“Get COVID out of schools!”: Hundreds of school occupations in Greece

Katerina Selin

Students in Greece have occupied more than 250 schools in protest against the unsafe reopening of schools following the winter holidays, most of them in the capital Athens, in the second largest city, Thessaloniki, and on the island of Crete.

Local protest rallies by teachers also took place during the first week of school. On Friday, students protested in front of the Ministry of Education in Athens, and on the same day the number of school occupations rose to over 350, according to the education website esos.gr.

In the first year of the pandemic, Greek students had already forced the closure of their schools with 700 occupations. Last autumn, school occupations broke out again, as well as a nationwide teachers’ strike.

Now, an international wave of protests is unfolding against the deliberate mass infection policies of capitalist governments. Students and teachers are protesting in several US cities, in France teachers went on strike on Thursday, and in Germany, the courageous protest of a student in Hagen triggered many solidarity messages across social media.

Although the infection figures in Greece are at record levels, in-person teaching began in schools a week ago. On the Skai television channel, Nikos Tzanakis, a professor of pneumology (pulmonology), estimated that there were currently up to 80,000 active cases in schools.

School occupation at the 5th Lyceum in Thessaloniki. The banner reads, “Health takes its last breath—Open the schools—No participation in this mockery.” (Credit: Facebook group Menoume Energoi)

The reopening took place “under the worst conditions, both in terms of hygiene and education,” Fani Christani, a student representative from the northern region of Eastern Thrace, told the press in a video interview. Even before the holidays, 20 to 30 percent of all COVID cases were students, she said.

“It is now clear that the hygiene measures are ridiculous,” Christani said. “The survival of the economy is apparently more important than our health and safety.” The fact that the students’ demands were not implemented was a “political decision,” she said, adding that the government had instead been cutting health and education spending for years. Almost €2 billion had been cut in education alone over the last 10 years.

The Coordinating Committee of Athens Students, which called for the protest in front of the Education Ministry, is demanding, among other things, a reduction in class sizes, the immediate hiring of more teaching staff, free and more frequent rapid tests under the professional guidance of the Health Ministry, free masks and more cleaning staff. “We will not allow you to play with our health and lives as if they don’t matter!” their statement reads.

Updated guidelines are in effect from this week, with the government under the right-wing Nea Dimokratia (ND-New Democracy) reiterating that full in-person classes should take place in all schools. Apart from basic face coverings and two rapid tests per week, there are no protective measures. The hated 50+1 rule remains in place, i.e., a class does not have to be quarantined until more than half of the pupils test positive. As in other countries, the isolation and quarantine period in Greece has been reduced to five days.

In addition, teachers who are sick with COVID or in quarantine are being asked to provide distance learning from home “on a voluntary basis and if they are able to do so.” The announced recruitment of 2,500 substitute teachers to fill the gaps is seen by teachers as a drop in the ocean. Chronic staff shortages in schools are leading to overcrowded classrooms, exacerbated by classes being merged in the middle of the pandemic.

In an interview with the online newspaper The PressProject, Theodora, a primary school teacher in Athens, said her school already had three teachers with symptoms and about 40 percent of all students were absent because they were either infected or “their parents are afraid to send them to school under these conditions.” The reality, she said, was grim: “The conditions and rules we have opened with can only be seen as regulations for the mass transmission of coronavirus. Infections in schools and then at home, in children and the school staff and so on...”

In a video interview with striking pupils on the island of Lesbos by local newspaper stonisi.gr, student Kalliroi stresses that her teachers fully support the demands of the occupation and are themselves distressed by the increase in cases of infection at school. Their banner on the school gate reads in red letters, “Get COVID out of schools!” They are demanding immediate distance learning to contain the pandemic.

Students at a lyceum in the Cretan port city of Iraklion described their dire situation in a protest letter dated January 11: “The new, more contagious variant, the increasing number of cases and personal negligence pose a threat to the health and development of the student community.” They point to the record number of 50,000 new infections nationwide just days before school started.

Their hometown of Iraklion was at risk level 5 and “in our residential area, family members, relatives, friends and neighbours of classmates and ourselves have fallen ill, with some in dire straits.” While the Minister of Education claims face-to-face teaching is crucial for children’s development, there was “a climate of insecurity in classrooms where students cannot flourish.”

In the small town of Kilkis in Macedonia, in northern Greece, all secondary schools are participating in the occupations. According to a regional union representative, 16 teachers had already contracted COVID-19 before school started and afterwards another three teachers became infected; some had to be hospitalised.

The students of the 2nd Lyceum in Kilkis, who are continuing classes online, accuse the Ministry of Education of having “decided to open schools amid the worst wave since the beginning of the pandemic, disregarding the recommendations of experts and with complete indifference to the health of students and teachers. Despite complaints from all sides, the schools remain open, causing the virus to spread further and many of our fellow students to be absent from class with no opportunity to catch up on material online.” With their occupation of the school building, they are demanding “the cessation of face-to-face classes and their replacement with online teaching.”

Resistance is also growing at universities. At a general assembly last week, students at the Athens University of Economics and Business (OPA), voted to occupy their university, which then began on Friday. Their demands include the resignation of the rector, free and multiple rapid tests for all students and no campus police and surveillance on campus.

