New Zealand unions enforce school returns, mass layoffs and wage cuts

John Braddock

Schools across New Zealand have been open for the past week after the Labour-led government eased its COVID-19 lockdown and nearly all businesses resumed operations.

The government began easing restrictions on April 27, including a call for schools to reopen. However, unwilling to place their children’s health at risk, parents largely ignored the move and many schools remained deserted for two weeks while teachers conducted lessons online.

Throughout the world, working people are now being told they must either sacrifice their living standards or risk their health by returning to work before it is safe.

In New Zealand, the back-to-work campaign is underpinned by the false contention that COVID-19 has been suppressed. While new case numbers have fallen in the past fortnight, the continuing risk was highlighted by the recent discovery of a new case from the Auckland Marist College cluster, bringing the total within that school community to 96.

Meanwhile, corporations that have received billions in handouts from the government are using the COVID-19 crisis as the pretext to slash jobs, wages and conditions.

The head girl of Aorere College in South Auckland, Aigagalefili Fepulea’i Tapua’i, posted on Instagram that her school’s first day back was marked by students leaving so they could work to support parents who had lost jobs or were in low-paid work.”

“Money is low & mouths gotta eat,” she declared. “It’s ironic how NZ wants to rebuild, but it’s on our backs.” Her post, which highlights growing class divisions, has been shared more than 5,500 times.

The trade unions are blocking any organised working class resistance. The New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) and Post-Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), which opposed calls for the closure of schools before the government’s lockdown in March, endorsed the reopening. The PPTA advised any members feeling “nervous” about returning to school to read their school’s Health and Safety plan and talk to co-workers to see “if they have any tips.”

Council of Trade Unions (CTU) president Richard Wagstaff welcomed “the opening up of our society.” He advised workers to “talk with your health and safety representatives… and actively engage with your employer about issues of health and safety.”

Speaking to the Rural on May 21, Meat Workers Union (MWU) national secretary Daryl Carran praised businesses for “abiding by all the rules and taking the necessary steps to ensure the safety of workers.”

In fact, the MWU ignored a petition signed by thousands of workers calling for factories to be closed due to unsafe working conditions. At least one meatworker, at the Alliance Group’s Smithfield factory, contracted the coronavirus in April, but the factory was not shut. Internationally, meat factories are major centres for the spread of the virus.

The unions’ corporatist perspective is underlined by the Labour Party-affiliated E Tu union’s “Rebuild Better” campaign. E Tu asserts that “workers”—meaning the union bureaucracy—“must be there as an equal partner” in the “implementation of company decisions and policies” and in government initiatives.

In plain language, as workers in every industry are made to pay for the economic crisis, the unions are playing the critical role in enforcing wage cuts, mass redundancies and unsafe working conditions.

E Tu and the Air Line Pilots Association have accepted thousands of redundancies and wage cuts at Air New Zealand. The national carrier, which is 52 percent owned by the government and has received more than $70 million in wage subsidies plus a $900 million government loan, confirmed on May 21 that it was laying off more than 1,300 cabin crew. E Tu called for a “better process,” while negotiating a document that will allow the company to furlough crew for three years or longer.

Fletcher Building, the country’s largest construction company, announced it will axe 1,000 jobs in New Zealand and 500 in Australia after receiving $67.7 million from the government’s wage subsidy scheme. Fletcher has implemented a 12-week pay cut, with staff who were not working or part-time receiving just 65 percent of their pay for two weeks. Wages then drop to 50 percent for a month, and by 70 percent the following month. The Amalgamated Workers Union declared that workers were “nervous” about the future of their jobs, to justify their passive acceptance of the massive wage cuts.

The Unite union is likewise collaborating with businesses that are using the COVID-19 crisis to slash costs. Unite has for years postured as a “left-wing,” “activist” union, covering workers in the hospitality and entertainment industries. Prominent figures include Joe Carolan, a leader of the pseudo-left Socialist Aotearoa group, and Unite’s director Mike Treen, a former leader of the now defunct Socialist Action League.

Auckland casino operator SkyCity recently announced 700 redundancies, on top of 200 confirmed last month, affecting a third of its workforce. Carolan told the media that Unite had been involved in organising the redundancy package. He blamed the job cuts on a “drop in international business,” social distancing requirements and people having less money to spend.

Writing on the Daily Blog on May 12, Treen extolled Unite’s new three-year collective agreement with McDonald’s as a victory, saying it would help workers who want to increase their hours. If a worker quits, McDonald’s must now offer their hours to existing staff before hiring anyone new. This mechanism can, in fact, be used to reduce hiring, despite reports of fast food outlets being chronically understaffed.

Treen noted that “one disappointment” in the agreement is that the margin above the legal minimum wage for new employees is “trimmed” from 30 cents an hour to 10 cents. While this is in the context of a recent $1.20 increase in the minimum wage to $18.90 per hour, it means wages for predominantly young workers remain pegged to the bare minimum for at least three more years.

McDonald’s clearly appreciates Unite’s assistance in maximising profits at the expense of workers. The company’s new staff app, used to organise rosters and provide information to workers, includes a feature that allows workers to easily join the union.

The unions no longer even nominally represent the basic interests of workers. They are an upper middle-class bureaucracy, with close ties to the Labour Party and corporations, whose aim is to defend the crisis-ridden profit system and New Zealand capitalism in particular, so as to maintain their own privileged position. As the COVID-19 crisis deepens, these organisations are playing an ever-more naked role in defending the existing order.

Australian governments fully reopen schools despite intense opposition

Erika Zimmer

New South Wales (NSW) Liberal Party Premier Gladys Berejiklian this week suddenly directed all public school students in Australia’s most populous state to return to the classroom full-time from next Monday, drastically accelerating a previous timeline of July.

To coerce parents, Berejiklian and her ministers declared that they must send their children back to their schools or they would be breaking the law, even though it would be “common” for classes to be temporarily “shut down” because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

This edict places the state in the forefront of the drive by governments, so far led by Labor Party governments in Western Australia and the Northern Territory to reopen all schools so that parents can be pushed backed into unsafe workplaces as well, for the sake of corporate profit.

Berejiklian bluntly insisted that potentially deadly COVID-19 infections had to be accepted. “It will be common for schools to be shut down temporarily, for a specific area to be on high alert, for a particular school to take extra measures if there’s a community breakout in that community with cases, and we just have to accept that,” she said.

Ramping up the pressure for a return to full classroom teaching, the federal Liberal-National government last month tried to bribe private schools with early payments of $3.3 billion in funding if they got at least half their students physically back in class within a month.

