Rolling Back the Empire: Washington’s Proxy-Army Faces Decisive Defeat in Aleppo

Mike Whitney

Syrian Army helicopters dropped leaflets on parts of eastern Aleppo on Sunday warning anti-government fighters to surrender while they still had the chance. Hundreds of jihadists have already laid down their weapons and surrendered while a hardline corps of deadenders continue to fend off the  rapidly advancing army.

The situation is looking increasingly hopeless for the ragtag group of insurgents that have lost  more than half the territory they held in just the last week. Every attempt they’ve made to break through Syrian Army lines has been repelled leaving them to defend a few shrinking districts where they will either surrender or die.

On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered an ultimatum to the remaining militants that clarified the position of the Syrian government and its allies. he said:

“Those groups which refuse to leave eastern Aleppo will be treated as terrorists.  By refusing to walk out from eastern Aleppo they will in fact go ahead with armed struggle. We will treat them accordingly, as terrorists and extremists, and support the Syrian army in its operation against such armed gangs.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry has made every effort to stop the fighting to protect US-backed jihadists that are trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Unfortunately, a proposal that was accepted by both Kerry and Lavrov concerning the withdrawal of fighters in Aleppo, was rejected by higher-ups in the Obama Administration ending the prospects for a negotiated settlement. Lavrov expressed his frustration in comments to the media where he said:

“They have withdrawn their document and have a new one. Our initial impression is that this new document backtracks, and is an attempt to buy time for the militants, allow them to catch their breath and resupply. The same thing happened with our agreement of September 9. It’s difficult to understand who makes decisions there, but apparently there are plenty of those who want to undermine the authority and practical steps by John Kerry.”

According to Reuters, “the Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one.” Meanwhile,  “Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a week-long ceasefire.” Simply put, this is the end of the line for the US-backed terrorists that have laid to waste much of the battered country and killed more than 400,000 people. And while Aleppo may not be the decisive turning point in the ongoing conflict, it does put all of the main population centers and industrial hubs back under regime control.

More important, the recapturing of Aleppo is a major setback for Washington and its jihadist-breeding allies. (US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar) US plans for redrawing the map of the Middle East to meet its economic and geopolitical objectives has been defeated by a courageous and determined coalition (Syria, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah) that has methodically routed or exterminated the foreign-backed opposition and reestablished both state security and the sovereign authority of the elected government to control its own affairs.

On Tuesday morning, AMN News reported that the Syrian Army had captured 85 percent of East Aleppo. Dozens of insurgents have been killed in sporadic fighting while hundreds more have surrendered.  It appears that the battle of Aleppo is about to end and the Syrian Army is on the “verge of total victory.”

UK parliament passes Labour motion calling for government to publish “Brexit plan”

Robert Stevens

Westminster MPs voted 461 to 89 in favour of an amended opposition Labour Party motion Wednesday, calling on the Conservative government to publish its plans for leaving the European Union (EU) before beginning formal negotiations over the UK’s exit.

Voting against the motion were 23 Labour MPs, 5 Liberal Democrats, 51 from the Scottish National Party, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas and one Tory, Ken Clarke. Tory whips said that 56 Labour MPs abstained. Their opposition represents the most hard-line stand against leaving the EU.

The motion was signed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer, deputy leader Tom Watson and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry. It demanded the prime minister “commit to publishing the Government’s plan for leaving the EU before Article 50 is invoked,” while stating there “should be no disclosure of material that could be reasonably judged to damage the UK in any negotiations to depart from the European Union after Article 50 has been triggered.”

Prime Minister Theresa May originally opposed the motion but was forced to accept it as between 20 and 40 pro-EU Tory rebels were pledged to back Labour—threatened a deepening crisis and possible fall of her government.

May and senior cabinet ministers added their own amendment to Labour’s motion as a condition for supporting it. This stated that Labour and other opposition parties accept that Article 50 should be invoked by the end of March, that the result of the referendum should be accepted, and that the publication of the plan should not undermine the government’s stance in the negotiations.

The crisis in ruling circles over Europe being debated in Parliament was amplified by the fact that the Supreme Court, located directly opposite the House of Commons, was meeting for the third of a four-day hearing on whether May can trigger Article 50 without allowing a vote in Parliament. This followed a High Court ruling last month, appealed by the government to the Supreme Court, which ruled that only Parliament could trigger Article 50.

In his speech, Starmer called for an end to the “uncertainty… on issues such as the single market, paying for access to the single market, the customs union and transitional arrangements…”

This was in reference to recent comments by Tory Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who both stated that the government may consider paying the EU to maintain access to the Single Market. Johnson later backtracked, stating it was “pure speculation”, before contradicting himself yet again saying that any payments had to be “sensible... I see no reason why those payments should be large.”

Starmer stated that the government’s published plan had to “have enough detail to allow the relevant parliamentary bodies and Committees, including the Exiting the European Union Committee… to scrutinise the plan effectively...”

The parliamentary debate had an element of unreality, a sparring match prior to the main event. The majority of pro-EU MPs are keen, at this juncture, not to be seen to be openly challenging the June 23 vote to leave the EU. But the conflict in ruling circles is set to erupt in more open forms, as it did after the High Court verdict, when the Supreme Court hands down its verdict in January.

Virtually every MP who supported Britain remaining in the EU stated that they did not want to block Article 50 outright, only wanting Parliament to have its say. However, Starmer clarified that the debate would not be the last word as MPs backing the Labour motion “are not voting to trigger article 50 or to give authority to the Prime Minister to do so. It is most certainly not a vote for article 50. Unless the Supreme Court overrules the High Court, only legislation can do that. Nor does today’s motion preclude Labour or any other party tabling amendments to the article 50 legislation and having them voted on.”

The pro-Brexit wing support leaving the EU based on British corporations being able to better exploit vast global markets, including India, China and the Middle East. They insist on ramping up the exploitation of the working class in order to “compete internationally.” The pro-EU wing are concerned that this will be economically disastrous. The price to be paid is losing access to the EU’s single market for UK banks and corporations.

Many Labour MPs accepted the Tory amendment only after stating that the referendum vote did not give a “mandate for a hard Brexit”—one including loss of access to the Single Market and Customs Union membership.

Labour MPs who joined those refusing to support the Labour motion stated that it empowered the Tories—if the Supreme Court backs their legal challenge—to trigger Article 50 by the end of March. Heidi Alexander spoke against the government amendment and motion for including “an arbitrary timetable set by the Government to placate their own Back Benchers.” She insisted, “Tariff-free trade with the EU has to be the priority” and declared her support “for a second referendum on the terms of leaving the EU.”

