IBM, 3M and hospitals join job cutting drive in US

Jerry White

International Business Machines announced Wednesday it would eliminate 3,900 positions, or 1.5 percent of its global workforce, joining the growing list of corporations announcing major job cuts. According to the website layoffs.fyi, some 200 companies in the tech sector alone have announced 59,448 job cuts since the beginning of 2023.

In this March 18, 2019, file photo, the logo for IBM appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. IBM announced it's laying off nearly 4,000 workers. [AP Photo/Richard Drew, File]

The announcement by the 110-year-old multinational, nicknamed “Big Blue,” came after a sharp fall in the company’s share price Wednesday despite having reported a net income of $3.3 billion for 2022, beating Wall Street expectations. Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh said the company, which reduced its global workforce by 22,000 between December 2021 and December 2022, would restrict hiring to “higher-growth areas.”

The new cuts focus on those workers who remain on the IBM payroll after the spinoff of the company’s Kyndryl technology infrastructure and Watson Health units. The latter unit used artificial intelligence to streamline decisions on medical treatments and established lucrative partnerships with leading cancer institutions, including Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City and the Cleveland Clinic. The ventures failed, however, and in 2022 IBM sold off Watson Health, which was described in a 2016 Fortune article as a “cautionary tale of hubris and hype.”

The IBM job cuts followed the announcement by Minnesota-based 3M that it was cutting 2,500 manufacturing jobs worldwide in response to a sharp decline in demand for its products. CEO Mike Roman called it a “necessary decision to align with adjusted production volumes” following a “slower-than-expected” end to the year and a bleak outlook for 2023, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

As a result of the abandonment of any mitigation measures against the ongoing spread of COVID-19, the company’s sales of disposable respirators are expected to fall to pre-pandemic levels this year, with an estimated loss of half a billion dollars in revenue.

Roman said other factors had pushed down sales, including “the company’s exit from Russia, the slow rebound from China’s COVID-19 lockdown; ‘aggressive’ inventory reductions by retailers; strained hospital budgets and health care labor shortages; and weak demand from industrial customers,” the Star-Tribune reported.

The company, which manufactures components for consumer electronics, has also been hit by the fall in demand for smartphones, TVs and tablets, and a continued shift from liquid crystal display (LCD) to organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens.

The tech sector, which eliminated 153,000 jobs in 2022, is still spearheading the jobs massacre in the new year. In addition to previously announced job cuts by Amazon (18,000), Google parent Alphabet (12,000), Facebook parent Meta (11,000), Microsoft (10,000), Salesforce (7,000) and Cloud Software Group (2,000), music streaming company Spotify announced Monday that it would cut 6 percent of its global workforce this year, leading to approximately 600 layoffs.

The long-standing speculative bubble that drove share values of Big Tech—and the personal fortunes of their billionaire owners—to astronomical levels, largely ended last year as the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates in a deliberate effort to drive up unemployment and beat back the demands of workers for pay raises needed to keep up with inflation.

In an unusually blunt article, Market Watch wrote that the mass layoffs have fundamentally transformed relations between corporate management and workers in the tech industry. “It is an employer’s market after years of employees having the benefit of working from home [and] more jobs with higher pay and perks,” laid off tech worker Angela Bateman told Market Watch. “Employers are reasserting their dominance—Disney, Google, Meta, Apple, Snap [are] asking workers to be on site three or four days a week.”

“The Great Resignation, in which tech workers jumped from one high-paying job to another, has turned into the Great Recommitment,” Market Watch continued, quoting a comment by the former CEO of Cisco Systems, John Chambers. Eric Schiffer, CEO of private equity firm Patriarch, said tech companies are involved in the “Muskification” of work staffs and “rethinking human-capital deployment,” referring to Elon Musk’s job-cutting spree since buying Twitter in October. “We are in a cycle of contraction after years of overstaffing,” Schiffer said, adding, “There is a lot more pain to come.”

The Fed’s policy of driving the US economy into a recession to fight workers’ wage demands is spreading to every sector of the working class. After announcing the indefinite layoff of 1,350 workers at its Belvidere, Illinois, assembly plant, carmaker Stellantis is moving ahead with further job cuts.

“Stellantis is indefinitely laying off close to 100 employees from their Dundee (Michigan) engine plant in the next couple months,” a worker informed the World Socialist Web Site this week. “They brought a new plant manager in and instead of sticking with the plan to temporarily lay off employees until their new line is running in 2024, they’re opting to indefinitely lay off up to 100 full-time employees and terminate 45 supplemental employees. I’m an employee at the Dundee engine plant and most likely one of the employees soon to be let go. With the Belvidere layoffs, most of these people will likely be out of a job permanently.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that “Employers are shedding temporary workers at a fast rate, a sign that broader job losses could be on the horizon.” In the last five months of 2022, the newspaper reported, “employers cut 110,800 temp workers, including 35,000 in December, the largest monthly drop since early 2021. Many economists view the sector as an early indicator of future labor market shifts.

