NEWSFLASHES

International Students Targeted as Email Scam Hits Macquarie

In the midst of the panic of COVID-19, a virtual kidnapping scam has hit Macquarie, targeting the families of international students.

On June 22nd a generalised email was sent out by the university to international students advising them on how to spot internet scams. This was followed by another email on July 31st alerting students about the details of the targeted virtual kidnapping email scam.

The virtual kidnapping scam involves scammers convincing the students’ families at home that their son/daughter has been kidnapped in Australia. They then insist that the family transfer money to the scammer as ransom for their child’s safe release.

The scams often begin with scammers calling random Australian phone numbers pretending to be authoritative figures (such as Consulate Generals, government officials, or the police). Speaking in their native language, the scammers wait until they find someone who will respond. They then trick the victim into thinking they have been implicated in a crime and may be removed from Australia or face criminal charges in court. They may also threaten their families if they refuse to cooperate. The scammers often mask their phone numbers, so if it is traced online, it will match the phone number of the authoritative figure they are impersonating.

No exact statistics have been released on the number of students and families affected by the scam or whether any formal rectifications have been undertaken to remedy the victims. The university advised that any scammer calls should be reported to NSW Police. Any students affected have been encouraged to contact the Student Wellbeing Team at wellbeing@mq.edu.au or 02 9850 7497.

by Katelyn Free

Kind to Animals, Evil to Employees

The No Evil vegan food brand markets itself as a good doing, left wing, grassroots vegan good company. The branding is explicitly radical and progressive. They have even named one of their no-meat chicken products as “Comrade Cluck.”

Despite these bold and heartfelt claims, earlier this year, the large food company suppressed a drive by employees to unionise and then fired the organisers.

Oopsies – that’s not very Marxist of you.

In late March, workers circulated a petition calling for hazard pay as COVID-19 outbreaks began appearing in food processing plants across the United States. Over half a dozen current and former employees spoke out and described a hostile union-busting campaign.

Many meetings were required and labelled as “educational” sessions where management talked down unions and any organising drives. In addition to this, the company has also been accused of using “shadow write-ups” that is – writing employees up for violations without telling them, and then citing the violations in their firings.

In response to these allegations, No Evil foods has refused to comment or interview.

They however did release a statement saying “No Evil Foods is a small, young business, we have only been around for 6 years and everyone on our team is giving every ounce of energy to keep our company alive.”

The statement isn’t exactly reassuring, under what pressure and conditions are the employees giving ‘every ounce of energy?’ The pandemic has hit workers incredibly hard and it is so important that every worker feels safe in their workplace.

by Rayna Bland

COVID-19: THE WRECKING BALL OF THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY

Ziyan Tejani discusses the impact of the recent financial decisions made by the Australian government and how this may affect the national economy in the years to come.

In spite of the dichotomy that has been drawn by many, dealing with COVID-19 is as much an economic challenge as it is a health challenge. The two dimensions are so intertwined that it would be a mistake to linearly switch from one to another – they must be dealt with simultaneously. Managing the dynamics of such a complex situation is not a familiar or comfortable experience for economists, epidemiologists, or policy-makers. This is uncharted territory for all. As such, COVID-19 presents an unprecedented and uniquely difficult balancing act going forward – to address serious public health concerns whilst minimising economic devastation.

The swift and significant initial shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdown measures have had a wrecking ball effect on the global economy. The World Bank forecasts that the global economy will shrink by 5.2% in 2020. This would put the world into the deepest recession since World War 2, despite significant efforts on the part of many governments to counter the downturn through monetary and fiscal policy support. The pandemic is also anticipated to push most countries into recession this year, with income per capita contracting in the largest fraction of countries internationally since 1870. This will tip millions into extreme poverty this year. Advanced economies are projected by the World Bank to shrink by 7%, which will spill over to developing economies which are expected to contract by 2.5%.

(Source: The proportion of economies with an annual contraction in per capita GDP. Shaded areas refer to global recessions. Data for 2020-21 are forecasts. Source: World Bank)

The hardest hit countries have been the ones with a heavy dependence on global trade, tourism, exports of commodities and externally sourced financing. In the longer term, the recessions are expected to leave lasting legacies through lower investment, an eroding of human capital through foregone work and schooling, and the fragmentation of international trade and supply linkages. Global stock markets have also seen their sharpest crashes since the Global Financial Crisis.

In the global arena, Australia has withstood the COVID-19 pandemic better than almost any developed nation, and is among a small number of countries which have led the world through their quick, decisive, and proportionate response. However, Australia’s relative success at containing the coronavirus has come at a high economic cost – the first recession in 30 years.

