Rough sleeping rises in UK amid tidal wave of homelessness

Dennis Moore

For the first time in five years there has been a marked rise in rough sleeping across England.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that in 2022, an estimated 3,069 people were sleeping out on the streets of England, a rise of 26 percent. This is the biggest year on year rise since 2015 and exposes the pretense of the Conservative government’s 2019 manifesto promise to “end the blight of rough sleeping” by 2024.

A homeless man sleeping in a shop doorway in Romford, London, December 2022 [Photo: WSWS]

Even this rise is not the full picture as the numbers of those sleeping out on the streets does not include those who are homeless, living in temporary shelters or hostels.

There has been a rise in rough sleeping across all regions of England. London and the southeast represented half of those on the streets, with Westminster local authority in London recording the largest number of rough sleepers, 250 people, an increase from 63. Christchurch, Poole and Bournemouth showing a doubling of rough sleepers.

Up to two thirds (64 percent) of rough sleepers were from the UK, 21 percent were EU nationals and 6 percent were from outside the EU and UK. The remaining 10 percent were not known.

Rick Henderson, chief executive of the Homeless Link charity said, “The 26 percent rise is evidence of how the cost-of-living crisis has exacerbated long-standing drivers of homelessness, such as shortage of affordable housing, an often punitive welfare system and increasingly stretched health services”.

Local councils are warning of a coming tidal wave of need, caused by soaring food and energy prices, benefit freezes, and the lifting of COVID eviction bans.

Research from a year ago by homeless charity Crisis and Heriot-Watt University predicted that by 2024, there will be 66,000 more homeless people in England, including 8,000 more sleeping rough and 9,000 forced into unsuitable accommodation.

“The Homelessness Monitor: England 2022” surveyed 155 English councils, finding that nine out of 10 town halls are expected to see an increase in evictions from private rented homes over the next year. Eight out of 10 councils have concerns about the increase in homeless children.

It predicted that councils in London will see the biggest increase in homelessness. At the time a council official in southern England told researchers, “We are expecting a tidal wave, to put it mildly”.

The rise in the private housing rented sector across the UK has led to many tenants constantly worrying if they will be able to pay the rent and worrying if they will receive an eviction notice.

ITV News recently reported prospective tenants being forced into a bidding war when looking for a place to live as rents increase and demand for properties is greater than current availability. ITV was told people were paying out hundreds of pounds to provide a deposit for a property, only to be gazumped by a bidder offering more money.

There has been a marked decrease in the building of social housing, with just 5,955 homes built for the cheapest social rents in 2020/21, down from 40,000 for 2010/11.

The private rented sector has doubled in the last 20 years to 4.6 million households, accounting for 19 percent of UK households.

The increase in interest rates and soaring mortgage costs has been passed on by landlords to their renters. According to Crisis, rental evictions have surged by 98 percent in a year.

Ministry of Justice figures for England and Wales show that between October 1-December 31, 2022, there were 5,409 evictions, double the figure for the same period in 2021.

Action taken by landlords against tenants in the county courts in England and Wales with orders for possession were up by 135 percent, repossession claims up 42 percent and warrants up 103 percent. A survey carried out in December 2022 by Crisis indicated that nearly 1 million low-income households across Britain feared eviction in the coming months.

Crisis CEO Matt Downie said, “The devastating impact of the cost-of-living crisis, rising rents and low wages has once again been laid bare as thousands more renters are faced with eviction and the very real threat of being left with nowhere to go”.

The lack of private tenants’ rights has left many people worrying when they might be evicted. Portia Msimang, project coordinator from the campaigning organization Renters’ Rights London, said, “People are being held to ransom by landlords, who themselves are living really well.”

The homeless charity Shelter described the private sector as like the wild west, with people gazumped and tenants evicted and replaced with higher paying tenants. Many did not even know who their landlord is. One woman from Manchester told ITV News that she would need to put a minimum of five months’ rent up front.

ONS figures show that private rented sector rents increased by 4.4 percent in the last year, an increase from 4.2 percent from December 2021.

According to Citizens Advice renters in the private sector are paying 43 percent more on rent than those in the social housing sector.

Private sector landlords are also restrictive regarding who they will let to and will not always let to people on welfare benefits or will require deposits that are financially insurmountable.

The servicing of mortgage debt has been one of the key factors leading landlords to increase rents. The Bank of England having kept interest rates low for years has recently put through 10 consecutive base rate increases.

Many buy-to-let landlords will choose to sell up, as their profit margins diminish. According to estate agent Hamptons analysis of data from Countrywide, landlords sold 35,000 more properties than they bought across 2022. Hamptons has estimated that the private rented sector is losing homes at a rate of 66 per day.

In London the SpareRoom website, used by many to try to find a spare room to share, calculates that there are 106,000 people looking for a room to rent, with 1,500 available properties.

The rental crisis in London has led to record numbers of homeless families having to be temporarily housed in hotels. Westminster council has confirmed that in the last two years the number of families lodging in hotels has risen by a staggering 1,740 percent and is directly attributable to the cost of living crisis and the shortage of private rented properties.

Homeless families are being housed at enormous cost, with the average hotel room costing £268 per night, £8,152 a month.

Shelter estimate that there are nearly 250,000 people living in temporary accommodation, the majority families, including 123,000 children. Two thirds of families (68 percent) have lived in temporary accommodation for over a year. In the last decade there has been a 74 percent rise in those living in temporary accommodation.

