'The Sham Must End': UN Cracks Down on Greenwashing at COP27

Its recommendations call for greater scrutiny of net zero claims.


Katie Collins
Nov. 8, 2022 


Fudging net zero claims is a common greenwashing tactic.
Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

This story is part of Choosing Earth, a series that chronicles the impact of climate change and explores what's being done about the problem.

In a win for the environment and anyone who doesn't like to be taken for a ride by false sustainability claims, the UN is cracking down on greenwashing. In a report issued Tuesday at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, the organization laid out recommendations for how companies, financial institutions and cities must calculate their net zero status -- that is, how close they actually are to eliminating their greenhouse gas emissions.

Fudging net zero claims is a favored greenwashing strategy among companies. They will say they're carbon-free thanks to strategies including buying carbon credits, while simultaneously pursuing new fossil fuel projects and continuing to emit greenhouse gases. It makes them look like they're living up to their environmental responsibilities, while, in the words of UN Secretary General António Guterres, they're actually taking advantage of "loopholes wide enough to drive a diesel truck through."

But no more. The UN's report aims to close the loopholes by laying out 10 steps to bring integrity, transparency and accountability to net zero claims. They should help everyone better understand the true extent of the climate efforts being undertaken by companies, especially those claiming to be sustainability leaders.

"Using bogus 'net zero' pledges to cover up massive fossil fuel expansion is reprehensible," Guterres said Tuesday at COP27. "It is rank deception. This toxic coverup could push our world over the climate cliff. The sham must end."

In its report, which was drawn up over the past seven months by a panel of independent experts, the UN stipulated that companies can't claim to be net zero if they are not in line with targets set out by the agency's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These include cutting global emissions by 45% by 2030. The use of carbon offsets will not be allowed in the short term, and only sparingly in the long term.

"This is about cutting emissions, not corners," said Catherine McKenna, chair of the UN expert group that assembled the report. "Our road map provides clear standards and criteria that must be followed when developing net zero commitments. Right now, the planet cannot afford delays, excuses or more greenwashing."

Companies must also present plans to transition to renewable energy alongside their emissions targets, which are to include details about how they will support workers currently in the fossil fuel industry. They will be duty-bound to publicly advocate for climate action and won't be allowed to fund lobbying for fossil fuels.

All existing voluntary net zero pledges must be revised by the first half of 2023 to fit in with the new requirements, Gutteres said. The report also recommended a move away from voluntary pledges and toward more regulation.

The report demonstrates the need for enforceable measures to prevent greenwashing, said Hana Heikenen, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law in a statement. "Avoiding overshoot of 1.5 degrees Celsius requires deep emissions cuts now, and leaves no room for reliance on fossil fuel prolonging carbon capture and storage or other technofixes, which only delay needed climate action," she said.

COP27 - Corporate climate pledges rife with greenwashing - U.N. expert group

By Gloria Dickie and Simon Jessop - Yesterday 

COP27 climate summit in Egypt© Thomson Reuters

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) -Promises by companies, banks and cities to achieve net-zero emissions often amount to little more than greenwashing, U.N. experts said in a report on Tuesday as they set out proposed new standards to harden net-zero claims.

The report, released at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, is intended to draw a "red line" around false claims of progress in the fight against global warming that can confuse consumers, investors and policy makers.

At last year's climate negotiations in Glasgow, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed 17 experts to review the integrity of non-state net-zero commitments amid concerns about "a surplus of confusion and deficit of credibility" around corporate climate claims.

"Too many of these net-zero pledges are little more than empty slogans and hype", group chair and Canada's former environment minister, Catherine McKenna, said during a news conference launching the report.

"Bogus net-zero claims drive up the cost that ultimately everyone will pay," she said.

Regulators across the world are starting to set tougher rules around what activities can be deemed environmentally friendly, yet progress is patchy and campaigners and activists are increasingly turning to the courts to challenge weak claims.

On Tuesday, an official at Australia's corporate watchdog said it was investigating several companies over greenwashing, in which a company or group makes exaggerated claims over the environmental impact of their products or practices.

Last month, meanwhile, Britain's financial watchdog proposed new rules from 2024 for funds and their managers to prevent consumers being misled about their climate credentials.

An estimated 80% of global emissions are now covered by pledges that commit to reaching net-zero emissions.

The report set out a list of recommendations that companies and other non-state actors should follow to ensure their claims are credible. For example, a company cannot claim to be net-zero if it continues to build or invest in new fossil fuel infrastructure or deforestation.

