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      in US Politics

      BioNTech chief rejects Trump claim it delayed Covid vaccine news

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      The scientist behind the BioNTech/Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has defended his company from Donald Trump’s accusation that it deliberately delayed news of its rapid progress until after the election, saying “we don’t play politics”.
      BioNTech, a German company, and the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced on Monday that their jointly developed vaccine candidate had exceeded expectations in the crucial phase 3 vaccine trials, proving 90% effective in protecting people from coronavirus infections.
      Quick guide Who in the UK will get the new Covid-19 vaccine first?
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      The UK government’s joint committee on vaccination and immunisation has published a list of groups of people who will be prioritised to receive a vaccine for Covid-19. The list is:
      1. All those 80 years of age and over and health and social care workers.
      2. All those 75 years of age and over.
      3. All those 70 years of age and over.
      4. All those 65 years of age and over.
      5. Adults under 65 years of age at high at risk of serious disease and mortality from Covid-19.
      6. Adults under 65 years of age at moderate risk of at risk of serious disease and mortality from Covid-19.
      7. All those 60 years of age and over.
      8. All those 55 years of age and over.
      9. All those 50 years of age and over.
      10. Rest of the population

      The US president criticised the timing of their press release. Trump accused the companies of holding back the good news until after the American elections “because they didn’t have the courage to do it before”.
      But BioNTech’s chief executive, Prof Uğur Şahin, told the Guardian in a wide-ranging interview he only was notified of the outcome of the interim trials on Sunday at 8pm in a call from the Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who himself had only been informed three minutes earlier by the independent monitoring board.
      “We want to develop this vaccine as quickly as possible, and we have our own system of coordinates,” Şahin said in response to Trump’s accusation. “Every day counts, and we were desperately waiting for the day of the trial results. It couldn’t come early enough.”
      “Pharmaceutical research should never be politicised. It’s a question of integrity. Withholding information would have been unethical. What’s important for us is that we are developing a vaccine and we don’t play politics.”
      Others have criticised the two companies for not holding on to their information long enough. Bourla raised eyebrows when he sold $5.6m (£4.2m) in stock as company shares soared on Monday night.
      Pfizer says the shares were sold via an automated system after they hit a certain price, under a plan set up in August. More

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      in UK Politics

      UK firms fear for their survival as time runs out to agree non-EU trade deals

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      Time has almost run out to roll over EU trade deals with other countries that cover around £80bn of UK imports and exports, leaving businesses guessing as to where they will stand when the Brexit transition period ends on 1 January.Companies that trade with Canada, Mexico, Turkey and Singapore, among others, face quotas and higher tariffs that may make products more expensive for consumers and make UK exports less competitive.Some company directors fear that their businesses will not be able to absorb the extra costs.‘It might be too late for us’Best Textile, based in Liverpool, imports towels, bathrobes, blankets and bedding sets, T-shirts, hoodies and socks, among other products from a manufacturing hub in Turkey. Many of these items will attract tariffs of 12 per cent if a deal isn’t agreed.All of Best Textile’s imports into the UK are made bespoke to order and managing director Ugur Inanc worries that the business may not be viable unless current zero-tariff access continues.“Unfortunately, we don’t have information about post-Brexit trade terms which puts us in difficult situation,” he says.
      “From the beginning of the production to delivery into the UK takes six weeks. If new customs tariffs are added during this period, we cannot ask to our customers to cover it.  “We will have to pay any extra cost that didn’t exist at the beginning of our agreements with our customers. Even when we try to explain our current situation to customers, a new trade agreement with Turkey may cause a problem.“We expect the UK government to continue the current trade deal with Turkey, but it is only our expectation, and this is best scenario for us.  “If a new trade deal means tariffs are introduced, we need to find the solution to save our business. We must be informed about post-Brexit deals in advance otherwise it might be too late for us.”‘It’s a critical period’Chris Gaunt chairs the British Chamber of Commerce in Turkey, having worked in the country for almost two decades. He is hopeful that a last-minute deal with the EU will be done. That would mean trade relations with Turkey remain the same. If a deal isn’t done, bilateral negotiations with Turkey cannot start until the transition period is over.“It is a critical period just now to get an agreement in place,” says Gaunt.“No deal would mean tariffs. It would then be for Turkish exporters to look at how they deal with that with their customers in the UK. It’s not going to be a straightforward acceptance of higher costs by UK companies.An average 12 per cent tariff on textiles, for example, is “not insurmountable” he says, but it’s still, going to increase the cost of Turkish goods entering the UK.
      He points to other aspects that may mitigate some of the damage.“The increase in tariffs would not necessarily be a major deal breaker in my opinion. There are savings in reduced transports costs and lead times, for example.“We are also seeing some interest from companies looking at moving their supply chains from southeast Asia to closer to the UK, and Turkey is a country that could satisfy that. That may be another attraction.”But he hopes a long history of trade between the two nations, and a willingness on both sides to do a deal, will count for something. If there’s no deal with the EU, he envisages a bilateral agreement being signed in around six months.“We are second oldest British chamber of commerce overseas, established in 1887. That says a lot about the trading relationship going back to Ottoman times.“We’re planning for what we expect, and we expect the UK to do a last-minute deal with the EU. That’s in everybody’s interests and that would put everyone at ease.”Some businesses will be ‘really badly hit’David Pearson heads up the international trade team for the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce. Part of the chamber’s work is to act as a customs broker, processing paperwork that will be required on imports after the transition period ends.He fears that, while some firms are prepared and others are belatedly understanding the requirements they will face, others may be in for a shock.
      “The continuity agreements may only cover about 6 per cent of our exports, but equally that’s about £40bn.
      “We can’t treat every business the same. There are some that will be really badly hit if these deals are not in place.
      “If you’re a business that exports several million pounds to countries such as Canada, Turkey and, to a lesser extent Mexico, it makes a big difference to you.“It would be great if we could get them finalised. If they’re not, we want the government to be honest and say ‘we’re not going to get these deals done in time, therefore this will be the impact on your business’.“I suspect that’s not going to happen. They will keep everyone on tenterhooks right until the last minute and then say they’ve not managed it.”
      “Businesses are starting to come round to what they need to do on 1 January. A free trade agreement, which is what the UK is aiming for, will not affect the need to have a customs declaration at the border. There is a misconception there among some firms.
      “It’s not an insignificant burden.” More

