Wednesday, August 5, 2020
UK teachers’ pay award: A shoddy deal for all
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/05/teuk-a05.html
By Tom Pearce
5 August 2020
The Conservative government is hailing as a major advance Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a pay-rise for teachers.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The offer is divisive and paltry. It will not be funded by the government, but out of already chronically under-funded school budgets.
The deal is being sold as a “generous offer,” aimed at resolving the teacher recruitment and retention crisis but does not come close to resolving the strains of a sector on its knees. Only Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) will get the headline 5.5 percent pay rise, with more experienced teachers being offered 2.75 percent, equating to a measly 3.1 percent increase overall. When inflation is factored in, schools are left where they were 13 years ago.
Young people are being enticed into a profession at breaking point. The statistics are stark. There was a 4.6 percent increase in teacher vacancies last year, with almost 1,300 more vacancies advertised by schools in 2018-2019 than in 2017-2018. The Department for Education (DfE) reported that almost a “third of teachers leave the classroom within five years of qualifying.” The overall number of teachers has not kept pace with increasing pupil numbers and the ratio of pupils to qualified teachers has increased from 17.8 in 2011 to 18.9.
Around 42,000 full-time equivalent qualified teachers left the state-funded sector in the 12 months to November 2018, a “wastage rate” of 9.8 percent. According to the House of Commons Library, “The wastage rate has ranged from 9.1 percent (2012) to 10.3 percent (2015) since the current series started in 2011.” It noted, “32.3 percent of newly qualified entrants in 2016 were not recorded as working in the state sector five years later. This is the highest five-year wastage rate on the current series, which dates back to 1997.”
It noted, “Overall pupil numbers are expected to continue rising, driven by a projected 15 percent increase in the number of secondary school pupils between 2018 and 2024.”
The environment that newly qualified teachers (NQTs) will find is one of constant surveillance and pressure. UK teachers work 47 hours a week on average according to a study by the UCL Institute of Education. A third of teachers work over 60 hours a week and during the “holidays”. These long hours are unsustainable and a major reason why teachers are fleeing the profession.
Since 2014, teachers have had to deal with performance related pay (PRP). This has been used to cap teacher pay, as schools are now allowed to award increases or not at their own discretion.
The 2.75 percent pay rise sanctioned by the Department for Education (DfE) for 2019-20, for example, was not implemented across all schools. The National Education Union (NEU) who surveyed their members, found that out of 25,000 responses only 49 percent received the pay award.
Overseen by the unions, workers have experienced pay freezes and cuts in pay for over a decade. This amounts to a 15 percent loss of income over the last 15 years for workers in education. The new pay deal does not come close to addressing this shortfall.
A decade of underfunding and budget cuts has seen school funding cut by 8 percent in real terms in the last decade, and sixth form funding by 21 percent. In the last three years alone, £5.4 billion has been lost from school budgets, affecting 91 percent of schools in England.
Headteachers have had to make desperate decisions about staffing redundancies and curriculum provision to balance their budgets. Schools now rely more and more on teachers and parents to plug deficits due to crippling budget cuts.
The pay deal will add to financial difficulties as schools will have to find the money themselves at a time when the funding situation is exacerbated by the costs of COVID-19. Schools are having to buy signage and cleaning resources out of existing budgets.
In September 2019, £7.1 billion was promised to schools over three years. The government has also promised a £1 billion catch-up plan for children affected by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. £650 million will be shared across state primary and secondary schools and a £350 million National Tutoring Programme is being set up. This is paltry compared to the hundreds of billions in bailout funds handed to big business.
The unsafe reopening of schools in September will elevate the crisis. That many older teachers will retire early, concerned about the impact of the pandemic on their health, is also a factor in the carrot of enhanced payments for new starts. The stick will follow the carrot. The stress levels involved in attempting to teach while keeping “bubbles” of up to 240 children and themselves safe with no protective measures, such as social distancing and masks, will weigh heavily on the mental health of staff.
The teaching unions are not opposing the unsafe opening of schools and have refused to mobilise the broad-based opposition among staff. They welcomed the government’s empty promises for NQTs, saying they were merely “disappointed” that the deal did not reward experienced staff.
The National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), General Secretary Dr Patrick Roach said, “Whilst [the] announcement recognises the importance of pay levels in making teaching more attractive to new teachers, the Government also needs to do more to retain experienced teachers in the profession.”
Making no reference to how schools would find the money for such a raise, Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, referred to the government’s move as a “curate’s egg”:
“Raising starting salaries by 5.5 percent should make the profession more attractive to graduates,” she said. “But the prospect of salaries tapering off as they progress through the profession means that progress made in recruiting teachers will not be sustained in retaining them.”
The NEU, after only asking for a 7 percent pay rise for all teachers in their own ineffectual campaign and having again been ignored by the government, responded by glorifying the pay deal for new starts!
