Roger Waters performs.(Photo: Kate Izor)

It's been 45 years since Roger Waters wrote the lyrics to "Us and Them." His latest tour shares itsname with thathaunting meditation on the senselessness of war, andit also shares amessage that there is no us and them, no matter what the politicians tell you.

Waters checked in from a San Francisco hotel room and spoke for nearly 50 minutes, precious few of which he spent promoting his upcoming concert in Glendale or the album he'd released just six days earlier.

He's more about using the platform his art has afforded him to weigh in on the issues of the day,from Donald Trump to those who think musicians shouldn't be allowed to share their views on things like presidents and peace.

At one point, Waters seemed to feel he'd gone a bit too far off-topic while sharing his thoughts on the state of the world and America's place in that equation

"Anyway," he said, "were getting into deep, uncharted water."

Then, he reconsidered.

"Im sorry," he said. "Hang on. This is the water that we should be sailing through. This is the important stuff. This is what defines what kind of lives our children are going to lead."

This cover image provided by Columbia Records shows, "Is This The Life We Really Want," a new release by Roger Waters. (Columbia Records via AP)(Photo: AP)

And with that, we returned to discussing the themes andissues that have driven Waters' most compelling music from the early days of Pink Floyd through his latest concept album, whose title asks "Is This the Life We Really Want?"

It's a question Rogers answers midway through the album with a sneer.

"It surely must be so," he sings, "for this is a democracy and what we all say goes."

READ MORE:Should Bruce Springsteen and Ted Nugent shut up and play? Or are politics and music meant to be together?

There are no punches pulled here, no messages lost in translation, no reason to wonder who Waters could possibly mean when he snipes, "And every time a nincompoop becomes the president."

Waters eases us into the darkness, setting the tone withan openingtrack called "Deja Vu" that purposefully echoes Pink Floyd's "Mother" while playfully noting,"If I had been God / I would have rearranged the veins in the face to make them more resistant to alcohol and less prone to aging."

There are other darkly comic accents to be found. But the prevailing mood is far more serious than that, producer Nigel Godrich underscoring Waters' gravitas as he weighs in on drone strikes, bankers grown fat on the meat of the poor, the refugee crisis, terrorism and the heavy toll humanity has taken on this planet we all share.

Question: I saw your set at Desert Trip and I was truly blown away by the production. Was that any indication of what people can expect on the Us & Them Tour?

A: Yeah, it is, though clearly were indoors now, so its modified. Were still using the power station chimney gag, but indoors, we build it in the middle of the arena, over the heads of the crowd, so its kind of weirdly spectacular, I have to say (laughs).

So far, theres been a lot of wow going on where weve done it. But really, the wow is in its emotional factor. Its very committed emotionally, the show.

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Q: And what is that emotion?

A: Well, the show is titled Us & Them, and its based on my contention that the divisiveness that we see in the contemporary political arrangements on this small planet are counter-productive to the sum of happiness that is available to human beings. Thats why I call the show Us & Them, because I believe there is no them. Theres only "us."

We need to figure out a way to organize ourselves more efficiently and make life better for our kids and even save life for our kids and their kids on this planet because at the moment were hellbent on destruction, driven as we are by commercial interests and this insatiable appetite that some of us have for profits and war.

Roger Waters at Desert Trip in 2016.(Photo: Kate Izor)

Its very political, the show. Its very rooted in the idea that we have a responsibility as human beings to care for one another and to give each other refuge in times of trouble.

So rather than railing against refugees and foreigners and telling each other how dangerous they are and how we must build walls to keep them out and spend even more money on armaments so we can fight imperial wars thousands of miles from home, we might, in my view, want to concentrate more of our resources on trying to figure out how to protect the "Crystal Clear Brooks" for future generations.

I know its a bit of a political speech but its how I feel and how a lot of people in this country feel. And a lot of people all over the world. These are the people who demonstrated on February the 14th, 2003, against the policy to invade Iraq. Twenty million people took to the streets.

And we have learned that they were right, and [Dick]Cheney and [Donald]Rumsfeld, [Paul]Wolfowitz, [George W. ] Bush and [Tony] Blair and all the other a--holes were wrong. In a big way. And their policies have proved to be dangerous beyond all reckoning. They are responsible for the situation that we find ourselves in now.

And pursuing the same ludicrous policy that is espoused in this thing they call the War on Terror is only going to exacerbate the problem. This is so plainly obvious.

But because a lot of people are hurting economically and being shafted by the very wealthy, its been possible here in the United States of America to organize them and persuade them that to elect a nincompoop like Donald Trump is actually in their best interest. When clearly it isnt.

We live in very volatile times. And it is super necessary that all of us resist this move toward the militarization and establishment of a more and more authoritarian regime, not just in the United States but in Europe and elsewhere.

Weve done seven shows so far and at all of them, not just in Denver or San Jose, but Kansas City (Mo.), Louisville (Ky.) and Tulsa (Okla.), which you would think were predominantly red markets, weve found a solid core of people who are ready to resist this movement towards living in a state of perpetual war.

They dont want it. So that has been very encouraging. And thats what this show is about.

Roger Waters performs "In the Flesh" at Cricket Pavilion in Phoenix October 3, 2006.(Photo: Michael Chow/The Republic)

Q: Do you find that that divisiveness, the dividing of people into warring teams of us and them, has been a through line in your work?

A: The fact that I dont believe in it, yeah. The title of the tour is from a song I wrote in 1972. And sadly, what I was writing about then, the problems are still with us. Which is not surprising. Its a nanosecond in cosmic timelines. A tiny amount of time has passed and evolution is a fascinating process but it does take a while.

And it takes us all time to figure out how to throw off the shackles of wage slavery that weve been living under since we came out of the caves and developed agrarian societies. But theres lots of great philosophy to read and the evidence that the ways societies organize themselves dont always work is all in front of us.

Like I say in one of the songs on the new album, It dont matter much wherever youre born / Little babies mean us no harm. Its my view that when were conceived, were largely innocent and we have to be taught extreme beliefs.

It doesnt matter if youre born somewhere in the extreme religious Bible Belt in the United States or some extreme Muslim environment. You can be taught to be an extremist by your parents or by the circumstances of your life. And its very dangerous.

But its very important that we dont think that there are not fanatical religious extremists here in the United States. There are. They call themselves Christians. But none of what they do has anything really to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. It has to do with exceptionalism, the belief that they are somehow special.

Its the same with people who have extreme attachments to what they believe are the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. They are not the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. But things get twisted.

Hence the rapture in the Bible Belt in America that some Born Agains believe in. People will say, "hes talking out of his a--, he doesnt know what hes talking about," and theyre probably right(laughs). This is not an area of expertise.

Musician Roger Waters performs during Desert Trip at the Empire Polo Field on October 16, 2016 in Indio, California.(Photo: Kevin Winter, Getty Images)

But I have read enoughto know that they believe in the second coming and they believe that on that day they will all go to heaven and all the Jews will be killed and everyone else will die.

I read somewhere, and it may be a joke, that there are websites where people arrange to have their pets looked after for the six months after they go to heaven to be with Jesus and before the whole world disappears in a conflagration.

I can lie here laughing and giggling but its not really funny (laughs). Its f--king dangerous. Its insane to believe that there is such a thing as a God that has chosen you, these very few people that are important, and no one else matters. Its ridiculous. But anybody who is an exceptionalist doesnt believe its ridiculous.

They believe that theyre exceptional, whether its because theyve been chosen by God or because of their white skin or because theyre Nordic or German. It doesnt matter who you are. If you believe youre more important than everyone else, youre dangerous. Were all from North Africa. All of us.

Weve only been here for a very short period of time. Somewhere between 70 and 80,000 years is how long human beings have existed. And weve spread out over the planet.

Were all different shapes and sizes and colors because of the vagaries of weather in different parts of the world, because of Darwinism,because we inherit the physical attributes of our mother and father. Thats why we look slightly different. But were not.

Were all from the same tree and we owe an allegiance to one another. So we need to stand up and say No to the John McCains of this world,the Hillary Clintons and the Donald Trumps, to say No, you will not persuade us that the Russian people are our enemy.

And the reason they say that is to concentrate power and wealth in their hands. Particularly in the United States of America. The United States has such an opportunity to be a leader in the world and that opportunity has been frittered away.

It disgusts me, because this country has such potential to help us on our path toward embracing the good in ourselves and in others and to save the planet, which is being destroyed by industry and greed and idiots like the Donald saying global warming doesnt exist.

How is it possible that somebody who believes that could be elected president of the most powerful country on Earth? Its beyond belief.

But Ill tell you, Im still doing Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) and I still recruit children everywhere we go to sing the chorus. They appear in the show in orange prison jumpsuits,they rip them off and underneath, theyre wearing T-shirts with the word Resist written across the front.

Roger Waters at Desert Trip in 2016.(Photo: Kate Izor)

Last night in San Jose, the little kid standing next to me, he was about four feet tall, he grabbed hold of the word resist and was holding it out and shaking it at the crowd. I looked at him and I thought, "This is what we need, whole generations to resist what Eisenhower warned us about, the rise of the military industrial complex.

Eisenhower was so right. It has happened. And now Congress is going to endorse increasing military spending by the United States. Increasing! You already spend more in this country on killing brown people in foreign countries than the next eight most powerful military powers in the world put together, including China, Russia and the U.K.

What is wrong with that picture? Really? You want to be the Roman Empire and have legionnaires in every country in the world? Is that who Americans want to be? I dont think so.

You in this country have been fed a diet of American exceptionalism. Trump was a boil waiting to burst on the surface, but its deeply rooted, the whole U.S.A! U.S.A! bulls--t that has made you so unpopular all over the world. (laughs). Its soooo unattractive.

Q: At Desert Trip, you said you feel your art has given you a platform that you would not have otherwise have had and you intend to use it. Have you always felt that way or is that a philosophy you developed as your platform grew?

A: When I was 15 years old, I was the chairman of the Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Cambridge. I would always have been somebody who would have had opinions political, moral, philosophical, maybe even musical. And I would always have expressed them.

But because of pop groups Ive been in and because Ive been successful writing songs and playing a banjo, my voice is more easily heard than if Id become an architect.

There are people who say Why doesnt he just play his music and shut up? I love Pink Floyd but I hate Rogers politics. Well screw you. I dont care what you think about my politics. And the idea that I shouldnt speak because Im a musician is absurd.

Its just as absurd as the idea that I shouldnt criticize Donald Trump or George Bush because Im not an American citizen. What, youre not allowed to criticize Adolf Hitler unless youre German? Its ridiculous. Everybody should be allowed to speak. Thats what the first amendment of your constitution is about.

Q: I was surprised at the number of people expressing outrage over the more overtly anti-Trump components of your Desert Trip performance. Have they listened to your records?

A: Everybody with an ounce of intelligence has to speak out. Donald Trump is the perfect example of exceptionalism gone crazy, laboring under the misconception that hes great. He believes himself to be sort of a pinnacle of human development.

Maybe he is. Maybe this is the peak to which humans can aspire, to be that shallow, vulgar, stupid, ignorant, racist, sexist pig. If that is what were aspiring to be, then somethinghas gone terribly wrong with the values that human beings might have developed over the last 78,000 years.

