Alberta government’s reopening policies lead to spike in COVID-19 cases

Janet Browning

The number of active COVID-19 infections in Alberta has risen rapidly in recent weeks as a result of the federal Liberal and United Conservative Party provincial government’s drive to “reopen” the economy.

As of Tuesday, there were 1,398 active infections across the province, with 164 new infections recorded in the previous 24 hours. Per head of population, this is one of the fastest-growing infection rates across Canada, which registered 477 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, according to figures from Worldometers.

Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, which has a population of just over 1 million, has been especially hard hit. Last week, the city recorded 56 active cases per 100,000 people. Toronto, Canada’s largest city, with a population of 2.9 million, currently has an active infection rate of 8.93 per 100,000 residents.

Edmonton infection data also point to the fact that lower income neighbourhoods are being disproportionately impacted. Northeast Edmonton had an infection rate last week of 136.1 active infections per 100,000, followed by central Edmonton Northgate (94.7 per 100,000) and northwest Edmonton Castle Downs (92.2 per 100,000). Edmonton’s north side is largely working class and contains the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

The resurgence of COVID-19 in Alberta is the direct product of the hard-right United Conservative Party’s rapid reopening of the economy, which has seen almost all of the public health measures put in place to contain the pandemic removed. On Tuesday, Alberta Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw took this policy a step further by announcing that when schools reopen this week, they will not be required to ensure social distancing among students.

The Kenney government has combined its reckless reopening drive with savage attacks on working people. In March, it announced the layoff of around 25,000 education staff, including bus drivers and administrative employees. It has also implemented authoritarian measures that allow the government to criminalize protests on public property, a measure that is above all aimed at suppressing working class opposition, including to its savage public spending cuts.

The danger that the Kenney government’s policies could lead to a further escalation of infections and deaths is underscored by recent COVID-19 outbreaks and several deaths at two Grey Nuns Community Hospitals. At Misericordia Hospital, where a complete shutdown was necessary on July 8 due to a “full facility” COVID-19 outbreak that has killed 11 patients to date, many patients and staff have been infected. The hospital’s emergency department has been forced to close. Another two hospital staff at the Grey Nun’s Hospital in Millwoods, in south Edmonton, recently tested positive for COVID-19. Dr. Hinshaw said the staff were working in a unit caring for three patients who had contracted the virus in the community.

As of late August, there were two additional deaths and 9 active cases of COVID-19 among residents at the Good Samaritan Southgate Care Centre in South Edmonton, where 31 elderly residents have died so far, and 8 staff members remain infected. 39 residents and 25 staff have recovered since the outbreak began on June 13.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to a worker who asked to remain anonymous, about conditions in her Edmonton workplace, CapitalCare Dickinsfield—an Alberta Ministry of Health seniors’ facility, where two nursing staff and one nursing student had just tested positive. She said all staff were tested and the facility attempted to have nurse aides fill in for the qualified nurses, but the workers refused and the facility was forced to hire replacement nursing staff. Staff have now been given sufficient PPE in an attempt to avoid a repeat of what happened at the Southgate seniors’ facility.

Outbreaks also continue to emerge at multiple Alberta meat packing plants. At Cargill Case Ready in northeast Calgary, five workers out of a workforce of 500 recently contracted COVID-19.

In an Aug. 19 interview with the Edmonton Journal, the head of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, sought to downplay the significance of the new outbreak, labeling it an “anomaly” that won’t require a full plant shutdown. “We haven’t asked for a closure of the Cargill plant,” said local president Thomas Hesse. “The company is showing a measure of co-operation, certainly. Our representatives have had a presence in the plant, there’s been testing happening … and the plant is well-fitted with PPE.”

Another case of COVID-19 was also confirmed at an Olymel meat processing facility in Red Deer, where 13 employees were sent home as a precautionary measure and are being tested for the virus. Rushing to management’s defence, Hesse said, “Olymel, I would say, has done their very best thus far to act responsibly and still be able to maintain production.” Referring to the meatpacking companies, including Cargill, Hesse added, “I think they’ve all come some distance as a result of advocacy and public pressure. There are some encouraging signs that some of these workplace cultures may have shifted.”

In reality, the UFCW is carrying out a despicable cover-up of the criminal role being played by the UCP government and meatpacking companies, who are insisting that production continue at all costs. Just how fraudulent Hesse’s claim that the “culture” has “shifted” was demonstrated last Friday when an Alberta government official ordered the Sofina Foods chicken processing plant in Calgary to remain open even though 18 workers there had been infected. A company spokesman subsequently confirmed that the total number of infections later rose to 27.

Also last Friday, the infection of 38 workers at the Harmony Beef processing plant in Balzac, north of Calgary, was reported. The plant recorded two previous outbreaks in March and May.

The refusal to shut down Cargill’s High River processing plant earlier this year resulted in over 1,000 infections and at least three deaths in what is the worst coronavirus outbreak to date at any single workplace in Canada. The company was ultimately forced to accept a temporary shutdown of the facility due to widespread public anger and outrage among the workers.

Despite widespread opposition among the highly-exploited workforce at being forced back to work under unsafe conditions, the UFCW explicitly opposed waging any struggle to defend workers’ health and lives. Demonstrating that the union bureaucracy prioritizes its cozy relationship with corporate management over the lives of the workers it claims to represent, Hesse adamantly opposed workers taking job action to protect themselves from the pandemic, on the grounds such action would be “illegal” under the state-designed, pro-employer collective bargaining system.

GE Appliances workers in Louisville, Kentucky vote overwhelmingly to strike

Zac Thorton

Demonstrating their readiness for a struggle, workers at the General Electric (GE) Appliances factory in Louisville, Kentucky have voted by 99.2 percent to authorize a strike. The vote comes as the four-year contract covering almost 4,000 workers is set to expire on September 6 with management demanding draconian concessions, including the elimination of employer-paid pensions.

The International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) has made it clear that the strike vote is not binding on the union. Instead IUE-CWA officials hope to retain some level of credibility among workers while they conduct behind-the-scenes talks over yet another concessionary contract. As Julie Wood, senior corporate director of communications for GE Appliances, put it: “Discussions remain productive. This vote is procedural for the union.”

In March, with workers conducting a job action over the outbreak of COVID-19 in the giant facility, Local 83761 President Dino Driskell said the union was “exploring the possibility of taking a park wide strike.” The union, however, quickly dropped any talk of a work stoppage.