“Temporary employment declined before some recent recessions and during economic slowdowns. Temporary workers, typically employed through staffing agencies, are easy for companies to bring on board—and let go.”

Particularly devastating is a new wave of layoffs in the health care industry, which will only worsen the conditions for nurses and other health care workers who have long faced dangerous levels of understaffing and now confront rising COVID-19 infections joined by other respiratory diseases.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is laying off 337 employees “to reduce costs amid widespread hospital financial challenges,” according to a US Department of Labor filing cited by the website Becker’s Hospital Review. The layoffs are spread across 14 sites in New York City and “span multiple departments and levels,” a spokesperson for the prominent cancer treatment center in New York City told Becker’s. Workers were informed of their termination on January 17, according to the filing.

Boston-based Tufts Medicine is cutting 240 positions as part of a plan to save $22 million annually through workforce reductions, according to the Boston Globe. “Like many health systems in the Commonwealth and across the country, Tufts Medicine has experienced significant financial challenges due to post pandemic capacity constraints, reliance on higher cost contract labor, especially in nursing, and delays in discharging patients for post-acute care,” said a statement from Tufts to Becker’s. “While we have diligently implemented cost-controlling measures across the system, we must now make the incredibly difficult decision to reduce our workforce,” the hospital continued.

Becker’s also reported recently announced job cuts at: St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in Cleveland (978); Chillicothe, Ohio-based Adena Health System (69); Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside in Jacksonville, Florida (68); Visalia, California-based Kaweah Health (94); Oklahoma City-based Integris Health (200); Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica (262); Las Vegas-based Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center (970); Pikeville Medical Center in Kentucky (112); Southern Illinois Healthcare (76); Traverse City, Michigan-based Munson Health (31); West Reading, Pennsylvania-based Tower Health (52); Fayetteville, North Carolina-based Cape Fear Valley Health (200); Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Sanford Health (undisclosed), Cleveland-based University Hospitals (443); Ascension St. Vincent Dunn in Bedford, Indiana (133).

Such cuts only demonstrate the incompatibility of social needs with the capitalist profit system.

Albert Einstein Global Fellowship 2023

Application Deadline: 15th May, 2023

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Germany

About the Award:  The purpose of the fellowship is to support those who, in addition to producing superb work in their area of specialization, are also open to other, interdisciplinary approaches – following the example set by Albert Einstein.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Candidates must be under 35 and hold a university degree in the humanities, in the social sciences, or in the natural sciences.

At the end of the fellowship period, the fellow will be expected to present his or her project in a public lecture at the Einstein Forum and at the Daimler and Benz Foundation. The Einstein Fellowship is not intended for applicants who wish to complete an academic study they have already begun.

Selection Criteria: A successful application must demonstrate the quality, originality, and feasibility of the proposed project, as well as the superior intellectual development of the applicant. It is not relevant whether the applicant has begun working toward, or currently holds, a PhD.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value and Duration of Fellowship: The fellowship includes living accommodations for five to six months in the garden cottage of Einstein`s own summerhouse in Caputh, Brandenburg, only a short distance away from the universities and academic institutions of Potsdam and Berlin. The fellow will receive a stipend of EUR 10,000 and reimbursement of travel expenses.

How to Apply: Applicants should be under 35 years of age and have a qualified university degree in a humanities, social sciences or natural sciences discipline. The applications for the year 2024 should contain a résumé and an exposé of the project planned as part of the scholarship (both in English) as well as two scientific references and should be submitted by May 15, 2023.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Government of Brunei Darussalam Scholarships 2023/2024

Application Deadline: 15th February 2023 not later than 1600 hrs (Brunei time).

Offered annually? Yes

To be Taken at (university): 

• Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD),
• Kolej Universiti Perguruan Ugama Seri Begawan
• Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA),
• Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) and
• Politeknik Brunei (PB).

Fields of Study: These scholarships are awarded for pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate degree program in various disciplines offered by the UBD, UNISSA and ITB at different levels.

About the Award: Applications are invited for Brunei Darussalam Government Scholarships 2023/2024 available for foreign students to study at University of Brunei Darussalam [UBD], Islam Sultan Sharif Ali University [UNISSA], Brunei Institute of Technology [ITB] and Politeknik  Brunei (PB)in Brunei. These scholarships are awarded to the students of ASEAN, OIC, Commonwealth Member Countries and others. Scholarship award is normally tenable for the duration of the programme.