Students at Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University are also protesting against the herd immunity policy. “Our universities will become hotbeds of infection in the near future with the government’s decision,” says Paraskevi Tsekoura, a member of the Agricultural Science Student Council, according to the voria.gr website. Exams are to be implemented without any protective measures.

Responding to the combative pupils and students, who take scientific knowledge seriously and want to prevent further victims, Education Minister Niki Kerameos (ND) displayed her unscrupulous arrogance. The first week of school had gone “smoothly,” she claimed. Children could now return to school to “acquire valuable knowledge and skills and develop socially and psycho-emotionally.”

It remains Kerameos’ secret how a child can “develop socially and psycho-emotionally” when he or she has to sit anxiously crammed into a classroom with 25 classmates, infects himself or herself and, in the worst case scenario, even becomes seriously ill or witnesses the death of a relative. The life of a 14-year-old teenager in the Lamia region came to a tragic end last week. Just three days after being admitted to the emergency room with his parents, who were also infected, the boy died of coronavirus in intensive care.

With almost 22,000 victims, Greece has one of the highest death rates in the European Union. In a video posted on social media at the beginning of January, a Greek nurse described how catastrophic the situation was in hospitals On the COVID ward where she works, she said, only two nurses are responsible for 46 patients. “It’s like we are in a war zone. We are fighting without soldiers, without ammunition, without anything,” she said. “People are dying and will continue to die.”

This is the reality that holds a mirror up to the official lie of “child welfare” in the reopened schools. The government needs face-to-face education at all costs so that children are looked after so adults can go to work and produce profits for the corporations. The policy of deliberate mass infection affects all spheres of life—from workplaces to educational institutions.

The government is therefore cracking down on school occupations with harsh repressive measures. Teachers are being urged to switch to distance learning during occupations, but to exclude students involved in the strike and to book them for absenteeism.

Many teachers are refusing to implement this order. The secondary teachers union OLME is also calling for opposition to the measures and is calling for a demonstration in front of the school management centre in Athens today. OLME criticises the lack of protective measures in schools and had demanded the reopening of schools be postponed for one week. It called for a two-hour protest strike on the first day of school.

The unions and their pseudo-left supporters are desperately trying to control the growing opposition, and to suppress a broad movement of students, teachers and other sections of the working class against the government’s “profits before lives” policy. They have consistently supported opening schools and workplaces during the pandemic and diverted opposition into harmless channels.

When teachers went on strike across the country in October last year to fight the attacks on the public education system and for better coronavirus protections, OLME ensured that the strike ended quickly before it could spread. Although most union members voted to continue the industrial action in local general assemblies, the OLME union leadership voted against it.

What King Soopers strikers are up against: profile of a corporate giant

Alex Findijs

Thousands of workers at King Soopers are entering their second week on strike against the largest grocery store chain in Colorado. The courageous strike action by 8,400 workers across the Denver metro area places them in conflict with the grocery giant Kroger, which owns King Soopers.

Kroger headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio (Photo: Derek Jensen/Wikipediaa)

But if workers are to win against the company, they must understand what it is they are fighting against. Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the country, with 2,750 stores among 19 different subsidiary chains and 35 food processing plants across 35 states. Kroger accounts for 10 percent of nationwide grocery sales, second in the country behind its chief rival Walmart.

This dominant position has enabled Kroger to make immense revenues and profits, drawn from the labor of a workforce in excess of 465,000 people.

Prior to the pandemic, Kroger made $122.3 billion in sales, generating nearly $3 billion in profits. But over the last two years Kroger benefited even more as restaurants closed and people turned to low cost grocers. In 2020 Kroger saw its revenues grow to $132.5 billion, resulting in an increase in profits to over $4 billion. Again in 2021, Kroger further increased revenue to $135 billion.

This rise in profitability has resulted in a 45 percent rise in Kroger’s stock price since the start of the pandemic, enriching wealthy investors as thousands of Kroger workers were infected with COVID-19.

It has increased the dividend payouts to shareholders for 16 straight years, now paying 84 cents a year on the share. To even further enrich its wealthy shareholders, Kroger has authorized an additional $1 billion in stock buybacks for the coming year, on top of $1.32 billion in buybacks approved in 2020.

Amidst this flood of money that has washed over Kroger, its workers continue to live in poverty. A recent study found that nearly two-thirds of Kroger workers do not make enough to afford basic necessities. The study found that those workers surveyed would need an average wage of $22 an hour, or $45,000 a year, for a decent living. In reality, however, these same workers make less than $15 an hour, or $30,000 a year.

With such low wages, Kroger workers find themselves living in poverty conditions: 53 percent are unable to afford rent, one in seven have experienced homelessness in the past year, and workers at even the highest pay scale have seen their real wages decline as wage increases fail to keep up with inflation.

In a twist of cruel irony, 78 percent of Kroger workers are food insecure, often unable to afford groceries from the store they work at. Meanwhile, Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen is the co-chair of Feeding America, the largest food bank organization in the country.

