UK anti-strike legislation goes to third reading in parliament

Robert Stevens

Britain’s new anti-strike laws are expected to be on the statute books by the summer. They are some of the most draconian in the world.

The next vote on the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill takes place on January 30, before it proceeds to the House of Lords. The Bill will allow the government to impose Minimum Service Levels (MSLs) on six sectors of the workforce, public and private, covering key industries. The first to be brought under the legislation are the ambulance, fire/rescue and rail services. The legislation will then be imposed on the health and education services, border security and nuclear decommissioning.

Striking ambulance service workers in Sheffield, January 23, 2023 [Photo: WSWS]

This would mean a significant proportion of workers (around 20 percent) across vital sections of the economy would have to keep working during industrial action.

The law is aimed at preventing millions of workers from taking effective strike action. It will cover all the countries of the United Kingdom except Northern Ireland.

The legislation will initially cover over 130,000 workers. But it will then be vastly extended to cover well over 5 million workers. These are the 2.5 million employees in the education sector and around 2.5 million in health, and 650,000 plus workers in transport, including 310,000 in sectors linked to the mass transit of passengers.

The 2016 Trade Union Act was the first UK legislation to define these sectors as “important public services”, adding “rescue” to “fire services” and expanding the definition of “education services” to include “education of those aged under 17”. It imposed ballot thresholds for strikes and more onerous ones for those in key industries.

At the time, the Labour Party only quibbled over wording, tabling a defeated amendment calling for the 40 percent ballot turnout threshold to apply only to those who work in “essential services” as defined by the International Labor Organisation, that states “the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population”.

Under the new legislation, a set percentage of services determined by the government must be allowed to function during strikes. Workers would be named and instructed to work by companies, effectively conscripted, even after having voted to strike in a legal ballot. Currently only police officers, members of the armed forces and some prison officers are prohibited from striking.

Failure by workers and trade unions to comply with the laws will have drastic implications.

The Bill ends unfair dismissal protections enshrined in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which the House of Commons library notes, “gives protection to employees against dismissal because of taking part in industrial action, by making any such dismissal automatically unfair, providing the industrial action they take part in is protected (meaning the union has complied with all legal requirements).”

An amendment in the new bill “would remove this protection from any employee who takes part in a strike contrary to a valid work notice from an employer that has identified and requested that employee to work.”

The new law not only allows a worker defying an instruction to work to be fired. It allows the mass firing of all workers involved in strike action if a union is deemed not to have taken reasonable steps to ensure the specified workers comply with work notices.

The House of Commons briefing explains, “As acts to induce workers to take part in strikes would no longer be protected against tort action under section 219 if the union ‘fails to take reasonable steps’ under new section 234E(b), any workers taking part in such strikes would lose their protection from dismissal under section 238A, even if they personally complied with the work notices.”

Striking teachers at Knightswood school, Glasgow, January 2023 [Photo: WSWS]

Bringing millions of workers under the legislation is central to the government’s plans to clampdown on the strike wave now involving millions of workers in education and the National Health Service. On January 30, a ballot for industrial action by more than 33,000 members of the Fire Brigades Union will close, with a vote to strike expected. The government has ensured minimum service regulations can be used against any strike taking place from the day after the legislation is enacted even if the relevant strike ballot took place before the Bill was passed.

The Labour Party pledged to vote against the Act, knowing that its passage is a formality given the Tories’ substantial parliamentary majority. However, its main reason for opposing the Bill is because it is happy with the existing raft of anti-strike legislation passed by Margaret Thatcher, which the 1997-2010 Blair-Brown government maintained in its entirety despite Labour’s enormous majority.

More fundamentally, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer argues that the trade unions must be relied on to repress strikes by building a corporatist arrangement in which the union bureaucracy works closely together with big business and the government.

Opposing the bill, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner claimed that a major problem with the legislation is that, in France and Spain, where such laws are in force, they “lose vastly more strike days than Britain. Has the transport minister taken any time at all to speak to their governments or trade unions to learn any real lessons from them?”

The trade unions have declared they will take only legal action in opposition to the Bill, with neither the Trades Union Congress (TUC) nor any of its 48 affiliated unions organising industrial action to fight it. TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak pledged the trade unions’ compliance with its provisions once passed, while waiting on a future Labour government to repeal it.

Trades Union Congress leader designate Paul Nowak speaking at the CWU rally [Photo: WSWS]

The unions are appealing not only to Labour MPs to oppose the Bill, but to Tory MPs as well, from the very ruling party pushing it through.