At the same time, the national cabinet of federal, state and territory leaders declared, in a reversal of previous government policy, that it was “not appropriate or required” for teachers and students to follow social-distancing guidelines.

Last month, the NSW government announced students would make a staggered return from May 11. Barely one week into the phased return, in which students were to attend one day a week, Berejiklian touted it as a “success” and claimed it demonstrated schools were ready for a full return.

“The health advice is very clear, a return to full-time face-to-face teaching is safe,” Berejiklian claimed, ignoring all the global evidence to the contrary, including student deaths in the US. A recent French study found that coronavirus antibodies were eight times more prevalent within a local school, than in the broader area where a cluster occurred, and a German survey revealed that infection rates were similar across all age groups of the population, including children.

A very small, non-peer-reviewed study, often cited as proof of the safety of schools, was conducted in NSW schools when the majority of schools had drastically reduced student numbers or ended face-to-face teaching entirely. And one of the largest clusters in New Zealand has been at the Marist College of Auckland, where over 90 people have been infected.

The claims that schools are safe also fly in the face of emerging reports of a new COVID-19-linked inflammatory illness in children, described as similar to Kawasaki disease, in the US, the UK, France and Spain.

Berejiklian’s announcement came as Australia reported its highest number of new COVID-19 cases in almost a month, a result of restrictions being lifted across the states and territories. Thirty cases were reported the previous Friday, including outbreaks at McDonald’s restaurants and a meat-processing facility, which are still spreading.

The danger of sending up to a million children back full-time is compounded by the public transport crisis in Sydney and across the state. In a bid to avoid COVID-19 outbreaks on public transport, as occurred in New York and London, social-distancing measures have been put in place, limiting trains and buses to less than 20 percent of their usual capacity.

NSW authorities have urged commuters to avoid the peak hours—an impossible request for most, including students. Students who do not travel on dedicated school buses—which will not have social-distancing measures and will therefore be packed—have been advised to walk to school or be dropped off by parents.

The absurdity of allowing 30 or more children in a classroom while only 12 people are allowed on a public bus has fueled the opposition of teachers and parents to the reopening of schools.

Commenting on social media, parent Valerie wrote: “COVID-19 has a two week incubation period. We’ve only just hit two weeks of children starting to attend one day a week. We have no idea how that one day a week has affected infection spread and you’re increasing to full-time. There is always a lag time. This isn’t looking at what’s best for students and teachers.”

Another, Deepthi, posted: “Cleaning the school premises? Our kids were not provided sanitiser, no social distancing can be maintained in washrooms. As of now they are carrying their own, some are too young to carry any.” Gwen wrote: “This is a nightmare. My daughter is asking why she’s allowed to maybe end up sick when I’ve kept her safe for the last few months.”

Josh added: “No families, teachers or principals have been consulted. Disgraceful. Disrespectful. Disgusting.” Erin wrote: “I’m angry over this. Where is the medical data showing the effects of phase 1? … I feel for all teachers and support staff being thrust into this human experiment. This government makes me sick.”

A teacher commented: “Fantastic idea, let’s not wait until two weeks after easing restrictions to see what happens, just send all the kids back. If kids and teachers get sick, who cares? The economy is more important.”

Another commented: “Teachers last to be advised. No additional cleaning, no additional precautions for vulnerable teachers and students, no additional funding, continual curriculum interference from politicians and bureaucrats with zero qualifications, every increasing mindless audits and accreditation … back to business as usual.”

Jasmine posted: “So what changed so dramatically overnight to make such a massive change to the plan? And to go from flexible, cautious, staged to making threats and demands?”

A survey carried out on over 10,000 NSW public school teachers over April and May had found fewer than one in four felt safe working at the school site and only 13 percent were happy to continue working in direct contact with children and colleagues. Common concerns were overcrowded classrooms and the lack of sanitation equipment.

The government has been able to proceed with its agenda only due to backing from the education unions. The NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF), like its interstate counterparts, has worked to prevent the development of a unified struggle against the re-openings. NSWTF president Angelo Gavrielatos offered the government advice on an “orderly transition to the re-opening of schools,” without consulting the teachers the union falsely claims to represent.

Apart from a complaint that “learning about things through the media is downright disrespectful,” the NSWTF has voiced no opposition to the full reopening of schools and simply passed on state government directives to school staff.

This demonstrates the need for teachers to take matters into their own hands. Throughout the pandemic, the Committee for Public Education has called for the formation of Action Committees of teachers and parents at all schools, to coordinate an industrial and political struggle in defence of the health, safety and social rights of all educators.

Sri Lankan government understates COVID-19 figures to recklessly reopen economy

Naveen Dewage

Sri Lankan health authorities announced on Friday that the total number COVID-19 infections had risen to 1,068 but that the official death toll remained at nine.

The government is using these relatively low numbers to claim that the coronavirus is “under control” and that the existing, but limited, national curfews can be lifted.

The low number of infections, however, is because of the small number of COVID-19 tests being conducted—an average of less than 600 per day between February 18 and May 20.

On May 11, President Gotabhaya Rajapakse declared a “reopening of the economy.” About one third of employees from the state-owned and private sector returned to work in Colombo and Gampaha, the country’s main working-class centres.

Since then the government, with corporate media backing, has conducted a “living with corona” or “new normal” campaign, promoting the illusion that the pandemic danger is receding.

These false and reckless claims are being made as the coronavirus pandemic continues unabated around the world with over 5.2 million infections reported yesterday and the death toll climbing to almost 340,000.

On Thursday, World Health Organisation (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared: “We still have a long way to go in this pandemic. We are very concerned about rising cases in low and middle-income countries.”

His remarks came as 106,000 new cases were recorded the previous day—two-thirds from the US, Brazil, Russia and India. Yesterday, India reported 6,088 infected cases, the highest number recorded in one day in that country and the death toll rose to 3,583.

Notwithstanding the government’s “optimistic” rhetoric, the mass spread of COVID-19 is a dangerous threat to the Sri Lankan masses, the working class and poor, in particular.

Dr. Lakkumar Fernando, head of Sri Lanka’s Centre for Clinical Management of Dengue and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, told the Sunday Times that, even if many people had recovered, Sri Lanka could have “2,000–3,000 active cases” and that “low-grade” community spread of virus had begun.

A Kandy Hospital nurse told the WSWS that nurses in the outpatient department (OPD) could easily be infected. “All the patients suffering from fever, cough, and pneumonia first enter the hospital through the OPD. However, the nurses and other health workers working in this section have not been supplied with PPE [personnel protection equipment], including N95 masks.

