Trump, Republicans continue campaign to overturn election

Patrick Martin

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden increased his overall lead in the popular vote to more than five million Wednesday, with 77.4 million votes, the most ever won by a US presidential candidate, compared to 72.3 million votes for President Donald Trump.

Biden’s percentage of the popular vote reached 50.8 percent, as more votes were counted in the heavily Democratic West Coast states, which allow late-arriving mail ballots as long as they were postmarked by November 3. His share of the popular vote is the highest for any candidate challenging an incumbent president since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1932 landslide victory over Herbert Hoover, exceeding that of Ronald Reagan in 1980 (50.7 percent).

In this Nov. 2, 2020, file photo, a county worker collects mail-in ballots in a drive-thru mail-in ballot drop off area at the Clark County Election Department in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

The former vice president maintained his leads in four closely contested states, with his margins actually increasing to 14,112 in Georgia, 36,726 in Nevada and 50,215 in Pennsylvania. Biden’s lead in Arizona fell to 12,813, but nearly every ballot has been counted there and both Fox News and the Associated Press “called” the state for the Democrat on election night.

Victory in those four states would give Biden 306 electoral votes, compared to 232 for Trump, when the Electoral College assembles in various state capitals on December 14. That assumes Trump maintains his 70,000-vote lead in the remaining “uncalled” state, North Carolina, which is awaiting the counting of tens of thousands of provisional, mail-in and military ballots.

The scale of Biden’s popular vote victory and his comfortable margin in the Electoral College—the same 306 electoral votes that Trump called a “landslide” when he hit that mark in 2016—only underscore the extraordinarily anti-democratic and ominous character of Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the election. This intransigence has been backed by the vast majority of Republicans in the House and Senate, who have refused to acknowledge that Biden is president-elect.

Vote-counting, recanvassing and litigation continued in all the closely contested states Wednesday, with the Trump campaign failing to make any gains on the legal front. By one tabulation, Trump’s advocates were 0 for 10 in court decisions and had so far been unable to convince a single judge to delay the certification of the results.

In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, rejected demands from the state’s two Republican senators that he resign for alleged faulty oversight of the voting, in which both Republican incumbents were forced into a January 5 runoff against Democratic challengers. Raffensperger said there would be a hand recount of the more than five million votes cast in the state, affecting both the presidential race and the two Senate contests.

In Arizona, the state attorney general, Republican Mark Brnovich, said Trump was “very, very unlikely” to win enough of the remaining uncounted ballots to overcome Biden’s lead. “It does appear Joe Biden will win Arizona,” he told Fox Business, saying there was no evidence of fraud or widespread irregularities in the voting or the vote-counting.

In Michigan, Republican challenges to vote-counting in suburban Oakland County, which Biden carried by a wide margin, were thrown out Tuesday. Overall, Trump’s defeat in the state, by a sizeable 146,000 votes, came from a swing against him among white working class voters, particularly in the Wayne, Oakland and Macomb County suburbs, compared to 2016.

On Wednesday, the Trump campaign went to federal court seeking to bar the state from certifying Biden’s victory in Michigan. The resort to federal rather than state courts is significant, since it indicates an intention to begin a chain of legal appeals that would take the issue to the US Supreme Court, where Trump has appointed three of the nine justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed and sworn in just before the election.

In the most critical state, Pennsylvania, whose 20 electoral votes put Biden over the top in the Electoral College, a Republican lawsuit was heard in Montgomery County, in the Philadelphia suburbs, which went heavily for Biden. The hearing included the following remarkable exchange in court, between Judge Richard P. Haaz and Trump campaign lawyer Jonathan S. Goldstein, over 592 mail ballots being challenged by the Republicans.

THE COURT: I am asking you a specific question, and I am looking for a specific answer. Are you claiming that there is any fraud in connection with these 592 disputed ballots?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present, no.

THE COURT: Are you claiming that there is any undue or improper influence upon the elector with respect to these 592 ballots?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present, no.

On Monday, the most sensational allegation of Trump’s supporters in Pennsylvania, about systematic mail-ballot vote fraud in Erie collapsed when a postal worker who had come forward as a purported whistleblower admitted that his claims of ballot-stuffing were fabricated. The postal worker had received $130,000 in donations from right-wing sources before he made his admission. Senator Lindsey Graham, Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had all cited this false account as the basis for charges of vote fraud.

It is increasingly clear that the purpose of the flurry of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign is not to actually shift the results of the vote-counting, since there is no evidence of fraud and the number of ballots in question is too small to affect the outcome. The aim is to discredit the vote-counting as a pretext for Republican-controlled state legislatures in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona to step in and name slates of pro-Trump electors, rather than the pro-Biden electors chosen by the voters.

There is tight timetable for Trump and his co-conspirators to engineer such an electoral coup in Michigan. Most Michigan counties have completed their mandatory recanvass of the balloting, and the state is on track to meet its November 17 deadline for certification of the vote. That would be followed by Biden electors assembling in the state capital, Lansing, to cast the state’s 16 electoral votes.

Not counting the electoral votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, Biden would have 227 electoral votes and Trump 232, creating an illusion of parity. Actually, Biden is leading in all six states by a combined total of 280,000 votes.

Trump needs to block the certification of Biden’s victory in at least four of these states in order to keep him below 270 in the Electoral College, or engineer the outright hijacking of electoral votes by the state legislatures, which are Republican-controlled in all but Nevada.

At least one state representative in Wisconsin, Republican Joe Sanfelippo, has endorsed the selection of Trump delegates for the Electoral College, setting aside the popular vote. He has been appointed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to a committee that is investigating the election results.

A group of Pennsylvania state representatives have backed a similar effort to steal that state’s electoral votes, or at least delay certification of a Biden victory, required by November 23, but the Republican leader of the state Senate has so far disavowed it. That is why Trump recently tweeted about the need to elect a new leadership for the Republican caucus in the Pennsylvania legislature.

