9 Dec 2017

Tesla management imposes brutal workplace regime as it ramps up production

Jean LaChance

Workers at California-based electric carmaker Tesla are facing an increasingly brutal management regime as the company seeks to ramp up production in preparation for its full-scale entry into the car market. The company is working out production issues with its new lower-priced Model 3, with a production target of 500,000 vehicles in 2018 and 1 million units by 2020.
Delays in production have been blamed by management on the workforce, which labors under abysmal conditions at least equal to or worse than those confronting autoworkers at GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler.
The management regime at Tesla is by all accounts draconian. In one of the most well publicized cases, some 700 workers employed at Tesla operations in the Bay Area were fired without warning on October 13. Solar City, the solar energy company acquired by Tesla in late 2016, also announced the firing of hundreds of workers around the same time. Included in the terminations were factory workers, engineers, administrative personnel, and sales staff.
Tesla management justified the sackings on the grounds that those terminated had failed to meet annual performance reviews conducted throughout the company in the beginning of the third quarter
In reality, it is Musk and the Tesla executives who are the source of the production problems and not the hourly and salaried work force. Musk stated that the terminations were “only two percent of a 33,000-employee workforce”, but the number is closer to seven percent of the 10,000-worker staff in the Fremont-San Jose area.
Wages range from $17 to $21 per hour while in Alameda County, the site of the main Tesla factory located in Fremont, the living wage for one parent and one child is over $28 per hour. The Bay Area minimum cost of living for a family of four is now over $70,000 per year. Many Tesla workers have been forced to live as far as one to two hours driving time from Fremont to be able to afford housing.
The typical workweek is 60 to 70 hours, with mandatory overtime as the norm. Safety considerations are minimal if nonexistent. In an article published by the Guardian, Jonathan Galescu, a production technician at Tesla who has seen coworkers collapse or be taken away in ambulances, stated, “I’ve seen people pass out, hit the floor like a pancake and smash their face open. They just send us to work around him while he’s still lying on the floor.”
Assembly line worker Michael Sanchez, who had dreams of becoming an artist and a car service technician, has two herniated discs, is on disability, and is no longer able to write without pain. Tesla claims that he incurred the injury while installing a wheel, but Sanchez claims that his condition is the product of working on cars that were suspended above the line, forcing him to continually look up and work with his hands in the air full-time. Said Sanchez, “You can make it through Monday. You can make it through Tuesday. Come Wednesday, you start to feel something. Thursday is pain. Friday is agonizing. Saturday you’re just making it through the day.”
Tesla attempts to hold workers accountable for injuries sustained on the job by discouraging workers from reporting them due to the massive drop in pay that could result. Workers assigned to “light duty” receive supplemental benefits from workmen’s compensation, but have their wages dramatically reduced. One production worker who experienced two back injuries said, “I went from making $22 an hour to $10 an hour. It kind of forces people to go back to work.”
On November 13 in 2014, a low-pressure aluminum casting press failed and threw molten metal onto three workers, which ignited their clothing. The three workers, Jesus Navarro, Kevin Carter, and Jorge Terrazas, sustained second- and third-degree burns. Navarro was in the hospital for 20 days with burns on his stomach, hip, lower back, and ankles. A Cal-OSHA investigation determined that Tesla failed to maintain the press in a safe operating condition and allowed the machine to be used when the safety interlock was broken. The investigation found that Tesla had not given the workers training about the hazards of the machine and that they were not wearing face and eye protection at the time of the accident. Tesla received a slap-on-the-wrist fine of only $89,000.
On-the-job injuries have been reported to be 30 per cent higher than those for the Big Three automakers. Since 2014; there have been more than 100 visits by ambulances to the Tesla plant.
On March 27 of this year, DeWitt Lambert filed suit against Tesla, charging it with subjecting him to months of physical, sexual, and racial harassment. Lambert, who is African-American, had his phone stolen by another worker who recorded a 60-second tirade that consisted of nothing but racial insults and threats of violence. Another coworker stuck a drill motor into Lambert’s backside in front of coworkers. A supervisor wrote Lambert up for eating a candy bar while he was on the assembly line, and he received a reprimand for posting a Facebook picture of himself in the plant.
On October 16 of this year, another three African-Americans, Owen Diaz, his son Demetric, and Lamar Patterson, filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court charging Tesla with engendering a work environment that was hostile to minority workers.
Tesla’s manufacturing of its Model S and Model X began with the purchase of the NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.) plant in Fremont, California by Elon Musk at the end of May 2010, just a month after Toyota rolled out its last Corolla on April 1 of that year. Musk, now owner of five mansions in Bel Air, California and having a total estimated worth of $72 million, was able to buy the factory for a song – only $42 million. Prior to that, Tesla was manufacturing its Roadster model, which was built in sections that were then shipped to Menlo Park, California and to Wyndham, England for final assembly. Production of the Roadster was discontinued in 2012.
Previously, NUMMI had been jointly owned by General Motors and Toyota. That operation began in 1984 two years after General Motors shuttered its Fremont assembly plant in 1982 after 20 years of producing cars and pickup trucks. In 2009, GM pulled out of the enterprise in the wake of the 2008 economic meltdown and as part of the deal brokered with the Obama administration to keep it afloat after its declaration of bankruptcy. Toyota activity ended March 31, 2010.
Neither the national nor the local unit of the United Auto Workers did anything to stop the shutdown. Only in February 2010 did the local conduct a petition drive aimed primarily at diverting the workers from taking any militant action to block the plant closure.
On January 24, 2010, a meeting called by the local UAW heads exploded into a shouting match and a near physical brawl between rank-and-file members and the union bureaucrats as workers tried to vent their feelings about being kept in the dark about the negotiations and the status of their severance package. The union leaders ended up calling in the police.
On February 12, 2010, the UAW leadership staged a rally based on a nationalist policy directed solely at the Japanese instead of against both GM and Toyota. The rally was poorly attended, with many of those who did come rejecting the chauvinist poison spewed by the UAW bureaucrats, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, UAW Vice-President Bob King, and local Democratic Party functionaries. The UAW officials slandered the Fremont workers as “the worst workforce in the automobile industry in the United States" and denounced them for excessive absenteeism and sabotage of vehicles produced, then had the gall to demand a slice of the workers’ severance payouts.
Given this record, attempts by the UAW to organize workers at Tesla have gained little traction. However, the UAW is continuing its effort to organize workers, particularly in the wake of mass firings carried out by the company earlier this fall.
The latest move by the UAW has been the filing of an unfair labor practice complaint charging Tesla management with interrogating employees about their union activities at its Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada and subjecting workers to “heightened supervisory scrutiny.” The UAW also charges that included in the recent mass firings were supporters of the UAW, who it claims that they were singled out for their support of union organization at the Fremont plant.

