Spanish unions agree to shut down Barcelona Nissan plants

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/22/niss-a22.html

By Alice Summers
22 August 2020

With unbounded cynicism, Spanish unions have signed off on a deal closing Nissan’s three Barcelona factories, directly cutting over 2,500 jobs. A further 20,000 jobs would be lost among subcontractors and supply-chain workers that depend on the auto-plants.

After around 100 days of strike action by Nissan workers, the Barcelona factory committee—run by the Podemos-linked Workers Commissions (CC.OO), pro-PSOE (Socialist Party) General Union of Labour (UGT) and the Union of Workers’ Syndicates (USO) unions—came to an agreement with the Japanese transnational on August 5. The plants are to close by December 31, 2021.

The unions universally proclaimed the deal a victory for Nissan workers. Raúl Montoya of the USO declared it a “great agreement” and a “success,” claiming that it saves thousands of jobs. Miguel Ruíz, spokesperson for the Barcelona factory committee, from the Catalan section of the same union, said it enables workers to avoid “traumatic job losses.”

UGT automobile secretary Jordi Camona called it a “good agreement that, for the moment, clears up uncertainty around the future of these jobs.” The CCOO released a statement claiming the deal is a “balanced agreement that, despite all the difficulties, meets the aspirations of the staff.”

It does nothing of the sort. The deal merely adds a further year to the ticking time-bomb of mass firings, postponing approximately 25,000 job losses one year, to the end of 2021.

As part of the deal, unions agreed to force workers back to work at the Barcelona plant from the end of August, ending three months of strike action.

Workers will be encouraged to take “voluntary” redundancies or early retirement, with the factory committee lauding the supposed concessions they had won for workers opting to do so.

Those taking early retirement will be offered payouts on a sliding scale. Older workers aged over 55—who would find it difficult to obtain other employment—will be offered a pre-retirement plan of 90 percent of their salary up to the age of 63, with workers between 50 and 54 years offered 75 to 85 percent of their salary, according to their age. Workers born after 1970, who do not qualify for the early retirement plan, will be offered 60 days of pay for each year that they worked at Nissan if they choose “voluntary” redundancy.

The unions have hung their sell-out deal on the promise of a “reindustrialisation” plan, which would be a “tripartite parity” commission between the unions, Nissan and local and national government. Its nominal aim is to encourage other companies to take over the three auto plants in Barcelona and continue production. Nissan has apparently pledged to include a clause in any takeover contract with a new company “guaranteeing priority recruitment” to their former employees.

This worthless fraud will not save the livelihoods of thousands of workers. There is no guarantee that the factories will remain open under different ownership; they are to close on December 31, 2021, takeover or no.

The unions have effectively washed their hands of workers, with Nissan employees given little choice but to quietly consent to their dismissal. The unions’ negotiation framework has been predicated on the supposed inevitability of the factory closures and on sugaring the bitter pill of job losses that they are forcing workers to swallow.

Moreover, the approximately 20,000 workers not directly employed by Nissan—but outsourced, involved in the company’s supply chain or otherwise dependent on the Barcelona factory—get nothing out of the unions’ negotiations. About a dozen other companies work within the Nissan factory, contracting approximately 1,500 workers, with a further 70 companies and thousands of other workers indirectly involved in supplying and operating the plants.

Protests have already broken out among subcontracted workers, who are threatening to prevent the reopening of the Barcelona plant with an indefinite strike. Around 500 workers at Acciona Facility Services, which runs logistics in the Nissan factory, have threatened industrial action against job losses and their exclusion from negotiations. This came after Acciona informed unions it will bring forward the cancellation of its contract with Nissan, due to end in March 2021, to cut redundancy costs. Acciona has filed a redundancy notice for its 580 employees at the Barcelona facility.

Around 300 subcontracted workers also filed a lawsuit claiming that their employment status is an “illegal transfer of workers,” and that they should be considered full employees of Nissan, receiving the same rights and conditions. Employees at maintenance company Segula and canteen facilities company Tecnove also took part in the legal action.

Josep Pérez of law firm Collectiu Ronda, which filed suit on behalf of subcontracted workers, said: “If they work for Nissan, if they manufacture their vehicles and are subject to the company’s rules and whims, they should be recognised for what they are: Nissan workers. … To normalise the existence of second-class workers, who can be deprived of their rights on the whim of big companies with multi-billion dollar profits, is to attack the working rights of all.”

The betrayal of the Nissan workers exposes middle class pseudo-left forces like the Morenoite Corriente Revolucionaria de Trabajadores (CRT, Workers’ Revolutionary Current) and its website Izquierda Diario, which seek to bolster the unions and demoralize the workers.

While making muted tactical criticisms of the UGT, CCOO and USO and the sell-out deal, they made clear their opposition to an independent perspective for the working class. Seeking to channel workers’ opposition behind a supposedly radical “syndicalist left,” the CRT chided the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) for failing to “openly break with the route map marked out by the majority unions.”

“If the CGT wants to present a different choice to that of the UGT and CCOO,” the CRT advised, “taking on their policies and being a part of this deal of shame will leave it in a very bad position to represent an alternative direction in future conflicts.”