Household incomes have taken a significant blow from job losses and less hours available for work, which will take years to recover. Meanwhile, wage spending and pent-up demand, but they were only

growth is expected to stagnate and house prices are steeply falling. The Australian dollar has also fallen to its lowest point since the Great Depression. In addition, during the Great Depression, unemployment rose from 3.2% in 1929 to 16% in 1931. In Australia, unemployment in July already hit 7.4% and the Department of Treasury anticipates this to quickly reach 10%.

In response, Treasurer Frydenberg has fronted the largest economic bailout in Australian history, with a $17.6 billion economic support package and a $2.4 billion health package among others. The $130 billion JobKeeper program, targeted at tackling unemployment, has served as an economic lifeline for government for short-term stability will undoubtedly

over 5 million workers on the program.

The JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs have also been instrumental in providing cash boosts for small to medium business, which make up 99% of the economy remain until at least 2057. Therefore, an 18-year-old

and employ 2 out of 3 workers. It has also provided a powerful psychological boost, with surveyed consumer confidence having its largest recorded weekly gain, rising by 10.1% in the week after the programs’ announcement in March.

Resource management has also been effective in ensuring that states and territories have not reached a point where their healthcare systems have been overwhelmed. The acquisition of medical stockpiles of we have seen since WW2.’ However, even these

medicines and masks, a three-fold increase in hospital beds and the purchase of many additional respirators has put our medical sector in a strong position to manage the outbreak on a much larger scale.

That being said, the imposition of lockdowns and border closures have been devastating to certain sectors of the Australian economy. The tourism industry is clinging for survival and has been described as “ground zero” for the COVID-19 induced recession.

The culmination of the summer bushfires, the closure of state and national borders and the lockdowns have devastated the sector, including accommodation, restaurants and travel agents. In addition to that, the Australian Financial Review has found that the $300 billion retail sector enjoyed some short-term gains, experiencing record monthly sales growth in May as a consequence of government stimulus incentivised short-lived. Furthermore, the retail sector was struggling prior to the pandemic, with weak consumer confidence, weak wage growth and high household debt. And speaking of the longer-term, the pandemic has only amplified these factors.

The unprecedented economic spending by our have negative long-term effects on the strength of our economy.

As of August 2020, the Treasurer is estimating the economic costs of all of its federal stimulus and other discretionary programs at $1 billion a week. As such, instead of reaching a surplus, as anticipated at the end of this year, a PWC report estimates that this debt will cannot expect to see a budget surplus until they are 37 years old, and will not see an economy with a net zero debt until they reach 55.

This is very much in line with the findings of ANZ Senior Economist, Cherelle Murphy, who states that Australia will be in approximately $230 billion debt in 2021, which she has described as ‘the biggest deficits The $150 billion sector has been hit multiple times in

figures greatly understate the long-term economic adversities, as they don’t account for the loss of consumer confidence and the longer-term weakening of our productive capacity and industry.

These widening debts and deficits are dangerous for our future, as future governments will have less wealth and tax revenue to address the multiplicity of economic and social problems which may arise. At the same time, the high costs of the economic stimulus programs mean that there will be less scope for discretionary fiscal policy in many years ahead, limiting the Australian government’s ability to deal with exogenous shocks, such as severe downturns in the current tumultuous area of trade for example.

The more time it takes before the economy can fully reset, the weaker and more fragile the Australian economy will be.

In addition, a strong and responsive health system relies on a strong economy which in turn relies on productive citizens and industry. Therefore, in prioritising short-term health concerns over fiscal responsibility, in the longer term this may have the opposite effect than intended, and might leave our healthcare system and broader economy weak and vulnerable.

(Source: RBA, Australian Treasury, AMP Capital)

Clearly, the cause, scope, and magnitude of this economic downturn is unprecedented and unique from any other in living memory. The road to a steady recovery will require finding the right balance between keeping the economy running efficiently, while also minimising the spread of the virus. Now that Australia has effectively contained the health crisis at the moment, it is the immediate priority of policy-makers to hasten economic recovery.

Without immunization, the ongoing virulence of COVID-19 makes returning the economy to normalcy almost impossible. Therefore, while the world waits for a vaccine, domestic policy-makers should ensure that state and territory healthcare systems remain adequately resourced to prevent any becoming overwhelmed in the future, and that safety measures remain and are enforced effectively.