In seeking to legitimise its plans, the government argued, “Even the International Labour Organization—the guardian of workers’ rights around the world to which the TUC itself subscribes—says that minimum service levels are a proportionate way of balancing the right to strike with the need to protect the wider public.”

Many restrictions on strikes, including minimum services requirements, are indeed authorised by the ILO—testament to the rotten character of the trade union bureaucracy the world over and the way it disarms workers in the face of a brutal class war offensive being waged by the ruling class internationally.

In a perspective article last December, the World Socialist Web Site warned of the implications of the Bill then being drafted by the government, and its stated intention to use the armed forces to against the growing strike movement. We noted, “Minimum services legislation is already widely used across Europe and has spearheaded a turn to direct state repression to enforce brutal austerity ever since the 2008 global financial meltdown.”

The House of Commons briefing gives numerous examples of how such authoritarian measures are relied on by the ruling elite and complied with by the union bureaucracy.

It notes that in Spain, “On 23 September 2010, for the first time a collective agreement was concluded between the [Socialist Party] Government and the two main trade unions to organise minimum service provision during general strike action that was due to take place six days later. The agreement mainly covered the transport sector, as negotiations in all other sectors had failed.”

Whatever lie Starmer, Rayner and company tells now, the likelihood is that a Labour government would discover the merits of maintaining MSLs once in office, just as its Blairite predecessors kept the last round of Tory anti-strike laws in place.

Outbreak of avian flu has killed more than 100 million birds and poses a serious threat of becoming a human pandemic

Benjamin Mateus

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 21 million people, has elevated an existential question into concrete immediacy. Following COVID-19, when will the next pandemic of a highly lethal nature strike again?

A chicken farm [Photo by Fot. Konrad Łoziński / CC BY 2.0]

The first ever extensive global monkeypox outbreak affected multiple countries across nearly every continent. It felt like the world had dodged a bullet when cases began to subside. As well, the outbreak of the extremely deadly Ebola Sudan virus in Uganda threatened the region and beyond as it spread into the densely populated capital of Kampala. Such potential crises are appearing far more frequently in recent years, making new pandemics a risk to the world’s population which cannot be ignored.

The first new pandemic after COVID-19, which is still continuing to infect billions of people, may well be already in plain sight, but overlooked or dismissed for the most part by most news outlets and given no political attention.

The largest recorded outbreak of a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been killing millions of birds since October 2021. From disease and related culling, in all more than 140 million poultry, including 60 million in North America and 48 million in Europe, have been killed, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH).

A genetic analysis of the H5N1 influenza virus in the current avian pandemic has located it in a clade (virus family) circulating among poultry and wild birds across multiple continents, but most closely related to strains among European seabirds.

The first cases in North America were detected in December 2021 in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, on a bird farm. In February 2022, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported that the death of black vultures at the state’s Hontoon Island State Park was caused by the same virus.

Over the next several months, the virus had spread into numerous wild bird species, commercial poultry, as well as mammals, including grizzly bears, red foxes, coyotes, seals and dolphins, as well as a human case confirmed on April 27 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an incarcerated individual in Colorado who had been involved in culling infected poultry.

In February 2022, the Wall Street Journal noted that the avian flu had affected a chicken farm in Fulton, Kentucky, and a Tyson Foods chicken processing farmhouse, raising concerns about a repeat of the last major bird flu calamity in 2015.

Egg prices have risen almost 60 percent by December, compared to the previous year, with egg inventories down 29 percent. At present, Nebraska has seen 6.7 million poultry deaths, up from 4.8 million in the 2015 outbreak. According to the Journal, Colorado has lost 90 percent of its egg-laying hens.

As disastrous as the outbreak has been to the bird population, the fear remains that the virus will learn to efficiently use a human host to transmit itself. Until now, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2003 and March 2022, there have been only 864 cases of H5N1 in humans across 18 countries worldwide. The infection in the US was the first time for this country.

The fatality rate, however, is dangerously high with 456 deaths among the 864 cases, giving a 53 percent chance of dying if infected. Thus far, cases have remained sporadic, in small clusters, involving exposure to infected poultry or contaminated environments.

But there is growing concern among scientists that a more virulently infective form of the virus could suddenly evolve and spread rapidly into the human population as a lethal airborne pathogen. Wend Blay Puryear, a molecular virologist at Tufts University, told the Guardian, “There is concern about it having pandemic potential. Before COVID was on anybody’s radar, this was the one that we were all watching closely.”

