A Comprehensive Analysis of Three Controversial Farm Laws

Bharat Dogra

Introduction

It is rare for any legislation to become the rallying point of such large-scale and prolonged opposition as the three farm laws enacted together this year in India have become. The biggest  farmers’ movement of recent times in India has emerged to protest against this ‘kala kanoon’ or black laws as these three laws have been repeatedly labeled by the movement of farmers.

The demand of the farmers’ movement for repealing these laws is also supported by several other sections of society.  The three laws have rather pompous, pretentious titles but essentially seek to change the existing systems of farm production ( giving a push towards facilitation of contract farming) as well as storage and marketing of farm produce. Several eminent experts have lent their support to the key demand of the farmers’ movement for the repeal of these three laws.

Need and Framework of Comprehensive Analysis

Hence a comprehensive analysis of the many aspects and impacts of these three highly controversial farm laws is clearly needed. However to appreciate the implications of these three laws it is important also to look at the background and perspective of the wider farming situation in India and world. Without such a perspective the full implications of these three laws cannot be fully realized or understood.

So we start with this wider perspective within which the three laws need to be located and then look at various specific aspects  of these laws like those relating to impact on farmers, implications for food security etc. Finally, we also need to look a little beyond the present debate on three farm laws to examine the policies we actually need.

Wider Crisis in Farm and Food System

There is a deep and widespread crisis of world farming and food systems linked mainly to the quest of powerful corporate interests to dominate these systems. These powerful interests, who seek not just very high profits but also dominance at various levels, are able to secure the collusion of several governments and key persons in policy and implementation. Together they make a very powerful combination.

They promote policies which relentlessly increase the sale of their expensive seeds and inputs, breaking the self-reliance of farmers and increasing their dependence and costs, regardless of adverse impacts of excess of these inputs on environment, while at the same the corporate interests also try relentlessly increase their grip on crop processing, trade and marketing to get a very large share of the total market receipts.

The key to securing guarantee of high corporate profits  is to secure dominance at various levels, and also to secure legal base of this dominance.  Hence there have been endless new laws of patents, trade, farming  contracts in recent years.

Their machinations create increasing problems for family farms ,or small and medium farmers in many countries, as they are increasingly brought under pressure to increase their farm-expenses while their share of market receipts is  reduced by a greater share going to corporate interests. The big companies and traders increase their share while   farmers  lose out.

The ever-increasing greed for more profits and higher market share on the part of big corporate interests also plays havoc with the objective of providing safe and healthy food to all,  ending hunger and malnutrition.

Incredibly all this has been taking place on a vast scale in the name of development and progress, involving much manipulation. To make the system based on manipulation work, the system tries to co-opt some of the bigger and influential farmers, while governments keep announcing some temporary concession or relief for  farmers, all the more so at election times when political parties vie with each other for this, but the basic trend of big corporate interests increasing dominance of food and farming systems, while marginalizing the bulk of small farmers , harming environment, health and sustainability continues. From time to time exploited farmers unite to demand justice, but unable to challenge the bigger forces , often their demands have rather narrow aims.

In addition there is the impact of multilateral and bilateral  trade treaties, or other international and trade treaties by which food and farming systems are impacted. Here too the richest countries , in flagrant violation  of the principle of correcting historic injustice, as well big agribusiness companies  use these treaties and agreements to inflict further injustice and constraints on farmers of developing countries.

All this has been  experienced in the context of farmers of India as well, the overwhelming majority of whom are small and medium farmers who have been reeling under the combined impact of fast increasing costs, marketing problems and escalating debts. Compulsions of electoral democracy prompted many governments to create some protective structure for them, but this too has been under the threat of trade agreements ( notably the WTO) and big corporate interests wanting a wider and unrestricted role for their expansion. They would like to have a legal guarantee for this before making  bigger investments.

It is in this wider context that the debate on three farm laws should be seen. The current ruling regime is known to be very willing  to push corporate interests, particularly of some crony capitalists considered to be very close to the ruling regime.

Impact on Farmers

One of these three laws relates to facilitating  a much bigger role for contract farming . However the worldwide overall experience of small farmers and family farms regarding contract farming for big business concerns has been that of increasing tensions, (as they have to follow many conditions, losing their freedom), increasing costs ( as companies foist expensive inputs and technologies on them ) and feeling cheated time and again ( as companies make arbitrary decisions on grading their produce or reject it due to not meeting stringent, unfair standards). The recently enacted law to promote contract farming has attracted more specific criticism also for terms biased in favor of corporate interests, and for leaving dispute resolution outside normal  civil court jurisdiction.

The other two laws seek to create a new framework of untaxed, unrestricted purchases by private business outside the area of officially designated market areas for farm produce (APMCs or Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees.), while at the same time removing existing restrictions on excess stocking and hoarding of even essential, staple foods by private traders and companies. These have been rightly criticized by farmers as a strong signal of moving away from government protected and regulated MSP ( officially announced Minimum Support Price) based system. On the other hand, the government has said time and again in its defense that it has no intention of dismantling the APMC-MSP based existing system ( which plays a rather limited effective role in the entire country as a whole but a much more dominating role in the green revolution states like Punjab and Haryana). Yes, the government may not officially announce dismantling of this system, but the farmers say rightly that its recent laws send strong signals of gradually moving away from this by providing unrestricted, untaxed new marketing avenues to big business which can spread fast.

Hence farmers have good reason for concluding that the three laws create a framework for moving away from a reasonably protective system to one dominated by big business interests having close links with  ruling regimes, not even giving farmers the protection of normal civil courts if things go wrong with them, making the situation very uncertain and difficult in times of rising costs.

Impact on hunger , food security of poorest people

In conditions of widespread poverty and low purchasing power of a large number of households, there is no guarantee that market by itself would give high priority to producing adequate  staple food needed for keeping away hunger and malnutrition. So this has to be ensured by a protective system based on MSP- government procurement-PDS ( public distribution system) and nutrition schemes. But when the government moves away from protective farm and food system to one dominated by big agribusiness interests of national and global food/farming system, with huge capacity to hoard and speculate, then both production and marketing will move away from reducing hunger to  maximizing profits. The new trends unleashed by these laws move towards profiteering and speculation , that too in increasingly globalized systems. As more production takes place in conditions governed by contract system and dominated by big companies with global reach, production will be pushed by global profits and speculation and not by the needs of hungry and malnourished people in the country.

