SLC UNIFORM FIASCO

Cricbuzz StaffLast updated on Thu, 13 Jul, 2017, 02:35 PM

Many of groundstaff were reported to have been paid only after the trousers were returned following the completion of the 5th ODI between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, leaving them stripped down to their underwear. Getty

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) on Wednesday offered cash and new clothes to temporary groundsmen, who were forced to handover their uniforms after the fifth One-Day International between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

The groundsman at Hambantota's MRI Cricket Stadium, who were daily wage workers of the region, were given uniforms to wear during the match. This practice of giving uniforms to the local workers, who are called in to put covers on the entire ground in case of a rain was started recently. But on Monday (July 10), they were asked to return their clothes before leaving the venue. Many of them were reported to have been paid only after the trousers were returned, leaving them stripped down to their underwear.

One of the groundsman, who was stripped off his trousers, told Hiru News, "They only paid us for our three days worth of work after taking our clothes."

Another one added: "They hadn't told us to come prepared with another set of clothes. They asked us to hand over the trousers, so we had no choice but to do that."

In the aftermath of the incident, SLC formally apologised to "those subjected to this ignominy".

"That was a very low thing that happened," Thilanga Sumathipala, SLC president, said. "These people come to the ground because of their love of cricket, and to do a service while watching the match. They aren't just there for the money. If rains come, they close up the whole ground within minutes, and then take the covers off again.

"They are our colleagues, not our slaves. The board didn't know anything about this. We had sent that clothing out to our provincial associations, but hadn't taken a decision to get that clothing back.

"The way they were treated is unacceptable and I have ordered that they be given a new set of clothes plus an extra day's wages. It is inhuman and slavery."

Cricbuzz

Excerpt from:

SLC offers Hambantota groundstaff cash, clothes after uniform fiasco - Cricbuzz

Photo Illustration by Elena Scotti/Lifehacker/GMG, photos via Shutterstock

The maddening paradox of child care in this country is that day care and nannies are really expensivecosting at least more than in-state college tuitionand that child-care workers are generally poor. The domestic work industry is largely unregulated, and workers are vulnerable to exploitation, a direct consequence of domestic works roots in slavery.

Ilana Berger, the director of Hand in Hand, the domestic employer network, says In the 1930s ... both domestic workers and farm workers were mostly black. So [in a nod to the Southern Congressional Delegation], they were left out of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Fast forward to today, so much exploitation happens because workers have been left out of protections, because its this shadow work force. Even when there are laws on the books, theres not a lot of enforcement.

Which means that choosing and hiring a nanny is a process more fraught with ethical considerations than, say, choosing a pediatrician or an electrician.

Besides how to find a good babysitter, one of the top questions for hiring a babysitter is how much

First, the biggest question: Is it ethical to to even participate in such an unjust system, especially if a potential employee is undocumented? Setting aside, for the moment, the question of what middle-class families would do if the answer were no, is it ethical to enter into a professional relationship when the power differential is so great?

Yes, says Randy Cohen, the host of the Person Place Thing podcast and the former author of the Ethicist column at the New York Times. There is generally a huge power differential in all employer-employee relationships ... [Particularly for undocumented workers,] its a difference of degree, not a difference in kind. And people need jobs.

Berger affirms this sentiment: The way domestic work is set up (and in most work) the employer really has all the power. Legal status is just one additional degree of vulnerability, but its pretty much on a continuum.

To better understand the responsibilities of a nannys employer, I asked Berger to break down the duties of an ethical employer. Hand in Hand advocates the fair-care pledge, a three-pronged strategy for hiring of domestic workers: fair pay, clear expectations, and paid time off.

This means, in major metropolitan areas, at least $15 an hour, according to Berger. A good thought experiment is to multiply the hourly wage by 40 and ask yourself, Can someone live on this in my area? She recommends using this living wage calculator to get an idea of a reasonable wage for an adult in your area.

When I tell her a lot of the middle-class families I know in New York say they cant afford to pay, say $20 an hour, she says, There are other optionsyou can do a nanny share, you can find a way to make it work. And skimping on the person taking care of your children is not a wise choice for your child, as well as ethically, morally, and in every other way.

In general, we want our kids to be better people than we are. We insist they eat their vegetables

And if you can pay on the books, you should: Its better for everybody. Its better for the employer, and its better for the worker because it buys them into the systemthey get social security and other benefits. Now obviously undocumented workers might not want to be paid on the books (Berger cites a workaround for the undocumentedan individual tax identification numberbut notes that workers might not be willing start that process, particularly at this political point in time). She says, In general, we say you should do what works best for you and the worker. If you need to pay on the books, you should make that clear at the start of the process.

Finally, pay on time. Dont make a worker wait for her check at the end of the week.

This is where you should be drawing up a contract that lays out duties, hours (including breaks), pay, sick leave, and vacation days. You should also include things like emergency plans, rules about guests, expectations around screen time and meals, expectations around caring for sick kids, housekeeping (like childrens laundry or dishes), reading to kids, petty cash, termination, etc. Need a sample contract? Start here.

The work agreement should be re-evaluated regularly, at least every six months. Did you think youd be home by 6 but its really more like 6:15? She needs to be paid for that extra timeor this is her opportunity to say that she needs you to be home at 6. People have a really hard grasping the fact that nannies have families too, and they might need to get somewhere to pick up their kids, says Berger.

I knew even before I had a daughter that I was going to raise her to laugh in the face of sexist

Would be it be helpful if she starts dinner on Wednesday nights? That can be built into the check-in. Does she need a break mid-day and isnt getting it because the kid dropped his nap? Perhaps the check-in relaxes some screen-time rules. Its a pressure release, says Berger. Ongoing proactive communication is really beneficial for everyone involved.

Vacation is usually decided in conjunction with the familyIve heard of some families offering vacation days when they take their own holidays, plus additional paid time off to be taken at the employees discretion. Berger notes that a common type of question among employers is We got these last-minute tickets to Costa Rica! Do we still need to pay the nanny?

Berger says Employers often says things like Shes like family! but its also an employment relationship. The Golden Rule applies: How would you want to be treated in your own workplace? When your boss goes away, expectations change, but you still get paid.

Need more information? Take a look at the employers checklist. (And as for whether you need to pay the nanny when you take an impromptu trip to Costa Rica, the answer is yes.)

After talking to Berger, I looked up the living wage calculator for where I live now, in Brooklyn, and where I grew up, in West Virginia. A single adult raising two kids in Brooklyn would have to make $37.49 an hour to make ends meet. In West Virginia, it would be $28.20. Now this wage would be impossible for most middle-class families to pay to a caregiver, and it doesnt even touch the problems of extraordinary medical expenses, college savings, or retirement savings. Which means we are, as a culture, trapped in a sick system: one in which middle-class families are stretched thin because of care costs (both child care and elder care) and domestic workers are both exploited and not able to make ends meet.

If you have a son whos the youngest or middle child, youre going to want to watch them like a

Berger is clear that her organizations (and others) guidelines are a stopgap solution to a profound problem. She says, We cant expect individual employers to close the gaping holes in our care infrastructure in this country. So we encourage our people to take part in our campaigns and work to create an affordable care system so the burden is not on individual employers, or workers, to make up for what the government is not providing. People can get involved in the National Domestic Workers Alliance or with the Sanctuary Homes campaign, both of which advocate for domestic workers rights.

Cohen echoes this sentiment: If you believe, as I do, that our current immigration policies and the current status of workers rights are really barbaric, you have an affirmative obligation to do something to address that ... Youre a citizen, and you should be doing something.

Even if, say, youre not a parent, or not hiring a nanny after alleven if youre not participating in the system? Whether you want to or not, youre participating in the system. Theres no way you can exempt yourself from the social trends of the day.

See the original post here:

How to Ethically Hire a Nanny - Lifehacker

Black Lives Matter protesters march in Seattle.