As a recent report in Think Global Health noted, “Each time one species transmits the virus to another, it constitutes a spillover event. These myriad spillovers—among wild bird species, from wild birds to domestic birds, across birds to mammals, and from animals to humans—raise serious concerns about the potential for further adaptation and evolution of this influenza lineage and the continued risk associated with avian migration. Understanding which species among these many hosts may be helping the virus adapt is crucial for targeted surveillance and mitigation efforts.”

The last pandemic to cause such a significant devastation among birds began in December 2014, when more than 50 million birds died, costing farmers over $1.6 billion. However, by the summer of 2015, the virus suddenly vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Migratory birds returning to Canada were found to be virus-free.

However, in the present instance, the outbreak was sustained throughout the summer and has surged again this winter. Active surveillance has identified more than 3,300 infected birds across 100 species, an immense scale of transmission compared to the outbreak in 2014–2015 when fewer than 100 wild birds tested positive for H5N1.

A veterinarian with Colorado’s agricultural department, Maggie Baldwin, told the Journal, “One of the challenges is that we don’t know why it [the virus] has been able to thrive so long. We’re almost a full year into this outbreak and it is ongoing.”

Mike Tincher, rehabilitation coordinator for Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, said, “There is no historical context for this. It’s like when COVID hit for humans … We’ve never seen this before. And it’s just not slowing down.”

As the US Department of Agriculture recently noted, “Wild birds can be infected with HPAI and show no signs of illness. They can carry the disease to new areas when migrating, potentially exposing domesticated poultry to the virus.” Such asymptomatic spread of the virus poses an exceptional challenge for the international community unless surveillance systems are bolstered across animal and human sectors.

A recent report by Eurosurveillance has garnered much attention on social media. It describes the outbreak of HPAI H5N1 among intensively farmed minks in the Galicia region in northwest Spain in October 2022. Oxford University professor of evolution and genomics Aris Katzourakis tweeted, “[I] don’t understand how mink farming can be defended. Viruses move easily between mink and humans, and this could play a big role in the emergence of future pandemics.”

When the initial outbreak occurred, veterinarians had assumed that the disease was caused by SARS-CoV-2, as it had previously struck mink farms in Denmark in November 2020. However, laboratory testing revealed the culprit was the HPAI H5N1. More than 52,000 minks at the farm had to be culled.

As the Eurosurveillance report noted, the minks were kept in open barns and fed raw fish and poultry byproducts sourced from the same region. Their detailed analysis found the virus was similar to the virus circulating among birds across multiple continents.

A Science article published this week on the bird flu outbreak at the Spanish mink farm states, “The virus is not known to spread well between mammals; people almost always catch it from infected birds, not one another. But now, H5N1 appears to have spread through a densely packed mammalian population and gained at least one mutation that favors mammal-to-mammal spread. Virologists warn that H5N1, now rampaging through birds around the world, could invade other mink farms and become still more transmissible.”

Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College of London, warned, “This is incredibly concerning. This is a clear mechanism for an H5 pandemic to start.”

The mutation in question is uncommon and only seen once before, in a European polecat, according to CIDRAP. The mutation could have spontaneously evolved among mink in a convergent evolutionary pathway. The new variant, labeled 2.3.4.4b, emerged in Europe in late 2020 and became predominant in wild birds. It is believed to have originated in Korea through a process of re-assortment between the H5N1 and the clade 2.3.4.4b H5N8.

Although it appears the mutation may be less pathogenic for humans, about six people have thus far caught the virus and one has died. It also appears to be more adapted to all birds as Richard Webby, an influenza researcher, noted. It is worrisome that in this reappearance of H5N1, numerous mammalian species have become infected.

Thomas Mettenleiter, head of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, speaking to Science on the lower pathogenicity (lethality) of the new strain in humans, explained, “Of course that can be bad news, too, because it might make it easier for the virus to start spreading under the radar, giving it more opportunity to evolve.”

Surging inflation intensifies cost-of-living crisis in Australia

Mike Head

Official Consumer Price Index (CPI) statistics released in Australia this week show that inflation is accelerating, rather than “peaking,” on top of staggering price rises over the past year for food, petrol and other essentials, hitting working-class households by far the hardest.

