After two years heading Graz city hall, Communist Elke Kahr was recently named the world’s best mayor. Now, her Communist Party is hoping to win power in Salzburg and show that Austria isn’t doomed to turn to the far right.

B | arely five years ago, the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) found itself mired in a crisis with no end in sight. Things had started to go wrong in May 2019, when the press obtained hidden-camera footage of FPÖ chairman and federal vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache apparently drunk and high on cocaine during a vacation in Ibiza. He was shown promising political favors to a Russian heiress (actually an actress involved in a sting operation) if she bought Austria’s biggest tabloid and turned it into a mouthpiece for his party. Within twenty-four hours of the video being released, it had brought down the federal government — a coalition between the FPÖ and the center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) — and forced Strache’s resignation from all political functions. Now lacking its star, the FPÖ was exposed as at least as corrupt as the “establishment” it loves to criticize — and that fall, it lost almost 10 percentage points in a snap national election. In ensuing months, the far-right party suffered yet more electoral defeats on the state level and descended into infighting.

One pandemic and one massive inflationary wave later, the FPÖ’s self-inflicted crisis feels like ancient history. In 2024, Salzburg (population 155,000) and Innsbruck (population 130,000), Austria’s fourth- and fifth-largest cities respectively, are set to hold elections, as are the states of Styria (population 1.25 million) and Vorarlberg (population 400,000). On top of all that, there will also be two national elections — in June for the European Union (EU) parliament, and likely in September for Austria’s national parliament. Particularly on the national level, the FPÖ’s prospects couldn’t be better as Austria heads into its mega election year.

For months, FPÖ chairman Herbert Kickl has stood atop all polls, which have only varied on how wide his margin of victory will be. Though he may lack the charisma of a Strache or a Jörg Haider, the New Right pioneer who transformed the FPÖ from a “national liberal” to an ethnonationalist party back in the 1980s, Kickl’s party currently hovers around 30 percent nationally. In contrast, the ÖVP and the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) struggle to break out of the low 20s, while the left-liberal Greens and the libertarian NEOS sit at about 10 percent.

read more: https://jacobin.com/2024/02/austria-communists-elections-far-right/

new balkanization news, come get your civil war slop

The Utah bill, introduced as the “Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act,” was signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox on January 31.

“The Legislature may, by concurrent resolution, prohibit a government officer from enforcing or assisting in the enforcement of a federal directive within the state if the Legislature determines the federal directive violates the principles of state sovereignty,” the law states.

With the bill, Utah joins a long-standing small-c conservative push to promote states’ rights, particularly when the federal government is controlled by the opposing party. It’s a debate going back to the original founders of the US Constitution, through the “Nullification Crisis” of 1832-33, when South Carolina tried to avoid paying federal tariffs, and into the Southern states’ attempts to avoid racial integration in schools in the 1950s.

Most recently, Texas and the US have been in a legal battle over security at the US-Mexico border, historically under the federal government’s control. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the federal government, but the tight vote suggested the principles of the Supremacy Clause “might be in a degree of flux,” according to CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck.

Utah Sen. Scott Sandall, who sponsored the Sovereignty Act, said he hoped the bill spreads to other states.

This is an unusual approach given how the campaign has gone so far. Why?

Image is of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and the fastest sinking city in the world. A new capital is being built elsewhere in Indonesia.

I was going to make Indonesia the COTW anyway (unless something really massive happened somewhere else) due to the elections that might really designate the end of an era in Indonesian politics. Michael Roberts wrote up a big piece on Indonesia about a week ago, one day before the election began, so a lot of this information is coming from him.

Indonesia has been ruled by President Joko Widodo for 10 years, but is now barred from a third term constitutionally. Under his presidency, the Indonesian economy has seen fairly good GDP growth overall - about 5% per year, or an average of 4% per capita - and is broadly popular with the electorate. The biggest problems are the common ones, such as a lack of jobs and a high cost of living. Widodo's successors have naturally promised more jobs and an economic plan that clearly draws at least some inspiration from China's rise from the periphery to the heights of the world economy and manufacturing, but this seems pretty unlikely for Indonesia because, well, Indonesia is ruled by capitalist bourgeoisie parties and China is not. Indonesia's main gigs are palm oil, nickel ore, and oil, with internal manufacturing of these primary commodities only slowly growing and reliant on foreign labour.