The CGT is not “alternative leadership” for the working class. Its function is to divert workers who are disenchanted with the bigger unions with militant rhetoric. It is no less a creature of the state than its pro-PSOE and pro-Podemos competitors.

In bolstering the CGT, the Morenoites seek to sow illusions in the trade unions, concealing their universal transformation over the past four decades, amid the globalisation of production, into a corporatist arm of the state. The energies of these pseudo-left forces are focused on upholding the domination of Podemos and the union bureaucracy and blocking the development of socialist consciousness in the working class.

While promoting the unions, the CRT calls for the “nationalisation” of the Barcelona plants. If such a demand were to be taken up by the capitalist Podemos-PSOE government, it would not usher in a new golden age for workers, but would be accompanied by calls for further cutbacks to make the factory “viable”. After the 2008 crash, the US government plunged billions of dollars into the auto companies, only to slash wages for new hires by half.









The struggle against job cuts can only be carried forward by breaking with the bankrupt national framework of the trade unions and building an international movement in the working class. The nationalisation of plants under workers control requires unifying struggles in Spain with those of workers in Europe and worldwide against the transnational corporations, which shift production from one country to another to maximise profits. This entails building rank-and-file committees of action, independent of the trade unions, as part of a fight for socialism.

Johnson government extends ban on evictions as UK faces “avalanche” of homelessness

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/22/rent-a22.html

By Laura Tiernan
22 August 2020

A ban on housing evictions introduced at the start of the coronavirus lockdown in March will be extended for another month, the Johnson government announced yesterday.

The delay follows an outpouring of public opposition to eviction proceedings that were due to begin on Monday, with 290,000 renters at immediate risk of homelessness.

The government’s latest retreat—following a two-month extension of the moratorium in June—postpones by only a matter of weeks evictions on a scale unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As soon as the ban is lifted, anyone in rent arrears for eight weeks or more can be automatically evicted. Tenants can also be hit with Section 21 “no fault” evictions. Housing charities and tenants’ unions announced yesterday they would go ahead with planned protests, including today’s National Day of Action and protests on Monday by the London Renters Union.

More than 120,000 tenants in rent debt have already been issued an eviction notice, and a further 170,000 have been threatened with eviction, according to housing charity Shelter. Debt charity StepChange reports 590,000 tenants are in rent debt, for an average of £1,076 per household.

On Thursday, health professionals from bodies including the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of General Practitioners, and the Faculty of Public Health, wrote to Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government warning of “a catastrophic wave of evictions and homelessness as we head towards autumn and winter.”

They explained that mass evictions risked fuelling a new wave of the virus: “People forced into overcrowded temporary or emergency accommodation by eviction are at greatly increased risk of being unable to isolate if needed, face greater challenges in following social distancing guidelines and may lack adequate access to basic hygiene measures shown to reduce infection rates.

“As public health organisations, we are deeply concerned that failure to prevent an evictions and homelessness crisis could significantly contribute to an increase of COVID-19 infections.”

Opposition has exploded in online petitions and social media. A London Renters Union petition, “Protect renters during the coronavirus”, has gathered nearly 105,000 signatures. It calls for the suspension of rent payments during the pandemic, a ban on evictions, and for the UK’s estimated 216,000 empty homes to be used for those in need. Comments from signatories include:
“I’m a self-employed contractor who rents privately. My industry has collapsed with all work evaporated with no horizon. We need to rent suspended in order to survive.” (Patrick T.)
“I am a private rental tenant. It’s hard enough to pay extortionate rent in normal circumstances. I’m terrified it could lead to my family losing our home.” (Carly P.)
“International Students are in critical problem. They don’t have enough money to pay rent and buy groceries. So government should do something.” (Akash R.)
“Because I’m currently choosing between health and paying my rent, I can’t self-isolate as guided because I’ll fall behind on my rent.” (Samuel M.)
“I am freelance and completely out of work, therefore unable to pay my rent.” (Kylie H.)
“It is time to help those on lower incomes!” (Tanvir R.)

The pandemic is accelerating a social crisis long in the making, further exposing the unbridgeable divide between the working class and the super-rich. On June 30, SCMP magazine reported that London’s luxury property market had shown “relative immunity to the coronavirus.” Under the heading, “Forget Covid-19 and Brexit: London remains a magnet for the super-rich as the luxury property market booms,” Peta Tomlinson reported that “prime central London” was “enjoying its best start to a year since 2017.”

This included £3.5 billion spent by the Qatari royal family on “transforming” a 13-acre site in Belgravia and £200 million-plus by Hong Kong billionaire Cheung Chung Kiu for a 45-room mansion in Knightsbridge, overlooking Hyde Park. Lockdown restrictions have posed no barrier, with many Ultra-High-Net-Worth individuals snapping up properties after a cursory inspection via Zoom.

In January, Shelter published survey results showing half of England’s 8.5 million renters were experiencing stress or anxiety due to sky-high rents, poor living conditions, and the threat of eviction. More than 2 million renters had been made physically ill as a result.

The pandemic has pushed millions more into extreme housing stress. A YouGov poll published July 30 showed that 450,000 parents in private rented accommodation fear they and their children will be made homeless because of the financial impact. It found 49,000 parents had sought help from food banks since the start of the pandemic, 429,000 had cut back on food to pay the rent, and 550,000 had taken on debt to cover rent payments. Government figures show that 73 percent of private renting families have no savings at all.

