Cashless Is Not Casteless

Satya Sagar

A Cashless, Corruption-free, Cow-friendly India that also Cares for the Poor. As the Narendra Modi regime shoots forth silken promises like buttered popcorn from a hot oven – it is time to remember India’s long history of using colourful fiction to rip-off the public and carry out caste oppression.

Let me explain. For over a millennium one of the recurring debates among Indian philosophers was whether this world was real or a mere dream. To be more precise,the claim was, we are all part of Maha Vishnu’s dream as He sleeps peacefully on a giant serpent, with a lotus blooming from His navel.

Paradoxically though, those who preached most passionately that our senses mislead us and everything around was Maya or an illusion, went on to corner the largest chunk of material reality. Behind the smokescreen of clever mythology, it was they, who grabbed the lion’s share of everything tangible over the centuries – from land, water, natural resources to hard political and social power.

Worse still, using a mix of brute force and religious mumbo-jumbo, they consolidated the exploitation of those who shed sweat, blood and tears and work with physical reality by those who merely cook up tall stories, through the nightmare of the caste system.

The more sophisticated proponents of the ‘dream’ theory explained that it is under the spell of Maya, that the Atman or individual soul, fails to recognise we are all part of the unchanging divine principle, called the Brahman, that underlies the entire Universe. Maya they said could be dispelled only through jnana or knowledge to attain Moksha i.e. liberation- all this of course at a price to be paid to the ‘experts’, who ran the system (read fintech consultants).

Today, as the lotus sprouts once more across the land and the ruling regime promises Moksha to the masses, provided they get ‘jnana’ and go digital, Maya is back at work. And once again, it is again the castes and communities at the bottom of the Indian social ladder who are being hit the hardest.

From all evidence so far it is clear, that the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, who make up a bulk of those surviving off India’s vast informal economy, are the worst affected by the sudden disappearance of cash from the economy. Agricultural labour, construction workers, employees of micro-enterprises, the urban and rural poor – mostly from these marginalized castes- have been pushed to the brink of starvation or worse due to loss of jobs and income.

The other sections, whose lives have been severely disrupted are small and medium sized farmers, who are overwhelmingly from Other Backward Castes and artisans, mostly from poorer Muslim communities. While it is true that demonetisation has also hit the economically and caste-wise better off trading communities, it seems they are pawns to be sacrificed in the quest for complete domination by disembodied global and national corporations – our new feudal masters.

At its core the theoretical basis of the caste system, is that the mind and its creations are noble and permanent while the body is impure and ephemeral. Mental work is superior and those with the ‘right knowledge’ deserve a much greater share of all resources  and a regular ‘dakshina’ or ‘transaction fee’ (think Paytm) from those who perform ‘inferior’ physical work.

(As not just India, but the entire world, sinks inexorably into the seductive web of dreams spun by digital finance and virtual technologies, it is worth examining if there is a caste system emerging globally. With software of all kinds on top and hardware, especially agriculture right at the bottom)

Just to make sure nobody misunderstood this point, the Purusha Sukta, a hymn from the ancient Rig Veda, used the analogy of the human body to describe the hierarchy clearly. The Brahmin priest/philosopher is the mouth, the Kshatriya or warrior the arms, the Vaishya or businessman the thighs and the Shudra or worker is right below as the feet. Those who have to deal with human or animal wastes are much worse off, relegated outside the pale of the caste system itself and rendered ‘untouchable’.

For centuries, and even now, this rigid division of ‘duties’, enforced often through raw violence, has been used to ensure the free transfer of energy and resources from those below to the ones at the top in various ways. The Indian caste system defies not just all laws of humanity but also of modern physics – the Second Law of Thermodynamics in particular- making it the only working model of a ‘perpetual motion’ machine on our planet!

In more recent times and through the colonial period, traditional caste privileges and inherited wealth were combined with access to modern education, to create the Indian ruling elite – family-run industrial empires, big landholders and a bureaucrat/politician nexus that today have a complete stranglehold on state power. There is also a sizeable Indian middle class serving the system, that claims its prosperity is due to a mix of merit (ability to pass exams), hard work (long hours in the office)  and honesty (taxes deducted at source).

Together, all these sections of Indian society, have made best use of new opportunities thrown up by globalization in recent decades, to establish a society which is easily among the most unequal ones in the entire world. Just 1% of the richest Indians control over 58.4% of the country’s wealth while the top 10% account for 80.7%. The bottom 50% of the population fights for its share of a mere 2.1%.

The Modi regime’s current campaign against corruption does not even begin to address the structural bias of the social and economic system in favour of those who have been long-term beneficiaries of illegality and immorality in different forms. Instead, it uses racist tropes to describe ill-gotten money, positing white with ‘good’ and black with ‘evil’. One Modi cabinet minister even calling the anti-corruption campaign a war on ‘asuras’ – the dark skinned indigenous people who were conquered by upper caste migrant populations in ancient India and commonly figure in Hindu mythology as ‘demons’.

Of course, caste discrimination was acknowledged at the time of Indian independence from British colonial rule, thanks to numerous struggles by the oppressed castes. This was reflected in affirmative action policies of reserving a certain percentage of government jobs and admission to educational institutions, as also financial support through loans and special schemes, for these castes.

However, all these measures have been so half-heartedly implemented and woefully inadequate that  seven decades later there is not a single positive indicator of social development where the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes figure anywhere near the top. Whether it is land holdings, income, literacy, nutrition or health status it is these sections- who constitute one-third of India’s population –that are right at the bottom of the pile.

For example, according to the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011, 54% of those from the Schedule Castes were landless, while Scheduled Tribes –despite somewhat better land ownership were even more deprived due to lack of cash income.  Together these two communities form the most vulnerable section of India’s population.Fewer than five per cent of their households have a main earner who makes more than Rs 10,000 per month – while from other Hindu communities there are twice as many households.

Economic vulnerability is reflected in the dire health status of these populations too. In 2015 India recorded the largest number of under-5 deaths in the world, at 1·3 million – most of them children from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe families. Infant mortality rates are 66.4per 1000 among Scheduled Castes, 62.1 among Scheduled Tribes, compared to 36 per 1000 for the rest of the population.   Again  among these populations, more than 50% of the people have a body mass index below 18.5, which is regarded as chronic sub-nutrition – placing them by World Health Organization standards – in a permanent state of famine.

Today, on top of all this, without functional literacy, technological skills or access to  basic infrastructure, these communities are being subjected to a test in digital dexterity impossible for them to get through any time soon.

Think about it like this. If someone denied Albert Einstein his daily meal because he could not prove his mettle by playing cricket or made Sachin Tendulkar homeless for failing a quiz on quantum physics they would immediately be denounced as being either mad or extremely evil.

And yet that is exactly what the Narendra Modi dispensation is doing through its devious insistence on a digitalised economy – imposing on the already disadvantaged a test designed to not just make them fail but also put the blame for their misery on their own ‘ignorance’. If in the past they were actively denied knowledge of the ‘Vedas’ by the upper castes now,as they are trying to catch up, the rules of the game are either being changed abruptly or they are being priced out of the market.

