German government and IG Metall celebrate opening of Tesla factory in Grünheide

Ludwig Weller

Construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide (Image: Michael Wolf / CC BY-SA 3.0 / wikimedia)

What transpired last week at the site of Tesla’s new electric car factory in Brandenburg, east of Berlin, can only be described as spectacle.

Tesla founder Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, personally handed over the first Brandenburg-produced vehicles to customers, who paid €70,000. Much like Helmut Kohl in his day, who promised “flourishing landscapes,” Social Democratic Party Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared at the event, “The East is ahead industrially.”

Economics Minister Robert Habeck, a member of the Green Party, described the US company as a role model for Germany. Tesla had chosen Germany, he said, because the company expected it to become the leading market for electromobility. That was also his goal, he said.

The fact that Tesla Gigafactory, which was built in record time, was largely constructed without a permit and under slave-like working conditions at the construction site, did not bother Habeck in the slightest.

On the contrary, he encouraged Germany’s corporate masters to proceed with the same ruthlessness. “This short period of factory construction can, of course, be something of a benchmark for the pace of work at Tesla in other areas as well,” Habeck said. “I’m working on it 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Visibly impressed by Musk’s unscrupulous methods, the economics minister indicated his notion of “green capitalism.” He declared, “If the permits hadn’t come, they would have had to take things down. It’s a different corporate daredevil culture—but it worked out.”

The laudatory remarks from the Federation of German Industries (BDI) sounded almost restrained in comparison. “The pace at Tesla must serve as a model for investment projects in Germany,” said BDI President Siegfried Russwurm.

All of the politicians present used the opening of the electric car plant as a welcome opportunity to promote Germany’s energy independence from Russia. Here, too, Habeck set the tone, saying, “We want to become independent of Russian oil. That is not trivial.” Referring to the Ukraine war, he added, “To show that we can not only replace oil with oil, but we can also do it electrically, is, of course, a nice symbol on this day.”

With so much official approval and enthusiasm, the IG-Metall union could, of course, not be absent. Birgit Dietze, IG Metall district manager for Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony, sent the following message to Tesla: “On the occasion of the plant opening, I congratulate the Tesla company and its founder Elon Musk.” She added, “In Grünheide, employees are working on the drive technology of the 21st century as pioneers of electric mobility in a globally leading plant.”

The IG Metall bureaucrat’s gushing words knew no bounds. “In future, she declared, “anyone looking for the major automotive locations on a world map will come across the town of Grünheide in Brandenburg. With the opening of the Tesla factory, eastern Germany is strengthening its international pioneering role in electromobility.”

She concluded by saying that innovative strength and high productivity were an “important prerequisite for good working conditions and good wages in Germany.”

It remains to be seen how innovative and environmentally friendly electric cars really are. What is certain is that the auto companies are using the shift from gasoline-fueled vehicles—often called a “transformation”—to cut costs, reduce staff and increase profits.

According to recent studies by the Ifo Institute, some 180,000 jobs will become surplus in Germany alone over the next three to four years. Even if 12,000 people are soon employed at the Gigafactory in Brandenburg, that will hardly outweigh the loss of hundreds of thousands of other jobs.

US corporations like Tesla and Amazon have shown in recent years what “innovation and high productivity” mean for workers. Work pressure and work tempo are drastically increased. Standard work hours, break regulations, social standards, relatively high wages, predominantly fixed contracts—things once fought for by workers and still prevalent in the German auto industry—hardly exist at Tesla and Amazon. The enthusiasm of the government, BDI and IG Metall for Tesla must be viewed in this context.

Musk’s Starlink supports war against Russia

In the context of the Ukraine war, other issues are raised that are directly related to Elon Musk.

Tesla, as well as German car companies, especially VW, are complaining about shortages of supplies and raw materials due to the war in Ukraine. It is not only supply bottlenecks for gas, coal or oil that the industry fears. Above all, nickel, central to battery production, and magnesium, the raw material for aluminium alloys, but also palladium for the construction of catalytic converters are needed in the automotive industry. The largest producers and suppliers of these raw materials are Russia and China.

Long before the war, there were pandemic and speculation-related supply shortages and price increases of up to 400 percent. The war and the massive sanctions against Russia are now leading to huge supply shortfalls. In a cross-industry survey by the Munich-based Ifo Institute, 89 percent of companies in the automotive industry cited problems with purchasing.

In this regard, it is noteworthy that Elon Musk is in the thick of the war against Russia, alongside NATO, the US and Europe. As Stern-Online recently reported, the Starlink satellite Internet network operated by Musk’s company SpaceX plays an important role in the war against Russia.

According to the report, truckloads of Starlink ground stations reached Ukraine at the very beginning of the war. Ukrainian Digital Minister Fedorov reportedly had asked Musk for them via Twitter. In particular, he said, the Aerorozvidka (aerial reconnaissance) unit, which uses drones to monitor and attack Russian tanks and positions, has benefited the Ukraine military. The unit uses Starlink to access strategic databases, contact control centres and provide artillery support.

“Once Aerorozvidka has identified Russian targets, soldiers pilot unmanned aerial vehicles with anti-tank munitions over them and drop the bombs—or relay the coordinates,” Stern-Online wrote.

A Ukrainian soldier reportedly confirmed the effectiveness of the attacks, saying, “At night, it’s impossible to see our drones. We specifically look for the most valuable truck in the convoy and then hit it accurately. We can do that very well and with very little collateral damage—it is possible even in villages.”

Workers must reject NATO’s war effort as strongly as they reject Russia’s war on Ukraine. NATO deliberately provoked the war by systematically encircling Russia. It is waging a proxy war in Ukraine, the goals of which are regime-change in Moscow, the break-up of Russia and unhindered access to the country’s valuable raw materials. To achieve this, it is risking nuclear war.

The German government is using the war as a pretext for the biggest arms build-up since Hitler. It is supplying weapons to the war zone and tripling its arms budget this year from €50 billion to €150 billion.

This can only be understood as a declaration of war on the working class, which must bear the costs. The danger of war can be fought only by the united resistance of the working class of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and worldwide.

