EU interior ministers abandon the Geneva Refugee Convention

Martin Kreickenbaum

At their meeting in Luxembourg last week, EU interior ministers effectively abandoned the right of asylum for refugees. According to its member states, refugees are to be interned in detention camps at the EU’s external borders in the future, their asylum applications to be decided in a fast-track procedure and then deported to almost any third country.

The legal foundations for the Asylum Procedure Regulation and the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation negotiated in Luxembourg were drafted under the current Swedish Council Presidency but were essentially pushed forward by the German government.

On Twitter, German Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser (Social Democratic Party, SPD), described the agreement reached as a “historic success–for the European Union, for a new immigration policy based on solidarity and for the protection of human rights”. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Green Party), who worked intensively on the drafting of the legislation and now claims that “the status quo will improve for many refugees”, sounded the same note.

The opposite is the case. The agreements reached express the spirit of far-right and racist parties and further expand “Fortress Europe”. Swedish immigration minister Maria Malmer Stenergard is implementing almost word-for-word the anti-refugee demands of the far-right Sweden Democrats, on whose votes Ulf Kristersson’s minority government relies.

The German government has also adopted the demands of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), despite all the lofty words about human rights. Stirring up anti-refugee sentiments and employing “the boat is full” rhetoric, Berlin refers to empty budgets and overstretched cities and municipalities.

The hypocrisy of the German government in particular is breathtaking. Baerbock declared that the agreement was years overdue, that it prevented “conditions at the EU’s external borders like those in Moria”. The completely overcrowded Moria refugee camp on the Greek Aegean island of Lesbos, where refugees were held for months under appalling conditions, burnt down in 2020 and is a symbol of the European Union’s inhumane refugee policies.

In the future, there will be many Morias at the EU’s external borders. The new Asylum Procedures Regulation stipulates that EU member states must carry out asylum checks at the external borders.

Only refugees from countries with a recognition rate of at least 20 percent throughout the EU will be given the chance of lodging a claim under regular asylum procedures. For all others, there will be fast-track procedures that are to be completed within twelve weeks. During this time, refugees will be interned in detention camps. Even families with children will not be spared internment; only unaccompanied minors seeking protection are exempt.

The refugee organisation Pro Asyl rightly points out that this will massively extend the detention period of refugees at the EU external border, which could last up to four months. Moreover, there will be no fair asylum process. Since refugees in detention centres at the external borders are legally considered as “not having entered” the EU, standards that have applied so far no longer apply. In addition, access for refugee aid workers and lawyers in the detention camps will be severely restricted.

The EU wants to set up at least 30,000 detention places at the external borders, so that with a procedure lasting four months, up to 120,000 refugees per year could be turned away in a fast-track process. These people would then be threatened with up to 18 months’ detention pending deportation, so that they could be interned for up to two years simply because they fled wars, misery and hardship out of desperation.

Countries of origin with a recognition rate below 20 per cent already include Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, Bangladesh and others. And even refugees from Syria and Afghanistan are threatened with fast-track procedures, for example, if they arrive without a valid passport and are accused of deliberately throwing it away.

On the other hand, the Mediterranean states of Greece, Italy and Spain have had it written into their regulations that refugees who enter via so-called “safe third countries” will also be transferred onto the fast-track procedures. In the case of Greece, this applies to all refugees, as the Greek government has designated Turkey as a safe third country.

Since the deportation of rejected refugees does not seem effective enough to the European governments, the standards of protection will also be massively lowered. According to the EU interior ministers, agreements are to be concluded soon with third countries that undertake to take in refugees who are not welcome in the EU.

To this end, the definition of “safe third countries” will be expanded enormously. In future, it should also suffice for a deportation if only parts of a state are designated as safe. It will also include states that have not ratified the Geneva Refugee Convention.

The only condition for deportation to these third countries is that the refugees must have a “connection” to that state. What is so deceitful about this is that each EU member state conducting the asylum procedure can decide for itself which “connection” is considered sufficient. Even a transit on the escape route can be defined as a “connection”. This opens the door to arbitrary deportations from Greece to Turkey, from Spain to Morocco or from Italy to Tunisia.

The regulation on asylum and migration management also facilitates such arbitrary deportations. It is to the detriment of the refugees. The agreement reached is intended to replace the Dublin Regulation, which has failed in practice, and to tighten it massively.

According to the Dublin Regulation, the member state in which first entry occurred is responsible for conducting the asylum process and accommodation of refugees. However, the repatriation of asylum seekers to countries of first entry has regularly failed because they refused to take them back or the courts prohibited repatriations because the asylum seekers were threatened with inhumane living conditions in countries like Greece and Bulgaria. Unaccompanied minors are also excluded from the Dublin Regulation.

Therefore, there will now be compulsory readmission, repatriation will also be extended to minors and legal protections—i.e., the possibility to have a deportation reviewed in court—will be drastically restricted. This will also massively increase the pressure on the EU border states to get rid of refugees as quickly as possible, using any means.

The newly introduced “solidarity mechanism” leaves the possibility open for EU member states to buy their way out of taking in refugees. The interior ministers have cynically set the price per refugee at 20,000 euros. This sum can be offset against border security measures. The cost of Polish or German border police officers deployed for the EU refugee agency Frontex in Bulgaria can be claimed here, as can financial aid for the erection of walls and fences and payments to third countries that support the EU in warding off refugees.

Refugees who are to be distributed throughout the EU via the solidarity mechanism can also be offset against people who are to be returned to the country of first entry. In this way, instead of taking refugees from Greece, the German government can forego an equal number of transfers back to that country.

The Luxembourg interior ministers’ conference passed its resolutions with a qualified majority. Opposition came only from the right. Poland and Hungary voted against; Malta, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic abstained. Polish Interior Minister Bartosz Grodecki declared that his country would not abide by “absurd regulations”. The Czech government also made it clear after the meeting that it did not want to participate in the negotiated solidarity mechanism.

Nevertheless, the EU Commissioner for Migration and Asylum, Ylva Johansson, declared the agreement a “historic event”. In fact, it is historic only in the sense that the European Union is abandoning the Geneva Refugee Convention and significantly increasing the misery of refugees at the EU’s external borders and on the escape routes.

