Iraq engulfed by dust storm, leaving dozens hospitalised and flights grounded

Thick sheet of orange shrouds country as experts say phenomenon to become more frequent due to drought and declining rainfall

Dust settled across streets and vehicles and seeped into homes in Iraq's capital Baghdad as the storm hit on Sunday. 

Photograph: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images


Agence France-Presse

Mon 2 May 2022 

Iraq was yet again covered in a thick sheet of orange on Sunday as it suffered the latest in a series of dust storms that have become increasingly common.

Dozens were hospitalised with respiratory problems in the centre and the west of the country.
A thick layer of orange dust settled across streets and vehicles, seeping into people’s homes in the capital Baghdad.


Iraq’s ancient buildings are being destroyed by climate change


Flights were grounded because of poor visibility at airports serving Baghdad and the Shiite holy city of Najaf, with the phenomenon expected to continue into Monday, according to the weather service.

“Flights have been interrupted at the airports of Baghdad and Najaf due to the dust storm,” the spokesperson for the civil aviation authority, Jihad al-Diwan, said.

Drivers switched on their headlights because of low visibility during the storm in Baghdad.

 Photograph: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images

Visibility was cited at less than 500 metres, with flights expected to resume once weather improves.

Hospitals in Najaf received 63 people suffering from respiratory problems as a result of the storm, a health official said, adding that the majority had left after receiving appropriate treatment.

Another 30 hospitalisations were reported in the mostly desert province of Anbar in the west of the country.

Iraq was hammered by a series of such storms in April, grounding flights in Baghdad, Najaf and Arbil and leaving dozens hospitalised.

Iraqis walk past street stores in Karada district in central Baghdad on Sunday. Photograph: Ahmed Jalil/EPA

Amer al-Jabri, of Iraq’s meteorological office, previously said the weather phenomenon is expected to become increasingly frequent “due to drought, desertification and declining rainfall”.

Iraq is particularly vulnerable to climate change, having already witnessed record low rainfall and high temperatures in recent years.

Experts have said these factors threaten to bring social and economic disaster in the war-scarred country.

The sky was orange over the Al-Khilani square in central Baghdad. 

Photograph: Ahmed Jalil/EPA

In November, the World Bank warned that Iraq could suffer a 20% drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change.

In early April, Issa al-Fayad, an environment ministry official, had warned that Iraq could face “272 days of dust” a year in coming decades, according to the state news agency INA.

The ministry said the weather phenomenon could be addressed by “increasing vegetation cover and creating forests that act as windbreaks”.

Israeli Researchers Show Sea Urchins Lived on Earth 300 Million Years Ago
by Sharon Wrobel


The phylum echinodermata (‘echino’ meaning spiny and ‘derm’ meaning skin) are key to the study of evolution, as they are located at a junction where invertebrates and vertebrate diverged. 

Photo: Dr. Omri Bronstein / Tel Aviv University

An international study involving Tel Aviv University researchers suggests that types of marine animals including starfish and sea cucumbers lived in oceans about 50 million years earlier than previously thought.

The findings of the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal eLife, shed new light on dating the evolutionary development of echinoids — marine animals that live on the seabed, including sea urchins, starfish, sea cucumbers and their “spiny-skinned relatives.”

“Our work shows that modern echinoids emerged approximately 300 million years ago, and many of them survived the Permo-Triassic mass extinction event that occurred about 252 million years ago — the most severe biodiversity crisis in Earth’s history — and rapidly diversified in its aftermath,” stated Dr. Omri Bronstein of Tel Aviv University’s School of Zoology, one of authors of the study. “Our findings have great significance for the study of evolution in general, not just for that of sea urchins. They suggest that even when we have an abundance of fossils and very extensive research on a group, as in the case of sea urchins, estimates are likely to err by tens of millions of years.”

The Permo-Triassic mass extinction wiped out over 80% of the species on earth, more than 150 million years before the event that wiped out the dinosaurs.

“This is another reminder that there is still more that is unknown than known in the fascinating study of evolution,” Bronstein added.

Researchers from top institutes in the United States, England, Chile and Austria combined a phylogenetic analysis of the genomes of 54 different species, including 18 that have not yet been mapped, with paleontological dating of sea urchin fossils from around the world. They then integrated the genetic findings with fossil-based dating, in order to map the evolutionary history of the echinoids as accurately as possible.

“The findings were very surprising, as they indicate significant errors in the conventional dating of the divergence times (species differentiation points) on the evolutionary tree,” the researchers said.

There are about 1,000 living species of echinoids, including sea urchins, heart urchins, sand dollars and starfish, which live across different ocean environments. The phylum is particularly important in the study of evolution, Bronstein explained, because their place on the evolutionary tree appears where invertebrates and vertebrate diverged.

“Today we are also in the midst of a widespread extinction event, only this time human activity seems to be the main driver,” Bronstein noted. “An in-depth study of past extinction events, the reasons that led to their occurrence, and the species that managed to survive them, may help us deal with the current extinction.”

Pacific Elders Voice: Statement on Climate Security

 Toda Peace Institute
2 May 2022

Former Pacific leaders say the growing military tension in the region created by China, U.S and its allies are doing little to address the impacts of climate change in the Pacific

The Pacific Elders’ Voice reiterates that the primary security threat to the Pacific is climate change. This fact is clearly articulated in the Boe Declaration on Regional Security which states: “We affirm that climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific and our commitments to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement.”

This was preceded and guided by the Biketawa Declaration on the vulnerability of Pacific Island countries to the threats to their security.

The growing military tension in the Pacific region created by both China and the United States and its allies, including Australia, does little to address the real threat to the region caused by climate change. These nations have done very little to address their own greenhouse gas emissions, despite statements of intent by the nations.

Little has been done to address the impacts of climate change in the Pacific caused by their respective greenhouse gas emissions. Adequate funding for loss and damage caused by climate change needs to be addressed by Australia, China and the U.S in their engagement with the Pacific.

We are concerned that major powers, including the U.S, Japan and Australia, are developing strategies and policies for the ‘Indo-Pacific’ with little if any, consultation with Pacific Island countries. The Pacific Island region (commonly referred to by Pacific Islanders as the Moana) has its own set of unique challenges. The security and future of the Pacific must be determined primarily by Pacific Island countries and not by external powers competing over strategic interests within our region.

We are suffering from many insecurities in our region. It is time that the international community focus on these insecurities, particularly in the context of climate change.

We call on all nations to respect the sovereignty of all Pacific Island countries and the right of Pacific peoples to develop and implement their own security strategies without undue coercion from outsiders.