The role of IG Metall

The implications for the German working class of the war against Russia and the unprecedented expansion of military spending will be all too clear at the Tesla plant in Grünheide. The workers who will soon be producing up to 500,000 electric cars a year will have to deal with an owner who will stop at nothing to maximize his company’s profits.

Earlier this year, when Tesla announced it would have a works council elected at the plant as early as February 28, 2022, this was immediately welcomed by IG Metall, which has long served as an advocate for the company’s interests in the auto industry.

However, IG Metall was unable to draw up its own candidate list because it simply did not have enough members in the plant. Now there is a works council, the majority of whose members are from the “Gigavoice” list. This list was set up and financed by Tesla itself, and its candidates all came from middle- and even upper-management levels, and called themselves managers, supervisors and superintendents.

According to information from two different sources, the result of the works council election probably looks as follows:

* 881 of 1,879 votes cast went to “Gigavoice,” which can thus provide 10 members of the presumably 19-member Gigafactory works council.

* 404 votes, and thus four seats, went to the “Giga4You” list.

* 340 votes and three seats went to the “Heart of Tesla” list.

* 196 votes and two seats went to the “Energy for the Future” list.

It can already be seen from the names of the three smaller lists that they are equally aligned with the profit interests of Tesla, even though they may have some “normal employees” in their ranks, which allows IG Metall to present them as an alternative.

Although the election result is tantamount to a slap in the face for IG Metall, Berlin District Manager Dietze welcomed the election. She said the automaker had taken the “first step in the co-determination landscape that has grown here.”

“The works council election had some problems, such as the early date, as the workforce is growing strongly and many positions were not yet filled, especially in production,” Dietze continued. “Nevertheless,” she said, “this first works council election at Tesla in Grünheide was a successful premiere.”

Now, she concluded, “the first step toward a culture of co-determination must be followed by others,” adding that IG Metall had “every interest in seeing this plant flourish and enjoy lasting success.”

Pandemic profiteers: GXO Logistics acquires Clipper Logistics in billion pound deal

Allison Smith

UK-based warehousing company Clipper Logistics is set to be acquired by the world’s largest contract logistics provider, GXO Logistics.The cash and stock share acquisition deal is worth £943 million and due to be completed this summer.

The Clipper warehouse in Sheffield (credit_Twitter @SheffCouncil)

GXO has roughly 100,000 employees across 869 sites globally. Clipper has 10,000 at 52 across Europe.

Announcing the deal, Clipper’s executive chairman Steve Parkin salivated, “The offer from GXO gives shareholders the opportunity to receive a high portion of cash at a significant premium to the prevailing share price and a premium to the all-time closing high, whilst also being given the opportunity to benefit in the potential future upside in the combined group.”

Malcolm Wilson, chief executive of GXO, commented, “Together, GXO and Clipper have a one-of-a kind growth opportunity.”

Both companies are reaping the rewards of the pandemic. Profits have soared across the logistics sector due to the COVID-19 crisis that has caused a dramatic growth in online shopping. In 2020, online retail accounted for an average of 28.1percent of all retail sales, up from 19.2 percent in 2019.

Clipper’s revenue for the six months to October 2021 was £406 million, up 33.1 percent on the year before; it’s profit before tax grew 12.6 percent to £16.1 million, coming on top of a 38.2 percent increase in the first year of the pandemic.

Parkin’s base level remuneration was £512,000 in the year ending April 2021. But he cashed shares to the tune of £62 million that January. Shareholder’s dividends increased 14.3 percent in 2020 and another 12.5 percent in 2021, with over £7.2 million paid out in 2021.

GXO’s revenue for 2021 was $7.9 billion, up 28 percent on 2020. Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization increased from $457 million to $633 million.

CEO Malcom Wilson is paid a base salary of £468,000, plus pension, insurance and car entitlements. The company’s annual incentive plan allows him to double or triple that. Other incentives include an award of $850,000 for company performance in 2021 and a gift of 120,000 stock options on taking up the position last year.

These vast fortunes, and the extensive personal luxuries they afford their owners, were built by the two companies’ tens of thousands of employees forced to work for a pittance amid a raging pandemic. Median annual pay and benefits at Clipper are £20,835, with GXO paying similar rates. While shareholders and management were patting themselves on the back for record profits, workers across the country were falling ill, forced to work in unsafe conditions and threatened for raising the alarm.

In March 2020, workers at the Clipper warehouse in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, told the BBC that the company was “putting lives at risk” and that they were being “crammed into corridors”. One explained, “There’s easily 100 to 200 people in the hallway, all having to press the same security buttons, having to clock out with the same finger scanners.” The site processes refunds for Marks & Spencer and River Island.

Workers’ concerns were dismissed. One explained, “When I voiced my opinions and said I felt unsafe one manager said, ‘Just think of how many people die of cancer every year’.” Another manager responded, “At this time all I care is about getting refunds processed”.

The same month, Clipper sent an email to employees at its Northampton e-fulfilment centre, responsible for Zara clothes, claiming that any coughing and sneezing was likely to be hay fever. It threatened that in any case, “If, in a rare instant, the site has a case of COVID-19, the site will not close… Therefore, there is no point in telling people you have the virus when you do not. Anyone who behaves in this way will be investigated through the disciplinary process and please note this is a breach of H&S [health and safety], and would be treated as gross misconduct.”

In July 2020, an outbreak of dozens of cases at Clipper’s Pretty Little Thing (PLT) distribution centre in Sheffield, England, served as a contributory factor in the local lockdown of the city. One worker who became infected told the Sunday Times, “I caught it from the warehouse. There’s no way I should have been working. How is distributing cheap women's fashion essential?”

Others warned that the distribution centre was “a breeding ground for the virus”. Speaking anonymously for fear of victimisation, they described the lack of even the facilities to wash their hands—with only four soap dispensers in a 650,000 square foot warehouse, the size of 15 football pitches—and having to conduct their work in 4-foot-wide aisles, largely unable to socially distance.

Three months earlier, in April 2020, a worker at the warehouse had told the Yorkshire Post, “They won’t furlough us and I need the money, my wife is begging me not to go in and I don’t want to take it home to her but I’m not well paid.” Describing the conditions inside, he said, “You’re still passing people, you’re still queuing for lockers where there are 100 other people. I see on the news about social distancing then there’s 300 of us all in the warehouse.”