Responding to reports that the government will extend the evictions ban to September 20, Ghazal Haqani, an organiser with the London Renters Union, said, “This U-turn has been forced through by people power. But until there’s a permanent evictions ban and rent debt is forgiven, the government will just be kicking the can down the road.

“We’ve had a series of short-term extensions, and that’s caused enormous misery and stress for renters like me. Because so many of us are in arrears, we have been constantly worried for months that we are about to become totally defenceless against landlords who want to kick us out of our homes. It looks like that could happen all over again in September.

“Rents have been sky high for decades, the pandemic has cut our incomes and this recession has only just begun. Of course we’re in arrears, and of course we’re not going to be able to pay off our rent debt for a very long time.”

Shelter Chief Executive Polly Neate responded yesterday, “A bullet may have been dodged with this extension, but as soon as Parliament returns, it must give judges extra powers to stop renters being evicted because of ‘Covid-arrears’.” But no faith can be placed by workers and young people in the government or opposition parties to protect renters from eviction.

On Friday, Labour MPs David Lammy, Thangam Debbonaire, and Karl Turner wrote to Jenrick over the eviction crisis. Their letter made clear that Labour has no genuine opposition to the Johnson government’s pro-market agenda. It contained no demand for an indefinite ban on evictions, no call for a suspension of rent for unemployed and furloughed workers, focussing instead on how ending the ban on evictions “risks unleashing a tsunami of cases which could overwhelm English County Courts.”

During a Radio Times interview Thursday, former Shadow Chancellor and key Corbyn ally John McDonnell praised party leader Sir Keir Starmer’s “constructive” response to the coronavirus pandemic, “He’s approached the government in a constructive way—and we’ve got to get through this crisis together.”

McDonnell’s open embrace of Starmer exposes the political collapse of the entire Corbyn project, with McDonnell stating, “Keir has made it clear he’s a socialist” and “we’re on the same page.”

The Socialist Equality Party calls for an indefinite ban on all evictions and a complete freeze on rent and mortgage payments during the coronavirus pandemic. Vacant housing, including the property of absentee landlords must be seized and placed under public ownership to house the homeless. The banks and corporations must be placed under social ownership and the obscene profits of the super-rich seized to build high-quality low-cost housing for all.

Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny flown to German hospital after doctors dispute poisoning claims

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/22/nava-a22.html

By Andrea Peters
22 August 2020

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny remains in a coma after falling extremely ill while traveling from Tomsk to Moscow on board an airliner. According to doctors in Omsk, Russia, the city in southwestern Siberia to which Navalny was transported after his flight made an emergency landing, their “working diagnosis” is that Navalny is suffering from a metabolic disorder possibly caused by a sharp drop in his sugar levels.

Aleksandr Murakovsky, the head doctor of the hospital’s emergency department, told the press on Thursday that neither oxybutyrates nor barbiturates were found in the body. Speaking just prior, specialists at Omsk’s BMSP-1 medical clinic and the Burdenko Institute of Neurosurgery declared they did not find poison, contradicting the charge that there was an attempt to take Navalny’s life through exposure to a lethal substance. Chemical traces from plastics that are commonly found on people’s clothes were uncovered by Russian laboratories that examined his personal belongings.

Omsk doctors had declared that Navalny’s condition was too unstable for him to be transported out of Russia. However, they have since reversed their decision. Navalny will be transferred on Saturday to the Charité hospital in Berlin on a plane dispatched by Germany to Omsk the day before, along with medical personnel.

Supporters of Navalny reject the diagnosis as a cover-up by the Kremlin, of which the oppositionist has been a vocal critic. Kira Yarmish, Navalny’s press secretary who was traveling with him when he collapsed mid-flight, insists he was poisoned while drinking tea just prior to getting on board. Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of the Doctors Alliance trade union—an outfit set up by Navalny with the intention of drawing Russian medical workers angry over the deplorable state of the country’s health systems behind his right-wing organization—has pointed out that a metabolic disorder is not a diagnosis of an illness, but a condition brought on by some other major cause.

The New York Times and the Washington Post have already carried several articles insinuating—despite the absence of clear evidence so far that Navalny was even poisoned—that Russian president Vladimir Putin is responsible, and the Kremlin opponent is another victim in a long string of assassinations allegedly carried out by Moscow.

In making these claims, they are motivated solely by the ferocious US anti-Russia campaign, of which the two newspapers are the leading media proponents. They have not the slightest concern for Navalny himself. It should be noted, for instance, that both newspapers have long stopped shedding a single tear over the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi government Jamal Khashoggi, whose assassination and dismemberment by Saudi operatives were recorded by Turkish intelligence.

On Thursday, White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien described the claims that Navalny was poisoned as “very concerning.” He added, “If the Russians were behind this ... it’s something that we’re going to factor into how we deal with the Russians going forward.” The Trump administration has since said that it is following the situation but has issued no official statement.

The European Union has yet to weigh in on the Omsk doctors’ diagnosis or the underlying causes of Navalny’s illness, limiting its intervention to appeals for the oppositionist to be sent to Germany.