Millions of social housing tenants are already seeing a rent rise of up to 7 percent this year. This comes on top of council tax and cost of living rises that have pushed many to the brink.

Kenyan government threatens crackdown against cost-of-living demonstration, as protests erupt across Africa

Kipchumba Ochieng

The Kenyan government of President William Ruto is threatening police violence against Monday’s protest against high costs-of-living. The protest is organised by billionaire opposition leader and former prime minister Raila Odinga of the Azimio la Umoja–One Kenya Coalition Party. It coincides with mass rallies across Africa and Europe.

Odinga has declared the demonstration on the streets of Nairobi the “mother of all protests,” while continuing his calls for an investigation into fraud in last August’s presidential election.

President of Kenya William Samoei Ruto addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022 at U.N. headquarters. [AP Photo/Mary Altaffer]

Sunday, Nairobi police chief Adamson Bungei said Monday’s protest is illegal and the security forces would not allow it. “Any person who will breach the peace or break the law during the procession shall be dealt with according to the law,” he said.

Last week, Ruto declared, “The government will not allow loss of life, destruction of property and looting. We will not allow a few individuals who have refused to accept election results to cause chaos among peace-loving people.” His deputy, Rigathi Gachuga, threatened “finding a final solution to Raila.”

In anticipation of the rally, the government converted Nairobi into a fortress, deploying 5,000 heavily armed police offices and the notorious paramilitary, the General Service Unit (GSU). Created by British imperialism to suppress the Mau Mau anti-colonial insurgency in the 1950s, the GSU has been used by successive regimes to crush workers’ and peasant protests and strikes.

Throughout the week there have been demonstrations in various parts of the country including Kisumu, Mombasa, Nairobi, Kiambu and parts of the Mount Kenya region, an area with few Azimio supporters. Videos of citizens complaining about the high cost of living have gone viral on social media.

For over a month, the government had been stepping up police repression against workers and youth. In February, police arrested popular comedian Eric Omondi and 17 other protesters after hurling tear gas. In March, 40 people were arrested in another protest.

On Saturday, 50 university students were arrested by police at a city hotel after holding a press conference in support of Monday’s rally. They were handcuffed and bundled to the Central Police Station, charged with engaging in an illegal gathering.

Everywhere the ruling class, whether in the former colonial countries or the imperialist centres, is breaking with democratic forms of rule, seeking to criminalize working class struggles. Monday’s protest in Kenya coincides with demonstrations across the world against austerity and worsening social conditions, marking a growing revolutionary situation internationally.

Across Africa, five mass protests are being held today. In South Africa, the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters is organising nationwide marches against power rationing, high unemployment and low public spending on education and has called on African National Congress President Cyril Ramaphosa to resign. Police have said that the planned protests are an attempt to overthrow the government and are mobilizing 18,000 security officers to suppress the demonstration.

In Nigeria’s capital Lagos, opposition politicians have called for street protests over what they have described as rigging in last month's presidential elections, intersecting with others against fuel shortage and currency swapping difficulties. In Tunisia, protesters marched against the rising cost of living, insecurity and the drive to authoritarian forms of rule by President Kais Saied.

Another protest is being held in Dakar, Senegal, after weeklong protests gathering thousands as President Macky Sall intensifies repression ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

In France, the epicentre of workers’ struggles in Europe, hundreds of thousands continue to protest against Macron’s pension reform. For weeks, millions across Europe have been striking and protesting to express their anger against the planned attacks and pro-war policies.

Like other opposition parties’ demonstrations against sitting governments, Kenya’s Odinga does not represent a genuine alternative. The demonstration is a means of cynically exploiting and also containing mounting opposition against Ruto, amid soaring inflation of 9.2 percent, sharp tax hikes, and soaring food and energy prices. Latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows that households spent 13.3 percent more on food compared to a year earlier. Food accounts for nearly a third of the shopping basket for Kenyan families.

Terrified at the spectre of anger exploding outside of Kenya’s corrupt political framework, Odinga called today’s limited protest action. The Star reported that sources who attended an internal Azimio meeting on whether to cancel the demonstration said, “We told him it is too late, our supporters are already psyched up and we cannot disappoint them because if you keep on cancelling such activities, nobody will take you seriously next time.”

Odinga, with an estimated net worth of $3.3 billion, has refused to present any concrete demands, besides vague calls for Ruto to reintroduce food and fuel subsidies, while insisting that exerting more pressure on the government will force it to reverse social attacks. Odinga is aware that any policies against inflation would impinge on the wealthy that he himself represents and anger his imperialist backers, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is demanding savage austerity.

The Ruto government, composed of 24 cabinet members collectively worth US$120 million, is determined to unload the full burden of the economic crisis, which has been intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, a prolonged drought that is resulting in 3.5 million Kenyans facing starvation, and the soaring of prices due to the ongoing US-NATO war against Russia. The economy is suffering falling foreign exchange reserves, depreciating of the Kenyan shilling, and mounting debt and debt servicing obligations amid a shortage of US dollars.

In the first 100 days of his presidency, Ruto has dutifully imposed the dictates of the IMF. The government has eliminated subsidies on the staple unga (maize flour) and fuel, announced new tax hikes on excisable goods and services, introduced new charges for bank-to-mobile money transfers, increased the rate of withholding (income) tax and raised mandatory National Social Security Fund contributions.

He is now preparing a privatisation programme, including the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA). KPA’s privatisation has the potential of sparking mass opposition among its 5,000 workforce, a traditionally militant section of the working class that can paralyse operations at the Mombasa Port, blocking the supply chain of goods across East Africa.