This is consistent with their response to the coronavirus crisis—to demand the government incorporate them in their decision making as the best-placed institutions for imposing the government’s pro-business agenda. The NEU have called, yet again, “to establish, in consultation with the teacher unions, a timetable for further above-inflation teacher pay increases beyond 2020.”
It then lists, without irony, the major defeats teachers have experienced under the watch of the unions in the last decade: “The dismantling of the national pay structure, imposition of PRP and real-terms funding cuts have resulted in many teachers not getting the cost-of-living increases announced in previous years.”
The pandemic will only intensify the attacks of recent years. The billions handed out by Sunak to big business will be clawed back from the working class. Teachers need new rank-and-file organisations based on unifying workers in a struggle against the profit system, as the only way to secure a decent education for children and good working conditions for staff.
The author also recommends:
No to the reopening of schools! Build action committees to safeguard children and teachers!
[30 May 2020]
Opposition builds to re-opening of UK schools
[5 June 2020]
Brazilian teachers oppose back-to-school drive
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/05/braz-a05.html
By our correspondents
5 August 2020
As Brazilian local governments are pushing for a general reopening of schools, following the sociopathic demands of the fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro, widespread opposition to these measures is emerging among parents and educators.
A survey by Instituto Datafolha in April revealed that three in every four people in Brazil believed that it is more important to “stay home to avoid the coronavirus spread, even if this jeopardizes the economy and provokes unemployment.” In June, another survey from the same institution revealed that 76 per cent of Brazilians are against the schools reopening in the next two months, and that only 21 percent are in favor of going back to schools in the short term.
The World Socialist Web Site spoke to teachers from different parts of Brazil about the political reasons behind the back-to-school campaign and the dangers it poses to the lives of the school staff, students, and their families.
Francisca, a public school kindergarten teacher in São Paulo, explained that a series of safety protocols being approved by state and municipal governments are an active part of the back-to-school campaign. “The protocols that are being presented seem to me like a listing of general procedures that do not guarantee the safety and well-being of workers, children or families and do not consider the specifics of each age group or the structure conditions of each education unit.”
Arguing that adequate infrastructure is a pre-requisite for protecting people from contagion, Francisca said, “The school where I work has an inadequate infrastructure ... and one which, in this moment, determines the impossibility of implementing the [protocol] measures: reduced spaces, making social distancing difficult; the absence of reserved spaces for isolating symptomatic children; and poor airing and cooling systems, compromising the air healthiness. These are only three basic preventive measures that our school, as many others of the school network, are under no condition to implement.”
Fabiano, a Portuguese middle school teacher in São Paulo’s public system, made reference to the cuts that were already occurring before the pandemic. “These protocols are very subjective, and we know that the municipal government under this administration [of Bruno Covas of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB)] has already reduced the cleaning staff. The hygiene aspect is fundamental for these protocols to work and I don’t believe, especially due to this administration’s record, that there would be personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer, soap, what they call ‘safety protocols’.”
Job cuts in the municipal school system of São Paulo have been occurring under successive administrations, including that of Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party (PT), who was the PT candidate in the 2018 presidential elections.
Geraldo, a Sociology teacher in a public state school in Amazonas, warned about a potential new upsurge in infections resulting from a return of classes. “The Department [of Education] will leave us to fend for ourselves and there will be no following of safety protocols ... One person can transmit to another five or ten. I read that, at the same time as kids have a lower probability of contagion, they are less symptomatic. And how are people going to interact in schools without human contact? And by that I don’t mean touching other people—they are going to touch things; they are going to walk to different places.”
Pedro, a primary school History teacher also working in the Amazonian public school system, described the “safety protocols” being planned for the return to schools. “One hundred percent of the students would come back under a hybrid, rotation scheme. They claim that there will be testing for teachers, but only once, when they get back to school. This testing is not being planned for students, who will, at most, have their temperatures measured.”
Pointing out the herd immunity policies being de factoimplemented by governments throughout the world, Geraldo warned: “The professionals are being prepared to return as guinea pigs, with all of the existing surveys about chronic diseases among teachers.”
There is an understanding among educators that the back-to-school campaign is based on financial interests. Igor, a private school teacher in São Paulo, stated that “The immediate return certainly cannot solve even the teaching issues for students. The interests are economic ones.”
He also exposed the movement in private schools to decrease teachers’ wages. “From one side, there are demands from parents, who want to pay less for not getting the same services. From the other, there is pressure from the companies, which indeed can suffer from decreases in enrollment and default, but which may use the moment to worsen labor relations. A sign of that is that a big company in education where I work reduced wages by 25 percent for three months, but considers that it can be a good moment to make new company acquisitions.”
Expressing the educator’s distrust of the ability of a return to school to solve the educational issues existing in distance learning, Francisca denounced the new issues that would arise. She highlighted the utter lack of preparation and indifference towards the education of small children.
