German health minister demands ending of protective measures against coronavirus

Tamino Dreisam

Although around 9,000 people are infected with coronavirus every day in Germany, federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) has called for an end to the “epidemic situation.”

The decision rests with the Bundestag (federal parliament), which first declared an “epidemic situation of national scope” in March 2020 and must extend the decision every three months. The “epidemic situation” empowers the federal and state governments to issue regulations on coronavirus measures—such as social distancing, mask-wearing requirements, the obligation to present proof of COVID status, and contact restrictions.

If the “epidemic situation” is not extended until November 25, it means that no more measures will be taken to protect the population from the virus.

The reason given for lifting the measures is the allegedly high vaccination rate—a claim that is by no means tenable. Only just under two-thirds are fully vaccinated in Germany, and no one under the age of twelve.

Particularly threatening is the growing number of vaccine breakthroughs, infections of people who have already been vaccinated. Vaccination, falsely claimed by governments to be a panacea against the pandemic, is itself increasingly undermined by the herd immunity policy.

In the over-60 age group, one in two symptomatic infections in the last four weeks has been a vaccine breakthrough, and one in three in the 18-59 age group. It is not uncommon for a vaccine breakthrough to have fatal consequences. A total of 817 people in Germany have already succumbed to the coronavirus despite being fully vaccinated. The herd immunity policy also increases the risk that viral mutations will emerge that are resistant to current vaccines, thus invalidating one of the most important protective measures against the virus.

Contrary to government claims, the pandemic is not coming to an end. After stagnating at a high level over the past few weeks, new infections have again recorded a sharp increase in recent days. In the last week, the seven-day incidence rate rose from 65 to 75 infections per 100,000 inhabitants. Over 9,000 new infections and about 60 deaths occur every day. The figures are thus significantly higher than at the same time last year.

The increase is particularly strong among children and young people. Among 15-to-34-year-olds, the incidence rate is 98 per 100,000, and among 4-to-14-year-olds it is as high as 170. Regionally, even incidence rates of up to 1,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants are being registered. In the last four weeks alone, 636 outbreaks have been reported in schools.

The high number of infections among young people is directly related to the reopening of schools after the summer vacations and the dismantling of any protective measures. With the dropping of compulsory mask wearing in most German states, there are hardly any protective measures worthy of the name.

Although the pandemic has already claimed 94,000 lives in Germany, according to official figures, all the establishment parties are committed to continuing this deadly policy. During the election campaign, all the candidates for chancellor had declared that there would be no further lockdowns. So far, in the exploratory talks to form a new government, coronavirus protection measures have not even been broached—a clear indication of the aggressiveness with which the incoming government will enforce the crackdown.

This policy will be implemented by all the establishment parties—especially the nominally left-wing ones. Even throughout the pandemic, leading representatives of the Left Party have supported the herd immunity policy. In April, in her YouTube programme “Wochenschau,” the party’s long-time parliamentary leader Sahra Wagenknecht appealed to right-wing QAnon types, coronavirus deniers and anti-vaxxers to roll back even the last measures to contain the pandemic.

A few weeks ago, Left Party founder Oskar Lafontaine called for a “Freedom Day,” meaning an end to any coronavirus measures. He referred to Freedom Days in countries such as Britain and made the claim that they had not led to an increase in the number of cases there. In reality, over 48,000 new infections occur every day in the UK, and the numbers continue to rise.

In other countries, the situation is even more dramatic. In the US, over 20,000 people have succumbed to the virus in the last two weeks alone. The total number of reported deaths is approaching 750,000.

The Left Party’s policies find their practical expression in Thuringia, where it holds the state premiership. In recent days, Thuringia has once again become the state with the highest incidence rate, with a figure of 139 per 100,000. Last year, the Thuringia state government distinguished itself by its ruthless policy of herd immunity. After Saxony, Thuringia is the federal state with the highest coronavirus death rate per inhabitant.

The Thuringia state executive’s unrestrained approach is particularly evident in school openings. Among 15-to-34-year-olds, the incidence is 158, and among 5-to-14-year-olds, it is as high as 390. These figures are a consequence of dismantling protective measures, which have gone further than in most other federal states. Not only is there no longer a requirement to wear masks in class, but also no mandatory testing in almost all of Thuringia.

The catastrophic coronavirus situation will worsen with the wave in the autumn and winter that virologists are warning about. In its weekly report, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) writes, “A renewed increase in the number of cases is to be expected for the autumn and winter.” Virologist Christian Drosten recently commented on the rising incidence levels, “I think there are now signs of the autumn and winter wave, which we will probably see again in October.” An exponential increase was to be expected, as was the case last year, he said.

The rising level of infections proves the bankruptcy of the herd immunity strategy, which exposes the population to the virus unprotected, and without even the mitigations that slow the spread of the virus through minimal protective measures. Both strategies lead to the same ultimate result: mass infection with countless deaths, long-term illnesses, and the emergence of even more infectious and deadly variants.

The only way to end the pandemic is a strategy to eradicate the virus worldwide. It requires the use of all the weapons in the arsenal of countermeasures—vaccination, school and factory closures, mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine, etc.—coordinated at a global level to eliminate the virus once and for all. Several countries have demonstrated that such a strategy of elimination is possible.

The Trial Of Thomas Sankara’s Killers

Kenneth Surin

 

I come here from a country whose seven million children, women, and men refuse to die from ignorance, hunger, and thirst any longer. My aspiration is to speak on behalf of my people, on behalf of the disinherited of the world. And to state the reasons for our revolt.