The report also dismisses the use of cheap carbon credits to offset continued emissions as a viable net-zero strategy, and recommends companies, financial institutions, cities and regions focus on outright emissions and not carbon intensity - a measure of how much carbon is emitted per unit of output.

The report was "potentially very significant, depending on the traction it gets", said Eric Christian Pedersen, head of responsible investments at Nordea Asset Management.

"If this report becomes a legal standard against which one can measure if a net-zero commitment is bona fide or not, then it... can provide ammunition for the lawsuits and regulatory action which are sorely needed to make the absence of climate action more expensive at the individual company level."

The report "gives companies, investors, cities, regions - and by implication, countries - a clear statement of what 'good' looks like", said Thomas Hale, a global public policy researcher at Oxford University and co-leader of the Net Zero Tracker project which measures the effectiveness of such pledges.

"We need to be clear that most net-zero targets are not on track," he told Reuters, noting the tracker found that only half of companies with pledges have robust plans.

Teresa Anderson, global lead for climate justice at poverty-eradication non-profit ActionAid International, said corporations had "long hidden behind net-zero announcements and carbon offsetting initiatives, with very little intention of really doing the hard work of transforming and cutting emissions."

"These recommendations will aim to keep them in line and close any loopholes."

Read more:

COP27 Polluters must pay for climate change, poor nations tell rich

ANALYSIS-COP 27- Big finance's hopes fade in climate of war

EXPLAINER-COP27 What's on the U.N. climate talks agenda

(Reporting by Gloria Dickie and Simon Jessop; editing by Richard Valdmanis, Ed Osmond and Lisa Shumaker)

HE'S A LORD HE LIES

Starmer responds to claims of a Labour left ‘purge’

Sir Keir, who toured a carbon capture pilot plant during a visit to Imperial College London, said Labour was “united” ahead of the next election.

 by Jack Peat
2022-11-07 


Sir Keir Starmer has insisted his party is “united”, amid accusations that the Labour left wing is being “purged”.

Reports emerged over the weekend accusing the Labour leadership of overseeing a “purge” of left-wing candidates, with some blocked from standing at the next general election.

Sir Keir, who on Monday toured a carbon capture pilot plant during a visit to Imperial College London, said that Labour was “united” ahead of the next general election.

He appeared to reject allegations of a purge of left-wing candidates and Jeremy Corbyn backers, arguing instead that he wanted to build a “team for the future”.

The Labour leader told broadcasters: “We are preparing for the next election, the sooner the better.

“I am determined to have a team of incoming MPs, who are the team for the future.

“We will have a big challenge and so of course we are making sure we have got the very best candidates to put before the public for that general election which we so desperately need.”

Sir Keir’s visit to the central London university coincided with the start of Cop27 in Egypt, which is being attended by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak despite him initially saying he would not travel for the conference.

The Labour leader stressed his own party’s climate credentials, as he said that as prime minister he would be involved in “pulling leaders together” to tackle climate change.

UK
Night of shame in parliament as Tory MPs use ‘disgusting and dangerous’ statements to decry asylum seekers

Edward Leigh's statement has been described as one of the most vile things ever heard in the House.

by Jack Peat
2022-11-08


Conservative MPs have been widely condemned for statements made in the

House of Commons relating to people seeking asylum in the UK.

Sir Roger Gale raised an urgent question on Monday for the Minister for

Immigration, Robert Jenrick, on what steps he is taking to reduce overcrowding

at the Manston asylum processing facility and about the safeguarding of minors.

While some, such as the Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, raised concerns

over incidents of violence and sexual assault against children holed up in temporary

accommodation, others used the opportunity to spew what James O’Brien has

described as “disgusting and dangerous” rhetoric.


Conservative MP Scott Benton said his constituents are “sick and tired of this

ridiculous narrative of economic migrants somehow being mistreated at Manston.

He says his constituents “could only dream of” receiving the same sort of treatment.”


While Edward Leigh asked Jenrick to confirm that the solution to the issue is to

“repeal the Human Rights Act, get out of the European refugee convention and

repeal the Modern Slavery Act 2015”.

Watch the vile statement in full below:

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Feds find Silk Road thief's $1b+ Bitcoin stash in popcorn tin, hidden safe

Uncle Sam follows the money ... all the way to a single-board computer

Brandon Vigliarolo
Mon 7 Nov 2022 

A crook who stole more than 50,000 Bitcoins from the dark web souk Silk Road in 2012 has pleaded guilty and lost the lot, with a stretch behind bars likely ahead of him.