In both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the state legislatures would have to defy state laws that award the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most support from state voters.

As Trump and the Republican Party are well aware, their greatest asset is the cowardice and duplicity of their political opponents, Biden and the Democratic Party. Biden is doing everything in his power to downplay the dictatorial character of Trump’s moves, dismiss the danger to democratic rights, and politically disarm the population.

As the Socialist Equality Party (US) Political Committee explained in its statement (“Stop Trump’s conspiracy to nullify the 2020 elections!”) posted Wednesday on the World Socialist Web Site:

The only viable response to the conspiracy being hatched in the White House is the demand for the immediate removal of Trump, Pence and their co-conspirators.

This demand can be realized only through the independent intervention of the working class and the struggle to organize a nationwide political strike.

Trudeau leads Canadian establishment in hailing Biden's election victory

Roger Jordan

Canada’s ruling elite is elated with the Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the US presidential election.

The Trudeau Liberal government, much of the Conservative opposition, and most of big business and the corporate-controlled media are eager to see the back of Trump. This is because they view Trump as a liability to the common interests of North America’s twin imperialist powers, including Canada’s long-standing military-strategic partnership with Washington; and because they fear that his rampage against the working class, wanton indifference to the mass suffering causes by the COVID-19 pandemic, and coup plotting will trigger a social explosion that would quickly spill across the Canada-US border.

Justin Trudeau (Credit: Twitter)

They calculate that a Biden-led Democratic administration, should it come to office in January, will be better able to divert, defuse, and politically suppress mounting social opposition, and will pursue a more consistent and thought-out world strategy, enabling the US and Canada to more effectively advance their imperialist interests and ambitions, including through heightened aggression and war.

The Trudeau government gleefully boasted Monday that the Prime Minister was the “first world leader” to speak with Biden following his victory speech Saturday evening. Underscoring the Trudeau government’s hope that a Democratic administration in Washington will facilitate the pursuit of Canadian imperialism’s predatory interests around the world, the Ottawa press release reporting the call said that the pair had discussed “trade, energy, NATO, anti-black racism, and China’s arbitrary detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.”

Kovrig and Spavor were arrested by Beijing after Canada seized Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, in December 2018 at the behest of the Trump administration. Wanzhou remains under house arrest in Vancouver awaiting the outcome of a judicial hearing, in which Ottawa is arguing she should be deported to the US on spurious charges of breaking Washington’s punitive sanctions against Iran.

Federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole was also quick to send his congratulations to Biden following the US television networks’ declaration Saturday that he had won the election. “Canada and the US have a historic alliance,” he tweeted. “Canada’s Conservatives will always work with the US to advance our common values and close economic ties.”

Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne spoke with similar enthusiasm Sunday about the prospects for a close partnership with a Biden administration. Invoking Canada-US collaboration in a series of bloody military conflicts over the years, stretching back to the two world wars of the last century, he told CBC, “We’ve seen for more than a century now this close relationship between our two countries. And we can be a force for good in the world.”

These honeyed phrases will sound like a cruel joke to the millions of people across the Middle East and Central Asia who have experienced death and destruction on a truly staggering scale over the past two decades in brutal US-led wars of aggression in which Canada has played an important role. From Afghanistan to Libya, Syria, and Iraq, Canadian and US forces are responsible for the deaths of millions, the forcing of millions more from their homes, and the destruction of entire societies. During the time Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice-president, Canadian troops were involved, alongside their US counterparts, uninterruptedly in aggression and war—all waged in the name of “democracy,” “human rights,” and doing “good in the world.”

During the past four years, the Trudeau government proved more than willing to collaborate with Trump on some of his most right-wing and reactionary initiatives, including his vicious witch-hunting of immigrants and refugees, and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement to consolidate a US-dominated trade-war bloc against China and other international rivals.

Champagne paid tribute to this close cooperation in his Sunday interview, when he declared that Canadian officials would not rush to have meetings with Biden and his aides, because it is necessary to be “gracious” to the outgoing administration. Political niceties aside, the real reason for Champagne’s caution is bound up with the fact that Trump has refused to concede the election and is taking steps, with the support of the vast majority of the Republicans, to overturn the election and remain in power.

While Trump had, and still has, support among a minority faction of Canada’s ruling elite, the dominant faction strongly supported the right-wing campaign the Democrats mounted against him in league with sections of the US military-intelligence apparatus focusing on questions of foreign policy, not his real crimes against the American people. This included their denunciations of Trump for allegedly being too soft towards Russia, and ineffective in establishing an international coalition of “democracies” to confront China economically and militarily.

That said, it is widely recognized in Canadian ruling circles that even if Biden comes to power, the United States will remain mired in political and economic crisis, rooted in the vast erosion in the world position of Washington and Wall Street; and that if the Canada-US military-strategic partnership is to retain its effectiveness, Canadian imperialism will have to invest more militarily and politically.

The Democrats’ combination of a more aggressive foreign policy with reactionary identity politics is well suited to Trudeau and his Liberals. They will seek to use it to legitimize a further growth of the Canadian war machine, including the modernization of NORAD. While claiming to pursue a “feminist foreign policy” and fight “anti-black racism,” the Trudeau government, during its five years in office, has initiated plans to boost military spending by more than 70 percent by 2026; deported thousands of impoverished refugees to the Caribbean, Central America, and Africa; and further integrated Canada’s military into Washington’s military-strategic offensives against China and Russia, and in the oil rich Middle East.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland gave an initial indication of the type of political rhetoric that will be used to conceal the continuation and intensification of these reactionary policies in the years to come with a eulogy to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Freeland hailed this right-wing ex-chief California prosecutor as an “inspiration to women, girls and people of colour.”