While the police state methods to impose the dictates of the IMF, US and European imperialism are reminiscent of the austerity attacked by Western-backed dictator Daniel Arap Moi—Ruto’s political mentor—during the 1980s and 1990s, the crisis of capitalism in Kenya and globally is far deeper today than it was four decades ago. Mass protest and strikes across the world have shaken bourgeois rule to its very core.

The working class and rural masses must forge its own methods of struggle against this savage austerity programme. This requires above all an understanding that neither the Ruto nor the Odinga factions of the ruling class can resolve the international crises facing Kenyan society. The working class cannot count on the trade unions, which are tied to the capitalist system.

The Central Organization of Trade unions (COTU), consisting of 36 trade unions representing more than 1.5 million workers in the public and private sectors, has refused to mobilise its members against Ruto’s austerity programme. On Saturday, COTU Deputy Secretary-General Benson Okwaro implored Ruto to embrace dialogue with Odinga “so that our country can be saved.” He urged workers to report to work, saying, “Let us not be used by politicians. This country is bigger than us all. We must leave the country as peacefully as we found it. History will judge us well.”

COTU’s members, the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union and the Kenya National Union of Teachers have called off strikes to increase salaries and improve working conditions over the past months. In November, the Kenya Airline Pilots Association called off a strike at Kenya Airways, after Ruto’s government outlawed the action. The ending of the strike was also supported by Odinga’s Azimio.

Drastic closures and job cuts at Germany’s biggest department store chain

Marianne Arens

Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, the last remaining major chain of department stores in Germany, confronts a new round of drastic cuts with another 52 branches marked for closure. This means that around 5,000 shop assistants, administrative and warehouse staff and other workers will lose their jobs by the end of 2024.

Galeria (formerly Kaufhof) at Frankfurt’s Hauptwache [Photo: WSWS]

One of the two remaining department stores in the cities of Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and Saarbrücken will close, and additional closures are planned in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. Branches in Leipzig, Gelsenkirchen, Leverkusen, Erlangen, Offenbach, Hanau and many other cities will also close, either in three months, on June 30, 2023, or by January 31, 2024. The press agency dpa has published a complete list of the announced closures.

Of the more than 5,000 employees who will lose their jobs, 4,300 currently work in shops slated for closure. Another 700 workers will be laid off from the concern’s remaining 77 branches, while those not to be made redundant face further wage cuts and an even heavier workload. Workers have suffered wage cuts for years, with an average Galeria salesperson earning €5,500 less per year than provided for in the current contract.

A creditors’ meeting this month is expected to approve the insolvency plan, which will be presented jointly by Galeria CEO Miguel Müllenbach and insolvency administrator Arndt Geiwitz. In the media, the break-up of the company has been justified by high energy prices and a change in consumer behaviour. However, this merely glosses over the real reasons and conceals the naked profit interests behind the demise of the company. The initial reports in the media largely failed to mention the name of René Benko, who owns Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof via his holding company, Signa Retail GmbH.

According to Forbes magazine, Tyrolean real estate speculator Benko has a private fortune of at least €5 billion. He also owns the department stores KaDeWe in Berlin, Oberpollinger in Munich, Alsterhaus in Hamburg, the “Golden Quarter” in Vienna, the Globus chain in Switzerland, as well as shares in the Chrysler Building in New York, the US luxury hotel Park Hyatt and Selfridges in London.

Benko is not choosy in his methods and is currently under investigation for the umpteenth time for corruption. Authorities in both Italy and Austria have accused him of bribing tax officials and attempted tax fraud.

To rake in exorbitant profits, Benko and the Signa Group use the following method: They buy up department stores and separate the retail business from the valuable real estate in prime city centre locations. The real estate division, which belongs to the Signa holding company, then collects high rents from the department stores or sells these properties to global finance sharks, who in turn demand excessive rents from the shops, thereby aggravating the financial difficulties of the GKK group. Benko is currently in the process of selling half of the property of the luxury department store KaDeWe in Berlin to the Thai trading and real estate group Central Group.

Originally, Benko owes his rise to prominence to a political network centred around former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who now works with Donald Trump. In recent years Benko has been able to multiply his fortune by relying on the close cooperation between his company executives with politicians and trade union officials.

Today it is Verdi, the German services trade union and its representatives that ensure the orgy of enrichment continues. Workers at the company confront a conspiracy in which Verdi works closely together with management, the insolvency administration, politicians and the real estate speculator René Benko himself.

When the multibillionaire René Benko took over the department store chain in 2014 for the symbolic price of one euro, Verdi supported him, as it had done with his predecessors, Thomas Middelhoff and Nicolas Berggruen. Benko was hailed as the new “white knight” and redeveloper who would save the financially strapped department store chain from bankruptcy and lead it into a prosperous future. Since then, one “restructuring plan” after another has been concluded, invariably involving new impositions and sacrifices for the workforce. All these contracts bear the signatures of Verdi officials.

When Benko took over the GKK group, around 37,000 workers were still employed in branches that formed the centre of shopping arcades in the city centres. After the latest closure plan only about 12,000, i.e., not even a third, will remain.

“This is a black day,” wrote the central works council a few days ago, when it—not management—gave workers the bad news. Stefanie Nutzenberger, Verdi national executive board member, also called it a black day. But while they are shedding crocodile tears, the union officials on the supervisory board are working hand in hand with management and the insolvency administration to push through the cuts.

