Many health workers across Australia remain unvaccinated as coronavirus outbreak spirals out of control

Clare Bruderlin

As the number of coronavirus cases in New South Wales (NSW) surges to 1,340, reports are revealing that large numbers of health workers, including nurses and aged care workers, are yet to receive even the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. This is the case in NSW and nationally, including in Victoria, where there have been 81 infections in recent days.

Some three and a half months after the designated target date of March 31 for full vaccination of all health care workers and with only 12 percent of the adult population immunised, health staff face the growing COVID-19 crisis largely unprotected and entirely vulnerable.

On July 12, Aged Care Minister Greg Hunt admitted that more than half of the aged care workforce in Australia was unvaccinated against the coronavirus. Only approximately 107,000 aged care workers, or around 40 percent have received at least one dose.

Technicians prepare Pfizer vaccines at the newly opened COVID-19 Vaccination Centre in Sydney, Australia. (James Gourley/Pool Photo via AP, File)

While the NSW government has refused to reveal the total number of health workers who have been vaccinated, some individual hospitals have released their own statistics, with as many as one-third of staff in one hospital emergency department yet to receive full vaccination.

On July 10, the Daily Telegraph reported the details of an internal memo which was circulated at one south-western Sydney hospital. It stated that the number of “unjabbed” frontline staff, including staff, student nurses and nurses in emergency wards, was at “35 percent.”

The memo called for unprotected workers to be kept away from “hot” and “red” zones in the hospital, where COVID patients were present. Effectively acknowledging that this is unviable, given that more than a third of staff are unvaccinated, the document called for such segregation to be put in place “where possible.”

The report comes after more than 600 staff at the Royal North Shore Hospital on Sydney’s lower north shore and at Fairfield Hospital in the city’s south-west were forced into isolation, when an unvaccinated student nurse tested positive for coronavirus and had worked at the hospitals for five days while potentially infectious.

Despite this, according to the memo student nurses were still being sent to hospitals unvaccinated.

At the Summit Care aged facility in the north-west Sydney suburb of Baulkham Hill, where there have been at least ten coronavirus cases among residents and staff, it was revealed that only one-third of the facility’s workers had received the coronavirus vaccine. The outbreak began when an unvaccinated worker at the facility tested positive. At least 70–75 percent of staff, including contracted cleaners, were identified as close contacts and forced into isolation.

Following that, RSL LifeCare, one of Australia’s largest aged care providers, which operates 28 homes across NSW and the Australian Capital Territory, revealed that just 27 percent of its staff have received a first dose and only 15 percent are fully vaccinated.

These figures are an indictment of governments—state and federal, Labor and Liberal—who have sought to keep “the economy open” to maximise corporate profits, against the advice of epidemiologists who have repeatedly warned of the danger of mass outbreaks.

In order to try and cover over the festering political scandal, the bipartisan national cabinet determined on June 28 that first dose of COVID vaccinations will be mandatory for aged care workers by September 17, a decision that scapegoats the workers for the failure of the rollout and in the interim leaves them unprotected and highly vulnerable to the increasingly infectious and dangerous variants of the virus. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a minuscule $11 million fund to be paid through the providers to enable workers to take time off work, if necessary, to obtain a vaccination.

This measure was to placate the competing aged care providers that were disputing which facility would be liable for the cost of administering the injection and any time off needed by staff working across multiple facilities if adverse reactions were experienced.

The government and the media have repeatedly blamed the workers for the perilously low rate of vaccinations. with Morrison stating: “This has been a difficult cohort, a difficult group to get vaccinated, and this is why I have been fairly constant and determined to ensure we got to where we are tonight.”

In reality, the reason aged care workers, nurses, paramedics and other essential workers are not yet vaccinated is because the government has failed to ensure there are supplies.

The Morrison government had originally announced a priority target of vaccinating all residential aged care staff, part of the initial 1a phase, by early April. In that month, with almost 3.5 million of the targeted 4 million still unvaccinated, the next 1b phase of the rollout commenced, exacerbating the problem of dwindling vaccine supplies. Reports emerged of aged care workers being told to get vaccinated in their own time or being given “leftover” doses on site after residents had received their jabs.

Initially aged care staff were told they would be vaccinated in their workplaces by the four private companies fielding teams sent to the residential facilities for the residents, but this did not happen. The government promised to set up 13 pop-up vaccination hubs for aged care staff “during May.” So far, only three of these are operating, all in western Sydney.

One aged care nurse from Victoria, who had contracted COVID-19 at her workplace during 2020, told the WSWS about her difficulties in obtaining a vaccination, either at work or in a hub:

“I don’t know why I didn’t get the vaccination at work because they said it was only for the residents, and then if there was vaccine left over, they would give it to the staff. But at that time, I didn’t get it because I wasn’t working during the day. If you go outside to have the book-in vaccination, the queue is so long. Maybe you have to stay there for hours to get inside. I tried to go there on the weekend, but the queue was just so long, I didn’t stay.”

With rising case numbers and growing hospitalisations, Australian Medical Association president Omar Khorshid last week warned that NSW’s hospital system could destabilise if it became overloaded with COVID-19 patients, stating, “We’ve seen 10 percent of cases already in hospital—just multiply that to thousands and thousands of cases… Imagine what you might experience if you need to go to hospital for urgent care, such as with a heart attack or cancer.”

After decades of funding cuts, public hospitals in Sydney and nationally have been pushed to breaking point. Even prior to a major outbreak of coronavirus, they have been operating close to capacity. In recent months, hospitals in every state and territory have reported overflowing emergency departments, increased ambulance ramping and lengthy wait times as a result of understaffing and bed shortages.

Throughout June, widespread industrial and strike action was taken by health workers across NSW, including paramedics, patient transport officers, nurses and midwives in at least 24 different hospitals, in opposition to unsafe staffing levels and wage cuts.

These actions were all limited and broken up by the unions to different workplaces and different days. Paramedics covered by the Health Services Union (HSU) were expected to take different action to their colleagues, in some cases in the same ambulance, who were members of the Australian Paramedics Association (APA). Some nurses in different hospitals were not aware of the actions taken by their counterparts in hospitals in the same city or town.