According to the headline CPI figure, inflation jumped to a 33-year annual high of 7.8 percent in the December quarter of 2022, up from 7.3 percent in the September quarter. The index for “non-discretionary” spending rose even more sharply, by 8.4 percent.

Striking nurse at Sydney rally on March 31, 2022. [Photo: WSWS]

Working-class households are experiencing enormous hardship, and the greatest cut to living standards since World War II, as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Labor government, assisted by the trade union bureaucrats, insist that real wages must continue to fall.

As is happening worldwide, the price surge is led by the most basic items that people need to live. Dairy and related products were up 4 percent during the last quarter of 2022 and 14.9 percent over the year. Bread and cereal product prices climbed by 3.4 percent in the three months to be up more than 12.2 percent in the year. Fruit and vegetables fell by 7.3 percent in the December quarter, but were still up by 8.5 percent over the year.

Non-durable items—household consumables like toiletries and detergents—climbed at 2.3 percent during the quarter, and at an annual pace of 12 percent. Automotive fuel prices increased by a little over 2 percent in the three months to December, but were 13.2 percent higher than at the end of 2021.

Housing costs rose by 10.7 percent over the year. That included rents, which lifted by 4 percent, the highest rise since 2012. Economists predicted rental inflation would continue to climb.

The acceleration in the cost-of-living crisis was further revealed in the monthly (rather than quarterly) CPI indicator for December. It rose 8.4 percent in the 12 months to December, following annual rises of 7.3 percent in November and 6.9 percent in October.

While the media focused on a 13 percent jump in holiday travel and accommodation in the December quarter—to distract attention from the impact on food and energy—electricity prices also rose sharply, up 8.6 percent in those three months alone.

Much bigger energy price hikes will occur in 2023, despite token price caps on wholesale electricity and gas introduced by the Labor government in December. But Treasurer Jim Chalmers, while yet again pretending sympathy for “Australians doing it tough,” quickly insisted that even the small promised bill rebates for small businesses and low-income households would not start until later in the year. He peddled the illusion that inflation may have peaked.

However, the RBA’s preferred measure of “underlying” inflation, which removes “volatile” items such as food and petrol, jumped from 6.1 percent to 6.9 percent in the December quarter, much higher than the central bank’s prediction of 6.5 percent.

Chalmers’ contemptuous response epitomises the demand of the ruling class—the financial and corporate elite and its governments—that the working class must continue to be made to pay for the economic crisis gripping global capitalism. Labor’s fraudulent “a better future” slogan for last May’s federal election is a distant bitter memory.

Inflation has been outstripping workers’ wages at a record rate for more than a year—with the union officials policing the biggest cuts to real wages. In the September quarter of 2022, union-negotiated enterprise agreements delivered average nominal annual wage rises of just 2.6 percent, compared with 3.1 percent in non-union deals, according to the most recent data available from the Department of Workplace Relations.

That is, union agreements are imposing supposed pay “rises” that average less than a third of the soaring cost of living. This is in line with the call by RBA governor Philip Lowe, backed by the Albanese government, for wage rises to be kept lower than 3.5 percent.

That is on top of more than a decade of wage cutting. Real wages have fallen to below the level of June 2009, which was during the global financial crisis of 2008‒09.

That underscores the reality that wages are not the cause of the inflation that is devastating working-class households in Australia and internationally. Instead, the roots lie in the capitalist profit system and the US-led drive to war.

Profit-gouging by food and energy conglomerates, exploiting the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, is compounding the inflationary spiral caused by years of governments and central banks pumping trillions of dollars into the financial markets—ever since the global financial crisis—and the ongoing global supply chain problems created by governments letting the COVID-19 pandemic rip for the sake of profit.

Oxfam’s recent global inequality report shows that “95 food and energy corporations more than doubled their profits in 2022, driving major inflation in Australia and around the globe and leaving millions struggling to feed themselves and their families.”

Nevertheless, the big banks and financial commentators have declared that the RBA must further hike interest rates, like its counterparts in the US, the UK and the EU, in order to prevent a supposed “wages-price spiral.”

Commonwealth Bank head of Australian economics Gareth Aird said the outlook for wages was a “key risk” to his bank’s official cash rate forecast peak of 3.35 percent. Similar warnings were issued by UBS Australian chief economist George Therenou and KPMG chief economist Brendan Rynne.

An Australian Financial Review editorial noted that real wages had already fallen “a steep 4 per cent or so through 2022,” but any pegging of wages to inflation would “simply force the central bank to keep interest rates higher for longer in order to squeeze prices growth out of the economy.”