The most apt way to describe what is happening in India today is perhaps through a completely new term –dwijitalisation. It captures well the long-term implications of Narendra Modi’s push for a digital economy in a country that has long been ruled by the dwij – or twice born castes as the Hindu elite call themselves. Under the new rules of the dwijital economy only the dwij– at the top of the social, economic and political ladder – will climb still higher, while kicking the ladder down to ensure no one can follow.

If there is to be a fightback against such injustice there are three cardinal lessons to be learnt from the history of the Indian caste system and religious myth making. One is that the most blatant of lies backed by force is always mightier than the weightiest fact – in other words, when the rulers claim to have a ‘democratic dialogue’ with the people, they are in fact deploying an iron fist in a velvet glove.

Second – what really matters at any point of time is who controls things that can be touched and felt  – everything else is poppycock. Meaning – ignore their mantras and follow the moolah – are you getting any of it or not?

The third and most critical lesson to pay attention to is – STOP ARGUING, START ORGANIZING!

Shots fired in clash between Papua New Guinea police and military

John Braddock

Police in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are investigating a violent clash between the country’s police and army in the early hours of New Year’s Day in the capital Port Moresby, during which gun shots were fired.

Senior police officers, including National Capital District police chief Ben Turi, were reportedly assaulted by soldiers outside the Boroko police station. At least one officer was injured. Local television station EMTV captured the conflict on camera, showing a group of PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) personnel firing shots into the air.

The fracas appeared to be connected with an earlier incident involving an army captain, who threatened to shoot police officers manning a roadblock. A PNGDF spokesman claimed that, according to a preliminary investigation, a police patrol stopped a military vehicle and assaulted the officers, who were with their families. Police searched the vehicle and confiscated a civilian pistol.

PNGDF Commander Brigadier-General Gilbert Toropo told NBC News that the soldiers responsible for the assault would be handed over to the police, and would also be dealt with under the code of military discipline.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill promptly downplayed the incident as “undisciplined behaviour” by a “handful of individuals.” He issued a directive to police and military chiefs to enforce a “one-strike and you are out” policy for “unacceptable behaviour.”

O’Neill claimed: “The public expects better from our service personnel and there are many young committed men and women who want to join the forces.”

Longstanding tensions exist between the two armed forces. In November 2015, a clash between the military and police in Port Moresby left one person dead and four others injured. In December 2014, the police and army formed a joint taskforce to investigate a shootout between the two forces that left four men in hospital with gunshot wounds. Businesses located near the confrontation closed their doors and there were reports of looting.

Ongoing conflicts between police and soldiers highlight the explosive social antagonisms in PNG, which are being fuelled by a deepening economic crisis.

Jerry Singirok, a former PNG Defence Force commander, told Radio Australia that the latest incident showed a “total breakdown in discipline” in both the police and army. He blamed a “lack of leadership” by the military, civil service and political leaders, declaring the whole country was “falling apart.” The former military head warned that a “breakdown in law and order” could see PNG become “a police state or a failed state.”

The PNG police and military have been repeatedly mobilised over the past year to suppress mounting political opposition to the government and social unrest. Severe government austerity measures, fuelled by the collapse in global prices of commodities, including oil and gas, have seen deepening attacks on the living standards of the working class and rural poor.

In May, students at the country’s main universities initiated two months of class boycotts and protests over demands that O’Neill resign over corruption allegations. The protests climaxed on June 8 when heavily-armed police fired on unarmed student demonstrators at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), wounding at least 23 people.

The government insisted on harsh punishment for the students, establishing a witch-hunting inquiry to determine whether “outside influence” was responsible for “unrest” at the universities. Its purpose was to exonerate the police and absolve the government of any responsibility. When the UPNG reopened after a two-month closure, eight student leaders were summarily barred from re-enrolling.

More repressive measures were signalled at a National Security Advisory Council meeting in July where Chief Secretary Isaac Lupari threatened to invoke dictatorial security laws. A National Security Joint Task Force, including police and military personnel, was established to “quell increasing internal security threats.”

In August, traditional landowners in Hela province, in the mountainous interior, blockaded the huge ExxonMobil liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, in protest over long-overdue royalty payments, disrupting the flow of gas. The government deployed 60 police as the dispute threatened to erupt into another crisis.

This past weekend, 300 armed police and troops were sent to Hela where authorities claim dozens of people have died in “tribal conflict.” The foreshadowed six-month security operation is to protect the Exxon-Mobil plant, in which Washington has a major strategic interest. None of the promised benefits from the LNG project to improve living standards has been realised and landowners are threatening to physically attack the plant over continued lack of payments

Hostility to the whole political establishment is mounting. In October, five Electoral Commission officials were attacked while on their way to replace an election manager in the Southern Highlands. In November, two men were shot dead when armed men stopped a provincial governor’s convoy, which included two MPs. Police responded by burning houses and gardens in a purported attempt to flush out those responsible.

The police force is notorious for lawlessness and brutality. Police are currently facing a series of investigations over abuses committed against people in custody. These include the alleged rape and torture of a female prisoner in the Waigani police cells, the shooting death of two inmates at the Boram jail by Correctional Service officers during a mass break-out at the facility, and an alleged assault on two Iranian asylum seekers on Manus Island who accused police of beating and jailing them on New Year’s Eve.

Elections will be held this year and large numbers of police and soldiers will be deployed across the country to suppress discontent and opposition among workers and youth. Cuts of up to 40 percent in education and health last year have fuelled repeated strikes by public sector workers.

Opposition leader Don Polye used his New Year message to admonish ordinary people to “change their attitudes” and be “more responsible in the use of their finances.” He said in 2017 the country would face a serious financial crisis, and life would “be hard for many small people like public servants,” who were likely to have to forgo salary payments.

According to Australian economist Paul Flanagan, PNG is two years into a recession that has already cut living standards by 5 percent. He says the government is effectively printing money to fund its budget deficit. In an “extraordinary step,” Flanagan notes, for the first time in the country’s 41-year history since formal independence, the government has refused to release the International Monetary Fund’s 2016 summary of the PNG economy, indicating it is in a dire state.

Australian government intensifies welfare “debt” crackdown

Oscar Grenfel

In an attempt to meet corporate demands to slash social spending, the Liberal-National government of Malcolm Turnbull is escalating a welfare offensive initiated by the previous Labor government. Using an automated data-matching system introduced by Labor in 2011, it is dispatching thousands of “debt notices” every week, demanding that current and former welfare recipients repay hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dollars.

In order to intimidate people relying on pensions, family tax benefits, unemployment benefits or other welfare payments, the government is sending out corporate debt collectors. It is also threatening to jail people unless they pay the demanded amounts or produce documents to disprove any alleged over-payment.

The campaign is an intensification of bipartisan efforts by Labor and Liberal-National governments alike to victimise welfare beneficiaries and dismantle the right to benefits. There is widespread public outrage, because thousands of workers, students and unemployed people have reported receiving automated notices falsely accusing them of having been “overpaid” while on welfare.

The “crackdown” was initiated last July, but only became public knowledge after a series of media reports in December. The government is sending up to 20,000 “debt notices” per week, through an automated computer system, compared to the previous rate of 20,000 per year.