SNP Europe spokesman Steven Gethins said that Labour “risk backing a Tory amendment that will see the UK put through a hard right Tory plan to take us out of the EU that will damage jobs, livelihoods, businesses and the economy.”

Lib Dems leader Tim Farron said his party would not support the motion as it fails “to include any meaningful commitment from the Conservative Brexit government… on such fundamental questions as to whether it wants Britain to remain in the Single Market.”

The government’s crisis was summed up prior to the debate by May, who was forced to comment on discussion on a “black Brexit” in which the government left article 50 talks without a future deal with the EU, a “white Brexit” within the UK seeking to remain in the single market and a “grey Brexit” involving leaving the single market with access to parts of the single market.

May offered an inane response, stating, “I’m interested in all these terms that have been identified—hard Brexit, soft Brexit, black Brexit, white Brexit, grey Brexit and actually what we should be looking for is a red, white and blue Brexit.”

The pro and anti-EU wings of the ruling elite are equally reactionary. Both put forward a nationalist, anti-working class agenda and are equally supportive of cuts in immigration and restrictions on the freedom of movement.

In his speech, former Labour leader Ed Miliband said he opposed comments made by May’s spokesman on Monday that those calling for the government’s plans to be scrutinised were not “backing the UK team.” Miliband replied, “We are not seeking proper scrutiny of the plans for Brexit because of our lack of patriotism; we are doing it out of patriotism, because we believe in the unity of the country.”

Labour MP Andy Burnham declared that “many lifelong Labour voters” voted [in the referendum] “for change on immigration.” He added, “I am clear about that, and it has to be our starting point in this debate. The status quo—full free movement—was defeated at the ballot box, so it is not an option. What is to be debated is the precise nature of the changes that replace it, so that we get the balance right between responding properly to the public’s legitimate concerns and minimising the impact on our economy.”

Italian Prime Minister Renzi officially resigns

Marianne Arens

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi officially resigned his position Wednesday evening, but will remain in office until a new government is formed.

Renzi handed in his resignation on Monday after suffering a decisive loss in Sunday’s referendum on constitutional reform. President Sergio Mattarella “froze” the resignation until the second chamber of parliament, the Senate, approved the 2017 budget. This took place on Wednesday evening.

Beginning today at 6 p.m., Mattarella will lead talks with the heads of both parliamentary chambers and the leaders of the most important parties at his official residence until Saturday. The goal will be the swift formation of a transitional government. A potential candidate for prime minister is current Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, who has close ties to the European Union (EU). Senate president Pietro Grasso was mentioned as an additional candidate.

Renzi proposed the formation of a “government of national responsibility” with the agreement of the major parties and failing this to hold new elections. He is staying on as chairman of the Democratic Party (PD) and could stand as their lead candidate in new elections.

The ultra-right Lega Nord, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S) have all spoken out against the technocratic government proposed by Renzi. They are calling for new elections to be held immediately. Lega Nord leader Matteo Salvini demonstrated in front of the Senate on Wednesday with signs reading “Voto Subito” (New elections now).

According to media reports, President Mattarella considers new elections to be “inconceivable” if the election law is not altered in advance, since two completely different electoral systems exist for the two parliamentary chambers. For the House of Representatives, the controversial “Italicum” policy applies, which was adopted in the summer and guarantees that the largest party will receive a majority of the seats. The Constitutional Court is set to rule on the constitutionality of this provision on 24 January. By contrast, a proportional representation system applies in the Senate, which benefits smaller parties. The failed constitutional reform proposed to largely do away with this chamber.

But it is not merely constitutional considerations which are encouraging the President to seek the formation of a government of technocrats rather than calling for new elections. Despite reassuring official reports, the Italian financial system is in a deep crisis. The banks are burdened with €360 billion in bad loans and must significantly increase their capital. Italy’s banking index has fallen by 47 percent since the beginning of the year. Shortly after the announcement of the referendum result, interest rates on Italian government debt shot up temporarily.

Important international financial institutions promised assistance ahead of the referendum if the constitutional reform was successful. The planned strengthening of the executive branch would have made it easier to restructure the banks at the expense of the working class. After the failure of the referendum, the international financial institutions withdrew their promises of capital.

The world’s oldest bank, Italy’s Monte dei Paschi de Siena, confronts imminent danger. It achieved the worst possible score in a review of its balance sheet by the EU in July and urgently requires a capital injection of €5 billion, which has now been called into question with the rejection of the constitutional reform.

A new government is therefore being demanded to prevent an uncontrolled banking crisis. International financial interests are applying immense pressure behind the scenes and expect that the future government—regardless of its composition—will participate in the rescue of the banks to the tune of billions of euros. But this could bring it into conflict with EU regulations.

Without delay, the Senate therefore agreed to the budget by 173 votes to 108 on Wednesday. The budget contains the same policies which the majority of Italians voted against on Sunday. It amounts to an intensification of Renzi’s policy of social cuts.

The budget provides just €1.6 billion for victims of earthquakes. This will fall well short of what is required to overcome the worst damage caused by three earthquakes over recent months.

In addition, €1.2 billion is set aside for “peace missions,” meaning military operations abroad. The budget also contains numerous tax exemptions for big business and proposes a sales tax increase of 0.9 percent from 2019. A number of increases in charges, which were met with stiff criticism, were delayed for two years.

The budget bears the hallmark of a neoliberal approach to social questions. In line with proposals raised in the United States, recipients will obtain welfare benefits in the form of “vouchers.” This will affect assistance with childcare costs, kindergarten fees and music lessons in school. Renzi’s education policy has already pushed the privatization of public schools.

A further ominous change concerns pensions: 63-year-olds are to be allowed to retire on a bank loan covered by their future pension wealth. This will make a further increase in old-age poverty inevitable.

The social crisis is assuming ever more terrible forms. According to the latest figures released on 5 December by statistics agency Istat, 17.5 million people are at or near the poverty line, amounting to one in four residents. Half of all families with three or more children are no longer in a position to meet the basic requirements of life, such as regular mealtimes, a roof over their head and medical care, at their current income levels.

Growing numbers of young people are leaving Italy to seek work elsewhere: 147,000 people emigrated last year; an increase of 8 percent compared to 2014.

German chancellor demands stricter asylum laws and ban on burqa

Ulrich Rippert

Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times called German Chancellor Angela Merkel “the last defender of Western freedom.” Following the election of Donald Trump, hopes for the defence of democratic principles relied more than ever on Merkel, the Times wrote in early November.

