More than half of Afghanistan’s population is facing acute hunger in one of the world’s largest food crises.

23 million Afghans will be hungry due to conflict, drought and an economic downturn that is severely affecting livelihoods and people’s access to food as a harsh winter looms, the UN has warned; an increase of nearly 35% compared with last year.

“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises – if not the worst – and food security has all but collapsed. This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation,” the World Food Programme’s executive director David Beasley said, adding that “we are on a countdown to catastrophe”.

Foreign aid payments – 40% of the country’s gross domestic product – have ceased and almost $10bn (£7.3bn) of Afghan central bank assets have been frozen.

 Urban residents, for the first time, suffer similar rates of food insecurity to rural communities; a shifting pattern of hunger in the country. In the southern city of Kandahar, the malnutrition ward at Mirwais hospital was packed with women and children, most of them sharing beds with several others. Although the hospital is the biggest health facility in southern Afghanistan, it is poorly equipped. More than 2,000 health clinics across the country have closed due to lack of funds.

In Kabul’s Indira Gandhi children’s hospital, the biggest paediatric clinic in the country, doctors said about a dozen children were arriving each day, even though the city’s markets were still stocked with food.

“We don’t have money to afford it,” said Fereshta, a 30-year-old mother. 

Cash is largely unavailable, and many government employees are waiting for unpaid salaries.

Only 5% of households have enough to eat every day, the UN said. 

The Taliban launched a ‘wheat-for-work’ scheme, saying it would employ 40,000 casual labourers in Kabul who would be paid in wheat instead of cash. During the initiative, set to last for two months, the Taliban pledged to distribute 11,600 tonnes of wheat in the capital.

Many families who fled fighting before the Taliban takeover can’t afford to go back home and remain in makeshift camps with no source of income. 

About 3.5 million people remain displaced within the country.

‘Countdown to catastrophe’: half of Afghans face hunger this winter – UN | Hunger | The Guardian

 Philip Dunne, the chairman of the cross-party environmental audit committee explained, “Encouraging announcements of investment in green sectors of the economy are very welcome but the government admits that claims about green jobs lack explanation and data on how the targets will be achieved.” Dunne said. “Monitoring the sectors and regions where the jobs are needed, and rebooting careers advice that demystifies green jobs, is critical if we are to meet our environmental goals.”

The UK’s net zero strategy, claims to support up to 440,000 jobs by 2030, should have been used to define and measure what green jobs are, the committee said, and called for a detailed action delivery plan. 

The government’s lack of understanding showed up in the green homes grant voucher scheme, where it failed to engage with the sector to develop the skills needed, leading to contractors making staff redundant as consumers awaited confirmation of vouchers.

 Kevin Bentley, the chairman of the LGA’s people and places board, said “Councils know where and in what sectors these jobs will be. It now needs the levers to work with partners to build a skilled and experienced workforce which is crucial to the government meeting its net zero targets and ‘levelling up’ ambitions.

Cross-party MPs deride government’s ‘inconsistent’ green jobs policy | Green politics | The Guardian

Despite its pledges, the British government, according to its own politicians, cannot deliver a coherent and cohesive policy.

It has been the practice of the blog to occasionally post articles from non-World Socialist Movement members if it is thought that the content holds sufficient merit that it should reach a wider audience.

 We may not endorse everything stated in the article nor accept the views and opinions expressed on other topics.

John Spritzler is a Boston-based activist involved with the New Democracy group that now publishes content on the People for Democratic Revolution website.

The following is a partial transcript of an e-mail exchange Spritzler had with his local Boston Jewish Voice for Peace chapter where he explains that in his view the purpose and motive of the Israeli government’s violence against Palestinians are not to make Jewish-Israelis safe but to enable the Jewish-Israeli ruling class of Israel to control (using the fear of the Palestinian bogeyman) Israeli working-class Jews whom it oppresses.

First: Most of the general public, to their credit, want nothing to do with anything that they perceive to be “against the Jews,” i.e., anti-semitic.

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Second: The main Zionist Big Lie–the PILLAR of Zionist propaganda–is that the Israeli government is about protecting Jews from harm and that the violence it uses against Palestinians is only what is required for it to accomplish this.