Puerto Rican unions propose to partner with the Wall Street’s financial control board

Rafael Azul 

Hurricanes Irma and María left a trail of destruction throughout Puerto Rico, delivering a devastating blow to the island’s economic infrastructure, roads, water, dams, bridges, and particularly its electricity services.
A few days ago, a WSWS reader in a rural area south of San Juan wrote, “Still a great part of the population is without electricity. On October 14, Governor Ricardo Rosselló promised that 95 percent of the population would have power by December 15. In a recent interview, he avoided the ‘95% generation’ promise and instead talked about how this goal was just to keep up the sense of urgency to repair the power system.”
According to the site status.pr, as of today there is only 68.40 percent generation. The US Army Corps of Engineers said it is very unlikely that the governor’s promised goal will be achieved by December 15. For some regions in the center of the island it is estimated it will take until March 2018 for power to be fully restored.
In many of the towns in the central, mountainous region, our correspondent reported, the population still has no access to clean water and many still need to wade across rivers to get food and clean water.
In another article this week, government officials and AEE (Puerto Rico’s public electricity utility) functionaries said repairs were taking so long because of the lack of materials. They reported that because of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma much of the needed material is being used to repair damage in the mainland US and is not available for the US island territory.
According to the US Army Corps of Engineers, approximately 48,000 utility poles were damaged and only 2,000 per week are arriving to the island. At the current rate of importation, it may take 24 weeks just to gather the material and equipment, pushing the resumption of full service back to April or May 2018.
None of this is new, or merely a result of Hurricane Maria. For years, the island’s electric utility had ceased importing spare poles and other critical parts, as a consequence of the slide into bankruptcy of the company and of Puerto Rico as a whole. The AEE’s abandonment of a preventive maintenance program, and its failure to update a hurricane plan, left the electrical system extremely vulnerable to the record storm that hit the island on September 20.
In a recent interview with Claridad, Ricardo Santos, former president of Puerto Rico’s electrical workers union (UTIER), said AEE had “stopped purchasing equipment that is normally required. In fact, in some areas the AEE would recycle materials, by removing parts from one plant and installing them in another.”
In May, the Rosselló administration filed for bankruptcy after defaulting on a $74.8 billion debt, along with a $20 billion shortfall on public worker pensions. Two months later AEE declared bankruptcy on a $9 billion debt, after three years of restructuring, mass layoffs and other cutbacks.
The Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) appointed by former President Barack Obama has exercised dictatorial control of the island’s budget and spending on behalf of Wall Street. While the board temporarily suspended the imposition of austerity measures following the storms, Puerto Rico’s creditors, particularly the speculative vulture funds that buy bad loans at a discount, never ceased petitioning the courts and the FOMB, building their case to loot the meager resources of Puerto Rico.
On December 22, the Rosselló administration is scheduled to submit a new plan to repay the debt. On Tuesday academics, business and trade union leaders met to urge the board to suspend austerity measures until the economy recovers from the storm.
Echoing the calls for public-private partnerships (privatization and deregulation) by political officials and business leaders, the union bureaucrats in Puerto Rico are calling for a FOMB-trade union “partnership.” The officials pledged their willingness to cooperate with the FOMB, proposing that unions, together with the creditors, appeal for federal aid from the Trump administration.
Julie Kushner, leader of UAW region 9A, which includes Puerto Rico, declared, “We want to work with you and not against you.” Other members of the Puerto Rican trade union bureaucracy echoed Kushner’s proposals, offering their own advice on how to enforce austerity measures.
Using the same language that bankers and neo-liberal government officials use, Kushner added, “the hurricane probably gave us the ‘opportunity’ of us going together to the federal government to ask for real help for Puerto Rico’s recovery.”
UTIER leader Angel Figueroa Jaramillo, who claims not to believe in the Financial Oversight and Management Board, pathetically called on the FOMB to “listen to the workers this time,” instead of lawyers and economists.
For his part, Roberto Pagan, head of the Union of Puerto Rican Workers (Sindicato Puertorriqueño de Trabajadores), counseled FOMB officials that the migration of workers to Florida and other US states would continue unless wages stop falling. Pagan said that “labor reforms” imposed last January have not worked, and that new pro-business programs are needed to stimulate economic growth, all in the context of a union-FOMB partnership.
Massive austerity—resulting in school closings, public sector layoffs and the gutting of the University of Puerto Rico—has provoked widespread opposition. Now Wall Street and its political stooges on the island are seeking to use the hurricane as an opportunity to escalate plans to privatize public education, the electrical grid and other public services, slash the wages and benefits of workers, and hand over even more tax cuts and subsidies to big business.
Already public-school teachers, parents and students have been involved in protests demanding the reopening of schools, which the island’s education secretary has deliberately kept closed even though volunteers have cleared them of debris and repaired them. This is only the beginning of the social opposition against the Trump administration and the Democrats and Republicans in Washington, and their collaborators in Puerto Rico.
Under these conditions, the trade unions are seeking to block the eruption of the class struggle and impose the dictates of the corporate and financial elite. Puerto Rican workers must reject this and demand the repudiation of the debt. This must be combined with a struggle for a vast expansion of hurricane relief and the launching of a massive public works program to repair and upgrade the island’s infrastructure, including the electrical grid. In this fight, Puerto Rican workers must appeal for solidarity with workers in the US and across the Americas who face similar attacks by the banks and vulture funds.