What about thoughtful, educated, loving, kind, compassionate, philosophical? What about some of those attributes? Not acquisitive, aggressive, money-grabbing and dumb beyond all imagination. This is what we admire? No. Hes an ignorant pig. A dreadful, dreadful person.

And its a huge tragedy for the United States that he managed to persuade an ill-educated electorate that he was going to do something for them. Hes only been president since January but already he has absolutely shown by everything that he has done that he doesnt give a s--t about them and he never did.

He has no interest in improving the lot of the American middle class. He is interested in feathering his own nest. Thats all he was ever interested in and its obvious. What, hes reducing corporate tax to 15 percent? Hes taking healthcare away from millions and millions of people. He doesnt care about any of those working people.

And it will be interesting to see what happens when the majority of them finally get it and go Whoa, weve been hoodwinked. And he did it all by getting us to turn on our fellow man, by telling us that the people responsible for our plight where our standard of living has been dropping while his has been soaring are theChinese and the Mexicans, the Muslims, the them.

Q: How do you think he was able to get those people to believe in him?

A: The middle class in the United States has been reduced to dire straits. There is no safety net, mainly because the regulations on Wall Street and big business have all been removed, mainly by Bill Clinton in the first instance.

So theyre absolutely at the mercy of the very rich. And the very rich have managed to get away with fleecing everybody. Since the Second World War, really.

The easiest way to get a population to follow you is by identifying somebody else as being the cause of all their problems. And thats what he did. First, it was the Mexicans and saying theyre all rapists. Then its the Muslims. The War on Terror has been a huge factor in all of this.

The war in Iraq was obviously a huge disaster and by far the most important fillip to the spread of extremism in the Middle East. Theres nothing like dropping bombs on people to turn them into radicals. First, go invade Iraq, kill everybody. Then start bombing them using American armaments all over the Middle East. You will create radicals.

One thing you will not do is reduce the numbers of people who want to retaliate against the United States of America. You cannot wipe them out. Youd have to kill every man, woman and child to stop the spread of the resentment. People who have studied this stuff understand that.

We armed Osama Bin Laden. We armed and created the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight against the left-wing government. The United States created an armed resistance to a legal government. And that created the environment for all of this. Its very hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

The interference in domestic policy of other countries has come back to biteus. Its standard practice for imperial powers to interfere in the affairs of other countries. You always try and help the rich guy to suppress the people who want what you espouse here, which is a democratic state where the needs of the many are taken care of.

Now the John McCains and the Hillary Clintons and Donald Trumps, they want to exacerbate that situation by more military in more places, more belligerence, more sword-waving, more accusing Russia of being the great enemy, more war, more walls, more no-fly zones, more exercise of power, more aircraft carriers, more troops.

Q: This new album shares a title with a poem you wrote in 2008, reflecting on the hope you saw in Obama. Did you think wed turned a corner when he won?

A: Yeah, like the rest of us. Or maybe not the rest of us. But most of us hoped that this would be a new awakening. And in some ways it was.

Youd elected somebody who was apparently humane, who wasnt one of the elite, who was black, which was fresh and unique, who was eloquent and thoughtful and who, I have to say, throughout his presidency behaved in a presidential manner.

But he also, in my view, was too careful. Im not gonna knock Obama because he did a lot of good. Obamacare, for instance, which he did manage to get through Congress, was a huge advance. But unfortunately, he believed in the militaristic foreign-policy bulls--t. He was a big supporter of drone attacks and targeted assassinations.

So he made a huge mistake, in my view, in believing that he could use drones to subjugate whole populations.

What hes done is hes created a land where the buzz of a drone in the sky has become central to the lives of millions of people who feel threatened, not just that theyre under surveillance but that at any minute they could be blown to bits.

If you read any of the literature coming out of environments like that, it is full of what that does to the children. They are traumatized every moment of their lives. They live in absolute fear.

There are 70,000 (Afghans) with no legs, walking around on prosthetic limbs whove been blown to bits by you. For what? So Lockheed can make more money to distribute to its shareholders? It certainly isnt to bring peace to anybody. And it certainly isnt to make Americans safer.

Being in Afghanistan at war for 15 or itll be 20, then 25, then 30 years, you think thats making you safer? Its demonstrable that it is not. There need to be sane voices in this story.

Noam Chomsky is a perfect example of a very, very wise man who is largely sidelined and dismissed as a crank because he is sane and wise and humane. And we should be listening to him, but we dont. Why?

Q: What do you think it is that keeps humanity embroiled in this tribal mentality, where its not only us AND them, its us at constant war with them?

Its convenient to the very wealthy and powerful people who make the decisions. It doesnt matter whether youre the king of Saudi Arabia or the people behind this presidency. You have discovered that the economic power that you have can be translated into military power and also the power to influence your people.

You control people by keeping them poor and attached to outdated religions and so on and so forth. Its all an exercise in control because you want power and money. So the world is being controlled by the greedy, inhumane impulses of a very few, very, very rich men and women.

Q: You end this album on a hopeful note. How do you stay hopeful?

A: I believe in the transcendental power of love. How John Lennon and 60s hippie bulls--t can you get? Well, he was right. Lennon was right. And Im right. There is a huge power in love. We all feel it.

If, for instance, you come to my show and while Im singing The Last Refugee, you feel a lump in your throat, or you turn and you look at your wife and shes got tears rolling down her cheeks,you are experiencing your ability to love.

And your ability to love eventually may trump, to use the stupid pun, your attachment to the idea of your own exceptionalism.

You cannot love others until you understand that you yourself are not exceptional, that they are just as important as you are and that everybody is dealt a different hand when theyre born and some of us need more help than others.

We have until now divided the world into the haves and have nots. Weve been very content to be part of the haves. And its been generally accepted that you dismiss the have nots.

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Interview: Roger Waters reflects on 'Us and Them' and tearing down the wall between us - AZCentral.com

The Fay School is an independent, coeducational boarding school located near Boston, Massachusetts. It enrols students between grades seven to nine in a boarding program, that is, the British equivalent of years eight to ten. Among other things, Fay students are expected at that age (eleven through 14 years old) to take care of their own laundry, clean their own rooms, and dispose of their own trash, as they board year long as the school.

Who knew, that expecting a 12 year old to be able to manage a cordless handheld vacuum cleaner to suck up spilt ramen powder could be such an easy request? Apparently, Oxfords colleges thinks much less of us, and that its students, the supposed best and brightest in all of Britain, if not the world, are less competent at cleaning up their crisp crumbs and bread dust than prepubescent children.

As we know, each college has their own system of housekeepers, known colloquially as scouts. Scouts perform a variety of housekeeping duties for each individual students room typically during morning hours. Scouts also clean and maintain a number of communal living areas, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and showers. The system has existed nearly as long as Oxford has, and well into the 60s and 70s, scouts were still openly referred to as servants, bringing bottles of milk to the doors of students.

To be fair, while Fay might not get parents rolling in to complain of the dreadful living conditions that their students might have to live in, its not entirely unimaginable to picture Oxford mothers railing one out at a college principal for daring to ask their child, god forbid, unclogs their own sink, is it? That being said, this comparison is wholly unnecessary. If we have reduced ourselves to asking each other to perform basic duties such as taking care of ourselves, the same way children half our size and age do, which apparently we have, we should actively recognise that there is something seriously wrong with the way the university is shaping our behaviour and expectations.

The claim, furthermore, that scouts fill a necessary role, is ludicrous. Imagine any other world-renowned institution telling its students that they need to hire cohorts upon cohorts of cleaners to vacuum their floors them and scrub their windows to a shine. They would be laughed at, as Oxford is. A concept straight out of Downtown Abbey, it is, and should be, considered an ancient practice. The practice continues, regrettably so, at Cambridge University, and Durham University, where they are otherwise known as bedders. Outside of these three universities, there is no equivalent at any other major educational institution in the entire world.

Why that is not concerning to the main body of administrators and students at Oxford, I will never understand. The former equivalent system at Trinity College Dublin, where scouts were known as skips, was abandoned in the 70s, when British civilisation also typically abandoned other archaic practices such as restricting university admission to men only. Apparently this idea of progress has been lost on Oxford. The idea that adults, or anyone over a reasonable age, cannot be expected to clean after themselves, and instead, require other grown adults to clean after them, in spaces as small as college rooms, is utterly absurd.

The entire system, thus, reeks of the same problems of potential for human trafficking and wage slavery that the entire housekeeper labour supply industry stinks of. In fact, some members of the administration at Oxford have clearly had the time to think it through and realise the very real grey area that exists. The Oxford University Council Secretariat has its own dedicated page towards compliance issues regarding Modern Slavery in its supply chains, for both labour and material goods. Now thats a term that you wont find, or need to find, in every other universitys websites, no matter how much you Google. It is a well known fact that at many colleges in Cambridge, nearly half of the bedders are Polish.

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The system of scouts also removes any sense of privacy, and automatically places students and scouts on a hostile ground over this effect. As if the smattering of CCTV cameras that spy on every nook and cranny of your college were not enough, the scout system is the icing on the cake that reminds you that the college you live in will never truly be your home. We are forced to give daily access to our rooms. The positive spin is typically presented as the requirement for scouts and students to develop a trusting relationship. I suppose that is the best way of phrasing the concept of being forced to agree to a system in which the posessions of students, both valuable and not valuable, are constantly accessible. This, along with the fact that many days of the week, scouts often have nothing to do, combine to create a naturally toxic relationship between scouts and students.

This occurs especially potently when scouts have to deal with the vibrant community of the spoiltthey face mockery and judgment from students who are faced with the existential conundrum of wanting everything done for them, but at the same time, naturally desiring privacy over their baubles, and so the cooking pot of rage boils. Reports of students unleashing verbal tirades on scouts, who do not speak English as a first language and thus dont even understand what is being said, are not unheard of. Fortunately, we can see colleges such as Jesus addressing the issue at hand properly, which have been reported in the past to force scouts to adopt Anglicised names, and colleges such as Christ Church who have been reported to force their scouts to learn English. In this manner, these two wonderful colleges have ensured that the scouts can receive a good scolding from entitled students and understand it too!

If all of the above were not concerning enough, what we should be most shocked at is that many scouts are not even paid a living wage. The Oxford Living Wage, separated from the national living wage costs because of the ridiculously high costs of living in Oxford, is 8.93 per hour, below the London living wage of 9.75 per hour. Despite this having been made clear by the Oxford City Council numerous times over the past and visibly declared on their online platforms, Oxford continues to pay its scouts below the Oxford Living Wage. More than 2,000 employers in Oxfordshire have signed up to the living wage scheme, and yet, according to vacancies advertised online, most colleges continue to pay their scouts below said wage. Hertford, which I regret to mention, because I suspect that they pay their scouts above the par in comparison to most other colleges, pay their scouts 8.45 an hour. It is reported that numerous other colleges continue to pay their scouts 7.85 an hour.

Harvard students famously campaigned for living wages for their own staff between 1998 and 2002. This past autumn, 750 workers went on strike, with the support of numerous student groups, to protest minimum wages that were not considered enough to afford a decent living, i.e. below the living wage. As a result, numerous dining halls closed all over Harvard, with the majority of the students on campus standing in solidarity with the workers, until the protest ended all dining halls return to normal operation. Unfortunately, I have the disappointment in believing that the same protest could never happen at Oxford, understandably so, as students study in one of the shortest year long undergraduate programmes ever, with tiny eight week terms.