While corporate and income taxes are being cut for the wealthy and billions are being spent on the military, the campaign is aimed at extracting over $4 billion over the next four years from current and former welfare recipients, who are among the most vulnerable and oppressed sections of the working class.

An estimated 1.7 million “debt notices” will be dispatched. Already, almost 170,000 notices have been sent over the past six months. Notices worth around $45 million are reportedly being sent out every day.

Posts on social media, along with media reports, have documented scores of cases of notices falsely asserting that individuals, including some who have not received any welfare for a number of years, owe the government substantial sums of money.

The most commonly reported instance of alleged “overpayment” is a product of the very design of the automated system. It compares data from Centrelink, the government agency responsible for welfare payments, with tax returns lodged to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

The program assumes that annual income reported to the ATO was received throughout the year. It does not take into account the possibility that a welfare recipient only worked irregularly.

In one case, Jack Rogerson, a 21-year-old autistic man, was told by Dun & Bradstreet, a debt collection agency contracted by Centrelink, that he had a $3,000 debt. He reported being confused and was preparing to pay the debt. Rogerson’s mother successfully challenged the claim, and said she was shocked that her son was being “heavied” by debt collectors.

Dun & Bradstreet has a $10.8 million contract with Centrelink. Two other debt collectors, Australian Receivables and Probe, each have contracts worth $2.5 million. Many of those served with debt notices have reported being harried by the agencies and being forced into a “payment plan.”

Those targeted have included single parents, vulnerable youth and people in working class areas. In one case reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, Janette Suffield, a registered nurse in Campbelltown, in Sydney’s west, was sent a notice for a $3,000 debt. She has filed an appeal and says she received welfare during 2015, when she was recovering from surgery.

According to the Australian, refugees have also been targeted. One asylum-seeker from Afghanistan was sent a $2,000 debt notice. He commented: “That money is a lot of money to someone who was only on $215 a week. I have sent them multiple emails and they keep saying, ‘Your income was not taken into account.’ I reported it, [and] that means they probably made a mistake.”

Those who appeal the notices have reported spending hours on the phone waiting to talk to a Centrelink operator. Centrelink’s official Twitter account has been directing some people who complain on the social media site to the Lifeline charity, which assists people going through suicidal crises.

The government has bluntly defended the system, with Social Services Minister Christian Porter contemptuously declaring last Tuesday that it was “working incredibly well.”

The government’s crackdown is part of a broader assault on welfare. The government is also tightening eligibility requirements for the disability pension, cutting off thousands of injured workers, and 315,000 aged pensioners are facing the prospect of losing part or all of their entitlements via more draconian assets tests.

At the end of last year, 15,000 students did not receive their government benefits, supposedly as a result of a “computer glitch.” Affected students reported having to borrow money from friends and family to pay rent and buy food over the Christmas period.

Senior Labor Party politicians have postured as supporters of those affected by the government crackdown, calling for the program to be “suspended” while a “glitch” in its design is supposedly resolved. At the same time, they have voiced support for the ideological rationale behind the offensive, echoing the insistence of the government and the corporate media that “welfare cheats” must be punished.

In reality, the last Labor government established the automated debt system in 2011. Current Labor leader, Bill Shorten, who was then assistant treasurer, declared at the time that it would see “more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt.”

As a result, the amount of alleged debt recovered from Centrelink’s threatening welfare letters jumped from $1.8 billion in 2010–11 to $2.2 billion in 2013–14. Now the program is being ramped up in a bid to obtain an extra $4 billion over the next four years.

While Labor is hypocritically calling for the temporary suspension of the automated process, it is also counting on the $4 billion in budget “savings” for its proposed economic measures. Linda Burney, Labor’s human services spokesperson, told the Australian: “Labor absolutely supports measures which effectively recoup wrongly paid welfare. That includes data-matching and some automation.”

Gillard’s government, propped up by the Greens, also forced about 100,000 single parents onto the poverty-level Newstart allowance for the unemployed. Some of the country’s most impoverished families lost hundreds of dollars a month.

Labor is committed to further attacks on welfare. Last September it helped the Turnbull government pass an omnibus savings bill, cutting $6.3 billion from social spending over four years. Labor supported provisions such as 9 percent annual interest charges on alleged unpaid welfare debts, and abolition of a previous six-year statute of limitations on debts.

Decades of cuts by successive Labor and Liberal-National governments have resulted in Australia having one of the most punitive welfare systems among “developed” countries. Poverty levels among those who receive Newstart—the equivalent of $38 a day for a single adult—stand at 55 percent. The unemployed are continually harassed by Centrelink and private job agencies, and in many cases, forced to perform unpaid labour for charities and business to receive their benefits.

Trial of Jakarta governor signals wider political turmoil in Indonesia

John Roberts & Peter Symonds 

The trial of Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama on trumped-up charges of “blasphemy” is underway in a Jakarta district court, after mass protests last year, spearheaded by right-wing Islamist organisations, demanded his jailing. The case is based on the allegation that Basuki insulted the Muslim Quran and Islam. This is a crime in Indonesia, under regressive pro-clerical laws, punishable by up to five years’ jail.

Basuki, who took over as Jakarta governor in October 2014 after his predecessor Joko Widodo became Indonesian president, is seeking election in his own right in the upcoming gubernatorial election on February 15. The alleged offence occurred last September when Basuki, who is a Christian and an ethnic Chinese, cited a verse from the Quran in a bid to counter Islamic groups that are urging Muslims not to vote for a non-Muslim.

The trial is a sign of sharpening rivalry among Indonesia’s political elites, amid economic uncertainty compounded by the election of Donald Trump as US president and a widening social gulf between rich and poor. The campaign against Basuki is certainly seeking to undermine his chances at the February election, but is also aimed more broadly at Widodo, who groomed Basuki and who is due for re-election in 2019.

Various hardline Islamist groups, including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), initiated the campaign against Basuki in 2014 shortly after he became Jakarta governor. These organisations seized on Basuki’s remarks last September to demand his dismissal and jailing. The protests in Jakarta grew to more than 100,000 on November 4, ending in riots that killed one person and injured more than 200, and an even larger rally on December 2.

Basuki’s rivals for the Jakarta governorship have kept their distance from the protests, but are undoubtedly offering tacit support to the Islamist groups. After the November rally, President Widodo accused “political actors” of manipulating the protests but did not name names.

Prabowo Subianto, Widodo’s opponent in the 2014 presidential election, had his party Gerindra and its ally, the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), endorse Anies Baswedan, sacked by Widodo as education minister.

Widodo’s predecessor as president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his Democratic Party (PD) formed a coalition with the three Muslim-based parties—the United Development Party (PPP), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the National Awakening Party (PKB)—to endorse his son, former army major Agus Harmurti Yudhoyono.

Yudhoyono senior called a press conference after the November protest to refute allegations that he orchestrated the mass rally but at the same time declared that he supported its demonstration “300 percent.” Earlier, he remarked that the Jakarta poll now “feels like a presidential election”—an indication of the broader aims of the campaign.