James Zhong, 32, admitted committing wire fraud in September 2012 by creating nine Silk Road accounts he used to trigger "over 140 transactions in rapid succession in order to trick Silk Road's withdrawal-processing system," the US Department of Justice said Monday.

That stunt, we're told, netted Zhong "approximately 51,680.32473733 Bitcoins", which was worth over $3.6 billion (£3.1 billion) when seized by Feds last year. As of writing, the amount is worth a little more than $1 billion (£867 million), due to the depressed digicash market. It sounds as though Zhong abused a design flaw in Silk Road to have funds held by the marketplace released to him, which he then laundered through various wallets in an attempt to conceal his identity.

Along with recovering all that Bitcoin from Zhong, the DoJ said it also seized 25 physical Casascius coins worth 174 Bitcoin, around $661,900 (£573,834) in cash, some bars of precious metals, as well as Zhong's 80 percent holding in a real estate company called RE&D Investments.

The DoJ noted that it found Zhong's holdings "in an underground floor safe; and on a single-board computer that was submerged under blankets in a popcorn tin stored in a bathroom closet" when it raided his home in November 2021.

Zhong, of Gainesville, Georgia, and Athens, Georgia, pleaded guilty last week to the wire fraud charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for February next year.

"This case shows that we won't stop following the money, no matter how expertly hidden, even to a circuit board in the bottom of a popcorn tin," said US Attorney Damian Williams.

Zhong, the DoJ pointed out, never bought or sold anything on Silk Road – he just took the cyber-crime hub for an exorbitant amount of digital currency.

Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the Silk Road, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2015 based on crimes including drug trafficking, money laundering, computer crime and engaging in a criminal enterprise. Ulbricht was also charged with multiple cases of murder-for-hire, but those charges were later dropped.

The seizure of the 50k Bitcoin from Zhong in 2021 was, at the time, the largest cryptocurrency and financial seizure in the history of the DoJ, but has since slipped to second place in both of those categories thanks to the Bitfinex robbery earlier this year.

To cybercriminals still hiding behind the "anonymity" of crypto currency, IRS Criminal Investigations Special Agent In Charge Tyler Hatcher seemed to state that anonymity wasn't worth relying on.

"IRS-CI Special Agents are the best in the world at following the money through cyberspace or wherever our financial investigations lead us," Hatcher said. "We will continue to … track down these criminals and bring them to justice." ®

Feds smash internet drug bazaar Silk Road, say they'll KEELHAUL 'Dread Pirate Roberts'

America taps 150+ prosecutors to fight cryptocurrency crime

Oooooklahoma! Where the cops can stop and empty your bank cards – on just a hunch

NYC cops say they can't reveal figures on cash seized from people – the database is too shoddy

MAD SCIENTIST 

Oculus creator building VR headset that intentionally kills you IRL

 Comment

Jeff ParsonsTuesday 8 Nov 2022 

The inventor of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, is building a VR headset that kills you (Credit: Getty)

Palmer Luckey, the outspoken creator of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, has got a new idea.

It’s a virtual reality headset tied to a video game that intentionally kills you if you die in the game.

In a blog post detailing the ‘NerveGear’, Luckey explained that the system intentionally ties the real and virtual worlds together and adds the ‘threat of serious consequences [that] can make a game feel real to you and every other person in the game.’

The former Oculus boss said the headset was fitted with ‘explosive charge modules I usually use for a different project’ to fry the brain of its wearer if they don’t happen to be very good at video games

Luckey says he hasn’t tried the system himself yet, because he’s still working out the kinks.

‘The good news is that we are halfway to making a true NerveGear  The bad news is that so far, I have only figured out the half that kills you.  The perfect-VR half of the equation is still many years out,’ he wrote.

Luckey created Oculus VR which was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion (Credit: Meta)

‘This isn’t a perfect system, of course.  I have plans for an anti-tamper mechanism that, like the NerveGear, will make it impossible to remove or destroy the headset. Even so, there are a huge variety of failures that could occur and kill the user at the wrong time.  This is why I have not worked up the balls to actually use it myself.’

Such a headset would, of course, bring an increased focus on being good at video games. As well as quite a few murder trials.

Luckey announced the system to commemmorate the events of an anime called Sword Art Online where unlucky players are put into a virtual dungeon and must fight their way out. As you’d imagine, if they die in the game they die in real life.

We’ll probably just stick with Animal Crossing to be honest.