– Thomas Sankara (speech at UN General Assembly 1984)

 The renowned revolutionary and anti-imperialist leader Thomas Sankara was murdered on October 15, 1987, at the age of 37.

Sankara took power in the landlocked West African state of Upper Volta after a coup in 1983, changing the name of the former French colony to Burkina Faso (“the land of upright people” in Mossi, the language of the country’s largest ethnic group) the following year.

Sankara’s government, using a synthesis of Pan-Africanism and Marxist politics, initiated a string of far-reaching economic and social reforms that included nationalizations, land redistribution, reforestation, infrastructure and public housing construction, expanded access to education, vaccination campaigns, and advancing the rights of women by banning female genital mutilation, polygamy and forced marriages. His government, hewing to a foreign policy predicated on non-alignment, took on former colonial powers, as well as their satrap institutions, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Sankara insisted that government officials give up perks such as first-class air travel. He got rid of the government’s fleet of expensive Mercedes Benz limousines, making the cheap and economical Renault 5 the official government vehicle instead—the Renault 5 was the cheapest car in Burkina Faso at that time.

At the same time, Sankara’s rule was said to be characterized by a degree of political repression, with some of his critics going into exile, and human rights groups alleging that prisoners were tortured.

Sankara, aware of the heavy burdens imposed by anti-capitalist and anti-colonial struggle– every African revolutionary has an indelible awareness of what befell Patrice Lumumba when the former Belgian Congo “achieved” independent in 1960 and Lumumba became the short-lived leader of the independent state– had declared that fundamental social and political change require a “certain amount of madness”.

The francophile comprador bourgeoisie of Upper Volta was certainly not going to welcome Sankara’s revolution with open arms. In fact, his blistering revolutionary pronouncements probably scared the shit out of them. For this comprador class, the neocolonial status quo was not to be disturbed, and this is precisely what Sankara set out to achieve.

Despite their popularity many of Sankara’s iconic reforms were undone soon after his assassination.

Sankara was murdered during a putsch led by Blaise Compaoré, a former friend and close associate who was minister of state at the presidency when Sankara was killed.

Compaoré maintains that his commandos had heard that Sankara planned to have him killed. The commandos went directly to the presidential palace from Compaoré’s residence, where allegedly without asking Compaoré first, they shot Sankara and 12 of his staff.

Compaoré, 70, has always denied that he ordered Sankara’s killing.

Compaoré said at the time that his men had intended to arrest Sankara, but “he answered firing”. Compaoré had his old friend buried in a commoner’s grave.

After 27 years in power, Compaoré tried to amend the constitution to allow him to rule in perpetuity. But Burkina Faso had enough of him by this time, and after massive protests he was forced to resign in 2014, leaving Burkina Faso for exile in the Ivory Coast.

After Compaoré’s fall from power, an inquiry into Sankara’s assassination was created by the transitional government, and a warrant was issued for Compaoré’s arrest.

The government exhumed what are thought to be Sankara’s remains from a grave on the outskirts of Ouagadougou. Sankara’s widow said an autopsy revealed his body was “riddled with more than a dozen bullets”.

Fourteen men, including Compaoré, are on trial for Sankara’s murder, the preliminaries of which began last week.

In addition to Compaoré, the man suspected of leading the squad that killed Sankara, Hyacinthe Kafando, will also be tried in absentia since he is currently on the run.

It was announced by his lawyers that “President [sic] Blaise Compaoré will not be attending the political trial that is being staged against him at the military court of Ouagadougou, nor will Burkinabe and French lawyers for Compaoré”.

The lawyers argued that Compaoré has “immunity (from prosecution) as a former head of state”.

Those on trial include Compaoré s former henchmen, General Gilbert Diendéré, a previous head of the elite Presidential Security Regiment (RSP). Diendéré, who attended the trial’s opening preliminary in a military uniform (shades of Oliver North during the Iran-Contra hearings!), faces charges of complicity in murder, undermining state security, bribing witnesses, and complicity in the concealment of corpses.

Diendéré, 61, who seems to be something of a veteran all-round plotter, is currently serving a 20-year sentence in Burkina Faso for masterminding a scheme in 2015 against the transitional government of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré that replaced Compaoré.

“We have been waiting for this moment”, said Mariam Sankara, Sankara’s widow, who arrived to attend the trial from her home in the south of France. She has campaigned for years to bring his killers to justice.

The preliminaries over, the trial proper– a military tribunal presided over both by civilian and military officials– is due to begin on October 25^th and is expected to last several months. Over 200 foreign journalists have been accredited for the proceedings, which are being likened to a trial for the killers of Che Guevara in Bolivia had one been held.

Eagerly awaited at the trail is information on the part played by France in Sankara’s murder. Sankara made a clean break with Burkina Faso’s former colonial ruler, which has maintained clientelist associations, often involving strong-arm methods, with its former African colonies in a strategy known as Françafrique.

So far inquiries have established that French agents were present in Burkina Faso on the day after Sankara’s assassination to destroy wiretaps targeting Compaoré.

In addition to rejecting Françafrique, Sankara annoyed Paris by calling for New Caledonia, a French overseas territory in the Pacific, to be included on the UN’s list of places to be decolonized.

During a 2017 trip to Burkina Faso, the French President Emmanuel Macron said he would lift the “national defence secret” classification of all French archives concerning Sankara’s killing. Since then 3 batches of declassified documents have been sent to Ouagadougou.

However, it turns out that these contain only documents of secondary importance, and do not include vitally important files from the offices of François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, who were respectively president and prime minister of France at the time of Sankara’s assassination.