“It will be, at best, an uncertain, if not worrisome outcome, as the return does not completely solve the problems posed and, actually, creates other ones: Which kids and families will ‘earn’ the right to be part of the first 35 percent [of students allowed in classrooms in the first phase of the plan]? They will be guaranteed meals, ‘safe’ school day time and it will relieve the workers responsible for them, but at what cost? Are the protocol measures really sufficient or possible? In the specific case of small children, how to guarantee significant school experiences in the face of physical distancing, restricted spaces and the prohibition of sharing?”
Pointing to the worsening of the work conditions that came with the widening of digital service platforms, Geraldo made a connection between the inadequate conditions and poor wages of app delivery workers, who have recently engaged in strikes in Brazil, and the attacks faced by education workers over the last years. “If you look at people who work in tourism sector, in hotels, or submitted to companies as Airbnb, I think that situation has also arrived in education, in the sense that the teacher will also start to share content without any labor obligations.”
The pandemic was seen by education government officials, NGOs and companies as an opportunity to accelerate the introduction of distance learning digital platforms in school curricula. Already, hundreds of millions of dollars in digital equipment were promised to supposedly ameliorate working conditions for teachers.
However, Pedro denounced the precarious experience that actually is being provided. “Not even half of the students own a cell phone … many families are poor. We have many Venezuelan students, who have just arrived in Brazil and don’t speak Portuguese.”
“Participation is minimal, with three or four students attending classes where there are almost 50 students enrolled.” Those that do participate are doing so by overcoming precarious conditions. “A colleague of mine told me that a parent works as a night guard. His son finishes the activities, then his father takes pictures on his cell phone and sends it when he arrives at work, where there is wireless internet connection.”
He went on to explain the inadequate meal distribution to the families. “They have created a program called ‘Meals at Home’, distributing one food basket to the family of each student during these four months. However, there are many parents complaining that they still haven’t received it. In the countryside, families are just now receiving their first food basket.”
Geraldo denounced the criminal response of the trade union in São Paulo joining the government in implementing the return to school plans. “In some schools, the attacks were so intense that many teachers were fired, and some lost their contracts. And the response of the trade unions is limited to assistance, sending food and aid. The trade union is unable to get close to the rank-and-file. It is already supporting the Plano SP [the return-to-work plan of the state government], limiting their demand to a ‘drastic decrease’ [in cases before reopening schools], which doesn’t mean anything.”
“The trade union doesn’t create an official Facebook, or Instagram account and doesn’t show their number of followers because they are afraid to be among the rank-and-file, exposing their own contradictions and problems, which teachers would expose.”
On Wednesday, São Paulo state teachers organized a motorcade, planned to finish outside of Governor João Doria’s house. Doria ordered the police to block the motorcade, preventing it from reaching his house. Then, the São Paulo Teachers Union (APEOESP) president, Maria Izabel Azevedo Noronha, known as Bebel, walked towards the police blockade and feigned opposition to the governor’s plans.
In the beginning of July, Noronha met with the state’s education secretary to supposedly oppose the back-to-school drive, on the grounds that a “drastic reduction of the pandemic” is needed before that. Such formulation leaves open the possibility that teachers and students are forced into schools as cases and deaths reach an “acceptable” level.
In Rio de Janeiro, where the Mayor Marcelo Crivella of the Republicans party is promoting the reopening of private schools starting this Monday, trade unions are blocking a unified opposition of the educators. The unions officially representing state, municipal, and private school teachers, who are all threatened by the same policies, held separate meetings in different dates.
Teachers, school staff and workers in Brazil and internationally must form rank-and-file committees independent of both the trade unions and “left” parties such as the PT, PSOL and PCdoB. They will allow workers to unify themselves to fight against the murderous back-to-school campaign, and for the modernization of schools and high-quality infrastructure for distance learning, both financed by the expropriation of the capitalist oligarchy.
The author also recommends:
World Bank pushes privatized distance learning in Brazil
[29 June 2020]
Fascist networks in German police and military issue new death threats
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/05/netz-a05.html
By Jan Ritter and Max Linhof
5 August 2020
Far-right-wing extremist chat groups involving members of the German military and security apparatus have been publicly exposed over recent days. At the same time, a growing number of threatening e-mails and faxes, almost all signed NSU 2.0, have been sent to left-wing artists, immigrants, politicians, journalists and lawyers. Social Democrat leader Saskia Esken recently received a death threat signed NSU 2.0. Many of the threats contain personal information about those targeted that is not publicly available. In at least three cases, the data was accessed from police computers.
The best-known case is of the lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz, whose secret address was accessed on a police computer in Frankfurt. The lawyer, who represented some of the victims of the far-right National Socialist Underground (NSU) terrorist group, received a death threat several days later signed NSU 2.0.
Der Spiegel reported on July 29 that the police officer whose computer was used to access the data had not been seriously investigated, because another officer could have logged on to her computer with a password displayed nearby. On this basis, she was not initially considered a suspect. However, after officers found out that she was an active participant in a right-wing extremist chat group, they were finally compelled to launch an investigation against her.