Type: Undergraduate and postgraduate degrees

Eligibility:

• Applications are open to citizens of, but not limited to, ASEAN, Commonwealth and OIC member countries.
• Applicants should be nominated by their Government.
• Applicants must be certified to be medically fit to undertake the scholarship and to study in Brunei Darussalam, by a qualified medical practitioner who is registered with any Government Authority(ies) prior to arrival in Brunei Darussalam. Any and all costs incurred in obtaining this certification are to be borne by the applicant.
• Applicants must be, between the ages of 18-25 for Undergraduate and Diploma programmes and must not exceed the age of 35 for Postgraduate Master’s Degree programmes on the 31st July 2023.
• The award is NOT eligible to Brunei Darussalam Permanent Residents.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: The scholars are exempted from paying tuition fees and other appropriate compulsory fees as determined by the university for the duration of the programme.

One return economy class air-ticket for the most economically viable route to Brunei Darussalam will be determined by the Brunei Darussalam Government. No additional assistance will be provided towards other travel expenses.

Allowances payable will include:

• Monthly personal allowance of BND500.00
• Annual Book Allowance BND600.00
• Monthly food allowance of BND150.00
• Upon completion of the program, Baggage allowance to a maximum institution of BND250.00 to ASEAN region and BND500.00 to non ASEAN region.
• An accommodation at respective institution residential college is provided. If the scholar opts not to live in the provided accommodation, no additional allowance will be given in the lieu of board and transport.
• Outpatient medical and/or dental treatment is at any Brunei government hospitals, However an administrative charge is payable for each consultation with the government general practitioner or specialist.
• Should the scholar seek further medical or dental treatments at any private hospital or clinic, all expenses are to be borne by scholars themselves.

Duration of Scholarship: The scholarship award is normally tenable for the minimum period required to obtain the specific degree which is four years for a first degree with honours, one to two years for a master’s degree, three years for a doctoral degree at UBD, UNISSA and ITB, two and a half years for HND at ITB, three years for diploma of health sciences at UBD, all on a full time basis.

Eligible Countries: Students of ASEAN (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam), OIC (Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen), Commonwealth Member Countries ((Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Falkland Islands, Gambia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Montserrat, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, St Helena, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Virgin Islands (British) and Zambia) and others can apply for the scholarships.

How to Apply: 

Applications are strictly online via the BDGS Application Portal.

Applicants applying to Universiti Brunei Darussalam must also complete an online application at: https://apply.ubd.edu.bn/orbeon/uis-welcome/.

The following supporting documents should be uploaded on the application system:

• ​Recent passport size photograph;
• Certified true copies of academic qualifications and other supporting documents (i.e. certificates, testimonials, transcripts);
• Certified English translations of supporting documents must be submitted for documents that are not in English;
• Certified true copies of Birth Certificate and Passport;
• References and recommendations from referees. (C1 and C2)

Contact

All enquiries should be directed to queriesBDGS2023@mfa.gov.bn 
Documents and links

BDGS Application Form

Reference letters C1 and C2

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Strong Militaries, Weak Society: The Missing Story in the Global Firepower Ranking

Ramzy Baroud

Photograph Source: Sharon Mollerus – CC BY 2.0

The Global Firepower ranking was published on January 6. The annual report classifies the world’s strongest militaries based on over 60 factors, including size, spending and technological advancements.

The report, which placed the United States military on top, followed by Russia, China, India and the UK, raised more questions than answers, with some accusing GFP, the organization that compiled the report, of being biased, sloppy and highly politicized.

For example, while Russia maintained its former position as the second strongest military in the world, Ukraine jumped by seven spots, to occupy the 15th position. This raises questions: how did GFP possibly estimate the current capabilities of the Ukrainian military nearly a year after a devastating war that destroyed much of Kyiv’s original military hardware, especially when the Pentagon itself is still unable to track the massive shipments of weapons delivered to Ukraine since the start of the war?

A more pertinent set of questions must be asked: is this truly the time for chest-thumping about military strength and frivolous spending on hardware, an act that is ultimately aimed at generating profits, instilling fear and killing people?

Following the Paris Agreement on the environment of 2015, many governments appeared to have finally risen to the occasion, by collectively agreeing that climate change is, indeed, the greatest danger facing humankind. That promising moment did not last for long, however, as the US Administration of Donald Trump reneged on Washington’s earlier commitment, thus weakening the resolve of others to lower greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030.

Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck, shifting the world’s attention increasingly away from what suddenly seemed to be a less urgent climate crisis. For some, the new focus was mere survival; for others, the devastating economic consequences of the pandemic; for the poorest countries, it was both.

“The world’s poorest countries have been hardest hit, with women and children bearing a disproportionate burden,” according to a report published by Oxfam in March 2022. This is to be expected.

Even before the world managed to heal from its global ailment and its equally deadly variants, the Russia-Ukraine war began early last year. For Russia, it was, in part, a bold attempt at confronting the decade-long violence in the Donbas; for the West, it was a last stand to defend an unsustainable unipolar world order.