In April 2021, an outbreak at Clipper’s warehouse in Selby, which processes ASOS returns, was linked by public health officials to a sharp rise in the town’s infection rate—ultimately climbing to the highest level in England for the seven days to April 22. Clipper admitted the workforce had been “significantly affected” but insisted there was no evidence of transmission within the warehouse.

Workers told a local councillor that social distancing and mask wearing were not being enforced, that conditions were like a “sweatshop”, and that the company was creating a “culture of fear”.

At GXO, previously a part of XPO Logistics, at least 77 workers tested positive in a single outbreak in August 2020 at a warehouse run for supermarket Iceland in Swindon. Over 60 people, more than 10 percent of the workforce, were infected in an XPO warehouse supplying supermarket Morrisons in Bellshill, Scotland. The company’s policy is to dock the first three days of wages from workers off sick, pushing people to work while infected.

In addition to this ruthless exploitation, the multi-billion and million-pound companies both benefited from some of the many government handouts to the corporations on offer during the pandemic.

Between December 2020 and February 2021, the only period for which figures are available, XPO received between £12 and £25 million in furlough money. If this rate of support was consistent throughout the pandemic, the company could have been paid more than £100 million while it was handing out multimillion pound bonuses.

Clipper received a secretive and lucrative Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) contract worth £11 million. The company’s chairman Steve Parkin is a major donor to the ruling Conservative Party, having given eight cash donations totaling £730,000.

The same story could be told of corporations all over the world. Amid the social catastrophe of the pandemic, their billionaire owners have literally made a killing, continuing their grotesque self-enrichment at the expense of the working class.

In the UK alone, the logistics sector employs some 215,000 workers, directly contributing £127 billion Gross Value Added to the British economy each year, which they have the power to a bring to a standstill. The fact that such a decisive section of the working class can be so abused is thanks to the trade unions, which work to suppress and sabotage opposition.

UK doctors surgeries forced to close doors to all but urgent care needs

Ben Trent & Richard Tyler

Local doctors’ surgeries across the UK face an ongoing crisis as coronavirus infection levels reach new heights. A record one in 13 people are infected with the virus, according to the latest Office for National Statistics figures.

The impact of the pandemic on doctors and other workers in local GP practices has seen some “struggling to maintain regular services”, according to a recent article in health professionals’ Pulse magazine. This has meant closing surgery doors to all but the most urgent cases.

Dr Dave Triska, a GP at a Surrey-based practice, told Pulse at the end of March that half his team of eight doctors were off and about one third of the overall staff.

“We’ve never had to restrict services like we’ve had to due to Covid,” he said, “We just physically don’t have the people to do it. There’s a limit to how much you can do.”

Describing the situation as “Russian roulette”, as each day brought new absences, he said his surgery could soon reach “critical numbers”. Those with overall responsibility for general practice, such as NHS England and the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), had “no backup plan”.

“We’re basically on our own, and we have to make do,” Dr Triska said.

Similar COVID-related shortages are impacting GP surgeries across England, including in Cambridgeshire, Greater Manchester, Hertfordshire, and Yorkshire and the Humber.

Scotland, where the devolved Scottish Parliament has responsibility for health policy, has also seen several examples of local surgeries being forced to close their regular appointment booking service. The Mistylaw practice in Lochwinnoch messaged patients requesting that on three days this month they only contact the surgery if they have urgent care needs. While the surgery was still able to fulfil pre-booked appointments, it said extra appointments were very limited due to staff shortages.

In Wales, where the Welsh Parliament is responsible for health provisions, the Crickhowell doctors surgery had to cancel all routine appointments on Monday due to high levels of staff sickness.

As the World Socialist Web Site reported last October, beleaguered GPs suffered immensely in the latter quarter of 2021, as the pressure mounted to roll out the vaccine booster program aimed at combating the then-latest variant of COVID-19.

“The impact of COVID, the vaccine rollout and backlogs across the system are resulting in increased demand on a National Health Service [NHS] already barely able to cope. The crisis in primary care services, in which General Practitioners (GPs) play a vital role, is having a crippling effect.”

The article also drew attention to a report highlighting how the GP workforce in England had shrunk by 1,904 since 2015, exposing the government’s hollow pledges to recruit a further 5,000 GPs by 2020 and then—after failing to meet this target—6,000 by 2025.

The current situation is no less dire. A recent survey carried out by the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) found that at least a third were planning to retire in the next five years, leaving 14,000 fewer GPs than are currently working.

Doctors who work in local practice face a grinding schedule where they are officially only allocated 10 minutes to see a patient, one of the lowest appointment times among developed countries. Addressing the Health and Social Care Committee last month, retired GP Dr Andrew Green said, “We need to accept that 10-minute appointments are not safe. The only way that you can run a 10-minute appointment surgery on time is by cutting corners.

Dr Green added, “One of the things that made me finally give up normal clinical work was the feeling at the end of the day that I wasn’t happy with the work that I’d done because I couldn’t fit what the patients needed into the 10-minute appointments.”

The government’s criminal “herd immunity” policy, which has allowed the virus to rip through the population in successive and ever-higher waves of infection, has placed intolerable burdens on NHS hospitals. This has produced a monumental backlog of those waiting for vital elective procedures, which now exceeds 6 million. In turn, this increases pressures on GPs, who must manage patients on excessively long waiting lists, with some forced to live with excruciating pain or physically limiting conditions.

Dr Kate Fallon, a GP in Somerset, told the Health and Social Care Committee, “We have a 63-week wait to see a gastroenterologist at the moment. And what are all those patients doing? Well, we’re holding them, we’re taking the risk, we’re trying to support them through that.”

This caused “an awful lot more patient contacts,” while they waited for a surgery appointment. “It’s not just gastroenterology, but that’s the worst example,” Dr Fallon said.

“Learning to live with the virus,” as the government insists must happen, also impacts on nursing staff who work in local GP practices, where two thirds are expected to leave within the next year. Common reasons cited for wishing to depart included feeling exhausted, overworked, and underpaid, as well as having too little time to do their jobs to the desired standard.