Informed observers are certain that these highly significant documents exist – and the fact that Macron didn’t deliver on what he promised is something that may be highlighted in the course of the trial of Sankara’s killers. Not that anything better could have been expected of the sly and devious Macron.

Burkina Faso faces massive challenges, not least the growing Islamic State insurgency, conducted in the name of jihad, that has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 1 million in recent years.

“Dare to invent the future”, said Sankara.

Depending in part on the trial’s outcome, and of course the flux that is Burkina Faso’s post-independence history, that future may not be forestalled in its entirety.

UK government continues plunder of miners’ pension scheme

Dennis Moore

Former miners and their families are waging a struggle against the Conservative government’s refusal to reverse a historic injustice over the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme. Tory and Labour governments have plundered the pension scheme following its privatisation in 1994.

The original Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme (MPS) was set up by British Coal in 1952 and was the larger of two pensions schemes in the coal industry. The other was the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme.

The state-orchestrated defeat of the year-long 1984-5 strike paved the way for the privatisation of the pension scheme. The defeat saw the mass closures of pits, the end of the UK mining industry, and the widespread impoverishment of mining communities.

In 1994, the Mineworkers Pension Scheme was privatised, and the existing British Coal schemes closed to future contributions. The government took over the role as guarantor for the MPS from British Coal. It was arranged that 50 percent of the surplus in the scheme at privatisation would be used to enhance members’ pensions immediately. The other 50 percent would be being payable to the government as guarantor. It was stipulated that the government’s share would be left in the MPS as the Investment Reserve and paid to it over a 25-year period.

In 2021, the MPS had 124,796 pensioner members and 11,104 deferred members. It is currently managed by 10 Trustees. It is estimated that governments, including Labour, in power for 13 years from 1997-2010, have taken £1 million a day out of the pension fund since 1994, a total of around £4.4 billion.

When miners were employed, they contributed a sizable 5.2 percent of their pay towards the pension scheme. But 50 percent of ex-miners receive an average £65 per week in pension, plus a £19 per week bonus. A further 25 percent are paid less than £35 per week, and 10 percent of miners are paid less than £18 per week. Many miners’ widows receive just £10 a week in pension payments.

In 2019, a 100,000-strong petition by campaigners was handed to Downing Street, calling for a fairer deal. It demanded a review of pension arrangements for over 150,000 former mineworkers and widows. The number of MPS pension recipients is diminishing each year, with an estimated 7,000 dying, some from their industrial injuries. Many retired miners have been affected disproportionately by chronic health conditions, caused by poor working conditions.

So grotesque was the government denial of pension rights to former miners that Parliament’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee (BEIS), despite being majority run by Conservative MPs, agreed to hold an inquiry into the crisis earlier this year.

Witnesses told inquiry that when the MPS was set up with the government becoming sole guarantor to the scheme, it was understood that this would guarantee members always receiving the benefits that they had earned up to the scheme being privatised, increasing in line with inflation. In return, the government would receive 50 percent of surpluses of future valuations with the remaining 50 percent distributed among members via bonuses.

Chair of the Trustees Chris Cheetham explained that this arrangement was highly unusual. “There is no current situation where sponsors (government) take money out of the scheme that they are responsible for; indeed, they cannot. Regulations do not enable it.”

Prior to the 1994 scheme being implemented, the previous scheme was in surplus at both the 1987 and 1990 valuations and at both times a 70:30 split (in favour of members) was agreed. This prior arrangement has prompted questions about why members entitlement of 70 percent ended up being reduced to 50 percent from the 1994 valuation onwards.

Cheetham and Allen Young, the Pensioner Elected Trustee and a former official of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), told the committee that the Trustees took actuarial and legal advice when these arrangements were agreed. The advice stressed that the government’s proposed guarantee was “essential”, and the proposal should be accepted on that basis.

Cheetham and Young told MPs they were critical of the arrangements made in 1993-4, “arguing that there was no negotiation. Basically, the Trustees were given an option of a guarantee with a 50:50 split, take it or leave it”.

The BEIS inquiry report, published in April, noted that the government said that it did not seek any actuarial advice at the time of the 1994 agreement, and when asked, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Conservative minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, could not provide any explanation why this was the case. Neither could she provide reassurance that the 50:50 split proposed by the government in 1994 was underpinned by any empirical evidence.

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy inquiry report

Since 1994, the MPS has performed well beyond expectations, with the £4.4 billion taken from the scheme by successive governments made up of £3.1 billion of the governments share of surpluses post 1994 and £1.3 billion from the Investment Reserve.

The government has not had to contribute a penny towards the scheme, while many of those working in the mines suffering with long-term health conditions are having to accept a take it or leave it deal with the government set to take another £1.9 billion.

The BEIS report points to a lack of due diligence at the time of negotiations when the scheme was set up and the government was deemed negligent in not taking actuarial advice. It pointed to there being no evidence that would have supported the 50/50 split in the way the fund was apportioned out, with the government entitlement to 50 percent of surpluses not proportionate to the level of financial risk it faces.

The government, as the guarantor of the scheme, claim that they have had to face a “a significant contingent liability” in the event that there is a shortfall, leaving them having to find the money to ensure pension payments are paid out.

The level of risk claimed by the government is spurious. The scheme was in deficit in 2002, 2008, and 2011, yet the government did not have to pay into the scheme. The government is protected because the scheme’s rules protect it from having to fund the scheme in the event of short-term deficits.