These sentiments were echoed by New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party leader Annamie Paul. Singh enthused that Harris has “sparked the imagination for generations of young women to come.” Singh, whose NDP has propped up the Liberal minority government during the pandemic as it bailed out the banks and financial oligarchy with over $650 billion in financial aid, resorted to the vapid slogan of the late NDP leader Jack Layton in a bid to convince people that the declaration of Biden’s victory changes everything. “As the Trump Presidency comes to an end I’m reminded of Jack’s final words‚ ‘Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair.’ So let us be loving, hopeful & optimistic. And we’ll change the world’,” he tweeted.

This is all hogwash. As the World Socialist Web Site has repeatedly insisted, Trump did not emerge from the depths of hell, but merely expresses in the most crude, finished form the depravity and criminality of the American capitalist class and its social order. It reveals a great deal about the inanity and unseriousness of Singh and the NDP’s politics that at the very point where he informs his supporters that a Biden presidency can “change the world,” Biden’s deliberate and systematic downplaying of Trump’s coup plotting is creating the best conditions for the fascistic occupant of the White House to nullify the vote and cling to power.

Even if Biden manages to accede to the presidency on January 20, his government will be one of stepped-up austerity for the working class, attacks on democratic rights, and a further eruption of US militarism and war around the world.

Whatever their disagreements with the current American president, the main concern and fear of the Trudeau government and the Canadian ruling elite has never been Trump, but the potential emergence of a mass working class movement in opposition to the growth of social inequality, police violence, and his disastrous handling of the pandemic. Workers and young people will not forget that when Trump first indicated his coup plans by trying to illegally deploy the military last June to crush the mass protests triggered by the police killing of George Floyd, Trudeau refused to condemn his flagrantly anti-democratic actions.

Throughout the election campaign and in the days immediately following the vote, Trudeau and other leading ministers insisted that Ottawa would cooperate with whomever emerged victorious, Trump included. Trudeau studiously avoided making any comment on Trump’s explicit preparations to launch a presidential coup, and stated merely that his government was prepared for “disruptions” following the election. Unlike political leaders in Europe, who for their own reasons have criticized Trump’s refusal to concede defeat, Trudeau and other government members continue to avoid all comment on the matter.

This approach enjoys the full backing of big business, whose principal goal remains ensuring unhindered access to the US market, which continues to account for three-quarters of all Canadian exports. Reiterating the Globe and Mail’s infamous call, in response to Trump’s 2016 election and his trade war threats, for Ottawa to ensure that Canada is “behind Trump’s walls,” Mark Agnew, senior director of international policy for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, argued last week that Canada’s focus must remain on market access no matter who occupies the White House. Pointing to Biden’s “Buy American” commitments, Agnew stated, “Canada needs to make the case for the role we play in America’s economic security, and why North America should be treated as a region when thinking about supply chain security.”

Orchestra, opera musicians face severe pay cuts, furloughs, uncertainty in the midst of the pandemic

David Walsh

The coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on artistic and cultural life. As the WSWS has repeatedly argued, however, the pandemic acts in many regards as an accelerant or amplifier, speeding up processes already under way. This is also true in the cultural sphere.

In the US, for example, the management of various orchestras, operas, museums and other institutions and cultural organizations are taking full advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to press forward with their demands as part of an offensive for pay and other cuts that has under way for more than a decade.

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall (home of the San Francisco Symphony)

As long ago as 2010, the WSWS reported that pay cuts had already been “imposed at symphony orchestras in Phoenix, Houston, Cincinnati, Seattle, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Atlanta, Virginia, North Carolina and Utah, among other cities and states.” Orchestras in Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago and elsewhere have since faced major attacks—prior to the coronavirus outbreak.

In the current crisis, musicians and others no doubt hope that with the end of the pandemic what has been given up will be restored. That remains to be seen, but it is certain that nothing will be regained without an enormous struggle, with far-reaching political and social implications. Management may well side with Lady Macbeth, who reasoned that “what’s done cannot be undone.”

The musicians of the San Francisco Symphony are among the most recent to become victims of the combined effect of the pandemic and management action. The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that the musicians would “take a 30 percent pay cut for the remainder of 2020 under the terms of a newly ratified contract revision” that went into effect October 18.

Management reported November 2 that the symphony had recorded a “cumulative revenue loss of $40 million by the end of the 2020-21 season as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.” All of the orchestra’s live performances through the end of the calendar year have been canceled.

The Chronicle and symphony management take for granted that the musicians should see their living standards slashed. The San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors, however, is not some anonymous institution carrying out unavoidable measures in an impartial, godlike manner. It is composed in large measure of extremely affluent individuals, a good number of whom could afford to make up the revenue loss out of their own pockets, and not notice the difference.

Picking out symphony board members almost at random, one comes across enormous wealth. One of the members, for example, is Gordon P. Getty, of the Getty oil family, among the wealthiest individuals in the US, with a net worth of $2.1 billion. Another board member is Gregory E. Johnson, of Franklin Resources, perennially on the list of most highly compensated executives, whose total compensation was $10.4 million in 2019. John D. Goldman, multimillionaire insurance executive and major donor to the Democratic Party, sits on the board as well.

Michael Anders, also on the Board of Governors, is the founder of Iconiq Capital, referred to in the media as the “family office of tech billionaires,” including most prominently Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. John S. Chen, who was rewarded by BlackBerry in 2018 with a five-year contract including compensation valued at close $150 million in total, is also on the symphony’s board, along with Kausik Rajgopal, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company, the prominent management consulting firm, and Max Levchin, Ukrainian-born American software engineer and businessman, with an estimated worth of $300 million.