“About one month after the lockdown began we were provided with locally made PPE. But you cannot use it because of the intolerable heat when wearing it and you cannot work with patients.

“In order to observe social distancing, the number of health workers in the wards has been reduced by 40 percent. So this means that only four people are working in a ward where previously there were ten. Health workers have a right to be guaranteed that they are not going to be infected but there is no way that we are being PCR tested.”

While the government insists that workers should return to their jobs it only gives lip-service to “social distancing” work practices.

One worker from the Brandix company, told the WSWS that “social distancing” was difficult because of existing work practices at its factories. The company employs a total 47,000 people at several Sri Lankan plants. Employees at the Ratmalana government railway workshop made the same point to the WSWS.

Government claims that the pandemic is being brought under control are exposed by the fact that one of Sri Lanka’s largest clusters is at a 5,000-strong navy camp at Welisara, seven kilometres from Colombo.

On Thursday, Army Commander Shavendra Silva told the media that 2,193 sailors had been sent to quarantine centres and that 341 of the 578 infected navy personnel were still being treated for the virus.

Military authorities previously claimed that the sailors had been infected while tracing individuals suspected of contracting the virus near the camp. Later it was announced that the sailors had been infected while renovating an ICU unit at the nearby Ragama Teaching Hospital.

Whatever the reason, the media has reported that the sailors involved in tracing the virus cases had not been provided with protective gear. Army chief Silva also admitted that the lower-rank sailors were living in old military barracks where physical distancing could not be observed.

On May 20, Sri Lanka’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Sudath Samaraweera, said that coronavirus control at the camp had failed and there would be a considerable number of patients.

Under the banner of “fighting COVID-19,” President Rajapakse has mobilised military intelligence and thousands of soldiers, mainly in the Colombo district, to supposedly ensure “social distancing” is being observed. The current army chief has also been appointed head of the National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID-19.

Every day the president’s website posts the latest infection figures along with details about the government’s policies. Its latest report concludes: “The Sri Lankan model is an aggressive, strenuous and continuous process but comparison of data related to COVID-19 in the world suggests that Sri Lankan approach is a unique and a dynamic model.”

These claims are false. The government’s largely improvised health measures are doing little to combat the deadly and highly infectious disease. The authorities, for example, have pragmatically resorted to spraying disinfectant on people and various locations.

Last week, the WHO declared this practice was unscientific and unhealthy. It said: “This could be physically and psychologically harmful and would not reduce an infected person’s ability to spread the virus through droplets or contact.”

Instead of mass testing, Director General of Health Service Dr. Anil Jasinghe admitted last week: “It was never the strategy to test everyone.” His remarks were made in response to the large number of coronavirus infections at the Welisara navy camp.

In line with years of public health cost-cutting, the current government regards full-scale testing—as recommended by international medical scientists—as too expensive. Epidemiologists have called for a minimum of 5,000 tests per day.

The “reopen the economy” push by the Rajapakse government and its big business backers, like their counterparts around the world, have intensified in line with the deepening global economic crisis accelerated by COVID-19.

The Colombo government faces massive foreign debt repayments and escalating falls in export earnings. W.D. Lakshman, governor of Sri Lanka’s Central Bank, has warned that the government faced a “formidable foreign debt service obligation” with payments of $US3,420 million due between May and December this year and $4,310 million in 2021.

The country’s foreign exchange earnings from garment exports will fall by 40 percent and remittances from foreign employment by 15 percent this year, he added, and that special arrangements on existing loans with India and China would be needed to make debt repayments.

On May 22, an editorial in the state-owned Daily News wrote: “Now with the virus threat brought to manageable proportions (though still hanging like the Sword of Damocles going by the opinion of health experts) [it is time], like the president noted… to redirect the focus on the economy and stabilise the fiscal situation.”

While big businesses has used the pandemic to slash jobs, wages and workers’ rights, the cash-strapped Colombo government is imposing more austerity measures on workers and the poor.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also the finance minister, announced a special commodity levy on about 30 items, which will sharply increase the price of essentials. These attacks will fuel the already deep-seated social opposition of workers and the poor against the government, the opposition parties and the capitalist class as a whole.

US Agriculture Department outlines program to aid farmers hit by pandemic

Alex Findijs

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published details of its Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) on Tuesday. The program, which was initially announced in mid-April, will provide $16 billion in aid to farmers who have suffered losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beginning May 26 and up to August 28, farmers will be able to submit forms claiming losses incurred between January 15 and April 15. Eligibility of farmers to receive payments varies according to farm and crop type. However, the general rule for crops is a price decline of five percent or more since January. Due to the extent of the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, nearly all major crop types qualify under this standard.

Despite this wide range of eligibility, the USDA’s plan for allocating funds is insufficient and overly complex. The money for CFAP is split into two pots: $9.5 billion comes from the CARES Act and the other $6.5 billion comes from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC).

This creates issues concerning fund allocation that are compounded by the fact that each pot pays different rates to farmers for non-specialty crops (largely corn, soybeans and some grains). For example, soybeans are paid 45 cents per bushel from the CARES Act and 50 cents per bushel from the CCC.

Non-specialty crop payments are made even more complex by the method of their calculation. The payments are made based on 50 percent of 2019 production or 2019 production as of January 15 (whichever is smaller), multiplied by the commodity payment rates determined by the USDA.

Grain farms, especially those that produce corn or soybeans, barely break even as it is. A 2018 study of Iowa corn and soybean farms conducted by the Russell Consulting Group found that average farm profit was just $9 per acre.

Several growers’ associations have applauded the attempt to compensate farmers for their losses, but are dissatisfied with the amount provided. The National Potato Association has already called for more funding, and United Fresh Produce Association President and CEO Tom Stenzel has called for allocating additional funds to industries involved in the distribution network.

The scale of the problem was most directly illustrated by the CEO and president of Western Growers, Dave Puglia, who stated that an average-sized lettuce farm of 250 acres that lost its entire crop would receive payment worth only 50 acres.

The financial devastation that has befallen many farmers is indicated by the fact that 2020 has already seen a 23 percent rise in family farm bankruptcies over last year. While the total number of bankruptcies remains relatively small, it is a troubling sign of what may occur in the coming months as losses mount.

Research by the Missouri Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) predicts a total decline in farm receipts of $32 billion for the year. This would mark a decline in national farm revenue of nearly one-third.

