BJP government pushes Air India into financial morass to hasten privatization

Kranti Kumara 

India’s Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is pushing Air India, the heavily indebted, state-owned airline, toward a financial precipice so as to facilitate its breakup and privatization.

Events suggest the Modi government may even choose to force Air India into bankruptcy, as happened with Swissair following the mid-1990s “deregulation” of Europe’s airline industry. This would open the door to hedge funds and other vulture capitalists hiving off the airline’s considerable assets, including aircrafts, hotels, and other properties, while leaving the Indian people to pay for the airline’s debts through increased taxes and social spending cuts.

Earlier this year, the BJP government tried to sell off a 76 percent ownership stake in Air India and 100 percent of its low-cost carrier, Air India Express, but did not receive a single purchase offer by its May 31 deadline.

India’s principal air carrier is weighed down by a massive combined short and long-term debt, which as of March 31, 2017 stood at 658 billion rupees (Rs) or $10.3 billion. Interest payments on this debt amounted to a massive Rs. 42 billion in 2017 ($650 million) while profits were a measly Rs. 57 million ($890,000).

The Modi government has been deliberately exacerbating the airline’s crisis by withholding the funds Air India desperately requires for its long-term survival. This is because the government is determined to use the crisis to push for a corporate restructuring aimed at slashing costs and squeezing more profit from the workforce, in order to make Air India more attractive to private investors.

The Modi government’s hard line towards the airline, which has the implicit approval of the opposition parties, is meant to send a political signal that the government is determined to push forward with its privatization drive.

The government is utterly indifferent towards the fate of the airline’s workforce, which, whether under bankruptcy or privatization, will face huge job losses and a frontal assault on wages and benefits.

Air India, which in recent months has repeatedly failed to meet its payroll, has seen its pleas for support rejected by the government.

This week, junior Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha claimed discussions within the government on an Air India “bailout” are at an advanced stage. But even if true, the focus of any “rescue plan” will be on reducing the debt on Air India’s balance sheet so as to make it more attractive to investors.

Sinha’s boss, Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu, recently told the Press Trust of India, “Forget Air India, nobody can handle that debt. For any airline to service that debt is not possible.”

Currently, the airline is staying afloat from the trickle of funds that remain from a Rs. 300 billion cash injection granted by the then-ruling Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2012.

The selling off of public assets at fire sale prices has been a key part of the Indian bourgeoisie’s class strategy since it jettisoned state-led capitalist development in 1991, in favor of India’s full integration into international capitalist markets and transformation into a cheap-labor haven for global capital.

However, the Hindu supremacist BJP has accelerated the privatization drive. This has included targeting some of the so-called navratna public sector companies (those, generally highly profitable, in strategic sectors like oil production and distribution) for “disinvestment” or partial privatization.

This is for ideological reasons, but also because the revenues from disinvestment are an important element in the government’s neoliberal fiscal strategy, which aims to keeps taxes low for big business and the rich while reducing India’s budget deficit at the expense of India’s workers and toilers.

Each year the finance minister announces during his annual budget presentation the amount of funds the government expects to raise from selling off government ownership in Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs). The proceeds are then used to help meet the government’s annual fiscal deficit target.

Air India’s travails are largely a result of successive Indian governments compelling this previously high-quality airline to compete in a cutthroat manner with a plethora of low-cost private air carriers that were licensed to operate especially since the beginning of this millennium. Other important contributing factors are: India’s heavy fuel taxes; the UPA government’s insistence the airline purchase 111 Boeing and Airbus aircraft at a cost of Rs. 700 billion in 2006-7; and its forcing the state-owned carrier to cede many lucrative routes to the new private airlines.

Many of the private carriers that came to proliferate India’s skies after 1991 have since gone bankrupt. These private airlines’ “low-cost model” resulted in working environments characterized by low wages and brutal exploitation and air fleets comprised of decades-old aircrafts. Such precariously run airlines were lauded by the ruling class as a magical outcome of the “free market”.

Their bankruptcies have further inflated the huge portfolio of unpaid corporate debt that is weighing down India’s public-sector banks and threatening to trigger a major financial crisis.

So dire is Air India’s financial condition, it now must borrow funds just to finance its day-to-day operations, including the payment of salaries to its 17,000 employees. It also has been unable to obtain spare parts, grounding many aircrafts.

The current employee count is a steep decline from the 33,000 workers the airline employed when the UPA government created it in 2007 through the amalgamation of the state-owned overseas carrier, Air India, and its domestic counterpart, Indian Airlines Ltd.

Since March, the payment of workers’ wages has been delayed every month by management without any prior notification. Air India paid the flying allowances for the month of June to its pilots only on August 20, and only after they had threatened to stop flying if payment was not made immediately.

In mid-August, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), which represents the airline’s 600 pilots, wrote a pleading letter to management urging it to partner with them to find a solution to the crisis. The letter went on to ask whether Air India’s planes were even safe to fly, since routine maintenance has being heavily impacted by cost cutting.

The BJP government has been emboldened to act in this high-handed fashion by the inaction and indeed criminal passivity of the numerous trade unions that claim to represent Air India employees, and more generally by the unions and Stalinist political parties’ complicity in implementing the Indian bourgeoisie’s neoliberal agenda. The Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) has pursued what it itself describes as “pro-investor” policies in those states where it has held office over the past quarter-century and it has systematically tied the working class to pro-big business governments, most of them Congress-led, at the Center in the name of “blocking the BJP.”

Turkish president visits Berlin as US-European conflict in Middle East rises

Alex Lantier 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived yesterday for a three-day visit to Berlin, amid explosive conflicts between Washington and the European Union (EU) in the Middle East. During his visit, Erdogan will attend a state banquet with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and meet twice with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

It was barely concealed that Erdogan was traveling to Berlin in order to seek an ally against Washington. He is facing an economic crisis and currency collapse unleashed by Trump’s tariffs and trade war measures targeting Turkey; and his government is bitterly opposed to US use of Kurdish nationalist fighters as proxy forces in the bloody NATO proxy war in Syria. It is also clear, moreover, that Washington is moving against his government at the same time as tensions surge between US and European imperialism.

Germany recently joined France and Britain in seeking to devise a common mechanism with China and Russia to evade US sanctions against Iran. Top EU officials have called for a push to use the euro as an alternative to the US dollar. Powerful forces in the European bourgeoisie are manifestly considering direct challenges to what American imperialist strategists see as core US national security interests.