Whether Navalny became ill due to natural causes or was poisoned, and if so, who might be responsible, may never be known. Certainly, there are many people in Russia, the United States, Europe, and other countries who might wish to dispense with the Kremlin oppositionist for any number of reasons.

His fate, both in the near and short term, is entirely bound up with the Washington’s aims to dominate Eurasia and the desperate efforts of the Russian ruling class to survive the consequences. The so-called Russian “opposition” movement, in which Navalny plays a central role, is a plaything within the swirling agendas of the different political forces operating in this context.

An alleged attempt on Navalny’s life that is pinned to the Kremlin works to the benefit of those layers within the American state who seek to demonize the Putin government in order to justify war with Russia. The response of the Times and the Post make it clear that there is already an effort afoot to use his illness in this manner. Navalny himself has close ties to Washington.

Navalny’s corruption exposés have targeted powerful individuals within the Russian state and big business. He has his supporters within the elite and the government itself, but is viewed by some as a threat, particularly within the context of the series of domestic and foreign crises currently confronting the Putin government.

The spread of COVID-19 has brought to the fore the deplorable state of Russia’s healthcare system, fueling popular anger. There is an eruption of anti-government sentiment in Russia’s Far East, after the Kremlin used allegations of criminal conduct to remove a popular governor. And the Lukashenko government in Belarus, Moscow’s last remaining ally on its western frontier, may soon be overthrown as part of “pro-democracy” movement that has drawn behind it key sections of the working class.

Notwithstanding his free-market politics and anti-immigration chauvinism, Navalny has positioned himself as a champion of Russia’s exploited medical workers and protesters in both Khabarovsk and Minsk. He is seeking to gain from the current crisis, as the Kremlin flails.

The possible downfall of the Lukashenko government, driven to a significant degree by a mass strike wave that has witnessed thousands of workers on the streets, poses dangers for the Putin government. It is terrified of the prospect that the Russian working class, which has close linguistic, cultural, economic, and political ties with the Belarusian working class, and many of the same grievances, will be moved into action by events just over the border.

It is also concerned that the Belarusian opposition, with which Moscow has maintained close relations, could come fully under the domination of the West. On Thursday, Belarusian oppositionist Valery Tsepkalo called for Western Europe to recognize Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Lukashenko’s challenger in the country’s contested presidential elections, as the rightful winner.

The aim he said is to create a Venezuela-like situation, in which she, like Juan Gaidó in Venezuela, would form a competing government so that it would “become clear to the government bureaucrats and security services to whom they need to swear loyalty—to whose side they need to move.”

In making this remark, Tsepkalo revealed perhaps more than he intended, as Gaidó is a tool of Washington and lacks any base of support within the Venezuelan masses. The Belarusian opposition is attempting to identify with the mass strike movement in Belarus, using its promises of “free and fair elections” to draw workers’ attention away from its right-wing, free-market politics.

After initially withholding clear promises of support for Lukashenko, on Friday the Russian government signaled that it was perhaps taking a firmer position on Belarus, indicating that if asked by Minsk it would “do everything possible to help in the regulation of the situation in Belarus.” The Kremlin stopped short, however, of indicating that it was prepared to fully back the besieged government. With regards to criminal charges unveiled against Belarus protesters, the Kremlin stated it would “in no way or in any way interfere in or make any appraisal of the reasons for the criminal investigations in Belarus.”

Seven protest leaders in Thailand arrested by police

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/22/thai-a22.html

By Owen Howell
22 August 2020

Thai police have responded to a mass demonstration in Bangkok last Sunday with a series of arrests. The rally was part of the eruption of student-led protests across Thailand over the past month. Seven prominent members of the student movement organising the protests, Free Youth, were arrested this week on charges including sedition and inciting public unrest.

Six of the leaders were specifically targeted for their participation in a Bangkok student rally on July 18, which sparked the recent wave of anti-government protests. Since then, rallies have proceeded on an almost daily basis.

While originally confined to major universities, the movement has since gained wider support among students and workers around the country, as demonstrated in the Sunday protest, Thailand’s largest since the 2014 military coup.

The three main demands of the protest leaders are to dissolve parliament, end the state persecution of political opponents, and rewrite the current constitution, which was drafted by the military junta.

Arrest warrants were issued during the Sunday rally for 15 leaders of Free Youth. According to the Thai Enquirer, a coordinated police operation was conducted throughout Wednesday night. The six people arrested over the July 18 protest were Baramee Chairat, Suwanna Tanlek, Korakot Saengyangpant, Natthawut Somboonsap, Tossaporn Sinsomboon, and Thanee Sasom.

Police also apprehended rappers Thanayuth Na Ayutthaya and Dechathon Bamrungmuang, leader of the highly popular and notorious hip-hop group Rap Against Dictatorship, for their performances at the protest.

The seventh protest leader targeted was Anon Nampa, a human rights lawyer and leading figure in the Thai protests. Anon was arrested, for the second time this month, over a speech on August 3 calling for reform of the monarchy. In Thailand, anyone who “defames, insults or threatens” the royal family can be prosecuted for violating the draconian law of lèse majesté, and faces up to 15 years in jail.

Ever since Anon’s speech, student protests have openly criticised the political role of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, whose power over the constitution, the armed forces, and the palace fortune has grown considerably since he was installed in 2016.