Sustaining domestic economic activity through stimulus programs, providing financial support for households, firms, and essential service providers are also paramount. Global coordination and cooperation should also be prioritised, to slow the spread of the pandemic internationally and provide economic relief to those who need it most. These measures will provide the greatest chance of a robust economic recovery.

by Ziyan Tejani

MAKE EDUCATION FREE AGAIN

Berna Erkan, member of the Macquarie Students Against the Cuts campaign, calls for action against the latest decision by Macquarie authorities to encourage staff to choose voluntary redundancies.

The recent announcement by Macquarie’s Vice-Chancellor Bruce Dowton and the university management means that Macquarie intends to initiate major staff cuts and course cuts. Beginning with a process of ‘voluntary redundancies,’ staff have been told that if ‘insufficient staff’ accept unemployment now, the university intends to initiate ‘major workplace change processes’ throughout the next 6 to 12 months. In other words, no matter the sacrifices of individuals who ‘voluntarily’ choose to lose their livelihoods, staff in general should anticipate mass redundancies at Macquarie University.

If these cuts resemble anything like what is happening elsewhere in the higher education sector, students and staff can expect something of a neoliberal bloodbath. Across the sector, thousands of staff have been forced into redundancy. The peak industry-body representing Australian universities projected in April, a loss of 21,000 jobs within the next six months as an initial first step to deal with the loss of university revenue.

At the University of New South Wales, 493 full-time staff will be sacked, Monash University will make 277 of their staff redundant, and hundreds will also be made redundant at La Trobe University. This is to name just a few of the galling examples of Australian universities leading the way in mass austerity and job cuts as a response to effects of a world-wide health pandemic. It is a response to the current economic crisis unparalleled in any other sector of Australian capitalism.

This should be understood as an unprecedented attack on student education and a massive assault on staff working conditions at universities across Australia. Universities seem to prefer to prioritise the revenue streams and profits that form their bottom-line, rather than funding teaching and learning, and the livelihood of university staff. Macquarie University is a multibillion-dollar corporation, that has $3.5 billion dollars in assets as of 2018, and millions of dollars for executive salaries, including $1.01 million for VC Bruce Dowton, alongside hundreds of thousands of dollars in executive perks, according to an article in The Sydney Morning Herald. At the end of 2019, the University also chose to reward the former Executive and Associate Dean of the now defunct Faculty of Human Sciences with the Pro-Vice Chancellor position. This was after they advocated for the dissolution of the Faculty that would result in $5 million dollars in ‘savings.’

Macquarie University as such, can and should be doing everything it can, to save staff and prioritise education, not implement redundancies and degrade the quality of learning received by students. As there is an ongoing crisis in the existing revenue streams of higher education in Australia, why on earth should staff and students be punished for the shortfall?

Since the introduction of HECS and the end of free education in 1989, the federal government and Vice-Chancellors have worked hand in glove to reduce government funding for higher education into a pittance. Instead, the government and Vice-Chancellors’ have benefited from the transformation of Australian universities into an extremely profitable, corporate bonanza. The two key most lucrative avenues for this corporatisation being the deregulated fees procured from international students, and the further integration of business and higher education primarily through research output.

Until recently, higher education was Australia’s third highest export, raking in $28 billion in 2017. Therefore, when Macquarie’s VC Dowton bemoans the costs of a budget shortfall, this is not a funding crisis in the costs of teaching and learning, but a crisis of the ongoing profitability of a corporate university.

The notion that Macquarie University is spending too much on teaching and learning is laughable. At Macquarie University, staff are overworked, widely casualised, and dealing with one of the highest staff to student ratios in the country because of consecutive rounds of staff and course cuts. Casual staff in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Macquarie are now in the process of being repaid $50,000 due to underpayment and wage theft by the University, according to an article in ABC News. This coincides with a huge assault on students in the form of major fee increases, that will see students in Arts, Business, Law and Economics degrees pay up to 93% more for their degree, coinciding with major reductions in commonwealth funding.

The recent changes implemented by university management, such as the disestablishment of the Faculty of Human Sciences in 2019 and further course cuts through MQ2020, have led many students to form the view that our VC is not interested in quality education or the working conditions of university staff. It appears that Macquarie is exploiting a major health crisis to push through further cuts to our education and staff.

There is a solution to this manufactured crisis of the corporate university – a fully funded and truly public higher education sector. But that requires mass student and staff mobilisation against the neoliberal university in opposition to every cut and every cash-grab. It has never been more imperative.

To find out how to get involved in the campaign at Macquarie, like the Facebook page ‘Macquarie Students Against Uni Cuts, and follow the national campaign ‘Student Fightback: Stop Fee Hikes, Stop Cuts.