Kroger has been fully aware of the conditions of its workers for years. A leaked internal corporate report from 2018 provided to Kroger executives outlines the social misery that its low pay has caused. The report notes that one in five Kroger employees must receive government assistance to survive, double the one in ten rate for customers.

Most critical in the report is an acknowledgment that low pay is a leading cause of worker turnover in the company. Therefore, the report recommended a $500 million investment in wages over three years. However, it also recommended an offset of this increased labor cost by reducing the pension fund by $25 million and health care benefits by $15 million.

To the extent that it makes any effort towards increasing wages it is in the interest of tricking workers, especially new ones, into thinking that Kroger will offer satisfactory compensation. But in reality it will seek to claw back any additional costs in wages through cuts to health care, pensions and safety.

Striking workers at King Soopers should be alert to any attempts by the company to insert concessions to benefits hidden behind modest increases to pay. The company has already attempted this in previous contract offers, trying to cut benefits and include clauses that would allow the company to alter pay rates at any time.

Kroger is committed to extracting as much value out of its workforce as possible, be that through cutting labor costs or overworking employees to the point of exhaustion.

However, King Soopers workers must recognize that Kroger will not be focused on the loss of sales caused by the strike. King Soopers makes roughly $4 billion in revenue each year, but this is only 3 percent of Kroger’s annual income.

Instead, Kroger’s attention will be focused on making sure that the strike does not spread to other parts of the country. Kroger will do everything it can to break the strike and force concessions on the workers in Colorado, mostly out of fear that a national uprising of workers against poverty wages and crushing working conditions will occur.

Such a rebellion by workers could threaten to spread beyond Kroger to other chains or even to other critical industries. Kroger’s executives will be well aware of this.

In August of last year Kroger appointed Elaine Chao to its board of directors. Chao is the wife of far-right Senator and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Before her appointment to Kroger’s board she served as the secretary of labor under President George W. Bush, where she endorsed the weakening of labor safety standards, and as secretary of transportation during the Trump administration. Chao’s connections to right-wing politics will no doubt play a role in how the company responds to the strike.

Kroger has also deployed Joe Kelley to Colorado to serve as King Soopers president. Kelley was appointed president of Kroger in Houston two years ago specifically to suppress any strike action pursued by workers when their contract expired last November.

Workers ultimately defied Kelley and voted overwhelmingly to strike, despite only $250 a week in strike pay offered by the union. But the union eventually cut a deal with Kroger and the strike was called off.

Kroger knows from years of experience that it can rely on the United Food and Commercial Workers union to isolate and ultimately betray the strike. The UFCW, despite having 1.3 million members and $1.1 billion in assets, has worked with management to depress wages among grocery workers. UFCW Local 7 accepted the two-tier system at King Soopers in 2005 which workers are now fighting against, and is now isolating the strike by keeping King Soopers workers in Colorado Springs, the second-largest city in the state, on the job.

It also extended the contract for Safeway workers in the state, which had been due to expire shortly after King Soopers. While workers in Denver have responded enthusiastically to the King Soopers strike, refusing en masse to shop there, much of this traffic is instead going towards Safeway, where workers reporting having to work 14 hours a day just to keep pace with demand.

This experience has been repeated across the country. When Kroger workers in Portland, Oregon, walked out last year the strike lasted only a day. While the UFCW declared that it was a great victory, the truth is that the one dollar raise fails to even cover the current rate of inflation, making it effectively a pay cut.

Amid COVID-19 outbreaks in China, corporate fears of a worsening supply chain crisis

Peter Symonds

A rash of articles in the US and international press has given voice to fears in the financial and business elites that China’s measures to suppress COVID-19 outbreaks will compound a serious and growing global supply chain crisis. As the world’s largest manufacturer and the supplier of a vast array of goods, production and transport delays in China necessarily impact on economies internationally.

A man gets a swab for the COVID-19 test in Beijing, Sunday, January 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

China’s scientifically-based policy of eliminating the COVID-19 virus through mass testing and contact tracing, travel restrictions, quarantining and lockdowns, as well as mass vaccination, has been under sustained attack by the Western media. Misleading stories highlighting grossly inflated examples of bureaucratic excesses and opposition on social media cannot obscure the fact that, in contrast to the disasters created by governments elsewhere, the policy has been to date successful and has a high degree of public support.

This politically foul campaign is part and parcel of the US-led demonisation of China as Washington steps up its aggressive and reckless confrontation with Beijing, which it regards as the chief threat to American global hegemony. The concerted push for the Chinese government to drop its COVID-zero policy now takes on another dimension as global corporations grapple with supply chain breakdowns.

The Financial Times on Sunday declared: “China’s battle to contain the Omicron coronavirus variant risks choking already stretched global supply chains, manufacturing managers and analysts have warned, threatening production of goods ranging from smartphones to furniture.”

After the lockdown of Xi’an, a city of 13 million, for three weeks to control an outbreak, the identification last week of cases of community transmission of the highly-contagious Omicron strain in the port city of Tianjin, close to Beijing, raised alarm bells. Beijing itself recorded a case of Omicron last weekend and COVID cases were discovered in other cities, including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Dalian—all major ports.