Basuki, who had indicated last March that he would run as an independent, accepted the nomination in July of three parties in Widodo’s parliamentary coalition—Golkar, the political instrument of the former Suharto dictatorship, NasDem, the party of media mogul Surya Paloh and Hanura, the party of Suharto-era general Wiranto, Widodo’s top security minister. He also gained the support of ex-President Megawati Sukarnoputri and her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which had been seeking another candidate.

Basuki’s trial and likely conviction has now thrown the February election open and placed a question mark over Widodo’s chances in the 2019 presidential election. In a bid to distance himself from his protégé, Widodo made a surprise appearance on the platform at the December 2 protest alongside leaders of the FPI and other hardline Islamists—effectively lending legitimacy to their campaign.

The case against Basuki has been greatly accelerated. In procedures that normally take months, Basuki was named a suspect on November 16, police submitted the case to the Attorney General’s Office by November 25 and within three days the AGO declared the 826-page dossier complete.

When the trial opened on December 13, Basuki denied he had intended to insult the Quran. On December 27, the five-judge panel ruled against defence submissions to have the case thrown out because it violated Basuki’s human rights and breached procedures. When proceedings began last week, the judges barred journalists from the court, which was surrounded by 2,500 security personnel, amid pro- and anti-Basuki protests.

The moves against Basuki, and indirectly Widodo, reflect divisions in the Indonesian ruling elites over economic policy. Both men are identified with efforts to accelerate pro-market restructuring, whereas Widodo’s rival in the 2014 election, Prabowo Subianto, campaigned on economic nationalism and protectionism.

Widodo slashed fuel subsidies in 2014, provoking widespread anger as petrol and diesel prices rose by more than 30 percent. His plans to use the income to boost social spending and expand jobs through infrastructure projects have not lived up to promises. Domestic consumption and government spending, which together comprise almost 70 percent of overall economic output, are stagnating.

As a result, there are concerns in Jakarta that the Indonesian economy could be hit if the incoming Trump administration in Washington implements trade war measures. The United States is Indonesia’s biggest export destination, accounting for more than 12 percent of overall exports. The government has downgraded its economic growth estimate for 2017 to 5.1 percent, well short of its target of 7 percent.

At the same time, Indonesia increasingly depends on foreign direct investment (FDI) from China, which is now the third-biggest investor behind Singapore and Japan, with FDI rising to $US1.6 billion in the nine months up to the end of September from about $US600 million for the whole of 2015. Widodo has courted Chinese investment, meeting five times with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the past two years.

Islamist leaders have not only branded Basuki an infidel but also sought to whip up anti-Chinese chauvinism, which has been repeatedly exploited by Indonesian political figures since independence to channel social tensions in reactionary directions.

While the Indonesian gross domestic product expanded dramatically from $US163.8 billion in 1999 to $888.5 billion in 2014, the economic benefits have enriched a relatively small layer of the population and social inequality has widened.

A December 2015 World Bank report found that in 2002 the top 10 percent of households consumed as much as 42 percent of the poorest, but by 2014 the richest households consumed as much as 54 percent of the poorest. The growing national wealth has benefited only 20 percent of the population while 80 percent—some 205 million people—are worse off.

Among the G20 nations, Indonesia now ranks second only to Russia in income inequality. One percent of the population owns half of all property and financial assets and 10 percent own 77 percent of national wealth. The official poverty level of 11 percent or 29 million people is a sham. The World Bank stated that another 68 million lived just above the poverty line and could easily fall below it with any financial shock.

Likewise, Basuki’s efforts to “modernise” Jakarta, while appealing to layers of the capital’s middle classes and enriching a layer of businessmen, have provoked anger from the city’s poorest layers. His land reclamation projects have benefited only developers and their clients hungry for coastal sites, while, in 2015 alone, Basuki oversaw the eviction of 8,145 poor families.

The Islamist organisations behind the anti-Basuki campaign, along with various opposition parties and factions, are seeking to exploit the growing social discontent for their own reactionary agenda and, above all, to divide the working class and block any challenge to the profit system itself.

Child abuse and neglect soar in US military families

Shelley Connor

A recent investigation by the Los Angeles Times/Tribune has uncovered a significant increase in child abuse and neglect among US military families since 2003.

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, the Times gained access to reports from the Army, Navy and Air Force that reveal that, in many cases, military officials failed to act upon known or suspected cases of child abuse in military families.

The reports confirm that child fatalities in military homes jumped from 14 in 2003 to 38 in 2012; from 2012 to 2014, they remained above 30 per year until they dropped to 23 in 2015—the last year that Pentagon records are available. That same year, the Family Advocacy Program (FAP), a military program aimed at intervening in cases of domestic violence and child neglect, reported 5,378 cases of child abuse and neglect in military families.

For years, the Pentagon has maintained that child abuse is less common and less severe in military homes than it is among the civilian population. It asserts that its vigilance in weeding out drug and alcohol users screens out most abusive parents—moreover, service members, the Pentagon says, are free from the stress of unemployment faced by most civilians, which decreases the financial strain upon military families.

Most proudly, the Pentagon points to its Family Advocacy Program (FAP) and the obligation of base commanders to monitor the welfare of their troops’ families and to order the FAP to intervene in cases where service members are suspected or known to have abused their family members.

Despite the Pentagon’s boasts, however, the rate of child abuse and neglect in the military has risen from 4.8 incidents per 1,000 children to 7.2 within five years. This rise, demonstrated by the Pentagon’s own records, has occurred even as the number of enlisted personnel has declined by 10 percent in recent years.

Moreover, FAP personnel point out that these are only the cases to which its caseworkers are alerted. The Times report quotes Rene Robichaux, who oversees the Army’s clinical child abuse treatment program, who said, “We get about 25 percent of the incidents. The rest occur behind closed doors.”

The FAP was founded in the years following the Vietnam War, when there was a spike in spousal abuse cases amongst returning military personnel. Previous efforts by the military to intervene in domestic abuse cases amongst its members had been poorly funded and unenthusiastically maintained.

FAPs predecessor, the Child Advocacy Program, was established in 1976 to address mounting incidents of child abuse in military homes. In 1979, after multiple reports demonstrated that military service members were responsible for 15 percent of the nation’s total spousal abuse cases, the program was expanded to include spouses and renamed the Family Advocacy Program. The program has a budget of around $2 million a year, and is brandished by the Department of Defense both as a benefit to military recruits and as a shield against the public outcry against the military’s treatment of enlistees and their families.

Child abuse and neglect are known to correlate strongly with deployment. Despite this, base commanders have failed to report cases of abuse to the FAP. Child welfare advocates have pointed out that there is reluctance among commanders to address cases of abuse and neglect, because they can lead to a service member’s discharge. Not only that, these reports can be seen as evidence of a commander’s incompetence to monitor his or her troops.

Several recent high-profile child murder cases have also shown that FAP referrals alone are inadequate to address concerns over child maltreatment in military families.

In the case of 22-month-old Tamryn Klapheke, who died of starvation on Dyess Air Force Base, the FAP had previously intervened, along with Texas’ Child Protective Services, after the infant’s malnourished state was reported by doctors. Tamryn’s father was serving overseas at the time. Tamryn’s mother, Tiffany Klapheke, cooperated with FAP’s requirements, making all of Tamryn’s assigned doctors’ visits and completing a parenting course.