A poll carried out by Nursing in Practice, surveying close to 400 practice nurses, found that 18 percent were considering early retirement, while 8 percent were looking to leave the profession. Altogether, only a third of those surveyed were planning to stay on as a GP nurse.

A nurse practitioner in northwest England explained, “I feel I am not given the time I need to do my job to the standard that I would like to. I feel undervalued”. Another in the East Midlands declared that they “cannot see any improvement on the horizon.”

The realities of being overwhelmed and understaffed are hitting numerous regions. To alleviate the pressures, drastic measures are being taken. Several London practices are training reception staff to double-up as phlebotomists and take blood from patients.

Public satisfaction with the NHS, 1983 to 2021.

With all areas of the NHS suffering from decades of under-funding, further aggravated by the government’s malign neglect in face of the pandemic, it is hardly surprising that a recent survey found patient satisfaction with GP services had fallen by almost a third.

According to the 2021 British Social Attitudes Survey, only 38 percent of respondents were satisfied with NHS general practice. This is a thirty-point fall over the year and the lowest figure recorded since the survey began in 1983. Waiting times for GP and hospital appointments were cited as the main reasons for dissatisfaction with the NHS overall. The survey saw the lowest level of satisfaction with the NHS since 1997. More people (41 percent) were dissatisfied than satisfied (36 percent), a 17-point slump in this measure.

The government’s enforced collapse of free universal healthcare services will be used by it to push for the further privatisation of the sector. In an editorial on Wednesday, the house paper of the Conservative right-wing, the Daily Telegraph, attacked healthcare spending on an “unreformed, and increasingly unpopular, socialised behemoth that too often shows more interest in its staff than its patients.”

Sri Lanka still has no finance minister amid continuing anti-government protests

Saman Gunadasa

Days after the resignation of the entire Sri Lankan cabinet, President Gotabhaya Rajapakse has not been able to find a taker for the crucial post of finance minister. The country is currently embroiled in its worst economic crisis in decades and stands on the brink of default. Dwindling foreign exchange has led to shortages of fuel, food and medicines, soaring prices and lengthy electricity blackouts sparking continuing mass protests demanding the resignation of the president and his government.

Night time protest of university students and youth in Ragama, a Colombo suburb, on April 7 [WSWS Media]

Basil Rajapakse, the president’s brother, was the finance minister and has been widely blamed for the economic crisis, including within the ruling coalition. When he stepped down, along with the rest of the cabinet on Monday, he was replaced by Ali Sabry, the president’s personal lawyer and close confidant. Less than 24 hours later, he also resigned.

The president has been scouring the Colombo establishment to find a replacement but as of yesterday no one appeared willing to accept the poisoned chalice. The Daily Mirror reported that former Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena had been approached, but “showed reluctancy” to accept the offer.

With rising public anger against the government, “all government MPs are reluctant and seem to be passing the ball from one to another with the president unable to find a suitable candidate to the portfolio,” the article stated. It explained that time was running out for the president because the finance minister has to head a delegation to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington by the second week of April to seek desperately needed economic assistance.

Rajapakse has appointed a new Central Bank governor and Finance Ministry secretary, but no one wants to take responsibility for leading the team that has to beg for an emergency bailout from the IMF. Any such package would inevitably come with severe austerity measures that will certainly provoke angrier protests under conditions where hunger and starvation loom.

The inability to find a finance minister only underscores the enormity of the economic and political crisis engulfing the government and Colombo political establishment as whole. The government currently consists of a skeleton cabinet comprising the president, the prime minister, and three other ministers for foreign affairs, education and transport.

The perplexity in ruling circles was further highlighted by the farcical character of the two-day debate in the parliament on Wednesday and Thursday. Wholesale defections on Tuesday reduced the government numbers to a wafer-thin majority of 114 seats in the 225-seat parliament.

In opening the debate on the crisis, the speaker warned that the country faced impending starvation. None of the parliamentarians paid any attention and the debate descended into a pantomime.

Government MPs accused the opposition parties—the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)—of whipping up the protests and inciting “violence.” In reality, the opposition parties have had little or no role in the protests that have overwhelmingly erupted outside of their control.

The opposition parties are just as terrified of this mass popular movement as the government. They refused the plea by Rajapakse to join a government of national unity.

SJB MPs protested in parliament, again demanding the president’s resignation, but party has no solution to the crisis facing the masses. It has been urging the government for weeks to go to the IMF and accept its draconian terms for a bailout.

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake revealed the class character of his party when he declared that the JVP was ready and willing to collaborate with other capitalist parties in forming an interim government—as long as President Rajapakse resigned.

“The citizens of this country will not accept any interim government or other mechanism that will come while the president continues to be in office,” he said. “The president must resign. Under this condition we are ready to discuss any proposal… [for] a coalition or an interim administration.”

The JVP, which is notorious for its populist, at times even socialistic, demagogy, has been posturing as a supporter of the protest movement and declaiming on the need for a “people’s government.” Dissanayake has made clear what the JVP’s proposed people’s government really is: a sordid combination of capitalist parties and politicians cobbled together behind the backs of working people.

Youth demonstrate in Kandy to demand Sri Lankan president resign [WSWS Media]

The working class had already experienced the JVP in office when it joined the coalition government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 2004–2005 amid considerable political turmoil. The four JVP ministers, with Dissanayake himself as minister of agriculture, livestock, land and irrigation, were instrumental in enforcing the IMF’s austerity demands, particularly in rural areas. The JVP would have no hesitation in doing the same today under conditions of a far deeper economic crisis.

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the Sri Lankan rupee has overtaken the Russian ruble as the world’s worst performing currency. The value of the rupee has dived by 32 percent since the start of the year. The Colombo Stock Exchange, according to Bloomberg, is running a close second to the Russian bourse as the world’s worst performer.

Inflation hit 18.5 percent of GDP in March, but food inflation is far higher at 30 percent, making it ever more difficult for working people to buy food, even when they can find supplies. The real situation is far worse. Steve H. Hanke, a Johns Hopkins University economist, has calculated that inflation in Sri Lanka had soared to 55 percent by March 24—the sixth highest in the world after Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Turkey and Sudan.

