Italy: Joint union call for anti-fascist demonstration in Rome

“No more fascisms” Landini, Sbarra and Bombardieri,
16 October demonstration in Rome

October 10 protest by CGIL members in response to the fascist attack, source: CGIL 

Statement by Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), Italian Confederation of Workers' Trade Unions (CISL), and Italian Labour Union (UIL)

Posted on 09/10/2021

"The CGIL, CISL and UIL will organize a major national anti-fascist demonstration for work and democracy on Saturday 16 October in Rome". This was stated by the general secretaries of the three trade union confederations, Maurizio Landini, Luigi Sbarra and PierPaolo Bombardieri.

“The squadron assault on the national headquarters of the CGIL” said the three union leaders – “is an attack on all Italian union confederations, on the world of work and on our democracy. We ask that the neo-fascist and neo-Nazi organizations be put in a position to do no harm by legally dissolving them”.

“It is time” concluded Landini, Sbarra and Bombardieri, “to affirm and implement the principles and values of our Constitution. We, therefore, invite all citizens and the healthy and democratic forces of the country to mobilize and take to the streets next Saturday ”.

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How do we build support for COVID vaccinations?

Lisbeth Latham

As the drive to raise vaccination rates increases and concerns regarding the ability of many industries which have either been shut down or pushed remotely to be able to safely return to the workplaces, there has been increased discussion of whether and how vaccination should be made compulsory. While the events in late September on Melbourne construction sites and outside the offices of the Construction and General Division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, Maritime, and Energy Union, has been the most visible articulation of this debate it has not and will not end there. As both governments and individual employers have moved to make vaccines mandatory. In my view, much of this discussion misses the point. At best it distracts from the broader discussions that need to be had about how, in the context of COVID, we can ensure that workplaces are safe for workers and the broader public. At worst the discussion gives succour and ammunition to the bad faith and anti-working class actor in the anti-lockdown/anti-vaccination camp.

What are Vaccine mandates?
Vaccine mandates are legal requirements for people to be vaccinated to do specific activities. They should be based on medical evidence to support the requirement for vaccination to make a space safe. However, any legal requirement to be vaccinated needs to contemplate the need and make exemptions for individuals who are medically unable to be vaccinated - this accommodation does not need to mean the individual will perform the same duties, indeed there may well be a need to adjust their duties to protect them from the risk of exposure. Such medical mandates are not new, they already exist in a number of work contexts where exposure to or potential risk of transmission of specific communicable diseases are considered high.

In response to both hypothetical and concrete discussions regarding the introduction of workplace mandates, there has been a growing argument that such mandates are “heavy-handed” and remove choice from working people. The majority of these statements have come from organisations and individuals who ostensibly support and promote vaccination - although some, such as the LNP aligned “Red Unions”, which are clearly bad faith actors, and are openly hostile to vaccination and seeking to build themselves on the most likely false promise of defeating mandatory vaccination. I have concerns about direct objections to mandates, particularly on the basis of “choice”.

First, by focusing on an objection to mandates, individuals and organisations get distracted from their ostensive objective, which is supposedly maximising the number of people who are vaccinated. In doing so they tend to inadvertently lend their arguments to those opposed to vaccinations, for whatever reason they may oppose it. It is vital that those who recognise the need for mass vaccinations to promote workplace and public safety, not get distracted from supporting and facilitating people being vaccinated.

Secondly, the use of language regarding “choice” is a misnomer. Mandates don’t remove choice, they do however change the potential consequences of that choice. It means that in those parts of life, where medical advice is that vaccines are necessary, the individual in choosing not to be vaccinated is choosing not to be able to be in that space. This is no different to if individuals refuse to wear personal, protection, equipment, that choice means they cannot perform certain work. While there are differences between a vaccine and PPE, there are two things to note. The first is that many of those who defend their right to refuse vaccination, also demand the right to refuse to wear masks or follow other health advice with regard to minimising COVID transmission. The second is that refusal to follow safety requirements does not simply have potential personal impacts, it can put others at risk, this is particularly the case with COVID where there is the strong risk of not only further transmission but also the strain that transmissions have on the health care system and the ability for that system to provide other care to the community.