In future, there will be many Morias, with the difference being that the refugees will be forcibly interned in slum camps and even children will not be spared. The conditions in these camps can already be seen in the so-called “Closed Controlled Access Centres” on the Greek Aegean islands. With EU funds, the Greek government has built high-security prisons for refugees there, without access to adequate medical care or legal counselling.

The supply of food is often completely inadequate.

The deputy chairperson of Médecins Sans Frontières in Germany, Parnian Parvanta, said the decision of the EU interior ministers would have “catastrophic consequences for people in need of protection. Prison-like camps as on the Greek islands will become the standard on European soil.”

There will also be more brutal pushbacks, i.e., the forcible rejection of refugees without an asylum hearing. To escape the fast-track procedures in detention camps, refugees will be forced to undertake riskier and more expensive escape routes.

With the ink not yet dry on the decisions of the interior ministers, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was already putting them into practice. Together with the neofascist Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Premier Mark Rutte, she travelled to Tunisia on Sunday to pay her respects to President Kaïs Saïed.

The EU Parliament had recently reprimanded Saïed for his authoritarian style of government. He has ruled by presidential decrees since his coup in July 2021, and more than 20 politicians and journalists are in prison. Now the delegation offered him over a billion euros to block refugees from leaving the country and, if they make it anyway, to take them back and imprison them.

Brussels wants to transfer €100 million to him for sealing off the borders and repatriating migrants. €150 million is to flow to Tunis as budget support and another €900 million euros as a macroeconomic financial injection. Italy wants to add another €700 million if Tunisia reaches an agreement with the IMF.

Saïed, who provoked violent riots against refugees with a racist diatribe in February and fueled the wave of refugees—53,800 migrants coming from Tunisia have already been registered in Italy this year—is now being paid to take back and imprison people who fled his dictatorship and racism.

From Tunisia, von der Leyen, Meloni and Rutte travelled on to civil war-beset Libya to make a similar deal with Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who is accused of vote buying and money laundering and controls only part of the country.

NATO launches massive war game targeting Russia

Andre Damon

U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft fly in formation behind a KC-135 Stratotanker during Exercise Air Defender. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Lauren Kmiec)

On Monday, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched the largest airborne war game in the alliance’s history, with hundreds of aircraft fighting a simulated war with Russia.

As war in Ukraine is spilling over the borders of Russia, prompting evacuations of border towns amid daily shelling and drone strikes, the NATO war games are intended as a threatening provocation, involving the possibility that the training exercise could at any point turn into an armed clash between NATO and Russian forces.

The New York Times, referring to comments made by Douglas Barrie of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote that the games are aimed at “letting Mr. Putin know just what NATO is capable of launching against Russia, if needed.”

The two-week war game, known as Air Defender 2023, involves over 250 aircraft and 10,000 personnel. It is based in Germany and led by the Luftwaffe (German Air Force).

In the hypothetical scenario envisioned in the exercise, a Russian invasion of the German port of Rostock triggers NATO Article 5 and a full-scale war between NATO and Russia. The war game will involve the recapture of the port, followed by what the Wall Street Journal called “offensive operations.”

In its official statement, NATO said, “The exercise … is based on a collective defence scenario also known as Article 5 scenario in which Allies deploy their air forces to Germany to fight against hybrid occupation forces.” NATO wrote, “In coordinated combined operations, the Allied air forces demonstrate they are capable of defending NATO territory with swift decisive action.”

The massive exercise will involve the closure of airspace over Germany to civilian flights and sorties into the airspace of NATO members near the Russian border, including Lithuania, Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic.

NATO said in a statement that the missions will take place over the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and southern Germany. They will “include supporting ground troops and evacuation missions.”

While the exercise is officially led by Germany, the US Air Force dominated the first day of the event, flying approximately 100 National Guard and Navy aircraft to Germany for the drills.

The exercise includes participants from 24 NATO member states, as well as military observers from Japan. Finland, the newest member of NATO, will participate, as will Sweden, which is actively moving to join the alliance.

NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu made clear that the exercise was targeting not a hypothetical adversary, but Russia. “Air Defender sends a clear message that NATO is ready to defend every inch of Allied territory,” she said. “As we face the biggest security crisis in a generation, we stand united to keep our countries and our people safe.”

Major Adam Casey, an American A-10 attack aircraft pilot who participated in the exercise, told the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, “In the next conflict, where we may be called upon to defend NATO, it’s not going to get a practice round. As an A-10 pilot, I don’t want to be the first time I check in on station with a German JTAC [Air controller] to be when enemy tanks are crossing into NATO.”

Monday’s exercise involved massive formations of fighters, bombers and cargo planes flying at multiple altitudes.

Participants in the massive war game called it unprecedented. “I’ve never done anything quite like today,” Flt. Lt. Mark Jenkins of the British Royal Air Force told the New York Times. “Having so many other aircraft working together is really unusual.”

The massive war games come amid ever more aggressive calls for military escalation by the US and NATO powers in the war with Russia over Ukraine.

On Friday, the American Enterprise Institute published an op-ed by one of its senior fellows, Michael Rubin, advocating the deployment of US nuclear weapons to Ukraine. It is titled, “Can Biden Deter a Russia Nuclear Attack on Ukraine? Yes, If He Gives Ukraine Tactical Nukes.”

Rubin noted the series of escalatory steps already taken by the Biden administration, including the sending of the “HIMARS [long-range missile system], Abrams tanks and F-16 [fighter jets].”

Rubin hails and endorses terrorist attacks carried out by Ukrainian forces, even those that the US had previously strenuously denied Ukraine was responsible for. He writes:

The war is now at the tipping point. First, there was Ukraine’s destruction of the causeway linking Russian-occupied Crimea to Russia proper. Intelligence leaks suggest Ukraine might have been behind the attack on the Nord Stream-2 pipeline. Anti-Putin Russian insurgents later raided the Russian city of Belgorod from Ukraine, and Ukrainian Special Forces were likely responsible for the brazen drone attack on the Kremlin.

Calling on the White House to threaten to provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons “without any controls on where and how Ukraine might use them,” Rubin declared that the “United States maintains nuclear weapons because they are an effective deterrent against other nuclear states. Ukraine should have the same right.”