Third: Because most people believe the Zionist Big Lie (about the Israeli government protecting Jews from harm) they also agree with former Harvard President Larry Summers’s assertion that anti-Zionism–because it criticizes what the Israeli government does to protect Jews from harm–is antisemitic in effect if not intent.

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Fourth: The only way to win over the great majority of the public to support the anti-Zionist movement is to persuasively (and truthfully!) refute the Zionist Big Lie, as my article (at https://www.pdrboston.org/israel-s-government-attacks-jews-to) has been proven to do even with Jews who were passionately pro-Israel before reading it. My article proves that the Israeli government treats Palestinians like dirt not simply to grab more land from them but FOR THE PURPOSE of making them be so angry at Israel that they will be perceived by Israeli Jews as a frightening bogeyman enemy–an “existential threat”–so that the Israeli government can pretend to be protecting Jews from their “real enemy” (Palestinians) and thereby prevent working class Israeli Jews from seriously challenging the power of the Israeli government while actually economically oppressing working class Israeli Jews horribly in order to enrich the billionaire Israeli upper class. Jews who were passionately pro-Israel change their mind after reading my article and see the Israeli government as their enemy, not the protector of Jews. And non-Jews likewise change their mind because they see that it is not antisemitic to oppose the Israeli government but is actually antisemitic to support it.

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Fifth: Until we persuasively refute the Zionist Big Lie, the anti-Zionist movement will remain a minority movement that the U.S. government will therefore be able to ignore and thus continue to give enormous support to the Israeli government. The anti-Zionist movement will remain a minority movement because it asks people to choose between “supporting Palestinians” or “supporting Jews” and most, in order to support Jews and avoid doing what they believe would be antisemitic, will oppose the anti-Zionist movement.

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Sixth: It is an unfortunate fact that, having done my due diligence to try to find a single prominent anti-Zionist person or organization that is refuting the Zionist Big Lie (note that merely pointing out that Mizrahi or Sephardic Jews are discriminated against in Israel does not refute the Zionist Big Lie; the truth is that ALL working class Israeli Jews are oppressed by the Israeli government, including Holocaust survivors who are Ashkenazi Jews of course) I have not found a single one. Not a single one! As long as the Zionist Big Lie goes un-refuted, Zionism will prevail. (If you know of a prominent person or organization that is refuting the Zionist Big Lie, please let me know so I can get in touch with them and help them.)

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Seventh: I hope JVP will devote serious and energetic efforts to refuting the Zionist Big Lie. Otherwise Zionism will prevail.I trust you agree that the idea expressed here is extremely important for all JVP members to hear and discuss…

…I am asking the JVP to persuasively refute the Zionist Big Lie that enables Zionism to maintain the support of a majority of the U.S. public. The Zionist Big Lie says Israeli government violence against Palestinians is for the purpose of protecting Jews from harm. To persuasively refute this Big Lie one must show that the real purpose of the Israeli government’s violence against Palestinians is to enable the billionaire ruling class of Israel to control Israeli working class Jews whom it oppresses terribly in order to enrich itself at their expense.

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Here are some simple yes or no questions that I would like to hear your answer to:

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Question #1. Do you agree that the purpose of Israeli government violence against Palestinians is to enable the billionaire ruling class of Israel to control Israeli working class Jews whom it oppresses terribly in order to enrich itself at their expense?

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Question #2. If you answered No to Question #1, then Do you agree that the true purpose of Israeli government violence against Palestinians–whatever it actually is–is NOT to protect Jews from harm?

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Question #3. If you answered No to Question #2, then Do you agree with the Zionist claim that Israeli government violence against Palestinians is for the purpose of protecting Jews from harm?

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Question #4. If you answered Yes to either Question #1 or #2, then Do you want JVP to directly and persuasively refute the Zionist Big Lie by showing that the purpose of Israeli government violence against Palestinians is NOT to protect Jews from harm?

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Question #5. If you did not answer Yes to either Question #1 or #2, then Do you agree that JVP’s opposition to Israeli government violence against Palestinians is opposition to violence the purpose of which is to protect Jews from harm? (Note: If you answer No here, then I challenge you to defend your answer because, after answering No to both Question #1 and #2, it is illogical. If you answer Yes here, then you are essentially agreeing with former Harvard President, Larry Summers, who said that anti-Zionism is antisemitic in effect if not intent; this argument is what keeps a majority of the U.S. public in the pro-Israel camp, of course, and if it is not refuted then Zionism will prevail.)