The resultant global competition is unprecedented since World War II, which killed up to 60 million people, shattered many economies, led to mass migrations, devastated the environment and redrew the map of many nations and, by extension, the world’s geopolitics.

And, just like that, we are back to the harsh realities of the ‘great games’ of yesteryears – and with it, the unbearable price tag of death toll, economic dissolution and the gradual, but at times, irreversible damage to the environment.

In times like this, the number of dead becomes, for some of us, daily statistics, devoid of emotions or meaning. Thus, tens of thousands of dead and many more wounded cease to become individuals with feelings, hopes and aspirations. They are mere fodder in a war that must be won at any price so that an old world order can be sustained a bit longer, or a new one is allowed to be born.

The millions of war refugees also become detached from their real value as people with rooted identities, a deep sense of belonging, and histories that span many generations. Their usefulness barely extends beyond the need to serve as one of the numerous facets of a propaganda war, where one side, and one side alone, deserves all the blame.

Rarely do we also reflect on the unintended – and sometimes intended – consequences of the war. While, ironically, Europe continues to pray for a warm winter to survive its ongoing energy crisis, others are too deep in their own crises resulting from the war.

Is all of this worth the price of blood and gore that is being paid on a daily basis? Warmongers often think so, and not because of some pathological urge for violence, but because of the astronomical profits often associated with long-term conflicts.

Global conflicts often lead to sharp increases in arms sales, worldwide, as every government wants to ensure, in the post-war world order, it will be able to command greater influence and respect. Those who have climbed in the GFP ranks, naturally, want to maintain their hard-earned status; those who fell in rank would do anything to rise again. The outcome is predictable: more weapons, more conflicts and more profits.

And, in the midst of it all, poverty, homelessness, social inequality, climate disasters, global responses to pandemics are all relegated to the bottom of our collective list of priorities, as if the once critical matters are of no particular urgency.

But what is the point of having a strong army, and a weak, unequal, unfree, impoverished, and pandemic-ravished society? This is certainly not a question for Global Firepower to answer, because change does not start through the ranking of strong or weak militaries but is spawned within society itself.

Biotechnology professor Greg Foley dies after bravely documenting impact of his COVID infection

Robert Stevens

Professor Greg Foley died on January 17 in the intensive care unit of Mater Hospital in Dublin, Ireland.

A husband and father of a 14-year-old son, Leo, Greg was just 59 when he passed away shortly after contracting COVID. He held the position of Associate Professor at the School of Biotechnology at Dublin City University (DCU). The Irish Times noted, “Until succumbing to Covid he lived a full and varied life. A gifted student, he was a former UCD Newman Scholar and also went to Cornell University in the US on a scholarship. An engineering lecturer at DCU’s school of biochemistry, he was an expert in designing membrane systems and in pedagogical approaches to learning.”

Greg Foley (1963-2023) [Photo: @gregfoley2002]

Grey Foley contributed over 40 scientific papers to peer reviewed international journals from 1987 to 2016, with 13 in the top-ranked journal, Journal of Membrane Science. He delivered contributions at numerous academic conferences. In 2013, Cambridge University Press published his book, Membrane Filtration - A Problem solving approach with MATLAB.

On Greg’s death, his nephew Simon Foley tweeted, “RIP @gregfoley2002, the strongest and sweetest man I have ever known. I learned so much from him. The lasting impact he will leave on those who knew him was immeasurable. 1963-2023”.

Paul Cahill, Head of the School of Biotechnology said in the DCU’s announcement of Greg’s passing, “Greg was an Associate Professor of Bioprocess Engineering in the School of Biotechnology, DCU. He was admitted into hospital with Covid just after the New Year and fought a courageous battle until the end.”

After contracting COVID in late December, Greg tweeted January 11, “Starting an indefinite period of sick leave because Covid has hit me like a ton of bricks… Immediate target to get out of the Mater in one piece.”

Greg had cystic fibrosis and received a double-lung transplant 20 years ago. After the donated organs eventually failed, he was on dialysis.

Greg’s wife Julie Dowsett told the Irish Times that COVID was “the straw that broke the camel’s back… Covid changed everything.” She explained, “For a long time, he never left home. He did lectures from his bed in dialysis. Eventually, we went back into work due to ‘cabin fever’ but it had taken so much out of him.”

On January 12, just days before his death, Greg made the brave decision to chronicle his illness as a vulnerable patient on Twitter as a warning to others, and to oppose those, including in academia, who downplayed the severity of COVID. His Twitter postings over the years of the pandemic included a number opposing anti-vaxxers and others seeking to minimise the danger of COVID infection.

The January 12 series of 10 tweets went viral, viewed over 1.4 million times.

Greg’s tweets began, “Short thread on Covid and respiratory support. There are numerous grifters, and serious academics, out there who seem to think if the fatality stats are not that bad, then Covid is no big deal.”