The open advocacy of the deployment of nuclear weapons to Ukraine comes amid a massive, years-long buildup of US nuclear forces.

On Monday, the Geneva-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) reported that the United States spent $43.7 billion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal last year, more than every country in the world combined.

The report noted that “Russia spent 22% of what the US did, at $9.6 billion, and China spent just over a quarter of the US total, at $11.7 billion.” The US spent $83,143 every single minute on nuclear weapons modernization last year, ICAN said.

The Mineral Rush

John Feffer

Entrepreneurs and adventurers have long traveled the world in search of gold. European empires looted Latin America for its silver and tin. Diamonds attracted the rapacious to Africa. Oil has built enormous empires of wealth in the Gulf states.

Today, an entirely different scramble for natural resources is taking place. These “critical raw materials” play an increasingly important role in the transition away from fossil fuels that virtually every country in the world is now prioritizing. Such minerals include the lithium that’s essential to the lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, the cobalt that’s part of the magnets used for wind turbines, and the rare earth elements that play a key role in solar panels.

South Korea is heavily dependent on these raw materials for its burgeoning electric car production, its semiconductors, its solar panels and wind turbines. In Pohang, once known primarily for its steel, the Korean government is building a “battery city” that will put South Korea at the very center of the clean energy transition. But to make these batteries—at least the current lithium-ion type—will require even greater inputs of lithium.

To date, South Korea has depended on China for 58 percent of its lithium (as well as 64 percent of its cobalt and 90 percent of its rare earth elements). But sourcing from China comes with a special complication. U.S. buyers of electric cars will only get a tax rebate if they buy cars made in the United States with components sourced domestically or from its allies with free trade agreements. Well, South Korea has a free trade agreement with the United States, so what’s the problem? A recent “guidance” from the Treasury Department that clarifies provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act requires the allied country to source at least 40 percent of the minerals for its batteries from outside non-U.S. allies like China (rising to 80 percent in 2027).

If Hyundai or Kia wants its U.S.-manufactured EVs to be competitive in the U.S. market, they will have to reduce their dependency on China for the lithium in the batteries. If the companies in Pohang want to sell their batteries to U.S.-made EVs, they too will have to find new sources for the mineral components.

That explains why the Korean government dispatched a delegation to Latin America last month, specifically Chile and Argentina where a large amount of lithium is mined. Until someone comes up with a commercially viable alternative to the lithium-ion battery—and there are several options on the horizon—every major country that wants their “clean energy” products to compete in the U.S. and global markets is lining up to get a cut of Latin American lithium.

The European Union is currently debating a critical raw materials act that tries to reduce mineral dependency on China. Like South Korea, the EU is boosting efforts at “urban mining,” which means extracting minerals from used batteries and the like. It is also trying to expand mining on its own territory. But it is also aggressively courting mineral-rich countries in the Global South.

The United States is attempting to do the same. It, too, is pouring billions of dollars into new battery production and new sourcing for mineral components. It has also restarted what had once been the largest rare earths mine in the world at Mountain Pass in a remote part of California and is exploring other new mines elsewhere in the country.

There are several major problems associated with this new rush to acquire critical raw materials. First of all, there’s just not enough to go around. The earth doesn’t contain enough lithium that we can access for all combustion vehicles to switch to battery-powered ones. Nor is there enough rare earth elements indium and neodymium to build all the solar panels and wind turbines that would be needed to replace oil and natural gas.

This relative scarcity is fueling the desperation in industrial countries. Whoever can secure the greatest access to these raw materials will be the country best poised to profit from the switch away from fossil fuels. It also means that Global South countries in theory hold the some very good cards in this global poker game. But these countries haven’t yet figured out a way to leverage those riches—safely, sustainably—to improve their position in the global economic pecking order (as South Korea has done).

A second problem is environmental. The mining of these minerals causes considerable damage to the environment. The mining and processing of lithium, for instance, draws heavily on water resources in dry areas like the “lithium triangle” where Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile all converge. Rare earth minerals contain radioactive materials that pose a risk to workers and surrounding communities.

A third problem is the neo-colonial nature of the relationship between northern manufacturers and southern suppliers of raw materials. In the colonial era, Japan basically plundered Korea for its rice and iron. Today, industrialized countries are trying to extract lithium and other critical raw materials at the lowest possible prices through concessions built into free trade deals that eliminate or lower tariffs. These trade agreements are also designed to make it more difficult for Global South countries to pursue industrial policies that could build strong next-generation industries to compete with those in the Global North. In other words, the Global North is kicking away the ladder that South Korea used to climb to prosperity.

What are the alternatives to this new hyper-market in critical raw materials?

One thing that South Korea is doing right is prioritizing the recycling of materials and investments in research into alternatives that don’t rely on expensive and rare minerals.

But South Korea and other countries in the Global North face a more basic problem. Rich countries—and the richest inhabitants of those countries—are consuming beyond the means of the planet. The “clean energy transition” is just a band-aid on the deeper problem of resource depletion and biodiversity loss. Richer countries have to learn not just how to use less oil, natural gas, and coal, they have to learn how to use less energy over all.

Climate change is an emergency. There is no question that the world must reduce carbon emissions as quickly as possible. But this decarbonization must be done equitably and with a minimum of additional planetary pollution. The latest mineral rush can indeed be an opportunity to redress historic wrongs and reexamine the economic growth model that got us into this emergency in the first place.

Boris Johnson resigns from parliament after being found to have lied about COVID pandemic parties

Chris Marsden

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resignation from parliament on June 9 is a milestone in the vicious factional warfare within a hated Conservative government.

The immediate cause of Johnson’s resignation was the conclusion reached by an investigation of the seven-MP parliamentary privileges committee into the holding of illegal social events in parliament, and, as the scandal developed, also at Johnson’s country residence, Chequers, during COVID lockdowns.

Boris Johnson leaves his house in London, Wednesday, March 22, 2023. Britain's former prime minister was questioned on Wednesday by a committee of lawmakers over whether he misled Parliament about rule-breaking parties in government buildings during the coronavirus pandemic. [AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali]

The committee, led by Labour’s Harriet Harman but with a majority of four Tory MPs, concluded that Johnson had made recklessly inaccurate statements and deliberately lied to MPs during the “Partygate” scandal, compounded by inaccurate claims made under oath when questioned by the committee. Deliberate contempt of parliament meant the committee would recommend more than the 10 days suspension required for a recall vote in Johnson’s marginal seat that could force a by-election.