Impact on sustainability and environment protection

The present condition of Indian agriculture, particularly in so-called leading green revolution areas, is not at all good from the point of view of sustainability and environment protection. The situation certainly needs to be improved. But the trends unleashed by the new laws are likely to lead to further deterioration rather than any improvement in this important context. Cropping patterns and methods of production need to be in keeping with the needs of soil health and water conservation as well as other aspects of protection of environment and bio-diversity. But contract farming dictated by big companies just trying to maximize their profits pays scant regards to all this, often imposing highly resource-extractive cropping patterns and technologies, as their profits ignore social and environmental costs and count only cash costs and earnings. Agribusiness companies operating in global contexts for profit maximizing are notorious for their tendency to loot and scoot, as they plunder the resources of a region and then move away to a new area, leaving behind ravaged land and depleted water aquifers.

Impact on states and decentralization

There has been a strong feeling that under the impact of global and national corporate interests, the central government intrudes rather too heavily in areas like agriculture for which decisions should instead be taken at the level of states and panchayati raj ( rural decentralization) units. This trend increases with these three overbearing new farm laws. A more specific complaint is that state earnings from APMC/mandi taxes will decrease and development work supported by these earnings will suffer too, this too at a time of overall financial crisis in many states.

Impact on democracy and parliamentary procedures

These three farm laws have been also criticized as undemocratic as the necessary consultations with state governments, panchayati raj institutions, farmers’ organizations and independent experts were not held. These were introduced first as ordinances, objectionable in itself. Then the process of referring to parliamentary committee, which would have still provided one way of consultations with stakeholders, was also ignored. Then the passing of law in the upper house or Rajya Sabha had peculiar undemocratic features which were opposed by opposition parties and attracted several adverse comments.

 Amendments or Repeal

As even government ministers and representatives have admitted, in the course of negotiations, that amendments are needed in these laws, another issue of debate has been whether farmers’ movement should accept amendments , or stick to its demand for repeal of laws. So far the farmers’ movement has been steadfast in asking for repeal, which is a well-justified stand. Supporting this stand a letter sent by ten eminent economists to the Agriculture Minister has stated, “ amending a few clauses will not be sufficient to address the concerns rightly raised by farmers…We appeal that the government withdraw these acts.” This unanimous  view of these very senior economists, who have served in very prestigious government-supported and other institutions and are also known for their commitment to justice and public interest related issues, is thus very similar to the view of the farmers’ movement.

Wider Issues

Beyond the debate on these laws, several issues need to be addressed. There is a strong need for agricultural progress based on justice and protection of environment, a social-ecological approach. Solutions have to be found in a much wider paradigm than one limited mainly by narrow economic concerns. Welfare and equality aspects of landless rural households should also get adequate attention.

We end by recommending strongly for immediate repeal of these three controversial farm laws, lifting of all cases against farmer activists, followed in due course by much wider measures for resolving the rural crisis on the basis of justice and environment protection.

Australian government hires private debt collectors to hound welfare recipients

Martin Scott

Less than a month after the federal government agreed to a $1.2 billion settlement over the unlawful “robodebt” scheme, it has issued a new call for tenders from private debt collectors to hound welfare recipients for allegedly receiving overpayments.

The new contracts will include several provisions that indicate the department intends to take a more aggressive approach to debt recovery.

The welfare queue outside a Centrelink office in Sydney last March (Photo: WSWS)

Cases will initially be divided equally among a panel of three companies. Their performance will supposedly be assessed according to a “balanced scorecard” comprising “debt recovery performance, customer satisfaction levels, adherence to agreed service levels and contractual arrangements; and quality operational outcomes.”

In fact, the tender documents make clear that financial performance—the percentage of debts recovered—will be the primary determinant of how many cases are referred to each company after the first quarterly review.

The documents state: “Financial performance is critical in terms of achieving a level of performance that will ensure a [company’s] share of the referral volumes is maintained or increased.”

While other government agencies, such as the Australian Tax Office, pay a flat fee to private debt collectors, Services Australia (formerly the Department of Human Services) will pay a commission rate, creating a strong incentive for the companies to bully clients into paying their alleged debts in full, rather than challenging the claims or negotiating partial payments.

Previously, external collectors had 180 days to recover debts. Under the new tender they will have only 56 days, forcing them to pursue repayments more aggressively. The shortened timeframe will also put the alleged debtors under increased pressure to comply rather than attempt to argue their case.

In an effort to suppress public criticism of the program, the companies will be required to inform the department “within an hour” of a customer saying they will contact the media or members of parliament.

While Services Australia has engaged external debt collectors in the past, more than 90 percent of debts have been handled by the agency itself. By contrast, 43 percent of debts raised under the unlawful “robodebt” program between July 2016 and March 2017 were referred to private contractors.

Under the punitive requirements of Centrelink, the welfare arm of Services Australia, those receiving payments must report their income fortnightly. The already pitiful payments begin to be reduced if workers earn more than $300 a fortnight from other sources.

The “robodebt” scheme was introduced in mid-2016 in an aggressive move to claw back “overpayments” to welfare recipients alleged to have under-reported their income to Centrelink. The automated process compared Centrelink records with “income-averaged” data from the Australian Tax Office.

Before it was halted in November 2019, around 900,000 “robodebt” notices were issued. Those receiving the notices were threatened with penalties and jail sentences if they failed to pay the fraudulent debts.

In many cases the alleged overpayments had occurred years earlier, making it virtually impossible for workers to disprove the agency’s claims.

Compounding the problem, it was extremely difficult to contact Centrelink to dispute the notices. In 2017–18, around 50 million calls to the agency were met with a busy signal. The officially-reported average hold time of just under 16 minutes is a vast underestimation, because the clock is reset each time a call is transferred, and “abandoned calls”—in which the caller hangs up in frustration without speaking to an operator—are not counted.

This is the direct result of decades of public service job cuts under successive Labor and Liberal-National governments, and the privatisation and outsourcing of many aspects of Centrelink’s operations.