The public health system is breaking down. Sri Lanka imports more than 85 percent of its pharmaceutical needs and the government has no US dollars to pay for them. Gotabhaya Ranasinghe, a cardiologist at the National Hospital in Colombo, told the Guardian that hospitals were running out and many lives were at stake.

“There are important heart medications, medicines for blood pressure, heart attacks, all are running out. I have heard that many cancer drugs are also not available anymore, so it is a very worrying situation,” he said. “People are struggling, they are out on the streets, but we are stuck in a terrible limbo and I can’t see a way out of it.”

Yesterday, doctors, nurses and other hospital workers held protests throughout the country demanding a solution to the health crisis. Over the past two days, protests have taken place in many cities, including Colombo, Kalutara, Ratnapura, Kandy, Kurunegala, Trincomalee, Ratmalana, Moratuwa, Galewela, Bingiriya and Maharagama.

Health workers protest outside Kayts Hospital in northern Sri Lanka [WSWS Media]

Some public sector unions, including in the health, education and electricity sectors, have reluctantly called limited protests in Colombo and other cities. These same unions have betrayed one strike struggle after another over the past two years. They are only intervening now to try to contain and suppress the anger that is welling up among their members.

Thousands of university students from Moratuwa, Uva Wellassa, Rajarata, Wayamba and the Open University also joined the protests yesterday. Some school students also joined in.

The political establishment is mired in deep crisis at present. But unless the working class advances its own solution to the desperate situation confronting the masses, the capitalist class will prevail and impose even greater burdens on working people, through dictatorial means if need be.

New Zealand’s leading health officials resign as COVID deaths mount

Tom Peters

Three leading officials in New Zealand’s Ministry of Health have announced their resignations, in the middle of the country’s Omicron surge that has overwhelmed hospitals and is killing 10 to 20 people per day.

On Wednesday, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield, one of the most well-known public faces of the Labour Party-led government’s COVID-19 response, announced he would step down in July—a year earlier than he had previously indicated he would leave. A few hours later, the Ministry of Health confirmed that Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay, and Deputy Director of Public Health Dr Niki Stefanogiannis were resigning at the end of the week.

Composite image of Dr Caroline McElnay, Director of Public Health, and Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health. (Source: Ministry of Health YouTube videos from March 29, 2022 and March 24, 2022)

Media reports attributed the resignations to “stress” and “burnout.” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has appeared alongside Bloomfield in countless press conferences during the pandemic, said on Instagram that he “wanted to spend time with his family, and that’s the least we owe him.” McElnay blandly told a press conference she also wanted to spend time with family.

In a worried article, the New Zealand Herald said the sudden departures would leave a “giant hole” and “raise questions about what impact their vacancies will have in a pandemic that shows no sign of ending, with possible resurgences in cases in coming months, including over winter, and new variants inevitably arriving here.”

Whatever the exact reasons for the leadership exodus, it comes amid an historic health crisis caused by the government’s decision to embrace the “let it rip” approach to COVID-19, which has led to millions of deaths worldwide. Last October, Ardern announced the end of the elimination policy that saved thousands of lives during the first two years of the pandemic. The government promised big business that schools and businesses would be reopened and there would be no more lockdowns.

Bloomfield and McElnay had the undoubtedly stressful task of defending the government’s criminal policy decisions in the Ministry of Health’s regular media conferences. While none of those leaving has expressed any disagreement with the government’s approach, the departures came soon after the removal of nearly all remaining public health restrictions.

At the start of April, vaccine mandates and passes were scrapped and contact tracing systems were dismantled. The government has abandoned any pretence of trying to stop the virus, and COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has said deaths are inevitable.

The Ministry of Health reports that 466 people have died with COVID during the pandemic as of today—an increase of more than 100 in the past week. The vast majority of deaths followed the government’s abandonment of the zero COVID policy. At the start of October 2021, only 32 people had died of the virus over nearly two years.

The death toll has now exceeded the projection made by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in January of 400 deaths by May 1. It has also surpassed a forecast by NZ-based modelers of up to 300 COVID deaths by the end of April.

The mounting toll demolishes the claims made by Ardern, Bloomfield, McElnay and other government spokespeople, that the virus could be allowed to circulate in the community and people would be protected by vaccinations. In fact, just over half of all New Zealanders have received a necessary third (or booster) dose. Moreover, it is well-known that vaccines alone cannot stop the virus from spreading and causing ongoing deaths and severe illnesses, including Long COVID, which can damage the brain, heart and other organs.

The Ministry of Health has pointed to a decline in daily cases in recent weeks—from roughly 20,000 to about 10,000-15,000 per day—but the figures are not reliable. University of Auckland professor Rod Jackson told the New Zealand Herald that since people are now expected to self-report the results of rapid antigen tests (RATs), the daily case numbers are meaningless. He said the accuracy of RATs can be as low as 50 percent.

Meanwhile, the crisis in public hospitals is unprecedented, affecting not just COVID patients, but others whose treatment has been postponed. There are 626 people in hospital with the virus, down from a peak of over 1,000 recently. This week, however, Auckland District Health Board (DHB) managers said hospitals are still only able to perform urgent surgical procedures, due to chronic staff shortages.

On April 3, a few days before Bloomfield and company announced their departures, TVNZ’s “Sunday” program aired a damning report on the crisis facing nurses. “Already underpaid and overworked before the pandemic, burnout is rife and resignations flooding in,” presenter Miriama Kamo said. One nurse said there were frequently shifts “where we should have four [staff rostered] plus our team leader, and we’re down on the rosters to one and two.”

Health Minister Andrew Little said there is a shortage of 3,000 nurses in the hospital system and 1,000 in the aged care sector. Last year, Chalmers Rest Home in New Plymouth closed its hospital wing after it received zero applications for its nursing vacancies. Seventeen elderly people were forced to find somewhere else to live.