For many Americans, the countrys 241st birthday last week was an unqualified cause for celebration. For many other Americans, however, this Fourth of July was a reminder that United States policy has yet to live up to the Declaration of Independences aspirational language. When the words life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were written, in fact, many groups of people were excludedincluding enslaved black Americans.

It required our bloodiest war to banish slavery. And while we elected our first black president in 2008, and while todays Congress, though still overwhelmingly white, is more diverse than its ever been, racism persists in all our institutions. A multitude of structural barriers block pathways to economic opportunity across generations of black families, imperil many black Americans physical safety, and diminish investment in black communities and businesses.

Stubborn racial disparities jump out of the data. The unemployment rate for black workers has averaged about twice the unemployment rate for white workers for as long as weve been tracking it. Median income for black households has remained at about 60 percent of median income for White households since the late 1960s (and wage gaps are particularly wide for black women). When it comes to wealth, the difference is even larger and has grown in recent years; median white net worth today is about 13 times as high as median black wealth. Middle-class black families are significantly more likely than middle-class white families to live in high-poverty neighborhoods that suffer from a lack of investment in public goods.

Differences in educational attainment explain only a small fraction of the gaps noted above, but theyre also significant. While test score gaps by race have declined in recent decades and the gap in high school completion by race has almost disappeared, black students are still much less likely than their white peers to both enroll in and complete college. Our criminal justice system, including policing practices, disproportionately oppresses black Americans: Despite being no more likely than people of other races to use or sell drugs, for example, black Americans are arrested for marijuana possession at almost four times the rates of white Americans. Less than 15 percent of the American population is vlack, but in American prisons, black people comprise just under 40 percent of the population.

A black child born into the bottom two-fifths of the income scale is more likely than not to end up in the bottom 20 percent as an adult; similarly, 56 percent of black children born into the middle quintile end up in the bottom 40 percent when theyre older, compared to only 34 percent of middle-quintile white children.

Policies that explicitly target some of these obstacles facing black Americans, like criminal justice reforms and the restoration of voting rights, are a key part of the racial justice agenda. Proposals to help low- and middle-income people across the board are also an important way to push back on these inequalities; since black Americans suffer disproportionate economic hardship, they are disproportionately helped by policies that improve economic security. Weve written about many such proposals on these pages. Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024, for instance, would be expected to give 40 percent of black workers a raise. Expansions of safety net programs like SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, which carry long-term benefits for children in the families that receive them, would help millions of black Americans as well. Bold ideas like a federal job guarantee and Medicare For All would, if enacted and realized, substantially reduce disparities in unemployment and health outcomes by guaranteeing that every American had access to a job and health care.

Maintaining full employment conditions in the labor market is also essential for working-age black families. New research from the Federal Reserve underscores both that periods of high unemployment are particularly damaging for black employment and that persistently tight labor markets disproportionately raise black wages, employment, and incomes. In a forthcoming paper with Keith Bentele, we show that the real annual earnings of low-income, working-age black households doubled between 1994 and 2000, from about $4,600 in 1994 to about $9,600 in 2000 (2015 dollars). We estimate that two-thirds of that total earnings growth can be attributed to the tight labor market, which helped connect previously jobless or underemployed people with more work opportunities.

These findings suggest that the Federal Reserve plays a key role in shaping the condition of black lives when it decides whether to maintain full employment. Yes, the central bank must manage its dual mandate: full employment at stable prices. But especially given the low correlation between inflation and unemployment in recent decades, the Fed would do well to consider the racial impacts of its decision-making.

Still, the fact that black Americans would benefit substantially and disproportionately from the policy reforms listed above does not make them sufficient. In a widely read article from a few years ago, Ta-Nehisi Coates made a forceful case for considering reparationsthat is, some form of direct compensation to Black Americans for past injustices that reverberate across centuries and remain embedded in the many institutions noted above. Both the Black Youth Project (BYP) and Movement for Black Lives have outlined reparations proposals more recently. Recognizing that more details need to be worked out and that a reparations program may well include some of the ideas mentioned aboveas the BYP argues, reparations can take many forms, including but not limited to cash payments, land, and economic development, scholarship funds, and textbooks/other educational materials they all recommend the passage of H.R. 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, which would set up a commission to determine the most appropriate course of action. The questions before such a commission would be complicated: How exactly does one make restitution for several hundred years of injustice? What is the appropriate scope of the injustices addressed? Dont Native Americans have a strong claim to reparations as well? But they would also surely be answerable.

Though full democracy remains an elusive goal in America, the persistence of social movements striving to make the country better is also one of Americas enduring attributes. The best way to celebrate our nations birthday is to work together to bring our reality closer to the rhetoric upon which it was founded.

Tax Cuts for the rich.Deregulation for the powerful.Wage suppression for everyone else.These are the tenets of trickle-down economics, the conservatives age-old strategy for advantaging the interests of the rich and powerful over those of the middle class and poor. The articles in Trickle-Downers are devoted, first, to exposing and refuting these lies, but equally, to reminding Americans that these claims arent made because they are true. Rather, they are made because they are the most effective way elites have found to bully, confuse and intimidate middle- and working-class voters. Trickle-down claims are not real economics.They are negotiating strategies. Here at the Prospect, we hope to help you win that negotiation.

Continue reading here:

Does the Fed Think Black Lives Matter? - The American Prospect

LAHORE:A group exhibition called Next, showcasing the works of six young visual artists, is underway at the O Art Gallery and is set to continue till July 21.

Abdul Aziz, a fresh graduate of National College of Arts, says he has used his own body as a medium for his work in mix media to make impressions on paper, treated with Siah Qalam and Neem Rang.

Aziz adds that through this technique, he has achieved a tactile texture of the body with distorted forms formed in the feeling of ambiguity. I see certain elements of fear and suffering in my work and when I stand in front of it, I feel a rush of memories hitting me like waves.

Art brings Lahores Walled City to life

One of the artists, Noorul Ain, reveals she usually finds it hard to explain her artwork in limited words. It has been developed and influenced over time through innumerable interactions with nature, places and people at different stages of my life, particularly during my educational career.

I think studying and practicing arts academically has made me a keen and sensitive observer. I take inspiration from many scenarios and it comes to me from the least expected places.

Noorul Ain adds she is always on the lookout for inspiration and revelations from her own surroundings drive her artistic works. Art has influenced me personally on a very deep level. I now look at and engage with my surroundings differently.

Another artist Haya Zaidis practice involves making works which indirectly question the patriarchal nature of society. For Haya, her work is a commentary on elements such as the universal capitalistic rituals, blind conformity tied to a geographical code of conduct and superiority, selfishness and righteousness present in human nature. She says her inspirational process began by questioning everything.

I was struck by various questions on right and wrong, fair and unjust, faith and fact, personal choice and forceful enforcement, religion and control, minimum wage and modern slavery. These drove my thinking process, she said. Since then, Ive been on a quest to surprise viewers and disturb them at the same time.

Starter forum: Young and old come together for art show

On the other hand, artist Kiran Waseems work is about glimpses of long busy routes while traveling. The images portrayed in her work are often hazy, depicting the chaotic yet attractive city life. Kiran says that she took inspiration from busy lives as well as long routes and distances which are, somehow, so much more relatable.

Travelling has always been the turning point for my subject matter. Like a small moment of joy, which can only be felt and not described in words, has been my inspiration, she said. According to Kiran, her concern is to look at the personal human journey from one place to another in the form of impressions, where everything is temporary and the present does not exist.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11th, 2017.

The rest is here:

Young visual artists depict reality, nature - The Express Tribune

by Kerry Shakaboona Marshall

On Aug. 19, 2017, the city of Washington, D.C., will host a Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March to draw attention and national support to amend the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution for its ratification of modern day slavery within the U.S. prison system.