Johnson was given advance access to the report through his lawyers Thursday. He was told separately that the government would not whip Tory MPs to vote down the committee’s recommended sanctions. Johnson had also assumed an agreement with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to nod through his resignation honours list, rewarding allies in the Partygate scandal and more than 40 of his closest aides.

The list included peerages elevating MPs Nadine Dorries, Alok Sharma and Nigel Adams to the House of Lords. But when Johnson saw the list on Friday, the three peerages and awards for Tory donors David Ross and Stuart Marks were not on it, adding to his personal bitterness. Dorries resigned her seat immediately prior to Johnson. Adams did so Saturday—leaving Sunak to fight three-by elections.

In his resignation statement, Johnson accused Sunak and his supporters of working with Labour and others to remove him in order to thwart Brexit, and of betraying Tory values. He described the privileges committee as a kangaroo court, “determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of parliament,” without “a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.”

“It was expected that the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish National Party [SNP] would do whatever they can to remove me from parliament,” he wrote, but “there are currently some Tory MPs” who wanted “to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result. My removal is the necessary first step, and I believe there has been a concerted attempt to bring it about.”

Sunak was not “making the most of Brexit”, including cutting “business and personal taxes” and was “passively” abandoning “the prospect of a free trade deal with the US”, forcing Johnson’s resignation “at least for now”.

Speculation within Tory circles is swinging towards the conclusion that this may be the high point of any revolt by Johnson loyalists, despite initial predictions of a half dozen other resignations. The Sunday Times wrote of the rebellion having “fizzled out”, as had happened with his earlier threatened revolt in March seeking to block Sunak’s Windsor framework agreement on Northern Ireland, which only mobilised 21 MPs.

Others predicted that Johnson had no stomach for a speedy fight to return to Westminster, not by standing for Dorries’ safe Mid-Bedfordshire seat or even at the next general election. The Guardian cited a close friend of Johnson saying, “He is making lots of money. He needs money. He likes money.”

But this will do nothing to resolve the crisis facing the government. As the WSWS explained on Johnson’s resignation as prime minister in July last year, “The British bourgeoisie is in the throes of a political crisis rooted in a global capitalist breakdown, a still raging pandemic, a worldwide inflationary spiral, trade war, the eruption of war and, above all, the resurgence of the class struggle” in Britain and internationally.

The aim of Tory central office, ever since the palace coup beginning with mass resignations by 58 MPs that succeeded in removing Johnson as prime minister, has been to distance the party from a deeply divisive figure that threatened their ability to wage war against the working class and against Russia in Ukraine.

Johnson became the first leader of a major imperialist country to fall from power during NATO’s war against Russia, because, as the WSWS explained, “despite his pledges to impose ‘Red Meat’ Thatcherite economic and social policies, and his insistence that he must not be removed at a time of war,” many Tory MPs and prominent figures within Washington “saw him as a liability, unable to deliver either.”

This immediately went badly wrong when the hardline Brexiteers within the party membership chose the walking disaster Liz Truss as his replacement, before she was driven from office and replaced by Sunak for trying to hand billions to the super-rich without first imposing the savage cuts demanded by global investors.

Johnson’s belated departure from parliament as he moves onto the lecture circuit and possibly into television only leaves behind a festering political sore as far as millions of workers are concerned.

No one believes that he was alone in imposing a murderous COVID policy that claimed more than 200,000 lives and left hundreds of thousands more bereaved or suffering long-term illness. Moreover, his initial downfall came as mass opposition in the working class to decades of austerity was precipitating a strike wave that has involved rail workers, postal workers, nurses, doctors, ambulance personnel, educators, local authority workers and civil servants and which was only deepened by Sunak’s attacks.

This developed under conditions where millions of workers internationally were also coming into struggle, including the protests in France against the Macron government’s pension reform that saw the largest mobilisation of the working class since the May-June general strike in 1968.

The most crucial factor in ensuring that there will be no return to political stability is the escalation in NATO’s undeclared war against Russia. The Sunak government is marching in lockstep with the Biden administration in preparing the way for a direct confrontation between NATO forces and Russia, for which Ukraine’s counter-offensive including direct attacks on Russian territory and in the Black Sea—is an anticipation.

Divisions within the ruling elite are inevitable under these conditions.

Johnson’s resignation came on the same day former US President Donald Trump was indicted for retaining top secret military documents for personal use, including high-level discussions on war. Sunday saw the arrest and subsequent release without charge—pending further investigation—of former SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Surgeon, amid an internal factional struggle centred on the party’s finances.

Such divisions are only the harbinger and an accelerant of the more fundamental conflict between the working class and capitalist regimes promoting austerity and war internationally.

The Tories have only been able to remain in office because the working class was systematically demobilised and prevented from intervening. Jeremy Corbyn used his leadership of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2019 to oppose any struggle against the party’s right-wing or against Tory governments led by David Cameron, Theresa May and then Johnson.

His successor Sir Keir Starmer’s belated tweet at 10.15pm Saturday, demanding Sunak “finally find a backbone” and “call an election”, is made by someone who has spent three years preparing Labour as a replacement party of austerity and war for the likelihood of a Tory defeat.

Behind the sharp rise in US resident physicians organizing into unions

Benjamin Mateus

There is a growing movement among resident physicians in the United States to fight against inadequate pay, under conditions of financial stresses caused by massive debts, as well as impossible, long hours of demanding work in under-resourced health care systems. 

While this takes initial expression in unionization efforts across numerous hospitals, resident physicians are quickly finding themselves confronting the reality of union bureaucracies beholden to the demands of a health care industry itself under the chokehold of the financial markets. A similar experience with the pro capitalist, burueacratized unions faces every other sector of the working class.

The tensions among physicians in training, who typically work 80 hours a week and earn as little as $15 or less per hour, have only been aggravated by the impact the COVID-19 pandemic on health care and the overall state of the global economy more generally, that has seen crushing levels of inflation.

