University of Michigan graduate student strike wins wide support

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/11/mich-s11.html

By Sheila Brehm
11 September 2020

The University of Michigan graduate students’ strike to demand the shutdown of in-person learning amidst the coronavirus pandemic is winning ever-wider support.

On Wednesday, members of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) rejected an offer from the university that met none of their demands and voted to continue their strike in the face of threats of retaliation.

Defying the administration, the third day of picketing Thursday was the largest yet. Hundreds of strikers, students and other workers joined the picket lines. The strike was to be only four days, ending Friday. However, there is a growing recognition among students that ending the strike abruptly will mean none of their demands will be met.

One hundred Residential Advisors, who are not in a union, began a stoppage a day after the graduate student instructors. An RA tweeted, “It’s the end of the second day of our strike and two of our RA’s are already in/preparing to go to quarantine housing awaiting test results. We’re all scared we’ll be next. This is why we’re striking. Our lives are on the line here, every day.”

University of Michigan dining hall workers announced they will join the strike on Friday evening. The dining hall workers are demanding widespread testing for all staffers and “a clear and transparent sanitation plan which is consistently enforced by management.”

As the number of COVID-19 cases spreads on the campus, the dining hall workers are also demanding an end to penalties for missing work until the group decides it is safe to return to their jobs. The group is student-led and, like the RAs, not members of a union.

Support from other students at other campuses facing similar situations has also started to pour in, including from Columbia University, where graduate students issued an open letter in support of the Michigan students.

The WSWS spoke with a graduate student, D.B., who is a Ph.D. student in sociology. “This reopening for work and school proves universities and society at large care more about profits than the health of students and the town residents.

“Our current economic and political system operates at the expense of countless lives, and COVID has only proven that further. We need a revolution. As for the vote last night, it’s clear the GEO members see the importance of protecting the most marginalized people in our community and will not give up the fight for justice!”

Another GEO striker, TJ, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, said, “Last night I voted to continue the strike. The offer from the university covered only a fraction of the pandemic demands, and our anti-policing demands were completely refused.

“It’s clear that U of M underestimates its own students, staff and faculty. More and more of us are striking each day to show them their mistake. I’ve talked with undergrads picketing who joined the strike because they agree with our demands and they care about grad students. As a grad student, I will absolutely support undergrad and worker strikes for as long as they last.”

Alexis, a senior engineering student said he supports the strike: “Clearly, as we can see with graduate students, it’s the same exploitation that’s been happening within education that’s been occurring since forever in the US. So I’m really happy, I’m ecstatic, to see this level of collective action, not just from GEO but from everyone that’s decided to strike or send messages or walk out of their jobs in solidarity.

Students from other universities are also taking actions against the dangerous conditions on their campuses. At the University of San Diego, nearly 600 students, faculty and staff signed an open letter to demand the school drop plans to reopen. They urged the school to cancel in-person classes, limit housing to those with no other options, and cancel plans on layoffs and furloughs.

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US universities emerge as battlegrounds as students and faculty fight back against reckless reopening plans

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/11/univ-s11.html

By Genevieve Leigh
11 September 2020

Hundreds of college and university campuses throughout the US are emerging as central battlegrounds in the fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. In this fight, teachers, students, faculty, and staff stand on one side of the barricade, fighting for an end to the reckless policies of in-person learning, for resources to be allocated for safety measures and online learning, and for policies based on science, that put life over profit.

On the other side of this fight stands the university administrations, the corporate-controlled trade unions and both the Democrats and Republicans.

The sharpest expression of this struggle is unfolding on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan where nearly 2,000 graduate student instructors are in the midst of a strike against in-person learning. The strike has the backing of thousands of undergraduates, lecturers, university staff, and workers from the community. Support from other campuses facing similar situations has also started to pour in, including from Columbia University, where grad students issued an open letter Wednesday in support of the Michigan students.

Despite the brave stand taken by students and workers, the University of Michigan administration has refused to meet the grad students’ demands. During a contentious general membership meeting of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) on Wednesday night, strikers voted 700 to 400 to reject the university’s proposal—which ignored their demands for remote learning only—and to continue their strike. There is no doubt that the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the parent organization of the GEO, exerted pressure to end the strike before it became a catalyst for a broader movement against the reckless back-to-school policy, including in the public schools, where at least six teachers have died from COVID-19 over the last few weeks.