Little declared that nurses “should not feel they have to” work to the point of burnout and it was up to “their managers” to prevent this. The government has refused, for years, to address the crisis in hospitals. Following a nationwide nurses’ strike in 2018, the government, assisted by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), imposed a sellout deal that failed to address the staffing shortage.

On the One News Facebook page, hundreds of people commented on the report, supporting the nurses and denouncing the government. Marilyn, a registered nurse, wrote that Little was “passing the buck” and she had “lost count” of how many times governments have promised nurses “pay parity” with other occupations.

Another comment, with more than 50 likes, said “Little should resign. He is out of his depth in everything. People are suffering. Only going to get worse.” Several comments criticised the government’s immigration restrictions, which have made it much harder for hospitals to recruit workers from overseas.

In response to a comment defending the NZNO, Serjio commented: “This is a union working for the government and the NZNO board members,” not for nurses. The NZNO supports Labour’s agenda of letting the virus spread; none of the unions have called for a return to the zero COVID policy.

NATO intensifies anti-Russia war drive

Andre Damon

In a series of coordinated actions, the United States, NATO and the European Union massively escalated their involvement in the war between Ukraine and Russia on Thursday, threatening to turn the conflict into a new world war.

NATO announced additional shipments of heavy weapons to Kiev, the European Union pledged to end Russian energy imports, and the US and its allies successfully removed Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Ukrainian servicemen study a Sweden shoulder-launched weapon system Carl Gustaf M4 during a training session on the Kharkiv outskirts, Ukraine, Thursday, April 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Marienko)

These actions make clear that US allegations earlier this week of Russian war crimes in the suburbs of Kiev were a propaganda barrage aimed at destroying any prospect of a negotiated settlement and preparing public consciousness for an intensification of NATO involvement.

Speaking at this week’s summit of the trans-Atlantic alliance in Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba declared, “The battle for Donbas will remind you of the Second World War, with its large operations and maneuvers, the involvement of thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, planes and artillery.” He added, “And this will not be a local operation, based on what we see in Russia’s preparations.”

Yet, rather than recoiling from this prospect, the NATO member states are doing everything possible to realize it.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg pledged to provide “a wide range” of weapons systems to Ukraine. Asked by Al Jazeera whether NATO would supply “offensive” weapons, Stoltenberg declared, “I think that this distinction between offensive and defensive is a bit strange, because we speak about providing weapons to a country which is defending itself, and self-defence is a right which is enshrined in the UN Charter.”

“There was support for countries to supply new and heavier equipment to Ukraine, so that they can respond to these new threats from Russia,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told reporters.

She continued, “We agreed to help Ukrainian forces move from their Soviet-era equipment to NATO standard equipment, on a bilateral basis.”

Truss declared a “new era” of European relations with Russia, stating, “The age of engagement with Russia is over.” Instead, she proclaimed “a new approach to security in Europe based on resilience, defense and deterrence.”

On Wednesday, the Times of London reported that the UK would provide armored vehicles to Ukraine. The newspaper cited a UK official as saying, “These could enable Ukrainian forces to push further forward towards Russian lines.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who participated in the NATO summit, pledged to provide “new systems” to Ukraine, adding, “We are not going to let anything stand in the way of getting Ukrainians what they need... We are looking across the board right now, not only at what we have provided.”

On Wednesday, the US Senate passed a bill to expedite arms shipments to Ukraine. “As the war in Ukraine unfolds, delivering military aid as quickly as possible is pivotal for Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Putin’s unprovoked attacks,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the leading Democratic sponsor of the bill.

On Thursday, the United States succeeded in its effort to remove Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council. The last time a country was removed from the body was when Libya was taken off in 2011. Shortly afterwards, Islamist terrorists funded by the United States murdered its president, prompting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to joke, “We came, we saw, he died.”

The same day, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for “an immediate full embargo on Russian imports of oil, coal, nuclear fuel and gas.” The resolution also called for Russia to be entirely cut off of the SWIFT banking network.

In announcing a series of measures targeting Russia, Stoltenberg made it clear that China was also a primary object of NATO.

“We have seen that China is unwilling to condemn Russia’s aggression, and Beijing has joined Moscow in questioning the right of nations to choose their own path,” Stoltenberg said Thursday. “This is a serious challenge to us all.”

NATO’s escalation occurred as Russia appeared to call for a diplomatic solution. In an interview with Sky News, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted, “We have significant losses of troops,” adding, “It’s a huge tragedy for us.”

The reckless and unhinged character of the war fever gripping sections of the ruling class was spelled out in Thursday’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which declared, “Ukraine won the battle of Kyiv, but the battle for the Donbas in the east is likely to be even more savage... This war could be long, and the West’s resolve will have to match Mr. Putin’s brutality.”

In the past week, it has become clear that sections of the US and European political establishment have shifted and expanded their goals in the proxy conflict with Russia over Ukraine. Instead of merely being content with bleeding Russia dry over the course of months or years, they are eyeing not only a decisive tactical but even a strategic victory.

In this context, there are growing demands within the US political establishment for the country to prepare for nuclear war.

In an interview with Voice of America, Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, stated, “We have been so worried about nuclear weapons and World War III that we have allowed ourselves to be fully deterred. And [Putin] frankly, is completely undeterred.”

Record inflation is driving mass poverty in Germany

Elisabeth Zimmermann

The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the sanctions imposed on Russia have led to an explosion in prices worldwide. While managers and the rich continue to pile up wealth, the working population and the poorest are bearing the costs of inflation. The result is an intensification of the international class struggle.

In Germany, annual inflation rose to 7.3 percent in March. This is the highest price increase since the Iran-Iraq war in 1981. Inflation is being fueled mainly by the Ukraine war, which is causing prices for gas, heating oil and petrol to go through the roof. In February, the inflation rate was lower, at 5.1 percent. In some federal states the rate is even higher. In North Rhine-Westphalia it is 7.8 and in Hesse 8.0 percent.

A homeless person sleeping rough

These figures are based on initial estimates by the German Statistical Office. The detailed examination shows that the prices for food, energy and other daily necessities have risen disproportionately. For example, cooking fats and vegetable oils rose by 19.7 percent, vegetables by 14.2 percent and bread by 7 percent.