Overall cash receipts for crop farmers are expected to fall by $11.85 billion in 2020 and a further $7.27 billion in 2021. For livestock farmers, the total decline is predicted to be around $20.24 billion, though this does not account for the large-scale herd culling that has occurred in recent weeks—a financial loss that will not be covered by the federal aid program.

Even with all allocated money paid out, including a further $14 billion made available to the CCC after July 1, the funding would barely cover expected losses initially calculated over a month ago. The economic fallout from the pandemic could be even greater. Livestock herds continue to suffer, and prices and consumer demand could remain low for several more months.

Additionally, farmers will be able to collect only 80 percent of approved funding, with the other 20 percent made available only if there are sufficient funds.

To make matters worse, large farms are favored over the smaller farms that are in greater need. In general, each entity may claim up to $250,000. This rises to $750,000 if up to three shareholders are able to prove that they contribute at least 400 hours each year to a corporation or limited liability company. This means that corporate farms are able to claim up to three times the amount of funding regardless of the amount of acreage or production.

This bias towards corporations is somewhat checked by an income limit of $900,000. However, this is disregarded if an entity grosses at least 75 percent from farming, ranching or forestry.

The design of this program will inevitably lead to a disproportionate share of funding flowing to large firms. An analysis of the 2018 Market Facilitation Program (a bailout for losses caused by tariffs) by the Environmental Working Group found that the top 10 percent of firms received 54 percent of all available funding. Additionally, the bottom 80 percent of firms received an average of just $5,000 dollars, while thousands of wealthy urban residents received bailout checks for being related to a farm owner.

The US opioid crisis in the era of COVID-19

Katy Kinner

The American Medical Association (AMA) released a press briefing last week on reports of an increase in opioid-related overdoses during the COVID-19 crisis. According to the document, over 20 states have reported an increase in opioid-related mortality since the official declaration of the pandemic.

While sufficient data is not yet available to officially determine what is behind the recent increase in opioid overdoses, many experts, including Nora Volkow, renowned neuroscientist and director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, point to social isolation, anxiety, an overburdened health care system, and disruption of scheduled medication-assisted treatment (MAT) such as buprenorphine and methadone.

The concept of social distancing has made those living with or recovering from an opioid use disorder (OUD) more vulnerable to relapse and overdose, as once relied upon social support networks or therapy sessions fade or switch online. Isolation as well as financial stress caused by massive unemployment rates can spark an increase in feelings of anxiety, depression and worthlessness, all frequent triggers of drug use.

Social isolation can also be deadly. Using opioids alone significantly increases risk of fatality with no one nearby to notice symptoms of an overdose and administer Narcan (naloxone HCI) or call for help. It is not unusual for medical professionals to offer “harm reduction” strategies for those who are unable or unwilling to quit, one of which being: Never use alone.

Even if the overdose is witnessed—with resources stretched and health care personnel exhausted or quarantined at home—EMT workers are less likely to reverse an overdose on time and, if reversed, patients may refuse an emergency room (ER) visit for fear of coronavirus infection or arriving at a chaotic, understaffed ER. As a result, they may not receive lifesaving resources to prevent future overdoses such as referrals for rehabilitation, Narcan prescriptions, or follow-up visits to begin MAT.

Substance use and abuse also increases the risk of both infection and poor prognosis with COVID-19. In an interview with Kaiser Health News, Dr. Volkow discussed how drug use, in particular opioid use and vaping (THC or nicotine), is intensifying COVID-19 risks. The effect of opioids on the immune system, Volkow explains, has been extensively studied. Those using opioids chronically or therapeutically have been shown to have both slower and weaker immune responses.

Indirectly, those who misuse or abuse opioids tend to have a weakened immune system due to nutritional deficits, unreliable sleep patterns, and chronic infections from injection sites or untreated medical issues that exhaust and consequently weaken an immune system response.

Also well understood is the effect of opioid use on respiratory health. Even with short-term use at therapeutic doses, opioids lower the respiratory rate, in turn leading to a lower level of oxygen in the blood. COVID-19 also targets the respiratory system, damaging surface tissues of the lungs that are primarily responsible for oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange.

Dr. Volkow explains, “If you get COVID and you are taking opioids, the physiological consequences are going to be much worse. You’re not only going to have the effects of the virus itself, but you’ll have the depressive effects of opioids in the respiratory system [and] in the brain that lead to much less circulation in the lungs.”

Overdose deaths from prescription opioids, heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have increased sixfold since 1999. In 2018, 47,000 people across the US died from an opioid overdose. Uncounted are the tens of thousands more who use drugs but have not overdosed, who face a daily fight against their addiction.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the fight has grown more difficult with many new barriers arising to addiction treatment. Some inpatient rehabilitation services fail to maintain safe conditions, outpatient treatment centers struggle to switch to online platforms, harm reduction centers such as syringe exchanges close or significantly reduce their hours, and methadone clinics turn into frightening petri dishes with long lines and close quarters.

Both public and private inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation centers are still open, and national addiction and recovery organizations, such as the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), encourage those with an addiction to continue seeking treatment during COVID-19, ensuring visitors to their website that treatment centers “are taking preventive measures to ensure that their facilities remain coronavirus-free.”

However, drug and alcohol rehabilitation is an unregulated industry with many touting unproven or harmful treatments like equine therapy, work programs, confrontational interventions with family, or sound bath meditation at high, debt-burdening prices. Given the lack of regulation and the profit-oriented nature of the rehabilitation industry, it would be short of miraculous if these facilities were “coronavirus-free.”

Syringe exchanges, often located in areas highly trafficked by people struggling with drug addiction, provide clean needles as well as Narcan and recovery resources. A high proportion of these sites have closed, and others have reduced their hours or begun appointment-only exchanges. Twenty out of the 80 Ohio syringe exchange locations have closed. In New Jersey, some syringe exchanges have been forced to close as employees run out of PPE.

Some methadone clinics have also been forced to reduce hours of operation or are unable to see the same volume of patients as staff members fall ill or PPE runs short. Wait times are longer, and some clinics are too crowded to allow for proper six-foot distancing. Methadone—a full opioid agonist—has a significant potential for abuse and overdose and is parceled out, in-person, in daily doses. While more “stable” patients receive take-home doses, requiring fewer weekly clinic visits, the nature of methadone treatment increases the risk of COVID-19 exposure.