“The dramatic developments in the world make it indispensable for both Germany and Turkey to open a new page in bilateral relations, to leave aside their differences and focus on their common interests,” Erdogan wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the day before arriving in Berlin. “With respect to our disagreements, we should keep all dialogue channels open, continue our exchanges, and by showing maximum empathy, we should try to understand our mutual sensitivities,” he added.

Erdogan also denounced the Kurdish-nationalist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the “Fetullah Terrorist Organization,” (FETÖ) the name he has given to Turkish supporters of the coup launched against him with US and German support in July 2016. “The PKK and FETÖ members and their organizations are using various instruments, including manipulations and fake news, to sabotage our bilateral relations,” he wrote. The Erdogan government is particularly enraged by US reliance on Kurdish nationalist forces in its proxy war in Syria.

Late last month, as the Turkish economy staggered and the lira plunged in currency markets, Berlin made clear that it would try to counteract Trump’s tariffs aimed at Turkey and prevent an economic collapse that could bring down the European economy, as well.

“The federal government is closely following developments in Turkey. A stable, prosperous and democratic Turkey is in our interest,” German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said. She added: “As you know preparations are continuing. Ahead of President Erdogan’s visit, the finance minister will meet with his counterpart here.”

While German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said yesterday that no plans for direct economic aid to Turkey would be settled at the Erdogan summit, talks between Berlin and Ankara have proceeded rapidly over the last month. On September 5, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas traveled to Turkey. After high-level economic talks with Turkish officials on September 21, German officials stressed that they valued Turkish aid to pursue the EU’s draconian anti-refugee policy, by detaining Syrian refugees in Turkey to keep them from seeking asylum in Europe.

Erdogan’s release of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, whom he had detained on terrorism charges arising from the July 2016 coup, also laid the basis for a warming in relations between Berlin and Ankara.

Plans have been mooted for Berlin to offer export subsidies to German firms exporting to Turkey, that is, for Berlin to pay German firms to ship their products to Turkey even if the Turkish banks cannot pay for them—limiting the disruption to German industry from any financial crash.

“We have very close economic cooperation. More than 7,500 German companies are active in Turkey,” said German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, who called for a “new era” in relations between Germany and Turkey. He added: “We are sharing common geostrategic interests. … We would like to stabilize the region, which is very often characterized by civil wars and refugees.”

This draws a sharp contrast with the collapse in relations between Turkey and the United States. As he imposed trade tariffs on Turkey that sent the lira on a downward plunge, during which it lost 40 percent of its value, Donald Trump tweeted: “I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar! Aluminum will be 20 percent and Steel 50 percent. Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!”

Fundamental political relations underpinning world capitalism after World War II—including free trade and the NATO alliance between America, Europe and Turkey—are rapidly collapsing. On many military and financial conflicts, as US imperialism escalates war in an attempt to use its military muscle to strengthen its fading global hegemony, Washington and the EU now find themselves on opposing sides.

As Berlin remilitarizes its foreign policy and seeks to emerge as the dominant force in a militarist EU, factions in both Berlin and Ankara are considering reviving longstanding strategic ties between the two countries, stretching back to Germany’s Baghdad Railroad plans prior to World War I.

This plan played a major role in stoking inter-imperialist tensions in Europe before the outbreak of the war in 1914. Today, US war plans are again bringing tensions to the breaking point. As Washington tears up the Iranian nuclear treaty and re-imposes financial sanctions on Iran, to cut it off from the world economy and prepare for war, it faces opposition from the major EU powers in alliance with the principal targets of US foreign policy, China and Russia.

While European firms have largely abandoned Iranian markets, the EU is proposing mechanisms to evade US sanctions targeting Iran. On September 24, they met with Chinese, Russian and Iranian officials to agree to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) funding scheme. The proposal consists of financing continuing purchases of Iranian oil independently of the US dollar-denominated financial system, paving the way for a broader challenge by the euro to the dollar.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the SPV plans the next day, stressing that they are unacceptable to Washington. He said he “was disturbed and, indeed, deeply disappointed to hear the remaining parties in the deal announce they’re setting up a special payment system to bypass US sanctions.” He added: “This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable.”

On September 12, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had already called for building up the euro as a global reserve currency challenging the US dollar. He called it an “aberration” that the EU pays for its energy imports in dollars though only 2 percent of these imports come from the United States. “We will have to change that. The euro must become the active instrument of a new sovereign Europe,” he said.

The vast implications of such proposals, as war spreads across the Middle East from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya, underlies the rapid shift towards the right in official politics, and the constant incitement of nationalism and chauvinism in official European politics. It entails an explosive growth of European militarism, the intensified exploitation of the working class in Europe and internationally, and the preparation of devastating, great-power wars.

The election of a neo-fascist government in Italy, the coming out of broad sections of Germany’s Grand Coalition government in favor of neo-Nazi demonstrations in Chemnitz and Dortmund, and the imposition of a permanent state of emergency in France come as countries across Europe pledge to divert hundreds of billions of euros from social spending into military spending.

German government agrees to arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia, fuelling war in Yemen

Sven Heymann

The German Federal Security Council (BSR) recently agreed to allow extensive arms shipments to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. This is confirmed in a letter from Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) to the parliamentary Economic Affairs Committee.

The BSR is a subcommittee of the federal cabinet, which includes Chancellor Angela Merkel and eight other ministers. Its meetings are secret so that usually nothing penetrates into the public domain. The decision taken at its recent session means that Germany is directly fuelling the brutal war in Yemen, led by a coalition under Saudi Arabia.

According to media reports, the BSR agreed to deliver to Saudi Arabia four reconnaissance radar systems for artillery pieces. These tracking systems are vehicle-mounted and designed to determine the exact source of enemy fire. As a result, they enable precise counter strikes, as Deutsche Welle explained in a report.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the key states in the war against Yemen, will also be able to receive German weapons in future. Specifically, the BSR has given the green light to deliver 48 warheads and 91 guided missiles for ship-based anti-aircraft systems.

Other recipients of German-made weapons include similar reactionary regimes such as Jordan and Qatar. Qatar is looking forward to the provision of 170 German warheads and engines for “Meteor” air-to-air missiles. With the government’s permission, the Rhineland Dynamite Nobel company will now deliver 385 portable anti-tank weapons to Jordan.