MORE : Inventor of Oculus VR headset thinks Zuckerberg’s metaverse is ‘terrible’

Greece to ban sale of spyware as phone-tapping scandal intensifies

A media report published over the weekend alleged that more than 30 politicians, journalists and business executives had been targeted by state surveillance.

Opposition parties blame Mitsotakis for the scandal and have called for his government to hold snap elections, something he rejects. (Costas Baltas / Reuters)

Greece has said that it will ban the sale of spyware after the left-wing newspaper Documento published a list of more than 30 prominent people whose phones were said to have been infected with Predator malware.

“We will proceed with a universal ban on the sale of illegal software in Greece, an act that will make Greece the first country in Europe to ban the circulation of malicious software in its territory,” government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou told journalists in a press briefing on Monday, adding that a bill would soon be submitted to parliament.

Oikonomou noted that the newspaper presented allegations of politicians and businesspeople being spied on, including former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and several top ministers of the current New Democracy government, without the required documentation to back up the claim.

The list also included main opposition Syriza lawmakers like Olga Gerovasili as well as prominent journalists.

The spyware scandal has shaken the Greek political scene, drawing strong reactions from opposition parties as well as the European Union.

The editor-in-chief of Documento, Kostas Vaxevanis, visited the Supreme Court on Monday in order to submit material relevant to the allegations after Supreme Court Prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos ordered a preliminary investigation into the matter.

The journalist association expressed its intense concern over the stormy developments in the wiretapping scandal while at the same time taking shots at both the Mitsotakis government and the Justice Department.

READ MORE: Greek opposition mulls no-trust motion over wire-tapping scandal

Surveillance scandal

August 8, Mitsotakis acknowledged that Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the opposition PASOK-KINAL party, was wiretapped by Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP) but denied knowledge of the operation.

The scandal first emerged on August 4 when Panagiotis Kontoleon, then-head of the EYP, told a parliamentary committee that the EYP had been spying on financial journalist Thanasis Koukakis. After giving the testimony, Kontoleon resigned.

A parliamentary probe was launched after Androulakis complained to top prosecutors about an attempt to hack his mobile phone with Predator spyware.

Opposition parties blame Mitsotakis for the scandal and have called for his government to hold snap elections, something he rejects.

The European Commission and European Parliament are closely monitoring developments related to the scandal.

READ MORE: Greece's wiretapping scandal puts rights at risk: Human Rights Watch

New Greece PM Mitsotakis vows to end economic crisis

Conservatives beat Tsipras in Greek vote – exit polls

Greece gets first female president amid male-dominated cabinet

Greek coalition ally threatens to quit if Macedonia deal goes to parliament

Greek opposition mulls no-trust motion over wire-tapping scandal

Greece's wiretapping scandal puts rights at risk: Human Rights Watch

 PERSPECTIVE

Who is Chrystia Freeland, Washington’s “prime candidate” for NATO Secretary-General?

Roger Jordan

WSWS.ORG

The New York Times recently reported that Washington is promoting Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, as its “prime candidate” to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as NATO secretary-general when the Norwegian’s term expires in September 2023.

Freeland is being backed by US imperialism to head the aggressive military alliance because she is a war hawk with extensive personal and political ties with Ukrainian fascism, which has emerged as a key proxy for the Western powers’ predatory war against Russia.

The selection of the next head of the US-led alliance is seen as a crucial issue in Washington and European capitals. The next secretary-general will oversee some 300,000 NATO “high readiness forces” in Europe and will therefore be instrumental in the prosecution of the imperialist powers’ war aimed at subjugating Russia to the status of a semi-colony and seizing control of its natural resources.

In a manner typical of a newspaper that has deceitfully propagandized for every US war of aggression over the past three decades, the Times shamelessly covered up Freeland’s personal and political ties to far-right and outright fascist forces in its November 4 report.

After noting Freeland’s presence in Kiev in 2014 to “celebrate” the fascist-led coup that overthrew elected pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, the Times observes, “(H)er Ukrainian grandfather, a grateful immigrant to Canada, was as a younger man involved with a Ukrainian nationalist movement that saw the Nazis as useful foils to counter the Soviets.”

Contrary to this anodyne portrayal of Freeland’s grandfather as a young man led astray, the fact of the matter is that Mykhailo Chomiak was a high-level Nazi collaborator. From the beginning of 1940 to the early months of 1945, he served as managing editor of the only Ukrainian-language newspaper permitted to publish in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Krakivski Visti (Krakow News), which was produced on a printing press stolen from a Jew who perished in a Nazi death camp, published a steady stream of anti-Semitic and anti-Polish racist filth, regularly lauded Adolf Hitler as a leader of a new Europe and an ally of Ukraine, and actively campaigned for recruits to the 14th Division of the Waffen SS, the so-called Galicia Division. The Galicia Division participated in horrific massacres of Jews and Poles during 1943 and 1944.

