pay during a 13-week lockout, before ramming through an agreement for the closure of the facility and the destruction of all, or most, of the jobs there.

Workers at the McCormick Foods plant have told WSWS reporters that the workforce has been reduced by at least a quarter over the past ten years as a result of automation already introduced. This includes automatic container filling, capping, case packing and palletising equipment.

The company plans to open a new facility at Melbourne’s Moorabbin airport later this year, featuring a “state-of-the-art logistics centre” as “a continuation of the modernisation of our workplaces.”

The global parent company, McCormick and Company, is also building a highly automated “factory-of-the-future” in Peterborough, UK to open later this year, and a “state-of-the-art” distribution centre in Maryland, US, which promises to “driv[e] efficiencies enabled by automation” when it is opened in 2022.

The substantial investment in the distribution side of McCormick’s Australian business, along with a 2018 “transfer of certain manufacturing operations in our Asia/Pacific region to a newly constructed facility in Thailand,” suggest that the company may be planning to scale back local production.

These moves in the Asia-Pacific region are part of a global cost-cutting drive by the parent company that has been underway for more than 15 years.

A three-year restructuring plan announced in late 2005 slashed 1,270 jobs—17 percent of the company’s workforce at the time—and closed manufacturing plants in Salinas, California; Hunt Valley, Maryland; Paisley, Scotland, and Kerava, Finland. Also closed under these cost-cutting measures was the Aeroplane Jelly factory in Sydney, resulting in the destruction of 34 jobs.

A further $393 million in annual cost savings were realised between 2009 and 2015 under the company’s Comprehensive Continuous Improvement (CCI) program. During this period the company’s factory in the Netherlands was shut down, European sales and administration were largely transferred to Poland, and jobs in the US and Australia were “streamlined.”

The 2016 appointment of Lawrence E. Kurzius as CEO brought about an acceleration in the CCI program, with a new target of $400 million in cost savings over four years.

It is under these conditions that the previous round of negotiations at the Melbourne plant stalled in

2017, with the company offering an EA that would have meant successive 6 percent pay cuts over three years as well as reductions to working conditions.

In 2017 the company began its Global Enablement initiative, which it predicted would require the payment of more than $40 million in severance and related benefits. Some $2.5 million of these severance costs stemmed from the closure of the company’s plant in Portugal.

The same year, McCormick began sweeping cuts to pensions and other benefits. By freezing the pensions of workers in Canada, the UK and the US, the company saved more than $95 million. Cuts to medical benefits and the elimination of life insurance for retirees saved the company a further $27.1 million.

Further cuts in 2019, including the slashing of 17 jobs at the Queensland-based Botanical Food Company, which McCormick acquired in 2016, allowed the four-year CCI target of $400 million to be exceeded by 14 percent. The cost-cutting continued, with a further saving of $113 million in 2020.

In 2020, the company posted its highest-ever sales of $5.6 billion, gross profits of $2.3 billion and net income of $747.4 million, a 6.4 percent year-over-year increase.

Kurzius was paid over $19.5 million in cash and stock in 2020, more than 400 times the average wage of workers at the Melbourne plant. Michael R. Smith, McCormick’s chief financial officer, received more than $6.9 million, while the next three highest-earning executives at the firm took in an average of $5.5 million.

While workers have been on the receiving end of the 15-year austerity drive, shareholders have reaped the rewards. Since the end of 2005, the share price has increased sixfold, from $15.10 to $90.36. The company has paid dividends to shareholders every year since 1925, and the dividend has increased in each of the past 35 years, earning McCormick the title of “dividend aristocrat.”

Similar processes have taken place throughout the food industry. In Campbell Soup’s 2015 annual report, CEO Denise M. Morrison wrote: “[C]ompanies have initiated a series of strategic actions, from spin-offs and consolidation to acquisitions and aggressive cost-cutting.”

Campbell Soup has shed almost 10,000 jobs in the past 15 years—40 percent of its 2005 workforce—including 4,100 since 2015.