In contrast to the “let it rip” policies elsewhere in the world that have led to millions of infections, hospitalisations and deaths, the restrictions implemented in China have contained the limited outbreaks. The daily cases numbers in China are miniscule by comparison.

As of midnight on Saturday, there were 119 cases reported across China, of which 65 were locally transmitted according to the National Health Commission. Of those, 33 were in Tianjin, 29 in cities in Henan province and one in Xi’an. Beijing reported one case, its first of the Omicron variant.

The number of daily cases in the Tianjin Omicron outbreak jumped to 80 on Sunday, all but one in the worst-hit district of Jinnan. On the same day, health authorities completed a third round of mass testing in the city of 14 million. A total of 294 cases had been detected, some 28,000 close contacts were in isolation and almost 9,000 people were under medical observation. A full lockdown of the city has not been implemented, but districts where cases have been recorded, in particular Jinnan, are subject to movement restrictions.

In an article on Sunday, the New York Times painted a picture of imminent disaster for American corporations, declaring: “Companies are bracing for another round of potentially debilitating supply chain disruptions as China, home to about a third of global manufacturing, imposes sweeping lockdowns in an attempt to keep the Omicron variant at bay.” It said tens of millions were confined to their homes, and connecting flights through Hong Kong to China had been suspended.

In reality, the impact on industry so far has been relatively limited, given the scope of vast manufacturing in China. The production of microchips for Samsung and Micron Technology in factories in Xi’an has been interrupted. Volkswagen and Toyota suspended operations in Tianjin last week. Ship congestion at China’s major ports has worsened since the beginning of the year.

The fear is that a major Omicron outbreak in key Chinese cities, particularly manufacturing centres such as Shenzhen and nearby cities, will create shortages of essential items.

The Financial Times cited the example of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC), essential components of many electrical circuits, which are already in short supply. According to research firm Trendforce, China has close to half the world’s MLCC production capacity, and “often each plant specialises in making one unique product, so when one factory is down, no other can step in as back-up.”

Concern about plant shutdowns in China has been heightened by the fact that the surge in the Omicron variant internationally already has wreaked havoc in factories across the globe as a result of depleted workforces, leading to cuts in production and closures, compounded by breakdowns in transport systems. As a result, widespread public health restrictions in China would likely have a greater global impact than previously.

Didier Chenneveau, a partner in the consultancy firm McKinsey, told the Financial Times: “This time I am more worried because supply chains around the world are already very tense: there are already long delays in transportation and the component shortage problem is still there.”

In large measure, global corporations have relied on stable production in China—the result of its suppression of the COVID-19 virus—to maintain their own operations. As a CNN article on Sunday noted, Chinese exports jumped by 21 percent year-on-year in December and its trade surplus was a record high of $676 billion. Export orders may have shifted to China from other developing countries because of the “Omicron damage to the global supply chain,” Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist for Pinpoint Asset Management, told CNN.

Yet for short-term economic expediency, as well the ongoing vilification of China, Western media platforms continue to intensify their campaign of denigrating China’s COVID-zero policy. They are making it the scapegoat for the worsening economic breakdown in the US and Europe caused by the criminal policies of governments there.

Wells Mountain Education Scholarship Program 2022

Application Deadline: 1st March, 2022

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries; Developing Countries

Accepted Subject Areas? All fields are eligible although WMF intend to favor helping professions such as health care, social work, education, social justice, as well as, professions that help the economy and progress of the country such as computers, engineering, agriculture and business.

About the Award:

Wells Mountain Foundation offers undergraduate scholarship to students from developing countries to study in their home country or any other developing country. The foundation’s hope is that by providing the opportunity to further one’s education, the scholarship participants will not only be able to improve their own future, but also that of their own communities. The foundation believes in the power and importance of community service and, as a result, all scholarship participants are required to volunteer for a minimum of one month a year.

Applicants are only allowed to select a university in a developing country. Applications to study in UK, USA, Europe and Australia will not be accepted

Offered Since: 2005

Type: undergraduate

Who is qualified to apply? To be eligible to apply for this scholarship, applicant must be a student, male or female, from a country in the developing world, who:

• successfully completed a secondary education, with good to excellent grades
• will be studying in their country or another country in the developing world*
• plans to live and work in their own country after they graduate
• has volunteered prior to applying for this scholarship and/or is willing to volunteer while receiving the WMF scholarship
• may have some other funds available for their education, but will not be able to go to school without a scholarship

*Scholars planning to study in the United States, Canada, Australia, UK or Western Europe will not qualify for a WMI Scholarship

Number of Awards: 10 to 30 per year

What are the benefits? Maximum scholarship is $3,000 USD.

• tuition and fees
• books and materials
• room rent and meals

How to Apply: 

• Applicants are required to submit two letters of recommendation written by someone who knows you, but is not a family member, who can tell why you deserve to receive a WMF scholarship. What qualities do you possess that will make you an excellent student, a successful graduate and a responsible citizen who will give back to his or her country? These letters of recommendation may come from a teacher, a religious leader, volunteer supervisor, or an employer.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Sustainable Energy Development Scholarship Program 2022

Application Deadline: 11th April 2022 (23:59, UTC-05:00).