The current contract was set to expire in June, however, due to the pandemic, the union and the company agreed to a three-month extension. Workers are demanding better wages and benefits, including better health care benefits, as premiums have outpaced cost-of-living adjustments.

While IUE-CWA officials have not revealed the details of either the union’s or the company’s contract proposals it has been reported that management wants to maintain the two-tier system, albeit with a starting raise for new hires from $12 to $14 an hour. The company also wants to replace employer-paid pensions with a 401(k) fund, largely financed by workers themselves.

GE Appliances was sold by General Electric in 2016 to China-based Haier for $5.6 billion. The company’s Louisville facility, its largest, produces washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and bottom-freezer refrigerators. Louisville itself is a significant manufacturing and logistics hub, with tens of thousands of GE, Ford and UPS workers. GE Appliances is the second largest manufacturing employer in Kentucky, with approximately 6,000 workers. In addition to its plant in Louisville, GE Appliances also has manufacturing plants in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

The company has remained highly profitable throughout the pandemic. In comments published in the Bucks County Courier Times on August 25, GE Appliances spokeswoman Wendy Treinen said, “GEA has seen record demand on certain product categories since COVID-19 began … Freezer sales outpaced supply starting in March as consumers stockpiled goods and demand remains at an unprecedented level. Usage of appliances is higher than ever before.” In addition, she said, “Interest in remodeling and home improvements has sparked orders as well.”

Haier Smart Home, the Haier subsidiary which oversees GE Appliances, published its half-year report on August 31, titled “Revenue and profit recovery following COVID-19 impacts.” The report states: “In H1 2020, the Haier Smart Home achieved a revenue of [almost $14 billion] and net profit attributable to owners [$395 million]. Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company’s performance in H1 2020, the growth rate swiftly revived in Q2, ushering a turning point with increases in both revenue and net income attributable to shareholders in June by 20.6% [year-over-year] and 21.4% [year-over-year], respectively.”

During the 2016 contract negotiations, workers at the Louisville plant rejected by a wide margin a proposed contract that imposed significant concessions, including a two-tier pay scale and higher health care costs. Ignoring workers’ demands, the IUE-CWA accepted an agreement which kept, with only slight alteration, many of the provisions workers adamantly opposed.

In a statement after the strike vote, local union president Driskell admitted that the 2016 contract had severely eroded workers’ living standards, with rising out-of-pocket health care costs for workers far outpacing the minimal wage increases in the contract.

The current contract negotiations are taking place amidst an unprecedented social and political crisis in the US, which is being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers are being forced into unsafe factories, schools and other workplaces, with little to no personal protective equipment or safety protocols. This has led to major outpourings of working class anger and opposition, including among workers at the Louisville plant.

On March 31, after management informed workers of a “probable” COVID-19 case at the facility, workers protested outside the factory complex and demanded that it be shut down, and that necessary safety precautions be implemented.

Prior to this, the company had only halted production for one week in response to the virus. When production resumed on March 30, management assured workers that it had sanitized the plant and reconfigured it to allow for social distancing. Despite management’s rosy assurances, workers returned to find a factory that remained filthy, while lacking such basic necessities as soap and hand sanitizer.

IUE-CWA officials only reluctantly agreed to the March protest because workers were threatening to take matters into their own hands. After his comments about exploring the possibility of a strike, IUE-CWA Local 83761 President Dino Driskell announced the union would abide by the decision of Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, to designate the appliance maker as an “essential business” that had to remain open.

The Socialist Equality Party urges workers to take matters into their own hands by forming a rank-and-file committee, independent of the union, to prepare for strike action. At the same time, this committee should appeal to Louisville teachers, Ford and UPS workers for joint struggle against unsafe conditions and the corporate drive to pump even more profits out of the working class.

French President Macron lays down the law in Lebanon

Jean Shaoul

French President Emmanuel Macron paid a second visit to Beirut in the aftermath of the devastating port blaze on August 4 that killed around 190 people.

This representative of Lebanon’s former colonial master timed his visit to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Lebanese state under French rule as part of the post-World War I imperialist carve-up of the defeated Ottoman Empire, over the heads of the people of the region.

Macron’s aim was to create the conditions for the return to power of French puppet and a member of one of Lebanon’s billionaire corporate and banking families, Sa’ad Hariri, and to eliminate the power of the Iranian-backed Islamist party Hezbollah.

He made it clear that any international financial loans and aid to prevent the pending bankruptcy of the Lebanese state—looted for decades by the country’s plutocrats—would be dependent upon “reforms,” a euphemism for eradicating the influence of Hezbollah and isolating Syria and Iran.

His visit to one of the world’s smallest countries—with a population of six million in the Eastern Mediterranean—is part of a broader French and European Union (EU) attempt to reassert their influence and interests in the Middle East and Africa, in the wake of their failure to effect regime change in Syria via a proxy war.

They are seeking to secure Europe’s energy supply amid the newly discovered gas fields and proposed pipelines in the Levant Basin, as Turkey carries out its own exploration drilling and Turkey, Iran, Russia and China build up their positions in the Eastern Mediterranean via Syria. No small factor in their calculations is the continued undermining of the once dominant position of US imperialism.

France in particular is taking a very aggressive stance, allying itself with the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in backing warlord Khalifa Haftar in eastern Libya against the UN recognized government of Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli that is backed by Turkey, Qatar and Italy.

France has long meddled in Lebanon’s domestic politics, providing a sanctuary when their leaders fall from grace. Most recently, in 2017 Paris orchestrated Sa’ad Hariri’s return to power after his then chief backer, the House of Saud, summoned him to Riyadh, detained him and forced him to announce his resignation as prime minister on television, because of his inability to distance his shaky government from Hezbollah.

Just hours before Macron arrived on Monday, Lebanon’s political parties agreed to put forward diplomat Mustapha Adib, who was selected by the country’s billionaire ex-premiers, as the new prime minister following the resignation of Hassan Diab’s short-lived government. Diab resigned six days after the devastating explosion at Beirut’s port. It had become clear to him that he was being made the scapegoat for the years of criminal neglect and callous indifference by successive governments that had ignored repeated warnings about the dangers of storing ammonium nitrate without proper safety controls so near to residential areas.

Adib, a lawyer and Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany since 2013, is a largely unknown figure. A close associate of Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s richest man, who was prime minister 2011-13, serving as his cabinet chief, Adib has called for the rapid formation of a government and promised to implement reforms swiftly to secure a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In essence, he is being asked to clear the way for a Hariri-led government under conditions where Hariri himself is far too discredited to assume power immediately—having ruled the country for four of the six years when the ammonium nitrate was stored at the port.