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Question #6. If you answered Yes to Question #5 (after answering No to both Question #1 and #2), then Do you intend to win over a majority of the U.S. public to the anti-Zionism side in spite of the fact (that you agree with) that the anti-Zionism side opposes the violence that the Israeli government uses to protect Jews from harm?…

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John Spritzler

With the climate crises, the worse-case scenarios begin with the triggering of invisible climate tripwires known as tipping points.

“Climate tipping points are a game-changing risk — an existential threat — and we need to do everything within our power to avoid them,” said Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter. “Just because tipping points are challenging to predict doesn’t mean they can be ignored,” Lenton said.

An analogy is to lean back in a chair balancing on two legs and there is a threshold beyond which you irrevocably crash to the floor. That portal between two stable states — in this case, an upright versus a fallen-over chair — is a tipping point, and Earth’s complex, interlocking climate system is full of them. Planet-altering tipping points have different temperature thresholds. Scientists know these tripwires are there, but not exactly where they lie. More unsettling is how easily efforts to eliminate carbon pollution could be overwhelmed by the changes set in motion.

“We have seen a number of tipping points already in coral reefs and polar systems, and more are likely in the near term,” the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a draft report on climate impacts, due out in February. “Abrupt responses and tipping points of the climate system… cannot be ruled out,” the UN’s climate science advisory body now warns.

In most cases, reversing the changes set in motion would be beyond the grasp of humanity for many generations, if not millennia.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), explained, 

“Planetary machinery — the monsoon system, ocean circulation, the jet stream, the big ecosystems — abounds with non-linear systems,” referring to the potential for abrupt, dramatic change. “That means you have so many points of no return.”

Scientists count about 15 significant tipping points in the planet’s climate system. Some are regional, others are global, all are interconnected.

Those most vulnerable to global warming and closest to a point of no return are tropical coral reefs, the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, alpine glaciers, Arctic summer sea ice and the Amazon forest.

Scientists cannot rule out the possibility that the AMOC will stall altogether, as it has in the past. If this happened, European winters would become much harsher and sea levels in the North Atlantic basin could rise substantially.

For example, accelerating melt-off from the Greenland ice sheet is almost certainly slowing down the conveyor belt of ocean currents known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). This, in turn, could push Earth’s tropical rain belt southward and weaken the African and Asian monsoons, upon which hundreds of millions depend for rain-fed crops. Scientists cannot rule out the possibility that the AMOC will stall altogether, as it has in the past. If this happened, European winters would become much harsher and sea levels in the North Atlantic basin could rise substantially.

Johan Rockstrom, PIK director, said a 2C cap on warming was “not a social or economic choice, it is actually a planetary boundary. The moment that the Earth system flips over from being self-cooling — which it still is — to self-warming, that is the moment that we lose control.” 

Climate scientists fear tipping points (maybe you should too) – France 24

  In  Cape Town, South Africa,  two warehouses have been converted into a number of airlocked sterile rooms where young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to create a coronavirus vaccine. Over the objections of the original developers, The Cape Town initiative is intended to expand access to the novel messenger RNA technology that Moderna, as well as Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, used in their vaccines. If the team in South Africa succeeds in making a version of Moderna’s vaccine, the information will be publicly released for use by others.

 Dr. Tom Frieden, the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has described the world as “being held hostage” by Moderna and Pfizer, whose vaccines are considered the most effective against COVID-19. The novel mRNA process uses the genetic code for the spike protein of the coronavirus and is thought to trigger a better immune response than traditional vaccines.

It’s a last-resort effort to make vaccine doses available for people going without because of the refusal of Big Pharma and the World Trade Organization to temporary rescind intellectual property laws.

 “We are doing this for Africa at this moment, and that drives us,” said Emile Hendricks, a 22-year-old biotechnologist for Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, the company trying to reproduce the Moderna shot. “We can no longer rely on these big superpowers to come in and save us.”