The far-right group “Itiotentreff” was almost exclusively made up of police officers in the state of Hesse. A total of 102 pictures, caricatures and messages were shared, of which 40 were deemed to be relevant to the investigation by the state prosecutor. Group members made fun of disabled people, survivors of concentration camps, black people and Jews. The messages showing Alan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee child who drowned in 2015, were especially inhumane. “Whoever finds it can keep it” was written beneath the picture of his lifeless body on a Turkish beach.
The chat group had an openly fascistic character and aimed to serve as a platform for sharing right-wing extremist material and possibly planning acts of violence, apparently all under the protection of the security agencies and local politicians from the government parties.
One of the group’s members lived in 2018 in Kirtorf, a stronghold of the far-right that has played host to several right-wing extremist major events since the turn of the century. In addition, a search of the home of another police officer in Kirtorf in late 2018 uncovered a collection of Nazi memorabilia that investigators described as a “Nazi museum.” The mayor of Kirtorf at the time, Ulrich Künz (Christian Democrats), justified the find by saying that it is normal for people to collect historical material. He described the Nazi memorabilia collector and his brother, who was also a police officer in Hesse, as “nice guys, friendly, very integrated into clubs and associations.”
This is just one example of the building up of far-right structures within the state apparatus. Across Germany, new far-right networks are continually being exposed, from “Revolution Chemnitz” in Saxony, to the chat group led by the special forces soldier Andre S., better known as “Hannibal,” and the nationwide far-right Telegram chat group #WIR.
On July 23, Die Zeit published extracts from these chats in an article headlined “Soldiers who are planning a revolt.” The author and right-wing extremist expert Christian Fuchs wrote that among #WIR’s members, which at times totalled around 240, were “several soldiers, reservists and army veterans.”
According to his research, several right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi members of the army are active in the #WIR chat group. One member was Hartmut T., who holds at least the rank of sergeant in the military. In the Telegram group, he has been presented a series of awards for parachuting and individual bravery during his 12-year career as a soldier, is stationed at an army air base in the Lüneburg region and is now a member of the rapid response division. This unit is part of the same division as the special forces (KSK), which was so heavily infiltrated by right-wing extremists that Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer felt compelled to restructure the force last month.
Like the network organised by Hannibal in the KSK, the #WIR network also planned to murder left-wing figures and establish a fascist regime in Germany on “Day X.”
Hartmut T. wrote in the #WIR chat, among other things, “Can you add me to the group Antifa Reconnaissance? I want to know who my enemies are...so I can take action against these terrorists.” Another contribution cited by Die Zeit underscores just how concrete the plans for a far-right revolt were. “Patriots” must now “keep themselves safe” so that “when the first wave is over with, we can rebuild our country,” wrote T. in November 2019.
The author of the article in Die Zeit adds, “These statements were made in November 2019, so the ‘wave’ has nothing to do with the coronavirus; it probably refers to the initial phase after a putsch.”
The material presented by Fuchs leaves no doubt about the group’s fascist outlook, its close ties to the German army and other European militaries, and its plans for a violent putsch. “Anti-Semitic slogans and racist violent fantasies” were among the messages shared, as well as “free social national.”
Andreas E., another group member, was, “according to his own admission,” active for five years in the French Foreign Legion in French Guyana, Congo and Papua New Guinea.
Another member of the group was Heiko Herbert G., who according to Fuchs is a member of the military reserves, Lower Saxony group. In December 2019, he directed a threat to anti-fascists, “It’s not enough just to slap those guys in the face! I don’t want to write any more about it.”
The plans were apparently far advanced, and links had already been established with other far-right groups. “My preparations are complete. Own weapons, fighting gear, civil war,” wrote Heiko Herbert G. in the chat group. He has everything “up to calibre 38–45.” In addition, the reservist posted a picture “of a mountain of rucksacks, helmets and a sleeping bag with German army insignia.”
One of the administrators of #WIR was Marion G., who consciously wanted to bring together “patriots...and National Socialists.” She was an alleged supporter of “the right-wing extremist terrorist S Group,” whose members were arrested by the police in February. But Marion G. “remained free” and “continued to be active in the digital underground.” And this in spite of the fact that the S Group was reportedly on the brink of striking.
According to a report in Der Spiegel in February, the group had already hoarded weaponry and munitions and planned in a concerted “military” action to launch attacks on mosques across Germany and kill Muslims as they prayed. The goal was to provoke a counter-response and a “civil war.” The investigating state prosecutor summarised the group’s aim as having been the “rattling” and “overcoming” of the Federal Republic’s state structure and social order.
The fascist networks in the German security forces are now so widespread and threatening that the New York Times felt compelled for the second time in a few weeks to warn of the danger of a right-wing putsch. After an initial article on July 3, the Times wrote last weekend about the plans for “Day X” of the Northern Cross group, which emerged out of the network operated by Hannibal. “Increasingly, the German authorities consider the scenario a pretext for domestic terrorism by far-right plotters or even for a takeover of the government,” wrote the Times .
