Porn Workers as Labor Force

Thomas Kilkauer & Meg Young

Today, Sylvester “Stallion’s” net value is about $400 million. But that was not always the case. In 1970, the appropriately named “Stallion” appeared in an American “soft-core pornography romance film” (Wikipedia) called The Party at Kitty and Stud’s. Stallone worked two days and was paid $200.

Since the days of Oliver Reed’s “X-rated masterpiece” (BBC) which “is still being censored”, the money for adult workers has improved and working conditions as well. This is the non-sex-side of the pornography industry. Overall, the industry is valued at about $100bn globally.

Despite many moral misgivings, it operates, after all, like a normal business. There is marketing which tells people that films like The Party at Kitty and Stud’s do exists; there is finance who compensates actors, pays bills, collects profits, etc.; there is operations management that gets props, costumes, toys, cameras, etc. onto the set; and there is HRM who manages workers, i.e. adult actors.

Like all other workers, adult workers too, share the common goals that many workers share. These are found in quests for self-determination, autonomy, dignity, respect, reasonable working time, good working conditions and fair compensation. Yet unlike most workers, adult workers face a competing discourse of exploitation versus liberating sex work. Yet ever since Karl Marx, we know that all work in capitalism is exploitative.

Yet on-set, sex for adult workers is rather different. Under the capitalism-pornography link, sexuality becomes pornographic when it is produced for a profit. In short, when there is no camera, you are not an adult performer. Still, the most famous definition of pornography comes from US Supreme Court Judge Potter Stewart who, in 1964 in his Jacobellis v. Ohio judgment, said,

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But, I know it when I see it.

Yet, a more appropriate definition of sex work might be: when a person willingly takes part in consensual sex and the individual’s human rights are not violated and, when it is performed in front of a camera, we talk about the pornographic industry. This is also the moment where the United Nations’ Palermo Protocols comes into play. It says that pornography is considered illegal when it shows child pornography, bestiality, incest, and the relatively new category of revenge porn.

Beyond that, adult workers also differ from many other workers in another respect. Most who work in pornography are independent contractors and not employees of a business organization, company and corporation. As a consequence, adult workers are exposed to all the evil trimmings of flexible despotism. Hence, adult workers have been sharing many similarities to today’s gig-workers long before the deceptive term Gig-Economy came into being. Yet, they do not share this with other workers: their work can be viewed on YouPorn and Porn Hub.

Quite similar to all other workers, the work of adult workers starts with recruitment and selection. Like many other industries, the adult industry is a buyer’s market. It is very rare that a production is stopped or even delayed because of a shortage of willing workers – both female and male.

Like many other workers, adult workers work for money. When 176 adult actresses were asked about that, 50% replied that they do it for the money, with a distant second being because of sex. Many of these adult workers can be roughly classed into five categories:

Category I: high status call girls;

Category II: in-house prostitutes;

Category III: streetwalkers;

Category IV: commuter housewives; and

Category V: drugs-for-sex streetwalkers

Common to all five categories of adult workers is the fact that these workers generally experience low prestige. This is mostly because their work is somewhat questionable, if not morally tainted. Worse, adult workers share a low physical status with the likes of pest control workers; a low social status with correctional officers; and a low moral status with used car salespeople and real estate agents.

Adult workers have in common with other workers is that they too, find jobs through word-of-mouth, through agency websites like staffing.com and craigslist.org but also through more specific online sites like www.sexyjobs.com and www.adultstaffing.com.

Just like in the entertainment industry as a whole, online platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, etc. play a significant role in the casting process. Once the recruitment (gets enough applicants) and selection (selecting the right person) process is done, the onboarding process also assures that the necessary paperwork is completed.

This includes the 2257-form officially ensuring that adult workers performing on the set are verified to be above the legal age of eighteen. Like other workers, a heath check is also performed just that in the case of adult workers, what is needed is the latest STI-free blood test.

Sadly and like most other workers, adult workers are also exposed to performance management. Commonly, this serves three functions for business organizations: a) performance management is presented as a necessity for the business; b) it is to increase the output of employees; and c) it remains one of management’s preferred tools to control and oppress workers – not only in the adult industry. Even before performing, many adult workers believe that this industry is an easy way to make some serious money while only needing to work for a short time on a flexible schedule.

Yet there are two diverging perspective on working in the adult industry. One position is stated by feminist studies’ author Mireille Miller-Young (A Taste for Brown Sugar – Black Women in Pornography). She makes two arguments: firstly, she argues that adult workers go into pornography specifically because of the creative aspects; secondly, they do so because they find working in pornography empowering.

Supporting this view, adult performer and sex educator Nina Hartley says, “I am sexual the way that Mozart was musical; life of public sexuality has, from my very first time on stage, been as natural to me as breathing.” While the adult performer and entrepreneur, Alix Lovell notes,

I have always been a free spirit and I believe in sexual empowerment. We all need sex; it’s like food and water. I like sex and now I happen to be getting paid for something I do anyway, but now I do it in a safer way.

The counter argument is that virtually all culture is produced within a capitalist system. This is based on the exploitation of workers. Like everywhere in capitalism, the adult worker (many are females) is exploited and hardly ever becomes rich. It is mostly the male producers of pornography who become rich.

The latter almost never appears in front of the camera. Aligned to this is the argument of the world’s leading anti-pornography campaigner and feminist Gail Dines. Dines reasons that pornography is harsh and degrading. It is a body-punishing spectacle. She says,

The more porn images filter into mainstream culture, the more girls and women are stripped of full human status and reduced to sex objects. This has a terrible effect on girls’ sexual identity because it robs them of their own sexual desire.