Google hiring 10,000 reviewers to censor YouTube content

Zaida Green

Google is escalating its campaign of internet censorship, announcing that it will expand its workforce of human censors to over 10,000, the internet giant announced on December 4. The censors’ primary focus will be videos and other content on YouTube, its video-sharing platform, but will work across Google to censor content and train its automated systems, which remove videos at a rate four times faster than its human employees.
Human censors have already reviewed over 2 million videos since June. YouTube has already removed over 150,000 videos, 50 percent of which were removed within two hours of upload. The company is working to accelerate the rate of takedown through machine-learning from manual censorship, according to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in an official blog post.
The hiring drive by Google is yet another advance in the campaign against any expression of political opposition. Other social media giants have implemented measures against “fake news”; Facebook has altered its algorithms to reduce the visibility of certain news stories, and Twitter has banned the Russian-funded media outlets RT and Sputnik from advertising on the platform. While railing against “extremist content,” “child exploitation” and “hoaxes” in the interest of “public safety,” the ultimate goal of this campaign is the suppression of left-wing, anti-war sentiment.
Any censorship on YouTube will undoubtedly have an immense impact on online political discourse. According to a white paper by technology conglomerate Cisco, video will account for 69 percent of all consumer-based internet traffic in 2017; this is expected to rise to 80 percent by 2019. YouTube essentially operates a monopoly on prerecorded video sharing and general video monetization, with some 1.5 billion viewers who watch 1 billion hours of video each day on the platform; in 2015, Google policy manager Verity Harding informed the European Parliament, which was then pressuring YouTube to censor “terror-related” content, that 300 hours of video were being uploaded to the platform every minute.
YouTube began removing photographic and video documentation of war crimes in Syria in August, terminating some 180 accounts and removing countless videos from other channels, including footage uploaded by Airwars of coalition air raids that have killed civilians, according to Hadi al-Khatib, the founder of Syrian Archive. YouTube later stated that it would work to “quickly reinstate” any videos and channels that it “removed mistakenly.”
In November, YouTube removed over 51,000 videos concerning Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American imam who was assassinated via missile raid by the Obama administration on September 30, 2011. Awlaki was never charged with, let alone convicted of any crime. The mass removal was praised by the New York Times, one of the largest mouthpieces of the American ruling elite, as a “watershed moment.”
YouTube’s automated video removal system, implemented in August, places some videos under a “limited state” which makes it impossible for users to access the videos without already having the URL. Limited videos will not appear in search results, playlists, or viewers’ own histories. In addition, the videos can no longer be liked or disliked, commented on (all previous comments are hidden as well), monetized, embedded on other websites, or easily shared on social media through YouTube’s share buttons. YouTube has not revealed what criteria it uses to categorize a video as “extremist” and delist it.
The company has also begun using automated demonetization to financially censor video producers who upload content it deems “inappropriate” for monetization, including “controversial or sensitive subjects, war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown.” In August, the videos of “Ron Paul’s Liberty Report” were demonetized after a “manual review” by YouTube found it “unsuitable for advertisers.” Julian Assange referred to the action as “economic censorship,” noting that the “unsuitable” videos featured the former congressman’s criticism of president Donald Trump’s decision to send more American troops to Afghanistan, as well as criticizing the US Senate Intelligence Committee for branding Wikileaks a hostile foreign intelligence service.
YouTube has openly admitted on Twitter that it is censoring videos based on content, stating, “if the video is also not suitable for a wider audience … then it might see poorer performance.”
The system may also pre-emptively flag videos as unsuitable for advertising even before it is uploaded. In the cases where the censorship system cannot evaluate the content of the video—because it doesn’t exist—it bases its decision on the video’s description, tags, and thumbnail.
The requirements to file an appeal against demonetization are extremely demanding, leaving most small producers with zero recourse. To file an appeal, the channel must either have more than 10,000 subscribers, or the video in question must have at least 1,000 views within the past seven days. Producers are also not informed of when or what in their video the system finds inappropriate. Both small and large producers have complained on Twitter of double-digit percentage drops in new views after their videos have been demonetized, making it even more difficult to meet appeal requirements.
Google is not alone in its expansion of automated censorship. Last week, Facebook announced its newly implemented system to scan users’ posts and contact police and other first-responders, ostensibly to prevent suicide.
Last month, Google admitted to “demoting” content from RT and Sputnik news in its search engine and news service, confirming allegations by the World Socialist Web Site that the company engages in mass political censorship in the name of fighting “fake news.”