The Labor party has publicly criticised “robodebt” in an attempt to exploit public opposition to the scheme for political benefit, but in fact the practice of issuing debt notices based on “income-averaging” and “data-matching” was instituted under the Gillard Labor government in 2011.

Although the current Liberal-National government was forced to concede in November last year that the entire “robodebt” regime was unlawful, by August 2020 only 80 percent of the debts issued had been refunded. Even after the class action victory last month, some of those targeted by the scheme will have to wait until at least February 2021 for restitution.

While Australia has so far avoided the horrific COVID-19 infection and death rates seen internationally, the country has not escaped the economic fallout of the global pandemic.

Between December 2019 and May 2020, the number of Australians receiving unemployment and other income support payments through Centrelink doubled, from around 820,000 to 1,640,000. The official (significantly understated) unemployment rate increased from 6.9 percent in September to 7 percent in October, and remains at a level not consistently seen for more than two decades.

These figures are almost certain to balloon in April next year with the cessation of JobKeeper, which is currently subsidising the wages of around 1.5 million workers.

Despite the ongoing economic crisis and continuing risk of contracting COVID-19, stringent income and asset tests, as well as “mutual obligation” requirements compelling welfare recipients to attend job interviews and/or do unpaid work, have been reintroduced.

Between September 28 and November 30, 250,112 payments were suspended by Centrelink for failure to comply with “mutual obligation” requirements.

Centrelink debts were “paused” in April, but have now been resumed, and the agency will begin demanding payment in February.

The terms of the new external debt collection contracts illustrate the lengths the Australian ruling elite and political representatives will go to in order to claw back a portion of the poverty-level welfare payments issued to the country’s most vulnerable residents.

While the new developments are an escalation, there is nothing new in the approach. For decades, Labor and Liberal-National governments have forced the unemployed, disabled and elderly to endure dehumanising treatment and relentless bureaucracy in exchange for pitiful welfare payments as low as $40 a day.

The continuing assault on welfare recipients, along with cuts to education, health, public transport and all forms of social expenditure, is part of a broader drive to lower taxes for the wealthy and force workers to accept poorly-paid and insecure jobs.

The UK’s COVID-19 mutation: The deadly result of a “herd immunity” policy

Robert Stevens

The UK recorded nearly 700 more COVID-19 deaths (691) yesterday and a further 36,804 new cases of the disease.

This brings the official death toll, based on measuring the number of deaths of people who perished within 28 days of a positive test, to 68,307—the second highest in Europe after Italy. Taking into account fatalities where COVID-19 is mentioned on the death certificate, UK deaths stand at around 80,000. Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that excess deaths—above expected levels since the start of the pandemic in March—had reached 81,300.

The Times front page headline reading "Mutant Virus is 'everywhere'"

The same day the Times led with the headline “Mutant virus strain is ‘everywhere’”. This was their take-away from comments made by the Conservative government’s Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance at Monday evening’s Downing Street press briefing.

Vallance, speaking alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said, “The new variant is spread around the country… It’s localised in some places but we know there are cases everywhere, so it’s not as though we can stop this getting into other places, there’s some there already.”

Vallance said there was no evidence that the mutation, known as VUI-202012/01, was more dangerous than the original strain, “so if you catch it the disease looks the same as any other form of Covid infection”. But he acknowledged that it was “more transmissible, which is why we see it growing so fast and spreading to so many areas.”

The danger to the individual infected is not the primary issue here. A more transmissible virus will infect more people more quickly, leading to hospitalisations that could easily overwhelm the National Health Service and therefore lead to more deaths. Yet Vallance, Pilate like, simply declared that there would be a further spike in cases very soon after an “inevitable period of mixing” over Christmas.

This is only a certainty because the government has allowed it to happen, in the full knowledge of the deadly implications of such gatherings. Millions were told by the government they could gather in household “bubbles” of three for a five-day period from December 23. It was only after the deadly consequences of the new strain could no longer be concealed that the government was forced last Saturday to introduce more restrictive Tier 4 measures covering London and much of the south east.

In this May 24, 2020 file photo, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson's senior aid Dominic Cummings leaves 10 Downing Street, in London. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)

As at every other stage in this pandemic, the Johnson government had ample time to take the necessary measures required to save lives and avoid a catastrophic situation. Yet they did nothing.

According to available facts, the new strain was first detected on September 20, 2020, in Kent, South East England. It was detected by the Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, which undertakes random genetic sequencing of positive COVID-19 samples around the UK. Established in April this year, COG-UK is a partnership of the UK’s four public health agencies, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and 12 academic institutions. It has sequenced 140,000 virus genomes from people infected with COVID-19.

A swab test from a patient with the mutation was sent September 20 from Public Health England’s Lighthouse Lab in Milton Keynes to the Porton Down military laboratory in Wiltshire for analysis.

At that stage there were around 3,700 daily cases of COVID-19, but due to government policy the UK epidemic was already beginning a resurgence, undoing the curtailing of its spread during the national lockdown in place for over 2 months from March 23.

September was the month that all schools were reopened, followed by colleges and universities, after being in lockdown for several months. So determined were the government to have the parents of children back in workplaces and generating profits for their friends in big business that the order for the schools to be reopened was made as early as July 2. Education settings would be a crucial means for the untrammeled spread of the virus.

In early October, the swab tested positive for the new strain and the Department of Health was informed, but apparently not government ministers.

By early November, the virus had spread rapidly, with nearly 30 percent of all infections in London testing positive for the new variant. By mid-December, the mutated virus was responsible for nearly two-thirds of cases in the capital.

According to reports, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Advisory Group (NERVTAG) committee, which advises England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, was supposedly not given information about the mutation until early December. Channel 4’s factcheck site reported, “Scientific advisers say the alarm was not raised about the potential danger of increased transmissibility from VUI-202012/01 until December 8.”

NERVTAG chair Professor Peter Horby said the first preliminary data about the virus was handed to NERVTAG only on December 11 and it was discussed by them that day.

It wasn’t until December 14, 85 days after the mutation was first detected, that the government was supposedly finally informed and reported the mutation to the World Health Organization.

That day Health Secretary Matt Hancock told parliament that over 1,100 cases of the new strain had been identified in nearly 60 different local authorities. According to a December 16 British Medical Journal article, “the true number will be much higher.”