The 2015 merger of H.J. Heinz and Kraft Foods saw the closure of seven factories and the destruction of 5,100 jobs, more than 10 percent of the workforce. In the preceding years Heinz had already slashed 6,650 jobs. The cost cutting continued at the newly formed Kraft Heinz, with 1,800 jobs cut in 2018 and 2019.

These job-slashing measures have been enforced by the trade unions—including the UWU and its predecessor, the National Union of Workers (NUW). They have isolated workers, denied them strike pay and colluded with management to ensure that any industrial action that does take place has minimal effect on production and profits.

When a Kellogg’s cereal plant in Charmhaven, 100 kilometres north of Sydney, was shut down in 2013, along with a plant in Canada, an NUW spokesperson dismissed any fight against the closure. He told the WSWS: “The closure is already locked in. It is part of a global structure and the decision has been made by head office in the US. The place is closing, so what can the union do?”

Workers should reject the entire union line, which is that their interests must be subordinated to corporate profits and that jobs losses are inevitable.

Pfizer announces windfall profits as low-income countries denied vaccines

Bryan Dyne

Five months after the United States first granted emergency use authorization to the first COVID-19 vaccine, the vaccination drive throughout the developing world is a disaster.

Wealthy countries have received more than 87 percent of COVID-19 vaccines distributed worldwide, while the “low-income” former colonial countries have received less than 1 percent, according to the World Health Organization.

A health worker prepares to administer Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine inside the Makati Coliseum, in Manila, Philippines on Tuesday, May 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

In Africa, less than 1 percent of the population has received even a single dose of the vaccine. In India, the epicenter of the global pandemic, where crematoria are running nonstop, and people are dying in the streets, less than 10 percent of the population has received a single dose.

Despite the global vaccination disaster, the vaccine rollout has been a bonanza for US drug maker Pfizer, which announced Tuesday it had beat its revenue forecast by 73 percent.

By pricing the vaccine approximately 20 percent above the cost to develop and produce it, the company logged nearly a billion dollars in profits from the vaccine in the first quarter alone. Pfizer expects to sell $26 billion worth of vaccines this year, bringing in about $5 billion in profit.

Pfizer’s stock price has surged nearly 50 percent since last year, while its German partner BioNTech went from a startup to a multibillion-dollar company in just months, generating billions of dollars in earnings for wealthy shareholders.

The stock price of Pfizer’s competitor Moderna has more than quadrupled over the past 12 months, and its CEO Stéphane Bancel is now worth nearly $5 billion.

The vast enrichment of these private corporations and their shareholders is made possible through massive investments by governments, particularly that of the United States, which spent over $10 billion helping to develop the vaccines monetized by Pfizer and Moderna.

The mRNA vaccines developed by these two companies are based on a key discovery of the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Vaccine Research Center, which holds the patent for how the virus’s spike protein is stabilized in the vaccine.

While several companies have licensed the NIH’s patent, Moderna makes use of the NIH discovery without paying any royalties.

In other words, without the NIH’s patent, there would be no Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Yet the US government has declined to use what scientists have called a vast amount of leverage over vaccine makers to ensure an equitable global distribution.

“For NIH to not have ensured global access is a dereliction of their duty to protect the public health of the United States,” James Krellenstein, executive director and co-founder of PrEP4All, told the Washington Post .

Commenting on how “Rich Countries Signed Away a Chance to Vaccinate the World,” the New York Times wrote: “By partnering with drug companies, Western leaders bought their way to the front of the line. But they also ignored years of warnings—and explicit calls from the World Health Organization—to include contract language that would have guaranteed doses for poor countries or encouraged companies to share their knowledge and the patents they control.”

The World Health Organization has called on governments to waive vaccine patents, allowing all global pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity to be used to put an end to the pandemic. As WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote:

Of the 225 million vaccine doses that have been administered so far, the vast majority have been in a handful of rich and vaccine producing countries, while most low- and middle-income countries watch and wait. A me-first approach might serve short-term political interests, but it is self-defeating.