Money market representatives are either predicting or canvassing three more RBA rate rises in 2023, on top of the eight in 2022. That would lift the official cash rate to close to 4 percent. ANZ senior economist Catherine Birch said the CPI result “cements” another rise in the official interest rate at the RBA’s first meeting of 2023 on February 7, taking it to 3.25 percent. Both the ANZ and Westpac, two of the country’s four biggest banks, are forecasting an RBA rate of 3.85 percent by May.

This interest rate “shock”—intended to “squeeze” the economy into a downturn and higher unemployment—will intensify the financial stress confronting millions of working-class homebuyers.

Until last May, the RBA kept rates at a record low of 0.10 percent, in order to pump cheap cash into the hands of business during the pandemic. It promised homebuyers that it would not lift the rate until 2024.

Now a “fixed rate cliff” has begun. About $400 billion worth of fixed rate loans are expiring in 2023 after being taken out on the basis of the previous near-zero rates. RateCity, a company that monitors home loans, estimates that typical fixed-rate borrowers will have to pay about $2,700 more a month. Its calculation is based on a borrower coming off a two-year, 1.92 percent fixed mortgage rate onto a revert rate of 7.16 percent.

Of the $2.1 trillion in home loans, the RBA itself says about 35 percent, or $735 billion, is fixed rate and 65 percent of these are due to expire by the end of 2023. For all the central bank’s claims that “most” borrowers will be safe because of savings “buffers,” the ruling class is intent on inflicting financial misery on millions of low-income homebuyers for the sake of the capitalist economy and for the benefit of the wealthy.

Social inequality is already accelerating. Oxfam reported this month that Australia’s 42 billionaires have a combined wealth of close to $236 billion—61 percent higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic began. This is intensifying a longer-term trend. Oxfam said the richest 1 percent of Australians had accumulated 10 times more wealth than the bottom 50 percent in the past decade.

An immense social crisis is developing in Australia, as it is globally. Major working-class struggles have broken out over the past year against the increasingly unbearable conditions, not least among nurses, health workers and educators.

Layoffs expand in US manufacturing and retail amid deepening economic slowdown

Kevin Reed

Layoffs are mounting in economic sectors beyond the technology industry in the United States amid the Federal Reserve’s policy of deliberately slowing the economy by hiking interest rates in order to increase unemployment and undercut workers’ wage demands.

Key industries impacted include manufacturing and retail. Dow Chemical, the chemicals, plastics and consumer products manufacturing giant based in Midland, Michigan, announced a workforce reduction of 2,000 employees on Thursday.

During an earnings call with analysts, Dow CEO Jim Fitterling said the layoffs were necessary because of a 32.5 percent drop in corporate earnings in 2022. He said the sharp decline in profits was the result of deteriorating economic conditions in the second half of the year.

The Dow layoffs are part of a global cost-reduction program unveiled in October to save $1 billion in 2023. These cutbacks include factory closures in Europe that have yet to be announced.

Also on Thursday, the toy and board games company Hasbro Inc. announced organizational changes that include the elimination of 15 percent of its workforce, or approximately 1,000 jobs. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said in a statement that the job cuts were necessary to achieve $250-$300 million in cost savings over the next three years.

Federal Reserve Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file]

CEO Cocks also said the fourth quarter of 2022 “represented a challenging moment” for the $8 billion corporation. Like many publicly traded corporations on Wall Street, Hasbro’s stock value fell by nearly one-half in 2022. With the financial elite demanding cost-cutting and layoffs to restore profitability, Cocks said the corporation is “on track to drive significant cost savings across the business and improve our overall competitiveness.”

Media reports on Friday said the computer chip manufacturer IntelCorp. was planning to double the number of layoffs planned at its headquarters in Santa Clara, California, to a total of 378.

In the retail sector, Saks OFF 5th, the discount retailer owned by Hudson Bay, laid off an unspecified number of workers on Tuesday, while Saks.com is laying off about 100 workers, or 3.5 percent of its workforce.

Stitch Fix, the provider of personalized apparel, shoes and accessories, laid off 20 percent of its salaried workers and closed a distribution center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Wayfair, the ecommerce provider of furniture and home goods, announced it would lay off 1,750 people, or 10 percent of its employees.

The giant software corporation SAP, based in Germany, said it would eliminate 3,000 jobs, or 2.5 percent of its workforce, after profits fell dramatically in 2022. In a meeting with reporters on Thursday, financial officer Luka Mucic said the layoffs would be spread across the geographic footprint of the company.