On December 18, NERVTAG reportedly informed ministers about the “substantial increase in transmissibility” resulting from the new strain.

The following day, December 19, Whitty and Vallance decided it would be a good idea to attend a NERVTAG meeting to discuss its spread.

The same day, Johnson made his public announcement of Tier 4 measures with no household mixing and a limit on Christmas gatherings to December 25 in other tier areas.

The entire episode reveals that the government’s COVID-19 infrastructure is criminally dysfunctional, with the work of scientists carrying out crucial work in identifying new strains, including VUI-202012/01, being ignored for months.

Any system in which public health was the first priority would have seen a body such as NERVTAG—in possession of knowledge regarding the great danger posed by the mutation—insisting on a national lockdown.

Moreover, not only would a government operating on the same basis have instant access to this information of life and death importance. It would have no need to be told to impose one because the first lockdown would still have been in place until the virus had been properly contained.

Ultimately the spread of the new strain “everywhere”, including in a growing number of countries outside Britain, is not down to rank incompetence but due to government policy.

The new strain developed and then spread under conditions where nothing is being allowed to come before the interests of the corporations and their raking in ever greater profits. Even when told on December 14 of how infectious the new strain was, Johnson still told the UK population, two days later, that it would be “frankly inhuman” to scrap existing plans for a three household “bubble”, five-day Christmas, and to have shops open 24 hours a day.

All workplaces of course remained open. Moreover, December 14 was the same day that Education Secretary Gavin Williamson threatened legal action against three London councils, Greenwich, Islington and Waltham Forest, unless they reversed their instructions that schools in their areas close a few days earlier for Christmas—under conditions in which London had become the epicentre for the spread of COVID-19 and schools were among the main vectors.

The government has been guided throughout the pandemic, despite having to put in place highly inadequate restrictions from time to time, by its brutal “herd immunity” agenda. Their declared policy at the outset was that as much of the population as possible should be infected with the virus, no matter the cost to lives.

Last March, the Times reported that Johnson’s then main advisor, Dominic Cummings, explained the government’s coronavirus policy at a closed doors event held in London at the end of February. Those present, reported the newspaper, summarised Cummings’ position as “herd immunity, protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die, too bad.”

In March, Chief Scientific Officer Vallance declared alongside Johnson at a Downing Street briefing, “It’s not possible to stop everyone getting it, and it’s also not desirable.”

On March 5, Johnson said on a TV show, “perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures.”

This, a policy of death, has let the COVID-19 virus in all its variants spread virtually without hindrance, leading to the horrific situation millions face today.

At Daimler, German trade union leader calls for job cuts and increased profits

Ludwig Weller

The head of the Daimler works council and IG Metall union leader Michael Brecht gave a lengthy interview to Germany’s monthly business journal Manager Magazin last week, in which he levelled major criticisms at the company’s management.

Rather than direct his opposition to impending plant closures, job cuts and austerity measures, Brecht insisted that the attacks by the Daimler executive on its 300,000 employees were insufficient to “beat Tesla,” one of its main competitors. At the same time and echoing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, the top union official called for Daimler to be protected against foreign investors.

In a vein similar to the comments by Volkswagen (VW) works council head Bernd Osterloh, who claimed VW CEO Herbert Diess lacked political foresight, Brecht accused the Daimler executive of failing to “protect” the company against its Chinese competitors.

Daimler headquarters in Stuttgart (Photo credit–Enslin)

IG Metall and its works councils are the driving force for “transformation” in the auto industry—that is, securing company profits at the expense of the workforce. In so doing, they are propagating extreme economic nationalism.

In fact, it is rare for auto industry management to speak out so openly in favour of “Germany First” as Brecht did in his interview. Manager Magazin was so struck by the union leader’s nationalist offensive that it began the interview in the following distinctive manner: “Daimler works council chairman Michael Brecht sees the strengthening of Chinese investors as a threat to Germany as a business location. Key sectors like the auto industry must be ‘politically protected.’”

In their interview with Brecht, the magazine’s journalists point out that Daimler has two major Chinese shareholders—i.e., billionaire Li Shufu, the chairman of Geely, the Chinese car manufacturer, as well as the Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. (BAIC)—and that China has for some time been Daimler’s largest single market. “What conclusions do you draw from that?” they ask. Brecht answers: “That we should politically protect key sectors like the auto industry, as China and the US already do. The German economics minister Peter Altmaier sees things the same way as we do.”

At the beginning of 2019, Altmaier (the right-wing Christian Democratic Union, CDU) outlined a plan for a “National Industrial Strategy 2030.” The document asserted that “in many parts of the world...there are very obvious strategies for rapid expansion with the clear aim of conquering new markets for one’s own national economy and—wherever possible—monopolising them.” Defending Germany as a business location is therefore the task of both companies and politicians.

IG Metall sees things in precisely the same way. It criticises German auto management from the nationalist right and demands they step up the fight against their international rivals—above all, the US and China.

In the interview, Brecht summed up the nationalist and pro-capitalist policies with which the works council leaders and unions defend “their” corporations against rival companies. In doing so, they not only accept the destruction of tens of thousands of auto workers’ jobs, they go so far as to present themselves as the better managers, prepared to wipe out the jobs in the face of all resistance.

Brecht’s answers to additional questions posed by Manager Magazin, which involve the employment and livelihoods of thousands of workers and their families, make this abundantly clear.

In order to reassure the workforces at the Daimler factories in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim and Berlin-Marienfelde, IG Metall and the works councils have announced their opposition to company plans to cut thousands of jobs. Manager Magazin asks, “Aren’t you fighting against a development that can no longer be stopped?”

Brecht replies that he is not concerned with defending jobs, but rather with defending competitiveness: “No, we want to introduce the technology of the future into these factories. Just look at Tesla, that should be both an example and a warning to the executive.” Tesla builds and develops much more on its own “than we do,” the union official said. “If we just buy our technology from others, we shouldn’t be surprised if, in the end, Mercedes can’t beat Tesla.”

In other words, productivity at Daimler is to be stepped up and wages reduced to an extent that enables the company to do without external suppliers, especially if they are based in China or the United States. This means in turn the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs and a massive increase of stress on the production lines. It serves to divide workers in different factories and countries, who all confront the same corporations and shareholders and can only defend their interests together. Moreover, economic nationalism and trade war are only the precursor to “shooting war,” as history has proven time and again.