The scheme performed well financially throughout both the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic throughout 2020, where there was a return of 6.2 percent. Despite downturns in global markets the overall financial risk to the government is low.

The BEIS report noted a lack of any formal period review mechanism as being unfair, considering that the relative size of the fund and that the numbers of scheme members has fallen significantly since 1994. The government’s price for the guarantee has not been adjusted to take account of reduced risk.

The BEIS inquiry made several recommendation after stating that “government should not be in the business of profiting from miners’ pensions”. It said, “If this £1.2bn fund was to be distributed to members, this would roughly equate to a £14 per week uplift for members on the average pension of £84 per week.”

In June, the government rejected the committee’s recommendations, including the dispersal of £1.2 billion to miners, claiming that the scheme was “fair and beneficial to both Scheme members and taxpayers.”

The National Union of Mineworkers, which once represented hundreds of thousands of miners and now has less than 200 members, has waged no serious campaign in defence of pensioned miners. It told the BEIS inquiry that the government should “rethink its findings” and that there should be “a more balanced approach to the distribution of surplus funds, with the recommendation that its [the government’s] entitlement to the Investment Reserve of £1.2bn is also redirected to pension members.”

The campaign for miners to get justice in the fight for pension rights has been largely led by independent campaigns, such as National Mineworkers Pension Campaign (NMPC).

Responding to the government decision denying the miners’ justice, one member of the group commented on Facebook, “They should be taken to Court for theft, but it’s the government they can do what they like. Criminals no less.”

Another stated, “We don't need or have ever needed a guarantor. Time to get rid of it, we must stop these 21st century robbers from having our money.”

Romanian health care system collapsing under COVID-19 surge

Andrei Tudora & Tina Zamfir

As schools are being reopened throughout the European Union, a deadly surge is devastating Eastern European countries, including Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic States.

Romania, like many other Eastern European countries, has already been hit hard by the pandemic. Previous waves officially claimed more than 39.000 lives. However, this number is a gross understatement.

In April, an official inquiry into unreported coronavirus deaths led to the dismissal of the country’s health minister who initiated it. Even though it was a whitewash exercise, the report showed significant gaps in the reporting of COVID-19 deaths, with thousands of people missing. According to health experts, death data for the second part of 2020 show a sobering 42,252 excess deaths, compared to the official 19,659 COVID-19 deaths for the same time period.

Emergency University Hospital in Bucharest

From the beginning of the pandemic, the entire political establishment pushed for herd immunity policies and the removal of the limited health measures implemented in the first half of 2020. In 2021, the country had one of the highest rates of economic growth in the EU, fueled by the bipartisan drive to eliminate any restrictions. One of the chief priorities has been the opening of schools, which had mostly remained closed over the previous period.

The reopening of the schools began on September 14, as the fourth wave of COVID-19 was mounting. One month later the situation is catastrophic. Community transmission has skyrocketed, with the seven-day average of over 14,000 cases, the highest ever during the pandemic. The highest number of deaths was recorded on October 12, when 442 people lost their lives. Seven-day average deaths stand at 337 deaths.

Pediatric cases have also exploded. Over 2,000 cases are reported each day among people under age 20. On October 18 over 450 children were in hospital and 41 in ICUs. At least 10 children’s lives were lost.

The country’s health system is collapsing under the weight of the pandemic. ICU beds are completely full and hospitals are increasingly running short on medical oxygen, which is vital for COVID patients. In the meantime, patients are admitted and treated in emergency rooms and makeshift tents in front of hospitals.

On-the-ground reports paint a horrid picture, already so painfully familiar in many places of the world: medical personnel completely overwhelmed, patients dying in wheelchairs and ambulances parked outside full hospitals, the selection of patients for available ICU beds or beds with an oxygen supply.

On October 1 a fire broke out in the ICU ward of Constanta’s county hospital, killing seven patients. It was the tenth such hospital fire in the country in less than a year. In January, four people died in a fire in the ICU of Matei Bals Institute in the capital Bucharest and 10 patients lost their lives in an ICU fire in November at Piatra Neamt County hospital. Three patients died in April in a mobile ICU unit when the oxygen supply system broke down.

While none of the official investigations returned any conclusions, these terrible accidents are undoubtedly the product of a decrepit health system stretched to its limit. The official response of government officials during the summer was that they were preparing for the fourth wave by opening hundreds of new ICU units. Most of these units, however, were barely worth the name, with many only hastily repurposed clinical beds. Most hospitals function in old and unventilated buildings full of bacterial infection.

In these dramatic circumstances, there is no explanation for the government’s reckless actions other than intentional infection of the population. Prior to October 1, as the scale of the incoming disaster was more than obvious, the government decided to cancel its own previous provision that schools would move to online learning when the incidence level exceeds six cases per 1,000.

A flurry of haphazard “expert consultations” and decisions over several days completely disconnected schools from local or national disease activity records. In a series of self-damning declarations, the education minister said in the same breath that “expert medical advice” will determine the outcome and that the previous provisions were never meant to be applied.

The same level of “expertise” is used to argue that children’s well-being is protected inside schools and that schools are “controlled environments.” This while students and parents are subjected to a plethora of confusing half measures, with classes often switching between online and offline, inadequate testing, obfuscation by local health authorities and, increasingly, the traumatizing experience of seeing relatives, teachers and colleagues fall ill or die.

The callousness and cynicism of the herd immunity precepts being followed by governments around the world were accurately captured in the declaration of the Romanian health minister, speaking on November 7, a day when 282 lives were lost in the country: Vaccination or natural infection “are the two options through which we will get immunity. If we will not choose the former, some say we will get immunity anyway by the latter, which is more difficult. Some get through it more easily, others with great difficulty and others still don’t make it.”