The BSR also approved a shipment to the military regime of General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in Egypt. Seven air defence systems from Diehl Defence can now be delivered. They are reportedly equipped with the “IRIS-T SLM” missile, one of the most modern short-range missiles worldwide, equipped with an infrared sensing system. Fighter jets with these missiles can independently shoot down flying objects to the side (instead of just from behind), which significantly reduces the blind spot for the pilot.

The extensive permits for the delivery of advanced weaponry to the reactionary regimes in the Middle East means the German government is continuing its policy of exporting arms to the Saudi-led coalition, thereby making itself an accomplice in one of the biggest war crimes of recent years.

World Food Program (WFP) Director David Beasley recently said that Yemen faces a “full-scale famine” if the war on the Arabian Peninsula is not halted immediately. Even now, of the 18 million inhabitants of Yemen, two-thirds do not know where their next meal is coming from. This famine is caused by the blockade and battles for the port city of Hodeida, which is the country’s only landing point for relief supplies. At least 10,000 people have already died in the civil war, which has been ongoing since 2014, according to UN figures.

The German defence industry has benefited from this war policy for years. The decision of the BSR makes clear that the Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) insistence that the agreement forming its Grand Coalition with the CDU/CSU precludes sending weapons to states participating in the Yemen war is not worth the paper it was written on. It has merely served to lend a thin humanitarian cover to the massive militarization of German foreign policy.

Already in the last legislature, the Grand Coalition allowed the export of weapons and war equipment worth about €1.3 billion to Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Yemen war.

For the Grand Coalition, providing weapons to fuel the war in Yemen is more than a matter of securing and expanding the profits of German defence companies. More than 70 years after the end of the Second World War, the continuing arms shipments to the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula are part of the strategic plans of the German ruling class, which wants to pursue its geopolitical goals by military means. Weapons shipments are the first step in initiating and justifying future involvement in military combat operations, including major wars.

Nothing could better illustrate this connection than Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Iraq last weekend. Von der Leyen met there with members of the German military contingent Counter Daesh/Capacity Building Iraq. Since March, the hitherto separate German contingents in Iraq and Jordan have worked together under this name. In Erbil in northern Iraq, von der Leyen then visited a site of the Kurdish Peshmerga and the multinational Camp Stephan. In the north of the country, 100 German soldiers are currently stationed as part of a training mission for the Peshmerga.

In Iraq, too, Germany’s military involvement initially began with arms deliveries, before the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 served as a pretext for intervention by the Luftwaffe (Air Force). As the WSWS wrote on the occasion of the new military mandate in March, the merger of the missions in Iraq and Jordan serves to “train the Iraqi army as a proxy army and lackey for imperialist interests.”

With the deployment of German soldiers, Berlin is pursuing yet another goal: “The mission also ‘contributes to creating the basis for the return of internally displaced persons and refugees,’ write the CDU/CSU and SPD in the draft mandate.” While the Grand Coalition is massively expanding its area of interest in the Middle East, it is simultaneously preparing to expel thousands of refugees into exactly those countries to which it is still providing more munitions.

German Chancellor Merkel loses closest ally

Ulrich Rippert

Two days after Germany’s grand coalition gave its backing to former secret service president Hans-Georg Maassen, after he defended neo-Nazi rioters, Chancellor Angela Merkel has lost one of her closest political allies. The Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union parliamentary group surprisingly voted long-standing parliamentary leader Volker Kauder out of office on Tuesday.

Kauder, who has led the CDU/CSU parliamentary group for 13 years, played a key role in maintaining support for Merkel’s line among the deputies. Both Merkel and CSU leader Horst Seehofer intervened prior to the vote to declare their strong support for Kauder. Kauder was a guarantor for the stability and continuity of successful parliamentary and government business, stated the Chancellor and CDU leader.

Kauder lost the election nonetheless. In the secret ballot, the relatively unknown Ralph Brinkhaus secured 125 votes, while Kauder got just 112. Media commentators wrote of “a vote of no confidence in the Chancellor,” “the Chancellor’s twilight,” and the approaching end of the government.

Merkel referred to it as a normal democratic process which had led to a disappointing election defeat. At the same time, she announced she would cooperate closely with the new parliamentary group leader. The newly-elected Brinkhaus rejected all talk of a planned putsch and also vowed to work closely with the Chancellor.

But the attempts to convince otherwise cannot conceal the fact that the defeat of Merkel’s ally amounts to a political watershed. Kauder, who is a member of the religious and socially conservative wing of the CDU/CSU, was not for nothing described as Merkel’s right-hand man. The CDU leader helped him become general secretary in 2004, and parliamentary group leader in 2005. He enforced Merkel’s policies in the parliamentary group and also defended her over recent years against criticism of her refugee policy.

Brinkhaus is a member of the business wing of the CDU/CSU and has thus far operated in the background as one of the deputy leaders of the parliamentary group. Like the original founders of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), he opposes making financial concessions to the euro. He came briefly to prominence earlier in the summer when he emerged as spokesman for a skeptical wait-and-see approach toward French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans for Europe.

The fact that Brinkhaus even challenged the candidate backed by the party leaders is itself unusual in the history of the CDU/CSU. A rebellion of parliamentary deputies against a Chancellor from their own party, like Tuesday’s vote, has never before taken place. The main reason for this is the terrible numbers for the CDU/CSU in the polls. The CDU/CSU has recorded unprecedentedly low levels of support, both in polls at the federal level and for the upcoming state elections in Bavaria and Hesse in October. The same applies to their coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD).

The collapse in the polls is an expression of the mounting opposition to the grand coalition’s right-wing agenda. Their policies of strengthening the repressive state apparatus at home and the military abroad, of inhumane attacks on refugees, and of anti-working class social policies are meeting with widespread opposition among broad sections of the population. Their decision to stand by ex-secret service chief Maassen, who defended the far-right rampage in Chemnitz, unleashed a wave of outrage. Ever since, thousands have repeatedly demonstrated in several cities against right-wing extremism.

However, the revolt by the CDU/CSU deputies is by no means an adaptation to the mounting opposition in the population. On the contrary, they have accused Merkel of not pushing ahead energetically enough with the government’s reactionary programme and of repeatedly pulling back.