Chomiak was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated closely with the Nazis, joined in the war of extermination against the Soviet Union, and was implicated in hundreds of thousands of deaths of Poles and Jews in the Holocaust. The OUN was an explicitly fascist organization that set as its goal the creation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state.

The faction to which Chomiak belonged, the OUN Melnyk (M), directly served the Nazi occupiers by integrating itself into the administrative and security apparatus in the General Government (Nazi-occupied Poland). The other faction led by Stepan Bandera, the OUN (B), focused on embedding its forces into the military and claimed to act more “independently” of the Nazis. The activities of both factions and their push for an “independent” Ukrainian state were in reality entirely dependent upon the patronage of Nazi German imperialism.

After the downfall of the Third Reich, Chomiak found refuge together with thousands of Nazi collaborators in Canada and the United States. Former members of the fascist OUN were among the first recruits of the newly established CIA, which was above all concerned with recruiting “anti-communist” forces amid the Cold War.

Canada emerged as a key player in enabling Hitler’s accomplices to whitewash their history and write a new narrative of Ukrainian nationalism as having fought for “liberation” against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at the same time. In addition to allowing tens of thousands of former SS members and other Nazi collaborators to settle in Canada, Ottawa provided financial support for an ideological campaign to legitimize far-right Ukrainian nationalism, including through its sponsorship of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and creation of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

The state intervened to help far-right forces associated with the OUN gain control of property and other assets owned by groups representing the Ukrainian diaspora that had been strongholds of socialism and left-wing politics prior to the Second World War. 

(This history is presented in detail in the WSWS series Canadian imperialism’s fascist friends)

Freeland emerged out of this milieu. After working as a student on the so-called “Encyclopedia of Ukraine,” a project aimed at concealing the Ukrainian nationalists’ active support for Hitler and the Nazis led by Krakivski Visti’s publisher, Volodymyr Kubiyovych, Freeland traveled to Soviet Ukraine in the late 1980s to stoke the far-right Ukrainian nationalism in which she had been schooled.

The Canadian state facilitated the return to Ukraine of large numbers of exiles and their descendants with ties to far-right nationalist groups over subsequent years, many of whom emerged as important figures in the establishment of an independent capitalist Ukraine following the Stalinists’ dissolution of the Soviet Union. Halyna Chomiak, Freeland’s mother, returned to Ukraine to establish the Ukrainian Legal Foundation, which was involved in drafting the country’s constitution.

The most significant import these forces brought back to Ukraine was a virulent strain of far-right nationalism. As Freeland observed in a 2015 essay entitled “My Ukraine, Putin’s big lie”: “Ukraine’s national consciousness was weak.” The Canadian state, supported by the politically influential Ukrainian Canadian Congress, made a significant contribution over the following years to revive the cult of Stepan Bandera, with the result that dozens of statues and other memorials to the fascist leader sprang up across western Ukraine.

This history goes a long way to explaining why Freeland has secured such a prominent position in Canadian imperialism’s preparation for and waging of the US-led war against Russia. After the fascist-led Maidan coup brought to power a pro-Western regime in Kiev in 2014, prompting Russia to annex Crimea in response, Washington and Ottawa took the lead in reorganizing Ukraine’s armed forces.

They oversaw the integration of fascist militias like the notorious Azov Battalion into its ranks. Canadian troops involved in a military training mission in Ukraine provided instruction to members of Azov and Centuria, an elite group of fascist army officers. Canada simultaneously joined in NATO’s massive build-up of military forces on Russia’s western border by leading one of the alliance’s forward battalions in Latvia. The deployment of similar battalions to Estonia, Lithuania and Poland continued the eastward march of the aggressive military alliance aimed at encircling Russia that began in the aftermath of the restoration of capitalism by the Stalinists in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Freeland served as Foreign Minister throughout much of this period, before being promoted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the position of deputy prime minister and finance minister following the 2019 federal election. When the US and its NATO allies succeeded in goading Putin into his reactionary invasion of Ukraine in February, Freeland emerged as one of the leading voices for ruthless economic sanctions, including the removal of Russia from the SWIFT global payments network. She has also served as a key interlocutor between the Ukrainian government and its imperialist masters, boasting earlier this year that she has daily conversations with Ukraine’s prime minister and finance minister.