In fact, the expansion of the strike beyond the campus is exactly what is required for the struggle to be successful and lives to be saved. And there are already similar strikes brewing among students and faculty throughout the country.

The situation at the University of Michigan is far from unique. In almost every case, campuses that have reopened around the country have turned into hotspots for the virus. Students, faculty, and teachers are beginning to fight back.
California

The University of California, San Diego (UCSD), is working to implement its “Return to Learn” program, which includes a plan to offer 12 percent of fall 2020 courses using an in-person or hybrid modality. The 12 percent figure is deceptive; some 14,000 students will be brought back to campus under this plan.

UCSD has announced that at least 47 students, 21 campus employees and 184 healthcare employees have already tested positive for COVID-19. Despite these alarming figures, the university is planning to re-open for the fall quarter at the end of the month.

In opposition to this reckless policy nearly 600 UCSD students, faculty, and staff have signed an open letter to the university. The letter demands that administrators cancel in-person classes, limit housing to those with no other options, and cancel layoffs and furloughs.

The mounting opposition at UCSD comes as San Diego State University (SDSU) has announced a staggering 440 positive COVID-19 cases so far this semester, with 110 cases being added in the course of just two days. The positive cases are among students living both on and off-campus, and have increased exponentially since the surge was reported one week ago, from 64 to 440.

There are many indications of widespread hostility to SDSU’s reopening policies among the students and faculty. Students have spoken out on social media, exposing the inadequate response from the administration. One student post on Reddit outlines many of the issues in great detail, and gives a sense of the sentiments of students toward the administration’s policies. The student writes, “They ONLY care about taking our money, but will act under the guise of ‘caring’ about our health and safety, and do everything to avoid the easy and obvious solution because it doesn’t bring in money. And where is our money actually going? Does anyone really know?” The post has been “upvoted” over 500 times.

It should also be noted that SDSU is planning to allow contact sports such as football to continue, despite the obvious health risks, while canceling other non-contact sports. The lucrative nature of college sports is one major factor driving these decisions.
New York

New York University (NYU) opened its doors at various buildings throughout New York City to over 10,000 students for in-person learning on September 2. The university is endangering the lives not only of thousands of students, faculty and staff, but also countless city residents who will inevitably come into contact with students and faculty as they go about their lives. NYU has been at the forefront of the relentless campaign to reopen colleges in the fall since mid-March. The university has launched a plan titled “NYU Returns” in order to promote the illusion that the reopening is safe. As part of the plan, NYU promised a COVID-19 tracking dashboard that has still not been launched more than a week into the reopening. It is clear that the real aim of “NYU Returns” is to absolve NYU of any responsibility for an outbreak of COVID-19 and exempt it from having to reimburse tuition by placing all the blame for infections on students, faculty and staff.

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at NYU has called for mobilization of students, faculty and other workers to oppose the reckless reopening.

Columbia University began in-person classes on Tuesday. About 1,000 students are on campus, and about 13,000 are living off-campus, with 4,400 living in Columbia-owned housing and the rest in other apartments, according to President Lee Bollinger. While there has yet to emerge any organized opposition at Columbia, the Columbia grad students issued a statement of support for striking University of Michigan graduate students on Wednesday.

At Cornell University, Resident Assistants went on a one-day strike in opposition to unsafe reopening.
Texas

Baylor University reported the most COVID-19 cases yet for Texas schools, a total of 824, with around a five percent positivity rate. As of Thursday evening, there were 256 active cases in the Baylor University community, according to the school’s COVID-19 dashboard. Baylor, the school with the most infections, is suspending students who violate the rules and increasing off-campus university police patrols.

And the University of Texas, Austin reported 103 new cases between September 1 and 3 alone. The university’s confirmed cases increased by 109 on Wednesday and now totals 282 student cases after the school began adding off-campus cases to its official tally. Students at UT Austin are not routinely tested. However, college athletes are reportedly tested three times a week.

UT Austin students have also reported that not all residents in dorms with confirmed cases were made aware of the outbreaks by school officials through any medium. Instead, students found out about the cases through the school newspaper, The Daily Texan, which spread the word through Twitter.