Indonesia has a rather big employment problem. On the face of it, things don't seem bad, with an unemployment rate of only 5% - but this is only because it counts anybody who works even a couple hours per week. 60% of the workers in Indonesia are in the informal sector, with no real labour rights, sick pay, or guaranteed wages. And half of the ~8 million unemployed are young people. Indonesia is the sixth most unequal country on the planet, with at least 36% of the population in poverty, and the four richest men own as much as the bottom 100 million. This was a natural consequence of the policies of the dictator Suharto, who came to power in a coup overthrowing the communist nationalist leader Sukarno and killing one million communists, a period covered by Bevin's The Jakarta Method. At a fundamental level, not that much has changed since Suharto, and the country seems doomed to a path of slowing economic growth and massive amounts of environmental degradation under a plundering elite who will presumably fly off to New Zealand with the rest of them once the seas swallow the country, unless a communist movement can be rebuilt from ashes and can learn the lessons of 1965-66.

Though results have yet to be officially announced, it seems that 72-year-old Prabowo Subianto is overwhelmingly likely to have handily won the election. Once banned from the United States for human rights violations - a truly phenomenal feat - he has been the Minister of Defense since 2019, was an army lieutenant under Suharto and was his son-in-law. While this is obviously a particularly bad outcome, none of the other candidates seemed likely to fundamentally alter the trajectory of Indonesia, so the game was rigged from the start.

The Country of the Week is Indonesia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

The bulletins site is here!
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Last week's thread is here.

‘Man I just want a dishwasher job’: Why are Olive Garden and FedEx forcing job applicants to endure a strange personality test that turns them into blue avatars? Employers complain of a worker shortage, but would-be hires see a long and arduous screening process. BY CHLOE BERGER

Imagine having to take a shitty astrology test just to get a job cleaning the bathroom

Step aside, Na’vi version of Sigourney Weaver: A new blue avatar is becoming famous. If you apply to one of several large corporations today, you might see a blue guy that looks like the Walmart version of Disney’s wide-eyed style of animation. No, it’s not a company mascot; it’s actually part of your evaluation.

The blue avatars are part of a long and confusing personality quiz in the hiring process at a handful of big companies. Many applicants find their presence not only bizarre, but also a bit insulting.

You don't fucking say.

The blue people are courtesy of Paradox.ai, which boasts several billion-dollar companies as clients, including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Citizens, and more. It’s worth noting that not all of the clients of Paradox.ai use the personality test feature, as different spokespeople from Citizens, 3M, and CVS Health all confirm. Still, many have taken to social media to express their confusion as to why this extra hoop—a long, bizarre personality test—is being placed in front of applicants considering many of these same companies claim to suffer a staffing shortage.

McDonald's is also BDSing itself by making it impossible to hire workers and jacking up prices so nobody would want to eat there.

“Getting a dishwashing job at Olive Garden now requires a personality test from an AI company where you respond to more than 60 slides featuring a blue alien called Ash,” tweets Emanual Maiberg, who first reported on said quiz in a larger piece for 404 Media.

More like ass

Already strung out and cynical about the state of work, employees and job applicants found these types of assessments to be the final nail in the coffin. Although economists maintain that we’re in a tight job market, the hunt is longer and trickier than it used to be in part because of extraneous quizzes and interviews. Just last year, the average time it took to hire an employee reached a record high of 44 days, per Josh Bersin Company and AMS.

Who could imagine making people hop through endless flaming hoops like circus animals would make them not motivated to bother trying.

“Companies are quick to fire and then are very slow to hire,” says Dan Schawbel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence, comparing the current situation to the job market coming out of the 2008 recession.

But you're expected to have blind zealous loyalty to your corporate overlords as they spit in your mouth and call that your wage

The long, winding, blue road to an Olive Garden job

Let’s say you decide to apply for a job at Olive Garden. One of the first things you’ll see is an A.I. chatbot named Olivia (named after, and using the likeness of, the Paradox’s founder’s fiancée).