The fact that Freeland is now being mooted for the top job of NATO underscores the predatory character of the imperialist war waged by the US and NATO against Russia. Far from the Western powers intervening to defend Ukraine’s “sovereignty” and “democracy,” as publications like the Times incessantly claim, the conflict is about plundering Russia’s rich natural resources and seizing control of the geostrategically crucial Eurasian landmass.

These goals demand the deployment of ruthless military force abroad, threatening the world with a nuclear conflagration, and no less brutal methods of state repression at home to crush popular opposition to the subordination of society’s resources to imperialist war and conquest. This is why the imperialists have cultivated intimate ties with fascist forces.

The political utility of Freeland for the Times and its predominantly middle-class readership, which makes up a key constituency of support for imperialist war, is that she unites her close ties to Ukrainian fascism with the requisite dose of identity politics.

For these social layers, it is of far greater significance that Freeland could become “NATO’s first female Secretary-General” than that she is an avowed war hawk and far-right Ukrainian nationalist who describes an important Nazi collaborator as one of her heroes. Confronted with her grandfather’s Nazi collaborationist record in 2017, Freeland dismissed it as “Russian disinformation.” She has repeatedly paid tribute to Chomiak for teaching her about Ukrainian culture and nationalism.

During her time as Canada’s foreign minister, Freeland proclaimed Ottawa was pursuing a “feminist foreign policy” as it deployed troops to Latvia, trained neo-Nazis in Ukraine and participated in “freedom of navigation” exercises in the South China Sea. In 2017, Freeland announced a military spending hike of over 70 percent within a decade, and delivered a keynote address on Canada’s new defence strategy that cited both Russia and China as “threats” to national security.

Freeland also maintains close ties to the trade union bureaucracy, which Canada’s Liberal government views as a key partner in enforcing austerity to pay for war and suppressing the class struggle. Since the war broke out, Freeland has been invited to address several union conventions, including the 2022 Teamsters convention in June.

Freeland’s appointment to NATO’s top job is by no means guaranteed. Since its formation in 1949, the alliance has traditionally been headed by a European, while a US general typically holds the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

The prospect of a Canadian and an American occupying NATO’s two top positions would undoubtedly raise eyebrows among the European imperialists, especially under conditions in which Germany has seized on the war to revive its global great-power ambitions. These geopolitical tensions aside, the war-mongers in Washington, Ottawa, Berlin and Brussels could hardly find a more politically appropriate figure to head their military alliance of death and destruction than Chrystia Freeland.

UK: University and College Union names strike days but intensifies corporatist strategy

Henry Lee, Robert Stevens

WSWS.ORG

The University and College Union (UCU) has announced three days of national strikes to be held November 24, 25, and 30. The union said “university vice-chancellors have not made any improved offers” since last month’s vote by 70,000 staff at 150 universities to strike over attacks on pay, working conditions and pensions.

The higher education (HE) strike ballot, announced October 24, returned an overwhelming mandate. In the pay and working conditions ballot, 81.1 percent voted yes on a 57.8 percent turnout. In the pension ballot—a long running dispute going back five years—the yes vote was even higher at 84.9 percent, on a 60.2 percent turnout.

The UCU responded by delaying another week as the “UCU’s higher education committee [HEC] meets on Thursday 3 November to decide the next steps the union will take to pressure employers to begin meaningful negotiations.” There it agreed in principle to call only a token three-day strike this term.

One day before the meeting, the union leadership under General Secretary Jo Grady moved to head off any prospect of immediate strike action with a 12 page document titled “UCU Rising – Winning the dispute”

The University and College Union's 12 page corporatist document, "UCU Rising - winning the dispute" [Photo: ucu.org.uk]

In the foreword Grady wrote, “To win a dispute of this magnitude though, strike action can only be part of the strategy and not all of it.”

This was a continuation of the UCU’s sabotage of higher education workers’ struggle. By delaying the ballot well into the autumn term, the union bureaucracy kept workers from coming out alongside over 100,000 rail, postal and BT workers this summer and autumn.

In the weeks since the UCU ballot result, the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) and Communication Workers Union (CWU) unions intensified moves to shut down their members’ struggles. The RMT called off strikes to begin “intensive negotiations” with the Rail Delivery Group employers’ body, and the TSSA white collar union also called off action. The CWU called off two strike days and signed a joint statement with Royal Mail committing to a “de-escalation of tension” and “restoring calmness in the workplace”.