The 13th Amendment has spawned various forms of penal slavery since its ratification by the then all-white U.S. Congress, such as the convict leasing system, the chain gang labor system, the prisoner agricultural workers system and the modern day prison slave sweatshops that are euphemistically called correctional industries corporations. Today, the prison systems correctional industries corporations generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from prisoners free labor and slave-wage labor.

Arguably, the 13th Amendment is the most evil, contradictory, controversial, deceptive and despicable part of the U.S. Constitution, because the 13th Amendment runs neck-to-neck in terms of depravity with the U.S. Constitutions decree that considered Black people who were enslaved as three-fifths of a human being for purposes of increasing Southern slave holders voting power.

All arguments aside, the duplicitous double-speak of the 13th Amendment regarding the abolition of slavery in the United States of America harkens to a time when after the Indigenous peoples of this continent had been decimated by Caucasians practice of Manifest Destinys genocidal wars and pronouncements of coming in peace and war in the same breath Native peoples reached a profound truth, that the white man speaks with a forked tongue.

The 13th Amendment is a prime example frozen in time for all to see of the white man speaking with a forked tongue, of an all-white U.S. government having no intention of truly emancipating Black slaves, of their Machiavellian designs to re-enslave Black people within the U.S. prison systems under the guise of crime.

In the first clause of the 13th Amendment, the U.S. government firmly abolished chattel slavery in the U.S., whereas in the second clause, it retained and transferred chattel slavery into its prison systems as punishment for those convicted of crime.

With a stroke of the enemys pen, America went from chattel slavery to prison slavery, from mass emancipation of Black peoples to mass incarceration of Black, Brown and now poor white peoples. Brought to you by America, from the Land of the Beast and the Home of the Slave.

Let us make America know its sins against Black and Brown peoples. Lets struggle to amend the 13th Amendment and to abolish prison slavery and for-profit prisons by attending or supporting the August 19th Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March on Washington, D.C. For additional information, go to Amendthe13th.org.

From the belly of the beast, at Prison Radio, I am Shakaboona.

Thank you for listening. Learn more at Iamweubuntu.com/millions-for-prisoners-human-rights.html.

Send our brother some love and light: Kerry Shakaboona Marshall, BE-7826, SCI Rockview, P.O. Box A, Bellefonte PA 16823.

Here is the original post:

Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March coming to Washington DC Aug. 19 - San Francisco Bay View

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ceremony honors victims of Battle of Homestead Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The starting point was seen as symbolic, as the Homestead strikers included Union veterans and others who saw their past struggle against slavery as similar to that of the strikers' battle against wage slavery. The battle on July 6, 1892, was the ... Union Leaders, Historians Reflect On Significance Of 1892 Homestead Strike90.5 WESA all 3 news articles »

See the original post:

Ceremony honors victims of Battle of Homestead - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Adelaide's independent news Get InDaily in your inbox. Daily. Subscribe

Thursday July 06, 2017

It takes time and money to write a book. Mark Brandi, author ofcrime novel Wimmera, decided to find cash by taking a journey that involved risk, humiliationand getting up closeand personal with Eddie McGuire.

No one needed to know. Not my work, or my friends. Definitely not my family.

After all, it might be a disaster I could walk away with nothing. Or worse, be humiliated on national television.

Despite hopes of becoming a writer, Id found myself trapped in the drudgery of a policy job in a government department. But with a mortgage and bills to pay, staying put made sense in my head, if not my heart.

Still I wondered could I escape this life of wage-slavery and pursue my dreams? Maybe. But I needed some kind of circuit breaker, something to kick-start a new career. And if I was to write, more than anything, I needed cash.

So I find myself, on a steamy February afternoon, waiting nervously in the green room forMillionaire Hot Seat.

While my fellow contestants scope out each others quiz show expertise, I vividly imagine my impending humiliation. What if I bomb out first question, or just completely freeze? My nerves are jangling. What the hell was I thinking?

I seriously consider doing a runner. But then, I remember something.

In the darkest recesses of my backpack battered and almost two years out-of-date an old packet of Xanax. The stuff never agreed with me, but desperate times

Before I know it, were on set and each waiting our turn in theHot Seat. The studio lights are blinding and the audience are going nuts; and theres Eddie sharp-suit and make-up like a rat with a gold tooth.

The pills (four within an hour) start hitting me hard.I feel myself drifting outside my body, away from the set, as though watching the whole thing unfold from somewhere in the audience.

Paul, a former AFL footballer, is up and nails the first question before passing. Jim, a video store employee, answers a few before bombing out.

Then comes Kathy.

Kathys the battler with a back-story. She works at Bunnings and keeps greyhounds. And shes from Frankston. Eddies eyes light up.

Despite not knowing the answers, she guesses three and seems destined for the remaining $100,000. Eddie is delighted, the crowd is loving it, and I feel like I might throw up.

But then, it happens.

Kathy falls short, just one question shy of the cash. She trudges off stage and Eddie hides his disappointment ever the pro, the thousand-watt grin shines right through.

Well be right back and Mark Brandi will have one question for the cash onMillionaire Hot Seat!

My turn. One question. $50,000.

I am thrust, with one almighty thump, back to reality. My breathing is rapid and my heart beats up inside my throat.

Its time.

The source of comic-book superhero Green Lanterns special abilities is his power what?

A: Belt

B: Ring

C: Key

D: Watch.

I talk through the answers out loud, my voice distant to my own ears. The Green Lantern? I can almost picture him

Ten seconds, Eddie says.

I read comics as a kid, but more UK than USA. More dystopia than Marvel.

Five seconds

Then, in my minds eye, it appears. I dont know if its a false memory or the benzos or what. But I see my hand reaching inside a cheap carnival show-bag from my childhood, right down in the corner a small, green, plastic ring.

Ill go with B, I say.

Final answer?

Lock it in.

Eddies eyes sparkle somewhere between charisma and malevolence Im sure Ive blown it.

But then, he says it.

Mark. Youve just wonfifty thousand dollars!

The audience erupts. Fellow contestants shake my hand. Even some of the crew manage a smile.

As the lights fade and we walk from the set, Eddie pulls me aside.

Well done mate. Fifty grand! Tax-free! You know how long it would take to save that?

We pose for a photo at either end of a novelty cheque.

You won it though, he says. Its yours.

Then, quietly, some sage advice from the boy from Broady.

Dont let anyone get their claws into it, right?

He neednt have worried I had firm plans for the cash. Soon, I changed to part-time hours and tested the waters: the writing life felt good more than that, it felt right. The money gave me time and space to complete early drafts of my novel,Wimmera, while still keeping the wolf from the door.

Publishing is a tough industry for a first-time novelist to break through, all the stars need to align. In my case, one of those stars was a celebrity of debatable talent, but undoubted tenacity a quality also vital to any aspiring author.

So I will always feel a peculiar debt to Eddie McGuire perhaps the worlds most unknowing (and unlikely) literary benefactor.

Wimmera,acrime novel aboutsmall town with a big secret,wasthe winner of the 2016 UK Crime WritersAssociation Debut Dagger for an unpublished manuscript and is now published by Hachette Australia. Brandiwas born in Italy but grew up in rural Victoria and is a former policy advisor for the VictorianDepartment of Justice.

This article was first published on The Daily Review.

Loading next article

Read the original post:

Mark Brandi: Why I'll always feel a debt to Eddie McGuire - InDaily

July 5, 2017 by Charlotte Anscombe Credit: University of Nottingham

The sight of people cleaning cars in disused petrol stations and by the side of the road is now a common scene in towns and cities across the country, but have you ever stopped and thought about whether the person polishing your car is being treated fairly?

Up and down the country 'cheap' car washes are being exposed as 'hives' of modern slavery. Employees are being poorly paid, are being provided with little or no protective equipment and are made to work long hours without breaks.

The UK government estimates that there are 13,000 slaves in the UK. Globally, there are 46 million slaves alive today. However, government agencies, such as the police, face barriers to the identification and prosecution of perpetrators.