In addition, the major German supermarket chain, Aldi, and other grocery chains, which had already raised the prices of key food items in recent weeks, have announced a new round of double-digit price increases, some of which were implemented 4 April. Butter will become about 30 percent more expensive at Aldi, and other foodstuffs such as meat, sausage and dairy products will increase by 20 to 50 percent.

The prices for petrol and diesel have risen to well over €2 per litre, with the main oil companies raking in bumper profits. The Tagesschau newspaper reported a fortnight ago that “the surplus—that is, the sum that the companies rake in minus crude oil costs and taxes—has recently risen massively. At the beginning of February, the surplus was around 29 cents per litre of diesel, by mid-March it had risen to as much as 68 cents.” The report is based on data from the Federal Cartel Office’s Market Transparency Unit for Fuels and published on the Benzinpreis.de portal.

The price increase for heating oil was particularly drastic. Here, the price had already climbed to new highs before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, and now it has practically doubled. In March it was 99.8 percent higher than last year, in February it stood at “only” 37.7 percent. Petrol and diesel have risen by 49.1 percent, gas for consumers by 30.1 percent.

The drastic price increases hit the working population and the poorest in society particularly hard. Previously these sections of society had barely enough to live on, but after the price increases for food, daily necessities and energy, millions of workers and their families can no longer make ends meet. Often they do not earn enough to put sufficient food on the table every day for themselves and their families.

The high energy costs mean that low-income earners, Hartz IV welfare recipients, pensioners, students and basic income recipients can no longer pay their rents and utilities and are threatened with homelessness. On average, German households spend 37 percent of their net income on housing and energy, and up to 50 percent for those with a monthly household income below €1,300.

Inflation had already risen sharply before the Ukraine war. The huge sums of money used by the German government and the European Central Bank to drive shares and the fortunes of the rich to dizzying heights, while workers’ incomes fell and 20 million lives were sacrificed to the pandemic worldwide, have fueled inflationary trends. The pandemic-related disruption of supply chains and the sanctions against Russia have accelerated this process and the working class is now being made to pay.

A crucial role in passing the rising prices on to the working class is played by the trade unions. They have already concluded wage agreements below the rate of inflation in recent years, i.e., lowering real wages. To prevent industrial action for higher wages, they have often agreed on a pay-out term of several years for the miserly deals agreed.

The unions have now reacted immediately to prevent the compensation of workers for their declining wages. In the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, the IG BCE union has simply postponed the upcoming collective bargaining process for half a year. Negotiations on a new collective agreement are not to begin until October.

As a “bridging solution,” the union has agreed with the Federal Employers’ Association for the Chemical Industry on a one-off payment of €1,400. This corresponds to an annual increase of only 5.3 percent, and is not part of the collectively agreed sum upon which the next wage increase will be based. “In real terms, workers are currently losing a great deal of income,” commented the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

According to the newspaper, the deal has a “signaling effect.” Other employers’ associations could take the same path: “The lump sum helps soothe employees who are currently groaning under high energy prices while giving employers financial flexibility, since they are not burdening themselves with long-term wage increases.”

At the same time, there are many indications that inflation is far from peaking.

According to a recent YouGov survey commissioned by Postbank, more and more people are worried about their day-to-day existence because of high inflation. According to their own statements, more than 15 percent of adults in Germany can barely meet their living costs. In a survey carried out in January, 11 percent had stated that high inflation was threatening their day-to-day lives.

Of respondents with a monthly household net income of less than €2,500, 23.6 percent now say they are barely able to meet their regular expenses due to rising prices. In January, this figure stood still at 17 percent.

“Incomes can hardly keep up with general inflation,” commented Postbank Chief Economist Marco Bargel. “While wages and salaries recently rose by 3.6 percent year-on-year, the cost of living increased by 7.3 percent. The loss of real income also affects households with a middle income.”

According to the YouGov survey, 53.4 percent are very worried about rising prices for goods and services. This compares to 44 percent in January, an increase of almost 10 percent in three months. Economists do not expect inflation rates to fall in the coming months. “In the short term, inflation could continue to rise from the current already high levels due to high energy prices,” Bargel said.

More than 60 percent of the respondents would like to see more government support in the face of rising inflation. The “relief package” recently adopted by the German government is not enough to mitigate the effects of inflation, he said.

The “traffic light” coalition (Greens, Social Democrats and Free Democrats) has decided to lower the energy tax for three months to make petrol and diesel cheaper. Those in work are to receive a one-time energy allowance of €300 on their gross salary, and families a bonus of €100 per child on their child allowance. This is less than a drop in the ocean for workers, while millions of Hartz IV recipients, pensioners, students and the poor will be left with virtually nothing.

Volunteer food banks, which support poor people with donated food, are also reaching their limits. The number of people in need of support has doubled in some cases. In addition to the victims of inflation there are now tens of thousands of refugees from Ukraine. At the same time, the amount of food donations is decreasing because supermarkets are donating fewer goods.

Der Spiegel reports on a study by the consulting firm Deloitte, which has run through several scenarios for the future. It concludes that the war in Ukraine is already having a noticeable impact on the German economy, which will only remain manageable if the war ends soon. This is highly unlikely, however, as NATO powers are doing everything they can to intensify the war.

“If the fighting in Ukraine and the conflict with the West continue until autumn, only 2.3 percent growth and 5.1 percent inflation can be expected. In particular, persistently high energy prices and disrupted supply chains will slow the economic recovery from the corona pandemic and drive up prices,” Deloitte’s second scenario states.

In the event that the war lasts well into 2023, Deloitte projects just 0.6 percent economic growth and 8.3 percent inflation. This approximates to stagflation and prices levels not seen since the Second World War.

Deloitte has not calculated the effects of an immediate supply stop of gas and oil from Russia, which is now being advocated from many quarters. Such a development cannot be modelled in because there are no empirical values and little historical data, Deloitte chief economist Alexander Boersch told Der Spiegel. But a recession would be the likely outcome, resulting in mass layoffs and mass unemployment.