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      in Elections

      How can Joe Biden deal with Donald Trump's obstruction in transition?

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      The president-elect can learn from Franklin D Roosevelt’s response to Herbert HooverPresidential transitions are never easy, especially when they involve an incumbent president defeated at the polls. But this time the transition occurs in the midst of an unprecedented crisis. The incumbent refuses to acknowledge the vote as a rejection of his policies and has a visceral dislike for the president-elect, who he accuses of dishonesty and dismisses as too frail to assume the duties of office. He tars his successor as a socialist, an advocate of policies that will put the country on the road to ruin.The year was 1932, and the transition from Herbert Hoover to Franklin D Roosevelt occurred in the midst of an unparalleled economic depression and banking crisis. The outgoing president, Hoover, had an intense aversion to his successor, whose incapacity of concern was not any lack of mental acuity, but rather Roosevelt’s partial paralysis. He called FDR a “chameleon on plaid” and accused him of dealing “from the bottom of the deck”. In his campaign and subsequently, Hoover insinuated that FDR’s socialistic tendencies would put the country on a “march to Moscow”. Continue reading… More

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      in Elections

      ‘The risks are now off the table’: Wall Street looks forward to Biden presidency

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      Wall Street is supposed to hate uncertainty but as the fight over the presidential contest continues, investors couldn’t be happier.
      If, as appears likely, Joe Biden wins, he will become the first president since George HW Bush to enter office without control of both the House and Senate – an outcome that indicates at least two years of legislative gridlock.
      It’s a scenario Wall Street appears to love. One that may give Republicans in the Senate little incentive to enact a new, larger coronavirus stimulus package that Democrats have hoped for and the power to block tax increases, big spending programs and tougher regulations.
      Stocks jumped again on Thursday, the first time since 1982 that the Dow and S&P 500 rose at least 1% on four straight sessions, giving the stock indices their biggest weekly gains since April, with the Dow up 7.1% week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq up 7.4% and 9% in the week to date.
      Oliver Jones, senior markets economist at Capital Economics, told the Guardian: “There’s definitely some relief that things like tougher tax policy, tougher corporate reforms look to be off the table without Democrats having more control over Congress.
      “Essentially, it’s going to look more like a continuation of the status quo, which is the outcome favoured by most firms,” Jones added.
      Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network, attributed some of the gains to the election’s smooth running and, notwithstanding legal challenges, the likelihood of an imminent outcome.
      Looking forward, McMillan told the Guardian, markets were encouraged by prospects that a Biden administration’s more progressive, high spending proposals are less likely to get through a politically split legislature.
      “Biden’s economic plan included substantial new corporate taxes and capital gains taxes, all of which would have been very disruptive to the market,” McMillan said. “The risks from a blue wave and a Green New Deal are now off the table.”
      Wharton professor of finance Jeremy Siegel also welcomed the result, even as the final outcome of the presidential election remained unresolved. “Truthfully that combination is excellent for the economy and it’s excellent for the markets,” Siegel told CNBC on Wednesday
      Market enthusiasm for a split government has historical roots going back decades. In 2018, after voters handed control of the lower chamber to Democrats in the midterm elections, markets soared.
      “The better-performing periods are periods where the houses were split in terms of leadership,” financial adviser Mellody Hobson noted at the time.
      Since Tuesday, markets have also been buoyed by the prospect of government infrastructure spending that could also pump billions of taxpayer dollars into an overhaul of the nation’s energy and transportation systems.
      For big tech, which is facing antitrust investigations under the Trump administration, the political scenario could also be rosy. Ahead of the election, FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) stocks, in particular, showed jitters after months of impressive pandemic gains.
      “The Street appears to have gotten the ‘Goldilocks election outcome’ for tech stocks with no ‘blue wave’ expected (Senate staying red) and a likely Biden White House now on the horizon,” said Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities in an investors note on Thursday.
      “With the Republicans likely to control the Senate, the chances of major legislative changes to antitrust law now is off the table in the eyes of investors which posed the biggest risks to tech stalwarts with a ripple impact across the sector,” Ives added.
      Ives said the likely election outcome was a “green light to buy tech stocks” and predicted that big tech stocks could rally another 10% to 15% into year-end. “We continue to be bullish on owning the secular growth stories for 2021,” he wrote. More

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      in US Politics

      Markets plunge in uncertainty about a second term and a second wave

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      Stock market investors are braced for a bumpy ride this week as the likelihood of further dramatic increases in Covid-19 cases across the world collide with the final days of the US presidential election campaign.