Waiving patent rights would allow any manufacturer in the world to make cheap, generic copies of existing vaccines, which are desperately needed throughout the world.

But this move has so far been blocked by the United States, Britain and the European Union.

The US media has waged a hysterical campaign against attacks on the “intellectual property” rights of the drug makers. On Monday the Washington Post published an editorial entitled, “A patent-free ‘people’s vaccine’ is not the best way to help poor countries,” opposing any inroads on the profit prerogatives of the pharmaceutical giants.

Making vaccines more freely and equally available by “stripping away their intellectual property now could discourage future innovation.”

The Post obviously takes its readers for fools. The “innovations” monetized by these companies were made by public laboratories and public researchers. The only thing “private” about them is the profits and the rights to manufacture and distribute the vaccines. According to the Post, the US must maintain absolute control over the production and distribution of a medically necessary vaccine against a global pandemic, which has now killed more than 3.2 million people worldwide.

The Biden administration has thus far refused to take any measures to waive patents for COVID-19 vaccines. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical advisor, said in an interview Monday that he “respect[s] the needs of the companies to protect their interests to keep them in business.”

This is an absurdity. What is called “intellectual property” is just a euphemism for endangering the lives of the world’s population for the enrichment of the capitalist oligarchy. Millions of lives are in danger! All of society’s resources must be mobilized to save as many lives as possible. The profits of the oligarchs be damned!

On March 13, 2020, the World Socialist Web Site published a perspective entitled, “Capitalism is at war with society.” Nothing demonstrates this reality so much as the enrichment of the pharmaceutical giants as the masses of India gasp for air.

African Union Agenda 2063 Women’s Photojournalism Award 2021

Application Deadline: 15th May 2021

About the Award: The agenda 2063 Africa Photojournalism Project aims to inspire photo journalists from all across the continent to share powerful images telling Africa’s story from an African perspective. The Project also aims to capacitate journalist by providing them with training that will enhance their craft and storytelling ability through the use of imagery.  

The Project is in line with Africa’s Development Strategy Agenda 2063 which provides the framework for Africa’s socio-economic growth agenda through the implementation of key projects that will transform the continent into a global powerhouse. Key to this transformation is changing the narratives and stereotypes about Africa and Africans and inculcating the spirit of Pan Africanism as envisioned in Aspiration 5 of Agenda 2063. 

The Project is also in line with the African Union Theme for the year 2021 “Art’s Culture and Heritage: Levers for Building the Africa We Work as it aims to tap into the artistic and creative aspects of journalism to portray Africa’s diversity, rich heritage and cultural diversity and the economic development and social transformation of the continent led by Africans.

The Project will be implemented by undertaking activities :

1. Agenda 2063 Women’s Photojournalism Award: which will recognise and celebrate outstanding female journalists whose submission of African images will be defined by categories defined by the Goals and Aspirations of Agenda 2063. Photographers will submit their photographic work and individual perspective on these categories.
2. On-line training portal: Online learning modules on photojournalism will be made available for free to 100 women journalists. Certification will be awarded through the African Union Virtual University or the AU Pan-African University – Apply for the training here: http://bit.ly/apacourse
3. Podcasts: A podcast series for citizenry and media engagement will be developed
4. Research and a research will be conducted regarding lived experiences of photojournalists documenting Mediation /Conflict resolution,peace keeping and peace building initiatives in Africa championed in line with Aspiration 4 of Agenda 2063 and the Flagship Project of Silencing the Guns

Eligible Field(s): Submissions are invited under the following categories, guided by aspirations of Agenda 2063:  

• Category 1– Agriculture, rural environment, land rights and skills development
• Category 2– Regional economic integration, transport and information infrastructure
• Category 3– Good governance: Human rights, justice and rule of law
• Category 4 –Silencing the guns in Africa: Conflict prevention and transformation, mediation 
• Category 5– Youth and women 
• Category 6– Democracy and digitalization
• Category 7– Africa’s young research excellence and innovative solution building 