With the approval and assistance of the World Health Organization, he and his colleagues are applying reverse engineering — recreating vaccines from fragments of publicly available information — as one of the few remaining ways to redress the power imbalances of the pandemic.

 Only 0.7% of vaccines have gone to low-income countries so far, while nearly half have gone to wealthy countries. The U.N.-backed effort to equitably allot vaccines globally, known as COVAX, has failed to alleviate severe shortages in poor countries. Donated doses are coming in at a fraction of what is needed to fill the gap. Meanwhile, pressure for drug companies to share vaccines has led nowhere.

 After pleading with drugmakers to share their formulas,  raw materials and technological know-how, some poorer countries are done waiting.

Afrigen Managing Director Petro Terblanche said the Cape Town company is aiming to have a version of the Moderna vaccine ready for testing in people within a year and scaled up for commercial production not long after.“We have a lot of competition coming from Big Pharma. They don’t want to see us succeed.”

Moderna has not offered to help outside companies to make its mRNA shot.  The Medicines Patent Pool repeatedly tried but failed to convince Pfizer and BioNTech to even discuss sharing their formulas.

Zoltan Kis, an expert in messenger RNA vaccines at the University of Sheffield, said reproducing Moderna’s vaccine is “doable” but the task would be far easier if the company shared its expertise. Kis estimated the process involves fewer than a dozen major steps. But certain procedures are tricky, such as sealing the fragile messenger RNA in lipid nanoparticles, he said. “It’s like a very complicated cooking recipe,” he said. “Having the recipe would be very, very helpful, and it would also help if someone could show you how to do it.”

“The enemy to these corporations is losing their potential profit down the line,” Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer of the global health nonprofit Partners in Health, said.

Africa tries to end vaccine inequity by replicating its own (apnews.com)

Burnley has one of the largest proportions of adults on universal credit in the country. About one in five adults of working age in Burnley depend on universal credit Burnley had registered the highest rate of infection in England, something partly traced to its high levels of poverty and overcrowded housing. Two years ago the town elected its first Conservative MP in more than 100 years. 

Pastor Mick Fleming who runs the Church on the Street that operates a food bank, advice on benefits plus help with homelessness and addiction, explains,  “There’s still the need for food, but the big issue is people’s mental health. That’s spiralled out of control. The lack of resource, and the lack of hope because of that – you get more suicides.” He has also seen an increase in alcoholism. “That’s due to the pandemic. Many, many people have lost money and relationships and businesses because of Covid. And the timeframe between when help’s needed and when people might get it – in that gap, people die. That’s something we see more of.”

In regard to the cuts in the Universal Credit, Pastor Fleming pointed out, “I’ve seen an increase in fear. People are like: ‘How am I going to manage without this money?’ Again, it’s to do with mental health. Anxiety. It’s real, real stuff. It’s not just taking 20 quid off somebody. And 40% of the people getting the money taken away are working. So it’s people who work as carers asking me for food parcels. Paid workers who are looking after people, needing access to food.”

‘We’ve been hammered’: on the breadline in Burnley | Poverty | The Guardian

When it comes to addressing the climate crises, many politicians are talking the talk but few are actually walking the walk.

 Biden is just one of several politicians who have promised to deliver policies to slow the advance of global warming. There has been no Green New Deal. Biden may say he listens to climate activists such as the Sunrise Movement but he is long overdue in meeting their demands. Biden’s government has little to show other than lip-service rhetoric.  If Biden is indeed a climate champion and the planet’s great hope, he appears to be punch-drunk and bout to be counted out. 

His administration is on track to approve the most drilling permits on federal land since George W. Bush was in office. The U.S. is currently the world’s largest producer and consumer of oil and gas.

 Biden could declare climate change a national emergency which would open up vast federal resources and capabilities. He could revoke the permits for pipeline constructions (Line 3, Line 5, and Mountain Valley.)

Many official members of the administration have ties to the oil and gas industry.