The funding of this economic war is to be squeezed out of the workforce. The works council had long fought for the one-billion-euro (US$1.2 billion) “Transformation Fund” that Daimler CEO Ola Källenius has just approved, Brecht reports.

As early as last June, Brecht and his deputy Ergun Lümali sent a circular to all Daimler employees urging management to act and calling for the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs. “We have to urgently press ahead with the transformation process in which we find ourselves,” they wrote. “To do this, we need billions in investment. This money must be earned—despite the crisis.”

This explicitly applies not only to the Mercedes auto division, but also to its truck sector. The new boss there, John O’Leary, was “specially brought into central management by the US subsidiary Freightliner as a reorganiser,” writes Manager Magazin, and then asks: “What does he have to take on?”

Brecht is blunt: “A lot has to happen in the truck business, especially in Europe. We’ve earned only 6 to 7 percent profits here, even in exceptional years.” That’s not enough to finance the necessary investment for the future, he went on. “We have clearly lost market share in Europe; and costs have also risen massively. We as a works council cannot simply ignore such weaknesses.”

Clearly perplexed, Manager Magazin inquired, “Are you inviting executives to cut jobs?” Brecht answers in the affirmative: “We urgently need a solution to the problems, and we won’t like some parts of it; like the Stream 2 cost-cutting programme.”

When the heads of corporations and the works councils talk about “cost-cutting programmes,” they invariably mean job cuts, despite all the talk about “innovation,” “looking to the future” and “securing the plant.” “Stream 1” had a cost-cutting volume of €400 million and involved the elimination of 2,000 jobs. The new “Stream 2” programme, which the central works council has agreed on with Daimler management, involves savings of another €300 million and will also mean significant job cuts.

Works council leader Brecht describes how he intends to implement this: “If personnel adjustments become necessary, we will ensure that no one has to fear for their job. We can handle everything through fluctuation.”

Alongside VW general works council chairman Osterloh, Daimler works council chairman Brecht is one of the most powerful of Germany’s so-called “employee representatives,” which the media invariably refer to as “workers’ leaders.” The latter designation is sheer nonsense. These men do not represent the interests of workers, they defend the interests of large investors. Under conditions of growing global competition between the biggest industrial and trading nations, the unions have mutated into vehement representatives of “German interests”—i.e., the interests of the German finance and economic elite.

The transformation of the unions into the tools of those corporations into which they are deeply integrated is taking place all over the world. It results from their defence of capitalism and is particularly pronounced in Germany.

Works council dignitaries such as Brecht do not derive their power in the factories from the fact that workers regard them as their representatives. Their power is anchored in the corporatist “co-determination” system, which allows unions and local factory officials to jointly determine company policy. Auto companies like Daimler and Volkswagen maintain hundreds of highly paid works councils and IG Metall officials whose salaries, stemming from well-paid posts on supervisory boards and other privileges, exceed an ordinary worker’s wage many times over.

Last year, for example, in addition to his salary, which amounts to at least €200,000 a year, Brecht received half-a-million euros from his posts as deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Daimler AG and Daimler Trucks AG, and as a member of the supervisory board of Mercedes Benz AG.

This integration of the unions into company structures, a development that has taken place over decades, cannot be overcome by merely chasing the corrupt IG Metall works councils out of the factories. Rather, new forms of organisation are needed that defend workers’ jobs and social gains completely independently of the unions and state structures.

This can only be done through a united, independent and international movement of the working class directed against the capitalist system. Daimler is not an isolated case. All the big corporations in the auto, supply, steel, engineering, chemical and other industries are using the coronavirus crisis to shed workers, intensify exploitation and prepare for trade war and all-out war.

Half a million dead in Europe from COVID-19 pandemic

Will Morrow

Today, Europe marks yet another grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic. Half a million people have officially died of the virus across Europe, according to the figures published by Worldometers, which includes Russia in its European total.

The actual number of COVID-19 deaths is likely far higher. An October 14 study in the scientific journal Nature, examining excess deaths in 21 countries, found that the number of deaths above historical norms for January–June was around 20 percent higher than deaths officially attributed to COVID-19. If this is true for all of Europe, in fact there have been a further 100,000 deaths attributable to the pandemic.

The marker of 300,000 deaths was passed near November 10, the 400,000 marker at the end of November. The next 100,000 deaths came in three weeks. As with the previous milestones, it will be noted briefly, if at all, on television news programs. Above all, no European government is proposing a serious policy to urgently address the growing death toll and advance a scientific response. Any measure restricting production, corporate profits and the wealth of the European financial elite is rejected out of hand.

A paramedic walks out of a tent that was set up in front of the emergency ward of the Cremona hospital, northern Italy [Credit: Claudio Furlan/Lapresse via AP, file]

More than 3,000 people are dying each day. Britain recorded more than 37,000 cases and 691 deaths yesterday. Monday saw over 350 deaths in France and 415 in Italy. Yesterday, German health departments reported 19,528 new cases and 731 deaths to the Robert Koch Institute. This makes last week by far the worst yet in Germany, with 175,314 infections and over 4,300 deaths.

The virus is still spreading rapidly and is in fact accelerating. In December, France and the UK ended partial lockdowns, which had never closed non-essential production or schools, encouraging the population to travel for the holidays. In Britain, the Johnson government announced that shopping centers would be open 24 hours a day, to ensure that retailers’ most profitable period would not be impacted.

In France, the R rate is now above 1, meaning the virus is again growing exponentially. The Macron government ended lockdown measures on December 15 though case numbers never fell below 10,000—twice the threshold it claimed was necessary to allow for loosening restrictions. There are now 15,000 to 20,000 cases per day.

Christian Rabeau, the president of the medical commission at the Nancy Regional Hospital, said he anticipated a third wave beginning on January 4, when schools are due to reopen. “There could be 500 more patients in ICU compared to today,” he told Europe1 yesterday. Many hospitals are already approaching capacity. “This weekend, to be able to take in patients that arrived, we had to rearrange portions of the hospital to treat COVID,” he said.