He added, “So let's look at one aspect of Covid - the need for respiratory support. Many of the immunosuppressed who catch Covid will need this and there are quite a lot of us and we tend to have multiple morbidities.”

The tweets included a photo of Greg as he receives oxygen through a nasal canula, as his situation worsened. Another photo showed Greg receiving oxygen via CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure). Under CPAP a patient receives oxygen via the nose and mouth. He wrote, “This can be challenging if you're claustrophobic because the mask is very very tight and the air is forced in under pressure. It really requires you to settle in to it. But not easy.”

His next tweet read, “While on CPAP the bridge of your nose will get very sore and your mouth very dry but what can you do? I do two or three hours at a time. But there are occasions when I just want to rip it off.”

In one of his final tweets, he explained the impact of this and offered advice to others who may be undergoing this ordeal.

“Through these treatments you will be turned, washed and injected with drugs and all these minor activities send your o2 Sat's [oxygen saturation] into decline and you can experience real moments of panic. Here you need to communicate with your nurse and make sure he/she moves at a pace that suits.”

His final two tweets read, “If none of that works, off you go to ICU for intubation where you will be sedated,” and “The grifters like @fatemperor ignore all this. Not an ounce of empathy.”

The tweets elicited a powerful response, with Simon Foley writing, “My wonderful uncle highlighting the importance of taking COVID seriously.”

After Greg’s final tweet, one reply read, “That’s so desperately sad. Thank you for doing this - educating to the end.”

Other responses included:

• “Those last words shall not be written in vain. Rest in Peace.”
• “Rest in Peace, Professor Foley. Those with blood on their hands will face a reckoning some day.”
• “RIP Greg Foley and thank you for using your last time on earth to inform people so directly what it is like to die from COVID-19.”
• “What an insight into Greg's experience and that of others. No-one, least of all supposed experts, should minimise covid. RIP Greg Foley.”
• “His honest and heartbreaking tweet should be broadcasted on all media to show the world the suffering from this horrible #COVID19 virus. My deepest condolences to his family. RIP Greg Foley”
• “The rich and the politicians get the best of care while we get this.”

Dr. Claire Taylor, a neuroscientist with special interest in Long Covid, responded to Greg’s tweets on January 20, with the message, “I’m so sorry. Rest in peace. We will keep fighting for the medical vulnerable.”

Dr. Taylor (@drclairetaylor) is a leading pioneer in the treatment of Long Covid and runs a clinic at Tayside Complete Health in Dundee for patients with Long Covid, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS).

According to Worldometers, Ireland has recorded 8,432 deaths during the pandemic, a substantial number in a country with a population of just over 5 million. Just short of 1.7 million people have been officially infected.

The Irish Times reported January 19, “There were 129 deaths of people with Covid in October, 116 in November and 85 in December.

“There were 410 admissions of patients with Covid to intensive care last year; 170 of these patients died and 233 were discharged alive. Some 88 of these patients are listed as being immunodeficient. One patient was in intensive care for 119 days before dying.”

Fiji’s military head threatens newly installed government

John Braddock

Just over a month after general elections produced a fragile new government in Fiji, the head of the Pacific country’s military has openly warned Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka not to proceed too quickly with “sweeping changes.”

Fiji Army Major General Jone Kalouniwai [Photo: Jone Kalouniwai Logavatu @Joneh20Lord]

On January 17, Major General Jone Kalouniwai visited Rabuka and released an extraordinary media statement declaring that the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) had “quietly observed with growing concern… the ambition and speed of the government… the RFMF believes that trying and failing to democratise in adverse circumstances has the potential to bring about fateful, long-term national security consequences.”

Kalouniwai’s statement underlined Section 131 of the 2013 Constitution which gives the RFMF commander unrestrained powers to ensure the “safety and security of the country.” The constitution was drawn up under the regime of former coup leader and prime minister Frank Bainimarama.

While Kalouniwai had promised during the elections that he would “respect” the process and outcome, the statement was a blunt assertion that the RFMF is still in charge.

The commander claimed that the government is implementing far-reaching changes by “creating shortcuts that circumvent the relevant processes and protections that protect the integrity of the law and the Constitution.” The vague charges echoed a barrage of recent statements by defeated prime minister Bainimarama, now opposition leader, claiming that Rabuka was behaving in defiance of the Constitution.

December’s election resulted in a hung parliament and the removal of Bainimarama who had ruled the island country with a population of 930,000 since his 2006 coup. Rabuka, another former coup leader and ex-prime minister, took office as head of a three-party coalition including his People’s Alliance Party (PAP), the National Federation Party (NFP) and the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), a minority party holding the balance of power with just three MPs.