Merkel made clear on Tuesday what this amounts to. At the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party congress in Essen, she delivered an extraordinarily right-wing speech full of xenophobic attacks and demands for the strengthening of the police and military.

Previously, Merkel’s refusal to impose a firm upper limit for the acceptance of refugees, as the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), had urged, was portrayed as a “welcoming culture” toward refugees. This was always a misinterpretation.

In the interests of German big business, which has profited from the freedom of movement within Europe, Merkel has to date opposed the reinforcement of national borders and worked for a so-called “European solution” to the refugee crisis. The substance of this “solution” was the closure of Europe’s external borders. This was connected to a brutal policy of deterring refugees through the establishment of border protection units and mass deportations. Despite this, right-wing critics accused Merkel of endangering security and national sovereignty by refusing to impose national border controls.

Merkel began her speech Tuesday with a clear concession to her right-wing critics. She noted that Germany would never again accept several hundred thousand refugees in a matter of months, saying, “A situation like that in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and will not be repeated. That was, and is, my declared political goal.”

This was followed by a list of the measures to repulse refugees adopted by the German government over recent months. “We have produced a list of safe countries of origin,” she stated. It had been correct to categorise the Western Balkan states as safe countries of origin so as to make clear that the vast majority of the thousands of refugees from this region “have no prospect of staying with us.”

We live in a state under the rule of law, Merkel continued. Every refugee had the right to due process. But this process required that those who had no right to remain had to leave the country.

She then praised Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU), who had introduced refugee ID cards, restricted family reunifications in Germany and strengthened the deportation process.

Amid jubilation from the close to 1,000 delegates, Merkel hailed the grand coalition government’s integration law, designed to prevent the emergence of so-called “parallel societies.” She declared, “Here with us, that means show your face. The full veil is therefore not appropriate. It should be banned wherever this is legally possible.”

The CDU intends to ban the burqa wherever the identification of an individual is necessary—in the courts, at police checkpoints and on public transport.

Already in the summer, the interior ministers from the CDU/CSU spoke out in the “Berlin declaration” in favour of a partial ban on the burqa and niqab. At the time, Interior Minister de Maizière stated, “We reject the burqa. It does not fit in with our cosmopolitan society.” Wearing the full veil was “an affront to an open society and, in addition, anti-woman.” He wanted “everybody in our country to show his face.”

Merkel and de Maizière know very well that a ban on the burqa is incompatible with the right to freedom of religion guaranteed in Germany’s Basic Law. “The state is prohibited from evaluating such religious beliefs of its citizens, let alone describing them as right or wrong,” ruled the Constitutional Court in 2015 in its headscarf ruling.

Merkel’s demand for a burqa ban is part of a shift to the right, including an intensification of anti-refugee policies. The congress included in its main resolution large portions of an anti-refugee motion proposed by Baden-Württemberg’s interior minister, Thomas Strobl.

The resolution called, among other things, for an “expansion” of “the reasons for detention prior to deportation… if a danger is posed by the person obliged to leave.” It proposed an extension of the period rejected asylum seekers can be held in custody prior to their deportation from the current limit of four days to four weeks. This goes beyond a proposal from de Maizière to increase the limit on detention to two weeks.

The main resolution also declared its support for so-called “transit zones” as an “appropriate method of management while processing refugees’ applications.” When the far-right Hungarian government of Victor Orban legally sanctioned such camps and set them up on the country’s borders in September 2015, Merkel opposed the action.

The congress also agreed that asylum seekers who had no prospect of staying should have their tolerated status removed if they provided “false information” or refused “to cooperate in the determination of their identification.” Welfare benefits would immediately be cut, the asylum process halted, and a “document on the obligation to leave,” i.e., to be deported, provided. Asylum seekers who spent their holidays in the country they fled in the face of “war and persecution” would lose their asylum status. Their travel documents would immediately be confiscated.

The right-wing offensive agreed upon at the CDU congress comes in response to the rapidly worsening economic and political crisis in Europe. The Brexit vote in June, the election of Donald Trump as US president and the rejection of the referendum in Italy have shaken official politics in Europe to its foundations.

In response to Trump’s nationalist “America-first” policy, the German chancellor and her party are responding with their own nationalist and racist offensive. On all fundamentals, the CDU is adopting the right-wing, xenophobic agitation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The strengthening of the military and the state is to be intensified. While cuts are being carried out on social spending in all areas, virtually unlimited financial resources are being made available for the strengthening of the military, the militarisation of the police and the expansion of the intelligence agencies. Defence spending is to increase by €130 billion in the coming years.

To finance this vast build-up, the CDU congress agreed on strict budgetary discipline and an adherence to the debt break.

These policies have produced ever-widening social devastation. In Europe, there are already 23 million people unemployed. Millions more work in low-wage jobs or irregular employment. Poverty is growing dramatically in Germany. Over 12 million people officially live in poverty. Children are affected particularly badly. Eight million people work in precarious conditions. By contrast, a tiny minority lives in the lap of luxury. Conditions have been created by the government for this minority to enrich itself at the expense of the vast majority.

The political establishment is adopting ever more openly racist and dictatorial methods so as to suppress the mounting opposition to its anti-social and militarist policies.

While Merkel warned repeatedly about the danger posed by the growth of the AfD, her xenophobic policies and the reactionary content of the resolution will result in a strengthening of the right-wing radicals. Not for nothing did AfD Deputy Chairman Alexander Gauland remark that the CDU resolution contained many of his party’s positions. Prior to his AfD membership, Gauland was a CDU official for 40 years.

Australia: Thunderstorm-related deaths expose impact of health cuts

Kurt Brown

People throughout Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, faced the threat of thunderstorm-related asthma deaths again last weekend, less than two weeks after eight people died and more than 8,500 were hospitalised on November 21.

On that day, the chronically-underfunded public health system in the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, essentially broke down, with dangerously-ill people unable to call ambulances in time. In most cases, people received no official warning of the danger.

Fortunately, a similar storm last weekend was less severe than initially forecast. Ambulance Victoria said paramedics responded to “several dozen” calls relating to asthma on Sunday afternoon.

In response to the public outrage over the way in which the system crumpled on November 21, officials said 15 extra road crews were rostered on. But in a sign of alarm, pharmacies reported selling out of asthma-related products, particularly spacers—devices that make it easier for people to take asthma medication.