In Britain, the virus is spiraling out of control, with more than 30,000 cases per day. Its spread is being accelerated by the emergence of a new strain, 70 percent more infectious, that now makes up more than 60 percent of cases in southeastern England. This strain has already been recorded in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, Denmark, and beyond.

Scientific evaluations of the new strain estimate that it could increase the R rate by anywhere from 0.4 to 0.9. In an area with 10,000 daily cases, this would mean 4,000 to 9,000 new cases each day. It is unknown whether the new strain is more lethal, but a rapid growth in case numbers would more quickly overwhelm hospitals and thereby massively increase fatalities.

Scientists oppose the official policy of permitting tens of thousands of infections per day. On December 18, the Lancet journal published a statement by medical scientists in Europe, entitled, “Calling for a pan-European commitment for rapid and sustained reduction in SARS-CoV-2 infections.”

Effectively indicting the current policy, the scientists declare that “low case numbers save lives,” and that “easing restrictions while accepting high case numbers is a short-sighted strategy that will lead to another wave.” They advise immediate lockdown measures until case numbers have been brought below no more than 10 cases per million people per day—approximately one thirtieth of the current levels in France.

The statement calls for a coordinated, continent-wide response, as “a single country alone cannot keep the number of COVID-19 cases low; joint action and common goals among countries are therefore essential.”

Governments, however, are racing to ensure business resumes as normal after the holidays. The Macron government insists that schools reopen on January 4. School are also being kept open in Britain and Germany. Governments are using schools as a child-minding service so parents can be forced to go to work, and are conscious that this will lead to tens of thousands more deaths.

The model everywhere, effectively, is Sweden, whose government openly pursued a policy of “herd immunity” that led to catastrophe. This was the deadliest November in Sweden since the Spanish flu in 1918. In a country of just 10 million people, it has recorded more than 8,000 deaths.

By contrast, Finland and Norway have seen 511 and 405 deaths, respectively, so that on a per capita basis, Sweden has more than eight times the death rate of its neighbors. Had such a policy been implemented at the level of Europe, the results would have been catastrophic.

Scientists are all warning of a new upsurge in the virus in early 2021. In every country, capitalist governments are deliberately putting profits before lives. After the initial lockdowns in the first half of 2020, they declared that no restrictions on production could be permitted again, regardless of the number of deaths. If the capitalist class is allowed to continue to dictate policy, the result will be a catastrophe that could easily eclipse what has already occurred.

The working class must intervene independently and fight for a scientific response to the pandemic. The Socialist Equality Parties insist calling for the immediate closure of all schools and non-essential workplaces. Workers must be compensated in full for all lost time, with a decent living wage provided to every person throughout the lockdown. Small businesses must be fully compensated, and sufficient resources provided to them to ensure that all staff can be paid wages and that they can resume operations after the pandemic.

The fact that a vaccine is already being distributed and could save an untold number of lives within months makes it all the more imperative to ensure that the pandemic is brought under control immediately.

Claims that there is no money for such measures are patent lies. Trillions of euros have been handed out in bailouts to the major corporations and banks since the beginning of the year. When it is a matter of bailing out the rich, governments declare that no cost is too great. But when it is a matter of saving the lives of workers, there is nothing to be found.

Brazilian Morenoites join Bolsonaro in promoting hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19

Gabriel Lemos

Alongside the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths around the world, A second wave of the coronavirus pandemic is spreading uncontrollably throughout Brazil. This week, 18 of Brazil’s 26 states and the Federal District reported an increase in the moving average of deaths and in six of them, ICUs are on the brink of collapse.

Brazil has more than 7 million coronavirus cases and some 188,000 deaths, trailing only the US and India in the number of cases, and only the US in deaths.

Bolsonaro with HCQ boxes in one of his live Facebook videos.

If a pandemic like this one was already foreseen and foreseeable, this is even more true for its second wave. However, since July, one-third of the ICUs created exclusively for COVID-19 treatment in Brazil have been deactivated. This further exposes the homicidal herd immunity policy of fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro’s government and of state governors, including those of the Workers Party (PT), the supposed opposition.

Today, Bolsonaro’s herd immunity policy is taking the form of an anti-China and anti-vaccine campaign that threatens to fatally undermine the broad vaccination of the Brazilian population next year. At the same time, Bolsonaro has frenetically promoted medicines that have no scientific evidence of being effective against COVID-19, such as hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and the vermifuge ivermectin, to force the end of the few remaining lockdown measures in Brazil.

In this context, the international and Brazilian pseudo-left has sought to give a left cover to the herd immunity policy of the global ruling elite. In September, Jacobin Magazine promoted one of the academic proponents of this policy, Martin Kulldorff, who would become one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration “of death.” In Brazil, this example is being followed by the Brazilian section of the Morenoite Trotskyist Fraction, the Revolutionary Workers Movement (MRT), on its Esquerda Diário website.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in Brazil, the MRT’s leading member, Gilson Dantas, has written articles defending the use of HCQ, and, more recently, ivermectin against COVID-19. In an April 15 article titled “The medical debate on hydroxychloroquine and the health irresponsibility of Bolsonaro,” he attempts in vain to differentiate his position from that of the fascistic president, saying that although it is “demagogically defended by extreme-right governments,” the left has “challenged or ignored” HCQ “with the allegation that its effectiveness ‘has not been verified’”against COVID-19.

Part of Dantas' "evidence", a recommendation for the use of HCQ.that Portugal would later withdraw.

He mentions observational trials with HCQ in China, where “hydroxychloroquine became official guidance in COVID-19 treatment,” and in France, where Dr. Didier Raoult “managed to knock down the viral load of all patients and zero that of those who associated azithromycin with hydroxychloroquine, in SIX days.”

Without questioning the serious limitations of the Chinese and French trials, he states, “unequivocally, hydroxychloroquine had a positive, concrete clinical effect.” This, however, is far from true. Trials to verify the efficacy of a medicine must be randomized, double blind and conducted with a control group. In none of the studies provided by Dantas did this happen. Dr. Raoult’s study was also retracted by the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents on April 3 for “failing to meet expected [scientific] quality standards.” All this was widely reported before Dantas wrote his article promoting HCQ.