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic three years ago, Verdi agreed to a brutal management plan behind the backs of the workforce, involving the closure of 40 branches and the destruction of around 4,000 jobs. At that time, the German government gifted the corporation a total of €680 million from its pandemic aid program (i.e., taxpayers’ money). Only a short time later, the Benko-owned Signa Prime Selection AG distributed dividends of €201 million to its shareholders.

The “restructuring collective agreement” signed by Verdi in April 2020 was worthless. The company management unilaterally terminated the contract in October 2022 and annulled the guarantee to preserve 131 shops, along with the guarantee to avoid any compulsory redundancies until the end of 2024. These were all empty promises aimed at dividing and paralysing the workforce.

Verdi pretends it is conducting a struggle, while the parties linked to Verdi, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, cooperate with Signa. In Berlin, for example, they have realised joint real estate projects. The Left Party also participated and allowed Signa to develop new building projects at several GKK locations. A Letter of Intent from August 2020, sealing such projects at Hermannplatz, Alexanderplatz and Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, bears the signature of then Senator for Culture Dr. Klaus Lederer (Left Party) alongside that of the then governing Mayor Michael Müller (SPD) and Mayor Ramona Pop (The Greens).

Last week, insolvency administrator Arndt Geiwitz said he was “convinced that the Galeria department stores have a future, even if not in their current form.” In about three years, the company would again make a profit, Geiwitz said. Until then, further sacrifices are on the agenda.

Updated report shows poverty in Germany is higher than previously thought

Elisabeth Zimmermann

On March 10, the welfare charity umbrella organisation Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband presented a second, updated edition of its 2022 Poverty Report. This in itself is a novelty. Even more explosive are the findings it contains—poverty in Germany has risen more sharply than previously assumed due to the coronavirus pandemic and inflation.

In 2021, it rose to 16.9 percent of the population, 0.3 percent higher than assumed when the initial results were published in June 2022. Compared with the previous year, poverty had thus risen by a full percent, to encompass 14.1 million people, reaching a sad peak in the second year of the pandemic. And it continues to rise: the effects of rampant inflation since 2022 have not even been considered in this updated report.

People collecting bottles to redeem the deposit are a common sight in Germany. [Photo by Sascha Kohlmann / CC BY-SA 2.0]

In 2021, the poverty threshold was €1,148 monthly for a single household, €1,492 for a single parent with one child, and €2,410 for household with two parents and two small children. Since the end of February 2023, new poverty figures are now available based on the final report of the 2021 micro census. They consistently point to higher poverty rates than previously assumed.

Among children and young people, more than one in five is affected in Germany, which is considered a high-income country. In this group, poverty amounted to 21.3 percent. Child poverty is also evident from the figures for large families and single parents: 42.3 percent of single-parent households and almost one in three couple households with three or more children (32.2 percent) were considered poor in 2021.

Old-age poverty has also continued to rise, with 18.2 percent of people living on pensions considered poor, female pensioners (19.5 percent) are significantly worse off than male pensioners (15.2 percent).

Old-age poverty is causing great and justifiable acrimony. One of those affected is quoted in the report as saying, “We old people have generally done our best in our careers to help this society move forward. We have developed skills, accumulated life experience and knowledge. Each to the best of his or her ability. I don’t think anyone deserves to be treated this way in their old age as a retiree.”

The impoverishment of large segments of the population did not start with the pandemic but follows a trend that has continued since 2006. Since then, poverty rates have steadily increased from 14 percent in 2005 to nearly 17 percent in 2021. Since the start of the pandemic, this increase has accelerated, and poverty rates rose by a full percentage point compared to the 2019 survey.

While poverty numbers increased, the number of unemployed decreased significantly, as shown in the graph. This indicates a large increase in the “working poor,” those people who are poor despite working. In the pandemic, the number of working poor increased by almost 1 percent, suggesting the economic impact of pandemic-related reduced hours. The self-employed were unusually hard hit during the pandemic, with their poverty rate rising to 13 percent in 2021.

As a result, the social gulf widened in the pandemic, and more than 14 million people—840,000 more than before the pandemic—have since been counted among the income poor. Compared to the situation in 2005 (11.5 million poor), there are 2.6 million more poor people today.

The impact of poverty varies in the different federal states. The lowest rates are in Bavaria (12.8 percent), Baden-Württemberg (14.1), Brandenburg (14.8) and Schleswig-Holstein (15.6 percent), although the poverty rate in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria has recently jumped.

In Thuringia, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Bremen, the poverty rate is above the national average, with Bremen having the highest poverty rate, at 28.2 percent. The new Paritätische report says: “The difference is thus quite remarkable, while in Bavaria one in eight is affected by poverty, in Saxony-Anhalt, North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin it is one in five, in Bremen it is even more than one in four.”

The Ruhr, traditionally Germany’s industrial heartland, which already had been considered “poverty problem area No. 1,” is particularly affected by poverty. This region has a poverty rate of 22.1 percent and a welfare recipient rate of 14.4 percent. The report points out that “the Ruhr [is] Germany’s largest metropolitan area, with around 5.8 million inhabitants, 1.3 million of whom live in poverty.”