The “UCU Rising” document outlines the union’s corporatist strategy, closely modelled on that of Unite union general secretary of Sharon Graham, which directs workers to appeal to corporate shareholders to “do the right thing”. One dispute after another has been sold out to below-inflation pay deals on this basis.

As an alternative to industrial action, the UCU declares in the section of the document headed “Leverage”, that “we will be preparing and commissioning research papers into the backgrounds, earnings, privateinterests, and conflicts of interests of every singlesenior person involved in our sector – politicians, vice chancellors, bosses, employers, contractors and more. We will use these papers to apply maximum exposure and pressure wherever we can.”

The sections on media and “political and external engagement” make clear the union bureaucracy’s appeal to Labour and Conservative MPs and a media bitterly hostile to the working class. “Ahead of industrial action there needs to be a dedicated programme of engagement and influencing with politicians, student bodies and other external organisations,” it states. The UCU “will engage the Universities All Parties Parliamentary Group and the Education Select Committee”; will “meet with the Shadow Pensions team”, “work with local MPs” and “request an intervention from the Shadow Secretary of State.”

The document boasts, “We have already lined up a mass of commitments from supportive politicians to produce social media content, videos and attend our picket lines”the aim of which is to offer a dwindling group of Labourites the chance shore up whatever remains of their “left” image. These MPs belong to a party so right-wing that its front-bench are banned by party leader Sir Keir Starmer from visiting picket lines.

Jo Grady speaking at a demonstration in London, October 2022 [Photo: WSWS]

Grady is a leading figure in the Enough is Enough campaign. Fronted by RMT leader Mick Lynch it is a political fraud in service to the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress. The UCU document states, “We will work with the Enough is Enough campaign to ensure our picket lines have the biggest levels ofsupport ever from the public and wider movement”. This is even as the main unions behind the campaign—the RMT and CWU—have spent the last week calling off every strike possible to enter talks without preconditions with rail and Royal Mail bosses.

Supporters of the UCU bureaucracy claim that limiting strike action is the “democratic will of our members”, on the basis of an online survey conducted by the union, filled out by around 4,000 members. Of these, 59.1 percent supported Grady’s proposal for “any action called in November [to] be limited in scale”.

Yet more than 30,700 workers voted yes in the national ballot for strike action. The little-publicised survey of a tiny self-selecting subset is a transparent attempt to justify suppressing the mass sentiment for a real struggle.

At the UCU’s higher education committee, Grady doubled down on her opposition to a serious campaign of industrial action. She declared the union, “for the first time ever, have a strategy that is not solely focused on strike action. We will use a wide range of tactics to take the employers to a place they have never been before.” This was despite the fact that with the resounding vote, “we have the ability to call UK wide action… we have information on the intent of our sister campus unions” and “we know the dates of strike action for other trade unions.”

Grady even ruled out a marking and assessment boycott before next year, claiming, “It would be reckless of us to take such a huge decision with a split mandate”, as the votes from her survey and meetings of delegates from branches were “split”.

The nominal opposition within the union bureaucracy to Grady’s faction offers no programme for a successful struggle either. The UCU Left, politically led by the Socialist Workers Party, wrote before the plans were announced at the higher education conference, “delegates [from branches] accepted that November action would be limited, but they didn’t say it should be tokenistic.” Grady’s three days split the difference between the “limited” five days called for by the UCU Left, and the “tokenistic” two days advocated by the other major faction UCU Commons.

The UCU’s declared aim of winning the support of students for HE workers is another ruse. Its document pledges, “we will seek to agree a joint student/staff statement with the NUS [National Union of Students],” organising “solidarity for our strike”.

There is a strong basis for solidarity action. Many students already work alongside their studies and also face exploitative conditions and low pay. They are hit massively by the surge in the cost of living, exacerbated by extortionate tuition fees and university rent costs. Their education is harmed by the slash and burn raids on the higher education workforce. Many HE workers have taken previous strike action in large part out of a concern for the future of university education.

University of Manchester staff and students protest at the Oxford Road campus during the national pensions and pay strike in 2020. [Photo: WSWS]

But the NUS, where students know if its existence, is viewed with contempt for its role over decades in demobilising struggles against education cuts and tuition fee increases. It will play the same policing role today in collaboration with the UCU, calling just one vaguely defined “joint national student and UCU day of action indefence of our sector to be held in November”.