Leading big business associations, military personnel, and members of the security apparatus have increased their pressure on the government. They were involved earlier this year in working out the grand coalition’s programme. Ever since, they have repeatedly stated that the agreements and goals contained in the grand coalition deal have not been enforced rigorously enough.

Just a few days ago, Dieter Kempf, head of the German Association of Industry, complained that the grand coalition was occupied far too much with itself instead of pressing ahead with the measures agreed upon to liberalise the economy. Behind the scenes, leading personnel in the German army are demanding that the rearmament programme be implemented more rapidly than was previously agreed.

The statement by Kauder’s successor, Brinkhaus, that no daylight exists between him and Merkel must be understood in this context. Brinkhaus is firmly behind the grand coalition’s reactionary programme, but wants more independence for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group so it can pressure the government to enforce it even more ruthlessly.

It has already become clear over recent weeks that the grand coalition relies on far-right elements within the state apparatus and the AfD to enforce its social and political attacks. Their decision to stick with the discredited Maassen, in spite of his close ties to the AfD, amounted to a signal to AfD supporters in the state apparatus that they enjoy the backing of the government.

The change in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group leadership strengthens this signal. Under conditions of deepening popular opposition, the coalition is drawing ever closer together, with the most right-wing elements setting the agenda. The SPD explicitly declared its trust in Merkel on Wednesday and sharply rejected the comments from those in its own ranks that Merkel had been weakened. SPD leader Nahles said that the task now is to continue trusted collaboration within the government and focus on issues of political substance.

Similar comments were made by Left Party parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch. He complained that the government’s permanent crisis was not good for the country or Europe, praised the coalition’s programme, which contained nice headings, but was not being enforced decisively enough, and warned that the government crisis was causing a deepening feeling of insecurity among the population.

At the same time, the groundwork is being laid with the change in personnel in the CDU/CSU’s parliamentary leadership for future coalitions with the AfD, which the CDU/CSU, at least officially, has thus far ruled out. Even now, the AfD has a strong influence over government policy, particularly on the issue of refugees.

Just a day after the change in leadership personnel in the federal parliamentary group, Christian Hartmann, the new CDU parliamentary leader in Saxony’s state parliament announced that he would not say no to a potential coalition with the AfD. Hartmann, a police officer for many years, was elected as the new leader against the wishes of CDU Minister President Michael Kretschmar on the same day as Brinkhaus.

This question could be acutely posed following the two state elections in October. In Bavaria, the CSU is certain to lose its majority and the majority of the CDU/Green coalition in Hesse is expected to disappear. It cannot be excluded that the CSU and Hesse CDU integrate the right-wing extremist AfD into government after the elections. AfD leader Alexander Gaulland comes from Hesse, where he played a role for 40 years in the right-wing CDU originally led by Alfred Dregger, before switching to the AfD.

The integration of a far-right party into government would mark a sharp escalation of the rightward shift, and amount to a declaration of war against refugees, the left and the working class. However, this would be fully in keeping with the agenda of the grand coalition, which is already implementing the AfD’s programme in practice.

Airline workers launch largest strike in Ryanair’s history

Gustav Kemper

Cabin crew at Ryanair are on strike today in five European countries. The work stoppage began at 3 a.m. in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. After pilots in Belgium and the Netherlands committed to join the strike, the Cockpit union announced on Thursday that permanently employed pilots in Germany would also participate. This means the strike will be larger than any previous job action at the airline.

The German trade unions for cabin crew, Verdi and UFO, delayed their decision for as long as possible before confirming their participation in the strike. Both unions held separate talks with Ryanair this week. Verdi lead negotiator Mira Neumaier stated recently that the union wanted to consult members on the outcome of Tuesday's talks before calling a strike. However, under pressure from the workforce, Verdi called on its members late Thursday to take part in the strike.

"There is still no satisfactory offer after four rounds of talks," declared a press release. The result of the talks was summarised as follows, "Not enough money for workers, a long contractual period of four years, the unequal treatment of Ryanair employees and temporary workers, as well as Ryanair's rejection of workers' representation."

Ryanair's most recent offer contained just three pay increases of between €40 and €60 over four years, which would barely keep pace with inflation.

The "totally insecure working relations," including temporary work, trial periods, fixed-term contracts, Irish labour law, were no longer acceptable, said the union.

UFO held its own talks with Ryanair on Thursday afternoon and stated that only after their failure could they legally call a strike.

The undignified working conditions and extreme levels of exploitation at Ryanair, which helped the airline become Europe's largest budget airline, are infamous. The airline's business model is based on its poorly paid and highly-exploited workforce. Whoever is hired by Ryanair faces the prospect of contract work, de facto self-employment, and precarious working relations.

During the last strike on September 12, a group of striking workers told the WSWS about their terrible working conditions, which had driven them to take strike action: "We work in two shifts, early and late. The early shift begins at 5:20 a.m. The late shift begins at 11 a.m. and can last until midnight," they explained. However, they are only paid for part of this 12-hour period, i.e. for flying time. "Flying time begins when the plane leaves the gate. That means all of the flight preparations and clearing up is unpaid." This means that of the 12 hours, only six or eight are compensated.

The monthly gross income for flight attendants at Ryanair is between €800 and €1,200, well below the pay at other budget airlines. The majority of cabin crew is employed by Ryanair's labour contractors, Crewlink and Workforce, and have fixed-term contracts. These labour contractors have written a ban on giving press interviews into workers' contracts to prevent the terrible working conditions from becoming public knowledge. This is also designed to block a common struggle by the workforce against the company. However, working conditions are so bad that strikers are more than willing to report them.

Asked what changes they would like to see in working conditions apart from pay, the group of Ryanair strikers answered spontaneously, "Sick pay is not in Ryanair's vocabulary. If we're sick, we receive no pay. The number of annual paid holidays is also very low, between 15 and 20 days, and one of these can be withdrawn over Christmas."

The workers have been subject to massive intimidation by Ryanair. The company has threatened to shift striking employees to other European countries and shut down all German locations. Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary declared that the company would make no concessions on wages. At the company's general meeting last week, he announced that he is ready to extend his contract, which runs out in the autumn of 2019.

The airline is attempting to keep workers divided by only conducting talks with one union at a time. The European trade unions have accepted separate talks. A meeting had already taken place in Rome in early September, Neumaier told the WSWS, but there is another timetable. She was unable to explain what this meant.