Students have started a petition at UT Austin demanding that all residents, faculty and staff working and living on campus be notified when COVID-19 cases are confirmed. At the time of writing 1,167 people had signed the petition.

Many other schools have seen outbreaks.

This week West Virginia University was forced to suspend in-person undergrad classes amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. West Virginia University enrolls nearly 30,000 students across all its campuses and programs. The state had a staggering 11,600 confirmed cases as of Monday. Similarly, University of Wisconsin, Madison was forced to temporarily move classes online after a spike in cases. However, both WVU and UW-Madison are planning to reopen campus after just a two-week break.

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence and the most recent experiences at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Notre Dame, scores of universities are still pushing forward with reopening plans. According to the College Crisis Initiative, a research project at Davidson College in North Carolina, more than 1,000 four-year colleges and universities in the United States planned to bring students back to campus in some form this fall, with 45 planning to operate “fully in person.”

The cost of these decisione is now playing out in real time. They will result in more cases, more hospitalizations and more death if not stopped. The Socialist Equality Party and its youth and student wing, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, urge students, teachers and staff to link up their struggles to put an end to the sacrifice of human life for corporate profit. All those who support this initiative should join our Facebook page and contact us today to find out how to get involved.



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Ten percent of Oregon’s population ordered to evacuate as wildfires continue to ravage the US west coast

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/11/fire-s11.html



By David Fitzgerald
11 September 2020

Enormous wildfires are continuing to spread throughout California, Washington state and Oregon. Fourteen people have now died; a one-year-old boy in Washington, three people in Oregon, and ten in California. The death toll is expected to increase.

In Oregon, where Governor Kate Brown has warned that the state may experience its greatest ever loss of lives and property due to wildfires, more than 10 percent of the state’s population, approximately 500,000 residents, have been placed under evacuation orders due to encroaching fires. Tens of thousands have also been forced to evacuate their homes across Washington and California as entire towns and neighborhoods have been burned to the ground..
In California alone, 64,000 people are under orders to evacuate from 29 wildfires raging at once across the state, burning more than 3 million acres. In just nine days, more acres have burned than in the state’s average fire season. These are just the latest in a series of devastating fire seasons over the past three years. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) has reported that six of the top twenty largest wildfires in California history have occurred in 2020.

Butte County, north of Sacramento, has been hit especially hard with 247,000 acres burned and over 2,000 buildings and homes destroyed, of the total 3,900 structures destroyed in California. Cal Fire recently tweeted September 9 that “this year's fire season has already hit the record books, with more acres burning in 2020 than any other year in the past 3 decades (since statewide figures have been tracked).” In 2018, Butte County was the site of the Camp Fire, which burned down the town of Paradise, becoming the deadliest wildfire in state history.

As of Wednesday, a total of 587,000 acres in Washington have burned on both sides of the Cascade Mountains. Record high temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday have contributed to the spread of the fires by drying out vegetation.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee tweeted that he had not witnessed fires such as these “in his 33 years of service. Climate change is making these fires more frequent, more expensive and far more dangerous.” Inslee will be visiting the town of Malden, southwest of Spokane, to view what little remains of it after 80 percent of the town was turned to ash and smoldering ruins by rapidly moving flames. One resident of Malden stated that “it looked like a bomb had gone off.”

In Oregon, 900,000 acres have burned down. Governor Kate Brown noted the influence of climate change stating, “It is the bellwether of the future. We are feeling the acute impacts of climate change. We are seeing its acute impacts in Oregon, on the West Coast and frankly in the entire world,” Brown said.

Smoke has rendered the air unfit to breathe across vast swathes of the west coast. Air in Salem, Oregon, for example, contained the highest pollution levels on the planet Thursday, according to the United States’ Air Quality Index. Visibility in regions across Oregon, Washington, and California are low, or soon will be low, because of the smoke.

Of the fifty wildfires burning across Washington, Oregon and California, only two in Oregon have been contained. Thousands of firefighters are battling the wildfires, and hundreds of additional National Guardsmen have been called to assist the firefighters.