Dantas’ article was published soon after Trump and Bolsonaro started a frenetic campaign in March for the use of HCQ against COVID-19. In Brazil, this campaign was lent a pseudo-scientific cover by right-wing scientists who defended the use of HCQ. The most vocal of these scientists has been Paolo Zanotto, a leading virologist at the University of São Paulo (USP). Dantas also used Zanotto’s “scientific authority” to justify his defense of HCQ.

In an article published in the daily Folha de S. Paulo on April 7, Zanotto wrote that, in a pandemic, “we don’t have time to wait for the results of clinical evaluations,” adding, “the most reasonable thing is early treatment with hydroxichloroquine.” Even with all the long-known HCQ side effects, this same argument would be repeated by a group of scientists called “Teachers for Freedom” in two letters sent to Bolsonaro in April and May in which they defended early COVID-19 treatment with HCQ. Created last year by supporters of the president, the “Teachers for Freedom” say they fight against the “ideological persecution and the hegemony by the left” in universities.

The Quinina website (https://quinina.com.br/) cited by Dantas

The spokesman for the letters was former chemistry professor at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Marcos Eberlim, who today coordinates the Discovery Institute in Brazil and chairs the creationist Brazilian Society of Intelligent Design. They called for a rejection of the “scientific consensus,” i.e., “double-blind multi-centric clinical trials” to allow the use of HCQ. Eberlim also justified this by saying that he works in “an area of science that studies our origins, in which a theory [Darwin’s theory of evolution] is presented as full scientific consensus,” but “there are more doubts than certainties.”

After the April articles, it took Dantas five months to advocate the use of HCQ again. On September 15, Esquerda Diário promoted Dantas’ book, “Coronavirus: the disease and treatment options.” Repeating the early arguments, but without mentioning HCQ, he says that the book presents “data that show the ability of two drugs to zero the viral load in vivo and in humans, through numerous clinical trials of sequence of cases, which point to the unmistakable clinical utility of such drugs to avoid lethal outcomes of the disease.” This statement has no scientific basis.

His latest article on this subject, published on December 2 on Esquerda Diário with the title “Treatment of COVID-19 disease: against Bolsonaro and in favor of science,” makes an open defense of the use of HCQ and also of ivermectin. After months in which countless studies failed to show the effectiveness of HCQ against COVID-19, most notably the British Recovery Trial in June and the World Health Organization’s Solidarity trial in October, Dantas insists that “clinical experiences from countries like France, China and others ... are saving lives.”

Dantas’ article does not quote any recent studies demonstrating the efficacy of HCQ and ivermectin. However, it does contain five photos of reports with studies that show the alleged effectiveness of HCQ and its supposed beneficial use in Indonesia, Portugal and Costa Rica. All reports were published between May 17 and July 2 on the Quinina website, which in its header has a banner of Dr. Didier Raoult’s “Fondation Méditerranée Infection.”

Among the many publications on the website created to promote HCQ against COVID-19 are several writings and videos by Paolo Zanotto. In one of the videos, Zanotto opposes lockdown measures in the most reactionary terms, saying that they are part of a “cultural” or “values war” to “manipulate reality and impose another one,” that is, “alter daily life in a sudden way, which the Jacobins did, the Bolsheviks did, which the Nazis tried to do in Germany.” Such reactionary views are also shared by Dr. Raoult, who in January downplayed the pandemic, and is also known to deny global warming and Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Esquerda Diário’s response to Dantas’ defense of the use of HCQ against COVID-19 and its alignment with such right-wing elements could not be more cynical and unprincipled. Since September, his articles have been accompanied by a note stating that Dantas’ position “does not represent the opinion of the MRT, which is neither against nor in favor of medicines for COVID-19 disease, nor does it defend the debate on the treatment of COVID-19.”

Nothing could expose more clearly the petty-bourgeois character of this organization, along with its criminal irresponsibility and contempt for the lives of workers that are being lost daily to the deadly pandemic. The MRT is “neither against nor in favor” of the promotion of false information and reactionary theories that can only lead to even more deaths.

This response, on the one hand, is utterly hostile to the efforts of Marxism to carefully address the most advanced scientific fields. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this became even more essential to analyze the new coronavirus, the disease and its intersections with society, and to elaborate a program of action that preserves the health and life of the international working class. On the other hand, it ignores the numerous articles previously published on Esquerda Diário by Dantas and others that openly promoted pseudo-scientific “alternative therapies.”

In 2015 and 2016, Brazil witnessed a broad debate on phosphoethanolamine, a drug that was produced and distributed for 20 years by USP chemistry professor Gilberto Chierice as the “cure for cancer.” In 2015, Brazil’s health agency, Anvisa, ordered the suspension of the production and distribution of phosphoethanolamine, because, until then, no clinical trials had been done to demonstrate its effectiveness. Later clinical trials would show that it has no efficacy.

At the time, Dantas and Esquerda Diário widely denounced the end of phosphoethanolamine distribution to cancer patients. Dantas even claimed that the drug “has therapeutic power [unless we imagine that thousands are lying...],” and that the corporate media, allied to “Big Pharma,” manipulated public opinion to show the opposite. He also tried to base his position in defense of phosphoethanolamine on the “theory about cancer” of the 1931 Medicine Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburg, who, according to him, “was never taken seriously by official oncology.”

In fact, official oncology abandoned Warburg’s thesis after it became clear in the ’70s that cancer is caused by genetic mutations. In addition to its invocation in support of Chierice’s defense of phosphoethanolamine, Warburg’s thesis is also used by quack physician Lair Ribeiro to promote alternative treatments such as coconut oil and a ketogenic diet against cancer. Ribeiro, who had already been mentioned by Dantas as a “scientific authority” in an article that downplayed the effectiveness of chemotherapy against cancer with a study widely criticized by the scientific community, recently also advocated the use of HCQ against COVID-19.

Just as today, the defense of HCQ joins Esquerda Diário with Bolsonaro, the same thing happened around the phosphoethanolamine case. In 2016, Bolsonaro, then a federal deputy, was the author of a bill that allowed the use of the drug even without scientific evidence. The bill had the broad support of PT congressmen, and then-PT president Dilma Rousseff sanctioned it just before she was impeached.