Meanwhile, the financial bloodletting for the artists continues. In September, the members of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra had a 50 percent salary cut imposed on them under the terms of a contract modification. The opera’s General Director Matthew Shilvock gushed that the organization was “profoundly grateful to the Orchestra for its partnership in facing this pandemic.”

Percussionist Patti Niemi (Photo credit–San Francisco Symphony)

However, according to the Chronicle, percussionist Patti Niemi, speaking for the musicians, commented that the latter “faced a grim choice between ratifying the agreement and losing their income and health benefits entirely.” Niemi noted that the musicians “had been hoping to collaborate” and come up with an agreement that only covered the period during which they were not performing, “But suddenly there was this pivot to issues like the orchestral vacancies that are unrelated to COVID.” She pointed out, furthermore, that management “also objected to a contract provision that would restore the salary cuts if ticket sales rebound in 2022-23.”

Dozens of orchestras exacted major pay cuts and furloughs in March and April, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony and many smaller ensembles. Some have come back for more.

The members of the Philadelphia Orchestra approved a deal in mid-October that reduced their compensation to 75 percent of normal pay retroactively to September 12 and through the middle of March 2021.

Members of New York’s famed Metropolitan Opera orchestra have been without any income since the onset of the pandemic. On Facebook in mid-October, the musicians asserted they were “the only world-class orchestra in America furloughed with no pay since 1 April.”

The Facebook post explains that already some 30 percent “of the orchestra members have been faced with moving outside of the #NewYorkCity area with many more families being forced to make challenging decisions each day due to the lack of economic compensation from the Metropolitan Opera and the lack of economic support from the Federal Government.” The Met musicians point out that the opera company’s “global reputation and the cultural landscape of New York City would be devastated by the loss of artists of this calibre. The social, educational, and economic impact these musicians have on their communities is immeasurable.”

Met orchestra musicians on NBC News

Met management counters by arguing that the opera “has been paying 100 percent of the cost of health care since the pandemic began and has also offered financial assistance from now until the summer as part of long-term contract proposals.”

The third horn of the Met’s orchestra, Brad Gemeinhardt, in a Zoom call from Michigan, told NBC News bluntly that “I would call this an enormous crisis in the artistic world in New York.”

Met orchestra principal flute Chelsea Knox told Classic FM: “I gave birth during the final performance at The Met on 11 March, 2020. I had only just received tenure for my job in the spring of 2019 and for me the Met Orchestra is my dream job.” When the pandemic hit, she explains, Knox and her husband, also a musician, “were suddenly faced with leaving our apartment and moving in with my parents to sort out our plan going forward as a family.”

“Emotionally the loss of identity has been as challenging as the loss of income,” Knox observes. “I expected new motherhood to be life altering, but being isolated with a baby and with no performances scheduled for the next year it has been hard to find balance. I’m not sure what my future as a musician looks like right now.”

This is an increasingly universal experience.

Thousands protest in Peru against impeachment, pandemic and economic implosion

Rafael Azul

Wednesday was the third day of mass protests across Peru. Thousands mobilized in protests against the political, economic and health crises racking this South American country. The demonstrators were met with water cannon and police repression.

On Monday, November 9, Peru’s Congress removed President Martín Vizcarra from office. The next day Vizcarra was replaced by Manuel Merino, president of the Congress. Demonstrations took place in various cities in opposition to Vizcarra’s ouster. As president until elections are held on April 11, 2021, Merino is also continuing to preside over congress.

Protesters confront riot police in Lima

Merino is the third president in the span of one presidential term; Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Vizcarra’s predecessor, was elected in 2016.

Merino defended the congressional action, defining it as a “process of democratic transition” to defend the Peruvian nation and declaring that the assembly’s votes “were not purchased” and followed due process.

Vizcarra had been impeached for “permanent moral incapacity.” It was alleged that he had received bribes connected to construction projects in 2011-2014, when Vizcarra was governor of the southern province of Moquegua. The accusations are based upon plea bargains by other defendants, without any trial or even investigation having taken place.

Vizcarra’s removal resulted from the legislature’s second impeachment attempt. An impeachment attempt two months ago, allegedly for “influence peddling,” did not obtain the required two-thirds vote of the legislature.

The US State Department indicated that US officials were “following events closely.”

“We look to Peruvian institutions to uphold the constitution and the rule of law,” a spokesman declared. “We note that national elections are scheduled for April. As a region of democracy and prosperity, we call on Peruvians to continue to pursue their political ends via a peaceful, lawful, democratic process.”

Ironically and hypocritically, the statement came on the same day that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a State Department news conference that there would be a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” backing the attempt by the White House to overturn the results of the US presidential elections.

The State Department’s declaration had more to do with its desire to quell the popular reaction to Vizcarra’s removal than with any genuine defense of the democratic process.

In Lima, Peru’s capital, the decision to replace Vizcarra with Merino brought many people into the streets. On Monday night and Tuesday, crowds marched and rallied to protest the Merino’s appointment. A Tuesday protest march along the streets of downtown Lima was blocked from reaching the Congress building. In the course of ten hours of protests, dozens were arrested and several were injured by the police.

Protests are also taking place in the cities of Ayacucho, Cusco, Trujillo, Piura and Iquitos, centers of mining and industry.

While Vizcarra has denied all the accusations against him, political corruption has been endemic in Peru’s ruling elites. Vizcarra himself became president upon the resignation of President Kuczynski because of corruption charges in March 2018 involving the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Nearly every living Peruvian ex-president has been implicated in corruption probes.

Vizcarra’s removal was carried out by all the political parties represented in the legislature. Sixty-eight out of those who voted (out of 130 legislators) have themselves been accused of corrupt practices and are barred from running again for office.

Vizcarra’s removal and the appointment of Merino have taken place in the context of a deepening social and economic crisis. In addition to its government being racked by accusations of corruption, Peru is an epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the highest per capita COVID-19 mortality rate in the Americas.