Macron kicked off his trip with a publicity stunt, visiting 85-year-old Fairuz, Lebanon’s internationally acclaimed singer and national icon, at her home, where he awarded her France’s Légion d’Honneur. He then made his political preferences clear, inviting Hariri to meet him at the Pine Residence, the French Ambassador’s official residence in Beirut. One hundred years earlier, on September 1, 1920, French General Henri Gouraud had declared the creation of the state of Greater Lebanon from its balcony under the terms of a League of Nations mandate that gave French imperialism authority over Syria and Lebanon. The stately home served as France’s base for running the country until independence in 1943.

The following day, Macron attended a series of events to mark the occasion, planting a cedar sapling—Lebanon’s national symbol—at a forest reserve in the mountains northeast of Beirut as French air force jets flew overhead, leaving trails of red, white and green smoke, the colours of the Lebanese flag.

Later on Tuesday, at a meeting with representatives of all the main political parties at the imperial Pine Residence, Macron issued his demands: a new government within two weeks, “credible commitments” to reform, and transparency within two months, thereby paving the way for an IMF loan to rescue the economy, and parliamentary elections within 12 months.

Macron, speaking at a press conference Tuesday evening, said, “They all, without exception, committed to a goals-oriented government to be formed in coming days,” and that the new government would be formally composed of “competent” unaligned people. He cautioned, “There is no blank cheque,” adding, “If your political class fails, then we will not come to Lebanon’s aid.”

Lebanon’s economic crisis is rooted in decades of corruption and looting by the ruling elite that has created one of the world’s most heavily indebted countries, with a sovereign debt equal to 170 percent of GDP, owed in the main to Lebanese banks that are owned by leading Sunni and Christian politicians. The currency has collapsed, and the banks have prevented small depositors from accessing their savings, even as their value has plummeted. Poverty and unemployment, already high, have soared in the wake of the pandemic and the port blast in a country that hosts the world’s largest number of refugees per capita.

Macron insisted that there would be no international aid if they failed to follow their own “road map” for sweeping changes to the state and financial system. He gave them till the end of October to make the necessary changes. Should they fail to do so, this arrogant imperialist, aping Donald Trump, kept open the threat of sanctions as a stick with which to beat politicians such as President Michel Aoun’s son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, the leader of the mainly Christian Free Democratic Party, and Hezbollah, which has the largest bloc in parliament.

Macron announced that he would return to Lebanon in December after a visit by Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in November and that France would organize two Lebanon-related conferences in mid-October. One would focus on reconstruction aid, and the other to be held in Paris on “building international support” for Lebanon’s reform agenda and “shielding Lebanon from regional power plays.”

For all Macron’s talk of curbing corruption, what he really meant was curbing the power of Hezbollah. He said that the next round of “reform” talks would focus on the group’s arsenal of weapons that rivals that of the Lebanese army.

As Macron left Beirut, protesters took to the streets with clashes with security forces taking place near the parliament building. Some chanted “Down with [President] Michel Aoun” and “Revolution,” while others said they were protesting foreign interference and Macron’s visit.

As part of Macron’s broader aim of taking a more prominent role in pursuing France’s geo-strategic interests in the region, he flew on to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Macron was the first international leader to visit the country—and this was the third visit by French officials—since Mustafa al-Kadhimi was elected prime minister in May.

His purpose was “to launch an initiative alongside the United Nations to support a process of sovereignty,” an indirect warning to Turkey, whose military incursion into the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in June—aimed at disrupting Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants—angered Baghdad and Erbil.

Ford to slash 1,400 jobs as auto industry cuts widen

Tim Rivers

Ford Motor Company will eliminate 1,400 salaried jobs before the end of the year, the company announced Wednesday, advancing its years-long, multi-billion dollar restructuring plans. The cuts will begin via early retirement buyouts, targeting older, better paid employees, but intensified attacks on jobs and working conditions throughout Ford’s workforce will inevitably follow.

Ford’s president for North America, Kumar Galhotra, announced the buyouts in an email to employees Wednesday, stating, “We’re in a multiyear process of making Ford more fit and effective around the world. We have reprioritized certain products and services and are adjusting our staffing to better align with our new work statement.”

Ford Motor Company Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. (Credit: Dave Parker)

As has become standard practice, layoffs are threatened if Ford doesn’t reach its target of voluntary buyouts. “Our hope is to reach fitness targets with the voluntary incentive program. If that doesn't happen, involuntary separations may be required,” Galhotra concluded.

The stock markets responded positively to Ford’s announcement of job cuts, boosting the company’s share price 1.76 percent Wednesday.

Even as Ford and other major corporations are forcing workers back into deadly working conditions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, they are using the economic crisis to engineer further restructuring measures and carry out a jobs bloodbath. Also on Wednesday, United Airlines announced that it would indefinitely furlough over 16,000 employees at the beginning of October.

Ford’s own cost-cutting efforts are set to accelerate with the ascension of Jim Farley, currently COO, to the role of CEO in October, replacing current CEO James Hackett, who has been under fire by major investors for years. Despite overseeing tens of thousands of layoffs and billions in cost cuts, Hackett has been viewed by Wall Street financiers as insufficiently aggressive in carrying out the attacks.

In 2019, Ford had announced 7,000 salaried job cuts, along with the layoff of 12,000 workers and the closure of five plants throughout Europe. Expressing the ruthless drive for profit of the financial elite, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said last year that Ford would not reach the profits the company was promising and instead stated that an additional 23,000 white-collar jobs were needed.

The depth of the crisis at the company, which was long seen as a mainstay of global auto production, can be seen from key figures on its balance sheet just over the last two years. Ford’s net income has fallen almost continually since the end of 2017. In its first quarterly earnings net loss since 2009 during the Great Recession, the firm recorded a loss $2 billion for the first three months of 2020, and has projected a net loss for the full year. Analysts have also been quick to point out that Ford has been losing money in every market except North America and the company’s debt was cut to junk status by ratings agency S&P in March.

At the same time, Ford is sitting on a pile of cash on hand, $39.3 billion, up $2 billion from last year’s amount, and was in the top 10 US companies with the most cash available near the end of 2019, behind only the tech behemoths Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Nevertheless, in the frenzied competition to dominate new and emerging technologies, global automakers are racing to slash costs and ensure massive sums of money continue to flow to the largest investors. Incoming CEO Farley has said that the company is targeting a profit margin of 10 percent in North America, up substantially from last year’s 6.7 percent margin. Such an outcome could only take place through an immense intensification of exploitation of Ford’s workforce.