The situation for those who must evacuate is extremely difficult. Frank Martinez, a resident of Oroville, California and survivor of the Bear fire—which has claimed ten lives so far—emphasized that the fire spread rapidly and cut off evacuation routes, causing traffic jams. Around 10 p.m. Wednesday “it was like all the sudden someone turned on a switch” and the wind became “crazy bad,” he told the Associated Press. Martinez and other residents will not know if their property has been destroyed until after evacuation orders are lifted.

In Washington, Inslee is still deciding whether to seek federal assistance for the fire damages, insisting that federal assistance is often “less robust” for private losses, and often offers more help for public assets like utilities and libraries. There is no doubt that many adversely affected by the wildfires will be mired in financial difficulties and never made whole, with little to nothing done by the government to protect their homes from the next round of fires.

It is increasingly apparent that the growing frequency and intensity of wildfires throughout the region are much more “man-made” than natural disasters of the past. On the one hand, urban development has pushed further into wilderness, allowing wildfires to wreak havoc in an urban environment. In California, 4.5 million homes are located in the wilderness-urban interface and have a high risk of being engulfed in wildfires.

On the other, the role played by climate change would be difficult to overstate. The Fourth National Climate Assessment published in 2018 found that rising temperatures and droughts throughout the American Southwest were exacerbating wildfires. Worldwide, the disruption to normal climate patterns has resulted in more extreme fluctuations in weather.

Mike Flannigan, of the University of Alberta and the Director of the Western Partnership for Wildland Fire Science, stresses the fact that the rise in the frequency and intensity of wildfires is increasing internationally. He also draws attention to what scientist Stephen J. Pyne has repeatedly emphasized: we are now living in the “Age of the Pyrocene.” The fires rampaging across California, Oregon and Washington are quickly becoming the “new normal” in the region.

Climate change poses an existential threat. Workers in the United States and around the world can, and must, organize against a ruling class that places profits above the value of human life.

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Colombian security forces massacre 10 youth protesting police murder

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/11/colo-s11.html

By Andrea Lobo
11 September 2020

On Wednesday night, Colombian police used gunfire to massacre at least 10 people protesting the police killing of Javier Ordóñez, a 43-year-old lawyer and taxi driver, the previous night in the capital city of Bogotá.

A video posted online showed Ordóñez being repeatedly beaten and tortured with tasers by police officers, who detained him for allegedly violating the COVID-19 quarantine. The scenes, with Ordóñez pleading for his life, saying “I’m choking,” and witnesses asking the officials to stop, recalled for many the police murder of George Floyd in the United States.

In employing deadly force against protesters, the Colombian government of far-right President Iván Duque is following the lead of its imperialist patron in Washington, the Trump administration, which has used the federal forces to kidnap protesters in unmarked vans and carry out the targeted killing of a demonstrator in Seattle.

The massacre in Bogotá has only fueled more anger. Numerous protests are being planned for the rest of the week in Bogotá, Medellín and Barranquilla, marking a resurgence of the mass protests against social inequality that erupted across Latin America last year. Colombia itself witnessed an initial wave of protests across university campuses and strikes in the public sector.

Since the early afternoon Wednesday, as the video of Ordoñez’s murder went viral, protests led by youth began spreading across predominantly working class neighborhoods in the Bogotá metropolitan area and other cities of the country. Focusing their anger on the police, demonstrators, according to police reports, burned down 22 local police stations and defaced 49 others.

After initially employing tear gas, stun grenades and charges with batons and vehicles, after dusk, the National Police began using live ammunition in various parts of the city, in a clearly coordinated and systematic fashion against unarmed protesters.

The Bogotá district authorities have reported that seven civilians were killed and 248 were injured, 66 of them from gunfire. In the working class municipality of Soacha, which belongs to the Bogotá metropolitan area, the mayor confirmed that three additional demonstrators were killed. At least three of those wounded are still in intensive care.

Videos shared on social media show groups of police officers employing their firearms to enforce an undeclared curfew. Others are seen chasing down lone protesters and executing them. Without any potential danger nearby, police in uniform and plainclothes indiscriminately shot volleys of gunfire in at least three separate locations, as confirmed by Semana. Police were also filmed damaging businesses to scapegoat demonstrators.

In a radio interview, the partner of the youngest of the victims, 17-year-old Jaider Fonseca, described the incident: “The police began shooting in the air and then forward at people who were protesting with rocks. [Jaider] ran as soon as the shots started; his only defense was a door, he hid, but still was hit with four shots; he was riddled.”