Thirdly, in focussing on vaccine mandates, we risk allowing employers and governments to avoid the equally important discussion about what other OHS measures need to be put in place to ensure that employers meet their obligations to provide safe workplaces. To counter this, workers and their unions need to be demanding consultation by employers not just about vaccinations, but other elimination and mitigation steps that are necessary in the workplace - these measures should not be just about direct risks of the virus, but also processes for ensuring that if there are requirements for members of the public to be vaccinated in order to interact with the workplace that the mechanisms for ensuring this is safe for workers.

Finally, many of the anti-vaccination forces are deeply cynical and willing to coopt and misrepresent arguments in order to buttress and built their position. The most obvious example of this is the cooption of the language of the reproductive rights movement as slogans of the movement. As such, it is important that we take every measure possible to ensure that any argument that we make cannot be used to argue against our objective, the vaccination of the maximum number of people possible in order to maximise public safety and health.

Instead of raising concerns regarding the potential of compulsion with regard to accessing vaccines what the movement needs to be focusing on is how we help to build public support for getting vaccinated. This is not new. Unions have a long history of build public support for health and safety campaigns - to normalise and make natural the steps necessary to keep people safe. This should be our focus. How do we, as a movement, expand the support for and the understanding of the need to be vaccinated and to continue to follow all public health measures to help reduce the transmission of COVID. In doing so we will not only make mandates irrelevant, but we will strengthen our ability to enforce safe workplaces that put health and safety before profits, and also constrain and limit the space that reactionary forces have to use the anxiety around COVID to build a movement against the interests of working people.

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Capitalist oligarchy resist new tax regulations in Argentina

Federal Administration of Public Revenue building. Buenos Aires source Wikimedia Commons

Lisbeth Latham

The publishing of the Panama Papers in 2016 and in the last week the Pandora Papers have highlighted the systematic tax avoidance by multinational companies and rich individuals. In response, there has been a growing attention on the need for nations to close loopholes in their tax codes. This is due to the decline in tax revenue meaning that only is there less money available for social services, but being used as a justification for even more drastic reductions in government spending particularly those associated with social programs. While some of this focus has been at the level of multilateral cooperation, at the same time individual governments have considerable power to close loopholes in their own tax codes loopholes which enable global tax avoidance. Since 2020, the Alberto Fernández government in Argentina has introduced a range of new tax codes which have met with vigorous opposition from capital and their representatives within Argentina’s right.

The problem of global tax avoidance
According to the State of Tax Justice 2020 report, the global loss of tax revenue globally due to tax avoidance by multinationals and rich individuals is $427 billion (USD). Of this lost revenue, $245 billion is a consequence of multinational companies shifting profits to subsidiaries in low tax havens to underreport their profits in the countries they are actually carrying out their business in. A further $182 billion in potential global tax revenue is lost as a consequence of wealthy individuals hiding undeclared assets and incomes offshore.

Much of the avoidance by multinational is aimed taking advantage of bilateral agreements to avoid “double taxation”, where governments have entered into agreements to avoid a single income stream being taxed twice - however with minimization arrangements the rich deliberately and artificially shift the income so that it appears it to have generated in the lower tax jurisdiction rather than where the actual work and income generation occurred.

While the reduction in tax revenue is unsurprisingly greatest in high-income nations $382.7 billion (2.5% of collected tax revenue), the actual impact on revenue on low-income nations is far higher $45 billion (5.8% of collected tax revenue). This disproportionate impact makes it essential that action in addressing tax minimization and avoidance is taken globally. In Latin America, according to the Tax Transparency in Latin America Report, lost revenue due to tax non-compliance was estimated at 6.1% of GDP in 2018.