However, government agencies, such as the police, are faced with barriers which can impact on how easily they can identify and prosecute the perpetrators.

"Although they might not be aware of it, people are faced with modern slavery in their everyday lives," said Dr Alexander Trautrims, an expert in supply chain management at Nottingham University Business School and the lead on the Unchained Supply, a Rights Lab project.

"The signs of labour exploitation are often hidden, and are often seen as somebody just being in a bad job, making it hard for the general public and law enforcement to identify victims.

"Whilst companies have to disclose certain information and data on their business activities, their performance and the impact they have on society, it is difficult to see whether the information they provide is always accurate."

With this in mind, Dr Trautrims and Dr Thomas Chesney, also from the Rights Lab, have developed a new computer programme which will enable government agencies to uncover businesses that are using slave labour without them ever having to step foot on the company premises.

The team of experts have created a tool which can help to verify if the data being provided by a company is accurate. To make this even easier, the programme enables interested parties, such as the police, to make these decisions, merely by observing the company's activities.

"By using this programme, we aim to scrutinise businesses or organisations by using data that is publically available, so that outsiders who have no access to company accounts can use proxies and assumptions around the business that allows them to see what is taking place within the company itself," said Dr Trautrims.

As the number of cheap car washes using modern day slaves is on the increase, the team felt that a good pilot for the programme would be a business such as this in Nottingham, to illustrate how it may be violating UK minimum wage regulations.

Dr Chesney says: "What we want from this programme is to be able to look and observe what is going on within a business and to create a model which captures the realistic behaviour behind it."

From an external perspective, Dr Trautrims and his team were able to count how many cars were being cleaned by the car wash in an hour. Using the charges per car displayed by the car wash, they were then able to calculate how much the company was making on average a day. They are also able to see how many workers are based at the business, and over the space of a month, the computer programme can use this data to determine the amount of profit the company is making.

As well as the data that the team can collect by observing the car wash, they also used Google traffic datawhich is publically available, and means that they don't have to sit and count the number of cars going past.

"Whilst a car wash is relatively open and easy to observe, a lot of businesses will be behind walls, so you can't see what is going on," says Dr Trautrims.

"There are ways around this though as what we can see, is what is going in to the building, and what is coming outlike with the Google traffic data. So for example, in a factory you can see how many vans are going in and coming out. You can then make assumptions which allow you to come up with a robust statement saying that whatever they are claiming to be doing in therecannot be true. We can prove it from our external observations, without having to raid a business or go into it.

"You could, for example scrutinise the costs the company is claiming to the tax office for personal protection equipment and then the size of the car park, and you could make the assumption that there isn't enough protection for the people who work there. Or you could do it the other way around and say that maybe there are more workers in there than you say there areand why aren't they being accounted for?"

Dr Chesney adds: "We are not saying that all car washes are illegitimate, but we want to put a system in place which can help law enforcement agencies to uncover the ones who ARE breaking the law.

"We are now looking at a whole range of applications where this programme could be used. For example- we're reviewing harvesting fields in Spain.

"We can easily see how many workers there are and how many oranges are coming out. If you are using slaves then that means you have workers that are not accounted for in any of your records. So you could have a farmer who sells a certain amount of cabbage and declares a profitbut then they are only declaring a certain number of workers in the fields who couldn't possibly have achieved the amount of harvested produce.

"Our aim is to create a monitoring system to assist law enforcement agencies and to help expose those who aren't treating their employees in the right way."

Detective Superintendent Austin Fuller, of Nottinghamshire Police said: "We are really excited about piloting this new programme. We worked closely with Dr Trautrims and Dr Chesney to help develop it and have high hopes about what it can achieve. We're really stepping up a gear now to combat this horrific abuse and exploring all avenues to prevent it from happening in Nottinghamshire. We continue to urge people to look out for the signs of modern slavery and report any suspicions as soon as possible."

Explore further: Research suggests Brexit likely to increase modern slavery in the UK

Theresa May's historic signing of Article 50 looks set to be her lasting legacy as Prime Minister. Unfortunately, it is also likely to derail her other signature policy on modern slavery. Our research suggests Brexit could ...

What images does the word "slavery" conjure up in your mind? Men in iron collars shipped from Africa on huge wooden galleons, forced to work the fields under the whip of the master? Perhaps you think that slavery is an old ...

A powerful new partnership to super-charge global research on modern slavery and human trafficking has been announced by the University of Nottingham and the Walk Free Foundation.

A new report launched today (Wednesday, 1 March) by the University's Centre for the Study of International Slavery (CSIS) assesses an innovative solution to the problem of long-term care for survivors of modern slavery in ...

The U.S. Labor Department is trying to bar Google from doing business with the federal government unless the internet company turns over confidential information about thousands of its employees.

In October 2012, as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the densely populated U.S. East Coast, the state of New Jersey needed information fast. State planners and emergency managers turned to U.S. Census Bureau data about the people ...

America's generation gap is surfacing in a surprising statistic: rates of extramarital sex.

Ancient mitochondrial DNA from the femur of an archaic European hominin is helping to resolve the complicated relationship between modern humans and Neanderthals. The genetic data recovered by the research team, led by scientists ...

Little is known about the origin and early evolution of the Notosuchia, hitherto unknown in the Jurassic period. New research on fossils from Madagascar, published in the peer-reviewed journal PeerJ by Italian and French ...

Using lists of names collected from publicly available websites, two University of Chicago researchers have revealed distinctive patterns in higher education systems, ranging from ethnic representation and gender imbalance ...

Archaeologists from the universities of Leicester and Southampton have found a striking and apparently unique square monument beneath the world-famous Avebury stone circle in Wiltshire.

An exceptionally-preserved fossil from the Alps in eastern Switzerland has revealed the best look so far at an armoured reptile from the Middle Triassic named Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi. The fossil is extremely rare in that ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

Read the original:

Researchers developing monitoring system to expose modern slavery - Phys.Org

By Leith van Onselen

The Turnbull Government announced on Monday that it would expand its controversial Youth-Jobs PaTH program to prepare, trial and ultimately hire young Australians into the retail sector, which has driven a strong push-back from the union movement, Labor and The Greens. From 9News:

Up to 10,000 internships will be offered to unemployed youths over the next four years in a deal struck between the federal government and retail sector.

But not everybody is pleased with the scheme, with unions arguing if there are retail positions available, employers should instead be offering young welfare recipients ongoing work.

Jobless youths aged between 15 and 24 will undertake training before securing 12-week placements with major retailers under the governments PaTH internship program.

They will get a start at a job and, you know what, they could go on to great heights, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Monday

The PaTH scheme (Prepare, Trial, Hire) offers young jobseekers $200 a fortnight on top of their income support payments to undertake internships, and gives employers a $1000 upfront payment for taking them on

But Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney said the program offered no path to qualification, employment or workforce protection.

This is a government-sanctioned program that actually borders on slavery, she told reporters in Melbourne.

If this does create new jobs, then pay the kids for the jobs. Pay them a wage. Theyre going to be productive. Theyre going to be contributing to the bottom line of these businesses

Labor and the Greens are opposed to the program, insisting it will allow young people to be exploited by employers.

If the PaTH program becomes simply a supply of cheap labour for employers who would otherwise be paying people full time wages to do that work, then thats a bad thing, deputy opposition leader Tanya Plibersek said.

About 620 young people have been given internships through the PaTH scheme since it began on April 1, with 82 young people securing ongoing work.

Separately, the policy director at Interns Australia, Clara Jordan-Baird, also criticised the program, noting that it risked normalising internship culture in the retail sector:

My first job was at Bakers Delight. I didnt need to do unpaid work experience for 12 weeks to learn how to do it. Nobody needs to. After a short period, you are performing productive work and deserve to be paid for it as an employee.

It shouldnt be normal to pop into your local Coffee Club and see an intern waitress working for free.