      Last week, shares in the US and Europe slumped at their fastest rate since March and analysts said there would be worse to come, after France and Germany imposed strict lockdowns and US states came under pressure to tackle the rising number of deaths.
      “New lockdowns across Europe are being harshly repriced by markets,” said Barclays equity strategist Emmanuel Cau.
      “There is a huge nervousness about a second wave,” added Gabriel Sterne, head of global macro research at consultancy Oxford Economics. “With some government finances beginning to be stretched, the threat of further lockdowns is causing a large degree of anxiety.”
      Heightened levels of concern about the path of the virus began to affect markets three weeks ago. From New York to Paris, London and Tokyo, investors sold heavily from 13 October onwards as each day brought news of higher infection rates and growing numbers of deaths.
      Stricter measures to limit households mingling began to take effect and government ministers of all political stripes began to talk about broader lockdowns being the only answer to the spread of the virus.
      FTSE 100
      The Paris CAC index lost more than 400 points, or 8%, from 13 October to the end of last week while London’s top 100 listed companies slumped 7.5% over the same period. Last week, the Stoxx 600 index of European companies slumped to its lowest level in five months, falling 3.1% in a day.
      In the US, a downturn in stock values that began in September with a panic over the virus turned into a rout after it became clear Congress would not give Donald Trump the stimulus package he craved.
      Without a second trillion-dollar tranche of cash to support closed businesses and millions of unemployed workers, the president’s boast that the recovery was “looking fantastic” lacked substance. The S&P 500 lost more than 8% in the 16 days that followed 13 October.
      It wasn’t the first time this year that fears of a Covid-19 second wave had spooked markets, but the rallies that turned the previous panics into mere blips on a chart appear to be absent this time. Investors have stopped listening to hopeful stories about a vaccine and begun looking at the ripple effect that flows from the widespread adoption of masks and physical distancing.
      As Dhaval Joshi, chief European strategist at BCA Research, says, consumers who cannot use their nose or mouth in close proximity to others are hardly consumers at all.
      He estimates that while lockdowns put a temporary block on economic activity, the face mask and distancing rules will cut as much as 10% off GDP for as long as they are imposed.Stocks in the three hardest-hit sectors – hospitality, retail, and transport – have taken a beating since March.
      Stoxx 600
      However, investors who have switched to the tech industry have shrugged off concerns about the virus. The major tech companies – Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (the owner of Google), Microsoft and Facebook – were behind the 50% increase in the S&P 500 since Trump took the presidency and have generally benefited from the switch to a more digital economy since the lockdowns in March. If US stocks are to recover their momentum, tech will have to perform.
      In the UK, where the FTSE 100 is dominated by banking, insurance and oil and gas companies, share prices have barely recovered after dipping to 5,000 points in March. Across Europe, successful industrial giants such as Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Siemens have been hit as a six-month recovery in their share prices took a negative turn.
      Donald Trump’s attack lines in the closing weeks of the US presidential campaign have also highlighted the potential downside for investors of a victory for Democratic candidate Joe Biden on 3 November. Desperate to land some punches on his rival, the president has tweeted more than once: “A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for the biggest TAX HIKE in history.”
      So far the claim, which even rightwing US thinktanks say overstates the magnitude of his tax proposals, has failed to shift the polls and they continue to suggest a Biden victory. But distrust of the polls and Trump’s veiled threats to challenge the validity of a narrow Biden victory have only added to stock-market jitters.
      S&P500
      One constant source of light for investors has been the actions of central banks. After a brief flirtation by the US Federal Reserve with increasing interest rates during the first years of the Trump administration, all central banks have cut borrowing costs to zero, and some, including the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan, to below zero.
      Central banks have also pumped trillions into the financial system to maintain the flow of easy credit to businesses large and small, adding to the sense that whatever Covid-19 may throw at them, companies’ borrowing costs will be negligible.
      This week the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee is expected to add another £100bn to the £745bn of “quantitative easing” – purchasing sovereign and corporate debt from financial institutions – it has already injected into the economy. The US Fed’s board will also meet this week and the signs are that the recent slump in stock values will persuade its policymakers to increase its current $7.2tn (£5.6tn) of QE.
      Last week the president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, signalled a further stimulus for the eurozone in December, while the Bank of Japan has said that its determination to print as much money as it takes to keep interest rates below zero is “unlimited”.
      Such support from the central banks will be essential as the virus continues to ravage the populations of Europe and the US. Whether it will be enough to turn the stock market back on to a more positive path is another matter. More