There have, however, been major changes to medication-assisted treatment as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Laws that addiction medicine physicians and the greater recovery community have been fighting to change for years have changed quickly under emergency measures. For example, methadone clinics have allowed for home delivery of methadone or monthlong take-home doses. While not without risk, these regulations have increased access to the MATs, saving thousands from overdose each year. Physicians are also now allowed to prescribe buprenorphine—a partial opioid agonist—over telehealth as opposed to the once required face-to-face physical exam, posing certain risks as well.

The opioid and COVID-19 crises both expose the fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the capitalist class and the working class. Pharmaceutical companies, with the complicity of the political establishment, raked in profits from Oxycontin and Percocet prescriptions as workers with painful overuse injuries found themselves hooked on painkillers and children, orphaned after a parent’s overdose, are raised in foster care. Wall Street saw an explosive rise in share values as mass graves on New York’s Hart island were filled with victims of the coronavirus, while families, if lucky, received paltry $1,200 stimulus checks. At the root of both crises is a society riven with growing inequality, corporate greed and a profound indifference to the lives of the international working class.

Uber lays off 6,700 white-collar workers as it continues restructuring

Shuvu Batta

Uber has carried out the layoff of 6,700 full time employees; 3,000 on May 18 and another 3,700 on May 6, and the shutdown of 45 offices. This action comes in response to an 80 percent drop in rides due to the outbreak of COVID-19, leading to a drastic drop in the company’s share values. Since it announced the layoffs, Uber’s stock has sharply risen. On the May 18 announcement shares rose 3.8 percent.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (net worth of at least $200 Million) took the cynical step of renouncing his salary for 2020 in supposed solidarity with the workers he fired. Khosrowshahi was previously the CEO of Expedia Group, a member of the board of directors of BET.com, Hotels.com, and served on the board of the New York Times. He was tasked with the job of “cleaning up” Uber’s public image after co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick stepped down after being caught on video insulting an Uber Driver. Kalanick, seated as a passenger with two young women, responded to the drivers concerns on fare cuts by responding “Some people don’t like to take responsibility for their own actions.”

The firings account for a 25 percent reduction of full-time employees for Uber and the company says more firings will follow. The cuts in jobs and closure of offices is a result of the company’s decision to shut down its program Incubator, envisioned as a means to utilize the mental labor of employees and independent startups to develop products and services on top of Uber’s platform. Uber has also discontinued and is looking for alternatives for its program Uber Works, which sought to pair gig workers with small businesses in need of temporary labor.

The layoffs are expected to save the company over $1 billion per year. Uber is seeking to utilize these savings to expand its food delivery business; the company is currently in talks to buy its rival Grubhub.

Alongside Uber, the rideshare company Lyft announced layoffs of over 1,000 employees, and Uber’s Middle Eastern subsidiary Careem has slashed headcount by over 30 percent and suspended its bus transport app.

The job cuts are among Uber’s white-collar labor force such as customer service representatives and recruitment agents, to whom the company will be providing severance pay. The layoffs mark a continuation of Uber’s attacks on its entire workforce. The brunt of this attack has been shouldered by Uber drivers, a 3 million-strong force globally at the beginning of 2020, who are not classified as employees but as “independent contractors.” This designation allows the multi-billion dollar company to evade providing the bulk of its workforce with benefits and securities such as health insurance. These workers collectively made 6.9 billion trips for Uber in 2019, creating over $14 billion in revenue for the company.

With the drastic decrease in rides and the high risk of COVID-19 infection, working for Uber is no longer a sustainable venture for the majority of drivers. Drivers are increasingly reliant on unemployment benefits, although many have been unable to collect jobless pay due to being classified as self employed.

Michael O’Dell, a driver in Columbus Ohio told National Public Radio, “I have really cut my driving down, probably like 90 percent. If I do need available cash to pay a bill or two or even buy food, I'll go out and drive for a little bit. But I definitely don't put the time into it like I normally did, because I'm not going to get good rides." As for unemployment, “I’ve been applying every week, every single week I get denied regular unemployment."

According to a 1,000 person survey of California Uber and Lyft drivers commissioned by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), two-thirds of respondents said they may not be able to pay their May rent or mortgage and nearly half will need food assistance this month.

Under these conditions, 100 workers staged a caravan protest outside Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco on May 11. The protest was organized by We Drive Progress, a group under the arm of the SEIU. On the part of the union, which is notorious for maintaining substandard pay for service workers while pocketing their dues payments, the action amounted to merely a token protest designed to release workers’ anger. The SEIU action was directed toward appealing to the conscience of Uber executives. It asked the company to comply with gig worker protections law AB 5, pay into the California unemployment insurance fund and drop the ballot initiative that Uber along with Lyft and DoorDash aims to use to keep gig workers classified as independent contractors. Meanwhile, Uber has indicated that it will further escalate layoffs and restructuring.

The SEIU, in spite of having 1.9 million members, primarily in healthcare, has not organized a single mass strike despite the fact the hundreds of thousands of nurses and other essential workers are being exposed to COVID-19 due to a lack of adequate personal protective equipment. Recently in Illinois, the union forced 10,000 nursing home workers to remain on the job with poverty wages and no serious protections against COVID-19. On top of this, millions of dollars of dues collected by the union goes towards funding Democratic Party politicians. In 2016, it gave over $17 million worth of workers’ dues to the Super PAC United We Can, which then spent over a million dollars to support the election of war hawk and corporate stooge Hillary Clinton.

Uber workers are determined to resist the ongoing decimation of their jobs and income. They will not find leadership in the pro corporate unions. The Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site call for the building of factory and workplace committees to mobilize the independent strength of workers in a fight to defend jobs and basic workplace protections.

Widespread opposition to unsafe reopening of schools and day-care facilities in Germany

Andy Niklaus & Ulrich Rippert

At the beginning of the week, the state of Saxony resumed unrestricted full operations at primary schools and day-care centres—without minimum distance requirements, class and group reductions or the compulsory wearing of masks. The state government—a coalition of the Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Green—under Michael Kretschmer (CDU) is thus specifically opposing the current federal hygiene regulations.

Primary schools are operating their normal classes. Children attending day-care go to their normal group. There is neither any dividing up into smaller groups nor staggering attendance times. Minimum distance and face masks are expressly not prescribed. Group separation only takes place between individual classes through staggered break times, which usually works only to a limited extent and does not reduce the risk of infection without any professional disinfection happening in between.

No additional coronavirus tests are being provided. Instead, parents must provide a daily written assurance that neither their child nor other people in the household are displaying COVID-19 symptoms.