Kalouniwai’s media release prompted widespread alarm, raising fears of yet another coup. The Fiji Times reported that a “wave of concern and emotions swept through the nation.” Rabuka quickly downplayed the extraordinary intervention, saying people should “relax” and he had every confidence in the leadership of the RFMF, “the command and the members of the Force.” “[People] should not be worried,” he declared.

Kalouniwai was summoned to meet with Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua. Going into the meeting, the commander said “no” when journalists asked if he had any plans to seize power.

Asked what had triggered the dispute, Tikoduadua said Kalouniwai was concerned that the government’s plan to ensure sacked Fiji Airways and Air Terminal Services staff can return to work might undermine court orders. He also suggested the commander was worried by the government’s plan to reshuffle the top echelons of the diplomatic corps.

Tikoduadua said he had raised “concerns” with the commander about his statement, but the two had reached an understanding. Tikoduadua also said the commander had given him assurances that he supported the government and would not make any further public statements criticising its actions. “We have agreed on a new beginning, and I would like to reassure people in Fiji and the region that our relationship is good,” he told journalists.

Immediately on taking office Tikoduadua had said his main priority was to bring back the “people’s confidence” in Fiji’s defence institutions. Listing the RFMF, Police Force, Fiji Corrections Service and Immigration Department, he declared: “Confidence building and trust by the people in these institutions that are established for them—that is very important.”

The confrontation may have been sparked by a comment to the Fiji Sunby Attorney General Siromi Turaga who said the government would change the constitution by “going around” the requirements set down in the document. Changing the constitution is virtually impossible as any amendment requires 75 percent support of MPs and 75 percent of registered voters in a referendum.

The episode highlights the fact that the possibility of a coup remains. Fiji’s ruling elite is sharply divided. The hung parliament and unstable coalition government was the product of another sham election between two parties led by former military strongmen, carried out under conditions of tight media censorship, heavy political restrictions and accusations of government intimidation.

Rabuka has already reversed some of Bainimarama’s key measures and replaced personnel in the civil service seen as his political appointees. His first measure was to reinstate the former head of the University of the South Pacific, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who had been summarily expelled from the country after exposing corruption at the institution involving backers of Bainimarama’s FijiFirst Party.

Among several swirling scandals, Bainimarama’s former attorney general and FijiFirst general secretary, Aiyaz Sayed-Khan, was called in for questioning by police on Monday.He flew out of the country on Christmas Day and soon after his departure the Criminal Investigations Department issued a border alert identifying him as a “person of interest” for allegedly “inciting communal antagonism.”

The new government appears to be reviving contentious communalist politics, aimed at cementing the position of the ethnic iTaukei Fijian elite at the expense of Indo-Fijians. High on the list is the re-establishment of the privileged Great Council of Chiefs. That body was shut down in 2012 by Bainimarama, who accused it of exacerbating racial divisions “to the detriment of Fiji’s pursuit of a common and equal citizenry.”

There is also the foreshadowed release of George Speight, who led a coup in 2000, and some of his co-conspirators who remain behind bars. That coup saw the Labour-led government of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry held at gunpoint for nearly two months. Speight spewed racist denunciations of Chaudhry, Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister, and of ethnic Indians, who comprise nearly half of the country’s population.

Bainimarama, who has pointedly refused to move out of the prime minister’s official residence, remains an ominous figure. After grudgingly conceding defeat, he insisted that his successors remained bound by his 2013 constitution, including observing Section 131.  He has since called on office-holders, including police commissioner and ex-coup plotter Sitiveni Qiliho, to reject the government’s call for their resignations.

Amid the escalating tensions, the Rabuka government, like those internationally, faces the task of imposing the dictates of international finance capital, with even greater austerity measures against the working class and rural poor. Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica has already announced an “independent audit” of the government’s books, with “good discipline” required “to make sure we don’t waste money.”

The persistent threats of military intervention, dictatorship and racialist attacks are bound up with the ruling elite’s fear of growing anger in the working class. Fiji’s workers are suffering skyrocketing inflation, the destruction of thousands of jobs, and fractured supply chains for food, energy and basic goods. The social catastrophe has been exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The poverty rate was nearly 30 percent in 2020, but half the population is struggling to put food on the table. After three years of economic decline, total debt is 88.6 percent of GDP.

Anticipating the emergence of social struggles, Rabuka has moved to bring the trade unions back into the fold after years of anti-democratic suppression under Bainimarama. Rabuka declared last week that people are now free to protest “if they are organised into unions or associations provided they go through the proper process.”

The trade unions have responded accordingly. Speaking at a welcome ceremony for Rabuka at the Fiji Federation of Teachers headquarters on January 20, teacher union president Muniappa Goundar said the coalition government was a “symbol of unity for our country,” with a leader who “is committed and will engage with us.” “I can assure you of our allegiance,” said Goundar.

The Rabuka administration is counting on the unions to act as a police force against any eruption of the working class against the austerity policies of the government and the entire political establishment. Should this strategy fail to contain widespread popular anger, the army stands waiting in the wings.