The trade unions were fully aware of the danger of a coronavirus outbreak but refused to mobilise health workers in a broader struggle. The chronic staff shortages, increased workloads and dangerous working conditions have been implemented with the direct complicity of all the health unions. NSWNMA general secretary Brett Holmes told a rally of nurses and midwives in Newcastle last April about severe staff shortages including 10–15 shortages on shift at Westmead Hospital, the major public hospital in western Sydney and the first to establish a COVID-19 ward.

As with all the health unions he proposed no action of health workers to address this dangerous situation. With the spread of the Delta variant among health workers, the unions are seeking to suppress any opposition from workers.

The lack of preparation of the health system in every state over the past 18 months is a criminal expression of the priorities of all governments—profits and budgets over the lives of health workers and their patients. It highlights the urgent necessity for workers not to place their health and safety in the hands of the unions who act as the policemen of the capitalist class. Matters must be taken into the hands of health workers in collaboration with their counterparts internationally who have suffered the same conditions in country after country over the past 12 months.

Australian ruling elite demands an end to all lockdowns as COVID crisis escalates

Oscar Grenfell

There are feverish calls from prominent representatives of the Australian corporate and financial elite for an end to all lockdown measures, a “return to normal” and for the population to be forced to “learn to live with the virus.” The homicidal thrust of the demands which centre on placing big business profit above everything else, including the lives of working people, is all the more stark given the escalating coronavirus crisis in Australia’s two most populous states.

Sydney, the capital of New South Wales (NSW), is in the grip of its worst outbreak to date. More than three weeks after extremely limited lockdown measures were first instated, the country’s largest city is consistently recording around one hundred cases of the highly-infectious Delta variant each day. There are over 400 exposure sites across Sydney, as well as in some regional NSW centres.

On Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that 170 of all infections, which then stood at little over a thousand, were “mystery cases,” meaning the authorities had no idea of how the virus was contracted. The same day it was revealed that the NSW Liberal-National Coalition government had pleaded for other state administrations to bolster its contact tracing efforts, which it previously claimed were the “gold standard.”

Pedestrians walk away from the central business district in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

On Saturday, the government imposed harsh measures on three working-class areas in southwest Sydney that have been epicentres of the virus, prohibiting all but essential workers from leaving the suburb. Such localised measures have been tried and have failed in previous outbreaks. A day later, moreover, after meetings with business chiefs and lobbying from the corporatised trade unions, the government granted a host of exemptions, including for 19 different areas of retail. The new list is so expansive that it renders the claims of a hard lockdown fraudulent.

Victoria has extended a five-day lockdown that was declared on Thursday night after Delta infections spilled over from NSW. The state has already recorded 81 infections, its list of exposure sites is approaching 200, including football games attended by tens of thousands of people, and the spread has extended from Melbourne to regional centres such as Mildura.

Under these conditions, and with a rapidly rising rate of hospitalisation in Sydney that has already claimed four lives, everything must be done to contain the virus. That is the standpoint of a host of epidemiologists who have demanded more stringent restrictions to curb the outbreak, and of hundreds of thousands of working people who have angrily condemned the existing measures as inadequate and profit-driven.

The attitude of the corporate elite is very different. For them, the problem to be overcome is not the deadly virus and its spread, but the insistence of broad sections of the population that policies be based on public health and science. Giving ever-more naked expression to the ruthless logic of the capitalist market, leading financial commentators are demanding that these progressive sentiments be confronted and overcome, and that workers’ be told they have no choice but to face the risk of infection or death.

Perhaps most striking was a column on Saturday in the Australian, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship publication. Its author, Chris Kenny, declared his hope that the virus would continue to spread in Sydney. “Maybe the only way to convince our over-zealous politicians that they must learn to live with Covid-19 is for them to confront a situation where they cannot eliminate it, no matter what pain they impose on their communities,” he wrote.

Kenny’s article, and others like it, have been framed as an attack on “overzealous” and “power-hungry” state premiers, who have inflicted “pain” on the “economy.” In truth, all the state governments have resisted lockdowns and other public health measures in line with their defence of profit interests. When they have instituted such measures it has been a result of fears over a possible collapse of the healthcare system, and above all, that mass anger and opposition from the working class will erupt. It is this that Kenny and his colleagues are demanding be taken on and defeated.

Kenny tacitly acknowledged this by noting that the state and territory leaders, most of them from Labor, had agreed in June, along with the federal Coalition government, that lockdowns would be a policy of “last resort.” The issue, he claimed, was that in practice this was not being carried out.

Making plain what he was advocating, Kenny denounced Berejiklian for having “locked Greater Sydney down, even though it faced a situation a long way short of the ‘last resort,’” even though epidemiologists have stated that without the current, limited restrictions, the situation in the city could come to resemble the catastrophes in India and Indonesia.

A similar line was taken in a feature article by the Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly, but he was more explicit about the source of the problem. Kelly warned that “resentment of Berejiklian’s status as the ‘gold standard’ reluctant to lock down has been unleashed.” and that her “authority” as a champion against lockdowns, along with that of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was “under pressure.”

This was part of a broader problem, with the “Australian mindset” seeming “addicted to lockdowns.” As a consequence, “The message that Australia ‘must learn to live with the virus’ is a cliche making little progress in real life. Australia has developed its own political culture about the virus—heavily risk-averse, instinctively inclined to lockdowns, and demanding the federal government stump up the money to sustain individuals and businesses as long as they are affected.”

This was not a “tenable mindset for recovery and opening up the economy.” It threatened Gross Domestic Product, i.e., business profits. Morrison’s “political future” depended on him making good repeated assurances that there was a “‘path out’ of the pandemic.”

The discussion unfolding in Australian ruling circles is part of a global push to declare the pandemic over, even as it resurges around the world. The demands for an end to “Australia’s lockdown culture” are coupled with warnings that the country’s corporate sector will be disadvantaged, as other nations press ahead with their homicidal policies.

The models are Britain and the US. In the former, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is lifting all restrictions today, including mask mandates, even as his government admits that this will result in 100,000 or more daily infections and an increase in deaths. US President Joe Biden has all but described the pandemic as a thing of the past, despite rising US cases and hospitalisations.

Again in the Australian, Nick Cater wrote an article headlined “Boris Johnson leads the way on Covid rules—are we game to follow?” He cited warnings from a hundred British epidemiologists that the lifting of restrictions would result in a medical catastrophe, but only to hail “Johnson’s courage in defying the experts” as “a virtue that should be emulated by political leaders closer to home.”