Christian Piwarz (CDU), the responsible state minister, justifies this completely reckless policy with the argument that distancing rules are “de facto not feasible” at schools and day-care centres. Politicians therefore had only two options, he claimed. Either abandoning day-care facilities and to a large extent the teaching at elementary schools—and possibly for a long time to come—or waiving the distancing rules. The Saxony state executive decided in favour of reopening schools and day-care centres and against the distancing rules.

School children, toddlers and their parents are thus once again in close, daily contact. They are being forced to move about during rush hours on public transport. And if they do not need to follow social distancing or face masks in school and day-care, why then on the train and bus?

A storm of protest broke out when this decision became known. The parents of a 7-year-old primary school pupil in Leipzig filed an emergency suit with the Administrative Court to prevent the school from reopening without observing the minimum distance of 1.5 metres, which was upheld. Minister Piwarz immediately appealed to the Higher Administrative Court and stuck to his aggressive reopening plans.

The court temporarily suspended the obligation to attend school, so it is left to parents and students to decide on school attendance themselves. However, this decision is also extremely limited, because with the reopening of schools and the start of regular classes, the offer of online lessons has largely been eliminated.

Piwarz justified his decision with unsurpassed cynicism. His main concern was the “well-being of the children.” They should not “be allowed to fall by the wayside in the crisis,” he stressed. Small children needed care from specialists and primary school children were often overwhelmed by digital teaching, the minister said.

He is receiving support from the CDU’s coalition partners in Saxony. The Greens describe the reopening of schools as “an important step towards more educational justice” because the coronavirus crisis “mainly affects children from socially disadvantaged families.” The Social Democrats (SPD) praise the measure as a great relief for parents, especially single parents.

In reality, it is about the profit interests of big business and the resumption of production. The employers’ associations have long been calling for schools and day-care centres to be opened up again to allow parents to be released from childcare and return to work. Workers are being forced to resume work on production lines and in offices facing the same criminal methods and in completely unsafe conditions which now expose pupils, teachers, children and carers to the virus without protection and is turning schools into virus incubators.

Mr. Piwarz is a right-wing Christian Democrat who, five years ago, attacked the chancellor’s refugee policy and fully represents the interests of the business associations. Saxony’s brutal reopening of schools is at the forefront of the campaign to resume production in all areas.

Because this ruthless and criminal policy is meeting with resistance, it is being accompanied by an intensive political and media campaign to play down the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Tuesday, four medical societies published an appeal calling for kindergartens and schools to be reopened immediately despite the coronavirus pandemic throughout Germany. In their joint statement, the German Society for Hospital Hygiene, the German Society for Paediatric Infectiology, the German Academy for Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine and the Professional Association of Paediatric and Adolescent Physicians in Germany wrote, “Day-care centres, kindergartens and primary schools should be reopened as soon as possible”—“without restrictions.”

The reason given for this is the following: “Especially in children under 10 years of age, the current data speak for a lower rate of infection, as well as for a significantly lower rate of infection.” In contrast, the social and health consequences of closure are serious.

These professional associations thus contradict the warnings and clear recommendations of Christian Drosten and other virologists, who stress that previous studies do not give the all-clear regarding the risk of infection and spread of the virus by children and adolescents.

A look at the authors also makes it clear that the appeal by the professional associations is not aimed at the welfare of children, but at the welfare of the trade associations. For example, the head of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health, Prof. Dr. Martin Exner, is co-author with the virologist Hendrik Streeck of the controversial Heinsberg study, which claims a very low mortality rate of the coronavirus pandemic and advocates the accelerated relaxation of safety measures.

A second author, Dr. Peter Walger, is spokesman of the board of the German Society for Hospital Hygiene (DGKH). He had already called for the immediate opening of day-care centres and primary schools in the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung at the end of April. His statements left no doubt even then that his concern was a return to work. He said, “The damage caused by the closures of day-care centres and primary schools is enormous. The emergency provisions only cover a small part of the damage. Thousands and thousands of fathers and mothers are not working because their children are not being looked after. If we wait any longer, the secondary effects will escalate.”

The media hype surrounding the right-wing coronavirus demonstrations is also directed against resistance to the government’s loosening of the lockdown and herd immunity policies.

Although the right-wing extremist protests are rejected by a large majority of the population, they receive great attention in the media and from politicians and are systematically boosted. As with the far-right anti-immigrant Pegida demonstrations, top politicians and state representatives make pilgrimages to the right-wing marches.

In Dresden, Saxony’s state premier Michael Kretschmer personally attended along with the few hundred demonstrators. He demonstratively wore no face mask and disregarded the distancing rules.

Franziska Schubert, leader of the Green parliamentary group in the Saxony state parliament, also paid her respects to a coronavirus demonstration in Zittau. She carried a sign saying, “Ready to talk.” Afterwards, she told the media she was against “sweeping judgements” and demanded that the call for relaxing the lockdown be taken seriously.

Her colleague, Green member of the European Parliament Christin Melcher, explicitly defended Piwarz’ decision and his false reasoning. She said, “I welcome the reopening of schools and day-care centres. It is an important step towards normality for our children. The lack of direct communication with fellow pupils and teachers has put a great strain on the learning situation of our children.”

The reaction of many teachers, students and parents is completely different. On social media, fear, anger and indignation are spreading.

On Twitter, Johann van de Bron writes, “What does reality look like? The virus is not gone. We have hundreds of times more people infected than when the first wave broke out. Children are just as infectious as adults. In France, 40 percent of all pupils and teachers in a school have become infected. Both students and teachers report catastrophic conditions in schools. Public transport is a hotbed of disease that spreads the infection between schools. Outbreaks are already occurring in many schools.”

Pora writes, “It’s time for students, teachers and parents being sacrificed to fight back!” The claim that children are less at risk and less likely to become carriers of the disease is completely unfounded. “There are studies that say the opposite, what is the basis for what they claim?! Why is there so little testing? Think!”

A week ago, when the plans of the state government became known, teachers and students of the Kurt Masur Primary School in Leipzig wrote a protest letter to Education Minister Piwarz and declared that it was “in no way comprehensible” that “intentionally,” the infection prevention measures “prescribed in private and public spaces” were being “overridden.” The complete reopening of “one of the largest elementary schools” in Saxony would have completely unforeseeable and possibly catastrophic consequences.

UK Local councils face financial collapse due to pandemic

Dennis Moore

The financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic could see councils across England making budget cuts of up to 20 percent, eviscerating many essential services.

A report by the Labour Party estimates that local authorities could face increased costs of up to £10 billion and a massive loss of income.

Chair of the Local Government Association and Conservative Leader of Central Bedfordshire council, James Jamieson, estimates that councils will face vast costs of up to £13 billion this year due to measures required in tackling the pandemic.