There is growing opposition to these murderous policies, with parents voicing their concern and outrage on social media and keeping their children at home.

Official unions are complicit in the government’s policies. Teachers unions have remained silent on school reopening, insisting on measly mitigation measures. They have also launched right-wing attacks on teacher vaccination drives and the introduction of green-light passes in schools.

Faced with a massive loss of life and the collapse of the health care system threatening even more lives, the authorities will only allow for the most token mitigation measures. Economic life is unaffected and even large public and religious gatherings are allowed.

This is what “living with the virus” looks like: destructive waves that take thousands of lives each week, alternating with periods of lower transmission when “mere” hundreds die.

Romania has the second lowest vaccination rate in the EU, with just under 30 percent of the population having received two doses. Government figures and the media have focused solely on this aspect to shift the blame for the tragedy on the victims of the disease.

While it is true that mortality is heavily concentrated in the unvaccinated population, vaccines alone would not have prevented the surge. Large cities, where transmission is highest, have higher vaccination rates of over 50 percent. But breakthrough cases, waning immunity and unvaccinated youth and children mean that the virus can transmit freely in the absence of any public health measures.

In part the low vaccination rate is caused by the incessant promotion of individualism and the lowest social instincts by the bourgeoisie over the last 30 years of capitalist restoration. On the other hand, the normalization of right-wing views on the pandemic by the official establishment and the repeated government claims that the pandemic “had been beaten” have contributed to the low vaccination rates.

As the ruling elites attempt to normalize mass death, immense social pressures are building up. The answer of the bourgeoisie throughout the world has been to promote fascistic movements.

In Romania, the fascist AUR (Alliance for the unity of Romanians) party was conjured up out of the anti-lockdown movement and propelled into parliament in November 2020. There, far from being marginalized as many pundits assured it would be, it has been transformed into a kingmaker.

On October 5 the ruling coalition of the conservative National Liberals (PNL) and free-market Save Romania Union (USR) broke down, and the government lost a no-confidence vote. In the process, AUR not only determined the arithmetic of the vote, but was also promoted as an anti-establishment force. It was subsequently invited to talks with the country’s president, along with the other major parties.

But the fascists’ main focus is to terrorize the streets in preparation for the developing working-class opposition. In the spring, when the third wave was raging, the fascists were allowed to mobilize lumpen and criminal elements and patrol the streets of cities, blocking hospitals and ambulances and attacking journalists and paramedics.

Australian Cadbury chocolate workers strike over wages, casualisation

Paul Bartizan

Nearly 400 workers at two Cadbury chocolate factories in Melbourne took 24-hour strike action last month and 300 stopped work again on October 8 as part of a dispute over a new enterprise agreement. Workers are demanding higher wage rates and opposing the company’s refusal to transition longstanding casual workers to permanent status.

The first stoppage, on September 17, took place at the company’s Ringwood and Scoresby factories, both in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. According to the Australian, the second strike involved only Ringwood workers. The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), which covers the sites, has said there will be “more action” taken at the plants “in the coming weeks.”

Mondelez International Scoresby (Photo: mondelezinternational.com)

One of the strikers, Sabina, who has worked at Cadbury for 25 years as a bagging operator, explained that production has been ramped up during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re being asked to do more work than ever,” she said. “I don’t feel like I am being recognised and the pressure is at boiling point. It’s gut-wrenching, it’s the pits and it’s not what we signed up for… People are so stressed at the moment and the company are not taking that seriously.”

Sabina (Photo: Facebook / AMWU)

These comments were featured on the Facebook page of the AMWU. The union added: “Many of the workers who make your favourite Cadbury treats are being forced to remain in insecure work. Some of them have been casuals for up to ten years and Cadbury are refusing to make them permanent.”

These complaints aim at covering up the union’s responsibility for the conditions at Cadbury. The previous enterprise agreement, negotiated between corporate management and the AMWU bureaucracy in 2018, expired last March. This saw an 8 percent wage increase over three years, or just under 2.7 percent per year.

The company’s latest offer, which was rejected by 80 percent of the workers, is for a 3 percent raise in the first year of the agreement and then 2 percent in each of the next two years. That is a total of just 7 percent, averaging 2.3 percent per year. This is even less than Cadbury’s original offer of just under 2.5 percent a year over a four-year agreement, and is significantly below the rising costs of living affecting workers. The union is asking for an only marginally higher raise of nine percent over three years.

In the face of corporate intransigence on both wages and secure employment rights, the AMWU is now working on behalf of the company to diffuse tensions among workers.

The bureaucracy has complained: “Workers shouldn’t have to take strike action to get secure jobs.” While that is the union’s position, Cadbury workers voted 94 percent in favour of an unlimited number of indefinite stoppages. The AMWU, however, is currently restricting action to 24-hour strikes, which the company insists have done nothing to disrupt production and supplies.

There were, however, reports that Cadbury deployed office staff to run the lines during last month’s strike, resulting in clogged chocolate machinery that took workers days to rectify on their return. This only demonstrates the enormously strong position that the Cadbury workers are in, and the potential impact of an ongoing strike unshackled by the AMWU bureaucracy.

The Australian reported there was a COVID-19 positive case on night shift and that Cadbury were “pleased that there were just three close contacts… A deep clean was undertaken and production has recommenced.” In other words, there was minimal disruption to production, and the AMWU initiated no industrial action to ensure workers’ safety.