Three months after a social worker had noted in Tamryn’s file that fatality was likely if she were not fed appropriately, the family was released from the program’s oversight. Autopsy reports demonstrate that Tiffany Klapheke had provided neither food nor water for Tamryn for at least four days before she died.

All branches of the military have increased staffing for the FAP in recent years. Nevertheless, the program is overwhelmed, particularly when units return from deployment. A service member might wait for three weeks or more to speak with an FAP therapist after being referred to the program. Moreover, the cases that are referred tend to be extreme, demanding immediate attention. There is an incentive for caseworkers and their managers to quickly move families through the program in order to work through the caseload.

In some cases, parents never come into contact with an FAP caseworker, even when there are multiple, well-documented reports of abuse.

Such was the case of Talia Williams, a five-year-old girl living on Wheeler Air Force Base, who died after being beaten by her father and stepmother in July of 2005. Mrs. Williams had been reported by coworkers numerous times for remarking that beating children was acceptable as long as there were no incriminating marks. Her father did not take such precautions; the staff at Talia’s daycare notified military police after finding bruises on Talia’s arms and back. Talia had told them that her father beat her with a paddle when he was angry.

The FAP agent assigned to Talia’s case never took action; Naeem Williams was sentenced to life in prison for his daughter’s murder. In 2008, Talia’s mother sued the Army for negligence and wrongful death in federal court. The Justice Department attempted to block the suit, arguing that the Army was not responsible for child abuse on its bases. U.S. District Judge Alan C. Kay rejected the government’s motion to dismiss. Last year, the Justice Department settled with Tarshia Williams for $2 million—the amount of the FAP’s yearly budget—in the case of her daughter’s death.

The United States has been at war continuously for more than 15 years. Decreases in enlistment have meant that enlistees face multiple deployments. The stress placed on these service members and their families is well-documented.

Children of service members suffer from anxiety at a higher rate than their civilian cohort. Behavioral problems, distractibility, and cognitive impairment among the children of deployed troops reveals the tremendous strain that their parents’ deployments places upon their young shoulders. When their parents return, readjustment to civilian life is fraught with peril. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is prevalent among these service members; added to that is the economic uncertainty to which they return.

It is wholly unsurprising that child abuse and neglect are increasing in these families. In fact, the military’s own research, conducted since the late 1970’s, confirms that this is not a novel, undocumented phenomenon. The evidence accrued steadily throughout the 1980’s that spousal abuse was much more prevalent in the homes of service members who had been deployed, and child abuse, it is well-known, is much more likely in families where there is spousal abuse.

The military’s use of the FAP as a fig leaf to hide behind is therefore obviously disingenuous, as is the Pentagon’s insistence that military families are well-cared for economically.

Many service members, lured to war by the dangling of recruitment bonuses, are now being forced by the Pentagon to repay those bonuses, despite serving multiple overseas tours and incurring significant psychological and financial strain.

The unnecessary deaths of Talia Williams and Tamryn Klapheke testify to the fact that the United States’ endless wars are claiming victims on American soil; moreover, they expose the indifference of the military to the scourge of child abuse amongst its ranks, when addressing it would endanger the steady stream of soldiers to fight and die for the interests of American imperialism.

German government plans propaganda agency in response to “fake news”

Marianne Arens & Peter Schwarz

For weeks, the German and international public sphere has been bombarded with a campaign against so-called “fake news.”

If one believes leading politicians and journalists, then the cause of the loss of trust in establishment parties and the media are false reports on social networks and their manipulation by the Russian intelligence agencies. As DerSpiegel reported, referring to an internal paper of the Federal Interior Ministry, the government now wants to establish a “Defence Centre against Misinformation”—a type of censorship and propaganda agency.

The “Defence Centre” will be set up in the Federal Press Office under Steffen Seibert, who, six years ago, moved seamlessly from his position leading the “Heute Journal,” one of the most important news programs in Germany, to his position as a government spokesperson. The new centre is supposed to strengthen the “political power of defence” of the population and force social networks such as Facebook, Google and Twitter to censor content posted by users.

“The acceptance of a post-factual age would amount to political capitulation,” an internal paper quoted by Der Spiegel said. The paper insisted that “authentic political communication” remains “crucial for the 21 century” as well. Accordingly, wide-reaching measures would have to be formulated to deal with the disinformation campaign, fake news and the manipulation of public opinion.

Numerous politicians support the campaign against supposed fake news on the Internet and demand stronger laws.

Parliamentary President Norbert Lammert (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) told the Osnabrücker Newspaper about “dangers of intentional manipulation by individuals with missionary-like ambition” that are bound up with digital media. He claimed that there was “a need for readjustment by lawmakers and legislation regarding the increasing lapses in social media.” According to Lammert, it has “terrible consequences” when insults, defamation and threats remain unpunished on the Internet.

The faction leaders of the SPD (Social Democratic Party) and the CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union) in federal parliament, Thomas Oppermann and Volker Kauder, want to force social networks to engage in strict self-censorship. A new law is aimed at making Facebook and Twitter responsible for creating a legal protection zone in Germany, which will be active around the clock and demand that fake news entries be deleted within 24 hours. Otherwise, they will be threatened with fines of up to a half a million euros.

As CDU/CSU faction leader Kauder emphasized, the SPD and the CDU agree there should be such a law and want it to be enacted at the beginning of this year. There are reports that Kauder is also considering harsher punishments for insults on the Internet because of the large audience they are able to find there.

Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the EU Commission, and Martin Schulz (SPD), president of the European Parliament, have spoken on the issue and called on companies such as Facebook and Google to “take consistent action against false reports on the Internet.”

In reality the plans for an Orwellian Truth Ministry have nothing to do with concerns about false news reports. Instead, the established parties, the state media and private media corporations fear that they are losing their monopoly on public opinion. The Internet has provided millions of people with the possibility, for the first time, of obtaining access to information that has not been selected and filtered by the official media. This has been behind the fear in the media and political parties.

A recent edition of Der Spiegel expresses itself quite bluntly and openly. In the text of the lead article, headlined “The Great Erosion,” the author anxiously asks, “Can it be that a revolution is imminent?”

The article then discusses the growing mistrust of the population in the government, parties and the media. In Germany today, there are growing numbers of people “who believe that the government and/or other powers are pursuing all kinds of secret plans.” Many citizens believe that the media “always produce their reports and commentaries on the basis of orders that come from somewhere ‘at the very top.’”

“It all has something of a pre-revolutionary mood,” the multi-page article concluded. At the moment, the parties are “the biggest losers at this time, because the political class becomes frightened and anxious, whenever the ‘voice of the people’ is heard. Many people, in some places a critical mass, are no longer correctly reached by the system, which has led to a loss in the legitimacy of the system.”

This is the real reason for the call for censorship—rather than the supposed existence of “fake news.” The ruling class is reacting to growing social tensions and political discontent in the same way it has in the past: with police, prosecution and the suppression of free speech.

Schools in Germany continue to be named after Carl von Ossietzky. However, it has for the most part forgotten that Ossietzky sat in prison in the Weimar Republic and died at the hands of the Nazis because he wrote about the illegal arms deals of the Reichswehr in the Weltbühne. If there were still a Weltbühne today, it would without a doubt be placed right at the top of the official list of fake news sources.