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing countries and territories identified for OECD official development aid in the DAC List of ODA Recipients are eligible to apply.

To be taken at (country): All universities are eligible for the ESED scholarship. It is preferable that the candidate pursues her/his studies in a university outside his home country.

Accepted Subject Areas: Programs eligible for this scholarship must show a 75% focus on renewable energy and/or the power sector in general.

About Sustainable Energy Development Scholarship Program: The purpose of the Education for Sustainable Energy Development [ESED] scholarship is to support outstanding students from developing countries pursuing advanced studies in sustainable energy development and to encourage meaningful contributions to the collective body of knowledge about this subject. These scholarships are available to up to 10 outstanding students from developing countries and economies in transition, for a period of up to two years for Masters Degree, awarded annually.

Type: Masters

Offered Since:  2001

Selection Criteria: The Sustainable Energy Development Scholarship considers an outstanding student to be one who:

• graduates with excellent grades in the top 20% of her/his class
• is determined to advance her/his knowledge and understanding
• has a history of community involvement
• is committed to sustainable energy
• is committed to return and contribute to her/his home country

Who is qualified to apply? To be eligible to apply for this Scholarship, students must

• plan to undertake studies at the Masters level in areas directly related to sustainable energy development
• be citizens of the developing countries and territories identified for OECD official development aid in the DAC List of ODA Recipients

Number of scholarships: Up to ten (10) Masters scholarships will be awarded annually.

Value of Scholarship: Scholarships of US$ 23,000 per year.

Duration: Scholarship will last for a period of up to two years for Masters Degree

How to Apply for Sustainable Energy Development Scholarship: 

• Applications should be submitted using the Online Scholarship Application.
• As the volume of incoming applications is extremely heavy around the deadline, we strongly urge you to submit your file as early as possible.

Visit Scholarship webpage for details

Colleges Accused of Conspiring to Make Low-Income Students Pay More

Robert Massa

Sixteen universities – including six in the Ivy League – are accused in a lawsuit of having engaged in price fixing and unfairly limiting financial aid by using a shared methodology to calculate the financial need of applicants. The schools in question have declined to comment or said only that they’ve done nothing wrong. Here, Robert Massa, a professor of higher education at the University of Southern California, provides insights into what the case is about.

Is this the latest ‘admissions scandal’?

Although it may be tempting to brand this case as the latest college admissions “scandal,” this lawsuit harks back to an investigation of 57 private, four-year universities conducted over 30 years ago by the Department of Justice on charges of “price fixing.” In this case, price fixing means limiting how the colleges compete for students by agreeing with one another to offer similar financial aid awards to admitted students.

Back then, groups of these colleges would meet to review the financial aid packages that each college had offered to students. The colleges stated that they did this to assure that each school in the group based their awards on the same financial information from the student, such as family income, number of students in college, non-custodial parent and the like, so that students could select schools based on which school was best for them instead of which school offered the best deal. The colleges did this by all offering aid that would make the price paid the same at each school.

The government, citing Section I of the Sherman Antitrust Act, disagreed. It claimed the practice of sharing financial aid information on students limited competition and, in so doing, had the potential to lead to higher prices for students because without competition, there would theoretically be no reason to attempt to “outbid” a member of the group.

Eventually, all of the schools settled with the government and agreed to stop collaborating on financial aid awards. Congress exempted colleges from antitrust laws in 1992, but only if they were “need blind” in admission. To be “need blind” means that a college won’t view a student’s application for financial aid prior to deciding whether to admit the student. Further, the exemption allowed these colleges to form groups to discuss aid policies and awards only if they agreed to award all aid on the basis of need and not merit.

What are these colleges accused of doing?

The five student plaintiffs in this case accuse these colleges of making low-income students pay more for their college education by agreeing to award them less financial aid than they would have been eligible to receive by using the standard financial need formula approved by Congress for awarding federal financial aid. This, they claim, is in violation of the antitrust exemption.

Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that the colleges give preference to children of potential donors. In that way, according to the plaintiffs, these schools are not “need-blind” and do not qualify for the exemption. It is worth noting again, however, that “need blind” refers to admission decisions made without viewing a financial aid application. Children of donors who might be capable of a large gift would not likely file an application for financial aid. Therefore, prior to making an admission decision, colleges cannot view a form that doesn’t exist.

The suit also alleges that the schools are not 100% “need blind” because some look at financial aid applications when admitting students from their waitlists. Based on my more than four decades of experience in the field of admissions, this is a common practice at the end of the admissions cycle if space is available in the freshman class, but after most financial aid funds have been awarded.

Further, the suit alleges that these schools award less aid because they agree to use a “shared methodology,” with a formula that calculates higher family contributions toward college expenses than does the “Federal Methodology” approved by Congress in the awarding of federal aid. The adjustments made to the formula, the suit alleges, decreases the student’s need for financial aid. Despite that assumption, colleges that agree on financial need calculations could also increase aid eligibility. For example, they could do this by deciding together that they will expect students to contribute less from their summer earnings because of COVID-19’s impact on the job market, therefore increasing their need for aid and decreasing the price they must pay.