In terms of welfare recipient rates, the Ruhr is also well above the national average of 8.1 percent (and, with Bremen and Berlin, among the bottom three German states) at 14.4 percent. In cities such as Duisburg, Essen and Herne, the rate is over 18 percent, and in Gelsenkirchen it is as high as 25 percent. The situation is particularly bad for children, 22.9 percent of whom are dependent on “Hartz IV” welfare benefits—almost 30 percent in Duisburg, Dortmund, Hagen and Herne receiving the benefits. In Essen, just over 30 percent, and in Gelsenkirchen, 39 percent of all children and their families are dependent on Hartz IV payments.

Overall, it is noticeable that in three federal states the poverty figures have risen sharply, especially during the pandemic: Baden-Wuerttemberg (up 7.6 percent), North Rhine-Westphalia (up 9.1 percent) and Bavaria (up 10.3 percent). The report says: “If we keep in mind that half of the population lives in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia alone, it becomes clear that it is primarily the very poor [economic] development in these three federal states that is causing the nationwide increase in poverty.”

The new edition of the 2022 Poverty Report contains a great deal of illustrative material, graphics, tables, and explanations. Based on figures from the micro census and the federal and state statistical offices, it presents the most up-to-date figures on poverty trends. The entire report is well worth reading and contains much valuable detailed information.

It harshly criticizes the federal government’s poverty policies, whose packages of measures benefited the poor and poorest in society the least of all—or did not reach them at all. This applies both to the height of the pandemic and more recently when war and sanctions policies have caused horrendous inflation in food and energy prices.

The report is inconsistent, however, because it ends by appealing yet again to the same government responsible for the spread of poverty, making toothless demands of it. It does not address the deeper causes of the development of such widespread poverty. It ignores the coincidence of the ever-increasing poverty since 2006 and the “labour market and social policy reforms” of the second Social Democrat (SPD)/Green federal government (2002–2005). That government’s “Agenda 2010,” and especially the “Hartz IV” measures, introduced “reforms” which have led to an unprecedented increase in the low-wage sector in Germany, and thus in poverty.

The policies of the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens will be forever associated with this frontal assault on the social gains of the working class and these parties’ contempt for workers and the poor, as well as with the hatred, anger and despair of millions of workers, the unemployed and pensioners towards these policies.

The first SPD-Green government (1998–2002) began its legislative period by approving NATO’s war of aggression against Serbia, sending German soldiers on a war mission for the first time since the end of World War II. The hypocrisy and falsification of history to justify this policy knew no bounds.

This is only surpassed by today’s massive rearmament spending, which is fueling the US/NATO war against Russia in Ukraine. The delivery of billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine, the training of Ukrainian soldiers in Germany, and thus Berlin’s active participation in the escalation of war raises the associated danger of a new, nuclear world war. This is accompanied by unprecedented warmongering against Russia and unsurpassed war hysteria, especially on the part of the Greens.

The costs of rearmament and war are being imposed on the working class by the exploding cost of living crisis and high inflation, as well as the limitless social attacks.

Newfound DNA data indicates wild animals at Wuhan market were infected with SARS-Cov-2

Benjamin Mateus

The journal Science and The Atlantic magazine published accounts of a recent discovery of the DNA sequence from a SARS-CoV-2-infected wild animal at the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak of early infections that led to the COVID pandemic. Dr. Florence Débarre, a senior researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, and theoretician in evolutionary biology, uncovered the data.

The discovery deals a massive blow to the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 originated in a leak of genetically modified viruses from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). This has relied on, as one of its few science-based arguments, that none of the animals tested at the Wuhan market had been positive for SARS-CoV-2. Now one has.

Débarre has meticulously researched the origin question, posted her findings on her Twitter account and taken many advocates of the “lab-leak” conspiracy theory to task. She told Jon Cohen of Science that she “randomly” came across the “previously unknown sequence data” while doing research on GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, the Munich-based data bank that allows scientists to share research results on an open-access basis. She said it took several days to assess the implication of the sequences and recognize their importance.

These were sequences from swabs taken by the Chinese Centers for Disease Control in the wet market after closing the facility on January 1, 2020. The sequence was part of the DNA of a raccoon dog infected with SARS-CoV-2. These wild animals were known to have been illegally sold at the market and are possibly a suspect for intermediary host for the virus, between bats and humans. However, the data that was posted on GISAID was not part of the earlier data set provided to the WHO or other scientific bodies during the 2021 origin investigation and subsequent publication titled “Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and animal samples of the Huanan Seafood market.” 

A raccoon dog. [Photo by Nasser Halaweh / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Débarre initially contacted Kristian Andersen, evolutionary virologist at Scripps Clinic, California, and Michael Worobey, evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, to discuss the implications of the sequences. 

However, once these researchers attempted to contact former head of the Chinese CDC, George Gao, the data was removed from GISAID. It may very well be that the work being conducted by Gao and colleagues is pending review. In the arena of scientific authorship such high-impact topics are kept under wraps until the day of publication. 

As Jon Cohen notes, “The team’s [Gao] preprint recently had its status on Research Square—which is linked to the Nature family of journals—change from ‘posted’ to ‘under review.’ Journals often require data deposition before publication, so an imminent publication might originally have prompted Gao’s team to submit the data to GISAID.”

Still, given concerns that the sequences were removed and lack of disclosure on why they were placed there and not shared earlier with the WHO or in their subsequent publication in 2022, Débarre and colleagues contacted the lead scientist at WHO on COVID, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, and provided her with the bombshell report that wild animals at the Huanan market were infected with SARS-CoV-2. 