Yet, the production of adult themes does not slow down. Instead, the advent of the Internet has actually turbo-charged the global pornography industry. Inside the industry, like most other workers, adult workers’ performance are measured against their knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs).  ]

Unlike most white-collar workers, adult workers hardly ever experience a formal and often rather rigid performance appraisal systems. Unlike other white-collar workers, there is no going to the home office for adult workers. Furthermore, adult workers are typically paid by the hour or on a day rate. Moreover, it is rather common that adult workers are paid based on a flat rate. Often, they are paid per scene or per photo shoot.

Like in other industries, key to employability is punctuality and basic preparation for the job. Both are helpful for long-term success. In other words, turning up for work two or three hours late might not get you fired straight away. But word spreads quickly in the adult industry.

Much more important than this is an adult worker’s online social media fan base – a crucial metric for potential sales and high wages. Top level adult workers command a strong fan base. As a consequence, top actors can demand much higher pay rates.

This enhances the career development of adult workers showing off solid performances, as well as future potentials. Increasingly, these careers are no longer structured pathways invented by HRM. Instead, career development is pushed onto workers themselves. In the gig economy as well as for adult workers, this means they are seen as self-directed mini-managers forced to take responsibility for their own careers. This is no longer what the so-called traditionalists had experienced. As a rough guide, there are five groups:

Traditionalists:  born before 1946

Baby boomers:   born between 1946 and 1964

Generation X: born between 1965 and 1976

Generation Y: born between 1977 and 1997

Generation Z born after 1997

Whatever the group, the so-called damaged goods theory applies to all of them. The damaged goods theory proposes that adult workers show significantly higher rates of childhood sexual abuse, psychological problems and drug use compared to other workers. Yet, in his book HRM in the Pornography Industry, David Kopp argues that many findings do not support the damaged goods theory.

Having said that, adult work remains a much more precarious work to get into than many other forms of work. This is one reason why the overwhelming number of women come in and out of adult work within a few months to a few years. By comparison, for male adult workers, the average career in the adult industry is about five years. One reason for such a short duration – no career! – is the social stigma attached to this work.

A second reason might be the fact that this is really dangerous work. For one, there are sexually transmitted infection (STI). Preventative measures are generally pushed onto adult workers in an industry that is defined by fake and real contract work. These leaves employers with the minor responsibility of having to do only two things: (a) take reasonable care and (b) prevent an unsafe work environment for their employees.

Adult worker Aurora Snow explains,

at adult film sets, employees are required to be nude, i.e. full physical contact among coworkers that, at times, may call for choking, slapping, hitting, maybe hair pulling, and certain bodily acts. It can be messy, demeaning or empowering. Adult work is rather difficult to navigate.

Beyond that, AIDS has not vanished either. To combat STIs and AIDS, the adult industry operates with a standard protocol involving voluntary testing. This is done every fourteen days. Results are entered into the Performer Availability Screening Services or PASS-Certificate. The PASS database is run by the Free Speech Coalition – a trades association that recently featured Senator Amy Klobuchar. In any case, before filming, adult producers, directors and, at times, HR departments check the PASS database.

Once a safe working environment is established, adult workers tend to get paid based on a flat rate per scene or photo shoot. About five years ago, the rates were men-women scene: $900 to $1,000; all-women: $700 to $1,200; male performers: $500 to $1,000; and threesomes and orgies: $200 per adult worker. The average rates for the crew and staff behind the camera range from $500 for a make-up artist to $3,000 for a director.

This, of course can increase wages significantly depending on an actor’s online profile. The Instagram follower base of someone like Sunny Leone can reach up to 50 million; Mia Khalifa can muster 25 million followers; and Alexis Texas 6 million. A high online visibility increases individual income.

Lower down the level, adult workers have been creating their own websites, make movies at home, rent out their homes, etc. for extra income. Collectively, adult workers have also gone to organize themselves in a trade union as the documentary Nude Girls Unite! shows. One of the most advanced places has been California.

Important for adult workers in California for example, is the California Labor Federation, as well as the Adult Performance Artist Guild. The latter has the goal “to earn employee rights, set performer responsibilities, negotiate fair practices and fair wages, fight occupational discrimination and help performers provide themselves with a better future.”

Health crisis is a class question UK studies confirm

Richard Tyler & Thomas Scripps

Last month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published an analysis of ethnic differences in life expectancy between 2011 and 2014. It found that “males and females in the White and Mixed ethnic groups had lower life expectancy than all other ethnic groups, while the Black African group had a statistically higher life expectancy than most groups.”

The ONS report: Ethnic differences in life expectancy and mortality from selected causes in England and Wales: 2011 to 2014

Mixed ethnicity men had a life expectancy of 79.3, White of 79.7, Black Caribbean of 80.7, Bangladeshi of 81.8 Indian of 82.3, Black Africans of 83.8 and Asian Other of 84.5. The figures for women were Mixed (83.1), White (83.1), Black Caribbean (84.6), Indian (85.4), Asian Other (86.9), Bangladeshi (87.3) and Black African (88.9).

The ONS study was the first to link extensive census data (over 50 million records) with death registrations and GP patient records covering England and Wales. Its authors note that their overall life expectancy estimates are likely “slightly overestimated” and that “the exact results should therefore be treated with caution”, but states, “the overall patterns are consistent with the findings of other published studies”.

These statistics demonstrate the bankruptcy of an approach to society which substitutes racial categories for class analysis. If racial inequality, with Whites at the top, is the dominant social problem, then what is one to make of the higher life expectancies of Blacks and Asians?

On a racial analysis, the problem of the population’s health is entirely confused and distorted. According to a recent summary by the Kings Fund healthcare thinktank, the Chinese and Black African groups have lower rates of disability than the White group, but Black Caribbean, Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani have higher. Health related quality of life scores at older ages are lower among most ethnic minority groups compared to Whites, but not Black Caribbean, Black African and Mixed. The poorest overall health is reported by the White Gypsy and Irish Traveler group.