Ford cuts more than 3,200 jobs in Cologne, Germany

Dietmar Gaisenkersting

At three factory meetings on Monday, Benjamin Gruschka, chairman of Ford’s Cologne and General Works Councils, announced that the corporation was eliminating at least 3,200 jobs at its Cologne plants alone.

Just over two years ago, almost 6,000 jobs were cut in Cologne, and just months ago, in June 2022, the company decided to close its production plant in Saarlouis, eliminating 4,600 jobs.

Production of the Ford Fiesta in Cologne [Photo by GillyBerlin / flickr / CC BY 2.0]

Now, it is the John Andrews Development Centre in Cologne Merkenich that will be the most affected. Gruschka explained that 65 percent of research development in Europe was to be cut. Of the 3,800 jobs in Merkenich, up to 2,500 are to go. While European passenger cars are designed and developed there, the development centre in Dunton, UK is responsible for light commercial vehicles.

Merkenich is the birthplace of classic models such as the Taurus, Sierra, Scorpio, Mondeo, Fiesta and Focus. Now, production of the last two of these is coming to an end, the Fiesta in Cologne in the summer of 2023, and the Focus in Saarlouis in 2025. Ford plans to develop electric models exclusively in the USA.

The research centre in Aachen is also under discussion, where some 200 employees are currently involved mainly in the development of combustion engines. However, the cutbacks also apply to the European spare parts centre, which is also located in Merkenich. There, 650 workers are employed on a huge site next to the development centre, supplying spare parts to more than 100 countries.

According to the works council, about one in five of the 3,300 employees in administration will have to give up his or her job, which will mean around 700 workers in Cologne alone.

Gruschka emphasized that the need to make savings also applied to production. The engine plant, transmission plant and forge were also “under pressure,” he said.

In the invitation to the factory meetings, the works council wrote that the situation was coming to a head, that it was “about you and about all of us.” Meanwhile, the media had reported that massive job cuts were imminent.

For this reason, almost all employees came to the two planned extraordinary factory meetings at the plant in Cologne-Niehl, with workers from Merkenich coming in buses. As no more than 5,000 were allowed into the plant’s W Hall for security reasons, a third meeting was called straight away.

Workers reported to the WSWS that the assembled staff were shocked and stunned when Gruschka told them the bad news. Many reacted angrily. Boos and whistles accompanied the speech of Ford’s German boss, Martin Sander, who did not want to provide any figures but made general references to the difficult conditions in the automotive industry.

While Sander’s message was not concrete in terms of figures, it was definitive in substance. Ford must “continue to make massive cost savings,” he declared, in other words, massively slash jobs. Exactly how many and where, he said, he would coordinate with the works council over the next two to three months. The workforce would then be informed in March.

Until then, the company said in a written statement, it would not comment on “current speculation about a possible restructuring at Ford in Europe.” However, the complete switch to electric vehicles would bring “significant changes.”

Although Gruschka complained that it was he, and not Sander, who had to comment on the plans, no one should be misled by this well-rehearsed ritual. In the coming weeks and months, Sander and Ford’s top management will be working with the Central Works Council--and the European Central Works Council, headed by Katharina von Hebel--to plan the cuts not only in Germany, but at all European sites.

Regardless of how the expected “slugfest” between the various European works councils turns out, one thing is already certain: each works council will put management’s cutback plans into practice. They have already taken on this task in recent years, and will continue to do so in the future. They vehemently reject a joint struggle of the European and international Ford workforce to defend jobs, since such a fight would seriously jeopardize the lucrative relationship between the works council representatives and the corporation.

Gruschka stressed at the factory meeting that his goal was to prevent “compulsory redundancies” until 2032. In other words, he has already agreed to the cutbacks and will try to push them through via severance deals, early retirement programs and dead-end jobs at so-called “transfer companies,” as he has done in recent years.

The last major round of job cuts was not that long ago. In March 2019, Ford announced plans to cut 25,000 jobs worldwide, including 12,000 in Europe and more than 5,000 in Germany. Plants were closed in Brazil, France and Wales, and as many as four in Russia. Plants in India were also closed or sold off. Ford also eliminated several thousand administrative jobs in the US last year.

In Germany, the works council, then still under Martin Hennig, organized the jobs destruction primarily through severance programs. In the end, in 2020, almost 6,000 jobs were destroyed in Germany alone, mainly in Cologne and Saarlouis. In 2018-2019, more than 18,000 people were still working at Ford in Cologne and around 6,500 in Saarlouis.

Now, 3,200 to 4,000 more of the remaining 14,000 Cologne employees are to lose their jobs. In Saarlouis, where 4,600 jobs still remain, all but 500-700 are threatened.