At the 50th Pacific Islands Forum meeting in 2019, Leaders agreed to build on their Blue Pacific’s Call for Urgent Global Climate Change Action through the Kainaki II Declaration for Urgent Climate Action Now. The Pacific Elders’ Voice emphasises this call to our regional partners, particularly Australia, to undertake credible and urgent actions on climate change, to demonstrate their genuine commitment and empathy for this biggest security threat to the Pacific Island state.

This statement was originally published at PEV on 29 April 2022 and reposted via PACNEWS.

New Tactical Nuclear Weapons? Just Say No.

ARMS CONTROL TODAY
May 2022
By Daryl G. Kimball

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal war on Ukraine, along with his implied threats of nuclear weapons use against any who would interfere, has raised the specter of nuclear conflict. Last month, CIA Director William Burns said that although there is no sign that Russia is preparing to do so, “none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons."


A Tomahawk cruise missile launches from the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Shoup (DDG 86) during a live-fire exercise, during Valiant Shield 2018 in the Philippine Sea September 18, 2018. (U.S. Navy photo)

As the war drags on, it is vital that Russian, NATO, and U.S. leaders maintain lines of communication to prevent direct conflict and avoid rhetoric and actions that increase the risk of nuclear escalation. Provocations could include deploying tactical nuclear weapons or developing new types of nuclear weapons designed for fighting and “winning” a regional nuclear war.

For these and other reasons, U.S. President Joe Biden was smart to announce in March that he will cancel a proposal by the Trump administration for a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM), a weapon last deployed in 1991.

Before President Donald Trump, two Democratic and two Republican administrations had agreed that nuclear-armed cruise missiles on Navy ships were redundant and destabilizing and detract from higher-priority conventional missions. Moreover, renuclearizing the fleet would create serious operational burdens. In 2019, Biden called this weapon a “bad idea” and said there is no need for new nuclear weapons. He was right then and is right to cancel the system now.

Nevertheless, some in Congress are pushing to restore funding for a nuclear SLCM to fill what they say is a “deterrence gap” against Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons arsenal and to provide a future president with “more credible” nuclear options in a future war with Russia in Europe or with China over Taiwan. A fight over the project, which would cost at least $9 billion through the end of the decade, is all but certain.

The arguments for reviving the nuclear SLCM program are as flimsy as they are dangerous. Serious policymakers all agree that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. But deploying nuclear-armed cruise missiles at sea would undoubtedly increase the possibility of nuclear war through miscalculation.

By deploying both conventional and nuclear-armed cruise missiles at sea, any launch of a conventional cruise missile inherently would send a nuclear signal and increase the potential for unintended nuclear use in a conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary because the adversary would have no way of knowing if the missile was nuclear or conventional.

Furthermore, even if Russia’s stockpile of 1,000 to 2,000 short-range nuclear warheads is larger in number than the U.S. stockpile of 320, there is no meaningful gap in capabilities. Superficial numerical comparisons ignore the fact that both sides already possess excess tactical nuclear destructive capacity, including multiple options for air and missile delivery of lower-yield nuclear warheads. Both also store their tactical warheads separately from the delivery systems, meaning preparations for potential use would be detectable in advance.

If one president authorized the use of these weapons under “extreme” circumstances in a conventional war, as the policies of both countries allow, neither side would need or want to use more than a handful of these highly destructive weapons. Although tactical nuclear bombs may produce relatively smaller explosive yields, from less than 1 kiloton TNT equivalent to 20 kilotons or more, their blast, heat, and radiation effects would be unlike anything seen in warfare since the 21-kiloton-yield atomic bomb that destroyed Nagasaki.

Proponents of the nuclear SLCM claim that if Putin used a tactical nuclear weapon to try to gain a military advantage or simply to intimidate, the U.S. president must have additional options to strike back with tactical nuclear weapons. They further argue that he should strike back even if that results in nuclear devastation within NATO and Russian territory.

Theories that nuclear war can be “limited” are extremely dangerous and ignore the unimaginable human suffering nuclear detonations would produce. In practice, once nuclear weapons are used by nuclear-armed adversaries, there is no guarantee the conflict would not quickly escalate to a catastrophic exchange involving the thousands of long-range strategic nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Russian arsenals.

As Gen. John Hyten, head of U.S. Strategic Command, said in 2018 after the annual Global Thunder wargame, “It ends bad. And the bad, meaning, it ends with global nuclear war.” As the supercomputer in the 1983 movie War Games ultimately calculated, “The only winning move is not to play.”

Adding a new type of tactical nuclear weapon to the U.S. arsenal will not enhance deterrence so much as it would increase the risk of nuclear war, mimic irresponsible Russian nuclear signaling, and prompt Russia and China to build their own sea- or land-based nuclear cruise missile systems. Biden made the right decision to cancel Trump’s proposed nuclear SLCM, and now Congress needs to back the president up.

An Enduring Injustice

Blown to Hell: America’s Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders


ARMS CONTROL TODAY
May 2022

Blown to Hell: America’s Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders
Walter Pincus
Diversion Books
November 2021

Reviewed by Desmond Narain Doulatram

Many researchers have written extensively on the nuclear history of the Marshall Islands, but these publications have not benefited the indigenous Marshallese population justly. Ultimately, it is the Marshallese, not outsiders, who live with the consequences of these circulated narratives, which focus on the environmental and human impact of more than 60 nuclear tests conducted by the United States in their region from 1946 to 1958.1

“The Marshallese people and land [are] often violently exploited by outsiders who use the Marshall Islands to advance their own interests, careers, learning, or power” at the expense of the indigenous community, according to the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission. The situation is made worse when such a small community is dependent on an indigenous, extended family network where camaraderie and cooperation is essential to ensuring its overall sustainable development. As the commission has observed, unidimensional depictions of Marshallese people as victims detract from their admirable story of resilience and self-reliance.

Even the title of Walter Pincus’ book, Blown to Hell: America’s Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders, ironically showcases that this betrayal is not always attributed only to U.S. military operations and U.S. governmental negligence, but also to careless researchers and writers involved in the mass media who are misled into believing that they are conveying moral intelligence. This is because even well-intentioned publications can be invasive and create more hardship for the communities in question where researchers are literally privileged memory-makers, given the power of the written text to inscribe identity and ascribe memories. So one question to ponder is, Did Pincus fall victim to this unfortunate trap?

Implicit Biases Expand Divisions

The author widely references written documents and circulated narratives that drown out indigenous voices in favor of a Western framework bordering on a victimhood mentality. He reveals the atrocities of nuclear weapons by attempting to shine a light from the receiving end, where the common man perspective takes root in the conversation and where indigenous tribal cultural traditions displayed by the Kabua kin, from which Marshall Islands President David Kabua descends, are demonized and individuals are accused of self-interest. Americans have not always been kind to indigenous tribal monarchs as their illegal overthrow of Hawaii’s Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1893 demonstrated, so one should not be surprised that Pincus makes it known how he feels about the Kabua family. He goes so far as to accuse the Marshall Islands’ founding father, Amata Kabua, who spearheaded the nation’s independence, of being a self-interested politician.