Cater invoked war, declaring that, “In Britain, Johnson revives the Dunkirk spirit, fighting Covid-19 on the beaches, landing grounds, fields and in the streets. In Australia, premiers call on their subjugated citizens to fight the virus from their couches.” Johnson is not fighting COVID-19, he is allowing it to spread in line with the homicidal program of “herd immunity.” This is a war, not against the virus, but against the working class.

The comments referenced above do not just reflect the positions of individuals, but of powerful sections of the corporate elite. The political establishment, while fearful of provoking mass popular opposition, has demonstrated time and again its commitment to a profit-dominated response.

In June, the state and territory leaders and the federal government agreed to a four-phase “roadmap” for ending restrictions. According to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, under phase two of the plan: “Lockdowns would only occur in extreme circumstances to prevent escalating hospitalisation and fatality.” Phase three would see the virus treated like the flu, and phase four a “return to normal.”

The transition from one phase to the next would be based on vaccination rates, yet to be determined. With Australia’s vaccination level the lowest of an advanced capitalist country as a result of a shambolic federal rollout based on minimising government spending and maximising profit opportunities, financial commentators and politicians are calling for the reopening to be pinned to a rate that would guarantee catastrophe.

Kenny stated that Australia was “either painfully close to” beginning the phased “reopening” or “already in a position to start” even though little over ten percent of the adult population is fully-vaccinated, and even many frontline workers in health and aged care are still not inoculated. Other commentators have put the figure at 50 percent with all adults supposedly having been given the “opportunity” of vaccination. This is the line of former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth, who has close ties to the Morrison government.

The protracted delay in implementing restrictions in Sydney, and the manifestly inadequate character of those eventually instituted, was a partial implementation of this agenda. But the financial elite wants more: for death to be normalised on a mass scale, for the virus to become endemic and for millions to be endangered with infection, all in the interests of profit.

The current COVID-19 crisis, and the discussion within ruling circles, are a warning to the working class. The concept, peddled by official politicians and the media that Australia was exempt from the global pandemic crisis, has been exposed as a fraud. All of the major parties, including Labor, and the unions, are committed to an agenda that jeopardises the safety and the very lives of working people.

China 101

M Adil Khan

Regardless of whether it is in democracies or otherwise, decisions on foreign policies including those that concern wars against other countries are almost always made exclusively by the governments, with limited or no consultations with the citizens and often at the behest of vested interest who operate both within and t times, from abroad. Once decisions on wars are made, public consensus are “manufactured” via the corporate media, often a cahoot in the cabal.

As a result, we have seen how in recent past, wars that were based on falsehood but those that successfully manipulated and garnered public support in favour, destroyed country after country and killed and maimed hundreds and thousands, with impunity.

Lately, a similar spectre of war seems to loom large. Led by the US, the West seem to be on a similar mission to undermine, intimidate and demonize China at multiple fronts, a familiar ploy to wars. Although at this stage these posturing are lip-deep, war drums are beaten in near distance, non-stop and this is ominous.

It is true that China’s system and its behaviour, both internal and external are not the most ideal. But question that must be asked is whether China’s system and its dealings are so bad or are these worse than others to merit the kind of vicious demonisation it has been subjected to by the West and more particularly, by the US, lately?

The article is an attempt to analyse China and its dealings objectively with the hope that broader citizen awareness of and their collective informed conversations on concerned issues would help understanding this important country and their position better and in the process, help separating truth from myths and resolving  disputes in a more collective, respectful, credible and peaceful manner and this is important for world peace and stability.

Allegations against China

Led by the US, the West regard China’s one-party “authoritarian” political system, an abhorrent practice and thus, is in conflict with “our liberal democratic values”.

The West also rebuke China for its “human rights abuses of Uyghur Muslims”.

Furthermore, West/US berate China for its harsh treatment of the Hongkong pro-democracy/anti-Beijing protesters.

Lately, the West especially the US has been denouncing and militarily intimidating China for its alleged unilateral “illegal” control of the South China Sea (SCS) and for its “aggressive posturing” against Taiwan etc.

The West/US also blame the Asian giant for “mishandling” the COVID 19 outbreak which originated in Wuhan, China. They blame China saying that the virus is “lab leak” and that China’s poor handling contributed to its worldwide spread, an allegation that China denies. The West especially the US also criticise China for “unfair trade practices”.

Against these barrage of allegations, complains and intimidations it is indeed interesting to note that it was not that long ago that the West, especially US, applauded China for its rapid economic growth, dramatic poverty alleviation and its economy’s remarkable transformation from an impoverished peasant economy to a manufacturing market economy, a world factory, that supplied cheap goods to the world, especially the West.

Thus, it is important that we explore and analyse more objectively the West/US/China relations and their changed perceptions within the contexts of realities on the ground and strive for a more balanced view on concerned issues and map out a way forward.

China’s economic transformation

We all know that in recent years, China has transited from a factory economy to an advanced technology-based economy and progressed from a $92.6 billion GDP in 1970 to a $14.72 trillion GDP economy in 2020, the second largest economy in the world after the US, poised to surpass US in few years.

In recent years, China overtook US in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and during the same period, it also emerged as the leading FDI provider to the developing world –  China’s FDI outflow increased from virtually zero in 1970 to $1.23 trillion in 2019 and currently, covers 125 countries and in the process has spread its influence worldwide, especially in West/US’ hegemonic backyards in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

A redeeming feature of China’s dramatic economic rise is that much of its success owes to its own efforts and most importantly, unlike the West which accumulated  its wealth through colonisation, occupation, loot and plunder and lately, through neo-colonial “international order’ that according to Andre Gunther Frank institutionalised “unequal exchanges” that promoted extraction of resources at one end and accumulation at the other, China’s economic prosperity came entirely through its own efforts – through hard work, innovations, adjustments, investments in science and technology and in infrastructure, both within and across and through competitiveness.

In this regard it is noteworthy that during the period that China transited from the factory economy to world’s second largest economy and emerged as world’s biggest FDI provider and more importantly, modernized and built its military capability that has since reduced West’s capacity to intimidate it militarily,  West’s attitude towards China especially that of the US seem to have changed dramatically, from adulation in 1990s to outright hostility at the present time.