Related The OxStew: PM criticises OUSU's financial strategy

The existence of terrible treatment outside of already terrible wages is no conspiracy. In a Cherwell investigation two years ago, incidents reported from scouts all over Oxford including instances of being forced to work from nine to 11 overtime with no compensation or apology, contracts that prevent scouts from having a lunch break, scouts forced to wear makeup and skirts, and persistent harassment from managers. Scouts themselves also lack the capacity to bargain or even remotely protest. The scouts at Oxford certainly have not unionised, and I suspect that they fully lack the ability to do so.

Reports at Jesus College of the harassment of scouts and the complete denial and gaslighting of scout concerns goes towards this belief. It is also well understood that scouts often refrain from discussing their wages or their working conditions in fear of losing their job, a state that no labourer should have to experience. Furthermore, while some scouts might be somewhat satisfied with their jobs and colleges, we should remember that is no prerequisite for the acceptance of the conditions and treatment of others, or for the existence of the system in general.

Finally, it is listed as a final resort, often by college principals themselves who relish in receiving housekeeping in their own college accommodations to free up time for their exhausting duties as revered heads of colleges of Oxford, that the colleges need tending to over the holidays. It is heavily ironic that college principals deliver platitudinous sermon after sermon about how learning takes precedence above all at that their colleges are first and foremost institutions of learning. If I were a wanderer with no prior knowledge of the colleges, I would not be able to tell the difference between most colleges at Oxford, and vaguely colonial hotels.

Then again, when colleges become displayed on TripAdvisor and get five star ratings for services, I begin to question myself if I am in a college that I am supposed to call my home, or a Hilton stuffed with tutors and an only somewhat meaningful history. How different really, are term stays from eight-week bookings at the Marriot?

The system of scouts makes a laughingstock out of the University of Oxford and each of its individual colleges. I would say that it contributes to the outsider picture of Oxford students as posh spoilt twats that puts so many off even bothering to apply, but how far would that picture really be from reality? How the system remains to the present day confuses me because I thought that the university had moved past inflting the egos of the talcum-powdered brats that genuinely believe that less time spent scrubbing the mirror clean of last nights spilt Dom Perignon means more time reading Isaiah Berlin and Sartre. Apparently, this is not the case. Get a grip, Oxford.

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The scout system at Oxford must be scrapped - Cherwell Online

The manager of two car washes in Exeter has appeared in court accused of posing an exploitation risk to his Romanian workforce.

Luan Sinanaj, 44, of Harrington Road, Pinhoe, has been made the subject of an interim slavery and trafficking risk order.

It follows concerns about the poor pay and living conditions of Romanian workers at car washes, run by Mr Sinanaj and his cousin, in Honiton Road and Main Road in Pinhoe.

Mr Sinanaj appeared before magistrates in Exeter on Monday. The case is one of only a handful of its type ever prosecuted in the country.

Prosecutor Emmi Wilson said Devon and Cornwall Police were bringing the application for a risk order under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Mr Sinanaj's cousin, Vladimir Veliaj, has already been made the subject of a full order preventing him from being involved in the transport of workers from within and outside the UK.

Mr Wilson said Mr Sinanaj was responsible for 'arranging for workers to come over to Exeter from Romania', to work at the two car washes which he ran with Mr Veliaj.

They were promised a good wage but were living in poor conditions and not paid much at all," she said.

Mr Sinanaj said he needed more time to get his lawyers involved and the case was adjourned.

Ms Wilson asked magistrates to impose an interim order until a full hearing could take place.

The test today is whether it would be just to make an order," said Mr Wilson.

The police say it is necessary to protect the public from these sorts of activities continuing in the interim."

READ MORE: 'Incompetent burglar' jailed after raiding bride-to-be's Exeter...

Magistrates agreed the interim order was needed.

An application for a full five-year risk order will be made on July 20. Mr Sinanaj is expected to oppose the application by police when he reappears.

Slavery and trafficking risk orders were introduced in the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

The risk order restricts the activity of people who have not been convicted of a modern slavery offence but who pose a risk of committing any such offence.

The recent prosecution of Mr Veliaj was the first of its type in Devon, Cornwall and Dorset.

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Exeter car wash owner in court accused of posing modern slavery risk - Devon Live

You are here: Home Local News Slave wages in Zimbabwe farms

FARM workers in Zimbabwe are victims of modern-day slavery. They earn $75 a month, despite the fact that agriculture is the backbone of the countrys economy.

BY MTHANDAZO NYONI

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Wonder Chabikwa

Farm workers told The Standard in separate interviews last week that farmers and government were neglecting and subjecting them to modern-day slavery.

Its more of modern-day slavery. Workers earn peanuts and this is very sad.

We fought against white supremacy but now there is black supremacy.

Farm workers, especially in the tobacco sector, are operating under poor working conditions and earning paltry salaries.

Employers dont offer them any protective clothing, said Raymond Sixpence, Progressive Agriculture and Allied Industries Workers Union of Zimbabwe general secretary.

As such, workers are vulnerable to respiratory and other diseases. Chinese employers go further to beat and harass employees. They dont want to pay them.

Some workers said employers were paying them with farm produce, citing harsh economic conditions in the country.

Recently, farm workers and employers agreed a salary increment of 4,2% or $3 for 2017 which saw the lowest earner being paid $75 per month and the highest paid worker now earning $150.

The agreement was signed on June 2 between the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (Gapwuz) and farmer organisations.

The farmer organisations that agreed to the new wages are the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union, Zimbabwe Farmers Union, Commercial Farmers Union, Zimbabwe Tobacco Association and the Zimbabwe Agricultural Employers Organisation.

Its a mockery for suffering employees who are working 365 days a year. Its very unfair, Sixpence said.

He said agriculture was one of the biggest contributors to the countrys economy but employees were not being recognised.

As a union, he said, they were fighting for a $100 minimum wage per month.

In South Africa, the lowest paid farm workers earn about $230 per month.

Gapwuz general secretary, Golden Magwaza said the wages for workers were still low but due to economic challenges, they had compromised for $75.

We still need more to be done because its still little but half a loaf is better than nothing, he said.

We are going to have another meeting with employers in the next 12 months to discuss the issue.

Our aim is to reach the poverty datum line but to reach that is a challenge due to economic challenges.

According to a 2016 report, Working and Living Conditions of Workers in the Agricultural sector in Zimbabwe compiled by Naome Chakanya, from 2011 to 2016, wages for farm workers failed to keep pace with both the food poverty line and the poverty datum line (PDL), thus reducing the workers to the working poor.

In 2011 and 2012, the lowest paid worker in the general agriculture sector earned $59. The figure was reviewed slightly up in 2013 by $6 to $65. In 2014 and 2015 workers earned $72.

Currently, the PDL is estimated at almost $600.

The report noted another major challenge facing agriculture sector workers was the non-payment of wages.

It said some workers had gone for periods ranging from three months upwards without salaries.

Employers cite reasons such as the challenging economic environment, while others with the capacity to pay are taking advantage of the excuse, reads the report.

For some workers, they are given their salaries piecemeal as the employers cite the liquidity crisis.

Also cases of compulsory overtime work and overburdening of workers are rampant in all the subsectors, the report noted.

A worker can only go home after completing the task given by the employer regardless of time required per day to complete the task.

For some, they do not have clear contracts of employment and end up being unsure of their hours of work and exposing themselves to overtime work, it said.

Furthermore, due to rampant casualisation of labour in the sector, workers are subjected to irregular hours of work, and their working time is unpredictable and can be changed by the employer at any time.

In some cases, the key informants noted that such overworking often leads to fatigue, which increases their vulnerabilities to workplace injuries and accidents.

Commercial Farmers Union president, Ben Purcell Gilpin said the farming industry was affected by viability challenges.

Yes, we had a good season, but it has not improved. Its not only workers who are feeling the pinch, also the employers. We have challenges of cash also, he said.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president, Wonder Chabikwa said the agreed wage increase was what farmers could afford.

For the past three years, there was no salary increment because farmers had not been making profit, he said. This year it increased from $72 to $75 for the lowest paid worker and this is the amount farmers could afford to pay.

He urged farmers to prioritise workers health by providing them safe working conditions.

The agriculture sector is the backbone of Zimbabwes economy as more than 70% of its population derives its livelihood from it, according to Chakanya. It contributes the highest figure in terms of the countrys wealth and employment.

In terms of employment, according to the Labour Force and Child Labour Survey released in 2014, the agricultures sector (including forestry and fishing) contributes about 67% of total employment.

The sector contributes about 15% to the countrys Gross Domestic Product.

Despite all this, workers in the sector are classified as working poor.

Excerpt from:

Slave wages in Zimbabwe farms - The Standard - The Zimbabwe Standard

Designer Raf Simons was best man at the CFDA fashion award in New York last week. Photograph: Prandoni/BFA/Rex/Shutterstock

A highlight of the $3tn fashion industry took place last week: the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) awards. These arent just a pat on the back, theyre career-defining. But youre more likely to get one if youre a man.

Research by American academic and sociologist Allyson Stokes found that between 19812013, 98 men received a CFDA award, but only 29 women. This year the only female nominees were celebrity fashion designers, the Olsen twins. One man, Raf Simons, won for both menswear and womenswear. He is the first (man) to win the double since another (man) Calvin Klein. His victory was somewhat eclipsed by the furore over the glass runway. Does the fashion industry have a gender equality issue, asked Fashionista.com.

Well yes, Fashionista.com, it does. Its not so much a gender equality problem but the type of mass exploitation of women that future generations will look at as we do slavery. To find it, though, youll need to look beyond the rarefied world of the glass runway. Theres a global supply chain that produces most of the worlds fashion, and 85 per cent of the 75 million garment workers toiling in this chain sewing seams, sequins and adding zippers to our everyday clothes are young women.

Here, female representation is not the problem. Physical abuse, unsafe factories and poverty wages are. In a recent report from womens rights NGO the Circle, founded by Annie Lennox (disclaimer: Im a member), human rights barrister Jessica Simor QC looked at female garment workers wages in 14 hotspots, from Bangladesh to Romania producing for high-street brands. The report shows how brands and states are riding roughshod over the right of these women to earn a living wage. To add further injury, these slave-wage jobs are consistently presented as being empowering for women in fashion.

Original post:

Fashion doesn't empower all women - The Guardian

Whistle-blower: director Ava DuVernay, whose Neflix documentary 13th explores the prison industry. Photograph: Vera Anderson/WireImage

We are all, at heart, ethical consumers. Ive never met anyone actively looking for a dose of slave labour with their teabags, window frames or underwear.

71% of companies surveyed in 2015 believed their supply chains might contain some form of slavery

But the supply chain for everyday products is in a parlous state. An incredible 71% of companies surveyed by the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) in 2015 believed their supply chains might contain some form of slavery.

So the Modern Slavery Act (ratified in 2015) deserves a cheer, requiring a raft of companies doing business in the UK and Ireland to eradicate child, bonded, forced prison and human-trafficked labour.