Islanders from Rongelap Atoll in The Marshall Islands, which was damaged by U.S. nuclear testing, march while holding banners marking the 60th anniversary of the Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in Majuro on March 1, 2014. The Marshallese have long called on the United States to resolve the "unfinished business" of its nuclear testing legacy in the western Pacific nation.
(Photo by Isaac Marty/AFP via Getty Images)

In fact, Amata Kabua was fighting for his people in the same way that Lili‘uokalani did when she was branded a dictator, a defamation that was only corrected when the U.S. Congress passed the “Apology Resolution” in 2009 during the Clinton administration. It is offensive to indigenous Marshallese that outsiders would even think that way without hearing an indigenous perspective, but there is a long history of being ignored. For example, as early as 1953, Amata Kabua’s mother, Dorothy Kabua, known as the queen (Leroij) of Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, saw the danger of nuclear testing and urged the United States to stop. No one listened to her.2

Many negative perspectives advanced by outside researchers and writers have impacted public viewpoints and discourses about the Marshall Islands. This reality was a key point of discontent, for instance, when U.S. Representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa) testified last year during a congressional oversight hearing chaired by Representative Katie Porter (D-Calif.) on the U.S. nuclear dump site in the Marshall Islands.3 Radewagen said,

The Marshall Islands are dear to my heart and like a second home to me. Former President Amata Kabua was close to my father and was like an uncle to me and his mother Dorothy named my sister Limanman. So, it’s a personal as well as official concern when U.S. officials insist known legal claims settled in 1986 mean we can wash our hands of the nuclear test legacy. I wish [the] State Department was here today to be reminded of U.S. obligations under the 1986 settlement for cooperation and justice based on human needs
and harm not fully understood back in 1986.4

Even within his narrative, Pincus perpetuates the notion that Judah, the leader of Bikinians and a commoner, was the actual king whereas archived evidence points otherwise, showcasing that Amata Kabua’s grandfather, Jeimata Kabua, was the real indigenous Marshallese king of Bikini Atoll.5

Book Triumphs in Other Ways

Despite the book’s flaws, Pincus succeeds in leaving readers with the impression that an incredible debt is still owed to the people of the Marshall Islands because the United States still has not complied with the financial assistance provision in the Compact of Free Association that it signed with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. The agreement allows the Marshallese and the Micronesians to live and work in the United States and gives the U.S. military exclusive access to their territories, but the compact is due to end in 2023, leaving Washington little time to fulfill this economic self-sufficiency commitment. Pincus utilizes a narrative framework that has divided and inflamed political tensions in the Marshall Islands in ways similar to 2013, when Julianne Walsh’s Marshallese History textbook, carrying the Marshallese seal, was suspended from being taught in the public school system until factual corrections were made. Nevertheless, Pincus, like Walsh, has expanded access to archived material in a single textbook, a notable and praiseworthy feature of his work.

Another strength of Pincus’ narrative is how he holds the United States accountable to the UN trusteeship agreement of 1947. He writes that the United States was obligated to “protect the health of the inhabitants as well as promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants, and to this end…protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources.” Further, he stressed that, as “the world’s richest nation at the time and the most scientifically advanced, and most powerful democracy,” the United States pledged to care for and educate its inhabitants toward self-government. Despite these obligations, U.S. officials treated the Marshallese as pawns and guinea pigs by “withholding key information about the possible radioactivity threat from their environment, while closely keeping track of any signs that their health was being affected,” Pincus adds.

The author also underscores the grave U.S. failure to acknowledge the “changed circumstances petition”6 in light of the pressures of climate change on these nuclear communities, specifically the people of Bikini Atoll. This topic receives considerable attention toward the end of the book, particularly the last two chapters and epilogue, where Pincus updates readers on the current situation of the Bikini people and the Rongelap people. He asserts that they continue to be victims of failed leadership from their local governments and from the U.S. government, particularly the Trump administration, which relaxed funding oversight of Bikini’s trust fund.

Nuclear Justice Remains Uncertain

President Kabua announced in March on Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day in the Marshall Islands that he will not sign or renew the Compact of Free Association, known as Compact III, if the nuclear justice issue is not settled once and for all. That would include the United States changed circumstances petition submitted to Congress in 2000, which showcases greater nuclear testing-related damage to the Marshall Islands than was previously understood or acknowledged. The petition requests additional compensation for personal injuries and property damages and restoration costs, medical care programs, health services infrastructure and training, and radiological monitoring. After a long hiatus of no substantive engagement on Compact negotiations since the end of the Trump administration in January 2021, President Joe Biden, seeking to counter Chinese influence in the Pacific, finally chose Joseph Yun as his special envoy to lead the negotiations, but it is uncertain whether the nuclear justice issue will be put on the table. The concept of nuclear justice asserts that the United States should acknowledge the full scope of the damages from its nuclear testing in the Pacific by enacting the changed circumstances petition along with financial assistance to cover intergenerational and incidental damages. This compensation should include the safe resettlement of displaced human populations and the restoration of economic productivity of affected areas given Marshall Islands unique indigenous land economy and its associated blue economy.7

As with the 2004 Compact of Free Association, when the Bush administration rejected the changed circumstances petition, the future remains uncertain as to whether the long-term health and environmental damages of U.S. nuclear testing, predicted by the first Marshallese president on May 1, 1979,8 and recapitulated by Pincus in his epilogue, will finally be resolved. On a positive note, in marking Nuclear Victims Day of Bravo, a congressional resolution was introduced in March 2021 that would apologize to the Marshallese people for the effects of the U.S. nuclear testing program. Sponsored by Senators Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Representative Porter, and co-sponsored by Representative Radewagen, the resolution calls attention to what transpired in the Marshall Islands during the nuclear testing period and raises awareness on the need to undo existing and expected long-term harm.9

Equally worth noting is that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force on January 22, 2021, and is the first treaty of its kind drawing serious attention to the humanitarian horrors of these weapons. The Marshall Islands has not ratified the treaty because of concerns that the “provisions on responsibility for addressing nuclear testing impacts have an ineffective and inappropriate shift of the primary burden from the states which have undertaken such testing, to the host nation where such testing occurred.” The Marshallese support the treaty’s moral call and believe it has placed a well-deserved focus on the suffering of victims.10 Nevertheless, the government remains unconvinced of the TPNW’s ultimate value given how the UN system has failed the nation before, specifically in the 1950s when the Marshallese petitioned to end the nuclear testing program.11 That story is missing from Pincus’ narrative, and its inclusion would have been the simplest way to turn the book into a clear winner. Stories of Marshallese resilience remain underappreciated and rarely mentioned in the book where “epistemological silencing”12 is evident.