When contacted for comment about this article, the university provided the below response:

The university sector, including Macquarie University, is facing significant financial challenges in coming years due to the impacts of COVID-19. While we are taking action to address this through a combination of new revenue sources and savings in non-staff costs, regrettably there is still a significant shortfall that cannot be addressed through minor changes. Our goal is to minimise forced job losses and so we are proposing a Voluntary Redundancy Scheme as a first step to addressing these budget challenges. We have been consulting with staff and unions about the impacts of COVID-19 on the University’s financial position and the proposed VR scheme, and are currently considering their feedback.

by Berna Erkan

NEXT IN FASHION

As fashion trends change with every new season, the lives of those who make our clothes remain the same. Malnourished, underpaid, and tortured, the ‘new normal’ only means a downward spiral for garment workers.

2020 hasn’t exactly gone to plan. The outbreak of COVID-19 has affected all aspects of life, shutting down schools and offices, and halting our social lives and holidays. Whilst for many of us, the pandemic has left us well acquainted with our houses and the inner workings of Zoom, for countless others the ongoing effects of the pandemic have been catastrophic. While the media has continuously focused on reporting on the human toll of the pandemic, COVID-19 has had detrimental effects to all aspects of life.

Prior to the pandemic, Asian suppliers played an integral role within the garment industry, completing orders for multinational corporate labels such as Nike, ASOS and Gap. For countries such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Pakistan, the garment industry provided jobs for millions of people, with an estimated 3.6 million garment industry employees in Bangladesh alone. Whilst this industry has previously been plagued by low wages and the run on effects of the booming fast fashion industry, COVID-19 has provided an even harder blow. Since the economic impact of the pandemic has been well reported, a great interest has been focused on the detrimental effects on the fashion labels themselves. The garment factories have been largely overlooked, and the backbone of the fashion industry has been grossly underappreciated. Whilst there is no underplaying the significant financial stress these multi-billion-dollar companies have had to endure over the past year, the immediate reaction to cancel in-production orders overseas has been largely overlooked.

As retail restrictions significantly slowed both profit sales and demand, numerous fashion labels cancelled or paused orders with garment factories, either refusing to pay or asking for extreme discounts. Numerous brands refused to pay for orders that had already been completed, as others changed and delayed already agreed upon terms bringing the garment industry to a complete standstill.

The Centre of Global Workers’ Rights estimate brands have cancelled or paused over $3 billion worth of completed goods in Bangladesh alone, financially affecting over 2 million workers. Globally it has been estimated that there is currently $40 billion worth of wages owed since the start of the crisis to garment workers.

In response to this unfair situation, Ayesha Barenblat, the founder of Remake – a storytelling platform committed to building a conscious consumer movement, launched the hashtag #PayUp on March 30th demanding justice and exposing the guilty brands. With the addition of a petition that has gathered over 200 000 signatures, Remake stepped up to help moderate the crisis. Brands including Zara, Nike, Ralph Lauren,

H&M and Gap were all named and shamed with the social media movement directly alleviating some of the pain.

Following the social media outcry and rapidly growing petition, over thirteen brands have agreed to pay up including Ralph Lauren, Levi’s and Nike. The campaign can be directly attributed to unlocking over $22 billion globally, with around 1 billion of this directly in Bangladesh. Whilst significant change has been made, there is still a long way to go with over 20 brands still needing to #PayUp including Primark, Urban Outfitters and T.J Maxx.

The fight is long from over, and while progress has been made, the future is uncertain. Not only are there still companies refusing to #PayUp, the long-term economic effects of the pandemic will be felt throughout the garment history for years to come, with smaller contracts more than likely to remain.

As the pandemic becomes long term and people start to get back to their new ‘normal,’ it is more than likely the garment industry will once again be overlooked and forgotten. It is integral to keep the #PayUp pressure building and keep up the momentum holding corporations accountable.

So what can still be done?

As Remake said themselves: “We are just getting started.” The movement is not slowing down – as of the 28th of August, Balmain, Moschino and Oscar de la Renta have all been named as brands that are unable to prove they have paid their garment workers. Although the movement has seen some progress, this latest development reveals the crisis is not just centred around fast fashion, luxury brands are guilty as well. Remake aims to outline the necessary steps needed to sustain the movement. Signing and sharing the change.org petition, donating to garment worker relief funds and most importantly asking the tough question when it comes to our favourite clothing brands.

In a 30 page report by the clean clothes campaign titled “Un(der)paid in The Pandemic” a call to action was made that cannot be unheard: “The only way to reverse the catastrophic loss to workers’ livelihoods and prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again is for brands to take immediate and lasting action.”

Brands must do better.

To support the campaign, sign the #PayUp petition at www.change.org or donate towards the cause at www. gofundme.com.

by Madi Scott