How does this affect the average college applicant?

Only a small fraction of today’s college students would be affected by these alleged practices. The vast majority of the thousands of colleges and universities in this country must adhere to antitrust laws because they don’t promise to be need-blind, they don’t meet full need and they do not award aid solely on the basis of need. Thus, they do not meet the criteria for an exemption.

Why should anyone care about this?

Colleges are not legally required to provide grant aid from their own funds to admitted students who qualify. I have found in my 45 years of experience in college admissions that most colleges provide aid because they are committed to removing financial barriers for as many students as possible.

I also know that colleges believe that their degree leads to upward mobility, and they want to help students achieve their dreams. Of course, no one wants colleges – or consumer businesses for that matter – to engage in practices that eliminate competition and result in increased prices. Operating within the law, colleges must be transparent about how they admit students and award them financial aid. This is essential so families can be confident that they are indeed being treated fairly.

Hindutva is European Fascism at work in India

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

hindutva

The Hindutva draws its ideological inspiration from the European fascist organisations like the National Fascist Party/Republican Fascist Party in Italy and the Italian Social Republic under Benito Mussolini, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, The Fatherland Front in Austria under Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg, the National Union in Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano, the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS (‘Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx of the Councils of the National Syndicalist Offensive’) in Spain under Francisco Franco. European fascism was riddled with many contradictions but there is no contradictions within Hindutva fascism in India. Ignorance, arrogance, irrationality and unquestionable power brings unity within Hindutva fascism in India.  Catholic corporatism has played a major role in sustaining and expanding the plight of people and the power of European fascism. Similarly, the Indian capitalist classes are working as backbone of Hindutva fascism in the country. The Hindutva led government is working relentlessly for the corporate profit at the cost of Indian citizens. Hindutva fascism is the capitalist predators like their Catholic corporate brethren.

The Hindutva onslaught on free press, human rights, minority rights, women’s rights, science and reason, militarisation of minds of common people replicate European fascism at work during and after 19th century. The attack on Indian constitutional democracy, political opponents, journalists, intellectuals and universities are further steps to reinforce Hindutva fascism in India. Hindutva is the fascist response to normalise inequality, caste, class and gender-based exploitations. The construction of Muslims, Marxists and intellectuals as anti-nationals, criminalisation of dissent and demonisation of political opposition helps in the normalisation of Hindutva fascism. Hindutva constructs external enemies among India’s immediate neighbours as well. The creation of internal and external enemies are crucial for Hindutva fascist project to survive. The rise of interstate conflicts within India also helps Hindutva politics to thrive.

The Hindutva propaganda on national unity, Gandhian socialism, economic growth and development are false dawns in the national life of India. The Hindutva politics uses propaganda to divert everyday issues of people. Hindutva vigilante led large scale and targeted violence and spread of fear are used as twin weapons to normalise faith based immoral politics for the growth of capitalism. The Hindutva militias free from judicial prosecutions help in transforming Indian state and democracy that is concomitant with the requirements of Hindutva fascism and capitalism in India. Hindutva fascism enlarges the existing problems in Indian society. It does not have visions and missions to solve any of the problems faced by Indians. There is nothing indigenous about Hindutva fascism in India. These European ideals are implemented in India by Hindutva politics. Hindutva fascism is a project of global and national capitalism in India.

The Hindutva fascism faces the challenges of Indian diversities and its secular constitution. The struggle to protect Indian diversities and secularism is the first step towards the battle against Hindutva. The battle against Hindutva fascism and capitalism is a common battle. The success of such a mass movement can only decide the future of Indians and survival of India.

Omicron wave in Germany leads to massive increase in infections

Tamino Dreisam

The surge in cases in Germany shows that the Omicron wave of infections has now arrived in Germany. From 45,690 infections on Tuesday, the number almost doubled to 80,430 on Wednesday—the highest figure in the pandemic so far. On Friday, another grim record was set with 92,223 new infections.

The seven-day incidence rate has also more than doubled since the beginning of the year. While it was 207 per 100,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the year, it shot up to 427 in less than two weeks. In Bremen it is already 1,427 and in Berlin 950.

Charité intensiv - Station 43 (Bild: DOCDAYS Production)

However, the official figures are far below the actual number of infections. At the end of last year, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democratic Party, SPD) stated that the actual numbers were two to three times higher than the recorded figures. Currently, the percentage of positive-tested persons is about 23 percent, which indicates a massive number of unreported cases.

Testing laboratories are also reaching their limits. Michael Müller, chairman of the Association of Accredited Laboratories in Medicine, told the Rheinische Post on Thursday, “The high infection figures are accompanied by many tests being carried out. Because PCR tests are currently given hardly any prioritisation, laboratories in Germany are increasingly reaching their capacity limits.” This was especially critical for sick people and hospitals.

Instead of reacting to this by expanding testing capacities, the federal government plans to further restrict and prioritise tests. The head of the German government’s Coronavirus Crisis Staff, Major General Carsten Breuer, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Thursday, “We will certainly have to pool capacities where necessary, as with all scarce resources. That also applies to tests.”