Given the years of insufficient visibility on the nuclear legacy, Pincus is worth applauding for using his platform as a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter to highlight a neglected part of U.S. history that was largely driven by nuclear colonialism and environmental racism.13 As he notes, “In telling of these people, I hoped to show how much is owed to Marshall Islanders.” His book is a well-intentioned effort to educate the American public on its moral responsibility to the Marshallese people, a promise yet to be fulfilled.

Still, it is crucial that white male authors with positions of privilege not remove “indigenous agency,” and thereby inadvertently promote “institutional racism” and “pedagogical silencing” under the classic “white savior syndrome” that “encourages individual dependency rather than long-term community building or long-term community self-sufficiency.”14 That is where the author should have dedicated his efforts. By reframing the Marshallese story as one of survivors15 rather than victims, Pincus would have granted the indigenous population a greater voice and would have granted his book more authenticity.

ENDNOTES

1. Jane Dibblin, Day of Two Suns: U.S. Nuclear Testing and the Pacific Islanders (New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1998), p. 34.

2. Peace Boat (NGOピースボート) (@peace_boat), “Desmond Doulatram of @REACH_MI16 in the #MarshallIslands speaks on the nuclear legacy, including efforts of Marshallese to petition the international community…” Twitter, December 2, 2021, 8:48 p.m., https://twitter.com/peace_boat/status/1466690870712090628.

3. Susanne Rust, “Rep. Katie Porter Presses Biden Team on Marshall Islands Nuclear Waste, Gets Few Answers,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2021.

4. House Natural Resources Committee Democrats, “Runit Dome and the U.S. Nuclear Legacy in the Marshall Islands,” YouTube, October 22, 2021, 2:28:40, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUrTu7Z0Q1E.

5. Desmond Narain Doulatram, “Marshallese Downwinders and a Shared Nuclear Legacy of Global Proportions,” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58bd8808e3df28ba498d7569/t/5f980e8f2171b96b663ece70/1603800720503/Desmond+Dulatram+presentation.pdf (paper presented at the Physicians for Social Responsibility/International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War conference “Human Rights, Future Generations & Crimes in the Nuclear Age,” Basel, September 14–17, 2017) (hereafter Doulatram paper).

6. Thomas Lum et al., “Republic of the Marshall Islands Changed Circumstances Petition to Congress,” CRS Report for Congress, RL 32811, March 14, 2005.

7. Arms Control Association, “75 Years After the Trinity: The Taboo Against Nuclear Testing and the Legacy of Past Nuclear Tests,” YouTube, September 6, 2020, 1:29:03, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5oUN1iOoxw&t=48s.

8. Doulatram paper.

9. “Amata Cosponsors Resolution to Formally Apologize for U.S. Nuclear Legacy in the Marshall Islands,” press release, March 4, 2022, https://radewagen.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/amata-cosponsors-resolution-formally-apologize-us-nuclear-legacy; Anita Hofschneider, “Resolution Would Apologize to Marshall Islands for Nuclear Testing,” Honolulu Civil Beat, March 1, 2022, https://www.civilbeat.org/beat/resolution-would-apologize-to-marshall-islands-for-nuclear-testing/.

10. Eriko Noguchi, “Marshall Islands Grapple With Consequences of Superpowers’ Actions,” The Japan Times, February 28, 2022.

11. Peace Boat, “[Part 2-2] World Nuclear Survivors Forum 2021,” YouTube, December 3, 2021, 1:30:15, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTJE4WA178g&t=2467s (hereafter Peace Boat video).

12. Ibid.

13. ICAN (@nuclearban), “‘This is an issue of institutional racism that stems from nuclearcolonialism.’ Desmond Narain Doulatram of REACH-MI speaks about how #nuclearcolonialism is one…” Twitter, December 3, 2021, 8:59 p.m., https://twitter.com/nuclearban/status/1466693491082285060.

14. Colleen Murphy, “What Is White Savior Complex, and Why Is It Harmful? Here’s What Experts Say,” Health.com, September 20, 2021, https://www.health.com/mind-body/health-diversity-inclusion/white-savior-complex.

15. Peace Boat video.


Desmond Narain Doulatram is a social science instructor at the College of the Marshall Islands Liberal Arts Department, a member of the National Board of Education of the Marshall Islands, and a co-founder of two nongovernmental organizations, one dealing with environmental issues, JO-JiKuM, and the other, nuclear issues, REACH-MI.

REST IN POWER

Weather Underground member and ‘81 heist participant Kathy Boudin dead at 78

NY REACTIONARY POST

By 

Patrick Reilly

May 1, 2022 

Kathy Boudin died of cancer at the age of 78 in New York on Sunday.Columbia University

Kathy Boudin, who spent decades in prison for her part in the deadly 1981 Brink’s armored truck heist as a member of the radical militant group Weather Underground, died of cancer at the age of 78 in New York on Sunday.

In October, 1981, Boudin and members of the group teamed up with the Black Liberation Army for the robbery to help fund their anti-government campaigns. They targeted a Brink’s armored truck, which they held up in Rockland County, making out with $1.6 million.

During the robbery, gunmen killed Brink’s security guard Peter Paige before transferring the money to a U-Haul truck a mile away, where a 38-year-old Boudin sat in the cabin.

The truck was stopped by police at a roadblock, where Boudin — unarmed — immediately surrendered. Gunmen in the back of the truck popped outside and began firing on the officers, killing two Long Island policemen —Sgt. Edward O’Grady and Officer Waverly Brown.

She pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and second-degree murder in the death of Paige in 1984.

She spent 22 years in prison before she was paroled for good behavior in 2003.

Boudin spent 22 years in prison for her involvement in the deadly heist made by the radical militant group Weather Underground.

New York State Department of Correctional Services/Getty Images

After jail, she was hired by Columbia School of Social Work Associate as an adjunct professor in 2008. She was hired as a full-time professor in 2013, lecturing about issues facing convicts and their families when a person is released from prison.

Boudin was the mother of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who last year successfully lobbied former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to commute the sentence of his father, David Gilbert — who was also a member of the Weather Underground who was imprisoned for his role in the stick-up.

Gilbert, who served as a getaway driver, was serving a sentence of 75 years to life in prison with no possibility of parole until 2056. Gilbert is among the last surviving people involved in the robbery.