The workers are not only fighting the company, but also the trade unions. These organisations do not represent the interests of employees but are trying to negotiate deals with Ryanair at the national level while competing among themselves for the greatest influence at the airline. In Italy, the Anpac trade union signed a contract with Ryanair on August 28 for the 300 pilots it represents. More than 500 pilots are employed by Ryanair in Italy. This first collective agreement at Ryanair in Europe, which was signed by airline workers, also applies to cabin crew, according to Anpac. The contract does not come close to addressing the demands and needs of airline workers. In many ways, it is worse than the status quo, since it bans strikes and does not allow for the free election of union representatives. The parties committed not to participate in strike action. Pilots and cabin crew are also reporting that they must still pay for their own uniforms and no longer get free food and drink on board.

Concrete figures on Ryanair's concessions on wages and social benefits were not published, but many workers have reported they were inadequate. Two other Italian unions (Filt Cgil and Uiltrasporti) described the contract as totally unacceptable and plan to continue strikes.

The contract requires Ryanair to participate in a health insurance scheme and offer sick pay of €76 per day. It permits a maximum of 10 months of parental leave per couple, although this applies only to permanently employed workers. There is nothing in the contract to prevent employment by Ryanair's job agencies CrewLink and Workforce. This means that Ryanair can simply avoid the additional costs contained in the contract by hiring more pilots and cabin crew through these firms.

The strikes at Ryanair have now lasted over several months. But the one-day strikes have yet to produce any result and threaten to wear down the workers' militancy. The unions' tactics confirm what the WSWS wrote on 9 August, "The only way to combat this global offensive of the employers is through a global counter-offensive by the workers. Ryanair pilots, cabin crew, and ground crew must free themselves from the grip of the unions and take the conduct of the struggle into their own hands. They must organise rank-and-file committees independently of the unions to unite the struggle of all Ryanair workers across national borders and at the same time call for support from airline, transportation, and delivery workers around the world."

Argentina’s Macri responds to fourth general strike with yet another IMF package

Andrea Lobo

On Tuesday, all the major cities of Argentina came to a virtual standstill during the fourth general strike against the right-wing government of President Mauricio Macri, as the country’s economy sinks deeper into recession and an inflationary spiral.

During the last three years, millions of Argentines have fallen into unemployment and ever more desperate economic conditions, with one-third of the population and almost two-thirds of children living under the official poverty line, according to the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA). Sixty-two percent of households suffer from the lack of at least one basic human need, whether it is food, health care, education, utilities, housing or access to information.

The government expects inflation to reach 42 percent this year and the economy to contract 2.4 percent, but it has imposed wage increase limits of 25-28 percent, which the trade unions have enforced.

On Wednesday, Macri signed a new $7.1 billion loan with the International Monetary Fund, promising draconian cuts to bring the public deficit to zero. This adds to a series of desperate measures, including a previous $50 billion IMF loan and the hiking of interest rates to 60 percent, with the aim of curbing capital flight.

Enormous social anger was reflected in the strike, which by all accounts had the highest participation yet and brought all public transport, including airports, ports and trucks, vast sectors of private industry and services, along with schools, hospitals, and other services to a halt on Tuesday. Several sectors extended the strike into Wednesday.

Militant student movements have also sprung up in protest against the austerity policies and threats of privatization. Several faculties in the University of Córdoba and University of Buenos Aires, along with high schools in major cities, have seen students strike and carry out occupations of the facilities this month.

Macri’s approval rating, moreover, has fallen from over 50 percent throughout 2017 to 36 percent last month.

The trade union bureaucracies, most of which had agreed to a truce with Macri during the beginning of his term, are containing social anger by calling one-day strikes and walkouts that are mostly sectoral or regional.

The main faction of the General Confederation of Workers (CGT), led by Héctor Daer, continues to support the government, but has threatened further demonstrations against the IMF deal.

Other dissident unions, including the two branches of the Argentine Workers Confederation (CTA) and the Truckers union under Hugo Moyano have begun to consolidate a new front, re-branded last week as the Trade-Union Front for a National Model. For their part, they have threatened “a thousand marches and strikes” to force the ruling Cambiemos coalition to hand power to the Peronist sectors still around the ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who began the ongoing austerity drive back in 2014.

During the strike, Macri was in the United States talking to potential investors and negotiating the latest IMF disbursement in the context of the UN General Assembly.

Tuesday night, the Washington-based think tank, the Atlantic Council, handed Macri the “Global Citizen Award 2018.” Far from an honor, the recognition is a warning to Argentine workers and youth opposing Macri’s right-wing policies. The Atlantic Council has provided a platform for strategizing the most vicious war crimes and neocolonial intrigues of US imperialism, and it is currently one of the chief agencies coordinating globally the online censorship of left-wing, socialist and anti-war views.

This gesture is only the latest of a series of steps taken by the US ruling elite to prop up the Macri government. On top of the IMF loan, favorable credit scores by Wall Street and smaller loans from the World Bank, Donald Trump himself has expressed support for Macri’s “engagement.” Accepting the prize, Macri thanked “the level of support that Argentines have received from the world, and especially from the United States.”

The EU European Bank of Investments has also endorsed Macri’s policies and offered special credits.

Despite this political backing and the enormous potential payouts, investors remain skeptical. Argentine newspapers worriedly reproduced a front-page piece in Wednesday’s printed edition of the Financial Times titled “Argentina crisis deepens as bank chief quits after 3 months in post” and warning about the strike and opposition to the “drastic” austerity plans.

This happened two days after Macri himself visited the New York offices of the UK-based newspaper, where he reportedly argued that he had “great popular support.”

Argentina is proving to be one of the weakest links of the international economy, currently the hardest hit by a combination of factors: higher international interest rates, the US trade war against China, the slowdown of the Chinese economy, and higher oil prices, which are expected to jump dramatically from US sanctions against Iran next month. There is also the continued economic crisis in Brazil, Argentina’s main trade partner.

The strong US institutional backing is largely driven by fear of the possible chain reaction and international political and social consequences of a debt default and economic free fall in Argentina.

At the same time, as Trump’s “America First” economic nationalism accelerates the shattering of the global economy into rival spheres of trade, currencies, and military alliances, Washington is seeking to consolidate its control over Latin America, particularly against China’s growing trade ties and massive loans. Speaking to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump reiterated his government’s intentions to defend US hegemony globally through economic and military means, including against “the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers” into the Western Hemisphere.