In response to Ford’s job cuts announcement, numerous workers posted comments on the web site thelayoff.com, pointing to the further job cuts waiting in the wings.

“If this September 8th offer is true,” one wrote, “it only means there will definitely be a heave hoe coming after the voluntaries.”

Another added, “The voluntary packages will be followed by involuntary packages, the involuntary packages will again target those employees nearing pension milestones and the highly compensated employees. Those of you a few years shy of 30 years and not yet 55 will be primary targets.”

After years and decades at the corporation, workers who had once held the expectation of a well-paid lifetime career are now facing the stark reality of suddenly being cast into poverty.

“Ford claimed that you could keep your benefits until eligible for Medicare, but they have since raised the monthly cost and co-pays so much that it’s unaffordable,” reported another worker. “I know a few people who thought they could afford to take the buyout but are now stretched because of the increased cost of Ford benefits. I don’t believe you could qualify for unemployment after nine months because you technically quit your job.”

Along with the record stock prices endlessly touted by the Trump administration, a wave of job cuts is slicing through major corporations worldwide. More than 200,000 job cuts and buyouts have been announced in recent weeks, and corporations globally anticipate more blood-letting as furloughs implemented early in the pandemic are transformed into permanent layoffs.

Germany-based automaker BMW is also cutting salaried positions in the US, and last week announced plans to cut some 400 jobs at its Mini car plant in Cowley in the United Kingdom. The company earlier this year announced plans to cut 16,000 positions globally. Both Volkswagen and Daimler AG have also signaled plans to carry out mass job cuts, and a wave of layoffs has been spreading throughout Brazil’s auto industry.

In the airline industry, more than 400,000 workers had been fired, furloughed or told they could lose their jobs in the immediate future by the end of July. More reductions have been announced since, including American Airlines, at 19,000 workers, and United’s 16,000. Lufthansa is working on more cost-tightening measures that could see another 20,000 jobs destroyed. Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury said last month that a plan to cut 15,000 jobs was not the worst-case scenario.

Earlier this year, agricultural equipment giant John Deere announced its own round of early retirement buyouts of salaried employees as part of its “Smart Industrial” restructuring, along with the layoff of production employees in Iowa. The job cuts via voluntary retirements were followed last month by the termination of an undisclosed number of white collar workers.

Workers’ opposition grows to Netanyahu government over pandemic and social crisis in Israel

Jean Shaoul

Opposition is mounting across Israel to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Blue and White national emergency government’s handling of the pandemic and the deteriorating economic and social conditions.

On Sunday, some 2,000 public health laboratory workers in 400 public laboratories went on strike over poor working conditions and low wages. In public hospital labs, they are carrying out emergency work only. They are continuing to carry out coronavirus tests but are only contacting those testing positive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Netaim School in the West Bank settlement of Mevo Horon, September 1, 2020. (Marc Israel Sellem/Pool via AP)

Esther Admon, chair of the Association of Biochemists, Microbiologists and Laboratory Workers, blamed the government after talks with the Finance Ministry broke down on Monday saying, “The indifference and disregard of the prime minister and his ministers is outrageous. Beyond words. I understand with sorrow that there is no leadership in Israel.”

Around 200 of the striking workers protested outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem Tuesday evening. They criticised the government for pouring funds into private labs, saying, “If the government had invested even only 10 percent of the NIS 4 billion ($1.3 billion) allocated to the private laboratories, there would have been no reason to strike... We decided to go demonstrate at Balfour [the prime minister’s residence] because we have no choice.”

The strike takes place amid rising opposition to the government’s handling of the pandemic, its return to work policy, and the reopening of schools. Twice weekly demonstrations against Netanyahu’s refusal to resign, even after being indicted on charges of corruption, bribery, and breach of trust in three separate cases, have continued for weeks and are growing larger.

The government initially put tight restrictions in place in early March. In late April, as the infection rate began to fall, the government announced a relaxation of restrictions, allowing the reopening of schools—partially at first and fully on May 17, the day that the new coalition government was sworn in, and a return to work. Later, the government green-lighted the reopening of restaurants, bars, clubs, swimming pools and hotels.

Netanyahu did so without putting in place any measures to guard against or deal with a second wave, despite recommendations from a team of experts, headed by Professor Eli Waxman from the Weizman Institute of Science in Rehovot. His team also recommended that the government reconsider its decision to restart the economy if the daily number of infections rose above 200—another recommendation the government ignored.

Within days of the government lifting restrictions on class sizes, there was a resurgence of the virus, with tens of thousands of pupils later sent into quarantine as their classmates tested positive, ultimately infecting hundreds of students, teachers and relatives. Without contact tracing, hundreds of schools were forced to close. According to the Ministry of Education, by the end of the school year in late June, 977 pupils and teachers had contracted COVID-19, with teachers the worst affected. At least one teacher is known to have died.

Waxman blamed the increase in cases on the speedy and uncontrolled reopening of schools and the economy and the government’s failure to implement his team’s recommendations. He warned that this would soon overload Israel’s hospitals, which have been starved of funds for decades.

Waxman warned other countries considering reopening their schools, “They definitely should not do what we have done,” adding, “It was a major failure.” Experts insisted that smaller classes, mask wearing, keeping desks two metres apart and providing adequate ventilation would be crucial until a vaccine is available. But such conditions are impossible without a near doubling of the number of classrooms and teachers.

In July, Siegal Sadetzki, Israel’s director of public health services, resigned, saying that insufficient safety precautions in schools, as well as large gatherings like weddings, had fueled a “significant portion” of second-wave infections.

In the last two weeks, Israel has reported nearly 22,000 infections, one sixth of the total since the start of the pandemic, and a daily rate now of over 2,000 cases. Nearly 970 people have died, half of them in August. This contrasts with around 250 deaths at the beginning of May when restrictions were lifted.

The situation is no less acute in the occupied Palestinian Territories. In the West Bank, there are 8,172 active cases and 161 people have died. In the Gaza Strip, there are 280 active cases and four people have died. Three of the four deaths occurred in the last week and were due to community transmission, in contrast to previous cases that had contacted the disease abroad.

Dr Ashraf Alkudra, spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Health, said there was a major shortage of testing kits at Gaza hospitals. Last week, with limited means to stop the spread of the pandemic, Gaza imposed a full lockdown that is set to continue. There are only 90 available ventilators in Gaza, 10 of which were donated by the World Health Organisation.