MB noted similar concerns when PaTH was initially announced. That is, while the PaTH program may help at the margins, it wont do much to increase the overall supply of youth jobs and could also lead to employers substituting a regular employee for an intern, saving themselves money in the process.

Consider PaTH from an employers perspective. They will get a free kick as the Government is not only the one paying the intern, but the employer also receives $1,000 up front for employing the intern without the need to worry about sick days, annual leave or penalty rates.

Why would an employer hire a young worker on a casual basis when they can effectively get paid to take on an intern? Indeed, the evidence on these types of programs shows that employers will generally substitute a worker receiving a wage subsidy for another worker who would otherwise have been hired.

[emailprotected]

Read the rest here:

Retail sector taps youth slaves - MacroBusiness (blog)

Australia is considering whether to adopt modern slavery legislation, similar to that found in the (United Kingdom) (UK) and California . Modern slavery has been identified as including slavery,

forced labour and wage exploitation, involuntary servitude, debt bondage, human trafficking, forced marriage and other slavery-like exploitation occurring today.

A current federal parliamentary Committee inquiry into the matter has received strong interest from a broad group including retailers, financial institutions, governments, not-for-profit organisations, universities, law firms, individuals and other interested parties. Supply chain transparency is a key area of focus for the inquiry, including requirements for relevant parties to report that their global supply chains are free of slavery and human trafficking.

Prior inquiries on modern slavery

This is not the first time Australia has contemplated modern slavery, as the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade undertook an inquiry on the subject in 2012/13. On that occasion, the Committees terms of reference were slavery, slavery like conditions and people trafficking, with a focus on Australia efforts to address people trafficking, ways to encourage international action on the matter, and international best practices. That Committee issued its report Trading Lives: Modern Day Human Trafficking in 2013.

UK Modern Slavery Act 2015

The UK introduced the Modern Slavery Act of 2015, which is generally considered to be a ground-breaking and comprehensive development in this area (and is endorsed in many submissions to the current Australian inquiry). Although many parts of the UKs Modern Slavery Act involved a combination of existing separate criminal legislation for offences including human trafficking and slavery, the Act introduced a new requirement requiring certain companies to publish an annual statement of the steps taken to eliminate the risks of modern slavery within their business and supply chains.

Scope of new Australian inquiry

The enactment of the UK legislation appears to have influenced the Australian Attorney-General, who has asked the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade to conduct an inquiry in the establishment of an Australian version, having regard to the findings of the Committee in 2012/13.

This new Australian inquiry will consider a broader range of issues compared to the earlier inquiry, including:

The inquiry will also consider which provisions in the UK legislation have proven effective in addressing modern slavery, whether similar or improved measures should be introduced in Australia, and whether Australia should have its own Modern Slavery Act. To date, the Committee has received 185 submissions. A hearing was held in Canberra on 30 May 2017 attended by Kevin Hyland, the United Kingdom Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, with further hearings to follow.

Supply chain transparency

Elements of the UK legislation the Committee is focusing on for adopting in Australia include the UK requirement for businesses and organisations to report on how they ensure their global supply chains are free of slavery and human trafficking.

The UK legislation requires certain commercial organisations to publish an annual statement which either provides information on:

The statement must be published on the organisations website, or where an organisation does not have a website, provided in writing upon request. The provision targets larger corporations based in the UK as set forth in the definition of commercial organization.

The format and content of the statement is not mandated but the legislation makes suggestions for content such as, among other things, the organisational structure, business and supply chains, the policies relating to slavery and human trafficking, risks and steps taken to manage the risk for slavery and trafficking.

The statement must be approved by the Board of Directors and signed by a Director. There is no strict timeline to publish the statement but the guidance published with the legislation recommends that the statement is published as soon as reasonably practicable after a companys year end, and ideally within 6 months.

Interestingly, there is no financial sanction imposed on a company for failing to publish a statement. However, some organisations may be concerned about negative publicity if they fail to publish, and there is currently some lobbying in the UK to introduce stricter sanctions in order to drive compliance. We will be closely watching and monitoring these developments as they are applicable to many types of supply chains.

Original post:

Supply Chain Transparency and Australia's Closer Look at Modern Slavery Laws - Lexology (registration)

Published Jul 4, 2017 at 8:00 am (Updated Jul 4, 2017 at 7:48 am)

The video of police officer Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile as Castile calmly reached for his licence is just one more piece of evidence for how American laws work to oppress the powerless

By now, most have seen the jarring dash cam video of police officer Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile as Castile calmly reached for his licence. Just as shocking, a jury acquitted Yanez. The verdict, in the eyes of many, was just one more piece of evidence for how American laws work to protect the powerful and oppress the powerless.

But while the American legal system can be seen as largely constructed to maintain the status quo, it has also served as an agent of change to expand rights even in the years before the Constitution was ratified. Activists, even slaves, have used the courts to weaponise American ideals and escape oppression.

Before debates about the Constitution began, states grappled with how to adapt the lofty ideals promised by the Declaration of Independence to the reality of slavery. The first was Massachusetts. Its 1780 Constitution marked Revolutionary Americas first attempt to create new legal and political arrangements that gave individual citizens rights in the newly liberated nation.

Yet in Massachusetts, as in every other American colony, the constitutional promise that all men are born free and equal did not hold true for African-American slaves. The application of the law exposed the imbalance between the powerful and the powerless, the included and excluded.

Two Massachusetts slaves highlighted this contradiction. Sheffields Elizabeth Bett Freeman heard the Massachusetts Constitution read aloud, and the next day approached prominent local lawyer Theodore Sedgwick, asking: I heard that paper read yesterday, that says all men are created equal, and that every man has a right to freedom. Im not a dumb critter; wont the law give me my freedom?

Sedgwick took Freemans case.

In May 1781, the same month that Betts case was heard in Great Barringtons County Court, a Worcester slave, Quock Walker, sued his former master, Nathaniel Jennison, for battery. Walker, likewise believing he had a legal right to freedom, had run away from Jennison and gone to work at the neighbouring Caldwell farm, where the abolitionist brothers John and Seth Caldwell helped Walker to find a lawyer and take his case to Worcester County Court.

The county courts decided in both Freemans and Walkers favour. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the states highest legal authority, was tasked with enforcing the states foundational laws and applying its promised rights and freedoms to all residents. Freeman, Walker and their allies pressed the court to decide whether the Constitutions laws and rights pertained to slaves, hoping to change the conversation to include, rather than exclude, this Massachusetts community.

It worked. The Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Cushing, explained that the 1780 Constitution and the new nations ideals rendered slavery illegal because a different idea had taken hold when the Constitution declared all men are born free and equal. As a result, he could conclude only that slavery was inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution.

Within a decade, pressured by both the court decisions and their communities, Massachusetts slave owners voluntarily freed their slaves, often by changing the arrangements to those of wage labour. The 1790 federal census listed no slaves in Massachusetts, making it the first state comprehensively to abolish slavery.

Abolition in Massachusetts happened because Freeman and Walker took the states and the countrys founding laws and precepts at their word. In highlighting the contradiction between concepts of equality and rights, and the circumstances of slavery, they found powerful allies who helped to bring their cases to the states most powerful legal bodies, forcing collective decisions that would reverberate across the state.

Protection of the powerful is written into the law of the land, but so too are avenues to use ideas of freedom and equality to change communal conversations and legal practices. And it is this tradition that has begotten constitutional victories expanding rights and freedoms to increasingly greater number of Americans over the past two centuries.

A San Francisco-born Chinese-American cook worked with attorneys and community organisations to win the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v Wong Kim Ark, which made clear that the 14th Amendments promise of birthright citizenship should apply to all Americans.

When that promised citizenship was still not extended to Native Americans, Yakama performer Nipo Strongheart and other native activists gathered tens of thousands of signatures on petitions, allied with the Indian Rights Association, and pressured Congress to pass the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.