Mucic said the purpose of the layoffs was to “further focus on strategic growth areas.” The net profit of SAP fell 47 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, related, in part, to the company’s withdrawal from Russia and Belarus after the beginning of the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

Other mass layoffs are anticipated at Disney, which is expected to announce a corporate restructuring plan in early February. On Thursday, Deadline wrote of the return of Robert Iger as Disney CEO that “speculation about a pending corporate restructuring is intensifying—and with it, rumors about the layoffs that are likely to follow.”

The US Commerce Department released its gross domestic product (GDP) report on Thursday, showing that the economy grew by 2.9 percent on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter of 2022. This number was down from the third quarter growth rate of 3.2 percent.

Michael Gapen, economist for Bank of America, told the New York Times, “The economy continued to motor on. There’s more momentum in the economy at year-end than we thought, and a lot of that is from households.”

However, the Commerce Department also reported on Friday that consumer spending fell in December from the prior month by a seasonally adjusted rate of 0.2 percent.

The consumer spending report showed households cut back spending on goods, while prices fell for gasoline and other energy products. On the other hand, consumers increased spending on services, where prices climbed.

Explaining the decline, Efraim Benmelech, a professor of finance at Northwestern University, told the Wall Street Journal, “The actions of the Fed are leading to lower consumption.” Benmelech added that rising interest rates are making home mortgages more expensive, leading to less spending on home appliances, paint and other home improvement goods.

Responding to these developments, Wall Street rallied again on Friday, with the NASDAQ up 11 percent, the S&P 500 up 6 percent and the Dow up by 2.5 percent so far this year. The next meeting of the Federal Reserve is scheduled for January 31-February 1 and is expected to result in a further rise in interest rates of 0.25 to 0.50 percent.

In a speech on January 19, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard stressed that the central bank is not backing off. She said, “Inflation remains high, and policy is going to need to remain sufficiently restrictive for some time to make sure it gets down to 2 percent for a sustained basis.”

In other words, the financial elite insists that the policy of engineering a sharp slowdown and increasing attacks on the jobs and living standards of the working class must continue.

Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program 2023

Application Deadline: 25th February 2023

Eligible Countries: Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Finland, Greece, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Philippines, Senegal, Singapore, Taiwan, Uganda, United Kingdom (NOTE: Subject to change.)

To Be Taken At (Country): USA

Type: Training

Eligibility: 

• Full-time primary and secondary educators, including classroom teachers, guidance counselors, curriculum specialists, library media specialists, and special education coordinators, administrators, and others who spend at least half of their time interacting with students
• Applicants from the following participating countries listed above
• Applicants should have:
• Five years of full-time teaching experience or experience working with primary- or secondary-level students in another capacity
• Proven track record of professional development activities and leadership
• Citizen of a participating Fulbright DAI country
• Other requirements as indicated on the application

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Educator training: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers take part in an intensive five-month professional development program at a US university. The curriculum includes academic coursework, leadership training, and instructional technology seminars.
• Inquiry projects: Each participant will complete an individual or group project relevant to their education practice. Past projects covered topics such as current methodologies for teaching math, science, music, visual arts, performing arts, and English as a second language; working with special needs students; promoting civic engagement or service learning; environmental education; school management and leadership; and others that meet a critical need in the candidate’s home country.
• Field experience: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers are actively engaged with US schools. They are given opportunities to observe, co-teach, and share their expertise, building collaborative, lasting connections with teachers and students.
• Best practice exchange: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers study and observe international best practices in education. They also share professional expertise with educators and students in the United States.
• Civic and cultural activities: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers participate in US cultural activities such as performances, sporting events, visits to US homes, board of education meetings, and trips to notable historical sites.

Duration of Program: A semester in 2023

How to Apply: APPLY NOW

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

US Government Fulbright Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Program 2023/2024

Application Deadline: Each country sets its own application deadlines. Please inquire from the US Embassy or Fulbright commission in your country or territory for deadline information.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: See list of countries below.

To be taken at (country): USA

About the Award: The Fulbright Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (Fulbright TEA) brings international teachers to the United States for a six-week program that offers academic seminars for professional development at a host university. Participants observe classrooms and share their expertise with teachers and students at the host university and at local secondary schools.