Judith Clark, another former Weather Underground member, served 35 years of a 75-years-to-life sentence for her role in the robbery at a mall in suburban Rockland County before her sentence was commuted by Cuomo in 2016. She was paroled in 2019.

Amazon, union face off in a rematch election in New York

By HALELUYA HADERO

Alexander Campbell, a 25-year-old warehouse worker, stands by Amazon's LDJ5 warehouse in the Staten Island borough of New York on Friday, April 29, 2022. The National Labor Relations Board will count votes Monday in the second union election among Amazon workers on Staten Island, New York, a rematch for the retailer and the nascent group of worker organizers right on the heels of their historic labor victory. Campbell voted against the union, saying he read some things online that convinced him his wages might go down if the warehouse unionized. (AP Photo/Haleluya Hadero)


NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon and the nascent group that successfully organized the company’s first-ever U.S. union are headed for a rematch Monday, when a federal labor board will tally votes cast by warehouse workers in yet another election on Staten Island.

A second labor win could give workers in other Amazon facilities — and at other companies — the motivation they need to launch similar efforts. It could also cement the power and influence of the Amazon Labor Union, the grassroots group of former and current workers that secured last month’s historic victory.

But a union loss could mute some of the labor celebration and raise questions about whether the first victory was just a fluke.

The results of the election are expected to be announced early Monday evening by the National Labor Relations Board, which is overseeing the process. Meanwhile, the agency must still decide whether to certify the first win, which has been disputed by Amazon.

There are far fewer workers eligible to vote in this latest election versus last month’s — about 1,500 compared with 8,300 at the neighboring Staten Island facility. There are fewer organizers, too — roughly 10 compared with roughly 30.

“It’s a much more personal, aggressive fight over here,” said Connor Spence, an Amazon employee who works as the union’s vice president of membership.

Spence said there was more support for the organizing efforts earlier this year when the ALU filed for an election. But that was quickly overshadowed by the bigger facility across the street, where organizers were directing more of their energy.

Meanwhile, Amazon continued holding mandatory meetings to persuade its workers to reject the union effort, posting anti-union flyers and launching a website urging workers to “vote NO.”

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement that it is up to employees whether or not they want to join a union. But “as a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees,” Nantel said. “Our focus remains on working directly with our team to continue making Amazon a great place to work.”

Experts say the scrappy union is disadvantaged by the low number of organizers but that might not spell trouble since the ALU’s legitimacy has been bolstered by last month’s unexpected win. It has also gotten support from top union leaders and high-profile progressive lawmakers. At a rally held outside the warehouse a day before voting began last week, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke in support of organizers spearheading the union drive.

“This is certainly about ALU, but it’s also about the broader desire for organizing right now,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, who also attended the rally. “And we have to run as fast as we possibly can in this environment to organize millions of people if we’re going to change the power structure in this country and actually give working people a fair shot.”

After their first Staten Island win, ALU organizers reoriented their attention to the smaller warehouse and reiterated their vision to workers — longer breaks, better job protection and a higher hourly wage of $30, up from the minimum of just over $18 currently offered on Staten Island.

Spence said they also tailored their pitch to part-time workers, whom the facility depends on heavily and who have been waiting on their requests to transfer to full-time work at the company. By the time votes were cast, he believed the union had regained its momentum.

“We had to claw it back,” he said.

Even with one victory under its belt, progress has been slow for the ALU. Last month, Amazon filed objections over the successful union drive, arguing in a filing with the NLRB that the vote was tainted by organizers and by the board’s regional office in Brooklyn that oversaw the election. The company says it wants a redo election, but pro-union experts believe it’s an effort to delay contract negotiations and potentially blunt some of the organizing momentum.

Despite the setbacks, the ALU has realized progress in other ways, shining a spotlight on Amazon’s anti-union tactics as well as highlighting concerns about its workplace conditions. That in turn has rallied others into taking action.

On Tuesday, Sanders sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to sign an executive order that cuts off Amazon’s contracts with the government until the retailer stops what Sanders calls its “illegal anti-union activity.” Organizers believe such a move would fulfill the president’s campaign promise to “ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns.”

In New York, two state lawmakers introduced a bill to regulate warehouse productivity quotas, aiming to curtail workplace injuries at facilities operated by Amazon and other companies. The bill’s sponsors said they were motivated by ALU’s impending contract negotiations with the company, which has been criticized for its high warehouse injury rates.

Separately, the ALU, along with American Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers, is calling on New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate Amazon’s eligibility for tax credits under a state program designed to draw business to New York. In a letter sent to James, Seth Goldstein, a union attorney who offers pro-bono legal help to the ALU, contends Amazon has committed “flagrant unfair labor practices” during the union drives that violated the worker protector provisions of the program. A spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment.

Back on Staten Island, some workers at the warehouse voted against unionizing, saying they already feel taken care of by the company and would rather wait and see how the contract negotiations go at the other facility before they join the union effort. There’s also doubts the ALU can accomplish what it sets out to do.

Alexander Campbell, a 25-year-old warehouse worker, voted against the union, saying he read some things online that convinced him his wages might go down if the warehouse unionized.

But others are lending their support. Michael Aguilar, a part-time warehouse employee turned ALU organizer, said he put in a request with Amazon about two months ago to switch to full-time work. He says that request hasn’t been granted but the company continues to bring in new hires. When one of the organizers invited him to a union-organizing call, he attended and eventually decided to join the union drive.

“Everything they were fighting for aligned with everything I experienced,” he said. “Once I found that out, I jumped on board.”

 USA

OPINION

Change in labor rights is brewing

by Lindsey Spencer

May 1, 2022

Dec. 9, 2021 marked a historic day for union organizers, labor activists and caffeine enjoyers everywhere in the United States, as workers at a Starbucks location in Buffalo, N.Y., were successful in their vote to unionize. With more than 8,000 locations of the well-established chain throughout the country, this vote created a domino effect, and dozens of different locations have voted or made strides to establish unions, from Arizona to our very own Ann Arbor.

Most of the recent unionization efforts by Starbucks employees come from similar workplace circumstances and share common goals as a newfound collective unit. In the past two years, there have been significant jumps in the turnover rate in the foodservice industry with no positive changes in hiring rates. Employees of chains such as Starbucks have been consistently mistreated by their employers and customers alike, from aggressive behavior over the requirement of masks in stores to a lack of response from Starbucks’s headquarters to workers’ requests for help. With this in mind, the recent push toward unionization is well within reason.

Starbucks employees are not the only ones fed up with the maltreatment they face under their company management. Similarly, in early April, an Amazon warehouse voted to establish a labor union at their location on Staten Island, N.Y. After multiple failed attempts to unionize the Bessemer, Ala., location, this New York-based warehouse is the first successful effort to form a union at an Amazon warehouse in the United States.