It may well be the case that sections of the state apparatus and government are troubled by the putsch plans and terrorist activities. But the fact is that there is no force within the political establishment or state, including the judiciary, investigative authorities, and political parties, capable of or willing to deal with the far-right threat. The strengthening of far-right terrorist networks in the police, military and intelligence agencies is directly linked to the German bourgeoisie’s return to militarism and war. The only way to stop the right-wing extremist terrorists is through the independent mobilisation of the working class on the basis of a socialist programme.
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[30 July 2020]
Neo-Nazi network in police covered up at highest levels of German state and politics
[18 July 2020]
Massive neo-Nazi penetration of German military and police
[10 July 2020]
Fascist network uncovered in German Army’s Special Forces unit
[18 June 2020]
The growing fascist influence in German politics: The case of Christian Democratic politician Robert Möritz
[7 January 2020]
As COVID-19 surges, infected Turkish workers forced back to work
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/05/turk-a05.html
By Barış Demir
5 August 2020
As coronavirus spreads again in Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government re-opened the economy on June 1, backed by bourgeois opposition parties like the Republican People’s Party (CHP), businesses are forcing even infected workers to work.
Last week, a canned fish company, Dardanel, in the western city of Çanakkale, forced all workers into its factory for 14 days after more than 40 workers tested positive for coronavirus. According to a Bianet report, “All workers of the factory, including those who were in quarantine in their homes and those on annual leave, were placed in student dormitories. Also, workers diagnosed with Covid-19 were brought to the factory with shuttles and worked.”
“Our psychology deteriorates in the workplace, we cannot breathe in the bands, even going to and from the toilets is a problem. Managers, supervisors always keep an eye on us,” one worker told the daily Evrensel, adding: “Our life is almost hostage. The final decision is already a concrete example of this. They throw us all into the fire so that the boss’s job is not interrupted.”
The company’s move came after the Çanakkale Governorate Provincial Public Hygiene Committee declared: “The personnel of enterprises that operate in a closed system shall be taken to the factory and then to the place they will be isolated.” This decision was approved not only by the office of the governor, but also by city’s CHP mayor.
This reactionary collaboration shows how workers are forced to remain at work under deadly conditions and exposes the anti-working-class character of the middle-class parties and trade unions that lined up behind the CHP as an alternative to Erdoğan. Their focus is not to contain pandemic and save lives, but to restrain growing anger and opposition within the working class and divert it into safe channels—even as the pandemic spreads and living conditions plummet.
News of forced labour in Çanakkale came just a few weeks after the CHP supported a massive attack on the working class in parliament. With CHP votes, the Erdoğan government extended the forced “unpaid leave” process until July 2021 for hundreds of thousands or millions of workers. They have been forced to take unpaid leave, receiving only 1,170 Turkish liras (about US$170) per month from the state unemployment fund. After the pandemic, the number of unemployed rose to over 17 million in Turkey, an all-time record.
The criminal practice in Çanakkale follows a stated project by the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD). In May, MÜSİAD announced a project to build “isolated production bases” to avoid stopping production amid this pandemic and continue exploitation of the working class.
Coronavirus reports continue to increase from other factories. In the Vestel factory in Manisa, workers report that there are hundreds of infected employees; seven have already died. This white goods factory employs more than 16,000 workers. It is the largest factory in Turkey and one of the largest in Europe. “Workers continue to work. Everyone is very nervous. Cases are coming out, but there is no quarantine application,” one worker told daily BirGun .
At Uğur Konfeksiyon, a factory in the Istanbul İkitelli organised industrial zone, 96 workers have been reportedly infected within two weeks.
Companies are running rampant, imposing criminal policies on their employees. At the end of June, though 40 workers working in railway construction in the southeastern city of Mardin had been infected in one week, Cengiz Holding threatened workers if they refused to keep working. In May, in the same workplace, 118 workers were fired after they protested against working under unsafe conditions.
Growing reports on positive cases and factory deaths come amid an escalation in the pandemic across Turkey amid the international back-to-work campaign.
As the total number of cases in Turkey reaches 232,000, with more than 5,700 deaths, the proportion of COVID-19 patients in intensive care in Turkey rose from 2 percent on July 1 to nearly 12 percent at the end of July. In this period, the number of active cases fell from around 30,000 to less than 12,000, but the number of patients in intensive care nearly doubled.
Despite these signs of serious spread of COVID-19 disease, the Health Ministry’s official figures remained almost the same. The total daily new cases were between 900 and 1,000 since July 14, and death toll was 15-20.
On July 29, the Turkish Health Ministry stopped announcing figures on intensive care and intubated patients, amid growing suspicion and anger among workers that the government is hiding the true scope of the coronavirus crisis in Turkey so as to keep promoting tourism and extracting profits from workers. As of July 28, there were 1,280 patients in intensive care. This amounts to 11.8 percent of active cases, with 403 patients on ventilators.
There are growing warnings from scientists that the COVID-19 pandemic is spiraling out of control due to a “herd immunity” policy implemented by the government with tacit support from local governments led by so-called opposition parties.