On November 21, Melbourne, a city of more than three million people, ran out of ambulances despite the authorities reportedly calling in 60 extra ambulance crews. Police and fire crews had to supplement the ambulance service, along with non-emergency patient vehicles and field doctors trained for disasters. Hospital emergency departments were overwhelmed, with patients sleeping on the floors of some hospitals. At least two major hospitals, including Royal Melbourne, ran out of Ventolin, a basic asthma medication.

With a more than six-fold increase in calls to the ambulance emergency lines—one call every four and a half seconds—not all incoming calls were answered. In some cases callers were not informed they would be waiting for long periods for an ambulance to attend, resulting in deaths in at least two cases. Families spent desperate minutes trying in vain to resuscitate their loved ones.

At Sunshine Hospital, in the western suburbs, 18 ambulances were banked up in the early hours of November 22. Paramedics attended to patients because the lack of beds prevented their patients from being admitted to the hospital. This, in turn, meant they could not respond to the mounting emergency in the surrounding suburbs.

Victorian state Health Minister Jill Hennessy denied any responsibility for the breakdown, insisting the event was entirely unpredictable. Interviewed on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation television program “7:30,” she described the events as “like having 150 bombs go off at once in 150 different places.”

Drawing parallels to war conditions is spurious, designed to promote the perception of a system under siege by outside and hostile forces about which nothing could be done. In fact, the state Labor government and health officials received prior warnings of the storm, its severity and its probable consequences.

Biomedical Science Associate Professor Cenk Suphioglu from Melbourne’s Deakin University, who helps maintain Deakin Airwatch, a pollen count and forecasting facility, anticipated a high risk of thunderstorm-related asthma on November 21 based on prevailing weather conditions.

His study established a link between rye grass pollen as the chief allergen in thunderstorm-related asthma, with an initial publication appearing in the international medical journal the Lancet in 1992. There are abundant fields of rye grass in and around Melbourne, making the city particularly susceptible to thunderstorm-related asthma outbreaks.

Respiratory specialists in Victoria appealed for an advance-warning system for thunderstorm asthma five years ago, further exposing the government’s claims that the deadly weather event was unprecedented.

Researchers called for more warnings when thunderstorms followed days of high pollen counts in a letter published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2011. Those conditions matched the weather on November 21 when the pollen count was “extreme,” temperatures topped 35˚C (95˚F) and northerly winds reached 56 kph (35 mph).

In their letter, specialists working at Austin Health in Melbourne drew conclusions from thunderstorm-related asthma events in Melbourne in 2010, 1989 and 1987. They proposed “that additional warnings of elevated risk of asthma exacerbations in pollen-allergic individuals should be made when springtime and summertime thunderstorms follow several days of high or extreme pollen counts.” No such warning systems were established.

Extreme outbreaks occur when pollen grains, of which there are high concentrations in Melbourne in spring and summer, are carried into the humid cloud base by hot drafts just before a storm. The pollen grains then absorb moisture, causing them to rupture and release large numbers of significantly smaller pollen particles.

These minute particles are able to pass into the lower respiratory system, triggering an asthma attack in asthmatics and with the potential to trigger an asthma attack for the first time in those with hay fever. The commencement of the storm brought these particles to ground level and, judging by the severe health impacts, distributed the pollen over a radius of about 50 kilometres.

To dissipate the growing anger over the debacle, the state government announced an inquiry, to be headed by a former police chief. Its only purpose will be to divert the blame away from its root causes in the underfunding of the health system by successive governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike.

To cover his government’s tracks, Premier Daniel Andrews pledged $500 million to be spent over the next five years to improve Ambulance Victoria, in a deal brokered with the assistance of the ambulance trade union. Even if honoured, this promise is for a paltry amount that will not overcome the cuts that have already taken place.

There is a long history of budget cuts in both state and federal spheres, resulting in public hospital closures, ward shutdowns and nursing and ancillary staff shortages. A new stage was marked when the Rudd and Gillard federal Labor governments, between 2007 and 2013, removed block funding from the national public hospital system. In its place, hospitals are now paid a “national efficient price” for each procedure actually performed, constantly pushing them to lower costs and undercut each other.

The current federal Liberal-National coalition government has continued this attack, slashing health funding nationally by an estimated $1.8 billion over four years, and $57 billion over a decade. During the campaign for the July 2 federal election, the Labor Party junked previous vows to reverse this cut.

German government plans mass deportation of refugees

Martin Kreickenbaum

The German government is expanding deportations of refugees and intends to erect what will in effect be a deportation apparatus. To this end, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has commissioned a feasibility study from the consultancy firm McKinsey that calls for an increase in deportations.

Following a meeting of the federal and state interior ministers last week, federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (Christian Democrats, CDU) outlined the goals of the deportation policy for 2017. He stated that of the 1 million refugees who arrived in Germany in 2015 and 2016, around half had not and would not receive recognition as refugees.

The minister demanded “that we get better in the area of repatriations, including voluntary repatriation as well as deportation.” As a result, the federal and state governments were preparing an agreement for a “national pooling of resources to improve repatriations.” A nationwide coordination office for repatriations would deal with practical questions, such as how refugees from various states could be brought together and transported in the same aircraft.

Already this year, the government has implemented 100,000 so-called repatriations of refugees. Together with 27,000 forced deportations, more than 60,000 refugees avoided deportation by agreeing to “voluntarily” leave the country. These numbers are to increase drastically in the years ahead. “Since we are getting more rejections, we have to improve still further,” de Maizière stated.

In addition, the government plans to strengthen fortress Europe. According to Spiegel Online, the federal Interior Ministry is preparing an agreement with Tunisia to establish an internment camp for refugees there.

Refugees who seek to reach Europe via the central Mediterranean route will in this way find it impossible to set foot on European soil. Instead, immediately after their rescue they will be brought back to Africa. A departmental head of the federal police in the Interior Ministry is currently pushing for support for this plan from Italy and the European Union (EU) Commission.

In this way, the German government intends to intensify pressure on refugees. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has been working for some time on the ways in which mass deportations could be enforced. They hired the consultancy firm McKinsey to complete a feasibility study, the conclusions of which have been made available to Die Welt .

It proposes 14 measures for a “stricter repatriation for foreigners obliged to leave.” The McKinsey report appeals for “return management 2017” to be coordinated between the federal and state governments so as to achieve “measurable successes.” Assuming the existence of 485,000 refugees required to leave, the report offers a cynical cost benefit analysis to justify mass deportations in financial terms. According to this, monthly expenditure on a refugee amount to €670, which amounts in total to €3 billion annually. By contrast, the cost of a forced deportation is only €1,500 and in the case of a voluntary repatriation just €700.