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      in UK Politics

      What would be the economic impact of a new national lockdown?

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      If we are – as is being briefed by Downing Street – about to enter into another tough set of national restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus ahead of Christmas what will the economic impact be?  What will be the cost of a second lockdown?
      Precise economic forecasts are always dubious, and especially so in these circumstances, when we don’t know what the restrictions would actually be or for how long they would last.
      If they involve closures of non-essential retail and hospitality the impact on those particular sectors would, of course, be devastating, as their lobby groups have been making clear. But what about the overall economic impact?The economy is estimated to have fallen by almost a quarter earlier this year during the first lockdown – easily the biggest slump in UK recorded history.There are some reasons to hope the impact of another lockdown would not be as severe as that.
      The signals from ministers are that schools and universities would not close this time. With education output accounting for around 5 per cent of GDP that should – purely on an arithmetic basis – mean a smaller loss.
      And last time the toughest restrictions were in place for two months. This time the talk is of one month of curbs.
      Some companies that have implemented new physical distancing protocols since March, such as construction firms, might be able to stay open too. But the economic impact would still undoubtedly be severe.Between April and August the economy is estimated to have recovered around two thirds of the lost activity, leaving GDP around 10 per cent below its level in February.Yet the signs are that momentum was already slowing over recent weeks.
      Some analysts were already projecting stagnation over the final quarter of 2020.  New restrictions on top must surely heighten the chances of a return to contraction – a double dip.Simon French of the stockbroker Panmure Gordon thinks there could be a hit of around 5 per cent in the final quarter.The blow to business investment from a second lockdown might be even greater than the first, threatening longer term damage to the UK’s growth potential. Furthermore, the Treasury’s support measures to prevent mass redundancies and big falls in livelihoods are starting to look increasingly inadequate. The furlough scheme ends today – and its replacement is less generous to workers, with only two thirds of wages covered rather than 80 per cent.The Treasury has still yet to increase the generosity and scope of Statutory Sick Pay, even though it’s a manifestly vital tool in fighting the disease.Business groups are, understandably, increasing pressure for enhanced support for affected firms and workers.If we are going into a second lockdown it’s not clear what justification there can be for not deploying the same levels of support as in the first one.As we know, the government’s scientific advisors on the Sage committee, were last month proposing a two week “circuit breaker” lockdown, perhaps coinciding with the October half term holiday that has just ended.Would that have been preferable for the economy? The answer is that it might well have been.Last month the Prime Minister was talking about how “a stitch in time saves nine”, meaning that restrictions now – such as the 10pm pub curfew –  would save the need for greater restrictions in future.But there’s an economic logic to this as well.Getting on top of the virus with severe measures early, the argument goes, might restrict economic activity in the short term, but would enable the economy to be opened up sooner. And a later lockdown will require a longer period of restrictions.
      This is the economic argument against delaying imposing a lockdown today – against waiting and see if the disease really is spreading as rapidly as Sage fears.In all of these calculations ministers would do well to bear in mind the growing evidence base that, when the virus is spreading rapidly, economic activity takes a hit regardless of the restrictions imposed by the government.The idea that it is solely the restrictions, rather than the virus itself, which harms the economy and livelihoods is a fallacy that really needs to be exorcised from Downing Street this Halloween. More