Many different social and cultural factors contribute to these differences. The ONS authors of the life expectancy study write that it is “likely that Asian and Black ethnic groups engage less in harmful health-related behaviours, such as being less likely than the White ethnic group to smoke or drink alcohol.” They also note, “Potential reasons for the higher life expectancy found in the Black African and Asian Other ethnic groups include that they contain a higher proportion of more recent migrants than other ethnic groups. Previous research shows that people who migrate tend to be healthier than others.”

These are important factors. But they are of an entirely secondary order of magnitude. The health crisis they set out to address is overwhelmingly a class question. Social class is the overwhelmingly dominant influence, across all ethnicities, of social class and inequality, but this is entirely obscured in a discussion on health based on racial categories.

Smoking is not a risk factor universally common to “white people”, but hits the poorest sections of the working class hardest. While only 7.6 percent of the population in the wealthiest communities smoke, the rate is three times as high in the poorest communities, at 22 percent. Around 11,000 smoking-related cancers are diagnosed in the poorest 20 percent of the population each year, compared to around 6,000 in the richest 20 percent.

The racialisation of social statistics is so far advanced that it is largely impossible to make similar points for ethnic minority groups. The last prominent piece of research on intra-ethnic inequality was produced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2011, which revealed higher household income inequality rates for Chinese, Indian, African, Pakistani and Caribbean households than White British.

The centrality of class was confirmed with brutal clarity by another health report published last month, in The Lancet medical journal, on the impact of cuts to local government funding on life expectancy in England. The report explains, “Funding reductions were greater in more deprived areas and these areas had the worst changes in life expectancy.”

Each £100 reduction in per capita funding between 2013 and 2017 was associated with an average decrease in life expectancy at birth of 1.3 months. The cuts were associated with almost 10,000 additional deaths in those aged below 75 in England. Adverse trends in life expectancy had “disproportionately affected the most deprived areas, reversing improvements” over the decade prior to 2011.

These findings echo those of the Institute of Health Equity in its February 2020 report, “Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On”. It found that, since 2011, life expectancy in England has stalled for the first time at least since the turn of the last century, an outcome produced by the fall or stagnation of life expectancy in the working class under the blows of austerity.

The report explains, “between the least and most deprived deciles was 9.5 years for males and 7.7 years for females... In 2010-12, the corresponding differences were smaller—9.1 and 6.8 years, respectively.”

For years of good health, the class divide is far worse. The Kings Fund wrote this April, “The rich–poor gap in healthy life expectancy is even greater—almost two decades—than the gap in life expectancy. Those living in the most deprived areas spend nearly a third of their lives in poor health, compared with only about a sixth for those in the least deprived areas.”

COVID-19 has vastly intensified these inequalities. The Kings Fund writes, “There have been two turning points in trends in life expectancy in England in the past decade. From 2011 increases in life expectancy slowed after decades of steady improvement, prompting much debate about the causes. Then in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic was a more significant turning point, causing a sharp fall in life expectancy the magnitude of which has not been seen since World War II.”

Life expectancy for males fell to 78.7 years and for women to 82.7 years, the level of a decade ago. Those who died from Covid each lost about a decade of life on average.

Multiple studies have proved the close link between deprivation and COVID-19 mortality rates, which largely underlies the disproportionate impact on generally poorer ethnic minorities. A July report by the Health Foundation shows that the connection between social class and the chance of death from COVID-19 is even stronger among the working-age population, under 65 years old.

Among this group, COVID-19 mortality rates were found to be nearly four times higher in the most deprived areas in England when compared to the least deprived areas. Those in the fifth most deprived decile were still more than twice as likely to die than those in the first, the wealthiest.

Mortality rates in this demographic were higher in the second wave of the virus than in the first and were higher in urban areas, as the “back to work” policy of the Johnson government, backed by the Labour Party and the trade unions, forcing millions of people back onto public transport and into unsafe workplaces, took its effect.

The effects of the pandemic in compounding the health crisis confronting the working class will be long-lasting.

COVID-19 has not even begun to be brought under control on a global scale. Long-term health consequences of COVID infections already affect millions in the UK. National Health Service waiting lists are at record levels. Local councils, whose budget cuts the Lancet study identified as a driver of stalling life expectancy, have been left more financially vulnerable by the pandemic. A vicious social counter-revolution is being prepared to recoup the costs of multi-billion corporate handouts.

Papua New Guinea registers first case of COVID-19 Delta variant

John Braddock

Papua New Guinea (PNG) health authorities last month confirmed the Pacific country’s first case of the highly virulent COVID-19 Delta variant.

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

The 65-year-old Philippine captain of cargo ship, the Grand Tajima, which arrived in Port Moresby earlier in July was escorted to the Pacific International Hospital where he tested positive. Because the ship had previously docked in countries with known cases of the Delta strain, additional quarantine precautions were taken.

The PNG government only recently re-introduced strict border measures in a bid to prevent the Delta strain entering. Given PNG’s close proximity to Australia and Indonesia, both facing uncontrolled outbreaks of the variant, it was only a matter of time before it appeared.

Even before the Delta strain’s arrival, however, PNG had experienced an upsurge of COVID-19 cases in recent months. After managing to keep the virus at bay for most of last year with strict border controls, PNG has now registered 17,774 cases and 192 deaths.

The vulnerable country is poorly equipped to deal with the deadly virus. National Pandemic Response deputy controller Daoni Esorom said the new case represented a serious threat. “As we all watch the number of deaths continue to rise in Fiji, in India and right around the world, we should take this as a wakeup call for us all to vaccinate. The only way for our people to survive COVID-19 is through vaccination,” he warned.