In addition, the study complains about the length of time taken up by deportation proceedings. From the confirmation of the obligation to leave to the final departure “there is an average of 12 months for completed deportations, and in some cases even 4.5 years.” To accelerate deportations, the report’s main proposal is a vast expansion of deportation and detention centres. “Deportation detention and custody prior to departure should be organised so as to make them effectively usable in practice,” the consultancy firm writes.

The consultants also propose stricter legal controls for those tolerated as refugees. They should be given food and clothing as benefits in kind rather than money, if they cannot be deported due to illness or missing papers. The “financial flexibility” of refugees can in this way, in the opinion of the study, be “reduced.”

The feasibility study was announced by Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) during her summer press conference to “identify problems with deportations and make suggestions for improvements.” According to Spiegel Online, the company claimed payment for 687 consultant days, amounting to a total cost to the government of €1.86 million.

The line of argument advanced by government representatives, the federal office for refugees and the consultancy firm, that refugees are exploiting social welfare, avoiding deportations and costing billions plays directly into the hands of right-wing extremist forces. With the planned mass deportations, vast expansion of detention centres and cutting of social welfare, the federal government is adopting the programme of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Within the government, some demands even go far beyond this. Thomas Strobl, the deputy chair of the CDU and interior minister in the Baden-Württemberg Green-CDU coalition government, called for the establishment of a “repatriation agreement” with Egypt, even though the al-Sisi regime tramples human rights underfoot and regularly abuses, tortures and persecutes refugees.

Strobl even believes that those accepted as refugees should have social welfare benefits reduced massively, because “Whoever is searching for protection from war and persecution, the main issue for them is not welfare benefits. That we provide protection to refugees who fear for life and limb does not mean that we must make it possible for refugees to enjoy our standard of living.”

Ahead of the CDU party congress, which began yesterday, the party integrated Strobl’s proposals into its main resolution. In it, it is stated, “The reasons for detention ahead of deportation must be expanded if there is a risk posed by those obliged to depart.” In addition, deportation detention should be extended from four days to four weeks. Whoever provides false information or refuses to identify themselves would lose the status of an approved refugee, and their authorisation to work and welfare benefits would be slashed.

The right to asylum has been undermined repeatedly since the autumn of 2015. This has included the expansion of “safe countries of origin,” the rapid conducting of asylum procedures in reception centres or emergency facilities, the cutting of assistance benefits, deportations without warning, relaxation of the restriction on deporting those who are sick, the limitation of family reunification, a “residency restriction” for those accepted as refugees and much more. The German government’s new plans will eclipse all of this.

European Union finance ministers insist on more austerity

Julie Hyland

European finance ministers met Monday, just hours after Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi tendered his resignation, having seen his proposed constitutional reforms decisively rejected in Sunday’s referendum.

In addition to the authoritarian nature of Renzi’s reforms, his defeat was also shaped by popular hostility to the austerity measures he has sought to impose in Italy in league with the European Union (EU). Nonetheless, the finance ministers gathered in Brussels made clear there would be no retreat from this agenda.

The main item on the table was to complete a second review of Greece’s bailout programme, to enable the EU, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—the Troika—to sign off on the next tranche of funding, which is expected to eventually total €86 billion. No agreement could be reached, however.

Greece had sought reductions in the 3.5 percent primary surplus target that it is expected to run after 2018, and some debt relief. The IMF agrees that the primary surplus target is unrealistic and has urged loosening the terms on Greece’s debt payments in return for Athens imposing an extra €4.2 billion in austerity savings and further labour reforms, including abolishing collective bargaining and making it easier to sack workers.

While supporting the labour reforms, Germany and the Netherlands in particular are opposed to any debt relief measures. There are elections next year in both countries, as well as France, all contested strongly by anti-EU parties like the Alternative for Germany, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom and the National Front of Marine Le Pen.

Prior to the meeting, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble threatened Athens that if it wished to remain in the euro, it would have to deliver. Debt forgiveness would “not help Greece,” he said. “Athens must finally carry out the necessary reforms. If Greece wants to stay in the euro, there is no way past that—completely independently of the debt level.”

Germany and the Netherlands also insist that no EU funds will be forthcoming for Greece, unless the IMF is on board.

In the end, a discussion on the future of the bailout programme was postponed and the meeting agreed only minor and limited changes on debt repayment. This includes extending the timeframe by which Greece has to repay existing loans from 28 to 32.5 years, which will raise the interest rate. This “relief” will mean that, by 2060, Greece will have only achieved a 20 percent reduction in its debt-to-GDP ratio.

Greece has already been reduced to penury after seven years of austerity. The official poverty rate is 35.7 percent, but in fact it is far higher, while youth unemployment is at 50 percent. According to reports, many Greek businesses have gone bust or moved to countries with low tax levels, such as Bulgaria, where corporation tax is just 10 percent. The number of Greek-owned businesses that are registered in Bulgaria has risen from 2,000 in 2010 to 17,000 today.

The central role in imposing EU austerity diktats has been played by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his pseudo-left Syriza coalition. Syriza won election in January 2015 promising to overturn austerity. In June 2015, the government received a massive 61 percent mandate to oppose the EU and reject the bailout conditions in a referendum. Within weeks, Tsipras had betrayed that mandate and was imposing even more draconian austerity measures than his conservative predecessor. Syriza is now deeply unpopular, languishing in the low 20s in opinion polls.

Tsipras had warned that any failure in agreement could lead to new elections, while Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos cautioned after Monday’s meeting, “There should be no demands on Greece that do not take into account ... the current political and social situation.”

EU foreign ministers reacted with contempt and hostility to such concerns. Speaking after the meeting, Schaüble said, “I think for Greece it is realistic that they should carry out reforms to make themselves competitive ... For Greece it is a long, hard road.” Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem said that “more work has to be done” and the troika would “stand ready to return to Athens to work on it.”

The finance ministers also rejected setting targets for fiscal stimulus in the eurozone. In November, the European Commission—concerned at rising anti-EU sentiment—proposed a fiscal expansion of up to 0.5 percent of GDP next year. While the meeting agreed vaguely that countries with the highest budget surpluses—Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg—should spend more, the ministers ruled out setting a figure.

Concerns over the implications for Europe of the developing crisis in Italy were simply brushed aside. The mantra was that Renzi’s defeat is a domestic problem and that the government would somehow proceed with the EU’s austerity agenda anyway.