Of course there are false and falsified reports that circulate on the Internet and are used by right-wing and racist movements. However, when it comes to the fabrication of fake news aimed at stirring up support for militarism and hatred for foreigners, social media cannot hold a candle to the government and major media sources. The population’s mistrust in the media, against which Der Spiegel, Lammert, Oppermann and others are clamouring, is the result of decades of experience.

It is not an accident that this mistrust is especially strong in the eastern part of the country. One need only recall the promise of “blooming landscapes,“ which accompanied the 1990 dissolution of East Germany. Instead, there was industrial decline, unemployment, low-wage jobs and social ruin. Nevertheless, the media never tired of speaking of an alleged “upswing” in the east.

Or consider the accounts about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that were spread not only by the US media, but also by the German media in 2003 to justify the military conquest of an almost defenceless country. Since then it has become clear that these reports were based on falsifications and lies. Only someone who considers the majority of the population completely stupid can imagine that this has escaped people’s notice or suppose that they have not reached any conclusions as a consequence.

During the Ukraine crisis three years ago, the production of fake news by the official German media took on new dimensions. Although the participation of right-wing and fascistic militias in the putsch organized by the West against pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was obvious, all the major media outlets wrote about a “democratic revolution.” Even the programme committee of ARD had to acknowledge at the time that the reporting on Ukraine had “given the impression of bias” and appeared to be directed against “Russia and Russian standpoints.”

This has not escaped the notice of millions of people either, especially after it became clear that the newly installed President Petro Poroshenko, who received the blessing of Berlin and Washington, is just as corrupt and antisocial as his predecessor.

The German media itself never corresponded with this picture of independence and objective reporting that it is eagerly demanding of others.

In the public media, the only ones who rise are those who have the right party credentials or do not go beyond certain narrow confines in their criticism. Franz Alt, the moderator of the ARD magazine “Report,” was one of those who discovered this the hard way. When, on the basis of his Christian faith, the CDU member criticized the build-up of the federal army , he was banned—before a running camera—from appearing on television. “Due to the engaged statement by Franz Alt on behalf of the peace movement and against the NATO double decision the independence determined by statute cannot be maintained at this time,” was the argument used by the editor of the Southwest Radio Station to explain Alt’s expulsion.

Since then, the situation has not improved. For the past 22 years the Bavarian Radio Station has been led in a similar manner by Sigmund Gottlieb, who might as well be a press spokesperson for the CDU. Public scandals such as the incident with Alt are rare, since most journalists have internalized the methods of censorship.

With regard to the private media, it is the millionaire owners who determine political line. If there were a prize for fake news, Springer house would no doubt be the most deserving. For decades, the highly paid journalists of this tabloid newspaper have produced articles aimed at lowering the cultural and political level of the masses. At the press ball of the Springer Publishing House, all the Berlin notables gather together each year. Its top shareholder, Friede Springer, is a close friend of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel’s husband, Joachim Sauer, sits on the board of trustees of the Friede Springer Foundation and receives €10,000 per year in compensation, according to Der Spiegel.

The so-called “serious” newspapers such as Die Zeit, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also feature propaganda written by the likes of Stefan Kornelius, Jochen Bittner and Josef Joffe, who have close connections with political think tanks, the government and the military and lobby for their aims. For instance, Jochen Bittner wrote about the strategy paper, “New power, new responsibility,” that prepared the revival of German militarism, without informing the reader that he also took part in the preparation of this document.

The false representations of the events in Ukraine were also accompanied at that time with a campaign against fake news and preparations for war against Russia. The claim that Russian hacker attacks are responsible for the election victory of Donald Trump in the US and the rise of right-wing parties in Europe was a common thread throughout the various media accounts, although there was no evidence for this at all. The Tagesschau reported on December 26: “Above all in Germany, parties are currently seeking the possibility of combatting manipulation of opinion on the Internet. They are concerned that Russia could intervene in the federal election in this way [like in the US].”

There is also deep mistrust of this propaganda in the population—not out of sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but because many people know or sense that the war preparations serve imperialist interests and that they could be among the first victims of a military confrontation with Russia.

Death toll mounts as UK National Health Service deliberately destroyed

Robert Stevens & Chris Marsden

Years of spending cuts have been used to intentionally bring about the destruction of the National Health Service (NHS).

At the weekend, the British Red Cross said the NHS was facing a “humanitarian crisis.” Its statement follows the deaths of two patients in Worcestershire Royal Hospital corridors while waiting for treatment. According to the BBC, a woman died of a heart attack after waiting for 35 hours on a trolley in a corridor. A man suffered an aneurysm after a long wait on a trolley, and, despite being treated, could not be saved.

The Daily Mirror reported that in recent days, a man was found hanged in a toilet cubicle at the hospital and may have been “accidentally strangled” by a drip feed cord.”

The deaths all occurred between New Year’s Day and January 3.

Some patients are waiting even longer for treatment, with John Freeman telling the Guardian that his 66-year-old wife Pauline waited for 54 hours on a hospital trolley in Worcestershire after suffering a stroke.

However, the situation in Worcestershire is only a microcosm of that facing the entire NHS. The chief executive of the British Red Cross, Mike Adamson, said, “[We are] responding to the humanitarian crisis in our hospital and ambulance services across the country. We have been called in to support the NHS and help get people home from hospital and free up much needed beds ...”

Hospitals are increasingly forced to close A&E departments to patients. In December, more than a third of health trusts in England (52 of 150) issued an “alert,” meaning they required urgent action in order to cope. Seven of the trusts could not provide comprehensive care. In the county of Essex, with a population of more than 1.4 million, every hospital was forced to issue a “black alert”—the highest level—in the last few weeks. Nationally emergency departments closed their doors to new patients more than 140 times in December. Last week, ambulances on 42 occasions had to be diverted to other hospitals due to A&E’s not allowing in more patients.

The weekend’s events and the Red Cross declaration prompted a torrent of media comment and government rebuttals. Typical was the Observer, which editorialised, “The government must get a grip” because the “NHS is facing unprecedented strain.”

Prime Minister Theresa May replied, “I don’t accept the description the Red Cross has made of this,” while Education Secretary Justine Greening said the comments made were “inappropriate” because Red Cross involvement was “not particularly unusual”!

Professor Keith Willett, NHS England’s director of acute care, said “on the international scale of a humanitarian crisis, I do not think the NHS is at that point.” His defence is based upon comparing Britain with war-torn countries, as made explicit by Conservative health select committee chair Sarah Wollaston who declared baldly, “This is not equivalent to Syria or Yemen.”

In fact, just as with the imperialist-inspired wars in the Middle East, the crisis facing the NHS is a product of deliberate governmental policy.

In 2012, the health service of another country, Greece, was also described, by Doctors of the World, as being in a humanitarian crisis. There, too, brutal austerity cuts were to blame, as spending was slashed according to the dictates of Greece’s creditors and the world’s banks by more than €5 billion—almost a third—by the social democratic PASOK and Conservative governments. This offensive continues under the pseudo-left Syriza government, which pushed through a further €350 million in health cuts in 2016.