While the Peruvian politicians continue to enrich themselves through service to the country’s financial oligarchy and foreign capital, Peru implodes. By August of this year, Peru’s gross domestic product had declined 30 percent; unemployment is 40 percent higher than in 2019. Many companies have declared bankruptcy and Peru’s economy has yet to bottom out.

Tourism has contracted by 90 percent, construction by 67 percent and mining by 37 percent.

Like his predecessor, Vizcarra ruled as an enemy of the working class and agent of the mining cartels. In June, following three months of lockdown, without having stopped the coronavirus and under pressure from the ruling class, Vizcarra opened the economy, with devastating effects. Hospitals have run out of resources; the rate of new cases and deaths continues to accelerate. A regime headed by Merino will only deepen the attacks on the Peruvian working class.

West Virginia Kroger workers reject sellout agreement, vote overwhelmingly to strike

Zac Thorton

In West Virginia, workers for the grocery and retail giant, Kroger, have resoundingly rejected a pro-company sellout agreement which sought to impose higher health care costs and eliminate or reduce certain benefits for senior employees. In addition, workers have signaled their determination to defend their interests by voting overwhelmingly for strike action.

The proposed contract, which covers the Charleston-area Kroger stores, was rejected 1,551–130. The current contract, which was ratified in 2017, expired on August 29, but has been extended indefinitely while the company and the union continue to negotiate.

Under the proposed agreement, Kroger would place a cap on the amount of money it contributes to health care benefits, placing more of the burden on its employees. Beginning in 2021, this cap would be 10 percent, and by 2023 it would be lowered to 8 percent.

According to the Herald-Dispatch, Paula Ginnett, president of Kroger’s Mid-Atlantic division which oversees West Virginia, said that the proposal “included a $20 million wage investment that would allow associates to grow their hourly pay. Some associates, she said, could improve their rate by up to $4.65 per hour depending upon their position during the life of the next contract.” The reality is that the company’s increased pay offering will hardly alter the fact that Kroger workers receive poverty wages.

For the average full-time Kroger worker, the current contract lists starting pay as a meager $8.75 per hour, with increases every six months, capping out at $15.26 after 72 months. Under the proposed agreement, pay increases would take place on a yearly basis (referred to in the contract as “levels” numbering 1–4, with 4 being the maximum). For new hires on or after Nov. 1, 2020, starting pay would be $10 per hour. By 2023, a level 4 worker will cap out at $15 per hour. If they are “red circled,” they will cap out at $16.16 per hour. In the end, these small pay increases will be unable to offset the increased health care costs.

The move by Kroger to increase health care costs for its workers, under conditions of a global pandemic which has claimed the lives of over 230,000 people in the US alone, is an outright provocation. To date, West Virginia has over 30,000 total cases and 553 deaths. Now with the reopening of schools and the continuous erosion of basic safety measures, cases in the state have begun to surge.

Kanawha County, where Charleston, the state capital and largest city is located, accounts for the majority of the state’s cases, with over 4,000, and the highest total deaths with 117. Nearby Logan County has the second highest, with 48 deaths.

The union representing West Virginia Kroger workers is the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400. Fearing an explosion of working class anger in response to the company’s efforts to attack workers’ living standards, the union was forced to hold a strike authorization vote in order to save face in the eyes of its membership, as well as to buy more time to conspire with the company on a new sellout agreement.

Despite workers voting 1,490–199 in favor of strike action, the union will do everything possible to avoid a strike. This was pointed out by Kroger Mid-Atlantic Corporate Affairs Manager Allison McGee, who said, “Associates are continuing to report to work as scheduled. A strike authorization doesn’t mean a strike. At this point, the union has not called for a work stoppage.”

The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke to James, a worker in Virginia for the supermarket chain Giant, who is also a member of UFCW Local 400. James was angered by the effort to attack Kroger workers’ health care, commenting, “They [Kroger] can afford anything. It’s had record profits during the pandemic.”

James stated that, after having his hazard pay eliminated while the pandemic still raged, he and other employees had received a mere $150 “bonus” from the corporation. “Even this was taxed,” he said, noting that when all was said and done, he only received $108. “Now they want to come after [workers’] health care? F––– that! We should all be on strike over this outrageous attack.”

The WSWS also spoke with a Kroger worker in Nashville, Tennessee. He remarked, “It’s awful, however, it isn’t surprising. Kroger isn’t known for its compassion, at least not among its employees. Some companies try to be profitable by making their employees proud to work for them (or so I’ve heard). Kroger is more thuggish about it, for lack of a better word.”

In order to defend their interests, the workers in West Virginia must take matters out of the hands of the pro-company UFCW and into their own. Throughout the pandemic, the union has done nothing to safeguard the lives of grocery workers, who, as genuinely essential workers, have been forced to remain on the job throughout the pandemic. It was not until the workers themselves started to take action that the companies began providing personal protective equipment and sanitation products. The Socialist Equality Party encourages all workers to form independent rank-and-file safety committees to protect their lives and defend their interests.

Russia, Turkey negotiate cease-fire in Armenian-Azeri war over Karabakh

Alex Lantier

On November 10, a cease-fire backed by Moscow and Ankara went into effect in the six-week war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Unlike previous truces negotiated by Russian, French and US officials which collapsed immediately, this cease-fire has so far held. This appears to be largely because, unlike previous ceasefires, it has support from the Azeri government and its main international backer, Turkey.

The two former Soviet republics have repeatedly waged fratricidal wars over the Karabakh, which first broke out in 1988 in the run-up to the Stalinist regime’s 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. Whereas Armenia took over the Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1988-1994 war, however, the current cease-fire agreed by Russian, Armenian and Azeri officials makes substantial concessions to Azeri territorial demands, handing much of the Karabakh to Azerbaijan.