Coronavirus czar Professor Ronni Gamzu, a physician, is strongly opposed to opening Israel’s schools in the “red areas” designated by regional councils as hot spots. He said it was unreasonable to open schools in such places because it is impossible to avoid new cases in the process. It was a question of managing risk and “this is not a risk to take.”

In the event, on Monday evening, just hours before all the schools were due to reopen at the start of the new school year, the coronavirus cabinet decided to keep schools in the designated red zones with high infection rates closed.

The reopening of schools has met with fierce opposition from teachers, whose union had threatened strike action. This was only averted the day before schools were due to reopen when Judge Hadas Yahalom ruled against the union’s right to strike. This was after the union and the Education Ministry agreed to maintain discussions and a guarantee that no teachers would be placed on unpaid leave without being allowed to present their case in the space of 24 hours.

The Education Ministry agreed to offer 800 pre-retirement positions to teachers who can show they are at risk of becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus and to provide $10 million for personal protection equipment for preschool and elementary school teachers.

The government only averted a strike by schools support staff, including student aids, maintenance staff, and secretaries, at the start of the school year by agreeing to find funds to support the Karev programme. The programme provides educational services for some of the most needy children, including at-risk students, Ethiopian Israelis, immigrants, special needs students, the ultra-Orthodox and Arab students. Without it, some 4,000 workers would have lost their jobs.

This is part of a larger political problem flowing from the government’s inability to agree a 2020 budget—the deadline has now been postponed until the end of November—leaving many school programmes with no funding earmarked for them and at risk of cancelation.

In recent weeks, there have been several strikes by public service workers over low pay and COVID-19-related issues, including:

• A nationwide strike of bus drivers in 16 bus companies in July over the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) as more than 1,000 drivers became infected.
  
• A nationwide strike of nurses over low pay and staff shortages, only carrying out emergency work, that was only called off after the government agreed to hire an additional 2,000 nurses on a temporary basis, 400 doctors, and additional security personnel.
  
• A 16-day strike by social workers in support of their demand for higher wages and a reduction in their burgeoning case load amid the pandemic.

Far from leading any united struggle of workers against the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, the Histadrut trade union federation has been in talks with Amir Peretz, a former Histadrut leader and now Minister of Economy and Industry. The talks are aimed at setting up roundtable discussions with employers and government departments over “flexible unemployment benefits.” The official unemployment rate has reached more than 21 percent, and food poverty is soaring.

In face of overwhelming popular opposition, Brazilian governments push criminal reopening of schools

Tomas Castanheira

After disastrous results in Manaus, the first capital city to resume on-site classes, the governments of major states throughout Brazil, including those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, are advancing criminal plans to reopen schools between September and October.

Headed by the different parties of the Brazilian ruling class, these governments face as their adversary the working class, which vehemently opposes this homicidal policy.

A survey published by the Datafolha research institute on August 17 found that 80 percent of Brazilians are against reopening schools. About 60 percent are sure that the return of classes will “severely aggravate the pandemic.”

A school in Manaus, Brazil. (Credit: Ione Moreno/Semcom)

These polls reflect the resistance of the great majority of the population to accepting the toxic anti-scientific campaign promoted by the Brazilian state as whole, headed by the country’s fascistic president, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro has been silent on the subject of schools in the recent period, clearly because he believes that state politicians of his self-declared opposition are doing the dirty work for him.

Brazil remains the country with the highest indices of COVID-19 cases and deaths, trailing only the United States. It has just crossed the milestone of 4 million confirmed cases, with roughly 125,000 confirmed deaths from the disease.

Twenty days ago, on August 10, classes in public schools were resumed in Manaus, the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, by order of Governor Wilson Lima of the Christian Social Party (PSC). The immediate result was the outbreak of new COVID-19 cases in 36 schools within a week of their reopening.

Growing protests by teachers and school staff led the government to announce a massive testing of education workers, while keeping the schools functioning in the same unsafe conditions. The tests were conducted by the Amazonian Health Surveillance Foundation (FVS), which operates as a government public relations agency.

The results of the tests were disclosed in a deliberately confusing manner. On August 24, the FVS released the first result of the tests, with 342 positive cases among the 1,064 tests conducted, indicating that 30 percent of education professionals were infected.

When it presented updated numbers, on Monday, the FVS hid the results of IgG type tests (which show longer term antibodies). It just published that, in a universe of 2,114 tests, “Only 162, or 7.6 percent, had recent infections.”

What they call “only 7.6 percent” is, in fact, an extremely unsettling number. Translated into the total of 110,000 students attending schools, which are not being systematically tested, it would indicate that there are more than 8,300 infected youth inside classrooms. They are putting their own lives at risk, as well as those of their fellow students, teachers and family members.

The impact this will have on the city that produced scenes of mass burials of COVID-19 victims at the peak of the pandemic are not yet clear, but some numbers already sound the alarm. Professor Henrique dos Santos Pereira, of the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), told A Crítica: “From what we can see, there is an increase in the number of hospitalizations in Manaus in the second half of August, approaching the same levels as the peak of June 22.”

The news portal G1 reported that the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Pará, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have already set dates for a return to classes between September and October.

Facing massive opposition from educators and family members, governors and mayors are spouting lies and taking minimal measures to gain ground. The first claim is that their decisions are being made on the basis of a “scientific evaluation,” expressed with the release of colorful maps, whose criteria change every week. The second is that the return will be “optional” and will not be done suddenly.

The governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), made these hypocritical arguments in an exemplary way this Tuesday, during the presentation of his back-to-school calendar. “We understand that the risk, at this moment, is lower than what was perceived at other moments,” he said. “It is not a return at any cost, nor a disorganized return or a return to normal. It is a calendar to authorize, or to stop restricting (!), but not to force a return.”

What does a “risk lower than what was perceived at other moments” mean? The capital of Porto Alegre has 88 percent of its ICU beds occupied, even after the recent construction of new beds, and the state registered 1,463 new cases this Monday. Amidst this scenario, Leite proposes the return, in the first place, of kindergarten students on September 8.

The preference for reopening the schools for the youngest students is not an accident, and the rationale was explicitly stated by the governor: “Many parents have gone back to on-site work and have no one to leave their children with. This return to work imposes the need for places for child care, which are the kindergarten schools.”

Essentially the same model is being advanced in São Paulo, which has the highest incidence of COVID-19 in the country and for any state in the world, with 30,673 confirmed deaths and 826,331 cases. On Wednesday alone, 298 deaths were reported in the state.