Type: Award

Eligibility:

1. Professional and amateur photographers are invited to submit their work. Both published and unpublished works are permitted.
2. Participants must have the nationality of a member state of the African Union, and be at least eighteen years of age.
3. Only pictures taken in a member state of the African Union are permitted. 
4. Applicants can submit up to two entries across all categories.
5. Joint submissions are permitted provided the submitted images are authored by the entrants.
6. The photographer(s) must be the author(s) of the pictures submitted in his/her/their name, and own the copyright or have been authorized by the copyright holder(s) to submit the pictures.
7. Submitted images can be as a single picture or as part of a story, or as part of a body of work in long-term projects.
8. Images must be free of any name or text on the image itself. Instead, a clear caption, in English, must be provided on submission.
9. No entry fee is payable.
10. Only entries submitted by 15th May 2021 will be considered.
11. All entries must be submitted via the official contest form and must comply with the rules and eligibility criteria set. Entries sent in other ways, and/or that do not comply with the rules and eligibility criteria, will not be accepted. 
12. Any entries that are late, illegible, fraudulent, or which bring/would be likely to bring the reputation of institutions into disrepute will be rendered ineligible to participate in the Awards and will be disqualified.
13. You will grant African Union, and GIZ unrestricted, unfettered and irrevocable non-exclusive rights in all works submitted for entry into the Awards (or where such rights are owned by a third party, you shall procure that such third party grants such rights), African Union, and/or GIZ to use such works in any way it determines in its sole discretion.
14. Entries will be judged by a panel of distinguished, independent judges with appropriate knowledge and experience of photography. The panel of judges will be determined by all sponsors in its/their sole discretion and will meet btw May and june 2021.
15. Judges reserve the right to not select entries that do not meet the required standards. 
16. Judges reserve the right to transfer entries for consideration in other categories at their discretion. 
17. The judges uphold the integrity and reputation of the Africa Photojournalism Awards and, as such, reserve the right to disqualify any piece of work and/or finalist if, in the judges’ opinion, there exists reasonable doubt about the authenticity and/or ownership of the submitted entry and/or the integrity of the finalists.
18. The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
19. Categories and sponsors of the awards may be subject to change.
20. Finalists will be required to sign affidavits of eligibility, confirming amongst other things copyright ownership and/or clearance of all images submitted, and containing releases granting, all sponsors of the Awards, the right to use their names, voices, pictures and work submitted, without compensation, in any media for the purposes of advertising/public relations, training, exhibiting and promotion of all matters related to the Awards.
21. You hereby consent that AU and GIZ may share the information you provide with the partners and judges of the Awards.
22. Three finalists will be announced per category and one winner will be selected per category.
23. All sponsors of the Awards disclaim any liability for loss to any person or property relating to the delivery and/or subsequent use of, or participation in, any of the prizes awarded. The winners agree to abide by any and all terms and conditions of the supplier(s) of the prizes.
24. The Competition shall be covered and construed with international law. 
25. You acknowledge that this is only a competition and the awarding of any prize does not give rise to employment, agency or joint venture relationship or arrangement between you and all the sponsors
26. By submitting your entry, you confirm that you have read and agree with these rules.

Selection Criteria: A jury of professionals will select three finalists per category, who will be announced on 15 June 2021. Images submitted by finalists will be published and showcased in various partner publications and activities. 

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be Taken at (Country): Online

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Winners will receive a cash prize of $2000 each.

How to Apply: Apply here

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Milken-Motsepe Innovation Prize Program 2021

Application Deadline: 8th December 2021

About the Award: The inaugural Prize challenges innovators from around the world to significantly increase value to small and medium-sized farms in Africa through new technologies and agribusiness innovation.

The Milken-Motsepe Innovation Prize program is a series of multi-year, multimillion-dollar prize competitions for technological solutions that accelerate progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a spotlight on Africa.