Striking resident physicians at Elmhurst Medical Center in Queens, New York [Photo: WSWS]

The recent strike by 165 resident physicians at New York City’s Elmhurst Hospital Center in May was the city’s first strike by doctors since 1990, according to the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) local of the Service Employees International Union, their bargaining agent. The doctors in training who perform the brunt of the difficult work in evaluating and treating patients in every aspect of their care are employed by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

After only three days, their union abruptly ended the strike, announcing that a tentative agreement had been reached. This came on the heels of scheduled strikes being called off at two hospitals in Jamaica and Flushing in Queens. The deliberate intervention on the part of CIR to separate these disputes is part and parcel of the union bureaucracy’s modus operandi—divide and conquer.

The striking Elmhurst physicians, who were forced to return to their grueling work schedule, had no realistic chance to review the agreement before ratification. Clearly, the decision by the union to abruptly call off the strike was not dictated by the interests of the residents, but the needs of hospital management, which is totally reliant on residents to keep the hospital functioning

The strike demonstrated the role of CIR as a pro-management labor police force. The terms of the agreement fail to close the financial gap between residents’ pay and the high cost of living in New York City. In fact, none of the fundamental issues raised by residents were addressed. Meanwhile, the CIR isolated residents at Elmhurst from other disputes by resident physicians and even from other health care workers at the same facility. 

Meanwhile, on June 7, the CIR announced that just 30 miles away, across the Hudson River, 1,100 Rutgers resident physicians, who have been bargaining for a year, were to hold an informational picket at the University Hospital in Newark. As Dr. Elena Wickstrom, a Rutgers resident, noted, “We are passionate about doing whatever it takes to deliver great care to our patients—that’s why we became doctors. But no one should have to sacrifice this much—our well-being, delaying life goals—just to finish their medical training.”

And then on June 8, in Massachusetts, medical residents and fellows (physicians in training for subspecialties, which extends their training period from between three to seven years beyond the typical four-year residency) at multiple Massachusetts General Brigham (MGB) hospitals voted 1,215 to 412 to join CIR. Formal recognition is pending the certification of the results by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) next week.

Once certified, with more than 2,500 eligible members, the union created at MGB would become one of the largest of the kind in the country. Since 2021, amid the ongoing pandemic, membership in CIR-SEIU has nearly increased two-fold from 17,000 to 30,000. This figure includes members from such health systems as Stanford Health Care, the University of California systems, San Francisco Medical Center, Montefiore Medical Center in New York and Children’s National Medical Center in Washington D.C.

In response to the drive to unionize, there has been intense pushback from hospital leadership. In a statement issued to the press by Dr. Paul Anderson, interim chief academic officer at MGB, he wrote, “As an organization dedicated to training the next generation of caregivers, we are proud of the education that we provide to our residents and fellows, and we recognize the vital importance of the unique partnership between faculty and trainees in our institution. While we are disappointed with the outcome, this election is part of a continuing national trend among medical trainees seeking collective bargaining through union representation.”

Indeed, residents play a critical part in health delivery, a fact not overlooked by the health systems who are utterly reliant on them to provide the brunt of hospital-based health care to patients. In an important report last year, titled, “How much are resident physicians worth?,” the author highlighted the withdrawal of accreditation of the University of New Mexico’s (UNM) neurosurgery program in August 2019.

As a result of the loss of accreditation, eight neurosurgery residents at the facility had to leave and seek other accredited training programs. To fill in for the residents, UNM had to hire 23 advanced practice providers to replace them, a ratio of one resident for three advanced practitioners. Given these new staff were paid $115,000 per year, twice the salary of the residents, it meant the cost to the hospital to treat patients rose six-fold. And this doesn’t take into account that neurosurgery specialists now have to perform more of the tasks usually assigned to residents, taking away from their attending to patients in the operating room, where they can be more productive in terms of the overall functioning of the health system.

As the report notes, “Having residents doesn’t just increase attending billing —it also increases the hospital’s ability to bill for its services. A financially happy hospital is one where the ICUs are full, there’s rapid bed turnover in the ED and on the wards, and the lab and radiology departments are abuzz with the latest diagnostics. Residents are invaluable in keeping up that pace. Moreover, having residents allows a hospital to care for higher-acuity patients. It’s difficult to provide, say, high-level oncology or cardiovascular care without having residents and fellows to share the intense clinical workload.”

Besides the massive workload burden they carry, resident physicians face significant financial debts that further contribute to the high levels of burn-out that have been registered by numerous surveys.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), a graduating medical student in 2021 faces a median debt of $200,000, which does not include what they might owe from their undergraduate degrees. The average in-state tuition for medical school at a public institution is nearly $39,000 per year. This only includes tuition, fees and health insurance. For those attending private institutions, this increases to over $61,000. In both these figures rent, food, transportation and cost of living are not included.

In a survey by the AAMC, 14 percent said their debt was over $300,000. When they attend residency, earning minimum wage, these debts are deferred. Although graduating physicians can expect a considerable wage increase when they begin practicing, they face crushing debt, and they will also most likely join a health system as an employee because of the astronomical costs of forming a private practice and hiring staff and property to build a clinic.

Since the pandemic, there has been an acceleration nationwide of health system acquisition of physician practices. According to a study conducted by the physicians Advocacy Institute, since 2019, 108,700 additional physicians became employees of hospitals or other corporate entities, of which 83,000 occurred after the onset of the pandemic. This accounts for a near 20 percent increase over a three-year period.

Meanwhile, hospital and corporate entities acquired 36,200 additional physician practices, resulting in a 38 percent increase in the same period. In all, 74 percent of all physicians (484,100) are now employed by a health system or corporate entity, representing a 13 to 24 percent increase. The implication here is that with the ownership of the productive capacity of physicians by giant health conglomerates, the exploitation of medical school graduates will increase and extend beyond their residency years.

The proletarianization of physicians employed by health systems as wage laborers is bringing this previously relatively privileged social layer into the class struggle. With the soaring costs of health care and declining rate of profits, the need by Wall Street to extract ever greater amounts of surplus value impacts every aspect of the class struggle. This includes social layers that in the past may not have considered themselves part of the working class.