The “resignation” of Central Bank chief Luis Caputo reveals some of the deep political and economic contradictions faced by Argentina. Reports indicate that Caputo, a personal friend of Macri, was virtually thrown out by the IMF because the agency opposed his constant selling of foreign reserves, including from the fresh IMF loans, to keep the peso somewhat afloat.

The appointment as Caputo’s replacement at the Central Bank of Guido Sandleris, who has worked at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, the Inter-American Development Bank and the IMF, demonstrates that Argentina’s economy is increasingly being administrated like the Wall Street-appointed fiscal board that virtually rules Puerto Rico.

From the direct price controls under the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner administration (2007-2015), to Caputo’s sales of foreign reserves, and now to Sandleris—who promises “to leave behind exchange-rate interventions”—Wall Street is ordering an even looser leash to an increasingly unwieldy exchange rate and inflation, in turn allowing for faster capital outflows.

Given the deepening crisis, including the exacerbating influence of the IMF’s policies, the entire house of cards rests on one factor. Earlier this month Michael Camilleri, former Obama-era National Security Council chief for Andean Affairs, told Infobae: “Beyond the specific details of the talks with the IMF, the biggest question at hand is whether president Macri will keep his public support and political space necessary to execute the adjustment plan”—i.e., suppressing political opposition by any means.

The present crisis is shaped by Argentina’s volatile history. During the 1960s, the Onganía military dictatorship froze wages and imposed sharp austerity in response to an incipient downturn in the global economy and a growing debt, which had been largely used to finance a rapid industrialization and growth. Massive social upheavals toward the end of the decade brought down Onganía and four other de facto heads of state.

The 1973 election of Juan Domingo and Isabel Perón led to a short-lived shift back to infrastructure and social spending only allowed by a still thriving industrial export sector aided by a depreciated currency, but that was quickly undermined by the oil crisis that same year.

Throughout the previous decade, the Stalinist, Social-Democratic, Castroite and Pabloite leaderships of the workers movement derailed the increasingly favorable conditions nationally and internationally for proletarian revolution by subordinating radicalized workers and youth behind petty-bourgeois and suicidal guerrilla movements or the bourgeois-nationalist Peronist parties and trade unions.

The Peronist government quickly accelerated spending cuts and political repression until the March 1976 coup that installed a US-backed military dictatorship, which subsequently killed, disappeared and tortured tens of thousands of workers and youth.

The international and national economic conditions are even less forgiving today. Despite the sharp devaluation of the peso, which should make exports more “competitive,” the commercial balance has dropped for 20 months straight and industrial production fell 8.1 percent during the first six months of 2018, compared to the same period last year.

Regardless of whether Macri survives his term, or if Peronism or some “left” populist coalition comes to power, if workers and youth don’t develop an independent and internationalist revolutionary movement against imperialism and the entire capitalist setup in Argentina, including its corporatist trade unions, it will face a future of endless poverty, war, police-military dictatorship and fascism.

Congress readies band-aid measure for opioid crisis

Tom Eley

Late Tuesday congressional Democrats and Republicans approved compromise legislation that purports to address the opioid crisis, which claimed more than 70,000 lives last year. The House might approve the measure this week. Assuming Senate approval, it could be signed into law by President Donald Trump as early as next week.

The 653-page bill, reconciled from two previously-adopted Senate and House bills, is primarily focused on law enforcement. One measure contained in the legislation targets the importation of synthetic fentanyl and other illegal opioids through the mails. It will require anyone sending a package to the United States to provide their own name and address and to describe the package’s contents. If this is not done, the parcel could be detained or destroyed.

It also creates provisions for monitoring the dispensation of prescriptions and puts in place packaging rules designed to limit prescription abuse.

The bill would allow physicians’ assistants and certain categories of nurses to prescribe buprenorphine, an anti-addiction medication that, currently, only 5 percent of physicians nationwide can prescribe. It provides a modest amount of temporary funding for health experts to research less addictive forms of pain relief.

However, the most immediate factor driving the spike in drug overdose deaths—which, according to the CDC, increased last year to 72,000, most of which were caused by opioids—is a lack of both in-patient and out-patient treatment. The bill’s only provision in this regard is a measure that lifts a rule blocking Medicaid reimbursements for some forms of inpatient treatment at mental health care facilities with more than 16 beds.

Funding in the bill can only be called derisory, given the dimensions of the epidemic. Its precise cost is not clear, but one early version would have earmarked about $8 billion over five years, or roughly $1.6 billion per year—a figure, that were it translated into personal wealth, would not make the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. It would also be less by a factor of about 600 than the amount doled out to the American military—a figure expected to reach $1 trillion in the coming years—which politicians of both parties endlessly justify by the claim that it “protects American lives.” In fact, while the opioid crisis last year killed more Americans than died in the entire Vietnam War, the Chinese, Russian, and Iranian governments—the primary targets of the US military build-up—have not killed a single American in decades.

Advocates roundly criticized the bill for not providing adequate funding. “Without real money, it’s just lip service,” said John Rosenthal of the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery. “This disease has been raging for more than a decade without any serious federal response. Now they’re playing catch-up.”

Chuck Ingoglia of the National Council for Behavioral Health told Politico that the level of funding does not meet the dimensions of the crisis. “The data keeps showing us we have more and more people dying, so what’s the reluctance to actually spend money and actually do something?” he asked.

In general the media has hailed the bill as an example of “bi-partisan cooperation.” However, it has also been admitted in some quarters that the legislation is largely for public consumption prior to the upcoming November elections.

In the words of the Washington Post online health industry blog, “Regardless of the disagreement over the bill’s effectiveness, it’s really come down to a question of optics. The fact that Congress rushed to finish this work before the midterms shows how eager lawmakers on both sides are to be able to go home with this victory in their back pockets.”

As it worked its way through Congress the bill very nearly added a $4 billion windfall for the giant pharmaceutical corporations in the form of relief from a budget law passed last February that required them to give elderly Medicare recipients a discount on expensive prescription drugs that fall in the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole.” However, lobbyists for the pharmaceuticals were opposed by those representing the major health insurance corporations, as well as the American Hospital Association, and the measure was excluded by a narrow margin.

This is the second piece of legislation addressing the opioid epidemic in as many years. The crisis has grown dramatically worse since 2016, when President Barack Obama signed into law the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which allotted paltry grants to states for rehabilitation and prevention.