In this image taken from footage released by Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020, Azerbaijan’s soldiers fire from a mortar at the contact line of the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan. (Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry via AP)

Recent weeks saw major Azeri advances, relying on devastating strikes from Turkish and Israeli high-altitude drones. Evading Armenia’s older air defense systems with tactics worked out against Syrian and Russian forces in the decade-long NATO proxy war in Syria, they destroyed Armenian missile batteries, artillery and armored vehicles. After Azeri forces reported this weekend that they had captured Shusha, Nagorno-Karabakh’s second-largest city, Armenia agreed to a ceasefire.

According to the truce, Armenian and Azeri troops are to initially remain on their current positions. As 1,960 Russian peacekeepers with armored vehicles and equipment deploy along the contact line, however, Armenian troops will withdraw. Armenia will retain those parts of the Karabakh it currently holds, including the capital, Stepanakert. It must also return to Azerbaijan the districts of Agdam and Kalbajar, which it took over during the 1988-1994 war, by November 20.

The deal also calls to secure complex land routes through the mountainous region. Azerbaijan is to guarantee the security of the Lachin Corridor linking Stepanakert to Shusha and then to Armenia. The corridor will be patrolled by Russian peacekeepers. Armenia will guarantee the security of land routes from Azerbaijan via Armenia to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, a landlocked Azeri-administered enclave separated from Azerbaijan by Armenian territory.

This shaky cease-fire, even if it holds, will not resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which the region’s capitalist regimes have proven incapable of resolving for three decades. Not only does it leave the way open to more aggressive nationalist elements on both sides to advance claims on the entire enclave, but it is likely to trigger new population displacements Armenian authorities only 10 days to abandon regions they have held for a quarter century.

This comes after a new, massive loss of life in the latest war. Russian officials have stated, based on estimates privately communicated to them by Azeri and Armenian officials, that at least 5,000 people died in the war from September 27 to October 22. Official Azeri or Armenian casualty totals have still not been published, however. Moreover, Azeri forces’ advances and Armenian bombardments also forced an estimated 90,000 Armenians and 40,000 Azeris to flee their homes.

Nonetheless, officials across the region applauded the deal, which Turkish official sources said was negotiated on Saturday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Kremlin press secretary Dmitri Peskov applauded the “not insignificant efforts” involved.

The Foreign Ministry of Iran, which like Russia has traditionally supported Armenia, declared that it was “content about the signing of an agreement” and expressed “hope that the agreement would lead to the final arrangements for long-lasting peace in the Caucasus.”

After Azeri President Ilham Aliyev hailed the ceasefire as being “of historical importance” and a “capitulation” by Armenia, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar visited the Azeri capital, Baku yesterday and declared: “The present situation is very pleasing for us. This operation is an awakening ... The Azeri army has shown its power to the whole world.”

In Armenia, where the government had largely hidden its growing military setbacks, protesters stormed the parliament and beat parliamentary speaker Ararat Mizoyan.

The cease-fire is a humiliating defeat for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Elected in 2018 after mass protests against former Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, he advanced a chauvinist platform demanding full international recognition of Armenian authority over the Karabakh.

Pashinyan announced on Facebook the cease-fire handing over much of the Karabakh to Azerbaijan, calling it “unspeakably painful.” He continued, “The decision is made basing [sic] on the deep analyses of the combat situation and in discussion with best experts of the field. … This is not a victory but there is not defeat until you consider yourself defeated. We will never consider ourselves defeated and this shall become a new start of an era of our national unity and rebirth.”

Pashinyan had to hide as protesters stormed his official residence, tearing his nameplate off his office door and chanting, “Nikol betrayed us.”

Middle East Eye reporters at protests in Yerevan saw a woman shout at riot police: “I have lost all my relatives. I have lost my house. What are you going to do about it?” Another man, a former Armenian inhabitant of the Nagorno-Karabakh, who fought in the 1988-1994 war but had to flee to Yerevan in the current war, approved the cease-fire: “If we had carried on, we would only have lost. Many more people would have been killed.”

The Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union proved to have disastrous geopolitical consequences, throwing the Middle East and Central Asia open to bloody ethnic conflict and imperialist wars.

Enormous uncertainty still hangs over the cease-fire. As Russia and Turkey wage proxy wars as they back rival sides in the civil wars triggered by NATO intervention in both Libya and Syria, Azeri forces shot down a Russian Mi-24 on November 9. Baku subsequently called it a “tragic mistake.” The Kremlin also appeared to contradict Turkish claims that they would deploy peacekeepers to enforce the ceasefire, saying that only Russian peacekeepers would be deployed.

Perhaps the greatest danger comes from the explosive political crisis in Washington after the 2020 elections, and the risk of new US wars in the region. As Trump launches a coup trying to remain in office even after Democrat Joe Biden won the vote, both Trump and Biden have signaled a highly aggressive policy. While Trump nearly went to war with Iran last year, the Democratic Party has relentlessly demanded aggression against Russia, denouncing Trump as a Russian agent.

Significantly, both Russia and Iran have warned against CIA-backed Syrian Islamist militias who were transported from the Syrian war to Azerbaijan with tacit Turkish support. Iranian state-run IRNA agency warned that “the Islamic Republic’s firm response to the terrorists should they transgress against the Iranian borders is a calculated, firm and strategic position. … If after having expelled the [Al Qaeda-linked militias] from Syria and Iraq, some people help their deployment in Iranian borders, they have certainly made a grave mistake.”

Russia, whose war-torn regions of Chechnya and Dagestan also border Azerbaijan, made similar warnings. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called to “prevent the transfer of mercenaries, whose number in the conflict zone, according to available data, is already approaching 2,000. In particular, Putin raised the issue during a phone call with Turkish President Erdoğan on October 27 and during regular conversations with leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia.”