Despite declaring, with the support of the press, that students will return to classes in state schools on October 7, the government of Governor João Doria, of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), is actually promoting the reopening of schools as early as next week. His objectives are exactly the same as those of his fellow party member from Rio Grande do Sul – to give workers a place to leave their children while they generate profits for the ruling class and are themselves subjected to the risks of infection.

To force through his criminal project, Doria is offering overtime pay to teachers who supplement their workload by receiving students on-site for an “emotional welcome” this month. In an interview with Folha, the state secretary of education of São Paulo, Rossieli Soares, stated that he may hire substitute teachers, in a bid to brreak teachers' resistance.

A teacher from the São Paulo state network sent the World Socialist Web Site a government statement sent to the school boards on September 1 that exposes the “optional” character of this return. Advising schools to conduct a survey on the resumption of classes among teachers and parents, the document concludes: “It is not necessary to reach a majority that wants or does not want the return to define the opening of the school.”

The project being prepared in São Paulo, as in other states, represents a conscious assault of the ruling class on the lives of the masses of working people that can be defined as a policy of social murder. A simulation presented by a group of researchers from leading Brazilian and international universities shows that the parameters set for reopening in São Paulo would provoke, in a three-month period, the infection of up to 46 percent of students and teachers.

School workers and families must unite to overturn this policy. They need to face not only the governments, but also the trade unions that claim to represent the educators. In the capital of São Paulo the unions are joined with the local government in an “Emergency Committee on the Crisis of Education.”

In a press release on the last meeting of this committee, which took place on August 18, the SINPEEM teachers union stated that it and “representatives of other union entities and congressmen have discussed once again the return of on-site classes ... SINPEEM has insisted once again that the return of the on-site classes can occur only in 2021, after City Hall puts in place protocols with measures that guarantee the safety of education professionals, students and their families.”

What the unions are doing, in fact, is conspiring behind closed doors with the government to create the best conditions to break workers' resistance. The same course is being pursued by the other unions affiliated to the National Confederation of Education Workers (CNTE).

The central objective of the CNTE in the present situation is to isolate workers locally and prevent a general strike of education workers throughout Brazil, which would join with the ongoing postal workers’ strike and could provoke an uprising of the Brazilian working class as a whole.

To overcome this blockade imposed by the unions, Brazilian educators and parents must build independent rank-and-file committees in each school and neighborhood. These committees will allow the workers themselves to politically lead their struggle and unite with their colleagues throughout Brazil and across national borders.

Hundreds at University of Iowa stage sickout as COVID-19 cases skyrocket

E. Cohen & Andy Thompson

Today, hundreds of students and faculty at the University of Iowa are participating in a “sickout”—where instructors and students call in sick—to demonstrate against the university’s homicidal policy of continuing in-person education.

The sickout was organized over the weekend by students and faculty across the university to demand all classes be moved online and quickly drew support. Organizers for the sickout released a pledge to stop work that netted over 600 signatures in four days.

Iowa is a global epicenter of the pandemic, with Ames, home to Iowa State University, and Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa, occupying the number one and number two spots in the United States worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The state has a two-week moving average of 232 cases per 100,000 people. Tyson meat workers in Waterloo, Iowa, carried out a sickout in early May when more than 1,000 were sickened.

Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa

After just one week of classes at the University of Iowa, more than 1,100 students and faculty have reported cases of COVID-19. Educators from across the university have reported mass infections in their classes, as the number of new daily cases at the school—which houses more than 30,000 students—has remained in the triple digits and the university still has 25 percent of classes happening face to face. At Iowa State University the positive rate in the second week of testing was over 28 percent.

The sickout comes as the state of Iowa comes under fire for manipulating COVID-19 case counts after nurse practitioner Dana Jones, who had been tracking reported cases on her own, blew the whistle on the state’s systematic backdating of cases. The true number of cases in Iowa was discovered to be double what the state government had reported, the numbers used to force reopening of schools, workplaces, parks and restaurants.

The university administration has responded to the sickout with hostility. University Provost Kevin Kregel emailed all university faculty condemning the action and suggested faculty are not living up to their obligations to students.

In an astonishing display of hypocrisy, Kregel wrote: “The absence of faculty compromises our students’ ability to maintain the educational progress critical to their future success.

“Accordingly, while the university acknowledges individuals’ concerns about in-person instruction, I strongly disagree with the planned manner of expressing those concerns. I respectfully remind you that as role models, you have an obligation to deliver instruction as assigned, and to provide appropriate notice of absences due to illness.”

Neither the union for contingent faculty, the Service Employees International Union “Faculty Forward” Iowa, nor the graduate student union COGS/UE have endorsed the sickout. In denying any association with the walkout, the unions underline that their main concern is not the health and safety of students and staff but maintaining their good standing with the university and their ability to collect dues.

Faculty and students have used the sickout’s Twitter and Instagram pages to expose conditions in their classes. One student posted: “My brother isolated himself for five months and didn’t see a single person besides my parents and me. He’s been to a grocery store one (1) time since March. He moved into the @uiowa dorms last week, and today he received his positive results for COVID-19.” Another student reported, “I have in-person labs I’m forced to go to without an option to get the content online.”

Students forced to attend in-person classes published photos and videos of the conditions in lecture halls and small classrooms. In a preface to one video, a student said: “This class has 49 people and 1 professor. And the university’s idea of distancing us is having everyone sit in just every other seat. They said they are suspending people for attending gatherings of more than 10 yet they put 50 of us in this classroom. I believe there is already 8 including myself who are unable to attend class now due to self-isolating for quarantining.”

Faculty members at the University of Iowa have also used the sickout’s social media campaign to expose the reality behind the university’s reopening plan. One professor said, “I teach a gen ed [general education] course. I currently have 7 students positive out of 48. My colleagues all have at least 5–6. One has 10. I’m completely disgusted that the university has stalled so long as cases rise. That they invited tens of thousands of students back into this situation.”

The sickout at the University of Iowa is the latest expression in a mass wave of social unrest in the course of 2020. The year has seen walkouts by autoworkers, mass demonstrations against police violence and now opposition from educators and students who are being forced into unsafe conditions. The pandemic is the event that immediately triggered the demonstrations, but their underlying cause is capitalism.

University officials at Iowa and around the United States are determined to continue to push President Donald Trump’s drive to reopen campuses at the expense of the lives of hundreds of thousands of students. The stage is set, at the University of Iowa and all other campuses complicit in the back-to-work drive, for a confrontation between students and educators defending their lives and the administrators who are responding to the demands of the corporations and capitalist politicians to reopen the campuses.