And it was individual African-American parents in Topeka pursuing educational opportunities for their children who worked with NAACP lawyers and their allies to win Brown v Board of Education in 1954.

The landmark Supreme Court decision demonstrated that all Americans were included equally in the public education system, began the dismantling of Jim Crow segregation and launched the Civil Rights Movement. Those parents, like Strongheart, Wong, and Freeman and Walker before them, used ideas to create a more just society, providing hints as to how todays activists can best work to achieve progress.

Ben Railton, professor of English and American studies at Fitchburg State University, is the author of four books, numerous online articles and a daily blog of public American studies scholarship

More here:

How two slaves won their freedom - Royal Gazette

Up to 10,000 internships will be offered to unemployed youths over the next four years in a deal struck between the federal government and retail sector.

But not everybody is pleased with the scheme, with unions arguing if there are retail positions available, employers should instead be offering young welfare recipients ongoing work.

Jobless youths aged between 15 and 24 will undertake training before securing 12-week placements with major retailers under the government's PaTH internship program.

"They will get a start at a job and, you know what, they could go on to great heights," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Monday.

"They could go on to, like many others before them, running big businesses, owning big businesses and employing lots of other people, realising their dreams."

The PaTH scheme (Prepare, Trial, Hire) offers young jobseekers $200 a fortnight on top of their income support payments to undertake internships, and gives employers a $1000 upfront payment for taking them on.

Australian Retailers Association chief executive Russel Zimmerman says underprivileged youths will access the same opportunities as successful people before them who started out on the retail shop floor.

"We are hoping by this program, and being able to get people enthused about the retail industry and to get employers to take on more people, that we will get young people into retail, that they will see retail as a career, and work their way through," Mr Zimmerman said.

But Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney said the program offered no path to qualification, employment or workforce protection.

"This is a government-sanctioned program that actually borders on slavery," she told reporters in Melbourne.

It's offering them as free labour: ACTU

"If this does create new jobs, then pay the kids for the jobs. Pay them a wage. They're going to be productive. They're going to be contributing to the bottom line of these businesses."

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash says the partnership is aimed at getting young people job-ready, giving them a go and finding them work.

"When we say that the best form of welfare is a job, we mean it, and we will put both the resources and the programs behind it," she said.

Government vows new jobs will be created

Jobs created through the program will be new positions, rather than replacing current roles or filling existing gaps.

Labor and the Greens are opposed to the program, insisting it will allow young people to be exploited by employers.

"If the PaTH program becomes simply a supply of cheap labour for employers who would otherwise be paying people full time wages to do that work, then that's a bad thing," deputy opposition leader Tanya Plibersek said.

About 620 young people have been given internships through the PaTH scheme since it began on April 1, with 82 young people securing ongoing work.

Original post:

'Borders on slavery': Government's internships welfare program criticised by unions, Labor - SBS

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Next Page: The change Homestead wrought Pittsburgh Post-Gazette They feared wage slavery enforced by low pay and debt as a more subtle form of chattel slavery. Like freed slaves in the postwar South, who were subjugated by voter suppression and Jim Crow segregation, free labor in the North was being ...

Read the original:

The Next Page: The change Homestead wrought - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Minneapolis City Council voted Friday to pass a landmark $15 per hour minimum wage increase. No special allowances were made for tipped employees.

Minneapolis now joins Seattle, San Francisco and Washington D.C. , cities that have passed similar measures (though in D.C. there is an allowance made for a lower wage for tipped employees).

The wage increase comes after a contentious battle between small restaurant owners and servers with the unions and Mayor Betsy Hodges. The mayor wrote an open letter back in February in favor of the raise without what she deemed a tip penalty. She also made a controversial correlation between tipping and slavery.

Many independent restaurant owners like Lina Goh and John Ng of Zen Box Izakaya made impassioned pleas to consider tipped wages as income, while also agreeing that a minimum wage increase was a move in the right direction.

Meanwhile, other business owners like Jamie Robinson of Northbound Smokehouse warned that the steep increase would mean a death knell for many small businesses already operating on razor thin margins. In a statement released today by the Pathway to 15 group, Red Rabbit bartender Jennifer Schellenberg said, The city council has failed tipped restaurant workers in Minneapolis. We took the time to advocate for a solution that would empower all workers in Minneapolis. Instead of listening to our concerns, the council moved forward with a proposal that will put our income and our jobs in jeopardy. We won't give up the fight but we remain disillusioned about how our concerns were dismissed for the sake of campaign politics.

Council Member Lisa Bender championed the passage according to the Star Tribune, This is a huge victory for works in Minneapolis.

The one dissenting vote came from Council Member Blong Yang who expressed concerns about the ordinances affect on small businesses.

The Fight for $15 Now group also issued a statement saying, Fifteen an hour has officially arrived in the heartland! It wasnt easy, but after years of going on strike, taking to the streets and raising our voices for higher wages, we have finally won the raise we need. Getting paid $15/hour will help us pay for groceries, make the rent, and cover the basics without relying on public assistance. Were proud that Minneapolis is the first city in the Midwest to pass $15/hour, but we promise it wont be the last. This movement has momentum that cant be stopped, and well keep on standing up and speaking out until everyone, everywhere is paid at least $15/hour and has the right to join a union.

The ordinance will go into effect citywide by 2024 with an accelerated implementation for large businesses.

See the original post here:

Minneapolis City Council Passes $15 Minimum Wage Without a Tip Consideration - Eater Twin Cities (blog)

New police-style powers have been given to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) to tackle modern slavery and labour exploitation in the agri-food supply chain.

The new powers allow GLAA officers to carry out arrests rather than refer offenders on to police forces.

Since its expansion two months ago, the GLAA has arrested over 25 people on suspicion of exploiting workers, safeguarded 76 potential victims of slavery, and recovered tens of thousands of pounds in confiscated wages.

The government has invested an additional 2M to extend the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which has been renamed the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. Its new mission is to prevent, detect and investigate worker exploitation across the entire economy.

Modern slavery is abhorrent; it is described by the prime minister as the greatest human rights issue of our time, said GLAA chief executive Paul Broadbent. Much of it is controlled by organised crime gangs who have links to drug smuggling, and gun violence.

Eradicate slavery

But those who profit and perpetrate slavery and exploitation should now be looking over their shoulders because the creation of the GLAA is a significant step in our desire to see it eradicated.

Estimates put the number of slaves in the UK between 10,00013,000, but the GLAA believes it could be even higher. Slavery and labour exploitation have infiltrated a number of legitimate supply chains, it claims.

Modern slavery is a barbaric crime which destroys lives, said Sarah Newton, minister for vulnerability, safeguarding and countering extremism. We have taken world-leading action to protect victims and deal with perpetrators, and extended the reach of the GLAA to enable them to do even more.

I am pleased to see this important agency putting these new powers to good effect and am confident that officers will continue to stamp out the unscrupulous criminals who exploit the most vulnerable.

Since the beginning of May, the GLAAs new powers have been put to good use across the country with multiple joint operations to clamp down on slavers and ruthless employers.

This included an operation conducted with South Yorkshire Police, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Her Majestys Revenue and Customs (HMRC) last month (June 19) in which warrants were executed at a number of addresses and four men arrested on suspicion of human trafficking and money laundering offences.

Victims of exploitation

Over the following days more than 100 addresses were then visited to identify potential victims of exploitation.

The GLAA will be collaborating closely with the police, NCA, Border Force, Immigration Enforcement, Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, HMRC, the Department of Work and Pensions and others. GLAA analysts are already working within the Joint Slavery Trafficking Analysis Centre the elite intelligence gathering unit set up this year to tackle human trafficking.

Our approach, in terms of prevention, enforcement and support for those who are victims, shows we are now leading the way as a country in tackling this despicable practice, added Broadbent.

I am confident that with our partners, the GLAA will have a major impact on disrupting and dismantling modern slavery networks that have established themselves within the UK and tackling poor and illegal practices that see thousands of workers exploited by employers every year.