At the behest of the European unions and their works council representatives, Ford’s Saarlouis plant was forced by into a bidding war with the plant in Almussafes (Valencia), Spain. The general works council under Gruschka offered wage cuts of 18 percent for all 22,000 Ford employees in Germany as an inducement for Ford to close the plant in Valencia.

Now the Saarlouis plant is to be closed by the summer of 2025 at the latest, while 700 workers will lose their jobs in Valencia. The works council in Saarlouis, led by Markus Thal, is shackling the workforce, preventing the defence of the plant and facilitating its liquidation.

In this way, the works council representatives are pushing through the job cuts and wage reductions demanded by the company. They always claim this is to “secure” production sites, but, in reality, such divisive and parochial politics invite the corporation to make ever greater attacks.

NATO to send over 100 heavy tanks against Russia

Andre Damon

In the most dangerous escalation of the war between NATO and Russia to date, the United States will provide 50 M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine, as part of a deployment of NATO tanks that could number in the hundreds, according to reports in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Germany also plans to announce that it will send over a dozen Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, paving the way for multiple NATO countries, including Poland and the Baltic states, to send their own German-made main battle tanks into combat. Ukrainian officials have suggested that over 100 Leopard 2 tanks will be sent by the NATO countries.

Abrams battle tanks stand on rail cars in Lithuania, near the Russian border, in 2019. [AP Photo]

These measures make it clear that the war is not merely a proxy war, but an open conflict between NATO and Russia, threatening incalculable consequences for humanity.

The Abrams and Leopard 2, which are twice the weight of the Sherman and T34 battle tanks of World War II, are the successor to Nazi Germany’s Tiger heavy tanks that were thrown against the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. 

Altogether, the Telegraph estimated that the US and its allies are “poised to send nearly 200 battle tanks to Ukraine.”

These announcements follow the deployment, according to the Pentagon, of “about 900 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine,” including the Bradley, Stryker, and Marder infantry fighting vehicles.

Poland formally announced that it intends to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine on Tuesday. Formal announcements by the United States and Germany that they will send their own tanks are expected Wednesday.

In addition, the New York Times reported plans by the Pentagon to increase the production of artillery shells five-fold. The report cited documents from the US army calling for “the most aggressive modernization effort in nearly 40 years.”

As a result of the expansion, the US army plans to produce 90,000 artillery shells per month, up from 14,000, through the production of new factories and logistics hubs throughout the country.

The announcements follow the declaration by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley that the NATO-backed Ukrainian proxy force would “go on the offensive” in the coming period.

Milley defined the US’s goal as being to “liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine” and to “liberate the occupied areas.”

Amid the announcements, the actual goals of the US military are coming into clearer view. Washington Post reporter Max Boot, who accompanied Austin to Ramstein Air Base, reported that “Austin told me that a ‘realistic goal for this year’ would be for the Ukrainians to cut the ‘land bridge’ between Crimea and Russia that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces occupied last year.”

The realization of this military aim would require a blitzkrieg combined-arms style offensive, in which Russian forces would be pulverized and a string of cities in Southern Ukraine captured, according to US war planners quoted by the New York Times.

“Ukraine could use Bradleys to move forces down major roads, such as the M14, which connects Kherson, Melitopol and Mariupol,” said Seth G. Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to the Times.

The massive commitment of tanks and armored vehicles pledged by the NATO powers in recent weeks would be just a down payment on the level of direct NATO involvement required to achieve the United States’ sweeping war aims.

In perhaps the most troubling element of the reporting that took place Tuesday, the Washington Post concluded its report on the dispatch of Abrams tanks by noting the earlier statement by the Pentagon: 

A senior U.S. defense official … said that sending even one Abrams was out of the question. It is hard for the United States to maintain the Abrams tanks and their sophisticated turbine engine, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

For the Ukrainians, the official said, it would be impossible.

Nothing has changed about the logistical requirements of fielding the M1 Abrams tank. If it is “impossible” for the Ukrainian military to operate this weapon, the dispatch of the M1 Abrams to Ukraine is merely a stepping stone to direct NATO involvement in the conflict. As the WSWS wrote following the Ramstein summit:

As the immense challenges posed by the new American strategy emerge in the coming months, and as the death toll among Ukrainian troops rises, the demand will inevitably be made for the direct deployment of NATO troops in the war. This would mean that American and Russian soldiers would be shooting at each other in the first general engagement between nuclear-armed states in history.

With apt timing, on Tuesday the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its “Doomsday Clock” forward, declaring, “The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.”

In a testament to the immense danger of the situation, Boot, in his account of Austin’s trip to Ramstein Air Base, wrote: “The defense secretary and his staff left Washington early on Wednesday morning aboard an Air Force E-4B, a.k.a. the ‘doomsday plane,’ a variant of the Boeing 747 built in 1973 to allow the president to run the U.S. government in the event of nuclear war.”