• Scalable, tech-based solutions: The prize program mobilizes significant financial and human capital through its inclusive and integrated approach to access and mobility for innovators and startups. 
• A global community of entrepreneurs: The inclusive eteg7erkfxehos of the prize program provides an equal opportunity for success—irrespective of age, status, education, location, or past achievements.
• Global data-driven insights: There will be significant new data captured and ideas generated from the range of innovations and field tests. Prizes are useful tools to accelerate data capture for evidence-based research.

Type: Contest

Selection: Teams have until December 8, 2021 to register and submit designs and business models. An independent panel of expert judges will select up to 25 teams to each receive $10,000 to develop small-scale prototypes over the ensuing six months. In the final round, teams will demonstrate their entries in field tests which will be evaluated by their ability to:

• Increase net economic value to the farmer
• Increase productivity at harvest and/or decrease post-harvest loss
• Reduce costs for farmers
• Provide a viable and sustainable business model
• Be implemented by small and medium-sized farms
• Develop or integrate innovative technologies

Eligible Countries: Any

To be Taken at (Country): South Africa

Number of Awards: 3

Value of Award:

• The judges will award a $1 million Grand Prize to the winner
• Additional prize money will be distributed among Second and Third Place winners, a prize for the most creative use of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and a People’s Choice Prize.
• Registration is free
• In addition to the prize money, teams will benefit from access to networking, training, and other resources. To register for the prize, or to learn more, visit www.milkenmotsepeprize.org.

How to Apply: REGISTER

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

BMW/UNAOC Intercultural Innovation Award 2021

Application Deadline: 27th May 2021 by 5:00 p.m. (EST)

About the Award: For the past ten years, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the BMW Group have invited organizations around the world to apply for the Intercultural Innovation Award. The two partners have used this award to support innovative projects promoting intercultural understanding.

Wanted: projects for an inclusive and diverse society

This year, the focus will primarily be on projects promoting gender equality, countering violent extremism, hatred, and prejudices, and advocating for art, culture, and sports as vehicles for social cohesion and diversity.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Eligible to apply for the Intercultural Innovation Award are not-for-profit organizations implementing projects focused on promoting intercultural dialogue and fostering diverse and inclusive societies, and who are willing to expand their range of action. Examples include projects in the fields of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, preventing xenophobia, violent extremism, and hate speech, promoting the use of sport, art and culture as tools to drive social change and foster social inclusion. The Intercultural Innovation Award does not support one-time events (e.g. festivals, events, conferences. etc.).

Eligible Countries: Any

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Award: To leverage the social impact of the selected projects, all ten finalists will receive the same financial assistance. For this reason, with the support of the consulting firm Accenture, the partners have increased the financial award to USD 200,000. In addition, the finalists will receive individual and professional consulting and participate in various training sessions and workshops. Recipients will also have access to “Intercultural Leaders”, an exclusive skills and knowledge-sharing platform developed by UNAOC and BMW Group for civil society organizations and young leaders working on promoting intercultural dialogue worldwide.

How to Apply: Start Your Application Now

Interested organisations are invited to submit their application by 5:00 p.m. (EST) on Thursday, 27 May 2021, at www.interculturalinnovation.org.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Tim Cook, Apple, and Runaway Limitless Corporate Greed

Ralph Nader

David Gelles, the New York Times reporter, likes to report about corporate plutocrats raking it in while stifling or endangering their workers. We’ve all seen those large advertisements by big companies praising the sacrifices of their brave workers during this Covid-19 pandemic. When workers ask for living wages, most of these bosses say “No” but take plenty of dough for themselves.

Gelles reports that Boeing, after its criminal negligence brought down two 737 MAX planes and killed 346 people, went into a corporate tailspin. The company laid off 30,000 workers and its sales and stocks plummeted as it reported a $12 billion loss. No matter, the new Boeing boss, David Calhoun, managed to pay himself about $10,500 an hour, forty hours a week, plus benefits and perks.