To win this industrial struggle, Cadbury workers need to prepare to take on their own union as well as the company. They need to look at the bitter experiences and learn the lessons of other disputes the unions have sold out.

Cadbury in Australia was originally established more than a century ago as a subsidiary of the British chocolate giant. In 2010, US transnational Kraft Foods bought Cadbury and then, in 2012, spun off Mondelez International as their global confectionery business. The company has annual revenue of $26 billion and operations in 160 countries. In addition to the two Melbourne plants, the company has a factory in Claremont, Tasmania.

Mondelez International has been working to cut the Cadbury workforce and streamline operations. It has eliminated one-third of the Tasmanian workforce since 2015, now down to 360 jobs.

Chocolate sales and Cadbury profits have soared during the pandemic. “Old Gold,” which is one of Cadbury’s original brands, increased sales by 35 percent over the first 18 months of the pandemic as consumers turned to comfort foods during lockdowns.

The existing agreement has flexible categories of employment to assist Cadbury to maximise profits, with seasonal production variations like Easter eggs. Cadbury claims that 30 percent of its production at its Ringwood factory is seasonal. Flexible Permanent Part-time Employees, Mondelez Contractors and Agency Casuals are categories enshrined in the agreement that AMWU helped enact. Cadbury has unlimited flexibility to grow and shrink its workforce as it pleases.

Cadbury workers need to review the lessons of recent strikes at similar transnational food companies, McCormick Foods Australia and General Mills. In both cases, despite workers’ determination, the unions negotiated deals that fell far short of workers’ demands.

At the McCormick Foods plant in Clayton, Victoria, 100 workers struck for six weeks after 5 years without a pay rise as the company deliberately stalled negotiations on a new agreement. The United Workers Union (UWU) claimed a victory when workers got a 9 percent pay increase over three years but this was after losing at least 10 percent in real wages over the previous five years.

At General Mills, in the Sydney suburb of Rooty Hill, the union abruptly ended a strike by 80 workers after three weeks. The union rammed through a sell-out deal that delivered a pay rise of less than the meagre 3 percent per annum demanded and did nothing to address the other key issues in the dispute—job security and rampant casualisation.

In each case, workers’ needs for substantial pay increases, improved working conditions and secure jobs rather than casual positions were not met. Despite the willingness of workers to take action in the face of concerted hostility from their employer and under conditions of a global pandemic where workers risk infection every time they leave home to go to work, the main factor holding back workers is the unions.

These sell-out deals are not simply an Australian phenomenon. On the same day that Cadbury workers were on strike last month, the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) shut down a six week strike of over 1,000 Nabisco workers across the USA. Nabisco is a subsidiary of Mondelez International, Cadbury’s parent company.

School reopenings in Manaus, Brazil gave rise to COVID’s Gamma variant, study shows

Guilherme Ferreira

As schools reopen around the world, their role as vectors for the spread of the novel coronavirus is becoming increasingly clear, with growing numbers of children infected and dying.

In the United States, after schools reopened, the first week of September registered a 240 percent increase in cases in children compared to the end of July. In the last two months, 164 children died from COVID-19 in the US, an average of almost three deaths per day.

In Brazil, children and young people up to the age of 19 accounted for 2.5 percent of cases and 0.6 percent of COVID-19 deaths in December 2020. At the end of August of this year, one month after the largest school reopenings since the pandemic began, these numbers increased to 17 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. Brazil has recorded the deaths of 2,398 children and young people up to the age of 19 from COVID-19, the highest number in the world.

Cemetery workers place crosses over a common grave after burying five people at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery in Manaus, Brazil. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

This is occurring despite several studies published in the world’s leading scientific journals having warned about the role of schools and children as vectors for the transmission of the virus. This criminal experiment with human life — particularly that of children, the most vulnerable sector of society, which should be best protected amid a pandemic that is still out of control — is a condemnation of the entire world ruling elite. It has refused to implement measures widely known to science in order to secure its profit interests.

A study published in the Journal of Public Health Policy at the end of August shed further light on the role of schools in the dynamics of the pandemic. Led by researcher Lucas Ferrante, from the renowned National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA), the study “How Brazil’s President turned the country into a global epicenter of COVID-19” showed that the reopening of schools in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, in September of last year gave rise to the more contagious Gamma variant, which triggered the second wave in March-April of this year and has been responsible for two-thirds of the more than 600,000 recorded COVID-19 deaths in Brazil.

Manaus can be considered the world’s largest open-air laboratory for the novel coronavirus. On two occasions, the city was the symbol of the negligent and criminal response of the Brazilian ruling elite to the pandemic, expressed most viciously by fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro and his local ally, Governor Wilson Lima.

In the first wave, in April-May 2020, Manaus shocked the world after being the first Brazilian city to start burying COVID-19 dead in mass graves. In the second wave, in January of this year, the world watched in horror as patients died from lack of oxygen , while the federal government pressured the city to use hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin on COVID-19 patients, two medi cines that science had already exposed as useless.

Urban mobility in Manaus (Credit: Nota técnica: Reavaliação da pandemia de COVID-19 em Manaus e necessidade de medidas restritivas para conter terceira onda)

According to the article, “the return to in-person classes on 24 September 2020 can be considered to have been one of the triggers of the second wave.” Three weeks later, a period corresponding to the viral cycle, “the number of hospitalizations doubled, followed by a more gradual increase since the December 2020 health collapse.”