British “aid” diverted to jihadi forces in Syria

Jean Shaoul 

UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) officials were forced to suspend a multi-million-pound foreign aid project directed to opposition groups in Syria that were supporting jihadi forces.
The funding for the project, ostensibly aimed at training a civilian police force in rebel-held Aleppo, Idlib and Daraa provinces, was halted after a BBC Panorama investigation exposed how officers from the force worked with courts carrying out brutal sentences.
The Jihadis You Pay For investigation targeted the Access to the Justice and Community Security Scheme (Ajacs), running since late 2014 in areas outside Syrian government control. The project, managed by British consultants Adam Smith International (ASI), began after David Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition failed to persuade parliament to support military action in Syria in August 2013.
The revelations confirm Britain’s covert support of jihadi forces as proxies to topple President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, which is aimed at weakening Iran and preparing for a US-backed Israeli war against that country.
According to the BBC, the scheme was supposed to train police in the Free Syrian Police (FSP) to restore “law and order”, and not to cooperate with the Islamist extremists who largely controlled the three provinces. The opposite was true. As well as showing how the FSP was complicit in extra-judicial killings and torture, Panorama also revealed how the project was mired in corruption and mismanagement.
Extremists linked to al-Qaeda had handpicked police officers to serve at Ajacs-funded police stations in Idlib province. The officers were cooperating with courts run by the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda offshoot, which handed out extreme punishments including summary executions. In one case, police officers closed the road near Sarmin in December 2014 so that the execution of two women by stoning could take place.
According to an ASI report of July 2016, the police handed over cash, up to 20 percent of their funds at one point, to an extremist group, Nour al-Din al-Zinki. The group is linked to human rights abuses and atrocities including the beheading of a young prisoner in 2016. Justification cited for the payments was “the military and security support that Zinki provides to the five Free Syrian Police stations located in areas under its control.”
The BBC saw documents that ASI was aware that the police officers had collaborated with Al-Zinki’s unsanctioned courts “by writing up warrants, delivering notices, and turning criminals over to the court.”
Furthermore, the police payroll included the names of dead and fictitious people. The BBC cited Koknaya in Idlib province that was supposed to be the base for around 57 officers, but where there were none in 2016.
An ASI spokesman said the company “strongly refutes Panorama’s allegations,” calling them “entirely inaccurate and misleading.” ASI added that it operated “under the close supervision of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and five other governments.”
This only raises the question of how much Britain’s FCO and other governments knew about such relations.
ASI was set up in 1992 and grew rapidly, with its turnover tripling between 2010 and 2015 to £130 million. It has received £450 million in aid contracts from the Department for International Development (DfID).
This is not the first time that the company, whose senior executives pay themselves around £250,000 a year, has come under fire for profiteering and unethical behaviour.
According to the Global Justice Network, electricity consumers in Nigeria faced price increases of up to 45 percent because of “a controversial energy privatisation programme supported by UK aid through a multimillion-pound project implemented by ASI.” In Afghanistan, local NGOs reported that a new minerals law, drawn up with ASI’s support, had done little to help them.
In February, DfID cut off funding after it emerged that ASI had tried to take advantage of confidential department documents to gain additional contracts. The parliamentary select committee on international development said that ASI had “overstepped the mark” in soliciting testimonials submitted as evidence to the MPs’ inquiry into the government’s use of aid contractors. It called ASI’s actions “deplorable”, “entirely inappropriate” and showing a “serious lack of judgment.” The scandal led to the resignation of four senior ASI executives and later, its chairman Sir Martin Davidson.
DfID spends £13.3 billion a year on “development” projects to build “a safer, healthier, more prosperous world for people in developing countries and in the UK.”
While the government makes much of its commitment to spend 0.7 percent of national income on aid—and it is popularly believed that this is spent on developments aimed at alleviating poverty—most of it is spent on promoting Britain’s commercial, “national security” and geostrategic interests. Many students are brought to British universities via a plethora of aid programmes.
Much aid has now been “securitised,” with aid money used to prevent migration from Africa and the Middle East, and to provide security, meaning military, and police operations and training. It is channelled through a handful of corporations.
The Ajacs project was funded via the little known Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) set up in 2015, replacing the previous Conflict (Prevention) Pool.
CSSF receives funding of over £1 billion a year to tackle conflict and instability overseas, as part of its international development programme. Overseen by the National Security Council, it draws funding from various government departments “to help prevent conflict that affects vulnerable people in the world’s poorest countries, and tackle threats to British security and interests from instability overseas.” It includes programmes delivered directly or through the government’s contractors, such as developing human rights training, strengthening local police and judiciaries, and facilitating political reconciliation and local peace processes.
While more than 80 percent of its budget comes from DfID, it is largely administered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. According to Sir Mark Lyall Grant, National Security Adviser, most of the fund in 2016 was spent in Afghanistan (£90 million), Syria (£60 million) and Somalia (£32 million), with some 40 countries also receiving money. One of the projects relating to Syria included providing a press office for the Free Syrian Army’s fighters in Syria.
While the media has decried the fraud and mismanagement of Britain’s aid budget, it has said nothing about Britain’s flagrant breach of Syria’s sovereignty. Neither has it noted that all this is in direct contradiction of former Prime Minister David Cameron’s promise not to intervene in Syria after the August 2013 vote in parliament.
Covert support of Syrian proxies to bring about Assad’s ouster is in addition to Britain’s participation in the US-led air operations in Syria in late 2014 that only became public knowledge long after it had begun and well before parliament voted in favour of air strikes in Syria in autumn 2015.
British special forces have been operating on the frontline in Syria, most notably in May 2016, in support of an opposition outfit known as the New Syrian Army near al-Tanf near the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian border.
In December 2016, the government reported that the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) operations in Syria far outstripped the intensity of the UK’s operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last year, the Ministry of Defence announced that British troops would resume training the so-called moderate Syrian rebels—which it did not name—fighting Islamic State. British personnel would teach basic infantry drills, battlefield medicine and skills to avoid mines and booby-traps, working at bases in Turkey and Jordan.
By September 2017, more than 1,000 UK personnel were involved in operations in Syria, with the RAF having conducted around 900 airstrikes, at a cost of £265 million.