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      in UK Politics

      Don’t blame Chancellor’s Eat Out to Help Out for second Covid wave says epidemiologist Neil Ferguson

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      One of the Britain’s most well-known epidemiologists has said that he has not seen “convincing evidence” Rishi Sunak’s controversial meal subsidy scheme is responsible for the UK’s subsequent spike in Covid cases.The Chancellor’s Eat Out To Help Out (EOTHO) scheme offered subsidised meals in pubs and restaurants in the month of August and has been identified by some as a likely accelerant of the virus’s spread over the summer.
      But Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London said it was “probably misleading” to identify individual government policies as responsible for the second wave of cases that has hit the UK.“I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that Eat Out to Help Out made any appreciable difference to risk,” Professor Ferguson told Econ Films’ CoronaNomics show.“Undoubtedly reopening the economy, allowing people to go to restaurants and bars has contributed, as well as more general and more frequent mixing of people in society, to the growth of the epidemic we see here.”  “[But] the UK is not in a unique position. The whole of Europe is experiencing the same challenges right now so I think it’s very hard to attribute and probably misleading to attribute those risks to particular policies.”
      The debate about the wisdom of the Chancellor’s policy – which subsidised 100 million meals over the summer – is heating up.  Some researchers initially found no clear association between cases and uptake of the scheme.But a new paper last week from Thiemo Fetzer of Warwick University’s Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) used an analysis of microdata on the number of restaurant visits and subsequent infections and also local rainfall patterns to suggest EOTHO had been responsible for up to 17 per cent of new infection clusters.Professor Tim Besley of the London School of Economics, who is leading a project, under the auspices of the Royal Society, to integrate epidemiological and economic modelling to give better policy advice to ministers, who was also speaking to CoronaNomics, said the jury was still out on the impact of the Chancellor’s policy.“Certainly some of my colleagues were sceptical right from the start about the policy given the economic benefit for the increase risk, but what I haven’t seen is any convincing analysis that it was a material factor in the pick of the disease in recent weeks,” he said.
      Professor Ferguson’s team at Imperial put together a model in March which suggested the unmitigated the spread of the virus could cause 500,000 deaths in the UK. The results are credited with prompting the Government to impose the full lock down within days.Professor Ferguson stepped down from Sage, the government’s main scientific advisory group in May, after it emerged he had broken the lockdown rules himself. But he told CoronaNomics that he is still “involved in advising the UK government”. More