The lèse majesté law has been used to silence political opposition as many as 90 times since the 2014 military coup. However, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, former head of the military junta, has reportedly received instructions from the King not to use the law, for now. Anon was charged instead with sedition, which carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years.

Anon joined the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights organisation after 2006, when the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was overthrown in a military coup. He became known as a lawyer for the Red Shirts (a grouping of Shinawatra supporters who staged protests in 2010) and lèse majesté offenders. He has previously been charged in 13 cases for involvement in anti-junta protests.

State repression of the protests has been ratcheted up since criticism of the monarchy emerged as a focal point of the movement.

Earlier this month, two other student leaders—both known critics of the monarchy—faced arrest for sedition: Panupong Jadnok, a member of student group Eastern Youth for Democracy, based in Rayong Province; and Parit Chirawak, co-founder and former president of the Student Union of Thailand.

At a rally in Phitsanulok Province on August 9, six youth leaders were abducted by men claiming to be Border Patrol policemen, in an attempt to derail the protest. Prachatai reported that so far five planned protests have been blocked by intervention from authorities.

Six further arrest warrants were also issued on Wednesday for students who led the August 10 Thammasat University protest, in which specific demands to reform the monarchy were first outlined.

In spite of these efforts, the protest movement continues to grow. This week saw whole classrooms in at least eight high schools across Bangkok wear white ribbons and raise three-fingered salutes during the national anthem, in a sign of solidarity with the protests. On Wednesday, hundreds of high school students gathered outside the Ministry of Education building, calling for greater freedom in schools as well as reiterating the movement’s three demands.

Yesterday a major student rally took place in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima, at which Panupong Jadnok spoke about the reform of the monarchy to loud cheers of support from crowds of high school students. The North-Eastern Student Assembly Network will be holding a protest today in Khong Kaen at 5:00 p.m. and Free Youth is advertising a demonstration tomorrow at Bangkok’s Kasetsart University, which will likely draw a large gathering of students from across the city.

Several of the arrested leaders, now released on bail, have indicated on social media that they will continue to be involved in rallies. As police sought to detain them, they stood in the Criminal Court with a number of MPs from the Move Forward Party and opposition Pheu Thai Party as guarantors.

Senators appointed by the junta have expressed suspicions that Free Youth is a front for opposition political groups, as with the Shinawatra-backed Red Shirts. In particular, they are investigating the funding for the large protests, which have included concerts, extensive lighting, and giant LED screens.

On its Facebook page, Free Youth has rejected these claims, saying: “Our funds come from the masses, who support us only because this is a movement of young people, by young people, and for young people.”

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, leader of now-defunct Future Forward Party, has said he played no role in funding the protests, which first began in February when the party, which attracted support from young people, was dissolved by the Constitutional Court.

Royal Thai Army Commander-in-Chief Apirat Kongsompong is attempting to incite popular hatred against the protesters, saying last week: “The coronavirus can be cured, but the disease of chung-chart [‘nation-hating’] cannot be cured.” Apirat’s use of this term, used by past military regimes to rally far-right nationalist forces against internal opposition, is significant.

The media, subject to intense pressure from the Prayuth government, has mostly refrained from reporting protesters’ demands regarding the monarchy at all. Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan warned after last Sunday’s rally that there was a limit to how far students should go.

This week’s crackdown on the movement’s leadership expresses fears in the ruling class that the protests could broaden and intersect with widespread discontent in the working population amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social inequality in Thailand, which greatly increased under the junta’s rule, is set to skyrocket due to the pandemic’s impact and the likelihood of a major economic contraction this year. A Credit Suisse report last year named the country the most unequal in the world, with the richest 1 percent of the population owning 66.9 percent of the nation’s wealth.

Facebook censors anti-fascist and anarchist groups, falsely linking them with extreme-right violence

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/22/face-a22.html

By Kevin Reed
22 August 2020

In a significant escalation of political censorship on its platform, Facebook published an update on Wednesday to its “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations” policy that labels left-wing and anarchist organizations as violent and falsely amalgamates them with fascist militia groups and right-wing extremists associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory.

In a Newsroom blog post entitled, “An Update to How We Address Movements and Organizations Tied to Violence,” Facebook says that it is taking action against “Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts tied to offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations and QAnon.”

While Facebook says it already removes “content calling for or advocating violence” and bans “organizations and individuals that proclaim a violent mission,” the blog post says that “we have seen growing movements that, while not directly organizing violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior.”

That the expanded Facebook definition of “dangerous” people and groups is aimed at stifling speech on the social media platform—with 2.7 billion monthly active users worldwide—is shown by the fact that its policy now includes “organizations and movements that have demonstrated significant risks to public safety but do not meet the rigorous criteria to be designated as a dangerous organization and banned from having any presence on our platform.”

Facebook then outlines the actions it will take to suppress content from those it deems “dangerous” and “violent” but do not fit the “rigorous” definition of either description. These measures may include removal of accounts from Facebook and Instagram, limiting recommendations, reduced ranking in News Feed, reduced visibility in Search, removal from Related Hashtags on Instagram and prohibition from advertising and fundraising.