For the ruling elites, the additional profits squeezed from residents are just new subheadings in their account ledgers. For training physicians, workers at health systems and patients that access them, these are a matter of life and death. 

Physicians have far more in common with every other worker in the health care sector and other sections of industry compared with the financial parasites that exploit them. Like other sections of workers, physicians face conditions of intensified exploitation policed by union bureaucrats beholden to the demands of finance capital. 

In a rationally functioning society workers would not be classified in a socially stratified ranking that pits each against the other. Under capitalism health care is provided or withheld based on the profit motive, and not determined by societal needs or as a social right. The disastrous short-term and longer-term social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was not inevitable, but took place because of the subordination of public health, like every other aspect of economic and social life, to the profit interests of big business.

Trudeau visits Kiev to bolster US-NATO war on Russia

Roger Jordan

In a surprise visit to Kiev on Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed another C$500 million in military assistance to the far-right Ukrainian regime, and pledged Ottawa would continue supplying weapons and funds to Kiev to wage war on Russia for “as long as it takes.” Coming as the major imperialist powers are carrying out a dramatic escalation of the US-NATO war with Russia, Trudeau’s visit also saw Ottawa advocate for Ukraine’s membership in NATO, which would result in a direct military clash between nuclear-armed powers.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greeted by Ukrainian President Zelensky in Kiev, June 10, 2023 [Photo: Government of Ukraine]

Trudeau was accompanied on his trip by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, a bellicose Ukrainian nationalist whose grandfather served as the editor of the only Ukrainian-language newspaper permitted in Nazi-occupied Europe. The pair held private talks with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, before Trudeau unveiled the new military support package at a joint press conference with Zelensky. Although the Prime Minister refused to specify how the funds would be spent, his remarks made clear that the military aid will contribute to the major escalation of NATO’s participation in the conflict that is already under way.

Canada committed to extending Operation Unifier, the training program for the Ukrainian army launched in 2015, until 2026. Canada will now train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, which are one of the main types of combat aircraft that NATO members are planning to provide Kiev. According to a press release by the far-right Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the aid package also includes additional supplies of 105mm ammunition, air-to-surface missiles, and a tank maintenance centre in Poland.

Trudeau used his press conference with Zelensky to make provocative denunciations of Russia. This included accusing Moscow, without providing a shred of evidence, of being responsible for the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, and vowing it “will be held accountable.” The implications of Trudeau’s statement are that Russia, by deliberately destroying civilian infrastructure, is guilty of war crimes—the very type of claim that the NATO powers, Canada included, have used to justify directly intervening in conflicts (as in the 1999 NATO war against Yugoslavia).

Trudeau also boasted that Ottawa has already provided Kiev over $8 billion in aid, including well over $1 billion in military assistance, since Russia’s reactionary, US-NATO provoked Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine. This vast support for waging imperialist war against Russia has been implemented by a minority Liberal government with close ties to the trade unions, which have suppressed all working-class opposition to Trudeau’s pro-war, pro-austerity agenda. At the unions’ behest, the social-democrats of the NDP have provided Trudeau’s Liberals with their parliamentary majority since 2019. In March 2022, just one month after the war began, the NDP entered into a formal governmental alliance with the Liberals, guaranteeing to sustain the Trudeau government in office through June 2025.

Zelensky’s declaration at his joint press conference with Trudeau that Ukraine’s long-promised counter-offensive has begun underscores that the war in Ukraine is entering a new, even more explosive stage. Leading officials from the United States and other imperialist powers have repeatedly declared their commitment to the military defeat of Russia, while their governments significantly expand military activity throughout Europe. The latest high-point of this huge mobilization is the Air Defender 2023 exercise, a 12-day operation involving hundreds of fighter jets over German, Dutch, and Czech air space and thousands of soldiers on the ground. Participants have been given explicit instructions to “train as you fight,” increasing the likelihood that Russia will interpret activity near its borders as preparations for an all-out attack.

Having staked everything on Ukraine’s counter-offensive producing a significant shift in the course of the war, the imperialist powers, including Canada, are being compelled by the logic of the conflict to expand their involvement. Both in his statements while in Ukraine and in a thirteen point “joint declaration” with Zelensky, Trudeau reiterated Canada’s support for Ukraine’ accession to NATO membership, which is expected to be significantly advanced by the NATO summit to be held in Vilnius next month.

The consequences of the war’s intensification and expansion were explained in a recent World Socialist Web Site Perspective, which noted, “The US-NATO war against Russia is evolving rapidly into a protracted struggle that is increasingly violent, bloody and global in character. The conflict has entered into the gravitational field of total war—that is, a war of unlimited destruction, complete disregard for life, and to which all social needs of the mass of the people are subordinated. Its corollary is the direct assault on the working class in all countries and the obliteration of democratic rights.”

Western propaganda claims that this is “Putin’s unprovoked war” and that Washington, Ottawa, London, Paris and Berlin are acting to save Ukrainian “democracy.” In reality, the Ukraine war was long prepared and instigated by the imperialist powers through their drive to strategically encircle Russia, harness Ukraine to NATO, and reorganize and rearm Ukraine’s military. Their aim—as Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly blurted out last March—is to secure “regime change” in Moscow, reduce Russia to a semi-colony, and plunder its vast natural resources.

The predatory aims of the imperialists correspond with the vicious anti-democratic forces they have cultivated to spearhead the war, above all the political descendants of Stepan Bandera’s fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), whose militia have been integrated into Ukraine’s security forces. The OUN participated in the Nazi war of annihilation against the Soviet Union and was complicit in the Holocaust. Canadian imperialism plays a special role in this process, having developed over the past three-quarters of a century a close alliance with far-right nationalists from eastern Europe who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and were subsequently given refuge in Canada. Freeland’s prominence in the government and in Trudeau’s Kiev visit underlines that this alliance is more important than ever. With state-support, the far-right UCC is mounting a concerted campaign to censor and smear all opposition to the war. At his joint press conference with Trudeau, Zelensky acknowledged Ottawa’s outsized role in the war, declaring that Ukraine needs “more friends like Canada.”