Labour market offences are offences under the following legislation: Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 and Parts 1 and 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Supply chain survey

As part of an online survey that Food Manufacture is conducting over the next couple of months to inform a Supply chain supplement, that is being published in the October issue of the magazine, sponsored by Autenticate Information Systems, readers are asked whether they are either in the process or have already produced a business response to the Modern Slavery Act. Click here to participate in the supply chain survey.

Read more:

Gangmasters' body gets policing powers - FoodManufacture.co.uk

How did the son of a wealthy American entrepreneur and Harvard graduate become an ardent supporter of the proletarian revolution in Russia?

Facebook

Pinterest

WhatsApp

"Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages" - V. Lenin about John Reed's book. Source: Getty Images

The life of American journalist John Reed (1887 - 1920) was so extraordinary that he inspired film directors on both sides of the Atlantic during the Cold War.

Warren Beatty's 1981 movie about Reed - Reds - won three Oscars. In the USSR, director Sergey Bondarchuk made a two part epic, Red Bells (1982), that was also based on Reeds life.

So why has the late hacks life fueled so much interest?

Reed was raised in an upper-class environment in the Pacific Northwest during the turn of the 20th century. He graduated from Harvard and showed interest in social issues, attending socialist club meetings. Three years after completing his studies he landed a job with the New York-based leftist magazine The Masses, which published articles by prominent radicals of the time.

As a determined champion of social justice, Reed covered strikes by silk mill workers in New Jersey and coal miners in Colorado. He was then sent to report on the Mexican revolution (1910 - 1920). He was appalled by the exploitation of laborers and Washingtons policy towards Mexico. "The United States Government is really headed toward the policy of civilizing 'em with a Krag [a rifle used by American troops] - a process which consists in forcing upon alien races with alien temperaments our own Grand Democratic Institutions: I refer to Trust Government, Unemployment, and Wage Slavery," Reed wrote.

His series on Mexico, later published as a book titled Insurgent Mexico, enforced Reed's reputation as a war correspondent. When World War I broke out in Europe Reed traveled to the Continent on two occasions, resulting in his second book - The War in Eastern Europe.

One of the organizers of the Communist Party of the United States (1919), participant in the Great October Socialist Revolution, author of the book Ten Days That Shook the World American writer and journalist John Reed (1887 - 1920) at a meeting in Nakhichevan. Source: RIA Novosti

However, his most famous work -Ten Days That Shook The World- was not about war, but rebellion. It was published in 1919 and described the events of the Russian revolution. Reed visited Russia in August 1917 and witnessed how the Bolsheviks seized power. He welcomed the uprising and was an enthusiastic supporter of the new socialist regime. "So, with the crash of artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new Russia was being born," he wrote.

He met the two main leaders of the Bolshevik uprising in person, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, and was a big fan of the Bolshevik party. "Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program and the power to impose it on the country," Reed wrote in Ten Days That Shook The World.

"Reed died in 1920 in Moscow after contracting spotted typhus at the tender age of 32. He was given a state funeral and buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis." Source: L.Pakhomov/TASS

Its little wonder the book was well received by Lenin. "Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages. It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant tothe comprehension of what really is theProletarian Revolutionand theDictatorship of the Proletariat," the Bolshevik leader wrote in the introduction of the 1922 edition.

The book was also widely praised by the public - even American diplomat George F. Kennan, who had no sympathy towards the Soviets - gave it a positive review: "Reeds account of the events of that time rises above every other contemporary record for its literary power, its penetration, its command of detail."

Reed died in 1920 in Moscow after contracting spotted typhus at the tender age of 32. He was given a state funeral and buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Remembered for both his brilliant writing and political activism, Reed was also instrumental in establishing the Communist Labor Party of America and took part in the Comintern congress in Moscow shortly before his death, an event advocating world communism. Its no wonder hes inspired film directors and writers - and hell forever be praised as a bastion of social justice and journalistic integrity. He truly was a man of the people.

Read this article:

Laid to rest in the Kremlin: Why was US hack John Reed buried in Moscow? - Russia Beyond the Headlines

STATE DEPARTMENT

Three videos from a mobile phone that described the beatings of an Indonesian crewman aboard a Taiwan-flagged vessel led Allison Lee to find her role as an advocate for those afflicted: migrant fishermen.

Lee, the co-founder of the Yilan Migrant Fishermen Union, was recognized by the United States for safeguarding the rights of foreign fishermen working in Taiwan.

In accepting her award in Washington on Tuesday, she made one appeal: to end slavery on the open sea.

To know the path from ocean to consumers' dinner plates is to know the story of floating sweatshops, Lee told VOA on Tuesday.

Migrant fishermen are vulnerable to exploitation, she said.

State Department award

Flanked by President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday, Lee was one of the eight men and women to receive Hero Acting to End Modern Slavery Award at the State Department, where the 2017 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report was released.

Lee is the first Taiwan citizen to receive the honor.

Migrant workers aboard Taiwan-flagged fishing vessels that operate in international waters are not covered by the so-called Labor Standards Act, the laws governing employer and employee rights. Therefore, they do not benefit from Taiwan's minimum-wage regulations regarding overtime pay, Lee said.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen reaffirmed her government's pledge to battle against human trafficking.

Taiwan is committed to working with all stakeholders to fight human trafficking, Tsai tweeted.

For eight consecutive years, Taiwan has been ranked in the Tier 1 category, the best ranking in the human-trafficking report.

While acknowledging Taiwan's serious and sustained efforts, Washington urged Taipei to increase efforts to prosecute and convict traffickers under the anti-trafficking law.

'Vigorously investigate' infractions

The State Department also urged Taiwan to vigorously investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute the owners of Taiwan-owned or -flagged fishing vessels that allegedly commit abuse and labor trafficking on board long-haul fishing vessels.

The TIP Report is a symbol of the U.S. moral and legal obligation to combat tragic human rights abuses and as well as to advance human dignity around the world, said Susan Coppedge, the U.S. Ambassador-at-large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Tier 1 countries meet the minimum standards to combat trafficking, but that's just the minimum. They don't rest on their laurels, so to speak, Coppedge told VOA on Tuesday.

They need to continue their efforts to combat trafficking, and one of the areas where Taiwan can make additional progress is in labor trafficking, she added.

On January 15, 2017, the Act for Distant Water Fisheries took effect in Taiwan amid growing pressure on Taiwan's seafood industry to crack down on modern-day slavery and abuses for migrants working on the island's fishing vessels.

Lee told reporters that being a Christian gave her strength to withstand the pressure from government officials and the industry.

Read the original here:

Taiwan Activist Urges Crackdown Against Floating Sweatshops - Voice of America

The Liberty Conservative

The Racist History Of Minimum Wage Laws The Liberty Conservative In it, he argued that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books. He was, of course, referring to the then-present era, after the far more explicitly racist laws from the eras of slavery and segregation had already been removed.

See the original post here:

The Racist History Of Minimum Wage Laws - The Liberty Conservative

Just as the Trump Administration winds back regulation on union-busting by employers, the UN releases a special report criticising US labour law through a human rights lens, writes Sally Tyler.

The nascent Trump Administrations ongoing relationship with Congress continues to play out like instalments of the Keystone Cops serial, with Republican leaders frantically trying to wrangle members to vote for a health care bill they have never seen, as the barometer of public support for legislation to nullify Obamacare declines by the day. While much attention has been paid to the rancorous legislative struggle and Trumps abject failure to fulfil any campaign promises during the critical first-100-days kick-start to his administration, it has gone almost unnoticed that his executive agencies (now that he finally amassed a full Cabinet in May the slowest start on record) have begun to quietly dismantle Obama era policy.

Such was the case earlier this month when the Department of Labour announced it had initiated reversal of the persuader rule, an Obama-era regulation meant to check employers union-busting activities, by requiring greater transparency around consultants hired to advise them on how to keep unions out of their workplaces.