The fight for this Amazon union began in 2020, when former Staten Island employee and current union co-founder Chris Smalls staged a walkout against the unjust working conditions at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse. That day, Smalls was fired and told he was neither “smart” nor “articulate” by a powerful corporate lawyer employed by Amazon headquarters. Quickly afterward, Smalls began to organize, hosting barbecues and bonfires, rallying warehouse workers together and successfully making a dent in the “Goliath” that is Amazon with the historic Amazon Labor Union.

Former Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos’s net worth, as of 2022, is $171 billion. Howard Schultz, founder and interim CEO of Starbucks, is currently worth $3.7 billion. On the other hand, the federal minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25. This raises the question, why do the bosses continue to profit in such substantial numbers when workers are barely scraping by? The solution to this ethical dilemma is simple: unionization.

The National Labor Board was created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. It was a federal agency dedicated to consulting with union-organizing efforts and solving labor disputes. Weak and ineffective, the board expired, and in 1935, the National Labor Relations Act established the National Labor Relations Board. Rather than mediating labor debates, it would focus on enforcing the rights of laborers. Along with the institution of the “new” NLRB, Section 7 of the Act gave workers the right to both form and join labor organizations, and the right to collectively bargain with their employers for their own well-being, as well as restricting company interference in these processes. With the Act, the right to unionization in the U.S. was born.

Unions have been the historical path toward solutions to labor disputes throughout the nation. From the American Revolution to today, collective action by laborers has been successful in making changes in various sectors of employment, including trade, artisanship and industry. The most famous of union federations is the AFL-CIO, which today represents 12.5 million workers in the United States of various labor unions. Labor organizations such as this share the same objectives: provide equal opportunity, safe conditions and sustainable benefits for all workers everywhere.

So, why is the establishment of unions by Starbucks and Amazon employees so revolutionary? Increasingly common successful unionizations in large corporations like these throughout the nation signify a change in the long-standing fight for labor rights. With hundreds of thousands of employees between them, these two corporations have intense influence over the labor market, the economy and our social lives. The success of these unions shows that change to the power of these gargantuan corporations is possible, and entirely necessary.

Another example of this phenomenon is the Alphabet Workers Union, a union of Google workers that launched in early 2021. Google is a super-power of a corporation, employing hundreds of thousands and worth over a trillion dollars, and this union has been successful in undercutting some of their positional prowess. Organizers have won back promised bonuses for employees, and protected the rights of marginalized staffers. Unionized efforts established under the eye of powerhouses of the market have been successful, and pushes by these new collectives will more than likely have the same, if not greater, social and political impact.

Joining together as workers to protect our rights is essential in our modern society. Unions allow laborers to voice their complaints and concerns, and to protect themselves in an age where profit is oftentimes held to a greater value than personhood. The successes at Starbucks locations across the country and the recent win on Staten Island for Amazon employees are indicative of a change in the tide for labor rights, showing workers everywhere that collective action is possible at any level, from a local restaurant to a multi-billion dollar tech company.

Change in labor rights is attainable, and it’s happening right now whether companies like it or not. Recent triumphs in union organizing efforts in the United States should be important to you both as a consumer and as an individual — the success of workers in having their voices heard is a success for each and every one of us.

Lindsey Spencer is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at lindssp@umich.edu

Three shot in Chile May Day clashes


Riot police disperse demonstrators with a water cannon during clashes following a May Day march in Santiago 

(AFP/Martin BERNETTI)

Sun, May 1, 2022

Three people were wounded by gunfire and two arrested in clashes at May Day demonstrations in Chile, police said.

The shooting occurred during a Sunday march called by a union in the capital Santiago as some protesters erected barricades and entered commercial premises, clashing with merchants.

"There were clashes between street vendors who unfortunately used firearms and injured three people, two of them women and a third man was also injured by a ballistic impact," said Enrique Monras, chief of police for the metropolitan area.

Police confirmed two foreigners were arrested on suspicion of firing the shots.

The force used water cannon and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.

President Gabriel Boric decried the violence, telling a news channel: "We are normalizing violence, we cannot allow criminal gangs to take over the streets of our country."

Separately, the main traditional May Day march, organized by the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) union, passed without incident as thousands of people with flags and banners gathered in the Plaza Italia.

"We are happy, it is a special and particular day after two years of confinement (due to Covid) ... to recognize the work of many colleagues such as health, commerce and transport workers, who were fundamental in this pandemic," said CUT president David Acuna.

They were joined by Labor Minister Jeannette Jara, the first member of the Communist Party to hold the position since the return of democracy in Chile in 1990.

She was the architect of an agreement reached by the CUT and business organizations that will raise the minimum wage by 12.5 percent.

The minimum wage is set to reach 400,000 pesos ($470) per month from August. Boric has said his goal is to raise it to 500,000 pesos by 2026.

msa/gm/dl/mtp/leg

May Day holiday marred by clashes in Turkey, France

Author: AFP|Update: 02.05.2022 


Rallies in Paris quickly turned violent as youths clashed with police on the sidelines and buildings were vandalised / © AFP

Police and protesters clashed in Turkey and France during May Day rallies on Sunday, as tens of thousands marched across the world in support of workers' rights.

Turkish riot police detained scores of demonstrators in Istanbul, pinning some of them to the ground and dragging them away from the rally, which the governor's office said was unauthorised.

And rallies in Paris quickly turned violent as youths clashed with police on the sidelines and buildings were vandalised, though unions said more than 200,000 people joined demonstrations across France and most were peaceful.

May 1 is a public holiday in many countries and Sunday saw events on every continent.

European rallies sparked the most controversy with Turkish protesters gathering at Istanbul's Taksim Square, an area synonymous with anti-government protests, chanting "long live labour and freedom, long live May Day".


Turkish protesters were pinned to the ground and dragged away from the rally in Istanbul / © AFP

City officials said the group refused to disperse and 164 were detained, with government-approved rallies elsewhere in Turkey passing off peacefully.

French ministers denounced the violence in Paris and prosecutors said 50 people had been arrested.

Martine Haccoun, a 65-year-old retired doctor, told AFP she came to protest in the southern city of Marseille to show re-elected President Emmanuel Macron "that we didn't give him a blank cheque for five years".

She said many voted for Macron simply to stop far-right challenger Marine Le Pen.

- 'Not slogans' -

While scuffles were reported in Italian cities including Turin, thousands gathered in London and cities across Germany with no sign of trouble.


Anti-government protests intensified in Sri Lanka on May Day / © AFP

In Spain, around 10,000 people joined a demonstration in Madrid and dozens of other cities also held well-attended rallies.

Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz of the communist party said she wanted to show solidarity "with the workers of Ukraine, who today aren't able to protest".

In the Greek capital Athens, more than 10,000 joined rallies against a background of spiralling inflation.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis took to social media to promise a raise in the minimum wage by 50 euros a month.

"We honour the working people not with slogans, but with acts," he wrote on Twitter.

Kenyan Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta similarly used his May Day speech to promise a 12 percent hike in the minimum wage, though activists said it was not enough to keep pace with inflation.

- 'Pull by his ear' -

Turkish riot police moved in to quash a protest in Istanbul / © AFP

The mood was uglier in Sri Lanka, where the opposition showed rare unity in calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign over the country's worst-ever economic crisis.

"It is time for us to pull him by his ear and kick him out," former legislator Hirunika Premachandra said at a rally in Colombo.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was also feeling the heat, being forced to leave an event when miners stormed the stage he was due to speak at and chanted "Cyril must go".

However, other leaders were able to harness the energy of the crowds.

Xiomara Castro, the new president of Honduras, was greeted by thousands chanting her name, and she responded by telling them she would govern for them and put an end to a "dark era" of corruption and drug trafficking.

Elsewhere in Latin America, one leftist-organized group in Buenos Aires protested repaying International Monetary Fund loans, while another group of pro- Argentina government demonstrators praised current policy.

Workers of the healthcare union demonstrate against the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro during a May Day (Labour Day) rally to mark the international day of the workers, in Caracas, on May 1, 2022 / © AFP

There were also two separate marches in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, with hospital workers and other basic service employees calling for a "dignified salary" at one demonstration.

"People, listen, join the fight!" they chanted.

President Nicolas Maduro addressed the crowds at a separate pro-government march elsewhere in the city, blaming United States sanctions for his country's "economic storm" and announcing "Venezuela is headed for prosperity".

Thousands of May 1 demonstrators in Chile took to the streets only days after the government announced a 12.5 percent rise in the minimum wage, which is set to reach 400,000 pesos ($470) per month from August. President Gabriel Boric has said his goal is to raise it to 500,000 pesos by 2026.

May Day came too soon for many in China to enjoy what is usually one of the year's busiest holidays.

A series of lockdowns sparked by rising Covid cases meant restaurants and tourist sites were deserted during what is usually a frenetic period.

"Obviously it's bad in terms of our own self-interest, but it's necessary overall for the good of the country," said a young waiter at a deserted restaurant near the Forbidden City in Beijing.

burs-jxb/har/caw/

Protesters march during a May Day demonstration in Marseille, southern France, Sunday, May 1, 2022. May 1 is celebrated as the International Labour Day or May Day across the world.

A protester holds a sign reading "Stop Macron" during a May Day demonstration in Marseille, southern France, Sunday, May 1, 2022. 

A woman dressed up as Marianne, a woman symbol of the French republic since the 1789 revolution, holds a French flag during a May Day demonstration in Marseille, southern France,

(AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

May Day rallies in Europe honor workers, protest govts

ELAINE GANLEY

Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus, fourth from right, and Governing Mayor of Berlin Franziska Giffey, center, hold a banner with writing in German reading "shape the future together" as they take part in the May Day main rally of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB), in Berlin, Sunday, May 1, 2022. (Joerg Carstensen/dpa via AP)


PARIS (AP) — Citizens and trade unions in cities around Europe were taking to the streets on Sunday for May Day marches, and to put out protest messages to their governments, notably in France where the holiday to honor workers was being used as a rallying cry against newly reelected President Emmanuel Macron.

May Day is a time of high emotion for participants and their causes, with police on the ready. Turkish police moved in quickly in Istanbul and encircled protesters near the barred-off Taksim Square — where 34 people were killed In 1977 during a May Day event when shots were fired into the crowd from a nearby building.

On Sunday, police detained 164 people for demonstrating without permits and resisting police at the square, the Istanbul governor’s office said. At a site on the Asian side of Istanbul, a May Day gathering drew thousands, singing, chanting and waving banners, a demonstration organized by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey.

In Italy, after a two-year pandemic lull, an outdoor mega-concert was set for Rome with rallies and protests in cities across the country. Besides work, peace was an underlying theme with calls for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Italy’s three main labor unions were focusing their main rally in the hilltop town of Assisi, a frequent destination for peace protests. This year’s slogan is “Working for peace.”

“It’s a May Day of social and civil commitment for peace and labor,” said the head of Italy’s CISL union, Daniela Fumarola.

People attend a May Day rally on International Workers Day in Belgrade, Serbia, Sunday, May 1, 2022. 

A man holds a flag depicting from left, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, during a May Day rally on International Workers Day in Belgrade, Serbia, Sunday, May 1, 2022. Workers and activists marked May Day with defiant rallies and marches for better pay and working conditions. 

(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Other protests were planned far and wide in Europe, including in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where students and others planned to rally in support of Ukraine as Communists, anarchists and anti-European Union groups held their own gatherings.

In France, the May Day rallies — a week after the presidential election — are aimed at showing Macron the opposition he could face in his second five-year term and to power up against his centrists before June legislative elections. Opposition parties, notably the far left and far right, are looking to break his government’s majority.

Protests were planned across France with a focus on Paris where the Communist-backed CGT union was leading the main march through eastern Paris, joined by a handful of other unions. All are pressing Macron for policies that put the people first and condemning his plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65.

In a first, far-right leader Marine Le Pen was absent from her party’s traditional wreath-laying at the foot of a statue of Joan of Arc, replaced by the interim president of her National Rally party. Le Pen was defeated by Macron in last Sunday’s runoff of the presidential election, and plans to campaign to keep her seat as a lawmaker.

“I’ve come to tell the French that the voting isn’t over. There is a third round, the legislative elections,” said Jordan Bardella, “and it would be unbelievable to leave full power to Emmanuel Macron.”

___

Nicole Winfield in Rome, and Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul, contributed to this report.

Striking signalmen at Toronto’s Union Station must broaden their struggle to avoid a union-imposed sellout

Steve Hill, Dylan Lubao

WSWS.ORG

Ninety-six signal operators and equipment technicians have been on strike since April 20 at Toronto’s Union Station. The strike was launched some seven months after the workers decisively rejected a sell-out tentative agreement endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). Employees of Toronto Terminals Railway (TTR), the striking workers are responsible for train control, signals and communications maintenance at the city’s main rail hub.

Striking Toronto Terminals Railway workers picketing Union Station in downtown Toronto. (IBEW Canada)

The Union Station Rail Corridor is 6.4km long and consists of a complex network of approach tracks, passenger platforms and four control towers. It has 14 station tracks with platform access, and more than 180 signals, 250 switch machines, and 40km of circuited track. More than 300 commuter trains a day traverse the corridor.