Cold Response 2022: NATO concludes war rehearsal on Russia’s northern flank

Robert Sutherland

The United States and its NATO allies have military encroached upon Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. The arrival of the imperialist alliance on Russia’s doorstep prompted Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. With the ultimate goal of subjugating Russia, NATO is war-gaming every approach to Russian territory. In the largest military exercise led by NATO ally Norway in a generation, last week NATO finished a live-fire rehearsal for war on Russia’s northern flank, the High Arctic exercise dubbed Cold Response 2022.

The significance of such large-scale NATO exercises is underscored by the escalating conflict in Ukraine. As Russia desperately seeks to counter the spread of NATO influence over its neighbor with its reactionary invasion of that country, putting NATO military exercises into practice becomes an immediate possibility. Cold Response took place as the world powers tangle on the brink of World War III.

U.S. Marines inspect a MV-22B Osprey prior to flight at Norwegian Air Force Base Bodo during Exercise Cold Response 22, Norway, March 16, 2022. (Lance Cpl. Elias E. Pimentel III/U.S. Marine Corps via AP)

Cold Response is a biannual display of martial might that has grown with the immediacy of NATO war plans. “We invite this exercise mainly within a NATO framework, and the size of it all depends on the interest from our allies and partners,” Norwegian military spokesman Preben Aursand told High North News, before the maneuver. With the US and NATO considering direct conflict with Russia over Ukraine, the “interest” in preparing the northern theater is running especially high, and Cold Response has scaled up accordingly, more than doubling in size since 2020.

The objective of the large-scale military maneuver is to prepare to engage militarily with Russia on the sea, land and air in the Arctic environment. Approximately 30,000 troops from 27 countries—including 3,000 US Marines and 1,000 German “Bundeswehr” soldiers —along with 220 aircraft and 50 vessels converged on the north of Norway.

The first phase of Cold Response was a maritime “access and denial” operation, which amounts in practical terms to a blockade of Russian military and commercial vessels from accessing the Atlantic Ocean from the northern cold-water port of Arkhangelsk, as well as to assuring that NATO warships can reach the Barents Sea off Russia’s northern coast, where US and UK ships resumed patrols in 2020 after an absence since the 1980s.

The tremendous presentation of NATO sea power in these waters so critical to Russia included aircraft carrier strike groups from the UK and Italy, lead by the HMS Prince of Wales. A third carrier strike group lead by the USS Harry S. Truman was scheduled to participate, having just completed exercise Neptune Strike 2022, but extended its deployment in the Mediterranean to “reassure allies” as the war in Ukraine escalates.

Intensive air operations, including the deployment of carrier-based air power, in the second phase of Cold Response served to prepare for amphibious invasion simulations in the third phase. Thousands of NATO troops have been congregating in Norway since last fall to practice assaults on costal population centers.

Invariably presented as a defensive exercise to “restore national integrity,” these operations need only be shifted a little eastward along the northern Norwegian coast to become a real attack on the Russian north. Russia’s Northern Fleet, armed with nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles, makes berth in Murmansk, less than 150km from the Norwegian border.

Significantly, officials and commentators were increasingly dispensing with the pretense of the supposedly “defensive” nature of these military exercises. “I think this exercise is a good counterpart, a good companion to the ongoing reinforcement of the (alliance’s) eastern flank that has been taking place since Russia’s invasion began,” said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Cold Response 2022 also marked the culmination of Operation Brilliant Jump, the exercise and a certification of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, NATO’s vanguard, all-theater rapid reaction force. Brilliant Jump, involving 2,500 troops, 10 warships and 750 sailors, began in Norway last February. Once certified, these elite units are deployable within five days to any NATO theater, including the High North.

While Moscow declined an invitation to formally observe the exercise, Russian warships patrolled at a distance.

As large as Cold Response is, it threatens primarily the northern approach to Russia. In imperialism’s encirclement of its geopolitical rival, however, NATO conducts a host of massive military exercises along Russia’s western and southern flanks. The massive Steadfast Defender 2020 exercise war-gamed the approach to Russia from northern Europe while Steadfast Defender 2021 practiced the approach from the south, preparing for combat in the Balkans and Black Sea Region. War games on the Black Sea itself were staged in Operation Sea Breeze. Trident Juncture, like Cold Response, war-gamed the far north in 2018. The list goes on.

The eastward expansion of NATO beginning after the fall of the Soviet Union has steadily crossed Eastern Europe, absorbing the post WWII “buffer states” and reaching Russia’s boarder in the Baltic in 2004. In 2014, a Western-orchestrated right-wing coup in theretofore Russia-aligned Ukraine installed a pro-western government deep in Russia’s side. That Russia retained control of Crimea, which hosts Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, was considered a military imperative as NATO spread its sphere of influence over Russia’s strategically important neighbor. Russia responded to NATO’s continued arming and training of anti-Russian elements within Ukraine—the Ukrainian army, led by a pro-Western government, as well as neo-Nazi paramilitary groups like the Azov Battalion—by launching its military attack at the end of February.

Western cries of “Russian aggression” in an “unprovoked invasion” serve only as political cover while NATO pushes eastward with the ultimate aim of removing Russia as an obstacle to a global “rules-based order,” that is, US political and economic domination. Whether by instigating a regime change, inciting internal divisions or by direct military confrontation, imperialism, driven by nation-based capitalism’s demand for control of global markets and resources, considers it “in its interest” to subjugate by whatever means its Russian, and for that matter Chinese, rival. Without defending the reactionary Putin regime of oligarchs and kleptocrats, it is NATO, not Russia, who is the aggressor.

Beyond the immediate confrontation with Russia, heightened interest in the Arctic, embodied by Cold Response and the even larger Trident Juncture in 2018, is driven by what capitalist governments perceive as “opportunities” as manmade climate change causes sea ice to retreat. The shortened shipping routes with the opening of the Northwest and Northeast Passages are viewed not as a manifest catastrophe but as potentially lucrative for business, requiring military control in the “national interest” of Arctic nations. Mineral and fossil fuel deposits becoming accessible in Arctic regions likewise have world powers jostling to exploit them. It is an irredeemable indictment of capitalism that its response to the irrefutable consequences of climate change does not inspire an alarmed re-prioritization of resources to save the planet but rather renewed vigor in geopolitical machinations .