Concerns are mounting in Russia’s post-Soviet capitalist oligarchy that this truce could prove to be not the end but the beginning of a regional war across the former territory of the Soviet Union. This was the subject of the financial daily Vedomosti ’s article yesterday titled “How Russia Lost the Second Karabakh War.”

Warning that Ankara’s successful support for the ethnic-Turkic Azeris would encourage “pan-Turkic plans,” it wrote: “The balance of power in Turkic republics of Central Asia will also change radically … There is no doubt that Turkic nationalist and separatist groups inside Russia itself will also act more strongly.” It added, “Also we must suppose that this operation, judging from its execution, was not planned by the Azeris, or even by the Turks.”

Noting that the NATO-backed regime in Ukraine is now purchasing Turkish drones as it pursues its conflict with Russia in eastern Ukraine, Vedomosti called for a Russian build-up of “loitering weapons and strike drones.” It added, “The Armenian catastrophe of 2020 must serve as a warning to others, so that we do not end up learning a similar lesson.”

These statements are urgent warnings of the necessity of a struggle against ethnic nationalism and its encouragement by Stalinist forces, and the building of an international and socialist, that is to say Trotskyist, anti-war movement against imperialism among workers across the region and the world.

African App Launchpad Cup 2021

Application Deadline: 22^nd November 2020. 

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility:

• Eligible Africa Countries: Egypt, Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, The Gambia, Nigeria, Togo and Uganda.
• Apply as Teams or Startups up to 2 Years Old
• Team Size not Less than 2 Members
• A Working Prototype at least is a Must

Selection Criteria: The submitted applications as well as pitching will be judged on the 4 following areas

1. Innovation Originality/Creativity
2. Business Model
3. Art and/or Design of the Game/App
4. Team Competencies.

To be Taken at: Online

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• $72k Total Cash Prizes for Winners
• Business planning training by GrindStone
• Acceleration Program by Microsoft through THINKROOM
• Access to VCs for top winning startups

How to Apply: Register

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa Fellowships 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 1st February 2021

Eligible Countries: Citizens of and reside in a sub-Saharan African country while holding a current faculty position at an accredited college or university in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Field of Study: The fellowships support dissertations and research on peace, security and development topics.

About the Fellowships: The programme, launched in June 2011, responds to a shortage of experienced faculty in African higher education. The Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa program provides fellowships to nurture the intellectual development and increase retention of early-career faculties in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The fellowships are:

• Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship
• Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Fellowship
• Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellowship
• Post-doctoral Writing Fellowship

The doctoral dissertation research fellowship supports 6-12 months of dissertation research costs of up to US$15,000 on a topic related to peace, security, and development.

Proposal development fellowships are intended to support doctoral students working on developing a doctoral dissertation research proposal as well as students who recently completed a master’s degree and seek to enroll in a PhD program.

The doctoral dissertation completion fellowship supports a one-year leave from teaching responsibilities and a stipend up to US$15,000 to permit the completion of a dissertation that advances research on peace, security, and development topics.

Post-doctoral Writing Fellowship supports up to six months of completing an article or book manuscript  through a stipend of up to US$3,000. It will enable the recipient to buy time off from teaching and administrative duties to focus exclusively on finalizing an article for a peer-reviewed journal or completing a book manuscript based on a Next Gen-supported doctoral dissertation that advances research on peace, security, and development. This fellowship is exclusively available for Next Gen alumni.

Offered Since: June 2011

Type: Research, Fellowship .

Selection Criteria: Strong proposals will offer clear and concise descriptions of the project and its significance. Proposals should display a thorough knowledge of the relevant social science literature that applicants will engage and the methodologies relevant to the project. In addition, applicants must demonstrate that all proposed activities are feasible and can be completed in a timely manner. All proposals will be evaluated for these criteria by an independent, international committee of leading scholars from a range of social science disciplines.

Fellows must be willing to attend two workshops sponsored by the SSRC each year that are intended to help early-career faculty produce scholarly publications. We anticipate awarding as many as 45 fellowships in total across all categories each year.

Eligibility: All candidates must:

• be citizens of and reside in a sub-Saharan African country
• hold a master’s degree
• be enrolled in a PhD program at an accredited university in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, or Uganda
• have an approved dissertation research proposal

The program seeks to promote diversity and encourages women to apply.

Number of Fellowships: 45 fellowships are awarded each year.

Value of Fellowships: 

• The doctoral dissertation research fellowship supports research costs of up to US$15,000 on a topic related to peace, security, and development.
• The doctoral dissertation proposal fellowship supports short-term research costs of up to US$3,000 to develop a doctoral dissertation proposal.
• The doctoral dissertation completion fellowship supports a one-year leave from teaching responsibilities and a stipend up to US$15,000 to permit the completion of a dissertation that advances research on peace, security, and development topics.
• Post-doctoral Writing Fellowship supports up to six months of completing an article or book manuscript  through a stipend of up to US$3,000.

Duration of Fellowship: Fellowships are offered each year. The doctoral dissertation research fellowship is about 6-12 months

How to Apply: 

• Apply for Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship
• Apply for Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Fellowship
• Apply for Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellowship
• Post-doctoral Writing Fellowship

Visit Fellowship Webpage for more details

UK parents’ strike sabotaged by trade unions and Labour Party

Charlotte Salthill & Laura Tiernan

Boycott Return to Unsafe Schools (BRTUS) called a parents’ strike last week against pupils being forced to attend school during the escalating COVID-19 pandemic. The strike was held last Thursday, coinciding with the start of the Johnson government’s partial national lockdown that excludes schools, colleges, universities and non-essential industry.

The main demands issued by BRTUS enjoy widespread support: that schools be closed to all but vulnerable and key worker children, that fines and other threats against parents be lifted and that students have access to comprehensively funded and resourced remote learning.