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      in US Politics

      Unions discussing general strike if Trump refuses to accept Biden victory

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      US unions have begun discussing the idea of a general strike if Donald Trump refuses to accept an election results showing a Joe Biden victory.
      Such a move would be unprecedented in the modern era. There has not been a general strike in the United States since 1946 – and that was restricted to Oakland, California.
      The local labor federation in Rochester, New York, was the first union group to officially support the idea. Union federations in Seattle and in western Massachusetts have followed suit, approving resolutions saying a general strike should be considered if Trump seeks to subvert the election outcome.
      Dan Maloney, president of the Rochester-Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation, said his 100,000-member group adopted the resolution to get people discussing the idea – from local unions to the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main labor federation which represents more than 12.5 million people.
      On 8 October, the Rochester federation voted to support preparing for and holding “a general strike of all working people, if necessary, to ensure a constitutionally mandated peaceful transition of power as a result of the 2020 presidential elections.”. The union leaders voted to stand “firmly in opposition to any effort to subvert, distort, misrepresent or disregard the final outcome” of the election.
      The Rochester move spurred discussion and debate of a possible general strike in union after union, even though some labor leaders see it as a drastic, hard-to-pull-off action. “The idea has gotten a lot more legs than I ever thought it would,” Maloney told the Guardian. “Our democracy is in jeopardy of a wannabe dictator. It’s time to be counted and do whatever it takes to remove him from office if he attempts to retain power against the will of the American people.”
      Maloney acknowledged that a general strike would be an extraordinary measure. “In drastic times, you need drastic measures,” he said.
      The Rochester federation’s resolution states: “The extreme risk currently posed to the historic institutions of democracy in our nation may require more widespread and vigorous resistance than at any time in recent history.”
      Maloney said that in a 22 October call with labor leaders, Richard Trumka, the AFL-CIO’s president, stressed that until 3 November, unions should overwhelmingly focus on maximizing voter turnout for Biden. After that, Trumka said, unions can focus on what to do if Trump resists a peaceful transition.
      The AFL-CIO’s executive council, approved a resolution on October 19 saying: “Democracies are not, in the last analysis, protected by judges or lawyers, reporters or publishers. The survival of democracy depends on the determination of working people to defend it. And America’s labor movement is indeed determined to defend our democratic republic.”
      [embedded content]
      Michael Podhorzer, a senior Trumka adviser, said: “We believe democracy is stronger than Trump. We are not looking for a fight. We want the election results to be respected. We’re getting ready if they’re not respected because of what he said. We believe this is a country where what voters say matters.”
      Podhorzer, who used to be the AFL-CIO’s political director, said: “The thing that is really striking is that Joe Biden and the labor movement are doing everything they can to win the election, and Donald Trump is doing everything he can to defeat the election.”
      Podhorzer added that at the moment, “a general strike is a slogan, not a strategy”.
      But for many it is an inspiring slogan. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, helped put the idea of a general strike idea into the national conversation after the federal government shut down in December 2018 because of a standoff between Trump and Congress over funding for his border wall. In a speech on 20 January 2019, Nelson called for a general strike to end the shutdown, and many people credit her call for helping get Trump to end the 35-day shutdown and relent about wall funding.
      Nelson said a general strike could definitely be useful if Trump refuses to respect the election results. “What we’ve seen is people going about our business during the day and conducting mass protests at night, and that’s not going to be enough to make this president move,” Nelson said. “He will use those protests to further divide the country. We will have to do the one thing that takes all power and control from the government or anyone with corporate interests in keeping this person in office, and that is withholding our labor.”
      Nelson said a strike to make sure Trump honors the election results will “improve our jobs” including “our job security and safety at work”. “Donald Trump remaining in office puts all of us in jeopardy,” she said. “This directly relates to our basic safety and financial security.” Nelson has repeatedly criticized Trump for doing too little to help unemployed workers and the ailing airline industry. Such a general strike, she said, would be “firmly grounded” in what’s best for workers.
      Nicole Grant, who heads MLK Labor, the Seattle-area federation of 150 local unions with nearly 200,000 members, said her group approved its resolution to spur internal discussion and planning in response to the “chaos and anxiety” she said Trump has spurred. Her federation’s resolution said we “will take whatever nonviolent actions are necessary up to and including a general strike to protect our democracy, the constitution, the law and our nation’s democratic traditions.”
      “This is a break-in-case-of-emergency kind of demand,” Grand explained. She said labor leaders hope they do not have to reach such a point, “but at the same time, when we consider the potential of a coup, that’s not something we’re going to stand for”.
      Erik Loomis, a labor historian at the University of Rhode Island and author of A History of America in Ten Strikes, said: “So much of the conversation on the left about general strikes in this country is kind of a romanticized, people are going to rise up.” But Loomis added: “If there is ever any general strike in this country, it’s probably going to come out of the established labor movement. The only group capable of running the thing is the established labor movement.” If there is a general strike, union leaders say, they hope college students, Blacks Lives Matter activists, women’s and environmental groups and many others will join in.
      Nelson acknowledged that pulling off a successful general strike might not be easy. There needs to be “a spark that lights the fire”, she said, as well as “people to lead the fight”. “Do I think the labor movement is prepared to conduct a general strike? No,” Nelson said. “Can we do it, though? Can we organize quickly? Can we define the urgency of the moment? Absolutely.” More