Social care spending could face a shortfall of £3.5 billion, placing up to 225,000 adult social care places at risk in the coming year. Social care accounts for a significant proportion of spending for local councils across England and massive funding shortfalls will inevitably lead to cuts.

Richard Watts, leader of Labour-run Islington council in north London said, “Social care accounts for just over half of what councils spend so it’s inescapable that if you take that much out of the budget you’ll have to look at social care.”

These cuts come on top of over a decade in which local authority budgets have been slashed, devastating social care provisions and other important frontline services.

Between 2015/16 and 2017/18, councils lost 77 percent of their funding from central government, used to provide essential services.

The impact of the pandemic has led to many sources of revenue, such as the collection of parking fees, drying up. It is estimated that councils could lose up to £1.4 billion from these funding streams, leading to many councils potentially facing a financial black hole in the coming period.

Other losses include £400 million in business rates, fees and charges of £341 million and council tax revenue of £288 million as many people have lost their jobs and others are utilising payment holidays, as families struggle to meet their living costs.

Labour’s analysis shows that if local authorities did not touch their social care budgets, they would have to shut down all children’s centres, libraries, cut all spending on parks and leisure centres, carry out no winter gritting, turn off all street lighting and end all planning and building control work.

As a typical example, the 10 local councils across Greater Manchester are predicting increased costs associated with the pandemic will lead to more than £500 million having to be spent this financial year.

Labour-run Manchester City Council expects to suffer £126 million in lost income and faces a potential shortfall in overall funding of £152 million. Manchester has been hit hard due to the collapse of commercial income from business rates and the loss of the popular Parklife music festival, which was cancelled.

One of Greater Manchester’s councils, Trafford, was forced to resort to borrowing from a commercial bank to cover its day-to-day costs after it ran out of cash. Trafford is expected to lose another £37 million due to the pandemic.

Other Greater Manchester councils set to suffer are Salford (expected to lose £33 million), Oldham (£46 million) and Stockport (£40 million). Funding provided by the government will cover only a third of what is needed.

In a letter written to Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese pointed out that 150,000 residents are at significant risk of being adversely affected by the current situation medically, socially and economically.

The Greater Manchester councils have already lost over £1.7 billion in funding since 2010 and any loss to existing income streams leaves virtually no room for manoeuvre. As a result of savage funding cuts between 2009/10 and 2017/18, each resident lost the equivalent of £324.

Local Authorities providing payment holidays for council tax will not continue this indefinitely. As millions of workers are forced to go back to work under unsafe conditions—if they have a job to go back to as unemployment rockets—they will face having to repay hundreds of pounds in council.

Research by the Citizens Advice charity shows that 7.2 million people have already missed a council tax payment and a further 13 million have not been able to pay at least one bill because of the coronavirus outbreak. An estimated 11 million of these will be left facing severe financial consequences, including bailiff enforcement or eviction.

Last week, the government announced a further £600 million funding, on top of the £3.2 billion it has already allocated to councils in the last two months. But this falls far short of what is required, with many local authorities still reeling from year-on-year cuts to budgets. According to Richard Watts, chair of the Local Government Association’s Resources Board, councils “will need up to four times the funding they have been allocated by government so far.”

Earlier this year, local authorities across the UK had to activate emergency plans to deal with seasonal flooding that left many households and businesses devastated.

Children’s services have faced huge funding cuts in the last decade. A recently published report by five leading children’s charities concluded that local authority children’s services do not have the resources to deal with the pandemic.

Javed Khan, chief executive of Bernardo’s, said, “We have long warned about the ‘perfect storm’ facing children’s social care, and the gap between demand and resource will widen further as a result of coronavirus.”

A letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson by Sir Richard Leese, published in the Manchester Evening News, noted the losses incurred due to the pandemic followed “Ten years of austerity” that had “already seen the council’s budget cut by £380 million and reduced staff numbers by 40 percent. … There are no easy cuts left to make.”

The cuts required might not be “easy” to make, but Leese and his ilk will still make them. What he omitted to mention was that the Tories’ austerity agenda he outlines was only carried through because it was imposed by Labour councils nationwide, including his own. Vital public services were slashed by the Labour authorities in collaboration with the trade unions. Over the past five years, the cuts were enthusiastically imposed by Labour councils under the instruction of Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who insisted they set “legal” balanced budgets.

South America a “new epicenter” of COVID-19 pandemic, WHO warns

Bill Van Auken

The South American continent has become a “new epicenter” of the global coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said Friday at a press conference in Geneva.

He added that while “We’ve seen many South American countries with an increasing number of cases ... certainly the most affected is Brazil at this point.”

As of Friday, the total number of confirmed cases on the continent had risen to 578,187, with 29,361 recorded deaths. Brazil, the continent’s largest country, accounts for 320,000 of the confirmed cases and over 20,000 of South America’s deaths. Brazil is now reporting over 1,000 new deaths a day.

Ryan pointed to the concentration of cases in both the state of São Paulo and in Amazonas, where he said the infection rate had reached 450 people for every 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in the world.

The WHO’s assessment constitutes a warning of the social catastrophe that is threatening the entire continent of 430 million people, where imperialist oppression and capitalist exploitation have created the most socially unequal conditions on the planet.

Brazil

In Brazil, as elsewhere in Latin America and internationally, the number of confirmed cases and deaths is a fraction of the real toll of the deadly virus. According to one recent study based on the small amount of testing done in the country, the government is likely counting only one out of 20 cases. Meanwhile, there are reports of people dying in their homes and even in the streets in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

The disease is spreading even more rapidly in the more impoverished areas of Brazil’s interior. In the case of Amazonas, this involves remote villages, some of them two hours by river from any hospital, where indigenous populations are threatened with extermination.

In terms of total reported infections, Brazil has overtaken Russia to become the second highest country in the world—after the United States—even as its acknowledged death toll is nearly seven times higher than that of Russia.

The country’s healthcare system is on the brink of collapse. In the city of São Paulo, the six public hospitals are reporting they already have 100 percent of their ICU beds occupied, even as the number of cases continues to rise. Those who are packing the emergency rooms are in many cases workers in their 30s and 40s, who have been forced to continue working despite the pandemic.

Healthcare workers in Brazil are suffering the ravages of the disease more than anywhere else in the world, with 137 nurses killed by the virus and many thousands more infected. The intolerable conditions in the hospitals and healthcare centers have triggered strikes and protests by nurses and other healthcare professionals across the country. These workers are demanding adequate personal protective equipment, staffing and medical equipment, including ventilators. They have also demanded that they be paid for risking their lives daily.