In fact, vaccination on its own is not sufficient to bring the deadly strain under control. The same strategy is being pursued by Fiji’s Bainimarama government. The Pacific’s second largest country is in the grip of an uncontrollable health and social crisis after the Delta variant entered through a quarantine breach in early April. There are currently 22,800 active cases, 272 deaths and an average daily test positivity rate of 32.3 percent. The World Health Organisation's threshold, indicating widespread and out-of-control community spread, is five percent.

PNG’s official figures vastly understate the real situation. For the past several weeks the government has not been testing for the virus, so the only information comes from people presenting at health facilities. The limited testing regime was scaled back on the pretext that it would allow authorities to “shift focus” to vaccinating vulnerable sections of the population.

However, less than 1 percent of the nearly nine million population has received a first dose of the vaccine. The government is blaming “misinformation” and widespread reluctance for the dangerous situation. Esorom said a survey had found that 62 percent of people “do not think they will catch COVID-19, and that is why they have not come forward to be vaccinated.”

In reality the fault lies with the crisis-ridden government of Prime Minister James Marape which has responded to the growing crisis with a mixture of incompetence and blatant self-interest. Like governments around the world, the PNG ruling elite is determined to prioritise business interests above public health.

In March, 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 weeks.

While the virus ran rampant in the capital Port Moresby and elsewhere, Marape used the COVID-19 threat to abruptly suspend parliament in April to avoid facing a no-confidence motion. The move followed confirmation that a quarter of parliamentary staff and one MP—that is, 42 out of 167 people—had tested positive for the virus. As many as seven MPs had earlier tested positive.

During the surge in cases from March through May, infection numbers climbed at a rate of 1,000 a week, reaching nearly 17,000. This did not stop Health Minister Jelta Wong falsely declaring in early June that the government had the situation under control and the outbreak was “not out of hand.”

PNG is one of the most impoverished countries in the world. The working class and rural poor have an average life expectancy of 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 health system is now near collapse with hospital beds fully occupied and oxygen, gloves, antibiotics and other supplies running out. Over half the workforce at the main hospital in Port Moresby has tested positive for COVID.

Marape recently declared that the National Control Centre overseeing PNG’s pandemic response, under police commissioner David Manning, is to be disbanded by the year’s end and integrated into the failing health system. With the economy collapsing and an election due next year, Marape flagged that reopening international borders will soon be considered and “those who choose not to be vaccinated” will have to “face the consequences.”

Against this background, PNG has become a major arena in the escalating diplomatic and economic confrontation between Australia and China as part of the US-led drive to war against Beijing. The local imperialist powers, Australia and New Zealand, are seeking to assert their domination in what they consider their own “backyard” and push back against emerging Chinese influence.

Last month the Chinese state-run Global Times accused Australia of “sabotaging” China’s vaccine rollout in PNG. At a press conference a Foreign Ministry spokesperson criticised Australia for “undermining vaccine cooperation” in the region.

Amid the surge in cases in March, PNG agreed to offers of vaccine supplies from both China and Australia. PNG initially held off using 200,000 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine until they received emergency use approval from the World Health Organisation. By the time the vaccine was approved in May, PNG had found alternatives. Beijing claims Canberra was “planting” consultants in Australia’s former colony to obstruct the authorisation of the Chinese-supplied vaccines.

Australia’s minister for the Pacific, Zed Seselja, hit back at Beijing’s claims, telling CNN the country’s commitment to the Pacific “is longstanding and comprehensive.” “We support Papua New Guinea making sovereign decisions,” he maintained. In fact, Canberra has a long history of interference in PNG’s affairs in order to protect its geo-strategic interests and the profits of Australia’s massive mining corporations.

Canberra has supplied 600,000 doses to its Pacific neighbors and Timor Leste and has promised to another 15 million doses to the region by mid-2022. PNG has also received 132,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from global vaccine alliance COVAX while New Zealand sent 146,000 doses in June. Last Tuesday, New Zealand sent 100,000 AstraZeneca doses to Fiji adding to an earlier promise of 500,000 doses.

China meanwhile has donated 270,000 vaccine doses to the Solomon Islands, PNG, and Vanuatu. Chinese President Xi Jinping has also offered to provide vaccines to Fiji and at an online meeting of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders on July 17, announced a $US3 billion fund to combat the COVID pandemic.

None of these measures go anywhere near meeting the escalating disaster unfolding globally and in the impoverished semi-colonial countries of the Pacific. PNG and Fiji need vastly more financial, medical and aid resources than the paltry offerings provided so far.

Vaccines have not been distributed on the basis of need, let alone a global public health strategy, but to advance the economic and strategic interests of competing ruling elites. International tensions have only escalated as a result of the pandemic, heightening the danger of open military conflict.

Wildfires rage in Turkey and across the Mediterranean region

Ulaş Ateşçi

Forest fires have spread to several Mediterranean countries since July and continue to burn fiercely. Massive forest areas are burned out, many people have died in the firefighting, countless animals have perished, thousands of people have lost their homes, and the smoke of the fire has spread over wide areas. Moreover, scientists warn that wildfire smoke may greatly increase susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

A woman uses a fire extinguisher to save a burning tree in Cokertme village, near Bodrum, Mugla, Turkey, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Emre Tazegul)

Internationally, the indifference and bankruptcy of governments in the face of the disaster contrasts strikingly with the solidarity and self-sacrifice of working people and youth fighting the wildfires.

At the end of July, wildfires raged through the Italian island of Sardinia, where it is the worst disaster in decades. Over 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares) around the historic Montiferru area have burned. Smaller fires are blazing in Spain and France. In addition to fires in Albania, Macedonia and Morocco, blazes erupted in Lebanon spread to its neighbor, Syria, and Cyprus has also fought against fires that killed at least four.

In Turkey, which has witnessed the most severe forest fires, many areas in the Mediterranean and Aegean regions of the country have faced fires for about ten days. As of Wednesday, Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli announced that 183 forest fires erupted in Turkey from July 28 to August 4, 2021. While 167 fires in 33 provinces have been taken under control, 16 fires are still raging in 16 provinces of Turkey. Reportedly, an area of at least 40,000 hectares have burned, and eight people have lost their lives.