The HE struggle must be taken out of the hands of the UCU bureaucracy who have lost workers thousands in pay and pensions already—further pension cuts of up to 35 percent were pushed through in April. Workers can seize control of and expand the dispute by forming rank-and-file committees in their universities, which must reach out to other sections of the working class seeing their living standards and futures crushed by the cost-of-living crisis

UK Nurses To Commence Strike Over Pay


By
Daily Trust
Wed, 09 Nov 2022


British nurses will strike over pay, the Royal College of Nursing said on Wednesday, announcing the first UK-wide strike action in the union’s 106-year history.

“Results of our biggest ever strike ballot show record numbers of nursing staff are prepared to join picket lines this winter,” it said.

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Britain’s health minister, Steve Barclay, described the decision as “disappointing”.

The move comes amid a cost-of-living crisis that the union says has left its members struggling to feed their families and pay their bills.

“This is a defining moment in our history, and our fight will continue through strike action and beyond for as long as it takes to win justice for the nursing profession and our patients,” RCN General Secretary Pat Cullen said.

“Anger has become action – our members are saying enough is enough,” she added.

The industrial action is expected to begin before the end of the year, with dates to be announced soon.

The RCN is calling for a pay rise of five percent above inflation.

Recent months have seen a wave of industrial action in the UK.

Tens of thousands of staff in various industries – from the postal and legal systems to ports and telecommunications – have gone one strike across Britain since the summer.

The RCN says there are currently record nursing vacancies, with 25,000 staff leaving the Nursing and Midwifery Council register last year.

AFP

Billie Jean King slams 'horrible' Wimbledon tradition as underwear rule change not enough

Billie Jean King has criticised Wimbledon's attire rules after the All England Club vowed to relax requirements on all-white underwear.

By YASMIN SYED
Tue, Nov 8, 2022

Billie Jean King said Wimbledon's all-white rule was her "pet peeve" (Image: Getty)


Billie Jean King has slammed Wimbledon’s all-white dress code as one of her biggest “pet peeves”. It comes after the All England Club made the decision to drop a rule that meant players were required to wear white underwear ahead of next year’s Championships, which had left some female players competing without wearing a bra.

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King has blasted the All England Club’s rule that players must wear all-white to compete at Wimbledon after it was announced that they would be ditching a requirement for athletes to wear white underwear, reported by the Daily Mail. The tennis legend said it left players feeling “tense” when they took to the court as they were too preoccupied with worry over their attire.

“My generation, we always worried because we wore all white all the time,” she told CNN. “And it’s what you wear underneath that’s important for your menstrual period.” Her words come after several players spoke out against the rule, with world No 53 Daria Saville revealing that she was forced to skip her periods during Wimbledon over the fear of menstruating while wearing white.

And six-time Wimbledon winner King said the same concerns had been around since her day, continuing: “And we’re always checking whether we’re showing. You get tense about it because the first thing we are is entertainers and you want whatever you wear to look immaculate, look great. We’re entertainers. We’re bringing it to the people.”

Daria Saville said she skipped her periods during Wimbledon because of the all-white rule

 (Image: Getty)

The retired former world No 1 also had another reason for her dislike of the rule as it left spectators confused over who was who while they were watching a match. “Nothing is worse in sports than when you turn on the television and two players are wearing the same uniform or same outfits. It’s horrible,” she stressed.

“No one knows who’s who. This is one of my pet peeves, I’ve been yelling for years. Have you ever seen any sport where the people wear the same outfit on each side?” While Wimbledon’s decision to abolish their underwear rule wasn’t enough to satisfy King’s frustrations, the 78-year-old said she would welcome a change that allowed players to wear darker undergarments below their white match kit.

“You feel like you can breathe and not have to check on everything every minute when you sit down and change sides,” she explained. “So at least it’s been brought to the forefront, which I think is important to have discussion.”

Mihaela Buzarnescu was made to change her bra at this year's Championships (Image: Getty)

Wimbledon’s decision comes after an outburst surrounding the white underwear rule this year. As Mihaela Buzarnescu was about to play her opening match against Nastasja Mariana Schunk, tournament supervisors noticed her bra did not comply with the requirements and forced her to change it before she could play.

The rule also sparked a protest ahead of this year’s women’s singles final between Ons Jabeur and Elena Rybakina, while 1987 men’s champion Pat Cash previously told BBC Radio 5 Live that the rule had left some female players forced to play braless.

“Some of the girls have been told to go back and change their bras and tops because they had slight colour on them.I believe some of the girls didn’t have suitable sports bras and had to go without them. It has absolutely gone ridiculous,” he said.