But this excludes voluntary prison labour, which is on the rise. The UKs rehabilitation revolution plans to double the number of employed offenders in the UKs prison population to 20,000 by 2020.

And thats nothing compared to the US where inmate labour is enshrined by the 13th amendment, which ended slavery except as a punishment for crime. The biggest brands in the world from Starbucks to Victorias Secret have used prisoners to bolster their businesses. Ava DuVernays Netflix documentary 13th explores this huge prison industry.

Inmate labour is often dressed up as an ethical intervention, the idea being that inmates working for multinationals in prison factories or loaned out as crews to call centres are learning important skills and paying their way. Except that its not altogether clear how these skills are transferable. Certainly the minimum wage does not apply.

The US state Viriginia was more upfront when its department of corrections took to promoting prison factories using the enticement inmate labour: the best- kept secret in outsourcing. Oops. Never buy the idea of prison products as ethical labour.

Londoners looking for respite from the capitals atrocious air pollution can take a deep breath at one of three new bus stops cited in pollution hot spots. The system from technology company Airlabs has been incorporated into Body Shop advertising boards, and works by trapping harmful particles (PM2.5) via a filtration system before gas pollutants, such as N02, are absorbed, delivering clean air to bus stop users.

At the risk of wishing the summer away, I can hardly wait for next month and the launch of the first People Tree collection with the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Its a small but perfectly formed eight-piece capsule collection which was inspired by the 1930s and based on dress fabrics originally produced by the Calico Printers Association in Manchester, now held in the V&As archive.

Its great to see an ethical fashion pioneer like People Tree continue to evolve. This is a brand that supports around 4,500 farmers, producers and artisans through 34 Fair Trade producer groups in 13 countries. This collection is sewn by a group working with female producers in Mumbai.

Clothes will be available from People Tree, with some styles on sale in the V&A shop. Available in sizes 8-16 online at peopletree.co.uk from July.

Email Lucy at lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @lucysiegle

Originally posted here:

The eco guide to prison labour - The Guardian

The Wolverhampton Private Hire Drivers Association (WPHDA), which also represents drivers from Walsall, Sandwell and Dudley, claim they have had to drastically drop prices to hold on to customers in the face of increasing competition from rival firms.

Fares between Wolverhampton to Birmingham had fallen by a quarter - from 25 to around 17- 18 following the arrival of taxi-hailing firms such as Uber on the scene, they claim.

Ebrahim Suleman, WPHDA chairman, said drivers were effectively earning 3.50 an hour after taking out expenses. "I may as well pack up and work in a factory, or Sainsbury's - at least then I will get the minimum wage.

"This is 21st century slavery. We have bills to pay and families to look after like everyone else."

He warned that Black Country private hire drivers would liaise with colleagues in Manchester and London to 'put the pressure on' politicians at both local and national level.

At a meeting last week they urged Wolverhampton's three Labour MPs Emma Reynolds, Pat McFadden and Eleanor Smith to lobby Parliament on their behalf.

Many members and elders of the local Muslim community also attended the meeting to given their support. One said Uber was 'killing the taxi industry all over the country.'

The move was the latest action by WPHDA which in October brought the city to a near standstill with a 'go slow' by around 200 drivers, causing delays for motorists in evening rush-hour traffic.

They were highlighting what the association sees as lenient tests for new taxi drivers and too many licences being given out by the Wolverhampton Council, which has taken advantage of new government deregulation allowing drivers to shop around for their licences.

The council is planning to reduce the cost of a taxi licence by between 1215 per cent. Councillor Bolshaw, licensing chairman, has said the authority simply acted quicker than its neighbours to ditch red tape that was holding up the service.

The WPHDA also launched a petition, signed by 800 people, to reintroduce harder tests which they said was in the interests of public safety, to raise standards and raise the profile of the trade.

The association, which also has members in the wider West Midlands, in Solihull and Coventry, is campaigning on a number of fronts, including cross-border hiring and holiday and sickness pay rights.

Last Tuesday thousands of Spanish taxis went on strike in Madrid and Barcelona to protest against ride-hailing companies such as US company Uber and Spanish-owned Cabify.

Uber does not employ drivers or own vehicles, instead relying on private contractors with their own cars, allowing them to run their own businesses. Critics say this allows it to dodge costly regulations such as stringent licensing requirements for taxi drivers, who undergo hundreds of hours of training.

Read the original post:

Taxi drivers are hit by '21st century slavery' in Uber row over fares - expressandstar.com

There's new evidence to back up what we always knew to be true.

A new report, entitled The Status of Black Women in America, confirms what your mama has been telling you all these years: as a Black woman you will have to be twice as good to get half of what they have.

The report, which was conducted by the nonprofit Institute for Womens Policy Research and funded by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, found that more than sixty percent of Black women are in the workforce, making them one of the two racial/ethnic groups of women with the highest labor force participation rate, but their earnings lag behind most womens and mens earnings in the U.S.

RELATED: 5 Things Black Women In Human Resources Want You to Know About Winning At Work

To get its findings, the report analyzed data by gender, race and ethnicity for all 50 states and the District of Columbia across six topical areas: political participation, employment and earnings, work and family, poverty and opportunity, health and well-being, and violence and safety. But it did not just find the problems, it included policy recommendations for each category.

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In the reports foreword, Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, writes, Though slavery was legally abolished in the United States in 1865, the conditions that existed under slavery continue to persist today. Black women continue to be at a severe disadvantage in many aspects of our democracy and our economy.

Whether one examines Black womens access to health care, Black womens earnings, or Black womens access to much needed social supports like childcare and eldercare, Black women are getting the short end of the stick--despite having contributed so much to the building of this nation. The result is a racialized economy where Black women are losing ground.

RELATED: Confronting Racial Bias At Work: What It Looks Like And How To Handle It

More Black women participate in the workforce than women of other races and the rate of Black women with a college degree has increased by nearly24 percent since the early 2000.Yet, we are among the most likely to live in poverty.

The only other group poorer than us is indigenous women.

Part of the reason for this poverty cycle is that despite all the advancement we have made, Black women still remain in the worst-paying sectors of the economy care taking and service jobs. Even college-educated Black women earn less than White women who went to college, with the median income for Black women in that category being $50,000 a year to a White womans $56,000.

More than 80 percent of Black mothers are breadwinners.

To bridge the wage gap and reduce poverty, the report recommends raising the minimum wage.

The researchers also said Black women had a higher voter turnout than all other groups of men and women during the last two presidential elections, but remain underrepresented at every level of federal and state political office. We hold only 3.4 percent of U.S. Congress seats, 3.5 percent seats in state legislature and only have Senator Kamala Harris representing us in the Senate.

Original post:

It's True: Black Women Are Working Harder And Getting Less In Return - Essence.com

BY SOFO ARCHON

Get a job. Go to work. Get married. Have children. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Obey the law. Save for your old age. Now repeat after me: I am free. ~Unknown

Most of us understand how horrible the practice of literal slavery is. But theres another form of slavery that we dont seem to notice and are barely concerned about wage slavery.

We have the technologicalcapacity to feed, shelter, and provide for the basic needs and wants of all humanity. However, oureconomic system prevents us from livingin a world of abundance that we could easily create, if we wanted to, for the simple reason that money is scarce and hence not all people can afford to live a decent life.

In thissystem, mostpeople have to submit to wage slavery, whether they like it or not,competingwith one anotherfor jobs that will allow them to merely survive, and always feeling financially insecure,which is causing them tremendous stress.

If youve been wondering whether you are a slave to your job, these 5 signswill reveal you the truth:

1. You feel compelled towork.Work is immensely beautiful when done out of love to contribute to the well-being of the world. However, the majority of people dont work because they love what they are doing orout of their desire to share their gifts to the world. On the contrary, they hate their job, and they do it only because they feel compelled to do it. They submit to their job, just so they canearn money, something that they would never choose to do, if given the chance to live wellwithout having to doso.

2. Youhave a boss.Since most peoples wagedepends on their employers, they have to see them as bosses and yieldto their will. A clear sign that most peopleare slaves to theirjobis that they cannot have a say and express themselves creatively when carrying out a task. They just have obey tothe orders given to them by thoseabove them in the work hierarchy.

3. Your job wastes your time. The standard working hours of countries worldwide are around 8hours per day,which means that about ahalfof most peopleswaking lifeis owned by their employers, and they waste it doing things they hate doing! If by freedom we meanthe choiceto spend ourtime the way weenjoy spending it, then this clearlymeans that everyone who has a normal job is nothing but a slave.

4. Your job wastes your energy.Other than wasting your time, a job is also veryenergy consuming. After having worked for about 8 hours in conditions of stress, most people return to their home feeling utterly exhausted, not having the energy anymore to do anything creative that gives them joy and improves the quality of their life. All their energy has been wasted during their work, leaving them physically, emotionally and mentally drained.

How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?~Charles Bukowski

Every week I send out a newsletter (or two) with mind-expanding articles for readers. Subscribe to get themdelivered right to your inboxfor free. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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4 Signs You are a Slave to Your Job | The Unbounded Spirit

The inquiry into establishing a Modern Slavery Act modeled on the UK Modern Slavery Act is a unique opportunity to also address corporate human rights due diligence in global supply chains. It creates room to develop binding legislation governing companies based on international standards including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises, the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions, especially the 2014 Forced Labor Protocol. We present information here regarding two areas of ongoing Human Rights Watch research: labor abuses in global apparel supply chains, and trafficking and forced labor in Thailands seafood industry (products exported to Australia).

Labor Abuses in Global Apparel Supply Chains

We note the terms of reference of this inquiry covers modern slavery (including slavery, forced labor and wage exploitation, involuntary servitude, debt bondage, human trafficking, forced marriage and other slavery-like exploitation) both in Australia and globally. Human Rights Watch research on garment workers rights in Cambodia and Bangladesh found many labor abuses in factories which form a part of the global supply chains of apparel companies.[1]

We found that transparency and reporting in global apparel supply chains, that is, publishing the names, street addresses and other key information about factories, is critical to worker rights. When brands are transparent and report about their supply chains, it allows workers and their advocates to more quickly alert brands to labor abuses and seek remedies.[2]

Labor abuses in garment supply chains are rampant. Forced overtime was a common worker grievance in Bangladesh and Cambodia. Workers told Human Rights Watch that they were pressured by employers to undertake overtime work. Many workers repeatedly complained that factories set high production targets, sometimes even threatening not to pay overtime wages if workers did not meet the targets within regular working hours. Brands contribute to problems of forced overtime in factories through their purchasing practices. For example, brands may place or alter orders last minute without changing the turnaround time for production, indirectly putting pressure on workers.

Workers often choose to form unions at the factory level and collectively bargain for their labor rights. Independent unions are an important vehicle for labor rights. Unions can raise labor and complaints, including those related to the use of underage child workers, forced overtime, non-payment of wages and negotiate for their rights to be better protected. Factory retaliation against union organizers in factories is a common labor rights abuse, and a barrier to advancing other labor rights in apparel supply chains.