“They were not killing anyone, they were not stealing, they were demanding their rights,” she concluded.

The Duque regime and police authorities have unabashedly initiated an intensification of the crackdown, including the deployment of 300 more troops to Bogotá to assist the police in the repression.

Duque himself has shown absolutely no remorse. Instead, he threatened anyone who dared call the police “killers,” and denounced “the violence, vandalism and hatred … any incitement to act above the law.”

Despite the fact that the one-sided and criminal character of the onslaught was clear from widely seen videos, the chief of the National Police, Gustavo Alberto Moreno, ominously defended the role of the police, declaring: “This police, with humility, recognizes its errors, but also celebrates the heroic work of thousands of police.” Moreno has received training from the Secret Service and FBI and worked as a police attaché in Washington D.C.

The Minister of Defense, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, who oversees the military operations of the Pentagon’s closest ally in the region, threatened demonstrators with further police-state measures. “Regarding those who participated in the violent acts and vandalism yesterday, we have identified profiles on social media that made publications against the police … all of them aimed at discrediting the performance and service of the National Police.”

He then offered bounties of $13,500 for information that helps “to find and identify” the participants in the protests.

Bogotá Mayor Claudia López of the Green Alliance acknowledged that she was presiding over repressive operations Wednesday from police headquarters, but claimed on Twitter that no order was given to employ firearms. Amid confrontations between the heavily armed police and the unarmed youth, however, López continuously denounced the “vandalism” and “violence.”

Later on Thursday, López sought to deflect any blame by pointing her finger at “the commander of the National Police, that is, the President of the Republic,” while adding, “ we have serious and solid evidence of the indiscriminate use of firearms by members of the police.”

These responses from the political establishment confirm that the ruling class is rushing headlong toward dictatorial forms of rule. Any calls for administrative wrist-slapping are aimed at diverting mass social anger, relying on the corporate media, the “opposition” politicians and the trade unions to continue appealing for “police reform.”

This was already exemplified earlier this year, when a handful of suspensions and internal “inquiries” were used to quiet down a scandal over a profiling and spying operation by military intelligence against over 100 journalists, activists and politicians.

The Colombian ruling class is well aware that it sits on a social powder keg. The Duque government recently extended until June 2021 a $43 monthly stipend per household, which has barely kept about 2.6 million of the poorest households from starvation during the pandemic crisis.

Employer associations have welcomed this program, with the small cost of $2 billion, as a means of averting mass upheavals. However, this miserly amount has done little or nothing to protect the growing layers of impoverished workers and unemployed from the virus and economic desperation.

According to the state statistical agency DANE, 90.3 percent of confirmed coronavirus deaths correspond to the poorest three strata of the population, which qualify for subsidies for utilities, while the richest sixth stratum accounts for just 1 percent of COVID-19 fatalities.

Juan Daniel Oviedo, director of DANE, told El Tiempo, “Poor households, with elderly and less educated adults, unable to abide by isolation rules due to the need to find their sustenance, were more exposed to the pandemic, which is reflected in their higher mortality.”

Colombia has the sixth highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world (686,851) and the 11th highest confirmed death toll (22,053). DANE, however reported that as of August 23, there were 7,257 suspected COVID-19 deaths that were never tested, and more than 10,000 excess deaths above the official count. Bogota is the country’s pandemic epicenter with a third of the cases.

Meanwhile, the wealth of Colombia’s billionaires listed by Forbes has only increased during the pandemic to over $13.7 billion. Now, the Colombian oligarchy, in partnership with its financial and corporate backers on Wall Street and in Europe, is moving to greatly intensify the exploitation of Colombia’s working class and natural resources.

The Duque government lifted most lockdown measures on September 1, except for schools, social gatherings and indoor entertainment.

The massacre of protesters in Bogotá signals the willingness of the Colombian ruling class to employ deadly violence and authoritarian rule to crush opposition from below to its criminal response to the pandemic. It has already shown its indifference to the lives of workers claimed by COVID-19.

The turn to authoritarianism by capitalist governments in Colombia and internationally derives from the efforts of the capitalist class to defend its massive wealth amid record levels of inequality and widespread social devastation.



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