Type: Short courses/Training

Eligibility: Details for this program may vary by country. In general, applicants must meet the following criteria:

• Current secondary school-level,* full-time teacher in an institution serving primarily a local population;
• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent;
• Five or more years of classroom experience as a teacher of English, English as a foreign language (EFL), mathematics, science, or social studies, including special education teachers in those subject areas;
• Proficient in written and spoken English with a TOEFL score of 450 on the paper-based TOEFL or an equivalent English-language examination;**
• Demonstrated commitment to continue teaching after completion of the program; and
• A complete application.

*Secondary-level teachers include both middle and high school teachers working with students between approximately 12 and 18 years of age. Teachers responsible for teaching additional grade levels must teach middle school or high school students more than 50% of their work time in order to be eligible for the program.

**A limited number of participants with TOEFL scores between 425 and 450, or equivalent, will be accepted for the program in a special cohort that will include additional English-language training as part of the professional development program.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program is fully funded pending availability of funds.

Duration of Scholarship: 6 weeks

Eligible Countries: Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt,  El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malawi, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, West Bank/Gaza, Zambia, Zimbabwe. 

How to Apply: APPLY NOW

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Leakey Foundation Baldwin Fellowship 2023

Application Deadline: There are two different deadlines depending on whether you have previously received a Baldwin Fellowship:

• February 15th – Deadline for new applicants
• March 1st – Deadline for returning applicants

Scholarship Name: The Franklin Mosher Baldwin Fellowship

Offered annually? Yes

Accepted Subject Areas: Human origins, including paleoanthropology, primate behavior, and studies of modern hunter-gatherer groups

About the Award: The Franklin Mosher Baldwin Fellowship program for developing countries is based on a realistic assessment of needs and priorities. Many developing nations possess extraordinary resources in the field of prehistory. The stewardship and careful use of these assets is a task of international importance. By enabling bright young scholars to obtain graduate education, the Leakey Foundation is helping to equip these individuals to assume a leadership role in the future of paleoanthropology.

Offered Since: 1978. More than 70 Baldwin Fellowships have been awarded.

Type: This award is for a program of approved, advanced special training or studies leading towards an MA or PhD.

Selection Criteria: Candidates must be prepared to demonstrate:

• Affiliation and/or employment with an institution in their home country.
• Provisional acceptance (or evidence of application) to the host institution.
• Financial assistance from the host institution.
• Intention to return and work in the home country upon completion of training.

Eligibility: Human origins scholars from developing nations seeking advanced degrees (M.A./M.S. or Ph.D.) are eligible for Baldwin Fellowships.

If you are thinking of applying for a Baldwin Fellowship ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I enrolled in a M.A., M.S., Ph.D. or equivalent program related to the study of human origins or evolution?
• Have I been accepted or have a provisional acceptance to a host institution?
• Do I have financial assistance from the host institution?
• Do I intend to return and work in my home country upon completion of training?

If your answer is “Yes” to all of the above questions, you will likely be eligible to receive a Baldwin Fellowship.

If you are concerned as to whether your research topic is eligible, contact the Foundation at least a month ahead of the application deadline.

Number of Scholarship: Several

Scholarship Worth: Awards are limited to two years. The maximum award is limited to $15,000 per year.

Duration of Scholarship: This award is limited to a program of two years.

Eligible Countries: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Republic of Congo and other developing countries

How can I Apply? Please review the general instructions available here on how to apply.

Sponsors: The Leakey Foundation

Important Notes: If you are wondering whether your research topic is eligible, contact the Foundation at least a month before the application deadline. Email grants (at) leakeyfoundation.org

Risky Business: Japan Steps Out

Mel Gurtov

Background to a Changing Strategic Perspective 

Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has just visited Washington, drawing attention to how Japan is remaking its national security policy. He’s winning applause from Washington and hearing anguish in Beijing. Here’s the background:

Ever since the American occupation of Japan after World War II, that country’s national security has been framed under the US umbrella. Japan’s pacifist constitution, the size and budget of its armed forces, and its security strategy were all shaped in accordance with American preferences.

The 1960 mutual defense treaty specifies US defense of Japan from attack, the right of the US to base forces in Japan, and US consultation with Japan on how American forces there will be used. Japan kept its military spending at about one percent of GNP, and officially called its military Self-Defense Forces.

Ever since the Korean War, when Japan provided logistical and supply assistance to US forces, questions have arisen about the extent of Japanese support of the US in a crisis situation that might involve war with North Korea or a direct Chinese threat to Taiwan. Washington was always pressing Japan to “do more” in the name of collective security.