Britain has suffered cuts—in terms of a real-terms fall in wages the UK is second only to Greece—which have eviscerated the NHS and other vital services so that the Red Cross reported of Britain, “We’ve seen people sent home [from hospital] without clothes, some suffer falls and are not found for days, while others are not washed because there is no carer there to help them.”

During the 2010-2015 Conservative/Liberal Democrats government, billions in spending cuts to the NHS were imposed. A further £22 billion, again under the guise of “efficiency savings,” is to be slashed in this parliament to 2020. These cuts are to be implemented through new Sustainability and Transformation Plans being drawn up by health trusts in England, aimed at destroying the NHS and opening the doors to private health care that would be adequate only for the privileged few who can afford large contributions.

Having set the NHS up to fail, the government and the media will inevitably unite to insist that the answer to the present crisis is for the NHS to be made more efficient through the closure of “failing” services and additional privatisation measures.

In these circumstances, the response by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is politically criminal.

He demanded that May answer urgent questions on the NHS, as Parliament returns after its recess today, and lay out her plans to “fix” it. He did so while declaring that this crisis was “made in Downing St. by this government—a crisis we warned them about.”

Corbyn’s statements are shot through with hypocrisy. In the first instance, he presents the NHS crisis has having nothing to do with the policies of previous Labour governments led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown—backed by most of the MPs in his party. Then he makes great play of his role in warning the government.

Rather than offering advice to May and her predecessor Cameron, the millions of health workers who supported Corbyn as Labour leader based on his pledge to end austerity had every right to expect him to fight the government on their behalf. Instead, Corbyn has stood by as every struggle by health workers in opposition to these attacks has been sabotaged by the trade unions and their Labour allies.

Last year, 50,000 junior doctors mounted a wave of unprecedented strikes to protest the government enforcing an inferior contract and as a way of halting the ongoing destruction of the NHS. In March last year, junior doctors accused Corbyn of ignoring their fight, even when it came to the ritual of Prime Minister’s Question Time. Jeremy Corbyn’s official spokesman admitted to the Daily Telegraph that Corbyn had indeed “decided to focus on other issues rather than question the Prime Minister over the strike.”

Corbyn responded by belatedly making a face-saving appearance at a picket line in April, while calling for the government to reach a negotiated settlement with the British Medical Association. His ally Diane Abbott issued a “jam tomorrow” statement to the Guardian August 24, pledging a future Labour government would “rescue the NHS,” by allowing “its budget to grow in line with the economy” and “shift[ing] resources to frontline care” by “bearing down on the costs of the private finance initiative (PFI)” rather than ending privatisation.

The end result was to facilitate the isolation of the dispute by the health unions and the Labour Party and a sell-out by the British Medical Association.

Strikes in transport and other sectors to hit the UK

Robert Stevens

A series of strikes is set to begin in Britain this week, pointing to a nascent rebellion by workers against the efforts of the trade unions to suppress opposition to the corporate-government onslaught on jobs, wages and conditions.

On Sunday evening, members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) walked off the job for 24 hours to protest unsafe conditions resulting from ticket office closures and job losses. The strike will bring much of the London Underground network to a halt, with the closure of many central London stations.

On Tuesday, train drivers employed by Southern Rail, which is run by the Govia Thameslink Railway franchise, will walk out for 48 hours, with an additional 24-hour strike to be held Friday. The drivers are protesting the company’s decision to impose Driver Only Operated (DOO) trains, first by eliminating the role of conductors in opening and closing doors and reducing their mandate to collecting fares. The move, endangering public safety, is aimed at the eventual elimination of conductors on the railways.

Southern, backed to the hilt by the Conservative government, claimed they were justified in imposing DOO, citing a report by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), a non-ministerial government department. Ian Prosser, the chief inspector of railways, stated, “ORR is satisfied that with suitable equipment, proper procedures and competent staff in place, it is a safe method of working. ” [Emphasis added]. However, the rail industry-funded body, stuffed with Tory appointees, was forced to acknowledge that such procedures, equipment and staff do not presently exist, highlighting over 20 serious safety failures related to DOO and concluding that until changes are made DOO remains unsafe.

Drivers have warned that removing conductors would be a threat to passengers both when on board and when alighting, with only grainy CCTV camera pictures available to check whether or not it is safe to close a door.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, British Airways (BA) cabin crew are set to strike in protest against a two-tier wage system and poverty pay. Pay rates for the 4,000 cabin crew involved start at just £12,000, plus £3 an hour flying pay. Two thousand are in the Unite union.

Unite cited a recent survey revealing that almost half of new cabin crew had taken on a second job to make ends meet, with some sleeping in their cars between shifts. Two-thirds admitted to going to work unfit to fly because they could not afford to be off sick.

The train strikes are set to spread. This week, the RMT is to ballot its members employed by Arriva Rail North in a pay dispute. However, the pro-Conservative Party Daily Telegraph noted that “the dispute is underpinned by the possibility of the company introducing driver only trains--the issue which has been at the centre of the industrial action on Southern. ”

The action would affect cities such as Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Hull, and could spread to the West Midlands, Merseyside and other lines into London.

Teachers in Northern Ireland are also set to strike this month. Members of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Women Teachers (NASUWT) are to hold a one-day strike over pay, workloads and job security in an ongoing dispute. The teachers will strike in the Derry City, Strabane, Mid Ulster, Fermanagh and Omagh council areas on January 31.

Last Friday, members of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) began industrial action short of a strike in a pay dispute, refusing to take part in inspections carried out by the Education and Training Inspectorate until further notice. They are to hold a half-day strike on January 18.

These strikes are taking place in the face of the sabotage of a previous round of industrial action that was slated to take place among postal workers, Southern Rail staff and airport staff during the Christmas and New Year holiday period. The Communication Workers Union ensured that a strike by postal workers at Crown Post Offices was confined to just 4,000 of its members at 50 offices.

On December 20, Unite announced that a strike over pay by 1,500 of its members employed by the baggage handling firm Swissport was off, with the union recommending the workers accept a new pay offer.

Prior to Christmas, the BA crews were also set to strike, but soon after its Swissport intervention, Unite, Britain’s largest union, connived with the company to call off the strike. General Secretary Len McCluskey personally intervened in the negotiations and the union recommended a pay offer that was subsequently rejected by the membership by a margin of 7 to 1.

The RMT were unable to prevent a strike by conductors at Southern, held December 18 and 20, but the union offered the company a Christmas truce.

Under conditions of escalating crisis for the British ruling elite, the government is insisting that workers sacrifice their historically won social gains so that British corporations can compete in a post-Brexit environment.

In March, the government’s Trade Union Act will take effect, imposing as requirements in strike ballots in “important public services,” including transport, a 50 percent turnout and a vote to strike by fully 40 percent of the entire workforce.

Even more draconian measures are being demanded. Prior to the Christmas strikes, Tory MP Chris Philp stated that any proposed public-sector strikes should be legally required to go before a High Court judge “who would determine whether the strike was unreasonable and disproportionate for it to continue.”

Philp is part of a group of 20 Tory MPs who have discussed his proposals with Prime Minister Theresa May. He also proposes that “we follow what Canada, Italy and Spain do by making sure that even if there are public-sector strikes, 50 percent of the services should still be running.”