 

China’s political system

It is true that in the aftermath of the communist takeover in 1949, China began with a top-down heavy-handed authoritarian system of governance and they paid heavy price for it.

Thereafter, and guided by the Confucius philosophy that, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do” China has since incrementally reformed its legislative and decision-making processes, and made their governance and policy-making processes inclusive, participatory, decentralised, and accountable, albeit within the framework of the one-party system. In the current system, China permits free and frank critiquing of policies within but not outside which is contrary to West’s political system – namely, the democracies – that allows freedom of expressions, within and outside.

Nonetheless and in contrast to the democracies that stipulate “freedom”, as a key component of governance but do not incorporate in their political systems the guarantee of right of citizens to the basic needs which ought to be the core mandate of every state, China’s political system has made access to health, education, food, jobs and shelter inalienable rights of all citizens and a responsibility of the state whereby policies are made and resources are allocated, accordingly.

Indeed, the contrasts between the two systems in terms of outcomes are quite stark. For example, outcomes of China’s ‘’citizen right-to-basic needs” policy is there for all to see – with a population of 1.4 billion, China is among the top five least hungry countries of the world. Whereas, India, the largest democracy of the world and a member of the US led QUAD (a quasi-defence alliance), is among the seven most hungry countries of the world, where 190 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs. Similarly, in the US, per the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Household Survey, there were, 35 million hungry people in that country in 2019. What makes these dismal hunger statistics of India and US a real tragedy, is that both these democracies produce enough food to feed their people a few times over, and yet they have systems that deprive large sections of their people from gaining access to food.

The key reason why democracies fail to meet the basic needs of people is because not many democracies have made this the core mandate of their political systems and furthermore, unlike China which has continuously reformed its systems to respond to its emerging needs and prioritised citizen-right-to-basic needs as its key agenda, West’s model of ‘representative democracy’, which according to some has since morphed into a “liberal-totalitarian system” has not undergone adjustments/reforms in the last one hundred years and thus has lost its capacity to represent nor serve the interests of the people, equitably. On the contrary, elements of inequity and powerlessness of citizens are now structurally embedded such that in these countries, liberalism is an illusion and representation, a myth.

Another noteworthy contrast between China and the West’s political systems is that while China does not lecture others to follow their system, the West especially the US tirelessly harangues others to follow theirs, forgetting that “..imposition of ideological attitudes [on others] is somewhat reminiscent of the history of the late Soviet Union, in that it doesn’t even believe the values it tries to project abroad” (Sergey Naryshkin).

Finally, and this is important – regardless of how faulty or otherwise the Chinese political system is, one thing is certain:  their political system would never allow someone like Trump to ever become the president of their country.

China’s human rights records

China’s human rights records are at best patchy. In recent times, the US has bitterly criticised China for its persecution of Uyghur Muslims in its Xinjiang province. While an independent international probe would be the step in the right direction to assess and validate these allegations, there is no doubt that persecution of Uyghurs in one form or another has occurred and is taking place, warranting due investigation and accountability.

Regardless, what makes America’s condemnation of Uyghur persecution a little problematic if not hypocritical and makes the case of the Uyghurs somewhat weak, is that the flag bearers of human rights tend to cherry pick human rights cases. For example with respect to India, a close ally of the US, where the ruling BJP government has turned Kashmir, a Muslim majority autonomous state, into a virtual concentration camp and in other parts of the country, where Muslims are lynched, harassed and murdered with impunity almost daily, Washington has chosen to look the other way. Similarly, Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its persecution and murder of Palestinians are known facts, and yet the US does not condemn these blatant human rights abuses and much worse, stands by Israel and justifies these horrific abuses as “Israel’s right to defend itself”.

Sadly, America’s selective targeting and condemnations of human rights abuses have dented its moral credibility and weakened much of its capacity to promote change. This is unfortunate.

To address more credibly the cases of human rights abuses around the world including those that occur in China, efforts should be made to pursue these cases through established global frameworks through agreed international standards, compliances, reporting and imposition of sanctions on the defaulters.

Hongkong

Democracy protests in Hongkong, a city-state which operates under the one country-two system political framework, constitute a legitimate right for Hongkong dwellers and therefore, the brutal suppression of the protesters by the Hongkong authorities, which have been undertaken at the behest of mainland China, is reprehensible, though the protesters’ waving of American flags and carrying of placards bearing images of Trump during the protest marches do raise questions regarding the backers and real motive of these protests and much worse, provide the perfect pretext for the Chinese government to brand the protesters as “foreign agents” and legitimise suppression. This is unwarranted.

Indeed, Hongkong demonstrators need to demonstrate clearly that this is their movement and that the protests that are their legal rights are neither inspired nor instigated by outsiders.

China, a “security threat”

In recent years, China has asserted its control over the South China Sea (SCS), an important shipping route that connects East Asia with rest of the world. China routinely monitors the movements of non-Chinese vessels in the area. The US and its allies see China’s “unilateral” control over the SCS a “security threat”.

Indeed, China’s assertion of its control over the SCS is problematic, but none of its Asian neighbours (except Japan) that are in the vicinity, regard the territorial dispute a “security threat”.  For example, the Philippines President, Mr. Duterte has made it clear that, “We do have disputes with China over the use of the South China Sea, but I am not choosing war to resolve it.” Similarly, Malaysia, another contender to the SCS has chosen quiet diplomacy over confrontation as its strategy on the issue of maritime-territorial sovereignty of the SCS.

On the other hand, the US, which is approximately 15000 kms away from the disputed area, regards China’s actions in the SCS as hostile acts and Australia, an obliging ally of the US and in the region, though not in the immediate vicinity, has joined the US in flexing military muscles and threatening China. These activities in SCS, namely war posturing by the West/US/Australia and China’s readiness to confront and not discuss the issue are hardly reassuring.

Indeed, rather than waiting for the tension to blow over and since the maritime sovereignty is an international issue, it may be more helpful to seek an internationally agreed solution, say through deployment of multi-national forces that guarantees equitable access to the SCS to all and ensures security of all parties including China’s.

China/Taiwan hostility is another unresolved issue in the region. However, given the complexities of the geopolitics, it is very difficult to say who threatens whom. Regardless, all parties need to treat the issue with care and sensitivity and avoid conflagration.