US wars claim soaring civilian casualties in Yemen and Afghanistan

Bill Van Auken

Two reports issued in recent days have provided a searing indictment of the US war in Afghanistan and the US-backed and Saudi-led assault on Yemen. In both countries, civilian casualties are soaring, the vast majority of them caused by US bombs and missiles dropped upon defenseless populations.

Both reports were issued in the midst of the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly, where Trump and his aides set out to bully the entire population of the planet.

In his speech to the UN, Trump indicted Iran for sowing “chaos, death, and destruction” in the Middle East, while portraying Washington as a force for “peace and stability” in the region. The facts, however, show that the greatest force for death, terror and destruction remains US imperialism, whose multiple wars have claimed well over a million lives over the past 17 years.

Trump also absurdly credited the UAE and Saudi Arabia with “pursuing multiple avenues to ending Yemen’s horrible, horrific civil war,” even as they continued to bombard the country, murdering hundreds of civilians.

A report issued by the Armed Location and Event Data Project (ALEDP) this week has revealed that the number of civilians slaughtered in Yemen has soared by 164 percent since June, when the Saudi-led coalition launched its brutal siege against the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

The average monthly death toll has risen to 116 since the onset of the siege. August was the bloodiest month, so far, with the International Rescue Committee reporting that nearly 500 people were killed over the course of just nine days.

The International Rescue Committee issued a report based on the ALEDP’s findings pointing out that “since 2015, the [US-backed] coalition has undertaken 18,000 airstrikes–one every 99 minutes–one third of which have hit non-military targets.” These strikes are responsible for the great majority of the deaths of more than 16,000 civilians since the war began. Tens of thousands more have died from disease and hunger, and an estimated 8.4 million Yemenis are confronting famine.

Washington gave the greenlight for the siege of Hodeidah, which is aimed at cutting off the lifeline for food, medicine and other basic supplies to the majority of the population that lives in areas of the country controlled by the Houthi rebel movement that overthrew the US and Saudi-backed puppet regime of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in 2014.

The United Nations has warned that the siege could claims as many as a quarter of a million lives outright and push millions more over the brink of starvation.

The report also comes just weeks after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally certified to Congress that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are taking steps to alleviate Yemen’s humanitarian crisis and protect civilian lives. The certification, required under a toothless amendment attached to the US military spending bill, was required as a condition for continuing the midair refueling that US Air Force tanker planes provide for Saudi warplanes so that they can conduct their round-the-clock bombing of Yemen’s population.

The refueling operation is only one of the means by which Washington makes possible the Saudi-led siege of Yemen. The Pentagon provides critical intelligence and targeting assistance from a joint command center in Riyadh and has deployed US warships that back up the Saudi-UAE blockade of the starving country. It also, of course, provides tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry being used to attack Yemen.

Pompeo’s cynical certification came in the wake of a pair of bloody massacres in August in which Saudi jets struck a school bus in a crowded market area, killing 51 people including 40 children, as well a truck packed with refugees fleeing the siege of Hodeidah, killing four women and 22 children.

The Wall Street Journal last week published a report based upon a leaked classified State Department memo, revealing that Pompeo brushed aside concerns expressed by department officials over the bloodbath unfolding in Yemen based upon a warning from his legislative affairs aides that failure to provide the human rights certification “will negatively impact pending arms transfers” and “may also negatively impact future foreign military sales and direct commercial sales to the region.”

Of particular concern was a deal struck by Raytheon Co. to sell more than $2 billion worth of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It was a Raytheon missile that killed the bus full of school children last month

Nearly half of arms sales by the US–the greatest weapons exporter in the world–now go to the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia its largest customer, accounting for 18 percent of sales. Total weapons exports set a new record in fiscal 2017, rising to $75.9 billion.

While the profit interests of US arms manufacturers are no doubt a critical concern, Washington, under both the Obama and the Trump administrations, has supported the war on Yemen based upon the pursuit of definite geostrategic interests in curbing Iranian influence in the region and pursuing regime change in Tehran.

This policy of reckless aggression has intensified under the Trump administration, which abrogated the international nuclear agreement with Tehran and has imposed punishing economic sanctions that are tantamount to an act of war.

Both Washington and Riyadh see the survival of any regime in Yemen that is not under their thumb as an unacceptable challenge to their dominance of the region and the curtailment of Iran. Both US and Saudi authorities have sought to cast the Houthi rebels that overthrew the US, Saudi puppet regime of President Hadi as Iranian “proxies,” while claiming, without any evidence, that Tehran is supplying them with arms.

Meanwhile, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has reported a 52 percent increase in civilian casualties resulting from airstrikes by US warplanes and the US-controlled Afghan air force in the first six months of this year. The number of bombs dropped by the US Air Force has nearly doubled over this period, to nearly 3,000.

The escalation of the 17-year-old US war in Afghanistan claimed the lives of 1,600 civilians between January and June–according to the UN’s undoubtedly low count–and forced another 160,000 to flee their homes.

The UNAMA report found tragic fresh confirmation after it was issued with a pair of US bombings that claimed the lives of at least 25 Afghan civilians. The agency reported on Wednesday that 12 people, 10 children and two women, were killed in a bombing in the central province of Maidan Wardak late on Monday. This followed an airstrike on Saturday that demolished the house of a teacher in the eastern province of Tagab, killing 13 civilians, most of them women and children.

On Wednesday, angry residents of the Chardara district of Kunduz Province carried the bodies of the victims of yet another airstrike that killed a 45-year-old woman and two teenage girls into the provincial capital, chanting slogans against the government and the US occupation forces.

“They martyred three women. My son, who is a university student in economics faculty, and my daughter, Atifa, are wounded—they are in a serious condition in hospital currently,” Mohammed, a teacher in the village school, told the New York Times. “They destroyed my life.”

In Afghanistan, as in Yemen, US imperialism is pursuing definite geostrategic interests. The war begun 17 years ago as a supposed response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington has from its outset been directed at establishing a US beachhead in Central Asia, near the strategic oil fields of the Caspian Basin and on the border of China. Recent attempts by Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan to jointly broker a peace process in Afghanistan have only fueled Washington’s military violence in the country.