US homeless total increases for the first time in seven years

Trévon Austin

A report published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that the number of homeless individuals in the United States has increased for the first time since 2009. On a single night in late January 2017, when the point-in-time count was conducted across the country, some 553,742 people were recorded as homeless in the US.
Nearly two-thirds of the homeless were staying in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, while one third were living on the streets or in shacks and other abandoned dwellings classified as unfit for human habitation. The vast majority of the unsheltered homeless were in California, Texas and Florida.
The number of homeless individuals has increased by 1 percent, or 3,814 people, since 2016. Over one-fifth of homeless individuals were children under 18, some 114,508, and 10 percent were between the ages 18 and 24. About 36,000 youth between the ages of 18 and 24 were homeless without families, as were about 4,800 children under the age of 18.
A homeless person in Boston next to the Millenium Tower, where condos go for a minimum of $900,000
The unsheltered accounted for the entire increase in homelessness from 2016 to 2017. California alone accounted for an increase of 16,136 homeless year-on-year, more than the total net increase nationwide (in other words, outside of California, homelessness actually declined slightly).
California has by far the largest number of unsheltered people, nearly 92,000, and the highest proportion of homeless people outside of shelters, some 68.2 percent. New York state accounts for the largest number of homeless people living in shelters—nearly 85,000, compared to 43,000 in California. New York also has the largest percentage increase in homelessness over the past decade, a staggering 43 percent, while the national total, as counted by HUD, has declined slightly.
Five states account for half of all the homeless people in the US, with Florida (32,190), Texas (23,548) and Washington state (21,112) following California and New York.
Credit: United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
The issues of underemployment and low wages are key factors in the number of homeless individuals in the US. The various statistics used to indicate the success or recovery of the economy are misleading as well. For example, Harvard Professor Lawrence Katz found that nearly 94 percent of jobs created between 2005 and 2015 have been contingent—temporary, short-term or on contract.
Press reports tell the story of “nomadic” workers who live in their vehicles while working for Amazon, unable to afford proper housing. A significant portion of the workers travel in order to obtain temporary jobs during Amazon’s peak season, when shipping demands are at their highest.
The social crisis workers face is only exacerbated by the Trump administration. This week, the White House has been pushing to compel those receiving federal aid to work for assistance, particularly SNAP (food stamps). The US Department of Agriculture announced it would work with states to “promote self-sufficiency.” Denying eligibility for food stamps will only swell the toll of homelessness and extreme poverty, with desperate people forced to choose between feeding their children and paying the rent. Already one in eight individuals and 12 million children face food insecurity.
“The American dream has never been to live on government benefits,” wrote Brandon Lipps, the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service administrator. “People who can work should work. We must facilitate the transition for individuals and families to become independent…”
Credit: United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
Homelessness among US veterans declined over the past decade, only to rise by 2 percent between 2016 and 2017. The Trump administration aims to encourage this trend, reneging on an election campaign promise to house all homeless veterans. The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) recently announced that a $460 million program that targeted chronically ill and vulnerable veterans would be ended, then abruptly reversed itself after a public outcry. Further cuts can be expected in a budget deal with congressional Republicans and Democrats.
More broadly, in the wake of the Senate passage of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, congressional Republican leaders are looking to slash funding for social programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
House Speaker Paul Ryan stated that the Republican Party aims to reduce spending on social programs, arguing for the need to reduce the federal deficit. At an appearance on a talk radio show, Ryan stated, “Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements—because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”
Senator Marco Rubio added, “You also have to bring spending under control. And not discretionary spending. That isn't the driver of our debt. The driver of our debt is the structure of Social Security and Medicare for future beneficiaries.”