Amos Hochstein was a marketing executive for the fossil fuel company Tellurian. Now, Hochstein is essentially promoting American gas internationally as the State Department’s senior adviser for energy security. Susan Rice, Obama’s director of the Domestic Policy Council has had strong financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, holding stock in Enbridge (the Canadian oil and gas company). Rice has been ordered by federal ethics regulators, aware of the conflict of interest, to divest her holdings. Biden also nominated Neil MacBride to be general counsel of the Treasury Department. MacBride formerly worked at the corporate law firm Davis Polk, where he sued the Treasury Department on behalf of Exxon. Biden is hiring a lot of people who have lobbied or they worked for big law firms that represented oil and gas firms. Biden has given government positions to lawyers from the law firm currently used by Chevron, Gibson Dunn, to executive positions. These include Jose Fernandez (under-secretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment), Stuart Delery (deputy White House counsel) and Avi Garbow (senior counsellor to the Environmental Protection Agency administrator — a job Garbow has since left).

A matter of employing a fox to catch a fox? We think not, but suggest simply another instance of the revolving door practice where corporations acquire political influence. 

Biden holds tremendous influence on the global economic stage, with veto power in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and an outsized role in bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. So far the U.S. has been reluctant to use it to drive action on climate change. Biden could start by acting decisively on a technology transfer and waiving intellectual property rights for green technologies. Biden could use his weight to reduce, at least, if not outright cancel the sovereign debt that is an oppressive financial burden on so many Global South governments in introducing infrastructure measures to mitigate the effects of climate change. 

Biden holds as much credibility as Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil when it comes to keeping true to environmental pledges. Truth is found in action, not words. 

Adapted from here

Joe Biden is in no position to lecture the world on climate change | openDemocracy

 Polish mothers protested held under the banner “Mothers at the Border,” against migrant pushbacks at the border with Belarus and demanded they get humanitarian help. Protesters carrying signs like “Border of Death” and chanting “shame” and “no one is illegal” called on the Polish government to lift a three-month state of emergency so that aid workers could help migrants.

The Polish government built a barbed-wire fence along the Belarus border and declared a state of emergency that stopped journalists and charities from accessing the area. Migrants trying to cross the border into the EU have been forced back by thousands of extra border guards drafted in by Poland. Belarusian forces have also blocked the way back, leaving the migrants with nowhere to go. Exhausted and suffering from the cold, the migrants try nightly to reach Poland but are often attacked and pushed back.

“We can’t stand idly by when children are spending weeks in cold, wet, dark forests on Polish territory — without food, drink and access to shelter,” the organizers said.

Former Polish first lady Anna Komorowska explained, “We particularly reject the inhumane treatment of children.”

Danuta Walesa, wife of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa also supported the appeal.

Polish mothers rally in solidarity with migrants at Belarus border | News | DW | 23.10.2021

 Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, warned global security and stability could break down, with migration crises and food shortages bringing conflict and chaos, if countries fail to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. 

The UN’s top climate official explained, “We’re really talking about preserving the stability of countries, preserving the institutions that we have built over so many years, preserving the best goals that our countries have put together. The catastrophic scenario would indicate that we would have massive flows of displaced people,” adding, “It would mean less food, so probably a crisis in food security. It would leave a lot more people vulnerable to terrible situations, terrorist groups and violent groups. It would mean a lot of sources of instability.”

In an interview, she said,  “It doesn’t only speak to the environmental side. It is also about the whole system we have built. We know what migration crises have provoked in the past. If we were to see that in even higher numbers – not only international migration, but also internal migration – it would provoke very serious problems.”

 Espinosa said: “What we need to get at Glasgow are messages from leaders that they are determined to drive this transformation, to make these changes, to look at ways of increasing their ambition…It is probably not the most attractive idea to government representatives – when you have finished the plan, come back and tell all those involved, ‘OK, now you have to continue revising your plan’’,” she said. “But this is the biggest challenge humanity is facing, so we really don’t have an option. And we know that situations change, technologies change, processes change, so there’s always room for improvement.”

‘World conflict and chaos’ could be the result of a summit failure | Climate crisis | The Guardian

We in the World Socialist Movement understand political leaders apocalyptic prophecies, that are echoed by many catastrophist climate activists and it is a reason why we hold that the only answer is not to gamble that governments and corporations will act for the first time in humanity’s history against their mercenary self-interest and place the well-being of the people and the planet before profits. 

Worker militancy and strikes has recently occurred in the USA as workers went on the offensive to demand more. Workers – after working so hard and risking their lives during the pandemic – say they deserve substantial raises along with lots of gratitude. With this in mind and with myriad employers complaining of a labor shortage, many workers believe it’s an opportune time to demand more and go on strike. 