As Facebook is listing off the many techniques it utilizes to ban, delete and suppress content—which it refers to in corporate-speak as “remove, reduce and inform”—it becomes clear that these methods are being perfected in the service of political censorship against oppositional, left-wing and socialist views that are increasing in popularity and pose a threat to the capitalist foundations of the social media giant. Facebook currently has a Wall Street value of $762 billion and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg has accumulated a personal wealth of $100 billion.

The Newsroom blog post goes on to say that Facebook has already removed “over 790 groups, 100 Pages and 1,500 ads tied to QAnon” and additionally “imposed restrictions on over 1,950 Groups and 440 Pages on Facebook and over 10,000 accounts on Instagram.” Lumping anarchists and left-wing groups in with the far right, Facebook says, “For militia organizations and those encouraging riots, including some who may identify as Antifa, we’ve initially removed over 980 groups, 520 Pages and 160 ads from Facebook. We’ve also restricted over 1,400 hashtags related to these groups and organizations on Instagram.”

Among the accounts of anti-fascist and left-wing activists that have been shut down in the present Facebook dragnet are the following:
It’s Going Down: an anarchist news publishing platform that reports on social struggles and exposes the activities of white supremacist and neo-Nazi networks.
CrimethInc.: a left-wing and anarchist publishing organization that identifies itself as an “international network of aspiring revolutionaries.”
PNW Youth Liberation Front: a group that says it is “a decentralized network of autonomous youth collectives dedicated to direct action towards total liberation” and has been involved in the recent protests in Portland, Oregon.

There is no question that by including such groups in its list of “dangerous” and “violent” individuals and organizations, Facebook is supporting the drive by the US political establishment and the US Justice Department to equate opposition within the working class and among young people with the violence of alt-right, neo-Nazi and fascistic militia individuals and groups.

The recent history of ideologically motivated violence in the US exposes Facebook’s false identification of these groups with the extreme right. According to a report by Natasha Lennard in the Intercept, “It bears repeating, ad nauseam, that the far right has carried out 329 murders in the last three decades; none have been attributed to antifa. Between 2009 and 2018, white supremacist and far-right extremists were responsible for 73 percent of extremist murders in the U.S. And that’s not even to mention the state-sanctioned, racist killings carried out by the police.”

The effort to label the left as violent has also intensified over the past three months during the nationwide and global mass protests against police violence and repression that was sparked by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on Memorial Day. Both the Democrats and Republicans along with the corporate media have slandered these demonstrations as “violent” and “riots” and, as Trump has stated numerous times, part of the “radical left” and “anarchist” takeover of American cities that must be put down with “law and order.”

In June, at the height of the George Floyd protests, Attorney General William Barr created a task force dedicated to counter “anti-government extremists” who engage in “indefensible acts of violence designed to undermine public order.” In his directive to all Justice Department law enforcement representatives, Barr wrote, “Among other lawless conduct, these extremists have violently attacked police officers and other government officials, destroyed public and private property, and threatened innocent people.”

Furthermore, Barr’s memo said that the “acts of violence” came from extremists “of all persuasions” including the extremer right-wing Boogaloo militia advocates who have engaged in murder and other criminal acts along with “those who identify as Antifa” on the left.

Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz (Republican, Texas) chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on August 4 where he claimed, “Across the country, we’re seeing horrific violence, we’re seeing our country torn apart. Violent anarchists and Marxists are exploiting protests to transform them into riots and direct assaults on the lives and safety of their fellow Americans.”

This position is not unique to Barr, Trump and the Republican Party. On the fifth night of the George Floyd protests in cities across the US that have been devastated by decades of attacks on living standards and social programs, the future Democratic Party nominee for President in the 2020 elections, Joseph Biden, denounced protesters for “burning down communities” and carrying out “needless destruction.”

While police and federal agents were beating protesters and National Guard troops were being called up and mobilized against peaceful demonstrations, Biden blamed the public for the decay in the cities, saying, “Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community” is not “the American response.” In late July, Biden reiterated his stance, calling for the prosecution of “arsonists and anarchists.”

These same sentiments have been expressed by Representative James Clyburn (Democrat, South Carolina) and Democratic Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot who, according to the New York Times, after police assaulted protestors calling for an end to police violence, said, “To those who engaged in this criminal behavior, let’s be clear: We are coming for you.”

The purpose and results of the recent closed-door meetings between the Silicon Valley tech monopolies and the White House in the preparations for the US presidential election in November are becoming obvious. As reported by the WSWS, representatives of nine major tech firms—including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit—met with US government law enforcement and national intelligence agencies on August 12 to discuss “election security” with little or no information reported to the public following the online gathering.

The endless references by Facebook and the others to those who identify as antifa as “violent” and “dangerous” are proof of the completely reactionary character of the entire amalgamation of left-wing and anarchist groups with far-right extremists who have actually committed acts of violence and killed people while proclaiming support for the Trump administration.

A Google search of antifa will only yield a Wikipedia entry for the name. There is no official website for an organization with this name in the US, Europe or anywhere else in the world. While there are clearly individuals who identify with the message of “anti-fascism,” the claim that an organization called “Antifa” is coordinating acts of extreme violence against the US government is entirely fabricated.