The fires, which could not be brought under control due to high air temperature, strong winds and insufficient measures of the government, reached the thermal power plant in Milas district of Muğla on Wednesday evening, creating a great danger.

Experts had been warning for days that the fire could reach Kemerköy Thermal Power Plant in Milas. A ditch was started to be dug around the power plant, which was stated to contain nearly 40,000 tons of coal, but the flames reached the power plant. Muğla Metropolitan Mayor Osman Gürün has announced that the hydrogen tanks in the plant have been degassed.

The Defense Ministry announced that “As the forest fire in Muğla’s Milas district came closer to the thermal power plant, our citizens who gathered in the dock are being evacuated to safe places by the landing ships of our Naval Forces.” It was announced that the fire, which continued for ten hours at the power plant, was brought under control yesterday morning.

Greece is another epicenter of the wildfires in the Mediterranean. Since the forest fire disaster in 2018 while the pseudo-left Syriza (“Coalition of the Radical Left”) party was in power, there have been more than 150 fires across the country. Because of wildfire smoke, scientists recommend the use of masks in the capital, Athens.

More than a dozen villages have been evacuated on the island of Evia near Athens since Tuesday, Reuters reported: “Fires that had threatened the northern outskirts of Athens on Tuesday were under control.”

According to the Greek daily Kathimerini, “The Defense Ministry on Thursday is expected to announce plans to deploy the armed forces in the ongoing battle against several major wildfires tearing through forestland and villages in Evia, the Peloponnese and other parts of the country.” It also reported that “12,500 hectares of land was scorched and a hundred houses were either destroyed or suffered lighter damage.”

Moreover, Greek Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias warned that “conditions over the next few days and weeks will be even more difficult than they are today.”

After years of EU austerity, Greece is unprepared for these fires, though they were widely expected. Many people accused the right-wing New Democracy (ND) government of not taking action against the fires.

On social media videos, people who lost their houses during the fire said that there were no fire trucks to put out the fire. One user tweeted: “Athens is covered by smoke. Evia and Mani are burning. Inferno. No money for health, civil protection or education. Just for more cops and for the mainstream media.”

As the World Socialist Web Site has explained, floods and wildfires around the world are the “direct product of the climate crisis produced by the capitalist profit system” and “the deadly effects of climate change are the product of decades of under-funding and cuts to infrastructure” by the capitalist governments, whose policies also led to disaster during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the government opened up the economy as part of a global “herd immunity” policy by ruling elites under conditions of the more contagious and more deadly Delta variant spread, Greece has seen a surge of the pandemic. Active cases are closing on the peak point reached last April, more than 30,000.

The Turkish government’s inadequate handling of wildfires has also provoked widespread popular anger. On social media, many people rightly compared it with its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result of the “herd immunity” strategy of the government, nearly 6 million people infected and over 51,000 died so far due to COVID-19. A study on the “excess deaths” shows that real death toll is well over 150,000. After President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government fully removed all restrictions since early July under conditions of Delta variant spread, Turkey has recently begun to see more than 25,000 daily cases.

After decades of under-funding and cuts, Turkey, one of the epicenters of wildfires in Europe, does not have any usable firefighting aircraft. In response to the widespread criticism over the lack of such planes at the end of July, Erdoğan declared that “the Turkish Aeronautical Association does not have any planes to fly here [fire area] comfortably.” He added, “As of today, the number of planes has increased to five or six with the planes from Russia and Ukraine.”

The president’s Communications Directory recently announced that they deploy 16 planes, nine drones, 52 helicopters and more than 1,000 vehicles, including water trucks and fire engines, as well as over 5,000 personnel. Air and land support came from Spain, Croatia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Georgia, as well as from Russia and Ukraine.

A recent report by the General Forestry Directorate shows that the government has made no preparations against forest fires. In its goals for 2021, it planned to spend 55 million Turkish liras for “Forest Protection and Fire Fighting Projects,” but only spent 28,000 liras. While it announced plans to buy 26 helicopters against fires, it did not buy them.

On Saturday, Erdoğan’s visit with a huge escort convoy to Marmaris district of the city of Muğla on the Mediterranean coast, which was largely hit by fires, also caused massive anger on social media. Recalling former US President Donald Trump, who tossed paper towels at hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, Erdoğan threw packets of black tea to the people from his bus, reflecting the ruling elites’ distance and contempt for working people suffering.

In contrast, in addition to a 1,000-room presidential palace in Ankara, the state is also building a 300-room summer palace in Marmaris for president.

The government, which initially refused to seek international aid, causing the fires to spread, is reacting fiercely to calls for help on social media, seeking to suppress social anger with police state measures. The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into related messages, claiming that “it has been detected that some people and groups, in an organized manner via real or bot accounts, tried to create worry, fear and panic in society and degrade the state and government of the Republic of Turkey.”

US faces resurgent COVID-19 catastrophe

Andre Damon

With daily new cases hitting levels unseen since the worst days of the pandemic in January, it is becoming clear that the United States is facing a catastrophic surge of COVID-19 for which the country is totally unprepared.

In this Dec. 22, 2020 file photo, signs advising facial covering requirements are shown as travelers stand in line at a Delta Air Lines desk at San Francisco International Airport during the coronavirus pandemic in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

The United States recorded over 120,000 daily new COVID-19 cases Thursday, exceeding the peak of the first and second waves and rising at the highest rate ever. Cases have risen 10-fold in just the past six weeks, with experts warning that the darkest days of the pandemic lie ahead.

“Things are going to get worse,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said over the weekend.