On Friday, at the WHO press brief on COVID, Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made it a focus of his opening remarks. He said, “Even as we become increasingly hopeful about the end of the pandemic, the question of how it began remains unanswered. Last Sunday, WHO was made aware of data published on the GISAID database in late January and taken down again recently. The data, from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, relates to samples taken at the Huanan market in Wuhan, in 2020.”

Dr. Michael Worobey (left) and Dr. Kristian Andersen [Photo: Scripps Research, University of Arizona, WSWS]

He continued, “While it was online, scientists from a number of countries downloaded the data and analyzed it. As soon as we became aware of this data, we contacted the Chinese CDC and urged them to share it with WHO and the international scientific community so it can be analyzed. We also convened the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, or SAGO, which met on Tuesday. We asked researchers from the Chinese CDC and the international group of scientists to present their analyses of the data to SAGO. These data do not provide a definitive answer to the question of how the pandemic began but every piece of data is important in moving us closer to that answer and every piece of data relating to studying the origins of COVID-19 needs to be shared with the international community immediately. These data could have and should have been shared three years ago.”

The question of a natural origin versus laboratory leak has been at the heart of political discussions since the publication by a renowned international team of virologists published the “proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” report in March 2020 in Nature. All evidence since that pathbreaking study points to a zoonotic spillover into human populations while no data to date has pointed to a possible lab leak.

In fact, many of the scientists involved in the original research on COVID origin, including Drs. Débarre, Worobey and Andersen, had previously acknowledged they had initially believed the outbreak was caused by a lab leak until the weight of the accumulated evidence demanded they accept the alternative and most likely hypothesis, a natural origin.

Most important in these was the investigation conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and China in 2021 on the origin question which found that a significant number of early COVID cases who were attended at regional hospitals in December 2019 were linked to the market and not the WIV.

These were later corroborated by studies conducted by scientists Michael Worobey, Kristian Andersen and others in their epidemiologic and phylogenetic studies utilizing the WHO data. Most cases, both those with and those without personal links to anyone at the market, were nonetheless geographically linked to it. In other words, it was their proximity to the market that led to their infection.

Additionally, the two lineages of the virus (also both linked to the Huanan seafood market) that had been sequenced at that time had no preceding intermediary version, meaning that at least two separate spillovers must have occurred in and around the market that eventually led to achieving a sustained outbreak of infections that began to spread across Wuhan in late winter of 2019. 

It is telling, moreover, that there were no linkages between staff or employees of WIV and SARS-CoV-2 nor were any of the early cases geographically linked to the institute, which would have supported a lab-leak hypothesis. Perhaps an even more compelling question to ask the conspiracists: What is the probability that two different versions of the virus housed at the WIV somehow were leaked within a few weeks of each other to the middle of the same wet market that employs 1,500 people in a city of 11 million, the size of London. 

The identification of an infected raccoon dog at Huanan market comes with considerable political impact at the present moment.

On March 8, 2023, while Republican and Democratic Congress members were holding hearings on the origin of COVID to politically legitimize their lab-leak conspiracy claims, Dr. Michael Worobey’s opinion piece was published in the Los Angeles Times,  providing a lucid and thorough account on the scientific merits for the natural origin of COVID and its emergence at the Huanan Seafood Market. 

Worobey is a professor and the head of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona who has dedicated his recent work to the origin question. Near the end of his account, he wrote, “There is now a large body of peer-reviewed scientific research consistent with a zoonotic origin of this pandemic. However, there is no credible, peer-reviewed research pointing to a lab leak. Had the evidence gone in the other direction, I’d be reporting that. But it hasn’t. The ‘evidence’ in favor of a lab leak consists fundamentally of discredited talking points. The lack of a positive sample from an animal sold at the Huanan market, for example, supposedly undercuts the market-origin hypothesis. But not a single relevant live animal was tested there before the market was closed.”

In little more than a week after Worobey’s account, the sequence showing a wild animal was infected with SARS-CoV-2 has made the headlines.

Kroger-Albertsons grocery chain merger in US threatens job cuts as Wall Street eyes payday

Alex Findijs

Kroger headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio [Photo: Derek Jensen]

The proposed $25 billion merger of Kroger and Albertsons, two of the largest grocery store chains in the United States, threatens potentially thousands of jobs. The merger is still up for review by regulators and there are legal challenges against it, but should it be approved, it will be a boon for large investors and a bloodbath for workers. With a purchase of Albertsons, Kroger will take control of nearly 5,000 grocery store locations in 35 states around the country with more than 700,000 employees.

Kroger’s argument in favor of the merger is that it will improve efficiency and lower prices, as well as enable chains of traditional grocery stores to compete with the rapid rise of Amazon as a major player in grocery sales. Amazon is predicted to reach more than $40 billion in grocery sales by 2024.

But with an increase in “efficiency”—that is, profit margins—also comes an increase in redundancy. In many parts of the country, Kroger brands like King Soopers and Fry’s compete directly with Albertsons brands like Safeway and Vons.

Kroger and Albertsons have said they will sell off several hundred stores to abide by antitrust legislation. These stores will most likely be ones in overlapping areas where the two chains have competing stores. Albertsons did the same thing with 150 stores when it bought rival grocery chain Safeway, divesting those stores into a spin-off chain called Haggen. After less than a year, every one of those stores went bankrupt and closed down.

There are strong financial interests behind the sale of Albertsons that are driving the response to the proposed merger.