The current wave of coronavirus infections across Europe is being accelerated by the highly contagious Omicron variant, which already accounts for 73 percent of infections in Germany, and even 96 percent in Bremen. However, due to the time delay in sequencing and the rapid spread of Omicron, the actual proportion is significantly higher.

The rise in infections is so rapid that WHO Director for Europe Dr. Hans Kluge warned on Tuesday “more than 50 percent of the region’s population will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks.” That would cause a massive flood of new cases for the already overburdened hospitals across Europe and drive up the death toll even faster.

In France, where almost three-quarters of the population have already received two vaccinations, 23,371 of the 3.4 million active cases are hospitalised and 3,969 require life support. Extrapolated across Europe, this would mean almost 3 million people in hospitals in the next two months, half a million of whom would need life-sustaining measures.

In Germany, too, the number of hospitalised and dead is rising. In the last three days alone, a total of 3,000 people have been hospitalised and 1,000 have died. The number of those requiring intensive care stands at 3,050, while regional capacity bottlenecks continue to arise.

As the statements by the WHO and the numbers in France and worldwide make clear, hospitals are in danger of collapsing under a deluge of hospitalisations unless far-reaching lockdown measures are not adopted and implemented immediately. This is vehemently opposed by capitalist governments of all stripes.

In Germany, the “traffic light” coalition of SPD, Liberal Democrats (FDP) and Greens continues unwaveringly with the “profits before lives” policy, which has already led to more than 115,000 deaths. This was underlined by Lauterbach’s speech in the Bundestag (federal parliament) on Thursday and his joint press appearance with Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), and Charité virologist Christian Drosten on Friday.

Although Lauterbach referred at both to the high number of victims and warned of the emergence of even more infectious variants, he made no announcements about effective measures to combat the pandemic. Essentially, his appearances consisted of the cynical assertion that Germany had “come through the pandemic better than other European countries” and the appeal to get vaccinated.

Vaccination is an important tool to fight the pandemic and can achieve significant success as part of a strategy to eradicate the virus. However, without all the other necessary public health measures—lockdowns, mass testing and contact tracing—it cannot have a significant impact in containing the pandemic. This has been further confirmed by the Omicron variant.

A strategy relying solely on vaccination conjures up the possibility of new, even more infectious variants emerging. Omicron already requires a third booster vaccination, and an adjustment of the vaccines are necessary. Once the virus has free rein, it is only a matter of time before another variant completely undermines vaccine protection.

Lauterbach’s claim that COVID-19 could become “an endemic virus with low mortality rates” essentially conforms with the strategy of “herd immunity,” which was openly advocated by the extreme right at the beginning of the pandemic. Meanwhile, it is being implemented by all governments in Europe—whether nominally left or right.

The Omicron variant demonstrates that the virus does not mutate in the direction of “milder” forms but, on the contrary, becomes even more infectious and resistant to vaccines from mutation to mutation. Given such widespread infectivity, a slightly lower mortality rate of the virus strain does not have a “mild” effect.

Lauterbach, Drosten and Wieler declared on Friday that it was premature to “let the virus run [free]” (Drosten), but in reality, the deliberate infection of the population has long been taking place. In total, almost 8 million people in Germany have been infected—about 3 million of them in the past two months since the traffic light coalition took over the reins of government.

The first measure taken by the new government parties was to end the designation of a “ national epidemic emergency ” and thus the legal basis for nationwide lockdowns. Lauterbach also voted for the repeal of this regulation and has since repeatedly spoken out against the closure of schools and businesses. The latest shortening of the quarantine period aims to maintain the flow of profits even under conditions of mass infection.

The Bundestag debate on Thursday and Friday once again clearly demonstrated that the traffic light coalition will walk over corpses to defend the interests of big business. Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) declared that the government was working to “return to the constitutionally mandated debt ceiling.” The goal was “to reduce the German debt ratio.” In other words, the government is preparing fierce social attacks.

At the same time, the military is to be massively upgraded. “We must continue to increase defence spending. We need this money to provide our troops with the necessary equipment,” said Social Democratic Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht. “Helicopters that don’t fly and guns that miss their target” had been “ridiculed for a long time.” She wanted to “modernise procurement as much as possible.”

Resistance is growing around the world to the aggressive policies of social attacks and militarism and the refusal of governments to take the necessary measures to protect the health and lives of their populations.

In the US, to protect their health and that of their families, tens of thousands of teachers and students are refusing to return to face-to-face classes. In France, a nationwide teachers’ strike paralysed the school system on Thursday. In Greece, students occupied more than 250 schools to express their demand for safety in the pandemic. In Germany, the protest of the student Yasmin from Hagen against unsafe face-to-face teaching shows the growing opposition to the pandemic policy.

In the fight against the pandemic, the trade unions stand on the other side of the barricades. In Germany, the GEW education union vehemently supports face-to-face teaching and even the new quarantine guidelines. According to the GEW, teachers should teach classes even when they are in quarantine.