Hospitals in Florida, which leads the country in daily new cases, are “suspending elective surgeries and putting beds in conference rooms,” noted the Associated Press, while “Mississippi had just six open intensive care beds in the entire state.”

“We are seeing a surge like we’ve not seen before in terms of the patients coming,” Dr. Marc Napp, chief medical officer for Memorial Healthcare System in Hollywood, Florida, told the Associated Press. “It’s the sheer number coming in at the same time. There are only so many beds, so many doctors, only so many nurses.”

Deaths have likewise surged, with the daily death rate in Florida more than doubling.

In the midst of this developing disaster, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ranted against vaccination and mask wearing, both of which are crucial to saving lives in the pandemic. “Florida is a free state, and we will empower our people. We will not allow Joe Biden and his bureaucratic flunkies to come in and commandeer the rights and freedoms of Floridians,” DeSantis declared.

DeSantis claimed that it was immigrants, not his anti-scientific policies, that were to blame for the surge in his state, while threatening to defund schools that require children to wear masks.

In recent days, it has become clear just how dangerous the Delta variant of COVID-19 is to children in particular.

On Tuesday, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported that nearly 72,000 children and teens caught COVID-19 last week—five times as many as at the end of June.

“Let this sink in — 1 percent of all #COVID19 confirmed cases in kids lead to hospitalization,” noted epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding. “Is that really an ‘acceptable’ level of kids morbidity that we will allow in society?”

“I am as worried about our children today as I have ever been.” Dr. Mark Kline, physician-in-chief at Children's Hospital New Orleans said at a press conference on Monday. “This virus, the Delta variant of COVID, is every infectious disease specialist’s and epidemiologist’s worst nightmare. I don’t think as Americans in our lifetime we have ever seen an organism that possesses the dual characteristics of the contagiousness that this virus has together with the virulence – its ability to produce disease.”

Children now account for nearly 20 percent of COVID-19 new cases in the state of Louisiana, according to figures from local broadcaster WWL-TV.

Feigl-Ding warned Thursday about the threat of “brain damage and IQ declines” from COVID-19, demanding to know why the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was not raising the alarm. “We epidemiologists have known and highlighted this for 9 months,” he said, noting figures from the UK that show that COVID-19 patients who had been on ventilators had seen a seven-point drop in intelligence quotient.

For the past six months, the US government has focused its efforts on convincing the public that the pandemic was over, dismantling facilities for monitoring breakthrough infections, diverting funding for COVID-19 preparedness to fund the police, and enforcing the return to school.

The CDC discouraged mask wearing and social distancing for vaccinated people before reversing course last week in a backhanded acknowledgment of the incorrectness of its guidance.

As cases, deaths, and hospitalizations rise at a dizzying rate, crucial medical resources for monitoring the spread of the disease and treating the ill are in short supply. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported nationwide testing shortages, noting turnarounds in some areas as high as 3 to 5 days.

“It's August 2021, where are the rapid antigen tests that should have been supplied for free for every household to accurately screen for infectiousness—which is what really matters?” fumed Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research Institute. “The tests that were ready here in May 2020.”

The United States still has no centralized system of contact tracing, no program of mass testing, and no nationwide app for tracking cases, vaccinations status, and exposure.

“We've now exceeded hospitalizations in the 1st and 2nd waves, but an additional concern is their rate of rise in the 4th, Delta wave,” Topol tweeted. “That this has happened with a surfeit of vaccines reflects both how formidable this strain is and our big miss in not suppressing it far better.”

Fauci, in an interview with McClatchy, warned about “long COVID” among people with breakthrough infections, saying, “We already know that people who get breakthrough infections and don’t go on to get advanced disease requiring hospitalization, they too are susceptible to long COVID.” He added, “You’re not exempt from long COVID if you get a breakthrough infection.”

Most ominously, Fauci warned that COVID-19 is being given “ample” opportunity to mutate, warning, “The virus will continue to smolder through the fall into the winter, giving it ample chance to get a variant which, quite frankly, we’re very lucky that the vaccines that we have now do very well against the variants — particularly against severe illness,” Fauci said. “We’re very fortunate that that’s the case. There could be a variant that’s lingering out there that can push aside Delta.”

This was in line with warnings made earlier by Adm. Brett Giroir, formerly the COVID-19 testing czar in the Trump administration’s White House Coronavirus Task Force, who declared, “The next variant is just around the corner.”

In other words, the ongoing unmitigated community spread of COVID-19 is creating the circumstances for dangerous new variants of the disease to emerge, which even further negate the effectiveness of vaccines.

The US government’s response to the pandemic has already produced a catastrophe, leaving more than 630,000 people dead, and an even worse disaster is just around the corner.

The present surge has made one thing abundantly clear: The United States’ strategy in response to the pandemic has been a catastrophic failure. The policy of “herd immunity”—or “learning to live with the virus”—pursued by governments around the world has produced one of the most dangerous strains of infectious disease known to man, and the threat of an even deadlier variant soon emerging, with no strategy to contain it.

The only response to this disaster is a complete reversal of the present policy. COVID-19 must be eradicated. This means the emergency closure of all schools and non-essential businesses, together with the surging of trillions of dollars for testing, contact tracing, quarantine facilities, hospitals, public health staff, with the aim for totally eradicating the disease so that new variants do not develop.

Fearful of the conclusion that will be drawn by millions of people, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed Thursday entitled “Eradication of Covid Is a Dangerous and Expensive Fantasy,” arguing that the disease must be allowed to become endemic because the “costs of any eradication program are immense.”

The Wall Street Journal speaks for America’s billionaires, whose wealth has collectively surged 60 percent in the first year of the pandemic, and who see measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 as an obstacle to their further enrichment.

The fact is that, for America’s workers, millions of whom are threatened with death and debilitation by the pandemic, the eradication of COVID-19 is an inescapable necessity.