COVID 19 and the “Wuhan lab leak”

In recent times, the US raised concerns about the source of COVID 19 that first broke out in December 2019 in China’s Wuhan. Mr. Trump, then the US President, called the  virus “Wuhan/China” virus and claimed, without evidence, that the virus was a “lab leak” from a Wuhan laboratory, implying China’s culpability in the creation and spread of the deadly virus. However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious diseases expert, has doubted the theory and asserted, along with the majority of international scientists, that the virus is likely to have occurred through natural mutations, “the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human.” Lately, the Director General of WHO, Mr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that an “accidental lab leak is possible” and thus is asking “China to be more transparent as scientists search for the origins of the coronavirus”.

Indeed, COVID 19 is a pandemic and therefore, world has the right to know the truth of its origin to ensure accountability and more importantly, find enduring therapy and preventions and therefore, efforts must be made to get to the truth of the source and establish accountability, through a well-coordinated global effort, through WHO where China must cooperate.

China 101: Key Lessons

There are many things that are positive about China and it would do the world some good to draw lessons or two from the Asian dragon. On the other hand, like most countries China is not perfect. They thus need to mend some of their flaws. However, to expect that China – a country which happens to be the world’s second largest economy, the largest trading partner and the largest provider of FDI to the developing countries and militarily a mighty country – would change through demonization and/or intimidation especially by those whose own track records in peace and human rights are anything but inspiring, is delusional. Indeed, China’s recent snub to a proposed visit to Beijing by the US deputy secretary of state, Wendy R. Sherman is a clear demonstration of its depth ire against and an illustration of its distrust of the US as a trustworthy partner.

Therefore, at a time when the entire world is reeling under a ravaging pandemic and is in serious economic duress where thousands are falling sick and dying daily and millions are losing jobs and livelihood and counting, bad mouthing and muscle flexing may not be the most effective way to resolve disputes anywhere let alone those that involve China and therefore, the way forward is not through the diktats of any group and/or alliance whose own moral standing is anything but inspiring, but through internationally laid down protocols and frameworks, such as the UN.

Flood of the century in Western Europe: Over 100 dead, thousands missing

Elisabeth Zimmermann & Marianne Arens

The flood disaster in western Germany, Belgium and part of the Netherlands is taking on increasingly dramatic proportions. By midday Friday, the death toll in the German regions of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia had risen to 106, with more being added every hour. Thousands of people are still considered missing.

The provisional death toll in Belgium has risen to 23, with another 20 missing, according to an account released by the government at midday Friday.

And in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht, 10,000 people had also been evacuated after fears that the Meuse River would overflow its banks so much that residential areas would be flooded. Due to the power outage associated with the flooding, many cell phones are inoperable as there is nowhere to charge batteries. Entire communities are cut off because roads, bridges and railroad tracks are impassable. The floodwaters have washed them under or over and destroyed them.

Communities along the Ahr, a western tributary of the Rhine, south of Bonn, located partly in Rhineland-Palatinate and partly in North Rhine-Westphalia, are devastated. The village of Schuld in the district of Ahrweiler, which lies on several bends of the Ahr, was largely destroyed. In many other places along the Ahr, houses are flooded, partially or completely destroyed or in danger of collapse. People have neither clean drinking water nor electricity.

A particularly tragic case occurred in Sinzig, where the Ahr flows into the Rhine. Here, due to the floods, 12 people died in a home for the disabled. They lived in a house run by the Ahrweiler district association. Due to the rapid rise of the Ahr overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the first floor of the residential home was flooded. The severely disabled people were not evacuated in time and could not save themselves.

In Rhineland-Palatinate, the number of known fatalities had risen to 63 by Friday afternoon, with at least 362 people reported injured in the Ahrweiler district alone. It is feared that these numbers will continue to rise. Not only is there a lack of electricity and drinking water in Ahrweiler, but a gas pipeline has also been destroyed. The gas supplier said this could take several months to repair.

In the neighbouring state of North Rhine-Westphalia, 43 deaths have been officially reported. Here, too, it is feared that the number will rise sharply.

The situation is particularly critical in Erftstadt-Blessem, near Cologne. Here, at least three residential buildings and part of the town’s historic castle have collapsed. Rescue workers are trying to pull people out of these houses, but so far have had difficulty reaching them. “We assume several dead, but we don’t know,” said North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU).

The Erft, also normally a small river, rose enormously due to the rains, turning into a raging torrent. The dam at one of the lakes broke, unleashing a flood wave. Large areas of land are also flooded, and the harvest in the farmers’ fields has been destroyed. Volunteers are caring for those who managed to escape their homes in emergency shelters, though this raises the risk of COVID-19 infections.

Another crisis point is the district of Euskirchen. There is still a danger that the dam of the nearby Steinbach reservoir will burst, so that the nearby villages could be flooded. Some of the residents were already evacuated on Thursday. The situation is also critical at other dams.

The districts of Aachen and Düren were also hit by heavy storms and heavy rain. In North Rhine-Westphalia, 23 municipalities are affected by heavy flooding. Cologne, Trier, Solingen, Hagen, Leverkusen, Aachen are also affected, though the extent of the damage is still unknown.

In many regions, people have described the levels of damage as the worst since World War II. In Schuld, population 700, the mayor described the impact as “Like after a bombing raid.”

The floods followed several weeks of intense, persistent rainfall. In the narrow valleys of the Eifel, the region around Cologne, the Bergisches Land and the Sauerland, small streams became raging torrents within hours.

The causes are to be found both in climate change and in a lack of safety infrastructure. Scientists have long warned of the effects of climate change, which is causing unprecedented heat and drought in Canada and the western United States. However, periods of heavy rainfall in Europe have been attributed to the warmer atmosphere, which now can absorb significantly more moisture than before. Changes in the jet stream, also caused by climate change, are another contributing factor.

The Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute reported a record rainfall over 48 hours in Liège, near the German border, with more than 271 mm recorded at Jalhay and 217 mm at Spa. David Denehauw, the head of meteorological forecasts, said on Twitter that these levels are seen “statistically once in 200 years. Normally we measure 100mm in July in these areas.”

Flood disasters have been increasing for several years, and researchers, geographers and urban planners are well aware of this problem. It would be entirely possible to prevent such natural events from turning into deadly catastrophes by taking the necessary preventive measures.