Forced Labor and Trafficking in Thailands Seafood Industry

Australiais a major importer of Thai seafood, including pond-grown prawns and fish, both of which have major problems with human trafficking, forced labor, and other abuses in their supply chains. According to the Australian Department of Agriculture:

Fresh and frozen imports make up around half of all Australias edible seafood products imports. More than half of all fresh and frozen imports are frozen fillets (61 per cent) and frozen prawns (18 per cent). These products, predominantly from Thailand, China, New Zealand and Vietnam, meet consumer demand for low-cost seafood products.[3]

A major expose by the Guardian found that so-called trash fish, any sort of low-value or juvenile fish that could be swept up by trawlers operating with trafficked migrant laborers from Burma and Cambodia, were a key part of the shrimp feed being used to raise prawns in aquaculture ponds that are exported to countries around the world.[4] Trash fish of slightly higher value are also used to produce surimi, a ground fish paste made with mixed types of fish and other additives that is frequently made into artificial crab sticks and other similar low-cost seafood products.

Trafficked men on these fishing boats are deceived or simply forced to work on the fishing boats, where they endure 20 hours or more workdays, physical abuse by captains and boatswains, dirty and dangerous working conditions that result in injuries or sickness for which they get no time off, inadequate nutritious food and potable water, and little or no pay.

Migrant workers, predominantly from Burma and Cambodia, who voluntarily decide to work on fishing boats still face systematic and pervasive abuses, including forced labor characterized by a mix of debt bondage, seizure of worker identification documents, unlawful payment systems that require completion of six months to two years of work before the worker gets paid in a lump sum, inability to change employers, excessive working hours and menace of physical abuse if the work is deemed to fall short of expectation.

Despite revisions to Thailands Labor Protection Act in December 2014 to limit working hours and improve conditions on fishing boats, these provisions of law are widely disregarded at sea where working regimens and punishments are meted out by captains and their officers with impunity. In 2014 the European Union yellow carded Thailand for its Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing practices[5] and determined that exploitative labor conditions played an important facilitating role for IUU. The US also downgraded Thailand to Tier 3, the lowest level, in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. In response Thailands military government took action to impose order on the fishing sector, which had grown well beyond existing legal and regulatory systems.

Over the last three years, the Thai government has overhauled fisheries monitoring, control and management regimes. New inter-agency inspection frameworks have been established across the country and teams of officials now check fishing boats each time they depart or arrive in port. Laws have been strengthened and penalties for fisheries infringements have substantially increased. But the pace of change for fishing boat workers has not been as profound as it has been for fishing boats.

Human Rights Watch research to be published later this year, based on interviews with more than 250 current and former fishing workers, found that forced labor remains pervasive on Thai fishing vessels, while networks of underground brokers, traffickers, and corrupt Thai police and other officials continue to deceive and traffic men onto fishing vessels. Given the low pay, abusive captains, and dangerous conditions of work, its not surprising that the Thai fishing fleets are constantly short of the labor needed to effectively operate. Recent estimates presented by the National Fishing Association of Thailand to the Department of Employment at the Ministry of Labor estimated that the fishing industry has a shortage of 60,000 workers who are needed urgently.[6] Migrant workers from Burma and Cambodia who are on these boats do not have the right to take steps to empower themselves, such as forming a trade union, because of discriminatory provisions in the Labor Relations Act 1975 that limit to Thai nationals the right to formally register a union and to be elected a union committee member, which is the only legal path to becoming a union leader.

The Thai government and the Thai fishing industry have a record of only making substantive reforms in laws and enforcement when they must respond to external pressure brought by other governments and by private sector corporations. Australia should adopt stringent measures to ensure that Thai seafood exported to Australia is sourced ethically, without violating workers rights to freely engage or withdraw from labor, to be paid according to law, and to be free of coercion, intimidation and abuse of all kinds.

Recommendations:

The Australian government should:

Any Australian legislation to address modern slavery, forced labor, and wage exploitation should address corporate human rights due diligence in their global supply chains, with the following elements:

[5] A yellow card puts a country on notice that if it fails to end practices that the EU considers to contribute to IUU fishing, trade action may be taken under a red card to bar all seafood imported from that country to EU states.

[7] The United States has enacted similar legislation though enforcement was weak. In 2016, the US government closed a significant loophole that impeded enforcement and officials have expressed a new willingness to enforce this law.

Continue reading here:

Australia: Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Inquiry into ... - Human Rights Watch (press release)

June 12 is World Day Against Child Labour. So what is child labour, how many children are affected, where are they and what jobs do they do?

World Day Against Child Labour was launched in 2002 and is held each year on June 12.

There are more than 168 million child labourers aged from five to 17 around the world - down a third from 246 million in 2000. Many of them will never start school or will drop out of school. They have little or no time for play or normal childhood activities.

Child labour is classified as work carried out to the detriment and endangerment of a child, in violation of international law and national legislation. It deprives children of schooling or requires them to assume the dual burden of schooling and work.

Education is a proven strategy for reducing child labour. Lack of access to education keeps the cycle of exploitation, illiteracy and poverty going limiting future options and forcing children to accept low-wage work as adults and to raise their own children in poverty. Children who have access to education can break the cycle of poverty at the root of child labour.

A significant number of child labourers live in countries affected by conflict, violence and fragility. Many of them will never go to school or will drop out of school.

The theme of this years World Day Against Child Labour is: In conflicts and disasters, protect children from child labour.

More than half of the children who dont go to primary school live in countries affected by humanitarian emergencies, including conflicts, natural disasters and health crises. During emergencies, schools are often closed down and families and their children are displaced - forcing children into work to help their families survive.

The United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child says girls and boys have the right to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing work that is likely to be hazardous or interferes with their education, or that is harmful to their health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

The Sustainable Development Goals - a set of global aims agreed by world leaders in 2015 - has a target to end all forms of child labour by 2030.

Child labourers work on farms and in fields, in factories and down mines. Some work as servants or maids, others sell goods in the streets or at markets.

Almost 60% all the world's child labourers - 98 million of them - work in agriculture, which includes farming and fishing. Two-thirds of them work for their families for no money and often start when they are very young - usually between five and seven years old.

Child labour includes slavery or practices similar to slavery, the use of a child for prostitution or for illicit activities.

Child labour is illegal in many countries. But families and employers often hide what they are doing because they worry they will be taken to court or sent to prison. Almost 50 countries do not have laws to protect children under 18 from doing dangerous work.

Child labour among girls fell by 40% since 2000, compared to 25% for boys.

Some child labourers get paid and some dont. Some will get no money for the work they do but will get food and a place to sleep.

The International Labour Organization estimates that 85 million children work in hazardous labour. In 2000, that number was 171 million. They work in dangerous or unhealthy conditions that could result in a child being killed, injured or made ill as a result of poor safety and health standards and working arrangements.

There are 78 million child labourers in the Asia and Pacific region - almost one in 10 children. There are 59 million in sub-Saharan Africa (one in five), 13 million in Latin America and the Caribbean and 9.2 million in the Middle East and North Africa.

There are many reasons why children work. A major one is poverty - families do not have enough money to feed and look after their children or pay their school fees, so they have to to find jobs. Businesses will often employ children because they don't have to pay them very high wages or look after them properly.

The countries with the highest number of child labourers are Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They have all been affected by conflict for many years and have high out-of-school populations.

An event in Geneva on June 12 will feature the testimony of a young advocate from Lebanon who was in child labour, a reading by the young world-renowned poet Emtithal Mahmoud and a performance by local school children.

Events will also be held in many countries around the world, ranging from policy discussions involving government ministries and UN agencies to community-level activities involving children and their families.

See the article here:

21 sad and shocking facts ahead of World Day Against Child Labour - ReliefWeb

Ed-u-ca-tion.

Ah, the sound of the word alone evokes feelings of hope, prosperity, success andwhats that?money, you say? Ah, yes. And money.

We grow up believing that education can defeat all circumstance, transcend social classes, and pave a 24 carat, solid gold nugget path to upward mobility blissdom. Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! (No, that was not a scream, people, those were the angels harmonizing. Clearly.)

And, isnt that the case?

Dont we go to school and get an education to learn, think independently, develop our interests and become all-around badasses? Dont we praise, worship and promote education as the be-all, end-all solution to the worlds worries? Dont we embark on philanthropic missions to spread the good word of education to those that dont have access? Doesnt education equal opportunity? Dont I ask a lot of rhetorical questions?

Were constantly talking about what education can do for us.

Sure, theres plenty that education can do for all of us. But in our flurry of excitement, we fail to recognize that tiny little detail called the law of reciprocity. What, exactly, are we doing for education in return?

The answer: A hell of a lot more than we realize.

Why do you suppose presidents go out of their way to make education a priority? And I quote, from President Obamas website:

Preparing our children to compete in the global economy is one of the most urgent challenges we face.

Sounds noble enough, doesnt it? (Note: This is not a political statement for or against President Obama. Just an example.) As much as wed like to believe that those in power are petitioning for education because theyre good people, or because theyre looking out for our personal well-being, or because they want social equality, or maybe just so we dont look like big, fumbling, sloppy idiots next to the Chineseits a happy little love story, but it isnt the real reason. The real reason is tucked nicely right into that quote up there. See it there? Look closely. See it now?

Economy.

Economy is a fun little word, especially right now. Our economy happens to be based on capitalism. This means that goods, or capital, is traded for profit, and profit is the name of the game. The term capital can encompass many things, but theres one form of capital in particular thats the most important form of all, and guess what?

That capital is YOU.

You probably think of yourself as far more than a mere factor of production,but human beings in a capitalist society are exactly thathuman capital. (Worse, what really stings is that economists refer to human capital as a fungible resource, which basically means that youre interchangeable. Ouch.) Basically, your knowledge contributes to your ability to perform labor, in order to produce economic value. Therefore, more knowledge = more labor = more economic value.

And how do you get more knowledge? Ed-u-ca-tion. (Cue angels.)

This is why education is promoted. And Im sure it comes as no surprise, the link between education and economic value. Weve always grasped that concept on on the surface, but the question is, do we understand what that means? For example, what if its the case that the only education youre receiving is that which contributes to your economic value? Some might argue that it is.

We educate people to perform the functions that are needed, so that they can be productive members of society. Youve heard that phrase before, right? In this sense, within the education system we are essentially a bunch of giant pawns that are manipulated, shaped and formed into what is needed in order to produce, AKA, what is needed in order to make a profit. We arent gaining knowledge for the sake of knowledge; we are gaining specific knowledgethat which is dictated by the elite, with their goals in mind, since they run the education system in the first placein order to perform certain functions later in life. Were being prepared for the work force. Were being primed to produce.

Were being used, in the deepest sense.

From this perspective, the economy doesnt exist to support its people; its people exist to support the economy. The term wage slave has never held more truth.

Lets say a school curriculum emphasizes mathematics over history. (It isnt too often you hear of AP History, do you?) Its highly probable that the students that attend that school will rank mathematics as more important than history. In turn, those people are going to regard jobs that require specialized skills in mathematics as more important than those that require specialized skills in history.

Students are told that jobs in mathematics will mean greater economic opportunities, which may be partly true, but what society gets out of promoting mathematics through the education system is a greater supply of math geniuses. A greater supply of math genius human capital. And a greater supply of math genius human capital translates into a more competitive society. And a more competitive society translates into a more profitable society. And a more profitable societyyou guessed ittranslates into a better economy.

Was the connection clear there?