Latin America also has a disproportionate level of wealth held offshore with an estimate of EUR 900 billion or 27% held offshore, compared to Asia (4%), Europe (11%) and the United States (4%).

Initial efforts at closing loopholes have occurred primarily in the global north, most particularly the EU and North America, however, there have also been important steps taken in countries of the global south, most notably South Africa and Argentina.

Argentina’s tax code changes
Argentina has had a transfer pricing system, which sets the methods and rules for pricing transactions between and within enterprises with the same ownership or control, within its tax code since 1998. Tax regulation was further updated in 2017 by the Mauricio Macri government, this was updated following the recommendations by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the G20 action plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting in response to the Panama Papers, however, these changes did not fully comply with the recommendations and the code was not seen as being sufficient to address the problem of tax minimization and reduction by either multinationals or rich individuals.

In 2020, the Argentine government, via the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP) brought in a range of new tax regulations aimed at both closing tax loopholes and creating greater transparency regarding the incomes of companies and individuals, particularly where international parties are involved. The most significant changes being contained within General Resolutions 4697, 4838, and 4879.

General Resolution 4697 creates a requirement for companies and individuals, other than trusts or foundations, to disclose ownership structures and income (including passive income) to AFIP. In addition, the resolution requires those companies and individuals encompassed by the code to disclose and report their tax arrangements.

General Resolution 4838 requires the disclosure of domestic and international tax plans of both individuals and corporations. This obligation is placed on both the “taxpayer” and “tax advisors”. The resolution includes the requirement to disclose information on assets and tax systems of an entity operating in a tax haven or other jurisdiction that would otherwise limit disclosure.

General Resolution 4879 requires the disclosure of ultimate beneficial ownership interests within trusts (which normally obscure precise ownership relationships).

Response of the ultra-rich
The changes to Argentina tax regulations have met with opposition and criticism from both accountants and sections of capital. Accountants, such as César Litvin, have raised concerns that the new regulations undermine their professional privacy as they are required to disclose their clients' tax systems which may or not be being used to minimize tax obligations within Argentina, describing the requirement to disclose client’s savings systems as a “violence” against professional confidentiality. The system does allow tax agents to claim professional confidentiality in reporting, however, the tax agents have complained that doing so will create the impression that the client has something to hide regarding their tax plans. While sections of capital have also that the minimum threshold for reporting is at the discretion of the AFIP and that disclosure of the information is required not just to AFIP but to other parties.

This has given rise to a number of legal challenges to the constitutionality of the resolutions, by accountants and tax lawyers, primarily on the basis that they argue that such changes to tax rules and reporting requirements should have required legislative changes rather than by a directive from the AFIP. However, these challenges which initially had some success in administrative courts have been rejected in a series of hearings since January.

Need for solidarity with Argentina and action by other states
While it is important that jurisdictions such as Argentina and South Africa take action to limit tax avoidance, and their efforts should be supported and applauded, it is also important to recognize that actions taken by individual state actors, particularly those with relatively smaller economies will not only be insufficient to challenge the problem of global avoidance, but it is also likely to result in significant divestment in these jurisdictions outside of investment in extractive industries. This is because capital, if given the opportunity, will seek to punish jurisdictions that tax them by investing and focusing investment on jurisdictions that are more “business-friendly”, with the exception of those industries where there are fewer options regarding the location of investment, as part of the global race to the bottom in terms of taxation as in other industries. For this reason, it is essential that other jurisdictions, particularly those in the global north not only seek to place serious limits on tax avoidance in their own jurisdictions but support efforts by the global south to extract taxes from multinational companies. An important phase in expanding this response will be the next round of the Punta del Este Declaration on Transparency, a Latin American multilateral initiative aimed at increased international tax cooperation, which Argentina is chairing in 2021, its next reporting meeting is in November.

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This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

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