Canada’s latest round of military assistance was announced less than two weeks after Ukraine’s Defence Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, delivered a long list of requests for weapons in a video statement to the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries, Canada’s top arms manufacturers’ body. Noting the unusual character of the address, the CBC reported that Reznikov had “bypassed the [Canadian] government” to speak directly to the assembled executives. In reality, he was given the opportunity to do so by the Trudeau government, whose Defence Minister Anita Anand delivered the opening address but was conveniently absent when Reznikov spoke.

Urging Canada to commit to “long-term support,” Reznikov said, “Ukraine has given a list of their Canadian products and technologies it needs to the Canadian government.” He emphasized that Kiev is closely following the Liberal government’s defence policy review, which has been under way for more than a year. “We expect,” said Reznikov, “that [a] substantial volume of technical assistance to Ukraine will be provided within the framework of the defence policy review. Ukraine’s Defence Minister went on to claim that the review will be “released in July,” although the Trudeau government has yet to inform the Canadian public of this.

Even as the union-backed Trudeau government positions Canada in the front rank of the imperialist powers responsible for the escalation of the war with Russia, Ottawa is strengthening its involvement in US-led preparations for war with China. Late last year, the Liberal government released Canada’s “Indo-Pacific” strategy. Drafted in close consultation with the White House, it is based on the Pentagon’s concept that the struggle against China requires military preparations across a vast geostrategic arena, including the entire Indian Ocean and Asian Pacific. The strategy calls for Canada to systematically expand its military and economic efforts in the region to confront Beijing, with which leading US military experts are publicly declaring American imperialism could be at war by as early as 2025. Last week, a serious incident was only narrowly avoided after Washington and Ottawa provocatively sailed a US destroyer and Canadian frigate through the Taiwan Strait, which separates mainland China from Taiwan. Beijing responded by sailing a warship across the path of the two military vessels.

Sections of the ruling elite dissatisfied with the Trudeau government’s alleged failure to adopt a sufficiently hardline course towards China have made increasingly strident demands for Canada to go even further, including by seeking admission to the anti-China AUKUS military pact involving Australia, Britain, and the US. Over recent months, the main mechanism for this campaign has been the furor whipped up over lurid allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections, based on illegal, anonymous leaks from senior sources within the intelligence agencies. These leaks, which have been presented by the corporate media as virtually akin to the gospel truth, have served not only to whip up animosity against China; but also to destabilize the Trudeau government, with a view to driving establishment politics sharply further right, with claims it has failed in its duty to “defend Canada.”   

Late last month former Governor General David Johnston, who was appointed by the Trudeau government to investigate the interference claims, released an interim report that said much of the information cited in the intelligence agency-fed media reports was either one-sided, unsubstantiated or misinterpreted. He also opposed the opposition parties’ and corporate media’s clamour for a public inquiry.

This provoked an outcry. On Friday, Johnston resigned as the government’s Special Rapporteur on Chinese interference after a sustained campaign of vilification led by the official opposition Conservatives and their far-right leader Pierre Poilievre, and supported by the Bloc Québécois and the NDP.

Volkswagen plans a radical program of cuts aimed at boosting profits

Ludwig Weller

The Wolfsburg-based Volkswagen Group, which, in addition to VW, also includes the brands Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Seat and others, is planning a huge restructuring of its production. According to VW managers and their major shareholders, the core brand VW, which accounts for about half of total sales, does not generate enough profit.

VW plant in Kassel [Photo: BiCYCLE / CC-BY-SA 3.0]

In order to change this situation, the group is planning a so-called “Performance Programme.” The gimmicky new name conceals a large-scale programme of cuts, with the goal, declared by VW CEO Thomas Schäfer, of initially increasing the return on investment from 3 percent to at least 6.5 percent.

To do so “we have to create good, competitive returns even in times of crisis and in a world that is volatile in the long run,' Schäfer added. He is referring to the profit margins of 10 to 15 percent, which are being currently achieved by car manufacturers in the premium segment, i.e. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Tesla, as well as the company’s own brands Audi and Porsche.

Such high profit rates can only be realised by drastically tightening exploitation in the VW plants. A high-ranking company representative candidly stated that savings of about one billion euros were necessary for every percentage point of additional profit. No information has been yet released about how many thousands of jobs are to be terminated, which types of production will be relocated and the extent to which wages and social benefits are to be slashed.

What is certain, however, is that the VW board has long been in intensive talks with the IG Metall trade union and its works councils on how to enforce this programme of cuts against the workforce.

Worldwide predatory competition at the expense of workers

With an annual turnover of over 250 billion euros, Volkswagen is one of the world’s largest car companies. Only Toyota has sold more cars in the last two to three years. Despite the coronavirus crisis, supply chain problems and chip shortages, VW has made billions in profits in the last three years.

No carmaker employs as many workers worldwide as the VW Group. It boasts it “operates 120 production sites in 19 countries in Europe and in 10 countries in America, Asia and Africa. 662,575 employees around the globe produce vehicles, are involved in vehicle-related services or work in other business areas. The Volkswagen Group offers its vehicles in 153 countries.”

However, the switch from internal combustion to electric cars has intensified the merciless competition between the big auto companies for the cheapest labour costs, sales markets and secure supply chains. This is all being fought on the backs of workers in all countries and locations, who have to work more and earn less, while hundreds of thousands lose their jobs.

In this transition, the competitors, above all Tesla and the Chinese manufacturers of e-cars, are far ahead of Volkswagen. The business paper Wirtschaftswoche recently wrote: 'It is Chinese suppliers who can build e-cars at unrivalled prices because they control the entire value chain from battery raw materials to car sales. And it’s new players like Tesla that are cornering the traditional Wolfsburg company with their minimal overhead costs and revolutionary low-cost production methods.”

Since the 1980s, Volkswagen and its core brand VW have been the market leader in China. But sales of internal combustion vehicles are now falling dramatically, and instead there is a rapidly increasing demand for electric cars. VW is currently far behind in this realignment of the auto market. In contrast, the Chinese producer BYD, which already manufactures exclusively electric vehicles, was able to expand its market share to 11 percent in the first quarter and take the lead ahead of Volkswagen and Toyota. It was able to increase its sales figures by 69 percent compared to the previous year.