Instead, what the ruling establishment—of which the social media monopolies are a critical element—fears more than anything is that masses of workers and young people will break free from the two-party political system and begin to organize independently of the entire capitalist political setup on the basis of the fight for socialism. The ever expanding scope of political censorship on social media and on the internet more broadly is certain grow in the weeks leading up to the November 3 election and in its aftermath as the US ruling class seeks to suppress all signs of opposition.



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European countries force children back to school amid resurgence of COVID-19

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/22/euro-a22.html

By Alejandro López
22 August 2020

The drive to reopen schools after the summer break continues unabated throughout Europe as the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates across the continent.

Nineteen European countries have crossed a key threshold of cumulative 14-day infection totals higher than 20 per 100,000 inhabitants, considered an early alarm level by many health experts, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Luxembourg and Spain have reported more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people, followed by Malta recording more than 80, Belgium more than 60, and France and the Netherlands more than 40. The UK has 20.7.

Spain continues to be the epicentre of the resurgence of the virus in Europe. There are more than 1,000 outbreaks of the virus currently active. Over 3,650 more infections the previous day were reported on Friday, while weekly deaths have also risen to 125 people. The death toll in Spain remains one of the highest in Europe, with at least 44,868 victims.

The Spanish ruling class did not use the time garnered by the lockdowns imposed in late March and April to prepare for the expected resurgence of the virus. Twelve-thousand tracers are lacking, hospitals are on the verge of collapse in parts of the country due to lack of medical staff, and nursing homes are registering a significant number of increases, after around 20,000 deaths among the elderly were attributed to COVID-19 between March and May. Even data collection has become an issue.

Day after day, the figures being supplied by the ministry are lower than those offered by the press offices of the country’s regions.

In Germany, the virus is now soaring. The country widely promoted as a model for containing the virus in Europe after implementing an early and aggressive test-and=trace policy reported 1,707 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day increase since April. The national number of infected has risen to 228,261 cases of the virus, with 9,253 related deaths, according to data compiled from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

France reported 4,771 new infections, with the daily tally going above 3,000 for the fourth time in the last five days. The health ministry said in a statement: “All the indicators keep going up and the transmission of the virus is getting stronger among all ages groups affected, young adults in particular.”

In Italy, the virus is once again rising rapidly. Last week, Rome registered 629 new cases in 24 hours, up from 500 on the previous two days. Such numbers had not been seen since May, when Italy was the epicentre of the virus in Europe. Yesterday, another 845 people tested positive.

Even though this spring clearly showed the deadly toll of the virus, European governments all agree that there should be no more lockdowns to halt its spread. Instead, they insist that schools must reopen everywhere—even though school reopenings have accelerated the spread of the virus in areas across North and South America—so workers can fully return to work and the extraction of profits can continue. If lives are lost, then so be it: COVID-19 is, as one American doctor put it, a “poor person’s virus.”

In an interview with Paris Match magazine, President Emmanuel Macron declared that French people will have to endure the virus: “We can’t shut the country down because the collateral damage of lock-down is considerable. Zero risk never exists in any society. We must respond to this anxiety without falling into the doctrine of zero risk.”

In Spain, Fernando Simón, director of the Centre for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, stated: “We cannot have our children without studying. We cannot jeopardise the competitiveness of our children,” he declared. Feigning sympathy with working class children, Simon pointed out that an “effort” must be made to open schools because “it is very easy to propose online education for those who have the right resources,” because “a child who has his own room, computer and good Wi-Fi is not the same as a child who shares a room with several siblings, parents, who does not have a computer or Wi-Fi.”

Leading political authorities throughout Europe have made similar cynical statements. They hide the fact that for over a decade they have starved schools of resources, while providing endless cash for bank and corporate bailouts, and while showering billions more into military contractors and imperialist wars. The pandemic has been seized to provide billions more for bank bailouts, all of which are being recouped from the population at the cost of lives and health of the working class.

Throughout the continent, resistance is growing against this policy. However, the trade unions, the main agents of the back-to-work campaign in the workplaces, are intervening to suppress growing opposition.

In the UK, where the National Education Union supports the reopening of schools in September, teachers held street protests yesterday across the country with demands such as free personal protective equipment (PPE), weekly COVID tests for teachers, and the ability to close classrooms if local infection rates hit a chosen level. While unions’ statements all talk about reopening safely, they are doing all in their power not to fight to make schools any safer or fight against the Tory government’s blatantly unsafe reopening plans.

In Germany, anger is rising among educators after at least 41 schools in Berlin reported that students or teachers have become infected, less than a fortnight after schools reopened in Germany. The Education and Science (GEW) trade union is supporting school reopenings, however. The GEW has even spoken out against the compulsory wearing of masks in the classroom, urgently demanded by virologists.

In France, despite the biggest weekly spike in confirmed coronavirus cases since the height of its national outbreak in March, Macron insisted: “The return to school will happen in the coming days.” Despite the latest health protocol, adopted by Macron at the end of July relaxing social distancing, compulsory masks for teachers and mixing of students, the teachers union SNUipp-FSU’s main demand is to delay the start of the new school year by a few days.

SNUipp-FSU Secretary General Guislaine David said: “We are asking to postpone the start of the school year. … Ideally, we would need the week of the 31st to be able to prepare for a peaceful return the following week.”