Trump and Jerusalem: The end of the Mideast “peace” charade

Bill Van Auken

US President Donald Trump’s arrogant and provocative speech declaring US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and Washington’s intention to move its embassy there, bore its first fruits Thursday in the form of over 100 Palestinian workers and youth wounded by Israeli troops using live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas to quell protests throughout the occupied territories.
In his speech Wednesday, Trump overturned seven decades of a US policy founded on hypocrisy. While the State Department has formally held that the status of Jerusalem can only be determined based on a negotiated settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians, successive US presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, have vowed to move the embassy, only to back off from the promise once in office. Similarly, the US Congress voted in near unanimity for the move, while providing the president with a national security waiver to postpone the relocation.
The explosive character of disputes concerning jurisdiction over Jerusalem, which is home to what are considered among the most holy sites of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, has been recognized by international diplomacy since well before the founding of the state of Israel.
In one stroke, Trump upended the posturing of past administrations. In doing so, he sent a clear signal to the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that its expansion of Zionist settlements, expropriation of Palestinian land, ethnic cleansing and wholesale repression will enjoy unconditional support from Washington.
To the Palestinian Authority, he offered nothing outside of a demand that it continue its role as a security guard for Israel and the West, calling upon it to join in an American crusade “to defeat radicalism” and ensure that the Palestinian people “respond to disagreement with reasoned debate, not violence.”
A people subjected to unrelenting Israeli violence, the confiscation of its land, arbitrary imprisonment of its youth and the killing of tens of thousands of its people in successive wars and acts of repression is told to engage in “reasoned debate,” when the issues have already been settled in complete contempt for their fundamental aspirations and rights.
Trump cast the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem—40 percent of whose residents, some 320,000 Palestinians, are denied the rights of citizens—and the moving of the American embassy as a “long overdue step to advance the peace process.” This is a “process” that is overseen by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and the former top lawyers for his corporation, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, all of them ardent supporters of the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
Trump crassly portrayed his speech as an act of “delivering” on his campaign promises, made in 2016 to win the support of both right-wing Christian Evangelicals and a small group of wealthy right-wing American Zionists who provided him with campaign financing. Under conditions in which his administration is beset by crises, he is anxious to solidify this “base.”
More fundamentally, however, his act of political aggression against the Palestinians is bound up with the drive toward war throughout the Middle East, particularly against Iran. On the same day that Trump delivered his speech, the Pentagon acknowledged that it has 2,000 US troops deployed in Syria—four times the number previously admitted—and no intention of withdrawing them after the routing of ISIS.
In the wake of Trump’s speech, there have been numerous warnings that the shift in US policy will provoke new terrorist attacks, with Islamist groups such as Al Qaeda appealing to religious sentiments. No doubt this has been factored into the calculations of the US military and intelligence apparatus, which will seize upon any new act of terrorism as the pretext for war abroad—particularly against Iran—and intensified attacks on democratic rights at home.
Trump’s speech has met with near universal condemnation, including from virtually every Arab regime as well as all of Washington’s nominal allies in Western Europe.
The European bourgeoisie sees Washington’s provocative unilateral move as cutting across its interests, risking the incitement of Muslim populations within their borders while furthering an anti-Iranian policy that would deny them access to lucrative investments and markets. At the same time, it is clear from the response of the German and French governments, in particular, that the European ruling classes will use Trump’s move as a justification for pursuing their own independent great power interests in the Middle East and elsewhere, including by military means.
As for the Arab regimes, the protests ring ever more hollow. The Saudi monarchy, the Egyptian police state dictatorship of General Sisi, the Jordanian Hashemite monarchy and the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas were all informed in advance of the change in US policy on Jerusalem.
There are credible reports that the Saudi strongman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin-Salman, summoned Abbas to Riyadh last month to dictate to him the terms of a US-Israeli “peace” that would leave all of Jerusalem and virtually all of the West Bank settlements in Israeli hands, deny Palestinian refugees the right of return and reduce a Palestinian “state” to a patchwork of discontinuous Bantustans whose borders would remain under Israeli control. Abbas was reportedly given the ultimatum to either accept this monstrosity or be “fired,” i.e., cut off from the Saudi money upon which his Palestinian Authority depends.
The Arab regimes, which have betrayed the Palestinians countless times over the past 70 years, have no interest in opposing Trump and Netanyahu. Saudi Arabia and the other reactionary Sunni Gulf monarchies want to unite with them against Iran.
The Islamist Palestinian group Hamas, which has been in negotiations with the PA over sharing governance of the besieged Gaza Strip, is no different. While warning that Trump’s decision would “open the doors of hell,” it represents just another faction of the Palestinian bourgeoisie, camouflaging itself in religious fundamentalism while seeking a deal with the imperialists and Israel.
While Netanyahu hailed Trump’s decision as a “historic landmark,” in reality it is merely a tombstone erected on the grave of the political fictions known as the “peace process” and the “two-state solution” that have been used to mask and justify the oppression of the Palestinian people for decades.
Trump’s action has laid bare—once again—the fraud of the claims that the aspirations of the Palestinian people and an end to their oppression by the Zionist state can be obtained through deals and maneuvers between imperialism and the Arab bourgeois regimes.
The growing Middle East crisis, marked by multiple ongoing wars and increasing Israeli-Palestinian tensions, has exposed the historic bankruptcy of bourgeois nationalism.
In its Zionist variant, it claimed legitimacy on the grounds of establishing a homeland for Jews fleeing the horrors of the Holocaust. Instead, it has created a militarized state based upon colonialism and expansionism, pitting the Jewish population against the Palestinians and the other peoples of the region, while presiding over one of the most unequal societies on the face of the planet. As Leon Trotsky warned, the creation of this state has proven to be a “bloody trap” for the Jewish people.
Palestinian nationalism has itself proven utterly incapable of achieving the democratic and social aspirations of the Palestinian people based on the bourgeois nationalist program of creating a new mini-state in the Middle East. Instead, it has created only the Palestinian Authority, which represents the interests of no one outside of Abbas and his fellow officials and millionaires who feed off of foreign aid contracts and CIA stipends, while repressing resistance to occupation.
Putting an end to the decades of oppression, poverty and violence suffered by the Palestinians, and stopping the danger of a region-wide war, is the task of the working class, which must unite its forces across all national and religious boundaries in a common struggle against imperialism and its local agents, both Israeli and Arab.
The breakdown of the political fictions that have dominated the region, fueled by the insoluble crisis of capitalism, poses the urgent necessity of uniting the Jewish and Arab working class in the struggle for a Socialist Federation of the Middle East as part of the struggle to put an end to capitalism across the planet.