When forced to call limited actions to make a show of opposition, the unions are desperate to prove that the suppression of struggles can be carried out under the existing legal arrangements, utilising their services.

The unions’ role is underscored by the fact that in both the Southern dispute over DOO and the BA cabin crew struggle, workers are opposing attacks made possible only by previous betrayals by the unions.

The rail unions have collaborated for years in the imposition of DOO nationwide. Just in the capital, the rail unions collaborated in the elimination of 130 conductors from London Overground trains by Transport for London and then Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson. The RMT also agreed to the closure of all 265 London Underground ticket offices, completed in December 2015, with the loss of more than 800 jobs.

In 2010, Unite sold out a struggle by BA cabin crew, enabling the airline to impose its new two-tier wage structure.

New year opens with wave of layoffs in the US

Jerry White

The New Year is opening in the US with a wave of layoff announcements and threats of further downsizing during the year.

In the latest blow to retailers, hundreds of women’s clothing stores, operated by Ohio-based chain The Limited, shut their doors over the weekend at shopping malls across the United States. The company, which has 235 stores nationwide and 4,000 employees, quietly began layoffs in December before shuttering its stores on Sunday.

Last week, Macy’s announced it was closing 68 stores and cutting more than 10,000 jobs. Sears also said it will shut down another 150 Sears and Kmart stores, after poor holiday sales. Kohls and JC Penney previously carried out mass layoffs.

Retailers have been hit by a series of factors, including the stagnation of real wages of large numbers of consumers and the growth of online shopping giants like Amazon.

In addition to the retailers, the Big Three Detroit-based automakers are carrying out thousands of temporary and permanent layoffs, including the elimination of entire shifts—and the wiping out of more than 3,000 jobs—at assembly plants in Detroit and Lansing, Michigan, and Lordstown, Ohio, halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Last Friday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported slower-than-expected job growth in December. The economy added 156,000 jobs last month, the vast majority in the lower-paying service sector. Obama’s Labor Secretary Thomas Perez hailed the numbers, saying they showed the “strength” of the economy. In reality, there has been no recovery for millions of Americans who, living from paycheck-to-paycheck and up to their necks in debt, face the constant threat of job loss.

Other recent layoff announcements include:

· Lexington, Kentucky-based Lexmark International is laying off 320, or 10 percent, of its software business employees.

· Data-storage company Seagate Technology Inc. has cut 155 jobs at its Shakopee, Minnesota facility.

· Alorica will cut 200 jobs at its customer communications center in Utica, New York.

· Dole Packaged Foods will close its Stockton, California frozen yogurt product plant, eliminating 30 hourly and supervisory jobs.

· Internationally, Chinese tech giant ZTE will cut five percent of its global workforce or 3,000 jobs.

The dire situation facing workers will only escalate under the incoming Trump administration. Despite his bogus pronouncements of concern for the plight of American workers, Trump’s economic program is based on massive corporate tax cuts and deregulation and protectionist trade measures, which will destabilize the world economy and provoke retaliation against US exporters. He is also proposing a sharp spending increase for the military and some funding for infrastructure projects, all of which will be a boondoggle for private contractors and other businesses.

Corporations are also demanding the continued lowering of labor costs in the US, which was central to the economic policy of the Obama administration over the last eight years.

This was implemented with the full assistance of the trade unions, which worked with the White House to suppress a “wages push” by millions of workers whose labor agreements expired in 2015-16 and who were determined to recover wages lost in the years following the 2008 financial crash. With the backing of the unions, wage increases in the private and public sectors have largely been limited to the rate of inflation and any raises have more than been eaten up by increased health care costs under Obamacare.

The latest retail layoffs highlight structural changes in the economy. Millions of workers, young and old, face a “New Normal” of low-paying, precarious jobs, while the wealthy elite extracts billions in profit, chiefly through financial parasitism.

Dayton, Ohio businessman Leslie H. Wexner opened the first The Limited store at a shopping mall in the Columbus, Ohio suburb of Upper Arlington in 1963. So named because it limited the variety of clothing to lower costs of quick-selling merchandise, the brand eventually grew to 750 stores with sales of more than $1 billion.

This allowed Wexner to expand into other retail ventures that would be based in the Columbus area, including well-known chains such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, Express, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and others. A decade ago Wexner sold a majority share of The Limited to private equity firm Sun Capital Partners, which bought the company outright in 2010. Wexner, the CEO of L Brands, pulled in $26,669,306 in total compensation in 2015.

A month ago, The Limited announced it was laying off 248 of its headquarters staff in New Albany, Ohio, as Sun Capital continued to pursue a possible sale. After selling off all of its clothing stock at up to 90 percent discount, along with fixtures and mannequins, the empty stores were permanently closed Sunday.

“I think it is very sad,” said Amanda Conley, 49, who bought two of the last pairs of pants at a central Ohio store, told the Columbus Dispatch. “It’s been a staple here. Of course, it affects employees and their livelihoods.”

Even as workers were being tossed into the streets, however, the $9 billion private equity firm was milking the retail chain for as much as possible. In a letter to investors Friday, Sun Capital Partners said it made 1.8 times its $50 million investment in Limited Stores while writing down the remaining equity value to zero.

Fortune noted, “The disclosure illustrates how private equity firms can boast a profit from companies whose equity value has been wiped out, having previously recouped their original investment by taking dividends from these companies, often by having them borrow more money to fund the dividends.”

Many traditional retailers are falling victim to pressure from online giant Amazon, which is able to quickly ship merchandise from its massive and strategically located warehouses using low-wage workers whose productivity is electronically monitored. In the case of The Limited they have also fallen victim to other “fast-fashion” stores, like those owned by Swedish multinational H&M (Hennes & Mauritz AB), which specialize in the latest fashion discount apparel aimed at younger shoppers.

Apparel retailers, including H&M, rely on a global supply chain, which includes brutally exploited workers around the world. In April 2013, 1,133 garment workers were killed and 2,500 wounded when Rana Plaza, an eight-story building housing several textile factories, collapsed in the Bangladeshi capital on Dhaka. Half of the 125,000 shirts made each day at the complex were sold to H&M. Workers made $1.43 a day, for 10-12 hours, producing 250 T-shirts per hour.

Retail workers in the United States are subjected to inconsistent hours, low pay and an authoritarian atmosphere at work. Most are on-call employees who must phone in or wait for a call from a manager to find out their schedules. Turning down a shift because of a scheduling conflict with family, school or another job means having your hours cut or instant dismissal.

The retail industry as a whole employed around 16 million workers, up more than nine percent since 2009; nonsupervisory retail work pays 30 percent less than other private sector jobs.

Last June. 5,000 workers authorized the first strike in 40 years at Macy’s flagship department store in mid-town Manhattan and four other locations in the state. Workers wanted wage and health care improvements and to end the policy that allowed Macy’s to reduce a salesperson’s commission if a customer returned the merchandise within six months.

Collaborating with state and local Democrats, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union (RWDSU), which is part of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, quickly reached a deal, which retains the punitive commission policy and significant out-of-pocket health care costs.