The University of Iowa, which rakes in millions of dollars per year on its football program, has more than ample resources to cover the expenses of moving classes to fully remote status. The protests have targeted the university president, Bruce Harreld, who came to UI after a long corporate career as an executive for billion dollar companies including Kraft Foods, Boston Market and IBM. Harreld’s salary is over $600,000 per year.

Millionaire administrators, along with the Democrats, Republicans and the unions, can offer no solution for students and teachers who are defending their health and lives by refusing to return to campus.

Only through an independent struggle outside of all the organizations of the ruling class can students and teachers defend their lives from the COVID-19 pandemic. Students and teachers in Iowa must follow the example of teachers in Florida and expand their sickout into an all-out strike, forming rank-and-file safety committees on their campuses and in their schools to put forward their demands for online learning and scientifically sound safety measures.

Teacher protests spread as COVID-19 rips through schools and universities

Renae Cassimeda

Protests and job actions by educators opposed to the unsafe opening of schools have spread across the country as the drive to reopen public schools and university has sparked a massive resurgence of COVID-19.

The University of Georgia reported staggering 821 new COVID-19 cases from August 24–30. Additionally, three K-12 schools in Manatee County School District in Florida, reported positive cases this week, sending hundreds of students with possible exposure into quarantine.

Teachers and students at P.S. 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York City on September 2, 2020. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

These deadly conditions have provoked hundreds of protests by teachers, parents and students across the country. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, the scene of the mass protests against police killings and the murder of protesters by a right-wing vigilante, teachers continued to protest over the school district’s plans for in-person learning.

Last week, the Kenosha Unified School District (KUSD) changed its plans and announced there will be an in-person option incorporated into their reopening plans, which starts September 14. Teachers, parents and students protested at the district office Monday—the day before Trump’s provocative visit to the city—demanding that officials reverse their plans for in-person instruction. They held signs that read “One student or teacher funeral is too many” and “Don’t make me choose between students and my health.” Teachers and parents are expected to protest and voice opposition at the KUSD school board meeting tonight, shortly after Biden visits the city.

On Monday, educators in Andover, Massachusetts, a town of 33,000 people 25 miles north of Boston, refused to enter school buildings for professional development, citing concerns about poor ventilation and safety, and decided to work outside the schools instead. Andover Public Schools are set to begin the school year with a hybrid learning plan on September 16, with each student attending in-person two full-days per week. School district officials denounced the action as an “illegal strike” and threatened to take legal action against teachers, who were then ordered back to work by the union.

Nearly 375 teachers in Elizabeth, New Jersey publicly announced that they would refuse to show up to teach if school districts reopened for in-person instruction in September. In spite of threats that they may face charges of illegally striking, they insist that their safety as well as the safety of their students and families outweigh the possible retribution.

On Monday, teachers also protested outside the Brighton Area Schools district office, north of Detroit, over safety concerns and looming budget cuts. A recent press release outlined major budget cuts to the district due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The press release stated that the state projects “an excess of $5 million in cuts in Brighton Area Schools’ budget for the 2020–2021 school year.”

Speaking to local news media during the protest, Jennifer, a teacher in BAS, said, “Why am I being asked to take a 5.8 percent pay cut in the middle of a pandemic when our district is not in a deficit situation.” She also expressed concerns over building ventilation, social distancing and other safety issues during a pandemic.

On Wednesday, hundreds of students and faculty at the University of Iowa participated in a “sickout” to demonstrate against the university’s deadly policy of continuing in-person education. In response to a recent rise in cases, students and faculty throughout the university demanded all classes be moved online.

Last month, teachers from around the country established the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee to unite educators, parents and student and prepare for a general strike to halt the reckless opening of schools. Safety committees, which are independent of the unions, are being set up in Michigan, Florida, Texas and other states.

On Monday, teachers and community members in Jacksonville, Florida, including members of the Duval County Rank-and-File Safety Committee, spoke at the local school board meeting. The district is currently open to in-person instruction under a hybrid model—part in-school, part online—for its roughly 130,000 students and over 8,000 teachers.

Duval County teacher speaks at local school board meeting

The district has announced three inadequate measures it will take to stop the spread: cardboard desk shields with clear plastic film, face masks, and a long-lasting bioprotectant spray. Teachers are speaking out against these pseudo-scientific reopening plans that fly in the face of recent science that prove aerosolized COVID-19 particles can become airborne and travel 16 feet or more, well beyond the recommended six feet for social distancing and remain suspended in the air for hours in poorly-ventilated spaces.

One teacher told local reporters, “These cardboard dividers make it so that students can’t even see through a couple of them, so students have to lift their heads over them so that they can see the instructor, see the board. It makes the classrooms kind of impossible.”

In comments to the school board, a member of the Duval County Rank-and-File Safety Committee (DCRFSC) said, “It’s appropriate that the board meeting began with a discussion about how many students are enrolled and how that will affect money because clearly that is at the heart of the decision to reopen these schools so unsafely. Dollars and cents before the lives of our most vulnerable—our children.”

He called school officials’ claims of a so-called safe reopening “false,” and presented the 10 demands of the DCRFSC. Primary among their demands were the calls for the immediate closure of all schools until the safety committee, working with trusted health professionals, deem them safe to reopen, and universal testing for all students, educators and staff.

The teachers denounced the efforts by school authorities to intimidate and silence those exposing these dangers. One teacher and safety committee member Bradley Fisher, said, “I would like to denounce the investigation that is currently filed against me for professional misconduct and other teachers who have dared to tell the truth about what the Superintendent’s reopening really looks like on the ground [and] who have had the bravery to whistle blow.”

Three local doctors also spoke during the meeting, all emphasizing the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over and must be handled carefully. Doctor Nancy Staats, member of Doctors Fighting COVID, stated that COVID-19 is more contagious than any other virus besides measles. Staats also noted the implications of “in-between deaths.” She said, “Yes, you might survive, but you will have a long-term problem and children can have asymptomatic cases and have lung damage, we’ve seen this.”

Trump has repeatedly demanded that workplaces and schools reopen, asserting at the Republican National Convention that, schools and workplaces “have to be open, they have to get back to work.” The Republicans are more open in their push towards the murderous reopening policies, but whatever their rhetorical and tactical differences both parties fundamentally agree.