A Daily Express poll shows 58 percent in favour of closing schools to help stop the spread of COVID-19. The latest YouGov poll (November 2), found 46 percent support for closing schools and colleges as part of the current lockdown, with 12 percent unsure.

Thousands of parents joined last Thursday’s strike from areas including London, Sheffield, Doncaster and Stoke-on-Trent, Scotland and the Isle of Wight, according to BRTUS. Since it was founded by Tony Dadd six months ago, BRTUS: Parents United has won nearly 15,000 members.

During a Facebook livestream on the morning of the strike, Dadd was asked whether he had a message for Education Secretary Gavin Williamson. He replied, “We are only interested in the safety, health and education of our children. This isn’t an overtly political campaign. You have politicised this issue. We’re a pressure group and represent something like 50 percent of the population. We know there’s massive support that isn’t heard, and the momentum is with us.”

Dadd’s comments raise important political issues for parents and teachers. Any fight to close unsafe schools, protect families and save lives, is, by definition, a political struggle. Dadd notes the “massive support” for school closures “isn’t heard”. But why not? Which political forces are responsible for this? If more than 50 percent of the population believes that schools should be shut to suppress the pandemic, why haven’t mass strikes and walkouts been organised at schools, colleges, universities and workplaces against the Johnson government’s “herd immunity” agenda?

Events surrounding last week’s parents’ strike provide the answer. When the strike was called on November 2, BRTUS called on the National Education Union (NEU) to support the strike and stand “shoulder to shoulder” with parents. But the NEU and other teaching unions refused to back the strike, in a deliberate act of political sabotage. Like their fellow bureaucrats in other unions, NEU officials, led by Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted, feared that any promotion of the parents’ action would draw behind it the active support of the NEU’s 450,000 teacher members.

Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney

Two days earlier, BRTUS published a statement, “Together we are strong. GMB and Unite support BRTUS, it’s time for the NEU to join the fightback”. BRTUS provided no information about what support had been offered by the two unions. But neither Unite, Britain’s largest union, nor the GMB, whose membership includes the majority of teaching assistants and support staff, published so much as a statement of support on their websites, let alone called on their own members to strike.

Instead of condemning the actions of the NEU and appealing over their heads to teachers and support staff, on October 31, BRTUS wrote, “The NEU need to collaborate with other school stakeholders—parents--by working with Brtus: Parents United (the largest parent-led safer schools campaign in the UK)”. In line with this pitch for official recognition, BRTUS is watering down its demands for a boycott of unsafe schools to accommodate to the NEU’s fake fight against the Johnson government.

In their letter to the NEU two days later, BRTUS wrote, “we support you in your latest package of demands: 1) Improved testing available for school communities 2) Smaller class sizes 3) Guarantees that vulnerable staff can work from home 4) Increases in school funding, and 4) A Public Health review of all school outbreaks.”

These demands are a political evasion. Despite the NEU’s polite calls for schools to be included in the current national lockdown, the union has steadfastly opposed any mobilisation of its membership to fight for this. The education unions all supported the full reopening of schools in September, suppressing teachers’ calls for strike action in favour of local school “risk assessments”.

The outcome of the NEU’s collaboration with the Conservative government has been catastrophic. More than 8,000 schools have been infected with COVID-19 and 148 education staff have died. Among children in years 7-11 in England, COVID-19 infections increased 50-fold between September 1 and October 23, up from 40 cases to 2,010. Schools, colleges and universities account for more than 50 percent of virus transmission across the UK.

With BRTUS’s claims of “union support” exposed as threadbare, former Labour MP Laura Pidcock was drafted onto the group’s livestream on the morning of the strike to provide the illusion of “labour movement” backing. A protégé of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Pidcock is a rising star of what passes for the official “left” and is currently contesting for a position on Labour’s National Executive Committee.

Laura Pidcock speaking at the BRTUS livestream

After her defeat in the December 2019 general election, Pidcock was installed as National Secretary of the People’s Assembly, a meeting ground for the Corbynite left in the Labour Party and trade unions, with Britain’s pseudo-left and Stalinist organisations.

Pidcock was unable to cite a single example of Labour Party or trade union “support” for the parents’ strike, pathetically declaring that she was speaking in a personal capacity. She did not even mention that she was in the Labour Party. Her statement that “I’m a socialist and collective action should be supported” is worthless. Neither Pidcock, Corbyn, the NEU, GMB, Unite or any of the teaching unions posted a single tweet or statement supporting the parents’ action on November 5.

One of Pidcock’s leading allies on the People’s Assembly is John Rees of the pseudo-left Counterfire organisation. In a video posted on BRTUS’s website, Rees offers praise to BRUTUS as a “grassroots” organisation. But if BRTUS were to openly defy the NEU and appeal for united action to close unsafe schools, Rees’ “support” would immediately evaporate.

One day after the strike, Counterfire published an article amplifying BRTUS’s false message that Labour MPs including Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Ian Mearns and Grahame Morris are backing parents’ fight against unsafe schools. Such claims are political fiction. Not a single Labour MP, including Corbyn, opposed Starmer’s insistence that schools must reopen, “no ifs, no buts, no equivocations”.

These experiences contain vital lessons. As the working class come into struggle, the ruling class and its political agencies in the Labour and trade union bureaucracy, along with their pseudo-left accomplices, intervene at every point seeking to neuter any independent challenge from below. But they have nothing to offer the working class.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) supported the parents’ strike. Our warning that the unions were sabotaging a united struggle by teachers and parents have been confirmed.

The central lesson from last week’s parents’ strike is that any effective action against the escalating COVID-19 pandemic--including mass strikes and walkouts to oppose unsafe schools and workplaces--requires a political rebellion against the corporatist pro-capitalist trade unions and Labour Party.