Other Chinese manufacturers such as Nio, Geely and Great Wall also sell far more e-cars than Volkswagen. There is not a single German or European model among the top ten best-selling e-cars. Only Tesla is represented and is trying to capture market share with drastic price cuts. Meanwhile, car analysts say that the Chinese car market is in “turmoil,” while others speak of a “turning point.”

Wirtschaftswoche cites an example against which VW must be measured: “The ultra-modern Seal mid-size sedan from BYD costs the equivalent of around 25,000 euros in China. Volkswagen’s ID.4 mid-size SUV costs at least 45,000 euros in Germany with similar equipment to the BYD Seal.” These figures alone give an idea of the scale of cost savings the VW board has in mind and what it means by being “truly crisis-proof.”

War over raw materials

A central role in the conversion to e-mobility is played by the raw materials required for it. Large quantities of lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite as well as some rare earths and other “critical minerals” are needed to produce batteries for electric cars. The fact that China largely controls this market and also processes these raw materials is increasingly driving Western car companies and their governments into conflict with China.

Russia and Ukraine also have large quantities of these strategic raw materials. For example, about a third of Europe’s explored lithium deposits, 500,000 tonnes in total, are in Ukraine, most of it in the fiercely contested Donbas region. Russia plays a particularly important role in the production of high-grade nickel, demand for which is expected to increase 19-fold over the next two decades, as well as platinum group metals, especially palladium.

This is one of the main reasons for the Ukraine war. From the beginning, NATO’s eastward expansion was aimed at bringing Ukraine under the influence of Western powers and at subjugating and crushing Russia in order to gain control over its natural resources. NATO’s constant escalation of the war leaves no doubt about this.

The strategists in the Pentagon are also preparing a war against China, which they see as a threat to the economic and political domination of the US. Corresponding political and military provocations take place every week. In March of this year, a memo of a high-ranking US general was revealed, which forecast that the US will be at war with China by 2025 at the latest.

European and especially German imperialism also increasingly see China as an economic threat and are becoming more hostile. The race to find alternative supply chains for critical raw materials, independent of China, is also bringing EU states into conflict with the US, which sees its dominance threatened.

With Tesla setting the benchmark for the development of high-priced electric cars and China and South Korea leading the world in the development and production of battery cells, VW is trying to catch up.

Similar to Tesla, which had its giga-factories built in record time, VW is already building gigantic battery-cell factories at three locations under the name PowerCo since July 2022. One in Germany, “Salzgiga” in Salzgitter, one in Spain, in Valencia, and one in North America. Five more are to follow together with partners in Europe. The first of these will go into operation in Sweden as early as this year.

VW’s largest battery factory to date, however, is to be built in St. Thomas, Ontario, in Canada by 2027. VW board member Thomas Schmall said North America plays a key role in Volkswagen’s global battery strategy. The region will become the second pillar of the internal battery division alongside Europe. The site’s proximity to Toronto and Detroit gives the company access to research facilities, a skilled workforce and established supply chains.

Executive and works council united against the workforce

The board, shareholders, IG Metall and the works council are working closely together on the restructuring of the company and the associated attacks on the workforce. They coordinate every move to suppress resistance and divide the workforce by country and location, between permanent and temporary workers, etc.

When the previous VW boss Herbert Diess was replaced by the former Porsche boss Oliver Blume in September 2022, this move was linked to the decision for a comprehensive strategic restructuring of the company.

This initially began with a brute restructuring at Audi. It was decided to cut annual factory costs by half by 2033. IG Metall and the Audi works council agreed to cut 9,500 jobs by 2025. The development of proprietary software for all future vehicle models was also given top priority. The software is considered the largest value-added component in the e-cars of the future.

But there was a second reason for the change of leadership from Diess to Blume, which, as is well known, was basically organised by IG Metall and the VW general works council chairperson Daniela Cavallo.

Diess had neglected the “trusting” cooperation with the powerful IGM works councils. The latter saw themselves increasingly ignored and their role as company police endangered. For example, the works councils had taken offence at the fact that scenarios commissioned by Diess about the loss of 30,000 jobs had been leaked to the public unredacted and had caused an uproar among the workforce.

Blume, on the other hand, is highly praised by the works councils because he closely involves them in his planning. Blume has made a good start as head of the company and enjoys “the fullest support” of the works council with his team, says Cavallo. They work together “in a spirit of trust and at eye level.” We have already shown in an earlier article what this “trusting cooperation” means.

In no other German company is the cooperation between management and trade union as sophisticated as at Volkswagen. IG Metall and the works council, with an army of full-time functionaries, ensure that the group's decisions are implemented smoothly and that there is no resistance to them.

At the Wolfsburg plant alone, there are 75 full-time works councilors paid by the company, 66 of whom belong to IG Metall. They are assisted by 2,500 shop stewards who, in the words of Business Insider, have “eyes and ears in every corner of the factory town.” In addition, the Wolfsburg works council has its own 70-strong administrative apparatus.

The role of the IGM and the works council is not limited to implementing the group’s decisions. They help to develop such decisions themselves. They sit on the supervisory board with equal representation and work closely with the major shareholders, the Porsche and Piëch family clans, whose assets go back to the Nazis. The SPD-led state government of Lower Saxony, which is close to the IGM, has a legally enshrined blocking minority. In addition, the Emirate of Qatar holds a 17 per cent stake.

The deputy chairman of the supervisory board is IGM chairman Jörg Hofmann. Together with Daniela Cavallo, chairperson of the general works council, he sits on the executive committee, where all important decisions are discussed.

According to press reports, internal working groups are currently meeting to develop concrete measures. Volkswagen then plans to present results to investors and analysts at its Capital Markets Day on June 21. As an example, VW CEO Schäfer mentions a changed production method in the plants. According to the board, this would save billions in the coming years.

There have been many austerity programmes at VW in the past, all implemented with the help of IG Metall and its works council leaders, but what the workforce of Volkswagen and its subsidiaries now faces assumes a completely new dimension.

The above-mentioned cuts and profit targets can only be achieved with unprecedented attacks. Cutting around 30,000 jobs at VW, halving production costs at Audi, closing down the Spanish brand Seat—all these proposals are on the table and are now being tackled by Blume in close cooperation with the works council and trade unions.