Schaüble said, “There is no reason to talk of a euro crisis and there is certainly no reason to conjure one up,” while France’s Finance Minister Michel Sapin said the referendum “is a question of internal politics. The referendum wasn’t about Europe.”

Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, said that the result was a “domestic political argument ... Italy voted on a reform. It would be wrong to extrapolate that now to the European level.”

Dijsselbloem said Renzi’s defeat “doesn’t really change the situation economically in Italy or in the Italian banks. It doesn't seem to require any emergency steps.”

Such statements are absurd. In the last months, the EU has suffered the UK’s vote to leave the EU and now, in the US, faces President-elect Donald Trump, whose threats to undermine the NATO alliance between America and Western Europe have shaken European politics to its core.

Italy is the third domino to fall. Its economy has shrunk by 12 percent since 2008, and industrial production is down by more than 25 percent. Youth unemployment is at 40 percent, and poverty levels are on a par with Greece. The third-largest economy in Europe, Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio is second only to Greece, at 133 percent. Its banking system is insolvent, loaded down with €360 billion in bad loans.

Italy’s Finance Minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, could not participate in Monday’s meeting because he was involved in emergency talks on a €5 billion rescue plan for the world’s oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, to avoid bankruptcy at the end of the month. Uncertainty over Renzi’s successor means that it is not clear that investors—which include the Qatar Investment Authority—will go ahead with the recapitalisation.

More broadly, there is concern that Italy could be tipped into an early general election that would be to the advantage of the Five Star Movement, which has said it will push for a referendum on EU membership.

In contrast to the EU leaders, many corporate and political commentators are warning on the dangers of Italian contagion, with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicting there was now a less than 30 percent chance of Italy remaining in the eurozone.

In Britain’s Financial Times, Gideon Rachman warned, “Renzi’s defeat could endanger the euro and risk a financial crisis.” Prior to the result, on November 27, he had already expressed his concern over the political impact of the response of the EU states and their ruling elites to growing oppositional sentiment across the continent, comparing it to the ancien regime before the French Revolution.

“The Bourbons were hard to beat as the quintessential out-of-touch establishment,” he wrote. “They have competition now…A Bourbon regent, in an uncharacteristic moment of reflection, would have backed off. Our liberal capitalist order, with its competing institutions, is constitutionally incapable of doing that. Doubling down is what it is programmed to do.” Rachman titled his comment, “The elite’s Marie Antoinette moment.”

François Hollande declines to run for re-election as French president

Kumaran Ira

On December 1, President François Hollande of the Socialist Party (PS) announced that he would not run for re-election in next year’s French presidential election. This is the first time since the creation of the office of the French presidency, at the beginning of the Fifth Republic in 1958, that a president has not sought to win a second term.

In a surprise 10-minute televised speech from the Elysée presidential palace, Hollande said, “I have decided not to run in the presidential elections for my own succession.” His decision came as the field was opened for PS presidential candidates to run in the party’s primary.

Hollande’s decision not to seek a second term had been widely predicted given his status as France’s most unpopular president ever. He regularly receives a single-digit approval rating in polls, which have also found that if the election were held today, he would come in fifth in the first round of voting and be eliminated from the runoff.

Hollande also tried to justify his presidency, citing his unpopular budget cuts: “I acted with the governments of [prime ministers] Jean-Marc Ayrault and Manuel Valls to rebuild France and make it fairer. Today, as I speak, the budget has been repaired, Social Security is balanced and the country’s debt has been preserved.”

After Hollande’s announcement, Valls declared his candidacy for the PS primary and resigned as prime minister; he was replaced by former Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve yesterday. Valls said, “I am running because France must use all of its weight in a world that no longer is what it once was: terrorist threats, rise of the far right … I want a France that is independent and unbending on its values.”

For now, polls show Valls is the front-runner among PS presidential candidates, leading former Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg.

Valls belongs to the more explicitly right-wing sections of the PS and has repeatedly stated that the PS should remove the word “socialist” from its name, because “it doesn’t mean anything anymore.” He became prime minister in 2014 after being interior minister, and supported intensified austerity as well as the state of emergency imposed last year. Valls took the unprecedented action of threatening social protests against the PS labour law with a police ban, and repeatedly used article 49.3 of the French constitution to impose the law without a vote in the National Assembly.

Hollande’s decision to not seek a second term comes as the PS faces its deepest crisis since its foundation in 1971. The PS expects a major setback in the 2017 presidential elections, in which the neo-fascist National Front (FN) would win the first round, eliminating the PS candidate. It is unclear whether the PS would even be the main opposition party if either the FN or the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) wins the elections.

Hollande was therefore prevailed upon to allow Valls to run in the PS primaries, due to take place on January 22-29.

The 2017 French presidential election marks a lurch to the right by the ruling elite, amid growing instability across Europe following the Brexit referendum in June and the election of Donald Trump as the US president in November. Far-right nationalist forces are gaining strength across Europe, exploiting growing social anger against EU austerity measures and diverting it along chauvinist lines. In France, the FN benefiting is from the discrediting of the PS, posing as an alternative to traditional parties of the French establishment, the PS and LR.

The collapse of the PS is the result of deep disillusionment among the masses with its anti-worker record. Whenever it held office—under François Mitterrand as president (1981-1995), during the Plural Left government led by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (1997-2002), and under Hollande since 2012—it ditched its electoral promises and attacked the working class.

Hollande came to power in 2012 by criticizing the policy of his predecessor, the unpopular right-wing incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, declaring that “austerity is not France’s fate.” After his election, however, he embarked on EU-led austerity measures and imperialist interventions in the Middle East and Africa, above all in the former French colonies of Syria and Mali.

Over the last four years, Hollande implemented sweeping austerity measures and pro-business reforms that slashed workers’ living standards and sent unemployment soaring. Under the so-called “Responsibility Pact”, the PS imposed more than €50 billion in social cuts and €40 billion in cuts to corporate taxes. Along with his pro-business spending cuts, Hollande oversaw plant shutdowns including PSA-Aulnay and Goodyear-Amiens, slashing thousands of jobs.

While attacking workers’ social rights, the Hollande government deepened its attack on basic democratic rights, with measures to expel Roma and dismantle their encampments in France, in order to appeal to the FN electorate. The most notorious was the deportation of a 15-year-old Roma schoolgirl, Leonarda Dibrani, who was ordered off a school bus and deported to Kosovo. Thousands of students marched across France, denouncing Hollande’s repression of immigrants.