Workers have been without a contract since December 2019. In September 2021, they voted down a proposed five-year contract recommended by the IBEW leadership and Toronto Terminals Railway management. Wages are the key issue in the dispute, under conditions where annual inflation is approaching 7 percent. In addition, strikers say that their benefits package has been frozen since 2015, even though the cost-of-living has spiralled upward over the past seven years.

The claim that there is no money to fund above-inflation pay and benefit increases for the workers is a flat-out lie. Toronto Terminals Railway is jointly owned by Canadian National Rail (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), giant corporations which for years have been engaged in a relentless drive to maximize profits at practically any cost to workers and their safety. Both railroads have experienced bumper profits during the pandemic, with CP Rail Chief Executive Officer Keith Creel, notorious for his indifference to the horrendous working conditions employees confront, pocketing the outrageous sum of $26 million in compensation during 2021.

As one striker explained to the World Socialist Web Site, “The issue with our company is it’s jointly owned by Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways. So, 50 percent of the profits go to CP and 50 percent goes to CN.

“We don’t keep any of the profits for ourselves. We cover operating costs, and the rest goes to the parent company. In terms of negotiations, we have to negotiate with all three entities. In addition to our company, representing CP and CN, we also have to negotiate with Metrolinx because they have to pay our wages. Metrolinx owns all the rail and infrastructure around here.”

Another striker added, “CN just released their earnings for their quarter, and they made $3.71 billion. They keep increasing dividends to shareholders, so they’re able to pay. They’re making close to record profits and they’re giving big bonuses to the top executives.”

A third agreed, commenting, “They’re saying ‘COVID hurt us,’ but look at their profits! It doesn’t look like it hurt them at all.”

The strike is being intentionally isolated by the IBEW. The union has no intention of mounting a serious struggle, which would require mobilizing support from other railway and Toronto area workers. Instead, it is aiming to ground down workers’ resolve by making them subsist on meager strike benefits until it can impose virtually the same pro-company contract with a few cosmetic changes.

Unifor, which represents track workers at Union Station and thousands of railway workers across the country, is openly sabotaging the strike. It is effectively overseeing a scabbing operation, allowing TTR management to redeploy Unifor members to cover the strikers’ jobs.

The isolation of the strikers has made their picket lines all but meaningless. The workers are not legally permitted to stop contractors working on the Union Station “revitalization project” from crossing their picket lines for more than a few minutes, or at most an hour or two. Strikers reported to the WSWS that while Metrolinx’s operations suffered some disruption during the first days of the job action, this is no longer the case.

Strikers explained that track worker workforce is more transient, due to the back-breaking nature of the labour they perform. Unifor exploited this fact to ram through a sellout contract covering the track workers last September. It included a 12.5 percent wage “increase” over 5 years, which averages out to a mere 2.5 percent per year. With the complicity of the IBEW, TTR than tried to make the agreement with Unifor the “pattern” for all its employees.

In addition to workers represented by Unifor, TTR management and others from outside the company have been filling in for the strikers. In a scene emblematic of the cozy relationship between the trade unions and corporations, one of the TTR management scabs was identified as a former union local president. He drove away from the site to shouts of “Shame on you!”

The use of unqualified scabs and replacements presents an especially dangerous situation in the busiest transportation hub in the country’s largest city. As a striking worker pointed out, “All our jobs are very safety critical. We respond to trouble, so any issue where they’re trying to line up a train and it’s not working as intended, they call us, so we help prevent any delays. If there are any switch issues, we try to get these delays mitigated. We also have scheduled maintenance that maintains the safety and integrity of the equipment.

“In the two weeks before we went on strike, TTR had us do all the yearly preventive maintenance. They wanted us coming in for overtime to prepare for the strike. They said they were ‘introducing’ a pilot project to improve maintenance.”

Accidents, derailments and even fatalities are common at both TTR’s parent companies, CP Rail and CN.

In December 1999, a CN train carrying petroleum products collided with a derailed freight train travelling in the opposite direction south of Montreal, Quebec. The freight train had derailed at a broken rail caused by a defective weld that was not promptly addressed, despite problems being repeatedly reported by train crews. The two-man crew of the freight train was killed, but they received the hollow honour of having new stations named after them (Davis and Thériault).

In May 2003, two men were killed on another CN freight train when a trestle collapsed on a bridge near McBride, British Columbia. The crew had been disciplined for refusing to cross the bridge on a previous run due to safety concerns. It was later revealed that several components of the bridge had been reported as rotten as far back as 1999, but no repairs were ever ordered.

As for CP, the World Socialist Web Site has extensively covered the fatal Field, British Columbia derailment of February 2019, which killed three crew members. Their train derailed and crashed into a ravine after its air brakes failed in cold weather on a notoriously steep grade. Pointing to the underlying causes of the tragedy, the WSWS wrote:

“The events leading up to the Field derailment provide a devastating indictment of what is known in the industry as precision-scheduled railroading (PSR). Summing up this corporate policy, which has been adopted at railroads across North America, a CP Rail worker said of PSR in a recent interview with the WSWS, ‘The basic idea is that they expect the most amount of work with the least human resources possible’.”

To win their struggle, striking TTR signal operators and equipment technicians should follow the example of their colleagues at CP Rail, who recently established the CP Rail workers Rank-and-File Committee to seize control of their struggle for improved wages, benefits, and safety protections from the Teamsters union. Like the unions at TTR, the Teamsters have worked hand-in-glove with the rail corporations to boost profits and attack workers’ conditions. Although CP Rail workers had voted overwhelmingly in early March for a strike, the Teamsters allowed the company to take the initiative and lock them out. Then two days later it agreed to binding arbitration, which allows a government-appointed official to dictate the workers’ employment terms and robs them of their rights to strike and bargain collectively for years to come.

The first task of a rank-and-file committee of TTR strikers would be to break out of the isolation imposed by the unions. Appeals should be made to track workers represented by Unifor to join the struggle, alongside rail workers across the freight and passenger train networks in Canada, who all confront the same grueling working conditions. The committee should advance demands based on what workers actually need, not what corporate management claims is “affordable.” This should include an immediate 30 percent pay increase to make up for the years of concessions, and above-inflation raises for pay and benefits going forward.

Above all, strikers must make their struggle the spearhead of a mass mobilization of the working class to counter the ruling elite’s class-war agenda of austerity and attacks on workers’ living standards. This requires the waging of a political struggle to break the grip of the financial oligarchy over all aspects of social and political life, and secure decent-paying, secure jobs for all.
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