Germany: Opel (Stellantis) raises pressure on employees

Marianne Arens

Despite the pandemic, the automaker Stellantis, which includes Opel, massively increased its net profit to 5.9 billion euros in the first half of 2021. At the same time, Opel management and the works councils are putting workers under increasing pressure.

Opel works in Rüsselsheim

Employees at the Opel International Technical Development Center (ITEZ) in Rüsselsheim were the latest to be confronted with this. Engineers from research and development and employees from the forge, of the design department and of the tool and prototype construction departments received letters from Opel personnel manager Ralph Wangemann in which they are asked to look for another job within the group—or to “voluntarily” take their leave. This was reported by the news service Business Insider.

Business Insider also quoted the passage in the letter in which Wangemann insists that every measure threatened lies expressly “within the framework of the procedure agreed upon by the works council.” The works council immediately distanced itself from this statement in an internal handout and described the management’s actions as “unacceptable.” But who are they trying to fool? This amounts to a feeble attempt to cover their tracks.

As every worker knows, the works council and IG Metall union at Opel signed an agreement to cut 2,100 further jobs by the end of the year. At the time of the takeover by PSA Group in 2017 the union had already signed a so-called “future contract” called PACE! which doomed thousands of jobs to dissolution. Within ten years, half of the 19,000 jobs existing at the time were to be axed, and these plans are being mercilessly implemented. The merger of PSA with Fiat Chrysler (FCA) last January to form Stellantis is further propelling the process.

The media are presently bursting with praise for outgoing Opel CEO Michael Lohscheller, who is leaving the Stellantis Group to lead an electric car company in Vietnam. Lohscheller is celebrated for taking the Opel-Vauxhall group out of the red and into the black over the past four years since its acquisition by PSA. Over the past three years he has produced a cumulative profit of 2.5 billion euros.

There are two things to say about this: first, it is the Opel and Vauxhall workers who are bearing the cost in the form of layoffs, wage sacrifices, and grueling workloads. And second, every single step has proceeded in close consultation with the union.

Even before the merger with Opel, the top managers of Groupe PSA and Opel-Vauxhall met with the leading German union leaders, IG Metall chairman Jörg Hofmann and then-Opel works council chairman Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug. At the time, the group’s website stated that “in constructive talks” and “in close cooperation with the European Works Council and IG Metall,” the course was being set for a “European automotive champion with German-French roots.” The unions enthusiastically welcomed the Stellantis merger to become the world’s fourth-largest auto group.

Both Schäfer-Klug, who still heads the European Works Council, and the current head of Opel’s General Works Council, Uwe Baum, hold high-paying posts on the supervisory board of Opel Automobile GmbH. They have long been privy to all restructuring plans. These include the conversion of the main plant in Rüsselsheim to electric mobility, as well as the effective dismantling of the ITEZ, which just a few years ago employed around 7,000 workers.

Today, the ITEZ has 3,000 employees, less than half of what it once had, and the job cuts keep coming. During the plant recess in July, workers even discovered that machines and tools from their halls were being sold off on eBay. Several hundred workers have already been forced to transfer to the French development services provider Segula, and Opel's forging and transmission divisions are scheduled to close entirely by the end of 2021.

Unionized works councils are feverishly promoting the “voluntary” abandonment of jobs via severance pay, partial retirement, early retirement and a specially-created internal transfer company. As recently as the end of May, Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug claimed at an IG Metall rally in Rüsselsheim that any job cuts would be made exclusively “on a voluntary basis.” Wangemann's threats now show the value of those promises. If not enough workers come forward “voluntarily,” the thumbscrews of layoffs for “operational reasons” are ready. In either case, the jobs will be lost for future generations.

It is for this reason that the World Socialist Web Site and the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP), propose that workers create action committees that can fight independently of unions to defend jobs. We urge workers to take the fight for their interests into their own hands.

In an analysis of the Stellantis merger, the WSWS pointed out that auto workers around the world are forced to work in difficult and dangerous conditions because there is supposedly no money for their needs, while Stellantis’ top managers and shareholders rake in fabulous profits and multi-million-dollar bonuses.

We said, “To wage a successful fight against the transnational corporations, workers need new organizations of struggle, independent of the nationalist unions, and an internationalist strategy to unify their struggles, uniting every nationality, ethnicity and race.”

This perspective is based firmly in contemporary reality. Around the world, there is a rising tide of radical strikes and labor struggles. Just two years ago at General Motors (to which Opel belonged for nearly 90 years), the first national strike in decades by 46,000 auto workers occurred in the US. In the state of Virginia this summer, Volvo workers carried out five weeks of industrial action against the will of the United Auto Workers union (UAW). They formed an independent action committee in the course of this struggle.

The union officials are not only deeply corrupted and integrated into the management structures; they are also, by their history and function, intimately tied to capitalism and nation-states. They divide workers based on which country a plant is located and play them off against each other.

Globalization is far advanced. This can be seen and felt at every turn in the auto industry. This is why workers must unite internationally. They must wrest production and advanced technology from the profit interests of the financial aristocracy and put them at the service of society. No one else will do it for them.

Delta outbreak spreading across Australia as infections and deaths rise

Oscar Grenfell

With the exception of the Victorian coronavirus crisis of late 2020, much of Australia is in the grip of one of its worst coronavirus crises with Thursday and Friday among the grimmest days since the pandemic began early last year. On top of mounting infections and deaths, the geographical spread of the virus has expanded dramatically, into cities, states and regional areas where there was previously minimal to no community transmission being recorded.

Inner-west Sydney COVID-19 testing station (Photo: WSWS Media)

The New South Wales (NSW) state Liberal-National government yesterday reported 262 new locally-acquired infections, the vast majority of them in Sydney, as well as five deaths, the most since the current outbreak began. The record number of cases was immediately surpassed, with 291 infections announced this morning.