So lets skip past all the wordy explanations and get down to itbasically, youre busting your ass to learn math so someone at the top can get even richer. Its a hidden curriculum, if you will. Its a case of those in power manipulating schooling to serve their own agenda. The opinions of the majority are formed mainly through education, and the government decides whats taught in an educational setting.

Coincidence? I think not.

The education system is the perfect way to transmit fundamental values necessary for capitalism to be successfulcompetition, individualism, consumerismbecause it has access to children right from the beginning, and for a really, really (really) long time. Its socialization by education. Education is a tool to wield power.

If you need more proof, think back to when schooling first became widespread, when Western nations tried to colonize indigenous peoples, providing them with moral guidance in an attempt to convert them to Western values and norms.

Why?

So Westerners could exploit them by extracting taxes and getting cheap labor, as well as encourage the spread of Western culture and language. Doesnt sound so much like an institution with your best interests in mind, does it? It was about power and money then, and its about power and money now.

But, its pretty hard to reject a piece of the status quo when youve spent your whole life unconsciously perpetuating it.

In school, too often we are taught what to think, not how to think, and theres a fundamental difference. Its crucial to acquire the latter if you want to do big things. Critical thinking skills are lacking, and thats why I blogto encourage it.

Sometimes it makes people uncomfortable, but thats the point. By inspiring critical thought, the hope is to nudge the human race forward, if only just a little bit. Critical thinking leads to action. And if we ever want to shake up the status quo, were going to have to act.

Am I rebelling against capitalism? No. But I am calling for a more conscious awareness of how the world works around usand how it affects us, in turn? Yes.

Am I rebelling against education? No. But am I calling for a broader base of knowledge within the education system? Hell yes.

I get capitalism, but heres the thing:

I dont like being someone elses capitalI want to be my own.

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Education & Wage Slavery | The Middle Finger Project

The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office is cracking down on modern-day slavery, and a Cambridge couple is paying more than $35,000 following allegations they failed to pay a live-in domestic worker who cared for their children.

The story seems to be ripped straight from the cover of a recent Atlantic magazine detailing a family who emigrated (legally) from Southeast Asia, bringing with them a domestic worker who was expected to care for the children and cover basic household duties. The problem? The family never paid the domestic worker.

In Cambridge, married couple Shiou Voon Kayse Foo and Kay Jinn Wong failed to pay minimum wage, overtime and vacation pay, and they failed to comply with the states Domestic Workers Law in connection with their former live-in employee, Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement.

These individuals exploited their live-in employee by forcing her to work without proper pay, Healey said. Massachusetts has strong laws to protect all workers and ensure they are treated fairly. This should send a message that this conduct is not acceptable, and we will go after those who do not pay their workers properly.

The Attorney Generals Office began investigating Foo and Wong based on a referral from Boston University Law Schools Human Trafficking Clinic in March. The couple, originally from Malaysia, was living in Cambridge and brought their domestic worker with them, whom they had previously employed, to help care for their children and to provide other domestic services.

The investigation revealed that once in Cambridge, Foo and Wong made only sporadic payments and failed to pay their employee for weeks at a time. Foo and Wong have denied any wrongdoing.

Massachusetts law for domestic workers regulates working and rest time, charges for food and lodging and circumstances of termination. The law also requires employers to make and keep records of the hours worked by any domestic worker and provides guidelines for work evaluations and written employment agreements. These protections apply regardless of a domestic worker's immigration status.

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Modern-day slavery alive in Cambridge as couple refuses wages to domestic worker: AG - Metro US

ERIK S. LESSER/EPA/NewscomU.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a gathering of more than 1,500 federal, state, and local law enforcement agents that he was ready to follow President Donald Trump's orders and "make our country safe again." For Sessions, that entails "mak[ing] the fight against child exploitation and human trafficking a top priority."

Both were major priorities for the Obama-era Department of Justice and FBI too, so Sessions' bluster is based on a bit of a false premise. But what difference does it makeprioritizing the protection of children and trafficking-victims can't be a bad thing, right?

Alas: When it's done by the likes of the Justice Department, it can be. Beyond all the big talk about saving kids, the agency actually allocates most of its anti-exploitation agenda to arresting adult sex workers and snagging people in stings that involve no actual victims. That is, when it's not aiding in the arrests of exploited children themselves. If Sessions' June 6 speechclosing the National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation meeting in Atlantasignals greater federal investment in status-quo solutions, expect to see even more "human trafficking stings" targeting adults engaged in prostitution, immigrants eligible for deportation, and asset-heavy escort-advertising sites, as well as any broader civil liberties they can plausibly grab along the way.

In Atlanta, Sessions warned of the dangers of "emerging technologies," encrypted-communication platforms, social-networking sites, and "the so-called Darknet." These, he declared, are the tools of such "depraved people" as "child pornographers, sextortionists, and human traffickers."

"We need to help our fellow citizens know what to watch for, and encourage them to tell us when they see something troubling," Sessions urged. "Nothing less than a united effort will be enough to keep our children from becoming victims of exploitation."

Sessions finished his speech by presenting a video on "the importance of recognizing the signs of child sex-trafficking and reporting suspected crimes." It featured the tagline: "Modern day slavery exists. If you see it, report it." Even the aggressively neutral Politico couldn't avoid making drug war comparisons, describing the video as "hearkening back to the D.A.R.E era" with its "hyperbolic language" and its portrait of "a slippery slope of behavior leading to irrevocable consequences."

The idea that every American child is just one smartphone app away from being snatched into sex slavery is absurd, and it bears no relationship to what both anecdotes and data tell us about such matters. But it does make a nice narrative if you want to wage war on pesky encrypted technologies that thwart all sorts of investigators; or to insert more Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security, and FBI agents into community policing; or to get everyone from flight attendants to truck drivers telling federal agents about anyone "suspicious"; or to ensure the continued relevance of an agency whose drug-war glory days are behind it.

As Reason's Matt Welch pointed out in January, the Sessions confirmation hearing featured no lack of hysteria about human trafficking. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) began her interrogation by asking about sex trafficking, which she called the second-largest criminal industry in Americaa "factually insane claim that will probably give [Sessions] more power," Welch noted:

In order for "human sex trafficking" to be the second largest criminal industry in the United States, it would at minimum need to supplant illegal narcotics (roughly $100 billion a year, according to a 2014 Rand Corp. estimate), or Medicare fraud (in the ballpark of $60 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office in 2015). So distant is reality from those numbers that even the commonly cited figure of $9.8 billion a year for all trafficking and keep in mind that human smuggling dwarfs sex trafficking was given "four Pinocchios" by Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler.

Senators at the confirmation hearing also grilled Sessions on whether pornography is a public health crisis and how open he is to aggressive use of obscenity laws.

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Jeff Sessions Says Social Media, Encrypted Apps Hamper War on 'Modern Slavery' - Reason (blog)

For most of the first century following the American Civil War, histories of the wars legacy particularly the Reconstruction era tended to suffer from the myopia of considering only the relationship between white Northerners and white Southerners. As the war neared its end, some in the Union (like Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, though in very different ways) stressed the need for reconciliation between the Union and the defeated Confederates; other Radical Republicans wanted a more vigorous demonstration of vengeance towards the rebels and their leaders for their treason. The result of looking at the war and its aftermath solely through this framework is that waves of revisionism swung back and forth between views sympathetic to the Radicals desire to remake the South and liberal-sounding histories that condemned them as hard-hearted zealots insistent on prolonging the nations divisions, and that painted Reconstruction as a cesspool of corruption. The latter type of history was largely responsible for the bad historical reputation of Ulysses S. Grants Radical-friendly presidency. It also colored denunciations of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson (although Johnson, who was wrong about Reconstruction, was right about the specific dispute at issue in the impeachment.) You can still catch a whiff of this latter view in the chapters on that era in John F. Kennedys Profiles in Courage.

The problem with the how hard should we have been on the Confederates debate is simple: it leaves black people out of the picture. Thats a rather large omission. The Civil War was not, as some would have you believe, fought only over the issue of slavery; it was the culmination of a series of disputes over ideas and policies, and seeing the war as a crusade to free the slaves was never more than the view of a sizeable minority faction in the North. Even Lincoln was willing, all the way to 1865, to make some concessions on the pace of abolition in order to end the war and preserve the Union. But slavery was unquestionably the main cause of the rupture between North and South, without which there would have been no war. The debates and resolutions adopted by Southern states when they seceded made it extraordinarily clear that the South was leaving mainly to protect the institution of slavery. (Moreover, many of the secondary disputes between the two sides were connected to the nature of the Southern slave economy). And in the debates over Reconstruction, the civil and economic rights of the freed slaves were a crucial battleground, one on which Northern Republicans fought long and hard for a decade before exhaustedly surrendering in 1876 in exchange for control of the White House.

If you have only ever read treatments of the life of Robert E. Lee that suffer from the myopic exclusion of black people, Adam Serwers latest piece in The Atlantic could offer you a useful corrective. But Serwer suffers from his own myopia.

Lee was widely revered in his own day even by his adversaries partly for being a great general, and partly as a paragon of a great many virtues valued by the (white) American society of his time. Serwer offers to add to that picture both a reminder that Lee shared the retrograde racial attitudes of his time and that the cause Lee fought for was inseparable in every particular from slavery. (He offers as one example the fact that Lee would not engage in prisoner of war exchanges that treated captured black Union soldiers as prisoners of war rather than escaped property). He also notes that Lees role as a postwar conciliator must be balanced against his continuing opposition to black civil rights, a movement that would mature into the full horror of Jim Crow within a few years of Lees 1870 death. If Serwer stopped there, hed be on solid enough ground.

But intent on attacking every aspect of Lees memory, Serwer keeps going. First, he berates Lee for the grand-strategic decision to wage a conventional war against the Union:

Despite his ability to win individual battles, his decision to fight a conventional war against the more densely populated and industrialized North is considered by many historians to have been a fatal strategic error.

This echoes a May 19 op-ed by Michael Rosenwald in the Washington Post, tendentiously titled The truth about Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee: He wasnt very good at his job, which chose to level the same charge at the same time, probably for the same reason:

Outmanned, Lee should have taken a more defensive posture, drawing the North into difficult Southern terrain. Instead, he was constantly on the offensive, which resulted in heavy casualties and broken spirits.

Its true that the Confederacys grand strategy in the war was badly flawed. Indeed, the decision to wage the war at all was insane: the Confederacy was far less of a match in manpower or industry for the Union than the Thirteen Colonies had been relative to Great Britain in 1775, and unlike the colonists, the Confederacy didnt have an ocean between themselves and their adversaries. The Confederate cause could succeed only if it was vastly better-led than the Union, and thanks in large part to Lee, it managed to pull that off for the first two and a half years of the war.

However, Serwers attack on Lee as a strategist completely ignores two vital points. One, Lee wasnt in charge of grand strategy, and in reality wasnt even a theater commander until June of 1862, when he was put in charge of the Army of Northern Virginia in time to halt a Union advance on the Confederate capital of Richmond. Lee had spent the year before that fighting relatively peripheral battles and supervising the construction of defensive trenches around Richmond. The Confederacy was a democracy, and its elected government was headed by Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate, former Secretary of War and a colonel in the Mexican War who took an active role in military strategy. It wasnt Lee who decided to locate the new capital so close to the Union lines, necessitating the commitment of extensive resources to defend Eastern Virginia. It was Davis and his government, not Lee, who imposed the political imperatives that drove Confederate strategy.