The answer of Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro has been to announce a change in the government’s protocol for the use of hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug that has also been promoted by his political ally, US President Donald Trump. Bolsonaro said that the drug would now be recommended for even mild cases of the disease, whereas before it had been restricted to those hospitalized with extremely serious cases.

There is no scientific evidence that the drug has any efficacy in terms of combating the coronavirus, while studies have indicated that those taking it have a significantly higher risk of death, including from cardiac arrhythmia.

Bolsonaro, who previously dismissed the coronavirus as a “little flu,” defended his prescription, while acknowledging that there is no scientific evidence to support it. He declared, “We are in a war. Worse than being defeated is the shame of not having fought.”

After two of his health ministers resigned over disagreements with his policies, the ex-captain installed an army general in the post, while military officers have taken over at least a dozen of the most important positions in the ministry.

The promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure goes hand in hand with the Brazilian government’s criminal drive to end quarantines and resume production, with workers being herded back into auto plants, meatpacking houses and other industrial facilities to produce profits for the ruling class at the cost of their lives.

Meanwhile, cemetery workers are struggling to dig enough graves to handle the thousands dying each week.

Peru

In Peru, which has the second highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases after Brazil, over 111,000, with more than 3,100 recorded deaths, President Martín Vizcarra announced on Friday that a 68-day state of emergency and quarantine will be extended until June 30, with some “modifications and flexibilities.” The announcement triggered scattered protests in poor neighborhoods, where workers dependent upon the “informal sector" have been left without any income and are confronting growing hunger.

Among the “flexibilities” introduced by the Vizcarra government are those in the mining sector, which is dominated by transnational corporations and constitutes the principal source of the country’s earnings. Operations have continued and, as a result, the companies themselves have reported 603 Peruvian mine workers infected with the virus, with the real number undoubtedly far higher.

Indications of the real extent of the death toll in Peru have been provided by the minister of interior, who reported that 106 police officers have lost their lives to the virus, and a statement by the country’s prison authorities acknowledging that 182 inmates have been killed by the disease. The uncontrolled spread of the virus in the country’s prisons has led to uprisings, including one in which nine inmates lost their lives.

A report in the Financial Times established that some 8,000 deaths from COVID-19 have not been counted by the Vizcarra government. A government spokesman did not dispute the report but denied that there was a deliberate attempt to undercount the deaths. He claimed that the “anachronistic instruments" used to keep track of the dead led to delays in keeping up with the toll.

As elsewhere, the healthcare system is collapsing under the weight of the virus’s spread. “It’s like a horror movie, inside (the hospital) it looks like a cemetery for cadavers; patients are dying in their chairs or in wheelchairs,” Miguel Armas, a nurse at Hipólito Unanue Hospital in Lima, told AFP.

Chile

Chile has the third largest number of infections, over 61,000, and one of the fastest rates of increase in the spread of the virus, reporting more than 4,000 new confirmed cases and 45 more deaths on Friday. With 90 percent of intensive care beds occupied, the right-wing government of President Sebastián Piñera has ordered the army to open up field hospitals to deal with the overflow of patients, while 1,000 new graves have been dug in Santiago to handle the rising fatalities.

At the end of April, Piñera announced that the country had passed the peak of the virus and urged the reopening of the economy, including the retail sector. Since then, the number of cases has soared.

The government’s failure to provide social support for the masses of workers and poor under quarantine has led to an outbreak of protests and confrontations with the country’s brutal militarized police force, the Carabineros. Workers in the El Bosque area on the southern edge of Santiago took to the streets again on Friday, after previous clashes with the security forces. “This isn’t against the quarantine, it’s against hunger,” one of the protesters told a Chilean news broadcaster.

The protests in El Bosque have spread to other parts of the country, raising the prospect that the government’s abject failure to combat the coronavirus or provide support for the millions left without jobs or incomes will reignite the mass uprising against social inequality that brought millions to the streets in October of last year.

Ecuador

While Ecuador trails Chile in the number of confirmed cases—largely as a result of less testing—it ranks third in the number of deaths. As of Friday, there were some 36,000 confirmed cases and 3,056 deaths. The country’s largest city, the Pacific port of Guayaquil, was the gruesome scene in March and April of overflowing hospitals and bodies left in people’s homes and lying in the streets. While the number of deaths has declined in Guayaquil, it has increased in the highland capital of Quito, where people have died in the streets.

The right-wing, pro-US government of President Lenín Moreno has exploited the pandemic to push through further austerity measures designed to meet the demands of the IMF and foreign capital. Packaged under the cynical guise of a “Humanitarian Support Law,” the government has lifted subsidies on fuel prices and imposed cuts in the hours and salaries of workers. The major unions, peasant associations and social groups have called for mass protests on Monday.

Colombia

Colombia has also seen a surge in coronavirus cases and deaths, with 18,330 and 652, respectively, confirmed as of Friday. Healthcare workers took to the streets of Bogotá on Thursday in protests against the failure of right-wing President Iván Duque’s government to provide adequate supplies and equipment for the country’s hospitals. The National Health Institute has reported the deaths of 12 health care workers and the infections of nearly 1,000. Protesters reported the lack of personal protective equipment and also denounced the government for failing to pay them for months.

Case numbers and deaths are also rising sharply in Argentina and in Bolivia. In the latter, the dictatorial government installed last year in a US-backed coup is embroiled in a corruption scandal over the purchase of unsuitable respirators at double their real cost by a health minister who is a close political ally of unelected President Jeanine Áñez.

Alongside the savage loss of life to the coronavirus is the devastating economic impact of the pandemic on the masses of working people in Latin America. The UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean has predicted that poverty will engulf 34.7 percent of Latin America’s population, 215 million people, with 13 percent, 80 million, reduced to extreme poverty.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that the number of unemployed on the continent will rise to 305 million in the second quarter of 2020. The 158 million people working in the informal sector of Latin America and the Caribbean, 54 percent of the working population, will see their incomes reduced by more than 80 percent as a result of the crisis.

Drastically intensifying the conditions of capitalist exploitation, imperialist oppression, social inequality and authoritarian rule that existed before the coronavirus pandemic, the present crisis is creating the conditions for revolutionary upheavals throughout the hemisphere. The crisis is revealing ever more openly that the decisive question in the struggle against the pandemic and its impact on masses of people is the independent political mobilization and international unification of the working class in the fight for socialism.