The anti-union consulting business has become a multi-million industry in the US, and operates largely in the shadows, because prior to the persuader rule, employers only had to publicly disclose the use of such consultants if they were being engaged to speak directly to employees.

Most consultants are engaged to write anti-union scripts for employers, who then use the scripts at captive audience staff meetings, which employees cannot avoid, and to which unions cannot gain access. Such meetings are prevalent in the private sector, where unionisation has reached a post-World War II low of 6.4 per cent.

Proponents of the rule argued it was only fair to allow workers to understand the entities behind the anti-union messages being delivered to them in the workplace, and that outcomes of elections for union representation might be different if workers knew that the heart-felt manifesto against unions delivered by their boss was merely a boilerplate template concocted by a corporate flack they had never met.

The rule also brought about a balance in reporting, as unions were already required to report staff salaries and political contributions, giving workers a snapshot of their operations. Now that Trump has taken steps to rescind the rule, the burden of disclosure will be entirely on the part of unions, with employers anti-union efforts remaining nearly invisible.

During the recent UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, a new report was issued by the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of assembly and association in the US. One focus of the report, not likely to garner headlines in the country, is the anaemic status of American labour law as a reflection of weakened human rights policy. The rapporteur notes that the belief in the absolute solvency of free market economic principles, coupled with intolerance toward competing ideas, undermines human rights: Nowhere is this free market fundamentalist approach more evident than in the US approach to labour rights, which overwhelmingly favours the wellbeing of employers over workers.

The report goes on to detail lax enforcement for employer violations such as wage theft, debt slavery, and sexual harassment. The rapporteur finds the paltry resources dedicated to enforcement of crimes against workers to be particularly ironic when contrasted with the robust funding for law enforcement of other crimes. He also finds it noteworthy that some states pro-actively advertise their anti-union status to attract foreign manufacturers. He says this lays the foundation for many European firms to aggressively pursue anti-union activities in the US that they would never contemplate in Europe.

Similarly, Australias Fair Work Act has been criticised for restricting freedom of association, particularly as the right to strike (industrial action) is only protected during the process of bargaining a contract. That narrow period leaves ample room for employer misconduct, with little by the way of substantive recourse for workers.

Because of its restriction on the right to strike, Australian Council of Trade Unions leader Sally McManus has characterised the act as an unjust law.

A report such as the UNs would have likely had a more resonant impact with a different American president. Imagine how Hillary Clinton, who famously declared Womens rights are human rights, at the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, would have responded to criticism that the US is not living up to its own ideals.

Having invited the report, under Obama, the US government is technically obligated to reply. But with Trump, one imagines that the response will probably consist of either a verbal shrug of the so what? variety, or a bellicose across-the-board denial which fails to address specifics. Like his man-crush Putin, the US president has widely declared that the domestic affairs of other nations are their own business, so one can imagine that this report may not make his morning briefings.

Yet, perhaps the report will eventually find readers in the US, which will help stoke calls for more unionisation, even as Trump policies create obstacles to the process, and global union rates continue to fall.

The overwhelming majority of people on the planet must work for their survival, and give up some degree of liberty in being told by an employer how they must spend their time on the job. But workers do not give up all their rights when they cross the workplace threshold. Framing labour rights as human rights, both interdependent and indivisible, as the UNs Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights notes, may help build understanding of their intrinsic value, and the importance of protecting them.

See more here:

Trump's transaction cost presidency - Policy Forum

It takes time and therefore money to write a book. Mark Brandi, the author of Wimmera (Hachette Australia), decided to find cash by taking a journey that involved risk, humiliationand getting up closeand personal with Eddie McGuire. He tells his story below.

No one needed to know. Not my work, or my friends. Definitely not my family.

After all, it might be a disaster I could walk away with nothing. Or worse, be humiliated on national television.

Despite hopes of becoming a writer, Id found myself trapped in the drudgery of a policy job in a government department. But with a mortgage and bills to pay, staying put made sense in my head, if not my heart.

Still I wondered could I escape this life of wage-slavery and pursue my dreams? Maybe. But I needed some kind of circuit breaker, something to kick-start a new career. And if I was to write, more than anything, I needed cash.

So I find myself, on a steamy February afternoon, waiting nervously in the green room for Millionaire Hot Seat.

While my fellow contestants scope out each others quiz show expertise, I vividly imagine my impending humiliation. What if I bomb out first question, or just completely freeze? My nerves are jangling. What the hell was I thinking?

I seriously consider doing a runner. But then, I remember something.

In the darkest recesses of my backpack battered and almost two years out-of-date an old packet of Xanax. The stuff never agreed with me, but desperate times

Before I know it, were on set and each waiting our turn in the Hot Seat. The studio lights are blinding and the audience are going nuts; and theres Eddie sharp-suit and make-up like a rat with a gold tooth.

The pills (four within an hour) start hitting me hard.I feel myself drifting outside my body, away from the set, as though watching the whole thing unfold from somewhere in the audience.

Paul, a former AFL footballer, is up and nails the first question before passing. Jim, a video store employee, answers a few before bombing out.

Then comes Kathy.

Kathys the battler with a back-story. She works at Bunnings and keeps greyhounds. And shes from Frankston. Eddies eyes light up.

Despite not knowing the answers, she guesses three and seems destined for the remaining $100,000. Eddie is delighted, the crowd is loving it, and I feel like I might throw up.

But then, it happens.

Kathy falls short, just one question shy of the cash. She trudges off stage and Eddie hides his disappointment ever the pro, the thousand-watt grin shines right through.

Well be right back and Mark Brandi will have one question for the cash on Millionaire Hot Seat!

My turn. One question. $50,000.

I am thrust, with one almighty thump, back to reality. My breathing is rapid and my heart beats up inside my throat.

Its time.

The source of comic-book superhero Green Lanterns special abilities is his power what?

A: Belt

B: Ring

C: Key

D: Watch.

I talk through the answers out loud, my voice distant to my own ears. The Green Lantern? I can almost picture him

Ten seconds, Eddie says.

I read comics as a kid, but more UK than USA. More dystopia than Marvel.

Five seconds

Then, in my minds eye, it appears. I dont know if its a false memory or the benzos or what. But I see my hand reaching inside a cheap carnival show-bag from my childhood, right down in the corner a small, green, plastic ring.

Ill go with B, I say.

Final answer?

Lock it in.

Eddies eyes sparkle somewhere between charisma and malevolence Im sure Ive blown it.

But then, he says it.

Mark. Youve just won fifty thousand dollars!

The audience erupts. Fellow contestants shake my hand. Even some of the crew manage a smile.

As the lights fade and we walk from the set, Eddie pulls me aside.

Well done mate. Fifty grand! Tax-free! You know how long it would take to save that?

We pose for a photo at either end of a novelty cheque.

You won it though, he says. Its yours.

Then, quietly, some sage advice from the boy from Broady.

Dont let anyone get their claws into it, right?

He neednt have worried I had firm plans for the cash. Soon, I changed to part-time hours and tested the waters: the writing life felt good more than that, it felt right. The money gave me time and space to complete early drafts of my novel, Wimmera, while still keeping the wolf from the door.

Publishing is a tough industry for a first-time novelist to break through, all the stars need to align. In my case, one of those stars was a celebrity of debatable talent, but undoubted tenacity a quality also vital to any aspiring author.

So I will always feel a peculiar debt to Eddie McGuire perhaps the worlds most unknowing (and unlikely) literary benefactor.

Wimmera, acrime novel aboutsmall town with a big secret,wasthe winner of the 2016 UK Crime WritersAssociation Debut Dagger for an unpublished manuscript and is now published by Hachette Australia. Brandiwas born in Italy but grew up in rural Victoria and is a former policy advisor for the VictorianDepartment of Justice.

Read more here:

Mark Brandi discovers Eddie McGuire, the literary benefactor - Daily Review