Turkish Medical Association (TTB) official Prof. Sinan Adıyaman said, “They do not want to give the number of patients in intensive care. Because we could make inferences by looking at them. We were dividing the number of active patients into the number of patients in intensive care. We have explained that this proportion is over 10 percent in Turkey but it is around 1.5 percent in the world.”
Prof. Dr. Bengi Başer also attacked the government’s deliberate neglect in a tweet on Monday, stating: “We only use PCR tests for those who show symptoms; so we do it to only 30 percent. … The diagnostic value of the test is 60 percent. … We do not apply tests to those who come from abroad. We also no longer make a test for close contacts of positive cases.” She warned, “Focus on reality, not on numbers.”
In an interview on Monday, Halis Yerlikaya, a TTB official, also declared that the official figures are not true: “On the day of death of 8 patients in one night in Diyarbakır, the number of deaths announced throughout the country was 17.” Warning of a serious spread in many cities, Yerlikaya claimed intensive care units in Diyarbakır, Mardin and Şanlıurfa—the Kurdish-majority cities in the southeast—are already full. The daily number of cases in Diyarbakır or Urfa alone is somewhat more than 300, though the official figure across all of Turkey is barely over 900.
As coronavirus spreads unrestrainedly in Turkey and internationally due to the ruling class’s deadly response to the pandemic, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, the only way forward for the working class is to intervene independently. Autoworkers in the US, who built rank-and-file safety committees in their factories independent of pro-capitalist trade-unions, show what is can be done to save millions of lives by workers around over the world.
COVID-19 surges in Spain as government pushes reopening of schools
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/05/spai-a05.html
By Alejandro López
5 August 2020
The COVID-19 virus is resurgent across Spain and Europe. On Sunday the Ministry of Health confirmed 1,525 new COVID-19 cases had been detected in Spain in the last 24 hours. This was 300 more than Saturday’s record-breaking total, the first time daily new cases topped the 1,000 mark since early May, when Spaniards were confined to their homes and even daily walks and exercise were still not allowed.
There are now officially over 500 outbreaks of the virus, though the real number is likely larger. New infections are concentrated in three areas: Aragón, Catalonia and Madrid. However, the incidence of the virus this week has risen in almost all of Spain’s 17 regions. Hundreds of thousands of people in various towns and regions have been recommended to remain at home.
In this resurgence, the average age of the infected are younger than in the spring. It has fallen from 60 in March-April, to 45 for men and 41 for women. Data from the last three weeks show that figure is even lower: 36 and 38, respectively.
The political establishment and the media have blamed the youth for this rise, blaming parties and other social gatherings or nightlife that undermine social distancing for the recent surge. María Jesús Montero, the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government’s spokeswoman, sent a message last week to “people who are younger, because some of the outbreaks are linked to the behaviour in nightlife venues or places where a large number of people gather.”
However, the main reason for the spread is not risky partying, but the criminal policies of the PSOE-Podemos government.
In May and June, Spain was able to contain the virus due to a strict lockdown imposed to gain control over one of Europe’s worst outbreaks, after mass anger erupted at the slow response and a strike wave in major industries erupted in Italy and throughout Europe.
Spain halted all nonessential activity for two weeks and gradually started deescalating. Instead of using this time to rapidly invest in tracers and mass testing, however, the government started lifting measures only in order to open the economy. The aim was to “save” the tourism season, which represents 12 percent of Spain’s GDP, so the extraction of profits from the working class could continue unabated.
While the rise in infected youth highlights the need for more testing and contact tracing, especially as many seem to be asymptomatic, the government ignored the issue. According to data collected by daily El País from the regional authorities, only 3,500 contact tracers have been hired, though international health authorities recommended Spain hire at least 8,000 to control the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amid this resurgence, the Spanish political establishment is promoting a campaign to reopen schools across Spain in September—as are Britain, France, Germany and other countries across Europe. Most have been closed since mid-March. This threatens to further escalate the soaring levels of COVID-19 infections.
The return to school is a criminal policy exposing children, teachers, families and neighbourhoods open to serious illness and death. It has nothing to do with concern for children. Teachers and children are being sent into unsafe environments that will become breeding grounds for COVID-19. It is the other side of the coin of the back-to-work policy of the ruling class. The back-to-school entails sending children to be kept in confined spaces so millions of parents can be sent to work in nonessential industries.
A hasty reopening of schools has been singled out as a key factor behind the catastrophic resurgence in South Africa and Israel. Israel had 6,800 students of various ages and teachers in quarantine in early July, just two weeks after the centres reopened. South Africa has closed its schools for four weeks to limit the spread, but will once again reopen.
In Spain, testament to the criminality of this policy is the fact that they have yet to plan the reopening of schools. Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced in parliament that he would call a conference with all the regional premiers at the end of August to finalise the “back to school.”