In a Technical Note referenced in the article, in which the epidemiological model that supports their findings is presented in detail, the authors show that the mobility of public transportation in Manaus right after the return to school increased by 20 percent. By mid-December, when the school year ended, increases of over 40 percent were registered in urban mobility in Manaus.

Based on the SEIRS model (Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered and again Susceptible), which is widely used by epidemiologists around the world, the article states that, besides the reopening of schools provoking the second wave in Manaus, it also led to the “emergence of the Gamma variant that potentiated the crisis and quickly spread throughout Brazil .”

The SEIRS model considers various parameters to understand the dynamics of the pandemic and make predictions. Among these parameters are, as the name implies, the number of people who may be infected, the number known to have been infected and the number who recovered, as well as urban mobility, the time that the infected person can transmit the virus, and the viral reproduction rate.

This predictive model, however, can also be used retrospectively, by changing its parameters to see what determined the current pandemic situation. This is what the study did. As the graph below shows, the number of daily hospitalizations in Manaus (yellow) is better estimated when the circulation of a variant that is twice as infectious (blue line), such as the Gamma variant, is considered than the original variant (green line), responsible for the first wave. Thus, according to the study, it is possible to verify that the date of the emergence of the Gamma variant coincides with the increase in urban mobility caused by the reopening of schools.

Daily COVID-19 hospitalizations registered in Manaus (yellow); daily COVID-19 hospitalizations estimated by the SEIRS model (black line); hospitalizations by the original strain estimated by the SEIRS model (green line); hospitalizations by the P.1 (Gamma) strain estimated by the SEIRS model (blue line) (Credit: Nota técnica: Reavaliação da pandemia de COVID-19 em Manaus e necessidade de medidas restritivas para conter terceira onda)

The Technical Note says that this finding is supported by phylogenetic analyses from the leading Brazilian epidemiological institute, FIOCRUZ. According to it, no cases of the Gamma variant were detected in Manaus in November 2020, while in December the predominance of the variant in the city was 51 percent. At the end of January this year, at the peak of the second wave, this number reached 91 percent. With this, the researchers were able to rule out “the possibility that the gamma variant was generated either by the November 2020 elections or by New Year’s Eve parties,” events that only increased community transmission.

The SEIRS model, the Technical Note concludes, showed that “the second wave had already begun in October, and was fueled by the emergence of the P.1 [Gamma] variant in November.” Therefore, the cause of both this second wave and “the emergence of the P.1 [Gamma] variant by mutations due to the increased viral circulation ... with the increased urban circulation that took place in Manaus from September 24, 2020 [was] the return to in-person classes.”

The study’s findings also strengthen the understanding of the active role of children in the spread of the virus. In fact, a February study published in Scientific Reports showed that “viral loads in children do not differ significantly from those in adults ,” while another study by researchers at Montreal University and George Washington University found that infections among children preceded that of adults, indicating that they were infecting their parents.

In a political condemnation of the federal and local governments, the article states, “the emergence of the gamma variant in Manaus occurred due to the … government’s strategy of encouraging the contagion of children with the return of in-person classes so that the population would reach herd immunity.”

Recently, this was also substantiated by the revelations of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) in the Brazilian Senate investigating the federal government’s response to the pandemic. The CPI report, which will be voted on next week, charges Bolsonaro with 11 crimes, including “quackery” in promoting medicines with no efficacy against COVID-19, “epidemic with resultant death,” “crime against humanity,” and “crime of commission by omission.”

The basis for the charges is the deliberate action by Bolsonaro in letting the virus spread so that the population would gain herd immunity by infection, something that science long ago ruled out with a disease as infectious and lethal as COVID-19. In Brazil, according to a study conducted by epidemiologist Pedro Hallal, from the Federal University of Pelotas, this led to 400,000 deaths that could have been avoided if social isolation measures had been implemented and vaccines had been acquired earlier.

The Brazilian government’s herd immunity policy, according to the article on Manaus, has also threatened the world, jeopardizing “the pandemic’s control on a global scale because, if variants resistant to vaccines were to emerge in Brazil it would put other countries’ vaccination programs in check.” It concludes: “This is not a purely hypothetical scenario, as only in the last two months three new variants have been identified in Brazil, which currently has at least 92 strains in circulation and can be considered to be a hotbed of new SARS-CoV-2 variants.”

The actions of Bolsonaro, who most nakedly represents all the barbarism of a system that puts profit above human life, have clear historical references. During the pandemic, the world’s ruling elite have resurrected the worst and most reactionary anti-scientific ideologies that justified imperialist wars and fascist dictatorships — from Malthusianism to Social Darwinism to Eugenics — in order to normalize mass deaths. The article firmly places Bolsonaro’s actions in this tradition, quoting legal expert Pedro Serrano, from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, as saying, “In the field of political and moral philosophy ... Auschwitz was for the exercise of political power in times of war as Manaus is for the exercise of political power in health issues.”

On the other hand, all the scientific effort mobilized globally to fight the deadly virus and save lives throughout the pandemic has revealed the whole progressive character of science, which has converged with the interests of the vast majority of the world population.

Tens of thousands protest in Rome against fascist anti-vaccine riot

Will Morrow

Tens of thousands of people took part in a protest in Rome last Saturday to oppose the fascist riot last week that saw the attempted invasion of parliament and the trashing of a national trade union office by bands of far-right thugs.

The trade unions, which called Saturday’s protest, estimated that 100,000 people protested in Rome in opposition to the far right. Other estimates put the number at 50,000 to 60,000. Demonstrators carried signs including, “We stopped talking with fascists on April 25, 1945,” and “si, vax!” The latter slogan is a response to the campaign against mandatory vaccination by the far right.