In addition, Dantas and Bolsonaro used the same argument in favor of phosphoethalonamine at the time: for the current president, Anvisa should “ensure that each citizen is free to seek a cure,” while for Dantas the use of the drug was based on the “right to freedom of the patient over his own body.” This is also the same outlook that today underlies the anti-vaccination position of Bolsonaro in favor of the “freedoms of Brazilians” and that of the creationist Eberlim, for whom the “scientific consensus” should be abandoned to promote drugs without scientific evidence and the alleged scientific bases of the creation of the world by God.

The anti-scientific and anti-Marxist character of Dantas’ position can only be explained by his political and social origins. Before joining the MRT, he was a member in the ’70s and ’80s of the ultra-Pabloite Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers Party, the Brazilian section of the International founded by Argentinean Juan Posadas in 1961. The party was one of the many revisionist tendencies that took part in the creation of the PT and liquidated itself into it.

As a physician who specialized in “traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture,” as he stressed in a short autobiography published in a 2017 book on Trotskyism in Brazil, Dantas represents an upper-middle-class section of the population, for whom Esquerda Díario speaks, that for decades has embraced one or another form of postmodern irrationalism and abandoned the objective foundations of modern science itself.

Chilean health unions conclude sellout deal with right-wing government

Mauricio Saavedra

Chilean health care unions have announced to an angry membership that an agreement has been reached with the government over the “COVID bonus” promised to frontline health professionals.

The Facebook page of the Confederation of Health Workers (FENATS Nacional) announced yesterday that the unions had settled the agreement with the Ministry of Finance and that eligible health professionals would receive the payment of 200,000 pesos no later than next January 30.

“Patricia Valderas, president of (FENATS) considered the fact as ‘a well deserved achievement by the workers, who have made an effort during the pandemic and always, to attend the citizens as best as possible, without counting many times with the necessary resources. We will continue to fight for the rest of the demands we have pending,’” reported the site.

Chilean Finance Minister with union bureaucrats holding up sellout deal (Credit: Finance Ministry)

What she did not explain is that the risible 200,000 pesos (approx. US$275), achieved after months of horse-trading, is not even half the measly 500,000 pesos (approx. US$650) originally pledged by the Congress earlier in June. Nor will the tens of thousands of precarious independent contractors, known as honorarios, or replacement workers, receive a cent of the bonus.

This slap in the face orchestrated by the public sector unions has been treated with the contempt it deserves. In the last 15 hours hundreds of angry responses from a cross-section of health care workers denounced the deal as a sellout. Below is a small sample of the comments:

Roxana Andrea: A shame that honorary workers are excluded from any bonus, and even more, from the covid bonus. We’ve been out there since day one of the pandemic and doing the same job as a plant or incumbent employee. A huge injustice!

Gustavo Cruz Ramirez: Truly a shame, this is a humiliation for health workers instead of an achievement.

Ximena Rodriguez: In my opinion there should no longer be FENATS. It has completely lost the credibility of its members and the discontent of all health officials. This completely violates our rights and dignity. How awful is the (FENATS union) president and (Finance Minister) Briones. The frontline is worth 200,000.

Joshe Manuel: SORRY, BUT AN ACHIEVEMENT FOR THOSE OF US WHO HAVE FOUGHT IN THIS PANDEMIC? Please! The only ones who have been fighting this Pandemic and I could say 90% of us are replacement and honorario personnel. They should give that bonus only to those staff members who have been on duty working in the field, in each hospital on a face-to-face basis. As always, honorarios and replacements are left aside though we are the ones who are fighting this bug 24/7.

Natalia Espinoza Nuñez: Joshe Manuel: Think, that those of us who are on leave, away from our work, by preventive distancing, it is not for vacation, it is for being sick, and where most of us get sick is at work, and others for years of service…

Marlys Quintallana: And to the leaders, how much did the bonus increase, it’s a real shitty thing that their “achievement” is not for their workers.

Paz Carrillo: Marlys Quintallana: You know, colleague, what seems most unusual to me is that the officials of the armed forces were given triple and more bonuses, and those who are and have been in constant danger are the health workers, not them. But this country is like that, they give more privileges and recognition to those who torture, harm and not to those who help, what a pity and outrage ... Let’s hope that the other bonuses won years ago are given and that they don’t just settle for this famous bonus!

Silvia Chza: Marlys Quintallana: It’s very true, they are all sellouts.

Oriel Gomez: Super that the (Carabineros) get something like close to a million (approx. US$1,380) bonus. And those of us who were (on the frontline) until we were quarantined and then continued to work, they gave us crumbs.

These statements are testament to a hostility and growing opposition in the working class toward the corporatist unions and the political parties that have dominated them for almost half a century.

The unions were transformed during the military dictatorship into corporatized instruments of the employers and the government, and used to drive productivity increases, wage cuts and job destruction, thereby allowing Chile to become the most socially unequal country in the OECD. Especially under the center-left coalition governments that have ruled during 20 of the last 30 years of civilian rule, they have done everything in their power to suffocate any independent struggles, leading the workers into stunts and promoting empty and demoralizing parliamentary appeals.

As the conditions of the working class deteriorated over the second decade of this century, the political fortunes of this sizeable middle class bureaucracy have improved markedly, deriving their privileged existence from positions in the executive apparatus or the legislature, the civil service, the unions and other social organizations, or by directly integrating themselves into the corporate world. Not a few “Socialists” and “lefts” sit on the boards of lucrative superannuation funds, the AFPs.

The corporatist agenda has only accelerated during the pandemic: the Communist Party (PCCh)-dominated CUT and the other trade union federations agreed to a return to work in mining and other sectors of the economy. They accepted a freeze on collective bargaining, along with wage cuts, supported the furloughing of hundreds of thousands of workers in private industry for the benefit of employers, and refused to call any industrial action against poverty, hunger, insecurity and evictions impacting the working class.

Their grip is increasingly tenuous and they know this. The long list of betrayals has had an impact on mass consciousness. Amid the dangerous surge in the coronavirus pandemic across the country, workers and working class communes have come out in spontaneous protests and demonstrations in direct opposition to the “left” political caste.

But opposition to the unions is not enough. The working class urgently requires a clearly worked out program to take forward its independent political interests. It must break with bourgeois politics, especially the Stalinist PCCh, the pseudo-left Frente Amplio and the establishment left, who accept the confines of parliamentary legality, capitalist private property and production for profit.