He said, “We have to meet at the end of August to prepare or finalize, rather, the return to school of our sons and our daughters, I think that is also very important.” Education Minister Isabel Celáa put the whole responsibility on the regions, stating that they “must provide the measures and establish a provision of the spaces that allow the distances to be observed.”
At this stage, the only guidance the government has given for the reopening of schools this September was posted in June. The guidance even goes against the general COVID-19 precautions. Social distancing requirements have been reduced from 2 metres to 1.5 metres, while those aged 10 and younger will not be required to social distance or wear a mask in school. Older children will only need to wear masks when the 1.5-meter distance cannot be maintained.
Recommended class capacity has been set at 15, but could be a maximum as 20. However, due to the EU-backed austerity policies implemented by successive right-wing and Socialist Party-led governments, average class sizes are 25 in primary and 35 in secondary education in Spain.
Educators are also expected to use available areas throughout the school area to ensure the latest safety guidelines can be met, including cafeterias and gyms. Classes will supposedly be aired out after each use and windows in classrooms will need to remain open as long as possible throughout the day, even amid cold weather.
Directors of each school will also nominate one staff person responsible to establish a health protocol for each centre. How teaching staff without medical qualifications will be able to differentiate COVID symptoms from others like the flu is also unclear.
The recklessness reopening of schools is provoking growing opposition amongst parents, educators and working people.
Raimundo de los Reyes, director of a Murcian institute and president of Fedadi, the largest association of directors of secondary schools in Spain, told eldiario.es: “They tell us that there should be no meetings of more than 15 people, but they plan a return to class with 35 students in 50 square metres.”
In Galicia, protests have been taking place since last Wednesday, when hundreds of teachers surrounded the regional Education Ministry in a human chain.
In Andalusia, 150 centres have sent a letter to the Ministry of Education rejecting instructions that they write a protocol explaining that they cannot open their doors under current conditions and with the current means.
In Castilla y León, the León Teaching Personnel Board and the parents federation issued a statement criticising Ministry of Education officials for “washing their hands” of the pandemic and “turning over responsibilities to the schools.”
Teachers must be warned, moreover, that the unions do not oppose reopening the schools. They aim to isolate teachers region by region and channel their opposition into empty protests. Just as the unions were the chief enforcers of the reckless back-to-work policy implemented by the PSOE-Podemos government that provoked the resurgence of the virus, now they are also key implementers of the back-to-school policy.
Education workers and parents must act independently by forming action committees to ensure the safety and well-being of children, staff, families and communities. Rank-and-file action committees must do everything possible to ensure the maximum safety and well-being of children.
The International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality parties throughout Europe propose the following demands as a basis for waging such a fight:
· • Schools must remain closed for all pupils to prevent the spread of COVID-19 until scientific advice establishes that it is safe to reopen. Any teacher refusing to work for health reasons, related to themselves or their family, must be provided a full wage and protected from victimisation.
· • Adequate personal protective equipment must be provided, regular deep cleaning carried out and all activities risk-assessed to protect staff and children from cross infection, and maintain social distancing. Staff must be involved in the drawing up of these measures through elected representatives.
· • All cases of COVID-19 must be immediately reported to staff and families and affected schools closed until testing and contact tracing establishes that it is safe to reopen.
· • Vulnerable staff must have the right not to return to work without any loss of pay or disciplinary action.
· • Casual staff who could not to work and did not receive income during the lockdown must receive full back pay. They must be defended against schools’ demands that they cover for teachers who refuse to work in unsafe conditions.
· • Free, high-quality computer and internet access must be guaranteed to every family, to ensure that accessibility to online learning is not dependent on wealth.
· • A massive increase in government funding must be advanced to overcome the gutting of educational services.
Zimbabwe: Government repression as social unrest mounts
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/05/zimb-a05.html
By Stephan McCoy
5 August 2020
The ZANU-PF government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa has deployed the police and military to shut down the capital Harare, having ordered people to stay indoors ahead of rallies planned for July 31.
In Bulawayo, the streets were equally deserted with only security forces seen roaming the city centre.
The security forces have arrested dozens of opposition critics, including one involved in organising the rallies, and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, investigating corruption allegations involving Health Minister Obadiah Moyo. More than a dozen others were forced into hiding.
The pro-imperialist Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC-A) and smaller opposition parties had called the rallies opposing the deteriorating economic situation, the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, rampant corruption, and the wave of arrests and abductions over the last few months.
While the main rally could not go ahead, the security forces arrested dozens of people participating in smaller protests, including Fadzayi Mahere, spokeswoman of the MDC-Tsvangirai, and the prominent author Tsitsi Dangarembga, whose new book This Mournable Body has been long-listed for the Booker Prize.
Security forces also kidnapped Tawanda Muchehiwa, a 22-year-old student and nephew of Mduduzi Mathuthu, editor of the newspaper Zim Live, and two other relatives, after a raid by armed men—believed to be Zimbabwe Police—did not find Mathuthu at home.
While Muchehiwa’s relatives were released without charge, Tawanda was later dumped near his home after being severely tortured. Doctors who treated him said they were “alarmed” by the extent of his injuries that included deep cuts and severe kidney damage.