The same mass spread that is resulting in hundreds of infections every day in Australia’s largest city is threatened in many other parts of the country. An estimated 15 million out of a national population of 25 million people are now under some form of lockdown measure.

A seven-day lockdown of Victoria, the country’s second-most populous state, was reimposed on Thursday, after new community cases were detected. Restrictions remain in place in parts of Queensland, including the capital Brisbane, with infections being recorded each day. The island state of Tasmania registered its first COVID-positive result in 12 months.

The scenario unfolding of an increasingly unchecked, nationwide surge of Delta, among the most infectious variants of the coronavirus, was both foreseeable and foreseen. The months-long warnings of epidemiologists that governments had created a perfect storm for a major outbreak and that immediate action, including stringent lockdown measures, were required to prevent one after cases were first identified, are being confirmed.

The NSW government has been at the forefront of a ruling-class campaign against the necessary public health measures, aimed at safeguarding corporate profits. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, acting with the full support of the state Labor opposition, and in collaboration with the national cabinet, composed of state and territory leaders, most of them Labor, as well as the federal government, has persistently refused to implement lockdown policies required to curb the Sydney outbreak.

For ten days, when cases were first detected on June 16, no restrictions were put in place at all, except for expanded mask mandates. Belated, localised and limited stay-at-home measures, which were subsequently instituted as the outbreak spiraled out of control, continue to fall short of the measures required to halt transmission.

The government, having blamed working-class residents, especially of south-west Sydney, for the consequences of its own criminally-negligent policies has acknowledged this week that workplaces are the key drivers of transmission. But the vast majority of them, including many non-essential retail outlets, remain in full operation.

This includes in eight working-class local government areas (LGAs) of west and south-west Sydney, that are supposedly the subject of more stringent measures because they have been epicentres of transmission. While the areas have been flooded with police officers and some 300 military personnel, a host of exemptions, covering non-essential factories, retail, the postal service and more, have been granted.

At least 12 workers at a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant in the south-western suburb of Punchbowl are among the latest cases, with the store listed as a potential exposure site for at least a week. This morning, Premier Berejiklian declared that transmission was growing at an especially fast rate in the nearby suburb of Bankstown, a lot of it driven by shopping centres. Rather than announce any greater restrictions, however, the government indicated a further boost to the police presence.

The vast majority of new cases announced each day are not linked to an existing cluster, indicating unknown chains of transmission, and were in the community for all or part of their infectious period, meaning further contagion. Of the 4,581 infections since the outbreak began, 1,488, or fully 30 percent, are of unknown origin. As many as 200 of today’s cases, well over two thirds, were in the community while potentially contagious.

The figures demonstrate that NSW contact tracing, previously touted as the “gold standard” by Berejiklian, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the corporate media, has broken down.

The claims that the virus can be isolated to the eight working-class LGAs are also a transparent fraud. The outbreak began in the city’s relatively-affluent eastern suburbs, and has since spread through to every area of Sydney. Of today’s infections for instance, 30 were from the central Sydney local health district, 24 are from Nepean Blue Mountains, 13 from South Eastern Sydney and five from Northern Sydney. The localised focus, in addition to scapegoating the working-class for the crisis, is simply to avoid the city and state-wide restrictions demanded by medical experts.

The refusal to implement lockdown measures outside of Sydney, or to enforce a nominal travel ban between the city and regional areas, has resulted in the extension of the crisis elsewhere in NSW. The Upper Hunter and Newcastle areas, several hours north of Sydney, were placed under lockdown yesterday after several infections were detected, followed by 12 more today. COVID-19 fragments have also been found in sewage samples from central NSW, including the towns of Dubbo and Armidale, despite no new cases being detected there.

The NSW government has abandoned any pretence of attempting to eliminate transmission. The official discussion all but accepts that Delta is virtually endemic in Sydney, even though it is less than two months since there were no locally-acquired cases of COVID in the city. The entire focus is on lifting restrictions, including through the recent resumption of construction activity and plans to push year 12 students and teachers into face-to-face teaching.

The government has signaled a planned reopening as soon as woefully-low vaccination levels reach 50 percent of the eligible population. This would account for only around a third of the total population. It would exclude all children under 16 and many young adults, even though they have recorded the highest infection rates.

This threatens to create a full-blown catastrophe. Five deaths were announced yesterday, and another one today, taking the total to 22. Earlier this week, a 27-year-old worker, with no underlying health conditions, died suddenly from COVID in his home. There are currently 304 people in hospital with COVID-19, 50 of them in intensive care and 22 requiring ventilation, meaning the tragic fatalities will continue.

The criminally-negligent official response is not limited to NSW or the Liberal-Nationals. Yesterday, the Victorian Labor government announced a seven-day lockdown, less than a week after previous restrictions were lifted. The reopening was carried out under conditions in which Delta infections were still being recorded, though supposedly among people already in isolation, and involved the resumption of retail, restaurant and gym operations and a return to face-to-face teaching.

In the past two days, 12 infections have been recorded in Melbourne. At least three of them are unlinked, indicating that Delta may have continued circulating after the previous lockdown was lifted. Schools are again being impacted, with a student at the Warringa Park special-needs school, among the latest positive results. A teacher at the Al-Taqwa College in the city’s west also tested positive, forcing 300 staff and more than 2,000 students into isolation and prompting the closure of two other schools that were potentially exposed.

In the north-eastern state of Queensland, schools have also been drivers of transmission. Students account for 38 of the state’s recent 79 cases, and four teachers have been infected.

As is the case internationally, Australian governments are pursuing a policy that is homicidal in design and intent. They are reopening schools, forcing workers into unsafe places of employment and rejecting pleas from epidemiologists for sharper restrictions, all to ensure that the largest corporations continue to make massive profits. This program, of allowing the virus to spread, will continue to result in mass infections and growing numbers of deaths.