Germany’s health care workers’ bonus—another insult to employees

Tino Jacobson & Markus Salzmann

The current discussion in Germany about a bonus for health care workers is a revolting spectacle. While companies have been handed tens of billions since the start of the pandemic, those in the medical wards who have risked their lives and health every day for more than two years get only pittances. And only a small proportion of health sector employees get even that.

Medical staff wearing protective clothing on Ward 43 of the Charité hospital in Berlin (Image: DOCDAYS Production)

The incoming government, the “traffic light coalition” of Social Democrats (SPD, red), the liberal Free Democrats (FPD, yellow) and Green Party made €1 billion available for bonus payments to employees in the health care sector, compensation for carrying the burden of the coronavirus pandemic, with a tax exemption of up to €3,000.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) recently explained the details. The “care bonus” is to be received “primarily by caregivers who were particularly burdened during the Corona pandemic.” He added, “Only that way can the special service of nursing staff be really appreciated.”

In other words, the majority of care workers are to go away empty-handed from the health care bonus on the grounds that they did not perform a “special service” and were not “particularly burdened.”

Lauterbach went on to explain that the bonus should only be received by nursing staff who had taken some personal risk in caring for patients. Only by this restriction could the bonus be set at an appreciable amount. Lauterbach left open both who should receive the bonus and what constitutes an “appreciable amount.”

Lauterbach’s statements immediately provoked sharp criticism from patient and nursing associations, as well as from representatives of other professional groups. Eugen Brysch, chairman of the German Patient Protection Foundation, said, “It would be a serious mistake to pay the bonus only to staff who have cared for COVID-19 patients. That divides the workforce.”

Alexander Eichholtz, from the staff council at Berlin’s Charité hospital, also told the taz newspaper that he is against paying the coronavirus bonus to only a certain section of the nursing staff. “We had areas that took on the burden of admitting extra patients to create capacity for the care of COVID patients,” Eichholtz said. “You can’t say there were nursing staff members who did outstanding work and the others didn’t,” he said. “Everybody got through this together.”

In fact, the so-called care bonus and the discussion about it show that, while delivering hollow phrases and empty promises, the government has nothing but contempt for those who have been paying the disastrous consequences of bad policies for two years.

It is the refusal of the traffic light coalition, and the grand coalition before that, to take measures to contain the pandemic, along with their active policy of mass infection, that has brought the entire health care system to the brink of collapse. Doctors, nurses and even cleaners and assistants in clinics and care facilities are completely overburdened with the flood of infected patients. Under the pressure of the pandemic, the effects of decades of cutbacks and profit squeezing in the health care sector are becoming apparent. Severe staff shortages and untenable working conditions define everyday life in clinics and care facilities.

In early December 2021, the BARMER nursing report published that the nursing shortage in Germany will be far worse than previously assumed. According to conservative estimates, there will be a shortage of more than 180,000 nursing staff in the next few years, because by then there will be more than 6 million people in need of care. It was previously assumed that there would be closer to 5 million people in need of care. “Politicians must take countermeasures quickly, otherwise nursing care will remain major construction on a weak foundation,” says BARMER CEO Prof. Dr. Christoph Straub.

Likewise underpaid and hopelessly overworked are employees in doctors’ offices, facilities for the disabled and those in rescue and driving services. Not to mention the enormous risk they take. According to a WHO (World Health Organization) study last October, about 180,000 care workers worldwide had died of COVID-19 up to that point in the pandemic.

With the explosive spread of the Omicron variant, the situation threatens to worsen dramatically in the coming weeks. Without tough lockdown measures, which the government vehemently opposes, there will be an immense wave of new infections and deaths. In its latest statement, the federal government’s COVID-19 Expert Panel warned of the collapse of the health care system.

The fact that the government has offered just €1 billion as a “bonus” under these conditions—and now wants to give it to only some of the nursing staff—underscores the class nature of official policy. While there are supposedly few resources for those who save lives, the economic and financial elites receive billions.

At the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, the government earmarked €600 billion to support large corporations as part of the so-called Corona emergency package. Just days ago, Economics Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) promised further tax breaks for companies worth billions.

The previous federal government had already repeatedly thrown health care workers to the dogs. In mid-2020, it decided to pay out a “Corona-bonus” only to employees in elderly care. Lauterbach criticized this decision at the time. “Those affected rightly feel it is unfair that the care bonus does not reach nursing,” he said. In the end, not even all employees in geriatric care received the ridiculously small “bonus.”

Now Lauterbach is organizing a similar insult. If one would divide the government’s proposed bonus among the 1.7 million persons employed in health care, everyone would get the measly sum of around €590. Meanwhile, nursing staff have been working at their limit for two years to keep people alive.

What’s more, health care workers have seen a drop in real wages during the pandemic. The collective wage agreement negotiated by the public service sector trade unions at the end of last year, under which many employees in public hospitals are covered, stipulates wage increases that are less than inflation, currently running at 5 percent.

Even the most justified demands for improvements in miserable working conditions are sabotaged by the governments in alliance with the unions. Only recently the service sector union Verdi, together with the Berlin Senate parties, strangled the 50-day strike at the state hospitals of Charité and Vivantes and cemented in catastrophic working conditions and poor wages.