As his presidency went on, it became ever clearer that Hollande was seeking to sustain his policies of militarism and repudiating all the social gains won by the working class in the 20th century by appealing to far-right and nationalist sentiment and moving towards police-state rule.

Seizing on the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, carried out by Islamist networks mobilized in NATO’s war in Syria, the PS has imposed an indefinitely extendable state of emergency, giving sweeping powers to police and intelligence services supposedly to fight terror. Hollande took over much of the FN’s programme—imposing a state of emergency, forming a National Guard, and trying to legitimate the Nazi Occupation-era policy of deprivation of nationality—as he sought to fashion a political base to impose austerity and war.

Despite massive opposition and protests against the regressive “El Khomri” labor reform law, the government imposed it without a parliamentary vote, using article 49.3 of French constitution. The unpopular law gives companies more flexibility to fire workers, lengthen the work week and cut wages, and more broadly to negotiate contracts with trade unions that violate France’s Labor Code, effectively scrapping much of the labor protection traditionally enjoyed by French workers.

The emergence of Valls as the currently favored PS candidate is a sign that the PS aims to continue the shift far to the right in bourgeois politics overseen by Hollande.

Italian president “freezes” resignation of Prime Minister Renzi

Peter Schwarz

Italian President Sergio Mattarella has “frozen” the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi until the budget for 2017 is adopted. Renzi submitted his resignation on Monday evening after voters had rejected his constitutional reform on Sunday by a large majority.

The budget has already been approved by the House of Representatives (Lower House). According to media reports, it could pass later this week in the second chamber of parliament, the Senate, but this is not certain.

What happens after the adoption of the budget is an open question. Mattarella could call for a transitional government. The current finance minister Carlo Padoan and Senate President Pietro Grasso are both under discussion as possible heads of the government. From 2011 to 2013, such a technocrat cabinet under Mario Monti ruled for one and half years, without being legitimized by the electorate, and initiated the brutal austerity measures that Renzi then continued.

The right-wing parties who led the campaign against the constitutional reform are insisting on immediate elections. The Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo and the far-right Lega Nord sense that the rejection of the referendum provides an opportunity for them to take over the government. Forza Italia, the party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has also called for early elections.

On Monday, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said that elections in February were possible, although as a result of the rejection of the new constitution there is currently no valid election law. Alfano is chairman of the New Centre-Right Party, which split from Forza Italia three years ago to form a government with Renzi’s Democrats (PD).

The passage of the Budget Law, which the president wants Renzi to oversee, bears the hallmark of Brussels and Berlin. Like Renzi’s entire “reform policies,” its aim is to restructure the country’s debt-ridden banks and Italy’s huge debt mountain at the expense of the working class and poorer layers of the middle class. This policy has already led to a social disaster for large sections of the population. Italian industrial production has declined by 25 percent since the financial crisis of 2008, while youth unemployment remains at nearly 40 percent.

The massive rejection of the constitutional reform was mainly a vote against this policy. Most observers had expected Renzi’s defeat, but assumed a closer result. This proved to be far from the mark. With a voter turnout of 68 percent, high for Italy, 19.4 million voted against the constitutional reform and only 13.4 million voted in favour.

The result was strongly influenced by the level of social inequality in Italy. The poverty-stricken south voted No by two-thirds. Of the country’s 20 regions, only three relatively well-off ones voted Yes: Trentino-Alto Adige, Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany.

The result was even clearer among young voters aged 18-34 years. This layer voted 68 percent against and 32 percent for the reform, although Renzi had tried to use his relative youth (41) and the high proportion of women in his cabinet to appeal to younger voters. Young people are among the main victims of Renzi’s reforms. Nearly 40 percent are unemployed, while the rest just manage with precarious jobs or are looking for work abroad.

Among the 35 to 54 age group, the No votes outweighed the Yes by 63 to 37 percent. Only among older layers over 54 years old did the Yes votes predominate, with 51 percent in support.

In the cities of Rome, Milan, Turin and Bologna, the vote also followed the social gradient. While the Yes vote in the centres outweighed that in the “periphery,” the economically neglected and rundown suburbs voted mainly No.

Spiegel Online commented, “The high turnout in the referendum and the clear anti-government line shows one thing above all: Italians are extremely unhappy with their state, their authorities, their lives. And they have every reason to be.” As in many countries, “economic globalization has also divided Italian society into a tiny rich layer of winners and a large layer of losers.”

Representatives of the EU and the German government are clearly worried by Renzi’s resignation, but reaffirmed at the same time that they would stick to their harsh austerity course. Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she was “sad” about the outcome of the referendum, but Europe would still stick to its course. “From my point of view, we will continue our work in Europe, and we have set the right priorities.”

In business circles, meanwhile, there are growing concerns that Renzi’s defeat could herald the end of the euro and the European Union. Ulrich Grillo, President of the Federation of German Industry (BDI), said, “The risk of new political instability was increasing for economic development, financial markets and monetary union.”

The Centre for Economics and Business Research considers the chance that Italy remains in the euro zone for the next five years to be small. According to the British economics consultancy, the referendum showed that Italian voters would not tolerate indefinitely the chronic unemployment, stagnant wages and Brussels-imposed austerity that now came with euro membership. “There is no doubt Italy could stay in the euro if it were prepared to pay the price of virtually zero growth and depressed consumer spending for another 5 years or so. But that is asking a lot of an increasingly impatient electorate. We think the chances of their sustaining this policy are below 30 per cent.”

Also, in the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman warns, “The European project is under unprecedented strain. Britain’s decision to leave is the most striking evidence of this. But, in the long run, the unfolding crisis in Italy could pose a more severe threat to the survival of the EU. The reasons for this are political, economic and even geographic.”

The EU is a reactionary instrument of the most powerful European business and financial interests. It is responsible for ruthless attacks on the working class, the brutal sealing of the borders against refugees and growing militarism. But there is considerable danger that right-wing organizations will exploit the widespread opposition to the EU and direct it into a reactionary, nationalist direction. Support for the European Union and its austerity policies by the Social Democrats, trade unions and their pseudo-left supporters has created a political vacuum that the far right is seeking to fill.

120,000 coal miners face loss of retirement benefits

Clement Daly

Some 120,000 retired union coal miners and their families are at risk of losing their health care and pensions in the coming months.

The growing insolvency of the various health and retirement funds overseen by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) is rooted in the continuing global economic crisis and the resulting collapse of commodities prices, which has led to a string of coal operator bankruptcies, slashed production, and mass layoffs throughout the coal regions.