The horrific war crimes in both Yemen and Afghanistan and the prospect of millions of Yemenis dying of starvation as a result of US-backed military operations have received virtually no coverage in the US media. Neither are they an issue in the upcoming midterm elections, in which the Democrats are running as no less a war party than the Republicans, advancing a field of ex-CIA and military candidates and demanding a harder line against Russia.

To press its campaign against Iran, Russia and China, US imperialism is willing to sacrifice the lives of millions and is preparing for far bloodier wars. This eruption of US and world imperialism, threatening the destruction of humanity, can be prevented only by the revolutionary mobilization of the international working class to put an end to capitalism.

Krypto Labs EdTech Innovation Start-up Contest 2018 for Projects in Edtech (US$150,000 Prize)

Application Deadline: 14^th October, 2018.

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Krypto Labs Abu Dhabi, UAE

About the Award: Krypto Labs EdTech 2018 is open to both individual innovators and team-based projects or companies from anywhere in the world (subject to certain restrictions – see our terms for further details).
We are interested in applications across different spheres including K-12, High-ed, Vocational, Lifelong Learning, among others. Applications should impact direct or indirect learners. The contest will be open to individuals, teams, university students and companies from around the world.

Categories: 

1. Curriculum Applications
2. Universal Access to Classrooms
3. Data Applications
4. Lifelong Learning Applications
5. Supplemental Applications
6. Behavioural Analytics Applications

Type: Contest

Eligibility: The project must be centred around education technology and must leverage the technology to meet the following.

• It must be categorised as part of the EdTech industry.
• It must have Artificial Intelligence on the forefront or as part of the application.
• Fall within on elf the listed categories.
• It should impact learning or enable better management of the education process.
• It can disrupt or supplement current education settings or ecosystems.
• It must be for-profit.
• It must have commercial applications.
• It must be inventive, innovative or disruptive.
• The business proposal must be original work and applicants must hold all applicable rights.
• It must be submitted in English.
• A team of up to three people, or the individual representing the idea or start–up, must be available to pitch the project in person on December 12, 2018 at Krypto Labs Abu Dhabi.

Selection: Submissions will be reviewed by Krypto Labs board of experts, who will select a maximum of 20 shortlisted entries by November 1^st, 2018. From these shortlisted businesses, a jury of global experts in Education technology will select six finalists who will be invited to pitch to EdTech 2018 jury members on the final day event, which will take place in Abu Dhabi on December 12^th, 2018.

Value of Award: EdTech 2018 Entrepreneur Hero (winner of the contest) will receive US$150,000. EdTech 2018 category star (winner of each of the 6 categories) will each receive US$20,000.
All 6 Semifinalist Will Receive:

• An opportunity to grow their business networks through Krypto Labs
• Increased visibility for their business
• A round-trip flight for up to 2 team members from home country to Abu Dhabi

How to Apply: To enter, team-based start-ups, projects, or companies must select one person to submit the application and to serve as the team’s representative throughout the competition.

Apply Now

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

The Rise of the Intellectual Pornstar

Camilo Gómez

The recent book Philosophy, Pussycats and Porn by the pornstar known as “Stoya” certainly isn’t the first someone in the porn industry has penned. Instead, this new collection of essays that discusses different topics from technology to religious iconography, is just the latest product from a new generation of porn performers taking an intellectual stand on social issues. They’re filling a niche that, in many ways, has been created by modern capitalism—an economic system that robustly supports human desire. In a way, these intellectual porn stars have turned into the avant-garde academics in this field, philosophers of the flesh and some of society’s most serious thinkers on human sexuality.

Porn is now more mainstream than it has ever been. Pornstars appear everywhere from blockbuster TV shows like Game of Thrones to political podcasts. But the industry’s unique complexity breeds. Of course, the porn industry remains a contradictory place where feminism and sexism intermingle and the line between public and private is constantly erased. Yet it’s precisely this complexity that has empowered these pornstars to become intellectuals, who help us all to understand the nuanced world in which they live.

Award-winning, U.S.-based Australian pornstar Angela White is known for her advocacy of women’s rights and body positivity. She consistently pushes for a culture that celebrates diversity in both bodies and genders. Conner Habib, an American gay pornstar of Middle Eastern and Irish descent, was a college lecturer of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst before he began shooting porn scenes. Now he’s also known for his writing and his thought-provoking podcast “Against Everyone with Conner Habib,” in which he interviews guests about different issues and articulates his own thoughtful views on the intersection of philosophy, sex, and anthroposophy.

And this isn’t an exclusively American phenomenon. In Europe, similar characters are appearing. Valentina Nappi in Italy and Amarna Miller of Spain are both porn stars who attended art school and grew up in countries where the Catholic Church held a firm grip on the social and political life. Yet these women have boldly voiced a feminist and hedonistic worldview, pushing the boundary of public opinion.

In the Trump era, porn’s political connotations are particularly important—and ironic. Despite the 2016 GOP resolution dubbing porn a “public health crisis,” Republican president Donald Trump is accused of having had an affair with pornstar Stormy Daniels. Many conservatives have spoken critically of Daniels—former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani has mocked her job and her looks. Despite the attacks, Stormy has been able to capitalize on her moment in the sun, running a strip club tour and releasing a book about the affair. Unlike many Trump critics, she hasn’t been silenced by the president or his loyalists. Indeed, she has persisted with her version of the story, disallowing anyone from shaming her and transforming herself into a feminist hero of sorts.

That isn’t to say the porn industry is a beacon of morality in the fallen world. In spite of its status as a pioneer in the world of social change, there remain issues stemming from the #MeToo movement as stories of sexual abuse inside the industry start to emerge. Reports of racism in the industry, too, have cropped up, and performers, on the whole, are making less than they have at any prior time. Indeed, there have even been some efforts to unionize the adult entertainment industry in order to change this reality.

Porn, of course, is always a complex issue—one that has generally been ignored in academia, with few exceptions. This seems neglectful since porn is often at the forefront of significant social change. Recently, it has embraced body positivity and the sexual empowerment of mature women. But historically, the industry has been busy depicting interracial, gay and trans relationships that, for a long time, weren’t featured in more mainstream media.

The porn industry used to thrive only in society’s marginal areas, but it has successfully managed to develop into a billion-dollar business. Now, the porn has the room to reinvent itself every day while poking fun at the deepest taboos of society. It can laugh at both presidential candidates and social activists, comment on the social problems of today and push for reforms in areas that other industries are scared to. After all, there is simply a market for everything.