More broadly, Serwer wholly fails to consider the moral consequences of a purely defensive war of Fabian retreats and guerilla fighting on Confederate turf. Such a war which Lee never wanted during the war, and which he rejected as a path of insurgency after Appomattox would have been one of scorched earth and embitterment, not only wrecking the South even in victory but making any permanent reconciliation vastly more difficult in defeat. The human toll of such a war could be seen from the places where it had erupted during the Revolution, like North Carolina. Sherman would ultimately bring scorched earth to Georgia, and the results hardly recommend a deliberate strategy to invite that for the entire war.

Related to this is how little credit he gives Lees eminence and gentlemanly surrender for preventing a long-term insurgency, avoiding an aftermath like the French Revolution, and enabling the country to return to being a single, functional political whole in time enough to see the vast rise in American prosperity and power between 1870 and 1945. If the old histories of Reconstruction were myopic in forgetting African-Americans, Serwers view is myopic in considering no one else, not even the majority of the population. Looking back at Jim Crow, he cannot see how anything could have been worse, why national reconciliation after the war had any value, or why anyone would have wanted peace in the America of 1865-76. We can use the distance of history to judge the national decision to fight no further, but we should have some understanding of what costs the people of the day had paid already, and what they spared by laying down the sword.

In fact, Lees willingness after the war to subordinate the interests of freed slaves to the cause of union and peace was not so radically different from the view that Lincoln himself took during the war. All the way up to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Lincoln had held onto the view that some concessions on slavery (albeit fewer as the war wore on) could be exchanged for restoring the nation. That doesnt make Lee the moral equal of Lincoln, but the Americans of that day did not see things in the same terms we do now.

Lee was no hero; he fought for an unjust cause, and he lost. Unlike the Founding Fathers (even the slaveholders among them), he failed the basic test of history: leaving the world better and freer than he found it. And while he was not responsible for the Souths strategic failures, his lack of strategic vision places him below Grant, Sherman and Winfield Scott in any assessment of the wars greatest generals. We should not be building new monuments to him, but if we fail to understand why the men of his day revered him, we are likelier to fail to understand who people revere today, and why. And tearing down statues of Lee today is less about understanding the past than it is a contest to divide the people of todays America, and see who holds more power. Thats no better an attitude today than it was in Lees day.

As much as I value history understanding it is essential to understanding our own world today one should be suspicious of people looking to make a contemporary political cause out of the American Civil War, the most bloody and divisive episode in our nations past. The results are often more racial division and less understanding of history. Serwers interest in attacking General Lee is transparently about the present, not the past. That myopia is how he ends up down a blind alley.

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A Myopic View Of Robert E. Lee - National Review

Nova Ruth and Grey Filastine perform close to 100 shows a year, many of them free, everywhere from semi-legal venues to migrant camps. Julieta Feroz

On YouTube you can find a video of Javanese soul singer Nova Ruth singing Perbatasan (Indonesian for Borderline) from the back of a pedicab driven by her American-born collaborator, Grey Filastine. Strings of lights draped on the pedicab illuminate a world of endless roads and fragile vehicles in an unnamed Indonesian city, while English subtitles translate lyrics about the alternating hope and despair of contemporary war refugees. The rhythmic and melodic structure of the song is based on the circular polyphonics of Javanese gamelan, while the digital loops and noise-filtered string mosaics evoke Migos as much as Philip Glass.

Welcome to Drapetomania, an album named after the mental disease invented by mid-nineteenth-century apologists for chattel slavery, to suggest that any slave seeking to escape the benefits of captivity must be insane.Filastine and Nova believe that the constraints of nationalism and global capitalism enslave the human race; their album title presupposes that many will call them crazy because their art advocates the need to abandon both systems. The ever-expanding suite of music and videos tied to Drapetomania makes one wonder what might happen if this multimedia project got as much press and exposure as Beyoncs Lemonade and given the diverse sources of inspiration for Lemonade, it wouldnt surprise me if Beys brain trust had noticed the past ten years of audiovisual provocation that have made Filastine and Nova legendary among musical activists worldwide.

On a budget of next to nothing they perform close to 100 international gigs a year, many of them free and mounted in semi-legal spaces. We have to be crazy efficient, says Filastine. Most tours are just Nova and myself dragging a few overstuffed suitcases around the world, unfolding ourselves into a deceptively large stage show.YouTube and the website Post World Industries offer an impressive sampling of Filastine and Nova videos and music for the uninitiated. You can watch live footage of beat-meister Filastine and singer Ruth onstage at the Calais Jungle migrant camp in France, or in the studio at Seattles KEXP.Neither Filastine nor Ruth is new to video, radical politics, or digital production on a shoestring; even their most outlaw installations have a professional look and sound.

Emerging out of the Seattle-based agit-pop underground in the 1990s, Filastine formed the anarcho-punk dance theater group Tchkung! then the multiculti marching band Infernal Noise Brigade, making the latter a strategic participant in protests at the 2000 IMF Meeting in Prague, the 2004 US Republican Party National Convention in New York, and the G8 Summit in Scotland in 2005.He went solo and nomadic to form an amorphous digital collective under the name Filastine in 2006; while touring Jakarta in 2009 he was introduced to Ruth. She was already active as a videographer and community hacktivist, as well as a singer-songwriter who performed as half of the rap duo Twin Sista.

My grandpa, a priest, taught me to sing since the age of five, and my dad is a rock guitarist, says Nova of her background. I studied at a school focused on Javanese culture, so I learned gamelan as a kid. Half my family are Pentecostal and the other half Muslim, so I was lucky to spend my childhood in both of these musical traditions. Drapetomania was conceptualized as a dance record, with 808 drum machines abetted by bits of accordion, Gypsy guitar, and Brent Arnolds eloquent cello, but gamelan is a pervasive influence, deployed with specific intent, Ruth explains: If we could make a drawing of the gamelans frequencies, they would be shaped round, like a ball, resonating in all directions equally. This can trigger deep feelings, and thats why its so effective for trance and ritual music. Novas elegiac melodies and layered harmonies on tracks like Miner, Perbatasan, Fenomena, and Senescence open up a place of ecstatic reverie that transcends language.

Impromptu recordings and performances in migrant camps, nomadic communes, or sites of organized socioeconomic protest are what most characterize Filastine and Nova as a pop group, yet they refuse to let their art eclipse their politics or their politics become more important than their art. They manage to capture and honor the signature beauty of every genre in Filastines ambitious sound collage be it Japanese taiko, Dirty South trap, or industrial dubstep. The duo maintains that what they do is distinct from music that explores sound for its own sake, and also from the ego, power, and commercial discourse of mainstream rap. (Lets face it, Bad and Boujee defends an outlaw lifestyle, but it could also be the theme song of the Trump administration.)

I do think we are exploring a different kind of politics, Filastine explains. Ideas about our alienation from nature, about migration and urbanism, ideas more about the totality of the human project, and less about the internal tribal divisions and myriad oppressions that divide it.

At the heart of Drapetomania is a thematic quartet of online video singles collectively titled Abandon.Miner was filmed in Indonesia, Cleaner in Portugal, Salarymen in the USA, and Chatarreros in Spain, with each vignette using music and dance to incite workers in each country to abandon crappy jobs.What do miners, housemaids, corporate wage slaves, and scrap metal collectors have in common? The desire to imagine and live a better life. Yet Filastine and Nova are not so much antiwage labor as they are pro-responsibility. They want all captains of industry to honestly reassess the social and ecological damage done by structuring businesses around ideas like artificial scarcity, conspicuous consumption, planned obsolescence, and maximum profit.

Filastine himself, who abandoned a day job as a Seattle cab driver to travel around the world as a multimedia artist, somehow manages to walk this insurrectionary talk.The songs on Drapetomania speak to, for, and from the perspective of a nationless wanderer, even though Filastine spends most of his non-tour time in Barcelona, scoring bicycle sound swarm interventions, or music for activist documentaries. (He chronicled his struggle to make this unusual bohemian life possible in a blog published from 2008 to 2013.) As if to underscore the upside of useful work, Grey remembers his time in the service industry of driving cabs as deeply inspirational: If youre asking about the taxis acoustic impact on my work, well, nearly every song Ive produced references some part of that experience, whether its the crackle of a two-way radio, a confusion of tongues, or the low-frequency rumble of a city.

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Nova Ruth Wants To Free Us From The Bondage Of Wage Slavery - Village Voice

It's a movie cliche: a bunch of men in white-and-black striped pajamas, with chains around their ankles, breaking rocks in a quarry under armed guard. The media has taught us that prison labor is the natural state of the world a way to make the punishment for wrongdoing a little more unpleasant, and a way to make criminals sweat off whatever sinister restlessness drove them to crime.

But the reality is that prison labor is just a way that governments try to recoup some of the cost of incarceration, by farming out their prisoners as captive labor. That might help governments' bottom line a little bit, but it creates devastating competition for low-wage American workers.

The U.S. locks up an extraordinary number of people. Its incarceration rate is the highest in the world and at least twice that of any other advanced economy, and significantly higher than authoritarian Russia. Of incarcerated Americans, about 1 1/2 million are in prison. That number surged in the 1980s and hasn't fallen much from its peak in the mid-2000s.

That enormous prison population represents a vast pool of ultra-cheap labor. A recent report by the Prison Policy Initiative found that the average wage of a prison worker is 93 cents an hour, and the lowest reported wage was 16 cents.

Compare that to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. How can a free American worker compete with an inmate laborer making less than one-tenth that amount? Even if prisoners are less productive than free workers, the wage difference is overwhelming.

Nor are these prison workers breaking rocks, as in old movies. In the modern day, the government contracts them out to private companies, offering inmates as a way to boost the bottom line. Over the years, prisoners have packaged coffee for Starbucks and wrapped software for Microsoft. They manufacture furniture, schools supplies and food products. They make dental products, train animals, work in call centers and even pick cotton.

All of these activities put prisoners in direct competition with blue-collar American workers; the latter essentially have no chance. In recent years, there have been political uproars over guest workers, unauthorized immigrants and offshoring U.S. jobs to low-wage countries such as Bangladesh. But low-wage immigrants don't do much to lower native-born wages, and laborers in Bangladesh don't have the tools or the proximity to compete directly with most American workers.

If you want to ease the pressure on the beleaguered U.S. working class, paying prisoners more is the best bet. Mandating that prison labor receive the federal minimum wage would open up lots of job opportunities for low-wage workers on the outside.

It would also be the moral thing to do. Detractors often call the prison labor system slavery, and while there are differences between modern prison labor and the slavery system of the old South, the similarities are way too close for comfort. The U.S. has always valued free labor over compulsory work -- as historians have documented, this was one reason slavery aroused such ire in the antebellum North.

Prison labor therefore goes against traditional American values and humanitarian concerns alike. Writers who have gone to watch the prison labor system in action report being stunned by how widespread and accepted this un-American system has become, especially in states like Louisiana with high rates of incarceration.

Morality also demands that prisoners should receive more of the money that customers pay for their services. Currently, inmates receive only about a quarter of that money, including the portion that goes to victim reparation funds.