In Spain, teachers have been called on strike in the Madrid region at the start of the new term over the lack of any protocol for the reopening of schools in the region. While the sentiment is widespread throughout Spain, unions are calling for a strike only against the right-wing Popular-Party (PP) regional government. This allows the ruling parties, the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the “left populist” Podemos party, to get off free in regions they control.

The unions agree with the back-to-school policy. The CCOO general secretary for education, Isabel Galvín, explicitly stated: “We mobilise because we want to go back to school and remain. We don’t want to be confined the week we start. We are working hard so that all sectors return to their activity and we have to commit ourselves so that there are face-to-face classes. Children need to go back to school for their education and emotional stability.”

It is critical for workers and youth across Europe to set up their own action committees, independent of the trade unions, to prepare strike action against the reopenings of schools and the predictable rise in deaths they will provoke.



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Coronavirus testing remains at reduced levels in the US

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/22/test-a22.html

By Bryan Dyne
22 August 2020

Coronavirus testing in the United States has remained at reduced levels even as schools reopen and cases continue to climb. The average number of tests on a given day is currently 14 percent lower than its high on July 29, despite the total number of known cases rising 26 percent—1.2 million infections—over that same period.

It is estimated that, to fully map the spread of the pandemic, one of the critical pieces of information to actually contain the disease, the US would need to perform 6–10 million tests per day. It currently does about 700,000.

Just over seven months have now passed since the first case of COVID-19 was identified in the US. At the time, there were 580 known cases worldwide, most of them confined to Wuhan, China, and 41 confirmed deaths. In the interim, more than 23 million people have been infected and 801,000 human lives have been lost. The lion’s share, nearly 5.8 million cases and more than 179,000 dead, have occurred in the US.

The start of the decline in testing came in the weeks after US President Donald Trump declared, “With smaller testing we would show fewer cases!” While top US health officials sought to downplay Trump’s comments, there has been no explanation for the decline in testing since the end of July. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and head of the Trump administration’s testing strategy, instead claimed last week that the amount of testing is “appropriate” for the spread of the virus in the country.

Giroir and those who support the Trump administration’s position are largely basing themselves on the overall decline in the positivity rate—the number of tests returned that confirm a case of the coronavirus compared to the total number of tests performed. This was at about 9 percent in July and has fallen to just above 6 percent now.

What Giroir papers over, however, is that 6 percent is still too high to claim that the virus is contained. The World Health Organization has issued guidance stating that the positivity rate should remain below 5 percent for 14 days as one of the major criteria for stopping the spread of the disease. Moreover, the state-by-state breakdown of the positivity rate reveals that the national average is being weighed down by multiple states in the northeast that were able to suppress the virus early on.

New York, once the world epicenter of the virus, now has a positivity rate of 0.8 percent, indicating that the majority of cases are being detected, allowing for adequate contact tracing and quarantine measures to hunt down the virus and stop its spread. Similar scenarios exist in other states including Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

In contrast, Mississippi has a positivity rate of nearly 20 percent, indicating that the pandemic is currently spreading in that state well beyond the ability of local health authorities to track. Every day, there are several hundred recorded cases in the state, and there have been an average of more than 20 deaths per day since July 26.

The situation is similar in Nevada, which has a coronavirus positive test rate of 17.2 percent, and has suffered more than 700 new cases a day since July 3 and more than 10 deaths a day since July 22. This is particularly concerning since the state is home to the popular Las Vegas casinos and resorts which have been reopened for business and are being visited by tourists from all across the country.

All told, 12 states, mostly in the south and west, currently have a positivity rate higher than 10 percent, and a further 21 states stand at 5 percent or higher, indicating that the pandemic is spreading largely out of control in the majority of the country.

Even if the positivity rate was decreasing uniformly across the nation, it would still not yet be a time to celebrate. Nearly 50,000 new cases and more than 1,000 new deaths are recorded each day. Three states—California, Texas and Florida—all currently count more than 500,000 total infections since March. Twenty-eight states report more than 500 cases each day, and 24 report at least 10 daily deaths.

While the Trump administration has raised the cost of mass testing as an impediment, it was reported yesterday by the Wall Street Journal that there are billions of dollars that have already been allocated that could be used for this purpose. In April, $25 billion was allocated for COVID-19 testing, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, of which at most 15 percent has been used. This suggests that testing across the country, especially where it is needed most, could vastly increase without incurring further expenses.

One of the other issues in testing is that the chemical reagents needed to perform the more common type of tests in the country are in short supply. There has never been a coordinated national plan to combat the virus, and as such local, state and federal agencies and governments are in constant competition to acquire the necessary tools to determine whether a given sample from a patient is positive or negative.

Compounding the problem, the current free tests can often take a week or more to be processed. While there are more expensive and quicker tests, they can cost in the range of $100 and are not generally covered by health insurance companies. As a result, workers are faced with two choices: pay a large out-of-pocket expense to get results quickly or wait and possibly be spreading a deadly disease unknowingly for days.

There may, however, be some relief regarding the dismal US testing situation. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for a new, inexpensive and quick saliva test developed by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health. The tools and chemicals needed to perform the test are much more readily available, cost about $5 per test, and return results in about three hours. The method is largely considered very scalable. It remains to be seen if such a technique will actually be deployed in practice.