There are examples of this. For example, in the Saxon city of Grimma on the Mulde River, a flood protection system was installed three years ago after major flood disasters of 2002 and 2013. It consists of numerous flood gates and a protective wall several kilometres long, reaching 12 metres deep into the earth. A complex canal system under the city can absorb and drain large amounts of water. Within two hours, the city centre can be sealed off tightly.

But such installations are extremely rare. After the previous floods of the century, government politicians have concentrated—if at all—on the major rivers. But even in the smaller valleys, many mayors have been aware of the dangers for years and are quite prepared to take preventive measures. However, the municipalities simply do not have the money to do so.

In Germany and across Europe, governments have spent trillions of euros on bailouts for corporations, banks and shareholders during the coronavirus pandemic. Massive war preparations, overseas troop deployments and modern weapons systems are being financed. The German Bundeswehr is being upgraded, and the government is making investments in cyberspace and space warfare. However, there is no money for the elementary security of the population.

The causes of this latest flood disaster are to be found in the capitalist system. The capitalist class has been incapable and unwilling to take any action over more than 30 years to prevent climate change or significantly improve critical infrastructure, because to do so would impact upon the profit and geostrategic interests of the capitalist elite.

It has demonstrated its indifference toward human life throughout the coronavirus pandemic, as it deliberately allowed the virus to spread in order to prevent any impact of social-distancing measures on corporate profits. With the same indifference it has rejected necessary expenditures in social infrastructure to protect the population from social disaster. It views such expenditure as an intolerable inroad into its own wealth.

The answer of the working class to this policy of social murder must be the conscious struggle for socialism. Trillions of dollars must be invested into social infrastructure projects for the protection of the population on an international scale, and toward a transition toward renewable energy. Such a policy requires the taking of political power by the working class and the organisation of social life on the basis of social need, not private profit.

Israel: Histadrut union federation kicks hospital workers’ strike into the long grass as support grows

Jean Shaoul

On Thursday afternoon, the Histadrut labour federation called off the nationwide strike of 13,000 support workers at Israel’s public hospitals. This came just three days after the start of the strike over intolerable workloads, massive staff shortages and the dismissal of 200 workers taken on at the height of the pandemic.

Israelis receive a COVID-19 vaccine from medical professionals at a coronavirus vaccination center set up on a shopping mall parking lot in Givataim, Israel. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

The health care workers, who include both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis, have been pushed to the brink. They are also seeking extra payments for dealing with Covid, as cases rise again to levels not seen since April 5, and the implementation of a 20-year-old decision of the finance ministry that recommended pay parity between public and private (insurance owned) hospitals.

Union representatives called off the strike, officially a “45-day suspension”, until the start of the Jewish New Year when the country closes down. This followed a meeting with an aide of Nizan Horowitz, health minister in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s right-wing “government of change” that replaced that of longstanding premier Benjamin Netanyahu last month.

There were reportedly vague promises that Horowitz would handle the negotiations on health workers’ contracts with the Finance Ministry and prioritize their demands, with the Civil Service Commission agreeing to “suspend” the 200 job cuts.

Eli Badash, the head of the union representing the striking workers, said the workers would agree to the decision “providing these [200] workers are directly employed by the hospitals, rather than by a contractor who makes money at their expense.” The union is also calling for the implementation of the 20-year-old decision on pay parity.

None of this meets the workers’ demands who face an impossible workload. The union cites the case of one cleaner in a medical centre in Nahariya who is required to clean an inpatient ward of 14 rooms, 15 bathrooms and showers, two offices, a treatment room, a nurses’ station and a sitting area in one six-hour shift. Her supervisor said that could not be completed in 15 hours, let alone six.

All this is done for a pittance. The basic wage for a new housekeeper in a public hospital is $550 a month, while longstanding workers can earn up to $1,320 a month, and with overtime up to $1,764. Israel has one of the highest costs of living and lowest wages among the rich club of 38 OECD countries, of which Israel is a member. The median annual salary of a doctor ranges between $35-40,000, while that of teachers and nurses is between $17-20,000.

It was only when forced that the union called the strike in the first place. Public hospital workers voted for action three years ago, in the run up to a nationwide nurses’ strike over their grueling workload, staff shortages, the low standard of care and a planned pay cut. But the vote was set aside by a court injunction demanding employers and workers negotiate an agreement. Even when the negotiations went nowhere and the National Labour Court cancelled the injunction, the union held off calling a strike, citing the pandemic as a pretext.

The strike had seriously disrupted patient care in at least 20 public hospitals, including general hospitals, psychiatric facilities, and rehab and geriatric centers, as all administrative, maintenance, dieticians, and cleaning and kitchen staff stopped work. It forced the closure of outpatient clinics and the cancellation of non-urgent surgery.

There were reports of surgeons transporting patients to operating rooms and nurses sterilizing critical equipment, serving meals, and removing trash. As garbage and dirty laundry piled up in the summer heat, one hospital official warned that the situation could put patients at risk as infections spread.

The strike won widespread support under conditions where Israel’s health care system has deteriorated dramatically as successive governments have privatized the network, outsourced workers to private contractors and cut funding. Further cuts are planned, and many hospitals are in debt due to the government’s failure to update its system of reimbursement between the health funds and the hospitals. The High Court, in response to a petition from the prestigious Hadassah University Medical Hospital, recently ordered the Health and Finance ministries to register a new budget and new pricing model for hospitals by the end of the summer.

Health care professionals, including dietitians, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, planned strike action on Sunday morning in support of the striking workers. Eli Gabbai, who chairs the Health Professionals Union, said the “time had come for the Finance and Health Ministries to treat with respect these ‘invisible’ workers, who suffer disgraceful work conditions and insulting wages.”

Dr Ze’ev Feldman, the leader of the medical association representing doctors in the public sector, expressed his organisation’s support for the strike, saying that the strikers were left with no choice. He wrote, “Your justified demands have been dragged along for three years, and your fight is all of ours. The health system requires administrative and maintenance staff just as it requires doctors.”

Last May, 600 doctors went on a 24-hour strike demanding job protection in the face of the Netanyahu government’s decision to cut health care funding, already among the lowest in the industrialised countries, in favour of the defence budget to finance the suppression of the Palestinians and Israel’s operations in the region.