“Executives are minting fortunes, while laid-off workers line up at food banks,” writes Gelles. Carefully chosen Boards of Directors rubberstamp lavish compensation packages, as they haul in big money themselves for attending a few Board meetings.

It gets worse. Hilton Hotel had many rooms empty due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But CEO Chris Nassetta made sure his pockets weren’t empty. He was paid $55.9 million in compensation in 2020 or more than a million dollars a week!

Gelles goes on to report that with “the cruise industry at a standstill…,” the Norwegian Cruise Line, “doubled the pay of Frank Del Rio, its chief executive, to $36.4 million.” That is more than $700,000 per week. He must have worked overtime counting empty ships and red ink.

T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint got government antitrust approval with the assurance that more jobs would be created with cost savings. Instead, they’re starting layoffs while awarding CEO Mike Sievert over a million dollars a week. Sometimes, CEOs make more dollars from their company than the entire company itself makes in profits. Companies that lay off workers pay their top executives huge amounts, and still have the avarice to demand and get federal stimulus grants.

On March 22, the New York Times reported a new analysis by IRS researchers and academics about tax evasion by the richest 1% of U.S. households. Taken as a whole, these super-rich don’t even report a fifth of their income, according to this study. The ultra-wealthy get away with this heist by offshoring to tax havens and pass-through businesses. Adding to this unlawful evasion is their upper-class power over Congress to rig the tax laws so they can avoid even more taxes.

The Republicans, by starving the IRS budget and audit staff over the past decade, have aided and abetted enormous tax evasions. Curiously, the cowardly Democrats have not made this an issue in their campaigns against the GOP. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year are at stake.

Trump, of course, made matters worse. ProPublica found the IRS audited the poor at around the same rate as the richest Americans.

Big Corporations make out like no mere individuals. Earlier this month, the New York Times told its readers that The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) study revealed: “55 of the nation’s largest corporations paid no federal income tax on more than $40 billion in profits last year.” These companies even received $3.5 billion in rebates from the Treasury Department, so zany are the fine-print tax bonanzas.

Twenty-six corporations paid no federal income taxes since 2017, according to the ITEP study. These included Nike and FedEx.

Corporations get lots of these tax breaks by arguing before Congress that they need them to invest and create jobs. Repeatedly, these promises turn out to be false. Some have called them lies, citing profits totaling over 7 trillion dollars in the past decade being shredded in buybacks of the companies’ own stock.

Apple, whose quasi-monopoly reaps huge quarterly profits, just announced another $90 billion in stock buybacks. Apple doesn’t know what to do with its cash from vastly overpriced computers and iPhones. Apple, not surprisingly, pays very little in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam – despite the U.S. being the land of its birth and source of ample R & D corporate welfare paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

CEO Tim Cook, arguably the most miserly CEO plutocrat in America, turns a deaf ear to health, labor, and environmental specialists pleading with him to address the solid waste of its junked electronic products and pay its serf-labor in China a living wage. These two expenditures would not consume 10 percent of Apple’s enormous profits. To which, Emperor Cook says no dice.

Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, Kimberly A. Clausing, a U.S. Treasury official, said according to the Washington Post, that while other wealthy nations typically raise roughly 3 percent of GDP through corporate taxes, in the United States that share fell to just 1 percent following the 2017 Trump tax cut−all while corporate profits, as a share of U.S. GDP, were setting records.

The usual progressive members of Congress issue denunciations of this whole corporate, ultra-rich tax escape racket. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans believe corporations pay too little in taxes, according to Gallup polling. Unfortunately, nothing happens in Congress to address this injustice.

When are the American people going to move on to Congress and their Big Boy paymasters? When the plutocratic class evades taxes, either there are fewer public services, more public deficits, or higher taxes on the middle class. As Joe Biden says – they must pay “their fair share.” People, use your civic muscle to make your members of Congress act and do it, now!