At immediate risk are health care benefits for 22,600 retired coal miners from Patriot Coal in West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio. The Patriot Retirees Voluntary Employment Beneficiary Association (VEBA) has already sent letters to about 16,100 retired miners informing them that due to critical funding shortages, their health care benefits will be discontinued as of December 31, 2016. Another 6,500 retirees will lose benefits early next year.

The insolvent VEBA plan for the Patriot retirees was brokered between the company and the UMWA following Patriot’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2012. Unable to reach an agreement on sufficient concessions from the UMWA after months of closed-door negotiations, the bankruptcy court approved Patriot’s reorganization plan in May 2013, granting the company permission to scrap its collective bargaining agreement with the union, and permitting Patriot to cease providing health care to its retirees.

The 2012 Patriot bankruptcy occurred at the beginning of the downturn in the coal industry, which has since transformed into a general collapse. That Patriot was the first of the major coal operators to fall victim to the crisis, however, was no accident, but was deliberately prepared over the course of the last decade.

Patriot was created by Peabody Energy in 2007 as a means of shedding mounting legacy liabilities associated with its union operations east of the Mississippi. Upon its creation, the mining giant sold Patriot 13 percent of its assets, but burdened it with about 40 percent of its health care liabilities.

In 2008, Patriot purchased Magnum Coal—a similar spinoff of union operations carried out by Arch Coal in 2005—which transferred about 12 percent of Arch’s former assets along with 97 percent of its retiree health care liabilities. Both deals left Patriot with more than three times as many retirees than active miners, more than 90 percent of them having never worked a day for the young company.

The UMWA put up no serious resistance to the formation of these shell companies and limited its response to the assault on its members’ living standards to impotent protest stunts, rallies, and a public relations campaign aimed at pressuring the mining companies involved for concessions.

In October 2013, the UMWA, Patriot, and Peabody reached a global settlement that allowed Patriot to cease its contributions towards retiree health care and transfer these obligations to a union-controlled VEBA. The deal was modeled closely on the VEBA set up between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit Big Three automakers as part of the Obama administration’s restructuring of the auto industry.

From the start, the settlement left the Patriot VEBA woefully underfunded, securing a little more than $400 million from the two companies over the next four years, or about one-fourth of the $1.6 billion the union estimated was needed for the long-term funding of retiree health care, which currently costs about $8 million a month.

The UMWA’s concessions, however, proved not enough to return Patriot to profitability as the crisis in the coal industry only deepened.

In May 2015, Patriot filed for bankruptcy again, this time selling the majority of its assets to Blackhawk Mining and transferring its remaining assets and liabilities to an affiliate of the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund. In its approved bankruptcy plan of October 2015, Patriot and Blackhawk escaped obligations for retiree health care and exited the 1974 UMWA Pension Plan with Blackhawk only agreeing to assume liabilities for any active UMWA miners it rehired at its operations.

In the wake of the Patriot deal, Peabody went into court arguing that Patriot’s shedding of its obligations to retiree health care voided the global settlement reached in October 2013. Having paid out only $165 million of $310 million it agreed to, Peabody reached an agreement with the UMWA in January 2016 to pay only $75 million of its remaining $145 million to the Patriot VEBA. Peabody then filed its own bankruptcy petition in April 2016 from which it has yet to emerge.

Alpha Natural Resources also followed Patriot’s lead, declaring bankruptcy in August 2015. The company won approval to sell its most profitable assets in West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming 11 months later to a newly created Contura Energy. Its remaining operations were consolidated in a reorganized Alpha.

As part of its restructuring, the court granted Alpha permission in May 2016 to break its contract with about 610 active UMWA miners and cease further contributions for union retiree health care benefits to about 2,600 retired miners, as well as escape from its obligations to the 1974 UMWA Pension Plan.

A subsequent union contract reached in July 2016 with both Alpha and Contura covering 900 miners did not include either retiree health care or pension provisions. Instead, the two companies contributed lump sum payments totaling $28.5 million to a separate union-controlled VEBA, funding Cecil Roberts admitted “would not last long,” considering Alpha had complained about spending nearly $53 million on union health care in 2015 alone.

In addition to the imminent risk to the various UMWA retiree health care plans, the union is warning that its pension plans also face insolvency after recording large loses due to the 2008 economic crash and the growing list of coal operators using the bankruptcy courts to discharge existing liabilities and end future contributions. According to the union, contributions to the 1974 Pension Plan have fallen by two-thirds over the past year.

The UMWA pension funds currently support about 89,000 miners or family members with an average monthly payout of $560, in addition to another 22,000 coal miners who are vested but not yet receiving benefits. If the fund collapses, these liabilities will be assumed by the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation and will likely be subject to deep cuts.

What is under way is an historic assault on benefits and living standards won through bitter struggles waged by generations of coal miners. The UMWA Health and Retirement Funds has its origin in the massive strike wave conducted by American workers at the close of World War II. In addition to strikes in auto, steel, railroads, meat packing, and other industries, the coal miners waged a series of powerful strikes, some in defiance of back-to-work orders from both the union bureaucracy and the White House, to secure the UMWA Funds in agreements signed in 1946 and 1950.

However, under the leadership of the nationalist and pro-capitalist John L. Lewis, the union tied funding for the UMWA Funds to royalty payments exacted from the coal operators for every ton of coal mined, thus binding the fate of the coal miners to the health of the US coal industry and American capitalism in general. In exchange for the UMWA Funds, Lewis agreed to support the coal industry’s mechanization of the mines—at the cost of hundreds of thousands of mining jobs over the subsequent decades—believing the increased efficiency would lead to increased coal production and thus stable benefits flowing to a slimmed workforce.

In reality, however, the contradiction of this funding mechanism ensured that the UMWA Funds remained chronically underfunded with the union limiting benefits and resisting royalty increases in order to safeguard the health of the coal industry and the solvency of the programs. Now, under conditions of protracted crisis, the coal operators are moving to scrap what remains of these limited health and pension benefits.

In line with the UMWA’s strategy of protecting the profitability of the US coal industry, the union has turned to Congress for a bailout of its insolvent retiree health care and pension plans. It is backing passage of the Coal Miners Protection Act which would allow about $220 million of the approximately $490 million a year in general tax dollars which flow into the Abandoned Mine Lands program for abandoned mine cleanup to be diverted into the UMWA retiree benefit programs over the next decade.

While the legislation currently has bipartisan support, some Republican legislators are opposed to the move claiming it aids only retired union coal miners while doing nothing to insure the benefits of non-union retirees.