The corporatist Histadrut labour federation said that if “the professional staff at the Finance Ministry don’t find a solution quickly to the demands of these ‘invisible’ workers, other sectors can be expected to join the strike.” That Histadrut chief Arnon Bar-David felt compelled to make such an insincere threat testifies to the explosive social conditions in Israel.

Conditions of low wages and appalling workload are replicated across the country. Some 1.5 million workers, out of a 9 million population, are paid the minimum monthly wage of $1,650 for a 42-hour week, significantly longer than in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. This has put the Histadrut under enormous pressure to demand an increase to about $1,850 along with a two-hour reduction in the working week as workers struggle to make ends meet.

The cost of housing that 10 years ago sparked protests has risen. It now takes 148 months of salary to purchase an apartment, compared with 127 in 2011, while the amount of public housing has shrunk and rental plans have not helped those in need. With the average monthly rent at about $1,200, 37 percent of an average salary goes on rent.

The Adva Center’s recent report on the pandemic called “The Epidemic of Inequality” concluded that Israel’s richest 1 percent had come out ahead, having received the most of the government’s protection and benefits, including the purchase of $440 million worth of corporate bonds. This is set to be squeezed out of the working population in the new budget. Small businesses, mainly service providers, were the main losers as per capita consumption fell by 11 percent, nearly double the OECD average of 6 percent.

By far the worst affected are Palestinian Israelis, with nearly a quarter reporting in April 2020 that they or family members had reduced their food intake, compared with 14 percent of the general population. As the poorest members of Israeli society, the COVID-19 death rate of Palestinian Israelis aged 60 and older was three times that of that of the ultra-orthodox Jews, Israel’s second poorest group, which in turn was four times that of secular Jews.

The Histadrut’s sellout of the strike comes as health care workers worldwide have struggled to prop up decaying capitalist health care systems that have been looted for decades by the corporations, banks and insurance and pharmaceutical companies, leaving them ill-prepared for a global pandemic.

Canada’s new indigenous governor general and the crisis of bourgeois rule

Roger Jordan & Keith Jones

On the recommendation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada’s monarch—Queen Elizabeth II—has named Mary Simon the country’s 30th Governor General. The political establishment and corporate media have rushed to hail the appointment of Simon, a long-standing state functionary, as “historic,” because she is Inuit and the first indigenous person to ever serve as “the Queen’s representative,” that is Canada’s acting head of state.

Justin Trudeau and Governor General designate Mary Simon at an announcement of Canada’s next Governor General [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Behind this cynical propaganda, which draws heavily on the right-wing nostrums of identity politics and the Trudeau government’s policy of “reconciling” the Native population to ruthless capitalist exploitation, lies growing concerns within the ruling class over the popular legitimacy of the post of Governor General under conditions of intensifying capitalist crisis and class struggle.

Whilst the media and political establishment portray the Governor General, and indeed the monarchy as a whole, as little more than ceremonial window-dressing, they in fact occupy a pivotal position within the Canadian state and bourgeois-democratic constitutional order.

Hand-picked by the monarch on the basis of a recommendation from the Canadian government of the day, the Governor General is subject to no democratic controls. Yet, as the Queen’s representative, they wield vast “reserve powers.” These include the ability to prorogue parliament and designate and dismiss the prime minister. No legislation can become law without their assent. For the most part, these powers are held in abeyance, hidden behind pomp and circumstance and the lie that the monarch and her representative are above the political fray. But this anti-democratic, authoritarian institution has been retained at the centre of the constitutional order, precisely so that it can be deployed at times of crisis to safeguard bourgeois rule. This is why the occupant of the post must be a trusted ruling class representative, while also possessing the wherewithal to maintain the façade that the Governor General and monarch are above politics and symbols of national unity.

For decades, Canada’s ruling elite has been struggling to shore up popular support and legitimacy for this institution, which wide swathes of the population view as alien and archaic, if not anachronistic. The growing indifference and hostility to the position of Governor General is inextricably bound up with the broader discrediting of Canada’s British-based monarchy, which embodies the British aristocracy in all its backwardness, stupidity, and hostility to democracy and social equality. In recent years, the royal family, the House of Windsor, has been rocked by scandal and bitter feuding.

Canada’s ruling elite has in recent years sought to “freshen up” and “modernize” the position of Governor General by appointing a succession of media personalities and celebrities. Julie Payette, who Trudeau nominated for a five-year term as Governor General in 2017 apparently without serious vetting, belonged to the latter category. A former astronaut, Payette was forced to resign, creating the vacancy that Simon will now fill, after scores of current and former employees of Rideau Hall (the Governor General’s residence) accused her and her principal assistant, a close personal friend, of workplace harassment, including physical abuse.

After parts of a report backing up these allegations were released in January, a preposterous spectacle unfolded as the media and political establishment, with Prime Minister Trudeau in the lead, postured as the most fervent defenders of workers’ rights against an abusive boss. This is from the same political forces that have condemned hundreds of thousands of workers to infection and thousands to death from COVID-19 by insisting that workplaces remain open throughout the pandemic.

After a week-long campaign of choreographed media outrage, Payette got the message and resigned, with the assurance that she will receive a lucrative pension from the public purse for the remainder of her life. Even prior to the harassment allegations, Payette had discredited herself in the eyes of the establishment by failing to conceal her disdain for the ceremonial duties of the Governor General, which are seen as crucial to duping the population as to the real function of the Queen’s representative.

Payette’s swift departure testified to the nervousness within ruling circles that the social and economic crisis, and the surge in inter-imperialist and great-power conflict, both of which have drastically intensified since the onset of the pandemic, could lead to the sudden emergence of a political crisis that will necessitate the Governor General’s intervention to defend the stability of capitalist rule.

In Mary Simon the ruling class believes it has found someone who will both loyally serve their interests and who can lend legitimacy if not lustre to the office of Governor General. An Inuk from Nunavut, Simon helped negotiate the James Bay and Northern Quebec Accord in 1975, a treaty between the Cree, Inuit, the provincial government and Hydro-Québec. Beginning in 1982, she served for four years as head of the Makivik Corporation, an organization charged with managing assets running into the tens of millions of dollars accrued through economic development projects on traditional Inuit land. She was part of the Inuit delegation that helped negotiate and endorsed Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Charlottetown Constitutional Accord, and for a time was the Co-Director (Policy) and Secretary to the federal government-appointed Royal Commission on Aboriginal Affairs. From 1994 to 2003 she was Canada’s first Inuit ambassador, serving for all nine years as Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs and from 1999 to 2001 as Canada’s Ambassador to Denmark. This included negotiating the creation in 1996 of the Arctic Council, which has representation from all eight states that border the Arctic Ocean.