Robert Bruno, a labor relations professor at the University of Illinois, said workers have built up a lot of grievances and anger during the pandemic, after years of seeing scant improvement in pay and benefits. Bruno pointed to a big reason for the growing worker frustration: “You can definitely see that American capitalism has reigned supreme over workers, and as a result, the incentive for companies is to continue to do what’s been working for them. It’s likely that an arrogance sets in where companies think that’s going to last for ever, and maybe they don’t read the times properly.”

Professor Bruno said that in light of today’s increased worker militancy, unionized employers would have to rethink their approach to bargaining “and take the rank and file pretty seriously”. They can no longer expect workers to roll over or to strong-arm them into swallowing concessions, often by threatening to move operations overseas.

Thomas Kochan, an MIT professor of industrial relations, agreed that it was a favorable time for workers – many corporations have substantially increased pay in response to the labor shortage. “It’s clear that workers are much more empowered,” he said. “They’re empowered because of the labor shortage.” Kochan added: “These strikes could easily trigger more strike activity if several are successful or perceived to be successful.”

Some corporations are acting as if nothing has changed and they can continue corporate America’s decades-long practice of squeezing workers and demanding concessions, even after corporate profits have soared.

Deere anticipates a record $5.7bn in profits this year, more than double last year’s earnings. Deere workers complain that the company offered only a 12% raise over six years, which they say won’t keep pace with inflation, even as the CEO’s pay rose 160% last year to $16m and dividends were raised 17%.  

Ten thousand John Deere workers have gone on strikeDeere’s workers voted down the company’s offer by 90% before they went on strike at 14 factories on 14 October, their first walkout in 35 years. 

Kevin Bradshaw, a striker at Kellogg’s factory in Memphis, said the cereal maker was being arrogant and unappreciative. During the pandemic, he said, Kellogg employees often worked 30 days in a row, often in 12-hour or 16-hour shifts. In light of this hard work, he derided Kellogg’s contract offer, which calls for a far lower scale for new hires. “Kellogg is offering a $13 cut in top pay for new workers,” Bradshaw said. “They want a permanent two-tier. New employees will no longer receive the same amount of money and benefits we do.” That, he said, is bad for the next generation of workers. Bradshaw, vice-president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union local, noted that it made painful concessions to Kellogg in 2015. “We gave so many concessions, and now they’re saying they need more,” he said. “This is a real smack in the face during the pandemic. Everyone knows that they’re greedy and not needy.”

1,400 Kellogg workers have walked out.

More than 400 workers at the Heaven Hill bourbon distillery in Kentucky have been on strike for six weeks, while roughly 1,000 Warrior Met coalminers in Alabama have been on strike since April. Hundreds of nurses at Mercy hospital in Buffalo went on strike on 1 October, and 450 steelworkers at Special Metals in Huntington, West Virginia, also walked out that day. 

More than 30,000 nurses and other healthcare professionals at Kaiser Permanente on the west coast have voted to authorize a strike. Kaiser Permanente, a non-profit, had amassed $45bn in reserves and its management has proposed hiring new nurses at 26% less pay than current ones earn – which she said would ensure a shortage of nurses. 

Belinda Redding, a Kaiser nurse in Woodland Hills, California, said, “We’ve been going all out during the pandemic. We’ve been working extra shifts. Our lives have been turned upside down. The signs were up all over saying, ‘Heroes Work Here’. And the pandemic isn’t even over for us, and then for them to offer us a 1% raise, it’s almost a slap in the face.” She added, “It’s hard to imagine a nurse giving her all when she’s paid far less than other nurses.” 

Many non-union workers – frequently dismayed with low pay, volatile schedules and poor treatment – have quit their jobs or refused to return to their old ones after being laid off during the pandemic. In August, 4.2 million workers quit their jobs, part of what has been called the Great Resignation. Some economists have suggested this is a quiet general strike with workers demanding better pay and conditions. “People are using exit from their jobs as a source of power,” Kochan said.

‘Striketober’ is showing workers’ rising power – but will it lead to lasting change? | US unions | The Guardian