In remarks Wednesday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made clear that if he were in the White House, he would declare a national emergency to open the schools, and keep them open. Biden said, “If President Trump and his administration had done their jobs early on with this crisis, American schools would be open and open safely.” The Democratic candidate said he would use federal disaster money to provide educators and administrators the protective equipment for a “safe reopening” of schools.

It is not possible, however, to reopen schools safely while the pandemic continues to spread across the country. To do so, will only lead to a resurgence of the contagion and more death.

However, the Democrats, just like the Republicans, are determined to reopen the schools in order to get parents back to work producing corporate profits, no matter what the human cost. This includes the mayor of New York City, the largest school district in the nation, which will resume in-person schooling on September 21.

As vice president under Obama, Biden oversaw an oversaw an historic assault of teachers and public education, which has left school districts terribly underfunded and understaffed more than a decade after the Wall Street bailout of 2008–09. Having handed Wall Street a far greater bailout this year, tripling government debt, Biden will oversee a ruthless program of austerity, cutting funds to schools and other vital services to pay the debt.

ACI Foundation International Scholarships/Fellowships in USA & Canada 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 2nd November, 2020.

Eligible Countries: All

To be Taken at (Country): ACI Foundation Fellowships can be awarded to anyone in the world; however, you must attend a U.S. or Canadian university during the award year.

About the Award: The ACI Foundation offers several Fellowship and undergraduate Scholarship opportunities for students and E-Members. ACI Foundation Fellowships and Scholarships are awarded annually to help students with an interest in concrete achieve their educational and career goals. The student must be considered a full-time undergraduate or graduate student as defined by the college or university during the award year. Applications will be accepted from anywhere in the world but study must take place in the United States or Canada during the award year.

Fields of Study: Structural Design, Materials, Construction

Type: Undergraduate, Graduate (Masters, PhD)

Eligibility:
Each student is limited for the duration of their studies to receiving no more than one fellowship and one scholarship from the ACI Foundation.
A single online application form will be used for all the fellowships and scholarships. After answering some qualifying questions, the form will automatically display the fellowships and scholarships for which you may be eligible. Before beginning the application, have the answers ready for these questions:

• Have you ever received a fellowship or scholarship award from the ACI Foundation?
• When submitting the application, what is your current academic status (Undergraduate/Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD)?
• When the award year begins in Fall 2021, what will your academic status be (Undergraduate/Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD)?
• (Fellowship applicants only) Following the application season, can you attend an interview at the spring ACI Concrete Convention on March 28, 2021? Travel, registration, and hotel arrangements will be made through and paid for by the ACI Foundation.
• (For certain fellowships) Can you fulfill a 10- to 12-week internship during the summer of 2021?

For the entire school term (fall semester 2021 through spring semester 2022), you must be a full-time student for the entire school year.

Selection Criteria: Based on essays, submitted data and endorsements, the Scholarship Council of the ACI Foundation will select scholarship and fellowship recipients who appear to have the strongest combination of interest and potential for professional success in the concrete industry.

How to Apply: The application for the 2021-2022 season is now open! You can get started by reviewing the requirements in the links below. Once you have read the requirements, click one of the buttons below to start your application.

Apply Now!

Fellowships & Scholarships Application

Middle East & North Africa Fellowship Application

It is important to go through the Application instructions on the Scholarship Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for more details

Award Provider: American Concrete Institute

The Number of Homeless People is About to Skyrocket

Howard Lisnoff

The Covid-19 pandemic will cause the number of homeless people and homeless families to skyrocket. This is not so much a prediction as a certainty. With government subsidies to people to help pay rent and mortgages at an end, and with unemployment benefits reduced, the number of adults and children on the streets will grow exponentially. Why is this?

The answer is that the few and the very wealthy, the oligarchs and the plutocrats, couldn’t give a damn about homeless people in the US. When money flowed to the homeless, during the years I was a grant writer for a homeless shelter and a volunteer at that shelter, there was Housing and Urban Development money for the homeless and grant money available from private charitable organizations. The romance with the homeless ended as austerity, spending on wars, and tax cuts for the wealthy became all the rage. Homelessness was seen as a nuisance. Corporate profits were hoisted as good above all else. Greed became a virtue.

As the economy became deindustrialized, the society put hordes of people onto the streets and into jails for warehousing and further exploitation. The diminished union movement put an exclamation point on it all.

There’s a series that can be seen on YouTube called Invisible People and I think one of its best segments aired in 2018. I may have been drawn to this episode because they filmed it in Ithaca, New York, a place that I love. Ithaca is a college town in upstate New York, which is the home of Cornell University and Ithaca College. Ithaca, like so many college towns across the US, has been especially hard hit by the pandemic because these schools employ lots of people in the area. It’s not much of a leap of faith to know instinctively that the number of homeless people will grow in places like Ithaca. During my last visit to Ithaca, I came upon a meal site based in a church and there was a long line that had queued up outside its door waiting for it to open. This was long before the pandemic hit.

The segment of Invisible People cited above travels into an undeveloped area of fields in Ithaca and the interviews and scenes of homeless people and homeless shelters is powerful. It would be impossible to view this video without a wrenching emotional and intellectual reaction.

Compare the scenes and people in that video with this short video I shot on a street in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts a few weeks ago. I did not have camera equipment with me at the time, so the video is shaky (A Pool and a Pandemic). Try to remain objective while watching this video. Compare what I portray in this video with the scenes of homeless people in Ithaca.

The point is that homelessness results from a predatory economic and social system where there are small numbers of big winners and lots of people without the means to survive in any level of comfort. Living in a comfortable nurturing environment is a basic human right. Those in the middle class may feel squeamish about homeless people, but masses of people understand that it’s the business as usual nature of the social and economic systems that creates homelessness and gives many the ability to accept its worst expressions. It’s no accident that a social class of those with almost no means is relegated to fields, the streets, and sometimes dangerous and overcrowded shelters. There are very few people who choose a life of homelessness, but most are driven there by job loss, domestic violence, and mental illness. Some have been cast out by their families and others have fallen to the scourge of substance abuse, a condition with a host of its own causes. The major cause of homelessness is that there is a limited stock of affordable housing and affordable rentals as home prices soar ever higher and higher for a host of reasons including the machinations of real estate investing and gentrification. Buying a first home in the area where I live is an almost unimaginable enterprise with real estate dynamics driving the price of homes and rental properties through the roof, while jobs that provide enough income for the purchase of a home are almost nonexistent.

Much can be learned about a society from how it treats its most vulnerable members.