St. John Lateran square in Rome, Italy on Saturday, October 16, 2021 (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

On October 9, several thousand people took part in a right-wing protest against the introduction of the expanded “Green card” in Italy. The “Green card” consists of a proof of complete coronavirus vaccination, a negative COVID test within the last 48 hours, or proof of having recently recovered from the virus. Beginning last Friday, workers in both the public and private sector are obliged to scan a QR code of their Green card in order to enter their workplace. The requirement had already been enforced in bars, cafes and other public places.

In the course of the demonstration, a smaller group of several hundred people, led by two top members the small fascist Forza Nuova party, broke away and went to the parliament, where they tried to break in. After this attempt was repelled by police, the rioters went to the headquarters of the CGIL, the oldest trade union federation in the country’s history.

The assault on the parliament and trade union building were a premeditated plan, modelled on the January 6 assault on the US capitol building instigated by Donald Trump as part of his attempted coup d’état.

Seventy-five minutes before the siege of the General Confederation of Italian Labor (CGIL) headquarters, Forza Nuova leader Giuliano Castellino shouted from the stage of the protest in the People’s Square, “We’re all off to CGIL,” inciting the crowd. “Do you know who allowed the Green pass to become law and the fact that millions of our compatriots are living under blackmail and at risk of unemployment? They have specific names: CGIL, CISL and UIL. Do you know what free citizens do? They go to besiege the CGIL… Let’s go and get everything that is ours.”

Live videos taken on mobile phones by the rioters and posted to social media showed them trashing the union offices and chanting “liberty.” Only after a long delay did police intervene to force them out of the building, though the assault had been publicly announced at a rally of thousands of people more than an hour earlier by a leading fascist. Only 12 people were subsequently arrested, including Forza Nuova leaders Castellino and Roberto Fiore.

The targeting of the CGIL offices is a conscious political decision aimed at invoking the history of Italian fascism. Mussolini’s fascist gangs carried out such attacks on trade unions a century ago, in the early 1920s. While the trade unions today are very different organisations than in that period, lacking a broad working class base and collaborating with employers and the state against the workers, the real target of the fascist mob’s attack nevertheless is the working class.

Other small far-right protests have also taken place nationally over the past weeks. On Monday, police deployed water cannon to disperse a sit-in at a port in Trieste that had closed the port. The protest has involved local far-right activists in the region including Stefano Puzzer, a former member of the Christian-Democatic Italian Confederation of Workers Unions (CISL) who votes for the far-right Lega party.

The demonstration last Saturday against the fascists, which outnumbered the rioters from a week earlier by a factor of well more than ten to one, shows that the far right is a small minority that does not enjoy mass support in the working class or the youth.

The Italian working class is likewise overwhelmingly in favour of mass vaccination and opposed to the fascists’ claim that mandatory vaccines are an infringement on their personal freedoms. Italy has one of the highest vaccination rates in Europe. Around 80 percent of the eligible adult population is fully vaccinated. The Teneo research company estimated that somewhere between 20.5 and 20.8 million of Italy’s 23 million workers are vaccinated, varying by region and industry.

To the extent that the fascists are able to win support, it is a result of the bankruptcy of the official “left” parties and trade unions, and the fact that the far-right is backed and promoted from above by the corporate media and the capitalist political establishment.

Moreover, the fascists’ campaign against even the most limited mitigation measures against the virus has been strengthened by the policy of the entire Italian political establishment. It has declared that there would be “no more lockdowns” as part of its drive to reopen the economy and ensure that corporate profits would continue, regardless on the spread of the virus and ensuing deaths.

The proclamations by representatives of these same parties that they are outraged at the fascist assault on October 9 are hypocritical and empty. President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Mario Draghi sent formal statements of support to the head of the CGIL, Maurizio Landini.

Democratic Party deputy Emanuele Fiano announced that his party would present an “urgent” parliamentary motion to call for “the dissolution of Forza Nuova and the other openly fascist movements.” Former Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte, the leader the Five Star movement, also visited the CGIL offices and declared that the “conditions are in place for the disbanding of Forza Nuova.”

No one should place the slightest faith in any of these parties to fight against the danger of fascism. Their declarations are particularly absurd, given that all of them are now ruling together in a united coalition government together with the Northern League, led by the fascistic Matteo Salvini. As interior minister, Salvini gave speeches on Mussolini’s favourite balcony and continuously issued proclamations against immigrants and refugees aimed at whipping up fascistic sentiment. Salvini also issued a pro forma statement condemning the recent attack on the CGIL.

The formation of a coalition government also elevated the Fratelli d’Italia, a neo-fascist party, as the official parliamentary opposition. Fratelli d’Italia leader Giorgia Meloni criticised the October 9 protest, which she refused to characterise as fascist, claiming she “opposes all violence.” Meloni has previously stated that she has an 'easygoing relationship with fascism.”

The events of the past two weeks demonstrate that the tasks of fighting against the threat of fascist dictatorship and of ending the coronavirus pandemic fall to the working class. A policy of mass vaccination combined with lockdown and social distancing measures, with full wages paid to affected workers and small businesses, must be implemented with the aim of eliminating the virus internationally and putting an end to the pandemic.

It was the spontaneous strike action of workers in Italy which forced governments to temporarily implement lockdown measures in March 2020. The eradication of the pandemic is intimately connected with the mobilisation of the working class for workers’ governments and the reorganisation of social life on the basis of social need and the protection of human life, not the profit interests of the financial elite.