7 Dec 2017

Global Health Corps Paid Fellowship for Young Professionals in Africa 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 7th January 2018
Eligible Countries: All African countries and other regions
To be taken at (country): USA
About the Award: Global Health Corps is building the next generation of diverse health leaders. We offer a range of paid fellowship positions with health organizations in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia and the opportunity to develop as a transformative leader in the health equity movement. Everyone has a role to play in the health equity movement.
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Type: Fellowship
Eligibility: Global Health Corps Fellowship is looking for a global and diverse group of passionate and talented emerging leaders who:
  • Are willing to push themselves outside their comfort zones, to embrace failure, and to approach a personally transformative year – with many challenges in the day-to-day – with integrity, humility, and self-reflection.
  • Are ready to strengthen and use their voice — the most powerful tool for change that you have — in order to engage others, create space for critical conversation, and effect meaningful social change in global health.
  • Are excited by a design-thinking approach to building a better world, creatively embracing wicked problems and ready to embrace failure as learning.
  • Are committed to bringing your best and doing the work in the day-to-day, showing up as a critical part of the global health equity movement.
  • Are passionate about social justice in global health and about finding and building their voices to effect health impact.
  • Are committed to inclusivity and collaboration across sectors, cultures, and borders of all kinds, while investing in and supporting others.
Selection Criteria: By the start of the fellowship, June 24, 2018,  fellows must:
  • Be 30 years or younger.
  • Hold a bachelor’s or undergraduate university degree.
  • Be proficient in English.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Fellowship: Yearlong paid placements (June 24, 2018 – July 8, 2019) within partner organizations in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the US, and Zambia to address real-time capacity gaps and strengthen health systems.
  • In addition to on-the-job training, we engage fellows in a comprehensive leadership training curriculum to build effective, empathetic, and innovative leaders of tomorrow. The fellowship starts at our Training Institute at Yale University from June 24-July 6, 2018.
  • Fellow receive additional logistical and financial support during the year, including:
    • Monthly living and utilities stipend
    • Housing
    • Health insurance
    • Professional development grant of $600 and completion award of $1500
    • Travel coverage to and from placement site, all trainings, and retreats
Duration of Fellowship: The 2018/2019 fellowship year which begins in late June 2018 and ends in July 2019.
How to Apply: Apply here
It is important to go through the Application Requirements before applying.
Award Provider: Global Health Corps

Full-fee Development Africa Scholarships at Loughborough University 2018/2019 – UK

Application Deadline: 30th April 2018
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible African Countries: All African Countries
To be taken at (country): Loughborough University UK
Accepted Subject Areas: Masters Taught Courses offered at Loughborough University
About the Award: Towards the end of each year, Loughborough University, UK announce its full-fee scholarships for international full-time taught postgraduate students who are currently domiciled (permanently living) in Africa. The Loughborough University Graduate School Development Trust Africa Scholarships covers 100% of the course fees for your chosen postgraduate taught course for one year (replacing any Departmental or Loughborough University scholarships or bursaries you may already have been awarded).Loughborough University UK
Selection Criteria: For 2018 entry the scholarship application procedure is an open competition. Students may only apply for the scholarship after an offer for a place has been made. Students who are in possession of an offer (conditional or unconditional) of a place on a postgraduate taught course can apply for the scholarship using the application form which will be provided from the link below.
Who is qualified to apply? The selection panel will use the following eligibility criteria when assessing applications:
  • Currently domiciled (permanently living) in Africa
  • Evidence of exceptional academic achievement (normally a 1st Class Honours Degree)
  • Commitment to return to their home country on completion of postgraduate programme
  • Evidence of the ability and commitment to making a significant contribution to their home country on their return
  • Full understanding of the costs involved in coming to study and live in the UK
  • Evidence of strong motivation and initiative to secure funds to cover the remainder of the costs involved
How Many Scholarships are available? The University will award a limited number of scholarships
What are the benefits? The scholarship will cover 100% of the course fees. Students will be expected to fund their travel and maintenance costs through other sources.
How long will sponsorship last? Financial award will last for the full duration of the postgraduate taught degree programme
How to Apply: Applicants are advised to spend considerable effort ensuring that this application reaches the selectors in a form that is clear, well presented and which reflects your abilities and motivation.
The application form should be returned (by post, fax or email) to:
International OfficeMarketing and Advancement
Loughborough University
Leicestershire LE11 3TU
UK
Award Sponsors: The scholarships are being funded through a combination of generous external funding and Loughborough University funds UK.
Important Notes:
  • Note that scholarship applications will not be considered unless the applicant is holding an offer or a place at the time of submission (this offer may be conditional or unconditional).
  • Do not submit your scholarship application until you have received your offer letter.
  • Applications will be initially shortlisted and the final decision on the awards will be made by a selection panel of senior staff of the University.
  • All those applying will be notified of the outcome of their application by email by the end of May at the latest.

Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program (HSAFP) for South African Students 2019/2020

Application Deadline: 4th April 2018
Eligible Countries: South Africa
To Be Taken At (Country): USA
About the Award: President Derek Bok established the Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program (HSAFP) in 1979 to address the needs of South Africans who were denied access to advanced education by the apartheid system.
This program was established, and is still intended, for mid-career professionals educationally disadvantaged by past laws and resource allocations in South Africa. Under the current presidency of Drew Gilpin Faust, the HSAFP seeks to expand its reach to institutions and organizations across South Africa in a continued effort to draw the broadest possible range of candidates for the program. In addition, the University – reflecting the current South African constitution – has expanded its applicant pool to extend to all South Africans, regardless of ethnicity or race.

Type: Fellowship (Academic)
Eligibility: The following candidates are eligible:
  • Candidates who have just completed, or who have not yet completed, a first degree are not selected unless this degree has been pursued concurrently with, or subsequent to, experience in the workplace.
  • Fellows usually range in age from 30 to 45 years.
  • Fellows must be South African citizens.
  • Fellows submit their applications directly to the Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program at Harvard University. A committee of HSAFP alumni, Center staff and the CAS Faculty Director will interview the short-listed applicants in South Africa. Successful candidates must then apply to and be admitted at the specific Harvard school where they intend to study.
  • Applicants should determine well in advance whether, if awarded a fellowship, they can be granted leave by their employers for Harvard’s academic year. They should generally plan to be in residence at Harvard from September until June. However, some programs require fellows to begin residence on July 1st. No candidate should accept an interview unless assured that such leave will be granted. The Center does not wish to assign fellowships to anyone who subsequently finds it impossible to use the opportunity.
Selection Criteria: Fellows are selected because they have shown considerable skill in their chosen fields, and are expected to benefit from advanced training. Since the inception of the Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program, the Center for African Studies has awarded over 200 fellowships.
Number of Awards: Not specified
Duration and Value of Program:  Fellowships are for a year of study (2019-2020) in one of Harvard’s Professional Schools or Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, with tuition waivers provided by the School once fellows are admitted.  General administrative funds for program management, stipends, and airfare for the fellow are provided by the Office of the President, and administered by the Center for African Studies, under the directorship of Professor John Mugane.
How to Apply: Apply here
Award Providers: Harvard University

TEACH Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Learning Lab 2018

Application Deadline: 8th December 2017
Applicants will be notified of next steps after 15 December 2017
Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan Africa
To Be Taken At (Country): Johannesburg, South Africa
About the Award: TEACH is an initiative by MSMGF and IRGT: A Global Network of Trans Women and HIV designed to strengthen the capacity of trans-led organizations to more competitively apply for grant funding and build local organizational capacity to effectively respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
This learning lab will be led by regionally-focused, Sub-Saharan-based trans individuals who have been identified, trained, and supported to serve as TEACH Technical Advisors.
Type: Training
Eligibility: Is your organization lacking the resources, support, capacity, or infrastructure to be self-sustaining? Want to learn how to more effectively meet the specific HIV treatment and prevention needs of your community? Then apply.
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award: The training will take place at a date to be determined in early 2018 and includes lodging, travel and per diem for participants. Instruction will be available in English.
Duration of Program: 3 days
How to Apply: Apply to take part in a TEACH Learning Lab
Award Providers: TEACH

New York University (NYU) World Journalist Fellowship 2018

Application Deadline: 15th April 2018
Eligible Countries: International
To Be Taken At (Country): USA
About the Award: The Fellowship provides an opportunity for internationally based journalists to study in the Master of Arts program in Journalism at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. The fellow will pursue the degree in one of our nine concentrations: Business and Economic Reporting; Cultural Reporting and Criticism; Global and Joint Program Studies; Literary Reportage; Magazine Writing; News and Documentary; Reporting the Nation & New York; Science, Health and Environmental Reporting; and Studio 20.
Type: Fellowship
Eligibility: Candidates must:
  • hold a non-U.S. passport
  • applicants must be fluent in English and at least one additional language
  • have at least two years of international journalism experience or a combination of free-lance journalism assignments equal to at least two years of work (Public Relations and corporate communications experience will not be accepted. Work done for internships and student publications do not count.)
  • complete applications for both the fellowship and for admission to the M.A. program in Journalism
  • some graduate concentrations require the GRE and some make it optional. Check with the website of the concentration to see if the GRE is required.
  • take the TOEFL or IELTS. The TOEFL is waived only if English was an applicant’s language of instruction in his or her degree program.
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value and Duration of Award:
  • The 2018 Fellowship covers tuition and fees for two semesters of one of our graduate concentrations, as well as a stipend for each of the two semesters. Most of our graduate programs require three semesters of study to complete the M.A. degree, with one program requiring four semesters.
  • The fellow will also receive a stipend of approximately $13,000 for each of the two semesters of the fellowship.
How to Apply: APPLY
Award Providers: New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.