Roughly 70 percent of Albertsons stock is owned by the investment firm Cerberus Capital Management. With a portfolio worth $60 billion, Cerberus is one of the largest financial firms in the United States with ties to major banks and industries around the world. Cerberus is a notorious corporate raider. One of its better-known ventures is its purchase of an 80 percent share in Chrysler from Daimler in 2007, which it later sold to Fiat after the Obama administration’s bailout of the industry, which was tied to massive cuts to wages (Fiat-Chrysler later merged with French automaker Peugeot to form Stellantis in 2021).

Cerberus was co-founded by Steve Feinberg, a billionaire and close ally of Donald Trump whose financial support for the former president almost earned him a presidential appointment as a top intelligence official. Feinberg brought in Don Quayle, former vice president under George Bush Sr., as head of global operations, and John Snow, former secretary of the treasury under George Bush Jr., as chairman. This cast of former top government officials grants Cerberus close ties to top industry, finance and government sectors.

Snow is a particularly well-connected member of Cerberus’ board, having served in the federal government with then-Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who is the wife of Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and a member of Kroger’s board of directors. He also was CEO of the railroad CSX during the 1980s and 1990s, where he implemented a policy of deferring the maintenance of railroad tracks, increasing profits but causing the rail lines to fall into disrepair.

Cerberus has held a stake in Albertsons for 17 years and now controls 73 percent of Albertsons stock when it financed the purchase of Safeway with $9 billion. If Cerberus sells all of its shares in Albertsons, it would take nearly $19 billion from the sale.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulators are reviewing the proposed merger. However, they are not taking the typical measures of analyzing geography and competition to determine how the merger would affect local markets. Instead, the FTC is reportedly interviewing retailers and wholesalers for their views on the merger and are investigating data on product sourcing, shopper data and labor market trends in their decision-making on the merger. This somewhat unusual review suggests the FTC is more concerned with the broader economic impact of the merger than the general concerns over “competition.”

The union bureaucrats at both companies, meanwhile, are concerned solely with maintaining access to their incomes and privileges, regardless of how many jobs are slashed. The Teamsters bureaucracy has issued only few tersely worded statements, not even expressing pro forma opposition to the merger while advising both companies that “the only pathway to success for Kroger and Albertsons is through continued work with the Teamsters and organized labor.” The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has done little better, issuing only toothless statements opposing the merger.

Both bureaucracies have shown they are more than willing to give up one concession after another. In early 2022, the UFCW shut down a strike by King Soopers workers in Denver, Colorado, and rammed through a contract with wages only slightly above the city minimum wage. That April, the UFCW rammed through a deal to avert a strike at Albertsons in California which huge majorities had voted to authorize.

Darryl, an Albertsons warehouse worker in California, told the WSWS that when Safeway merged with Albertsons the company closed some warehouses and moved their work to the warehouse in Irvine. If the merger goes through, he predicted, “they’re [Kroger] not gonna absorb all of us because they don’t need all of us.

“There are gonna be job cuts. Especially the stores. They’re just gonna cull the stores, they’ll be gone.”

Darryl’s biggest concern was about automation in the warehouses. He noted that Albertsons and Kroger have been deploying machines that can fill warehouse orders. While they are still slower than a worker, he said that management didn’t care as long as it got the work done and was cheaper than human labor. “At the end of the day, if the merger never happens, Cerberus [owner of Albertsons] is going to sell no matter what. There will be way more jobs lost from this than the merger.”

Despite the threat to jobs, Darryl said the Teamsters had no plan to oppose job cuts or the merger. He said a union official simply asserted to him that there would be no job cuts. “He said, ‘That’s what everyone is telling me,’ but I don’t buy it. They just don’t want people to panic.

“[Teamsters President] Sean O’Brien said he’s against the merger but what does he have planned? He says he’s against it? That’s not good enough. You go down to your union hall and your union guys don’t care. I’ve been through six administrations and it’s all the same. Whatever union, whatever store, we got the same 50 cents. The union just said sign it and shut up. They [Albertsons] could close down the store now and the union wouldn’t do anything.”

Then-Teamsters president James Hoffa Jr. (center) with Sean O'Brien [Photo: Teamsters Local 25]

A significant role is being played by the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, an erstwhile “reform” caucus which played a key role in O’Brien’s election campaign for general president. O’Brien himself was known as a notorious thug and top ally of previous General President James Hoffa out of Boston, and was even briefly suspended a decade ago for threatening TDU candidates. But in exchange for their support, many TDU leaders now occupy top posts in the leadership of the union.

“O’Brien has also not spent any resources into stopping Kroger from buying Albertsons,” one Teamster said. “The merger will shut down Teamster warehouses and UFCW stores … but O’Brien hasn’t spent a penny. But TDU won’t publish anything in fear of being cut from the $30k they are receiving from the IBT per year to become their cheerleader.”

Economic devastation worsens as Sri Lankan government imposes IMF austerity

Saman Gunadasa

The disastrous situation facing the working class and toiling masses in Sri Lanka is worsening as the Wickremesinghe government continues to impose the austerity agenda of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Implementation of these measures is the pre-condition for a $US2.9 billion IMF bailout loan to pay the country’s defaulted debts to international finance capital.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, left, arrives at the parliament to deliver austerity policy speech in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. In the center is Sri Lankan parliament speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena. [AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena]

Addressing parliament on March 7, President Ranil Wickremesinghe boasted that the government had fulfilled all IMF preconditions and expected to receive the Executive Board’s approval for the loan in the third or fourth week of March. He warned that, unlike the 16 previous occasions Sri Lanka had implemented IMF programs, the government could not sidestep the IMF’s directives. It was a clear threat to the working class that the government is determined to crush all popular opposition to its social assault.