Fucking cringe

After answering a couple of screening questions, you’ll get a pop-up for the personality assessment, illustrated with weird blue humanoids. The personality quiz itself will tell you there’s “not one right answer,” but to look at the picture and either click “me” or “not me” if the depiction of the blue avatar describes how you might act, or feel. You’ll see a bunch of slides like this, featuring the blue avatars in situations like grabbing pizza before others partake, or engaging in artistic endeavors. The process culminates with the AI system telling you your Big 5 personality traits. Many have commented on Maiberg’s tweet to discuss how dystopian these tests feel. Some suggest not being honest on the tests, as answers can be used against you.

Those some are fucking right. Always work in your best interests. Your bosses won't.

Part of the whole process is seeing if you’ll be a willing cog in the machine or rage against it. Companies often shirk applicants that aren’t personality fits “because they don’t want this person that they’re hiring to shake things up. They really want someone to fall in line with the status quo,” says Schawbel.

But nobody wants to work

Dr. Heather Myers, chief IO psychologist at Traitify by Paradox (the official name of the personality test), tells Fortune the personality test can be done in under two minutes, claiming the competition rates for their tests are “significantly higher” than other assessments and that turnover has decreased by up to 25% for Paradox’s clients. Myers says Paradox’s goal is to “simplify the hiring process and remove friction for job applicants,” and that while it’s not meant to eliminate a company’s human decision-making process, automation can help neutralize dead ends and create a more efficient job system.

Fuck you, Heather.

But in attempting to alleviate employers’ frustration, Paradox is stirring employee frustration—it’s a bit of a paradox, if you will. The test is a way to filter out applicants, according to Schawbel. Adding that it’s a way of seeing who really wants the gig by “put[ting] individuals through the gauntlet,” he explains it “weeds out a lot of people.”

Not a fucking paradox, dipshit. A contradiction between classes.

“Paradox was created entirely because we were frustrated by the experience of finding and getting jobs, too,” Adam Godson, Paradox’s president and chief product officer says. “So, we fully appreciate the job seeker perspective.” He added that there’s been too much friction and obstacles in the hiring process at many companies, and that Traitify is a way to take out those obstacles and conflict.

What the fuck would a corporate mongrel know about the frustration of finding work?

But if one side of the relationship is this irritated, obviously something is wrong. “The goal is, how do we make the entire hiring process good for employers and employees,” says Schawbel. “And if it’s only good for one party, then it’s a broken matchmaking system, or broken hiring system.” He adds that a long process creates more frustration, as burnt out employees are overburdened while they wait for help.

WORKING AS INTENDED FOR THE CAPITALIST CLASS

Worker shortage or picky employers?

Fuck I wonder what it is

Despite Paradox’s asserted intentions, the personality tests seem to have struck a chord with people, and not in a good way.

Good.

A prospective software engineer for FedEx went viral after posting screenshots of Paradox’s “bizarre personality test” to Reddit, voicing their frustration about “how blatantly prejudicial this type of thing is.” The applicant said they withdrew their application, having felt unrepresented by the results and areas of the test saying they had room to grow.

Fucking loser thinks it still has room to grow instead of saying it's fucking shit.

Another user posted about the same test that Olive Garden gave them. “Man I just want a dishwasher job,” they said. Someone in the comment section asserted, “this is just my opinion, but companies cant [sic] find anyone to hire anymore because they have set their standards so stupidly high that no one seems worth while.”

BUT NOBODY WANTS TO WORK

Indeed, companies are adding these personality tests “for a reason, because they can get away with it,” says Schawbel, explaining that, even if they cry hiring shortage wolf, they are getting enough qualified applicants to want to filter some out. It means that both within the white-collar and blue collar fields, application processes are feeling increasingly long and tiring. And that doesn’t come without consequences. These candidates who have a bad experience are also more likely to be deterred from applying again to the company, to complain about it on social media, and also avoid said company for services in their personal lives, he adds, pointing to past research and studies.

Case study of Capitalists and their running dogs doing whatever the fuck they want, even when it bites them in the ass, and getting away with it #72trillion69billion420million

Over the last couple of years, companies in the retail and hospitality sectors (the sectors in which Paradox has many clients)) have complained of staffing issues. During The Great Resignation, many workers left their jobs to find opportunities with less stressful working conditions and greater pay.

Remember when these pencil-pushing dirt bags said the best way to improve your financial quality of life is by constantly job-hopping for better pay and benefits with the mindset of zero loyalty to your corporate overlords? Well now they're saying stop because they're not getting their treats on time.