This follows a spate of arrests and kidnappings by plainclothes government thugs that began in May, giving the lie to the claims that Mnangagwa, one of long-time ruler Robert Mugabe’s closest political associates who succeeded him in 2017 after a military coup, would bring an end to tyranny, corruption, and social misery.
The Mnangagwa government’s assault on democratic rights has given rise to mounting opposition, to the extent that it has been necessary to deny that the military that brought it to power was plotting a second coup. Last month, security forces in the Joint Operations Command (JOC) made up of heads and senior personnel of the military, police, and secret services sidelined the government and shut down mobile money transactions and the stock exchange, amid charges they were being used for black-market activities, collapsing an already falling currency.
Mnangagwa, speaking on television Tuesday, threatened opposition figures and human rights campaigners, condemning the planned protests as the “machinations of destructive, terrorist opposition groupings.” He pledged that “security services will continue to carry out their duties with appropriate astuteness and resolve.”
Officials from his ruling ZANU-PF party, which has encouraged greater investment and trade with China, have portrayed the planned rallies as a Western plot, calling US Ambassador Brian Nichols a “thug” and suggesting that he might be expelled for criticising the government’s response to the protests.
With the ongoing collapse of the currency against the dollar, foreign currency reserves are vanishing. According to Bloomberg, following the removal of Old Mutual from the stock market, which paved the way for the reopening of the stock market on August 3, the main index tumbled 4.5 percent.
The annual rate of inflation has shot up to 800 percent, devaluing already paltry wages and making basic commodities unaffordable. The price of fuel has gone up 150 percent and there are severe shortages of basic household goods. Some 90 percent of Zimbabweans work as day labourers in the informal sector that has been devastated by the lockdowns and curfews.
The economic situation has been exacerbated by US and European Union sanctions, maintained since 2003. The sanctions and restrictions target specific individuals, including Mnangagwa, and some 56 companies and organisations, making it difficult for Zimbabwe to obtain loans.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the economy will contract by 10 percent this year. The World Food Programme (WFP) is appealing to donors for $250 million to prevent 8.6 million people—a staggering 60 percent of the population—becoming food-insecure this year due to the pandemic, drought, and the dire economic situation.
WFP Regional Director for Southern Africa Lola Castro said, “Many Zimbabwean families are suffering the ravages of acute hunger, and their plight will get worse before it gets better.”
So far, the country has recorded more than 4,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 80 deaths, both likely to be a vast underestimate. Parliament was forced to suspend sessions recently after two legislators and a driver and journalist travelling with them tested positive.
A leading secret service official and the agriculture minister, former Air Marshal Perrance Shiri, have both died of the coronavirus. Shiri played a major role in the planning of the Gukurahundi massacres, carried out by Mugabe’s ZANU forces against his ZAPU opponents in Matabeleland, that killed 20,000, commanding the Fifth Brigade responsible for widespread torture and mass executions.
Health care conditions are atrocious. There are serious shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect medical staff, and a lack of key drugs and blood supplies.
Last week, pictures released by Dr. Peter Magombeyi, the former head of the doctors’ union, showing the bodies of seven stillborn babies at Harare Central Hospital caused widespread horror. He tweeted, “We have been robbed of our future, including our unborn babies. Please stop the looting.” One doctor told the BBC the deaths were just “the tip of the iceberg.”
Mnangagwa was forced to sack Health Minister Obadiah Moyo following his involvement in a corruption scandal—revealed by detained journalist Hopewell Chi’nono. Moyo had awarded a $60 million contract to an unknown company that had overcharged the government for COVID-19 medical supplies. Moyo is to be replaced with a military doctor, Air Commodore Jasper Chimedza.
At Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo, a further 32 nurses have tested positive for COVID-19, while across the city 115 nurses have tested positive, as have 300 nurses nationwide. Nurses have been on strike for 46 days, demanding PPE and calling for their salaries to be paid in US dollars. They have vowed to continue their strike until their demands are met.
While the Health Services Board maintains that the nurses’ month-long strike is illegal, the government is trying to recruit more nurses to break the strike. Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said, “More nurses will be urgently recruited from the available pool of qualified nurses, while processes to resolve those on industrial action continue.”
Doctors have also downed tools, demanding their salaries be paid in US dollars, which the government derided as “insane.” Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights Secretary-General Norman Matara responded with fury to Mnangagwa’s demand that they return to work and sacrifice their lives for the “national interest.” He said, “Health workers cannot work on empty stomachs and without protective clothing simply because they save lives.”
The ZANU-PF government has caused outrage for signing an agreement with white farmers, whose lands were seized by Mugabe’s government, awarding them $3.5 billion in compensation even as the health care system is in complete collapse with nurses being paid as little as US$30 a month and the country is in the midst of a dire economic crisis. Mnangagwa said of the signing, “This momentous event is historic. It brings closure and a new beginning.”
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