The government expects the IMF bailout loan to be delivered over a four-year period. State Finance Minister Shehan Semesinghe announced that the government expects to secure $7 billion from financial institutions and bilateral lenders following approval of the IMF loan. Sri Lanka’s sovereign debt default last April prevented the government negotiating bilateral, multilateral and commercial loans.

Wickremesinghe told parliament that the IMF’s conditions included Central Bank “independence,” public enterprises “reform,” increasing public revenue and “controlling” public expenditure.

His reference to Central Bank “independence,” means that the bank should work as a direct agency of the IMF and continue raising interest rates independently of the Colombo government.

On March 12, Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe warned that IMF austerity will be prolonged. “Sri Lanka was now transitioning to a new economic model, breaking away from the previous unsustainable model,” he said, adding: “However, this is not the end of the story. A lot of people think that things will be going back to normal. No, this is the start of a new journey.”

In line with the IMF conditions, the government has put exorbitant tax increases on working people while hiking the cost of electricity, fuel and cooking gas, and cutting subsidies, including for fertilisers. While pauperising working people, government is to offer a meagre “social safety net,” but only to the poorest of the poor.

Inflation is still over 50 percent as the Central Bank maintains high interest rates and allows the rupee to reflect market exchange rates. These measures have paved the way for a serious contraction of the economy, destroying jobs and the real value of workers’ wages. Imports of essentials, including pharmaceuticals have been curtailed, with foreign currency reserves used to pay foreign debts.

These measures have devastated the living conditions of workers and rural toilers.

A recent seminar organised by the US Soya Bean Export Council in Dubai reported that 59 percent of all families in Sri Lanka were unable to meet the required level of food due to the declining food production and inflation in 2022. Around 28 percent, or 6.3 million people, were facing a serious scarcity of food.

Last month, the Sri Lankan Medical Association warned that the country’s health sector is heading towards a “total breakdown,” because it lacked essential medicines and equipment.

Rural farmers confront disaster with the high cost of all inputs, including fertilisers and pesticides, and meagre prices—set by the government for the benefit of big business—for their produce.

Most small- and micro-businesses, including self-employed workers, have been swept away by rising interest rates, the scarcity of inputs and skyrocketing costs.

Early this month, the Sri Lanka United National Businesses Alliance warned that unless interest rates were reduced the country’s “consumer market will shrink by 60 percent by April.” In March, the Sri Lankan Central Bank, with IMF backing, raised the interest rates by 100 basis points.

According to one study, the incomes of working people must increase by 160 percent to maintain the level of consumption that prevailed in 2015. In other words, the living conditions of workers and their families have shrunk by 160 percent compared to 2015 levels.

According to recent figures, the overall economy shrank by close to 8 percent last year with this year’s contraction estimated to be 3 percent.

Interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks, the surging value of the US dollar, exorbitant import levies and other indirect taxes on essentials, have contributed to Sri Lanka’s economic contraction and ensured its spiraling inflation rates continue.

Contraction has seen a decline in demand for foreign currency and a recent marginal appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar. This was immediately seized on by the government as an indication of “economic recovery” and that its brutal austerity program was the “right path.”

Fitch Ratings, however, emphasised that the slight appreciation of the rupee was temporary. “The Sri Lankan rupee may also be pressured by tightening global monetary conditions,” Fitch said. It predicted that the currency would plummet by 20 percent by the end of the year.

Colombo plans even harsher social measures. These include cutting the public sector wage and pension bill, and the commercialisation and privatisation of state-owned enterprises. The government has already frozen public sector recruitment, reduced the retirement age, introduced voluntary retirement schemes, and permitted public sector workers to take extended unpaid leave to work abroad or in the private sector.

According to Cabinet Spokesman and Ministerof Media, Transport and Highways, Dr Bandula Gunawardena, Sri Lanka will have to pay $2.6 billion of its foreign debt to multilateral lenders in the first six months of 2023.

Wickremesinghe has said that Sri Lanka will have to repay an average of $6 to $7 billion in foreign loan debts annually until 2029. This makes clear that the harsh social attacks on the working masses are being imposed by a regime that functions as a direct agent of global finance capital.

The main opposition parties—Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)—demagogically criticise the government. Their denunciations are bogus and aimed at exploiting, and politically containing, the rising mass opposition.

Teachers demonstrate at Homagama on 15 March 2023 over government’s austerity measures. [Photo: WSWS]

Beginning late last year, the working class has come into struggle against government. On March 15, about half a million workers—public and private sectors from across the country—joined strikes and protests in opposition to the government’s austerity and in defiance of anti-strike essential service orders. This growing movement is part of a rising struggle of the international working class, as seen in France, the UK and the US.

While the trade unions have been forced to call strikes and protests, these are limited to one-day events. Like the opposition parliamentary parties, they have no fundamental differences with the IMF’s dictates and are attempting to chain workers to the electoral agenda of the opposition parliamentary parties.

The government, opposition parties and the trade unions all fear rising working-class anger could lead to the sort of movement that last year ousted Gotabhaya Rajapakse as president. Having drawn lessons from last year’s mass uprising against Rajapakse, Wickremesinghe is using the state apparatus—the police and military and draconian laws, including essential service orders—against demonstrations and strikes.

Some of the Sri Lankan army troops mobilised on 8 February 2023 near Colombo Fort protests. [Photo: Facebook Malainadu ]