But the companies complaining it’s hard to hire and retain right now aren’t making applicants’ lives any easier as they deliver a slew of questions, quizzes, and interviews for jobs that don’t even offer competitive wages. Interview processes have gotten longer in general, according to experts from CNBC Make It. As for the hiring managers, “maybe they’re being too picky. But they don’t think they are,” Schawbel says.

It’s just part of the process, if you ask Olive Garden. “This is one of many ways our restaurant leaders assess candidates to ensure they have the right people in the right roles — which sets our team members up for success and provides great guest experiences,” a spokesperson for Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, said in a statement to Fortune.

If you left out the fact that this is Olive fucking garden, this shit would make it sound like they're hiring white-glove technicians to fine-tune fucking chernobyl.

Still, tired job applicants are understandably feeling a bit bristled by having to take the time to pretend to want to work somewhere. “Just in case you’re wondering, it’s absolute hell trying to get jobs of any kind out here, and that’s why half of America is struggling to pay rent (including me),” one person said, quote-tweeting Maiberg’s post.

"Understandably"

“I think we’re going to reach a breaking point in labor soon. employers have gone completely off the rails and people are exhausted,” a Twitter user claimed. Americans are feeling disenchanted by their jobs and staring down the barrel of a long job market, these personality tests are all enough to leave us feeling, well … blue.

Fingers crossed

A chatbot used by Air Canada hallucinated an inaccurate bereavement discount policy, and a customer who flew based on this information sued the company over being misled. The small claims court sided with the deceived customer, arguing that the chatbot was acting as an official agent of Air Canada, and that there was no reason a customer should have to double check resources from one part of the Air Canada website against different parts of the same website.

Ukraine's military says it has withdrawn its troops from Avdiivka - the key eastern town for months besieged by Russian forces.

Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said he acted "to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of service personnel".

He added that the troops were moved to "more favourable lines".

His deputy said the Russians had a huge artillery advantage, and were advancing "on the corpses of their own soldiers".

Avdiivka - a gateway to the Russian-seized city of Donetsk - has been engulfed in fierce fighting for months, and is now almost completely destroyed.

It has been a battlefield town since 2014, when Russian-backed fighters seized large swathes of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The fall of Avdiivka marks the biggest change on the more than 1,000km-long (620-mile) front line since Russian troops seized the nearby town of Bakhmut in May 2023.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

In a statement on Facebook early on Saturday, Gen Col Syrskyi said his decision was based on "the operational situation around Avdiivka".

"Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment."

Gen Syrskyi - who was only appointed as the country's top commander a few days ago - said Ukrainian troops were "taking measures to stabilise the situation and maintain our positions".

In a separate statement soon afterwards, one of his deputies said the troops had already left Avdiivka to "pre-prepared positions".

"In a situation where the enemy is advancing on the corpses of their own soldiers, with a ten-to-one shell advantage, under constant bombardment, this is the only correct solution," Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi added.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby had earlier warned that Avdiivka was "at risk of falling into Russian control".

He said this was largely "because the Ukrainian forces on the ground are running out of artillery ammunition".

"Russia is sending wave after wave of conscript forces to attack Ukrainian positions," he said.

"And because Congress has yet to pass the supplemental bill, we have not been able to provide Ukraine with the artillery shells that they desperately need to disrupt these Russian assaults."

Earlier this week, the US Senate approved a $95bn (£75bn) foreign aid package - including $60bn for Ukraine - after months of political wrangling, but it faces an uphill battle in the House of Representatives.

Ukraine is critically dependent on weapons supplies from the US and other Western allies to keep fighting Russia - a much bigger military force with an abundance of artillery ammunition.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Thursday that the US failure to approve continued military assistance to Ukraine was already having an impact on the battlefield.

Russian troops have been making significant gains in Avdiivka recently, threatening to encircle it.

Earlier this week some Ukrainian soldiers privately admitted the town could fall at any moment.

"We're upset," Ukrainian officer Oleksii, from Ukraine's 110th Mechanised Brigade in the Avdiivka area, told the BBC, standing beside a huge mobile artillery piece as Russian guns boomed in the distance.

"Currently we have two shells, but we have no [explosive] charges for them… so we can't fire them. As of now, we have run out of shells," said Oleksii.

The whole statement is great btw.

Ireland remains one of the only good white country. Any others you can think of?