Tokyo accepted that “collective security” allowed for a stronger commitment to the alliance, but typically restricted its action abroad to UN peacekeeping missions. Japan hesitated to do more so as not to become a target in a war, most likely with China.

Despite constitutional limits, Japan has one of the world’s most technologically advanced armed forces (around 261,000 troops, fifth in global ranking) and one of the world’s highest military budgets (around $54 billion, which ranks ninth). Under Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, Kishida’s predecessor, constitutional strictures were stretched to allow for Japanese military involvement abroad—not frontline combat, but in supportive roles, such as in Afghanistan.

Abe had also hoped to revise Article 9 of the constitution, under which Japan renounces war as an instrument of its foreign policy. He sought to revise the article to specifically allow Japan to deploy its military in combat overseas. But Abe did not succeed, though constitutional revision has always had US support.

New Threat Perceptions

Prime Minister Kishida, a former defense minister, seems to be taking advantage of Japan’s increasing vulnerability to North Korean missiles and an assertive Chinese military, especially near Taiwan, to push for all the things Abe dreamed about. The latest Japanese national security strategy paper makes the chief target clear: China, which the strategy paper says is “the greatest strategic challenge that Japan has ever faced.”

The paper calls for a doubling of Japan’s military budget over the next five years and a so-called counter-strike capability, all geared to an upgraded regional threat assessment. In practice, the new strategic perspective would allow Japan to target North Korean or Chinese bases if attacked.

In light of North Korea’s record-setting missile tests in the past year, with some missiles landing in waters near Japan, and its new doctrine of preemptive nuclear attack, Japan’s strategic change is more than theoretical.

The war in Ukraine has also shaped the new Japanese strategic perspective. The Japanese, says Michael Green, a Japan expert at the Brookings Institution, would have been taken aback had the US not stepped up in support of Ukraine.

Now, it’s Japan’s turn to step up: “Japan is choosing, not being forced by America, but is choosing to reinforce the international order that America helped to create after [World War II].”

Two other important upgrades in Japan’s security partnerships have resulted.

First, Japan has announced that, for the first time, it will have a “Reciprocal Access Agreement” with a European country, Great Britain, that will permit both to station troops on each other’s soil and carry out extensive military exercises together. Japan already has the same arrangement with Australia.

Second is improved US-Japan military coordination. As summarized by one writer: “the United States and Japan are both updating their command-and-control arrangements. Tokyo has announced that it will create a permanent joint headquarters in Japan to command the Japanese Self-Defense Forces during a crisis.”

In addition, at least one and probably more US Marine regiments will have upgraded capabilities for rapid regional deployment, a further indication that deterring China is the centerpiece of US-Japan security cooperation. No wonder Biden told Kishida: “I don’t think there’s ever been a time when we’ve been closer to Japan.”

Tokyo is now sending a message to Pyongyang and Beijing. The North Koreans’ plan for another nuclear test, or a missile launch that would carry over Japanese territory, could in theory prompt a retaliation of some sort.

That possibility might help deter the North Koreans. Beijing needs to be aware of the extent to which its military modernization, particularly in air and sea power, and its air maneuvers near Taiwan, are prompting public support in Japan for a new defense outlook focused on the China threat. (The public, however, hasn’t yet been told about tax hikes to pay for the new policy.)

Japan’s hyping of the China threat might strengthen any voices in Xi Jinping’s inner circle calling for caution on attacking Taiwan, though it will also revitalize Chinese charges of “the revival of Japanese militarism.”

Cold War Alignments

There at two important upshots of Japan’s latest national strategic thinking. It coincides with a strategic trend in Asia-Pacific toward anti-China multilateralism. Several of China’s neighbors—Japan, South Korea, Philippines, India, Vietnam, and Australia—are either US security treaty partners, members of US-backed security groups (AUKUS and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), or countries that have granted access to US ships and planes.

It’s a Cold War-style lineup that China, beset with internal problems, finds threatening and is likely to respond militarily. The other and opposite implication is that neither Japan nor any of the other countries aligned with the US can be counted on to suggest or construct peaceful, stabilizing steps that will lead away from a confrontation with China.

We’re headed back toward an “either you’re for us or against us” alignment in Asia, with no middle ground—an uncomfortable strategic position that many countries in Southeast Asia have experienced before, and rebelled against. Does anyone really think Japan’s new security profile is more likely to deter rather than incite armed conflict?