In picking Simon, the ruling elite have a double purpose. First, it calculates that Simon’s Native heritage can give a much-needed boost to the Trudeau government’s policy of “reconciliation,” which aims at cultivating a tiny privileged indigenous elite to staff positions within the capitalist state and private enterprise to give Canadian capitalism a “diverse” and “progressive” face while the majority of indigenous people continue to live in grinding poverty. Even before recent discoveries at multiple sites of hundreds of unmarked graves highlighted the brutality and genocidal character of the Canadian state’s residential schools policy, the government’s reconciliation agenda was facing increasing opposition from native people due to Ottawa’s manifest failure to address the horrific social conditions faced by the majority of Canada’s indigenous people, both on- and off-reserve.

Simon lost no time in beginning the task of deploying reactionary identity politics to revive “reconciliation.” In her acceptance speech, she declared that her appointment as the representative of the British monarch, an anti-democratic relic of feudal privilege and autocracy, was a “historic and inspirational moment” for Canada. Underscoring the absurdity of identity politics, which claims that the real divisions in society are ones of race, ethnicity, and gender, Simon, the former CEO and capitalist state functionary, proclaimed that her Inuit ethnicity means that she can serve as “a bridge between the different lived realities” of Canada, and “relate to all people no matter where they live, what they hope for or what they need to overcome.”

The government and Canadian ruling class also calculate that Simon’s Inuit heritage will be useful under conditions where the Arctic has become an increasingly important arena of great-power competition. In collaboration with the United States, Canada’s closest military-strategic partner for over three quarters of a century, Ottawa is in the process of modernizing NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, with the aim of combatting strategic rivals like Russia and China. An important element in this is expanding military capacities in the Arctic, where climate change is making the region’s vast natural resources more readily accessible and opening up new sea-lane trade routes. The Globe and Mail has noted that Simon, who has long argued that the Inuit are pivotal to asserting “Canadian sovereignty” in the Arctic, could prove very useful asset in asserting Canadian interests in the far north.

The second and no less important expectation of Canada’s ruling class is that Simon’s decades of political experience as a representative of the Inuit elite and Canadian state will provide her with the political acumen and public respect to effectively deploy the vast powers of the Governor General, should that prove necessary.

The last such situation emerged in the immediate aftermath of the September 2008 global economic meltdown, when the Liberals and New Democrats, backed by the trade union bureaucracy, concluded a pro-austerity, pro-war coalition agreement with the aim of replacing the minority Harper Tory government. Determined to impose the full burden of the economic crisis on the backs of an increasingly combative working class, the ruling elite deemed that a Liberal-NDP government would be too unstable, and that Harper should remain in power. They therefore staunchly supported Harper when he prevailed on Governor General Michaëlle Jean to arbitrarily shut down parliament so as to prevent the opposition parties from exercising their democratic right to vote non-confidence in his Conservative government. Jean’s approval of Harper’s prorogation Dec. 4, 2008 request allowed Canada’s most right-wing government since the 1930s, to cling to power in what the World Socialist Web Site correctly described at the time as a “constitutional coup.” By the time parliament reconvened in mid-January 2009, the coalition agreement had collapsed as the Liberals, responding to the sentiments within the corporate elite, ditched the planned coalition.

Another stark demonstration of the virtually unlimited powers possessed by Governors General is in the events in Australia in 1975. The country’s Labor government was sacked by Governor General John Kerr after the ruling elite became apprehensive that Prime Minister Gough Whitlam could no longer control the increasingly militant working class. Correspondence, subsequently made public, revealed that Kerr consulted closely with the Queen’s top advisers, underlining that Whitlam’s dismissal was engineered by powerful forces within the British and US imperialist state apparatuses.

The prospects for an eruption of a crisis of bourgeois rule that would far surpass both the events of 2008 in Canada and Australia in 1975 is very real. On January 6, a mob of far-right protestors stormed the US Capitol, at the behest of US President Donald Trump and with the complicity of the Republican Party leadership and powerful sections of the state apparatus in order to prevent the coming to power of President-elect Joe Biden. In the intervening months, the entire American political and media establishment has gone out of its way to trivialize Trump’s attempted coup, which was the culmination of a months-long effort to annul the election and came within minutes of succeeding, by effectively denying that it ever took place. Meanwhile, Trump and his supporters continue to refashion the Republican Party as an openly far-right, fascistic organization.

The same social and political processes that underlie the support which sections of the ruling elite in the US have extended to Trump’s dictatorial efforts—unprecedented levels of social inequality, intensifying global trade and geostrategic conflict, preparations for war against China and Russia, and mounting anti-capitalist sentiment in the working class nourished by the ruling elite’s savage “profits before lives” policy during the pandemic—are convulsing Canada.

The country’s 48 billionaires saw their wealth shoot up a whopping $78 billion during the pandemic’s first year. In pursuit of its own predatory interests, Canadian imperialism is ever more deeply implicated in the US military-strategic offensives against Russia and China, and in the Middle East. And the working class, like its brothers and sisters in the United States, has engaged in a series of militant strikes and other job actions over recent months that have not only challenged the decades of concessions imposed by big business and successive capitalist governments, but also the pro-capitalist trade unions that have helped enforce them. These struggles include the ongoing strike by 2,450 Vale miners in Sudbury, who voted down a rotten concessions-filled contract recommended by the USW, and the rank-and-file work stoppages by autoworkers in Windsor and the United States at the beginning of the pandemic that forced the adoption of lockdowns in the face of the efforts of Unifor and the UAW to keep production running.

The Canadian ruling elite will not hesitate to deploy the full force of the capitalist state apparatus, including the carefully concealed powers of the Governor General, to impose its reactionary class war agenda of militarism and war, attacks on democratic rights, and the stepped-up exploitation of the working class. Workers in Canada must respond in kind by unifying their struggles with their natural allies, working people in the United States, Mexico, and around the world.