Reduced demand for prison labor due to higher wages, especially if prisoners are allowed to keep more of what they earn, would mean government finances will take a hit. Incarceration is expensive, costing about $30,000 a year for a federal inmate. But maybe raising the cost of throwing Americans in prison is a good thing.

The incredibly high U.S. incarceration rate is a strong indication that the country is locking people away for crimes that don't really require it, such as drug use or petty theft. But recently, high costs are forcing states to reduce their prison populations. Presumably, that will limit incarceration to those who really need to be locked up. The end of mass incarceration will also help the economy and reduce inequality -- some estimates claim that the practice of imprisoning millions of Americans has increased the country's poverty rate by 20 percent, even before taking into account the wage competition from cheap prison labor.

So paying prisoners the minimum wage shouldn't be seen as an act of charity. It will take pressure off of working-class American laborers, encourage governments to reduce mass incarceration and move the country back toward valuing free labor.

Bloomberg View

NoahSmith is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

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Paying minimum wage to inmates helps the working class - Chicago ... - Chicago Tribune

The Atlantic magazine published an article in the June 2017 issue entitled, My Familys Slave, by journalist Alex Tizon. His article regarding the story of Eudocia Pulido, known as Lola, and her forced migration and exploitation as a modern-day slave in the United States highlights the current conditions facing Filipino women.

Eudocia Pulidos story cannot be understood outside the context of Philippine society and history which is rooted in U.S. imperialism and neoliberal economic policies that have caused the systemic suffering of many underpaid domestic helpers like Lola.

The Philippines is one of the largest labor exporters in the world with 6,000 Filipinos, 60 percent of them women, leaving the country every single day in order to work. This is because of rampant poverty, joblessness, and landlessness inside the country.

The women are lured to apply for positions that do not exist, with promises of legal status and decent wages. Instead, they become undocumented, and are drowning in debt and isolated in a foreign country. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) end up working in virtual slavery.

Recruiters and employment agencies take advantage of these women by charging them exorbitant fees, demanding loan repayments and threatening them or their families with deportation or physical violence. Living in fear and with no place to go, many OFWs endure the discrimination, abuse, and exploitation in order to survive.

It is important that we not whitewash the writers parents and familys crimes of slavery, imprisonment, and trafficking. Tizons account of Eudocia Pulidos story does not exonerate him from his familys complicity in the abuse and exploitation of another human being. Also, it is critical to recognize that this particular experience is not an isolated one and it stems from the Philippines feudal, patriarchal, and imperialist structure.

The commodification and exploitation of generations of Filipina women continue to be an inherent effect of the countrys ever-worsening conditions. These will persist and generate many more stories like Eudocia Pulidos until comprehensive and fundamental socioeconomic and political changes are made to address the root causes of the countrys poverty.

Members of GABRIELA USA continue to take action and call for an end to the exploitative system in the Philippines. We denounce the Philippine government for neglecting its own people inside the country and lack of protections for OFWs abroad. In addition, we uplift the voices of Filipino migrant women and encourage them to tell their own stories.

GABRIELA USA seeks to empower migrant women to know and understand their rights, to fight back against oppression and exploitation, and to participate in the movement for national democracy in the Philippines. If you are moved by Lolas story, we encourage you to join a chapter of GABRIELA USA and join the fight against feudal-patriarchy and the systems of power that allow women like Lola to be forced into exploitation.

GABRIELA USA is a grass-roots-based alliance of progressive Filipino women organized in the United States which seeks to wage a struggle for the liberation of all oppressed Filipino women and the rest of our people. While we vigorously campaign on women-specific issues, such as womens rights, gender discrimination, violence against women, and womens health and reproductive rights, GABRIELA USA also addresses national and international economic and political issues that affect Filipino women. GABRIELA USA is an overseas chapter of GABRIELA Philippines, and is a member organization of BAYAN-USA and the International Womens Alliance. See GABRIELAUSA.org.

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Filipino Women Against Modern Day Slavery - Workers World

Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest recently donated $75 million towards removing "modern slavery from human history".

Extortion, blackmail, cash back scams and slavery are happening every day under our noses. It is also happening in the supply chains of businesses, either through labour hire companies, or suppliers.

Under new legislation to be proposed by the federal opposition on Monday, big business will be forced to clamp down on slavery in their supply chains by reporting publicly and annually all efforts to identify and stop slavery.

Slavery and underpayment of wages is a scourge on our nation.

According to the Global Slavery Index, there are more than 45 million slaves, with two thirds in the Asia-Pacific region and 4300 slaves in Australia through human trafficking, forced labour and servitude.

The ALP will announce a plan to implement an Australian Modern Slavery Act, which will be publicly available and include specific reporting requirements. It will also back the appointment of an Anti Slavery Commissioner to combat the growing scourge of slavery around the world.

It follows a decision in the UK in 2015 to introduce a Modern Slavery Act.

It also comes in the middle of an inquiry launched in Australia earlier this year into establishing a modern slavery act. The inquiry, chaired by Liberal senator David Fawcett, attracted 92 submissions.

The Business Council of Australia and the union movement have all thrown their weight behind the proposed new legislation.

Recently mining magnate Andrew Forrest donated $75 million towards removing "modern slavery from human history".

Indeed Wesfarmers lodged a submission to the inquiry which said "the breadth, depth and interconnectedness of our supply chain make it challenging to manage ethical sourcing risks including child labour, forced labour, right to freedom of association and underpayment."

It says it believes the vast majority of its supply chain operates ethically, however we have identified and acted on breaches by some of our suppliers, and it is clear from public reports that other companies have been challenged in this area." It backs a Modern Slavery Act.

Woolworths has also backed new laws that include uniform reporting "specifying the types of information and the level of detail to be disclosed would be helpful for organisations, and for consumers to be able to more readily compare the efforts of different companies".

Slave labour and systemic underpayment of wages is the dark underbelly of our labour market. It is egregious, unethical and undermines our humanity. It is why all sides of politics must come together to introduce legislation sooner rather than later.

The issue of wage fraud was raised in parliament last week in relation to companies including franchise giant Domino's.

"What I would say is that we have a number of lines of inquiry underway at the moment what enforcement outcomes might flow from this will depend on the culpability of all parties involved, and we need to assess Domino's' own possible involvement in what has gone on," Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James told a Senate hearing last Tuesday.

James' confirmation that the regulator's investigation into wage fraud was ramping up and widening to Domino's head office no doubt sent chills through the pizza giant.

A day later, on May 31, Domino's quietly released an ASX statement that said its own investigations into wage underpayments had been delayed by up to six months. "The process is taking longer than anticipated," the statement said.

The statement was understated but it ignited investor fears. As one investor said:"A six-month delay is significant because it implies there is much more to look at than originally anticipated."

News in the same week that Domino's would buy the remaining 25 per cent of a business in Japan spooked investors, sparked a short selling frenzy and triggered a downgrade by two broking houses.

By the end of the week Domino's was one of the top 10 most shorted stocks and shares had fallen more than 7 per cent, with much of the turnover attributed to short selling.

Domino's is facing a series of headwinds. Concerns range from the extent of fraudulent activity within its franchise network, the success or otherwise of Domino's expansion overseas, particularly in France, the impact of the added cost burdens on franchisees from rising labour and food prices and the revitalisation of chief rival Pizza Hut under new ownership.

Its advertising fund also came under the spotlight in parliament last week following an investigation by the ACCC into breaches of its franchising code in relation to its multimillion-dollar advertising fund that receives contributions from store owners of between 4-6 per cent of sales to pay for advertising and marketing campaigns.

The ACCC's investigation culminated in fines of $18,000 but Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon wasn't convinced that the investigation or penalties were tough enough.

Senator Rhiannon asked ACCC chairman Rod Sims whether the investigation extended to some of the expenses being booked through the advertising fund.

She questioned whether some of the expenses were "legitimate" advertising fund expenses. "They include mystery shopping; chief executive Don Meij's personal website; legal fees regarding protecting their trademarks; and seminars at head office. Have you looked into this?"

Sims told her he didn't believe the investigation included an examination of the expenses but said: "I repeat again: Domino's is certainly on notice in terms of its behaviour in relation to the [franchising] code."

The various investigations into Domino's and political interest in the company has added to investor nervousness.

So too was the decision by Bain Capital to put its 25 per cent stake in a Japanese operator back to Domino's by August 28. The deal is expected to cost Domino's around $50 million but not everyone is convinced that Japan will be the growth story Domino's projects.

Morgans, a strong supporter of the company, has tempered its bullishness in the stock with a downgrade to "hold" from "add" and changed its target price range from $88.38 down to $65.62 after lowering its forecasts in key divisions.

Separately, Deutsche Bank, in its report "Pizza Profits should be shared," downgraded its recommendation to "sell".

At the heart of Deutsche bank analyst Michael Simotas' report is an analysis of the relationship between franchisees and Domino's and a comparison with the UK and the US.

Simotas contends that Domino's overall margins expanded around 50 per cent over the past five years at the expense of franchisees. "This has left Australian franchisees with inferior profits, margins and returns relative to their US and UK peers," he said.

It said Domino's own guidance implies it will need to take even more of the profit pool. "We don't think this is sustainable, and with around 90 per cent of rollout predicated on store splits, we see risk to store and/or margin targets."

Domino's argues that there is no correlation between profitability and franchisees underpaying workers. It says its business model is fair and franchisees do well out of it.

But until it gives more details of how many stores lose money, how many break even, how many make less than $100,000 EBITDA a year and so on, more reports and speculation like this one will remain.

Until the wage fraud scandal emerged earlier this year, Domino's has had a dream run. Its share price hit a record high of $80 on August 18, 2016 and short selling was minimal.

Fast forward to today and Domino's is one of the top 10 most shorted stocks on the ASX. According to shortman.com.au almost 12 per cent of shares in the company have now been short sold.

Short sellers are betting that Domino's share price will fall. They borrow stock from stock lenders in the hope that they will replace it at a later date when the shares fall lower.

Domino's releases its full-year results in August. It promises to be an interesting conference call, with investors and franchisees listening carefully to their answers.

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Slavery law to protect supply chains backed by big companies - The Australian Financial Review

It was just a movie.

Its a movie cliche -- a bunch of men in white-and-black striped pajamas, with chains around their ankles, breaking rocks in a quarry under armed guard. The media has taught us that prison labor is the natural state of the world -- a way to make the punishment for wrongdoing a little more unpleasant, and a way to make criminals sweat off whatever sinister restlessness drove them to crime.

But the reality is that prison labor is just a way that governments try to recoup some of the cost of incarceration, by farming out their prisoners as captive labor. That might help governments bottom line a little bit, but it creates devastating competition for low-wage American workers.

The U.S. locks up an extraordinary number of people. Its incarceration rate is the highest in the world and at least twice that of any other advanced economy, and significantly higher than authoritarian Russia. Of incarcerated Americans, about a million and a half are in prison. That number surged in the 1980s and hasnt fallen much from its peak in the mid-2000s. A 2016 report by the Sentencing Project shows the dramatic change:

That enormous prison population represents a vast pool of ultra-cheap labor. A recent report by the Prison Policy Initiative found that the average wage of a prison worker is 93 cents an hour, and the lowest reported wage was 16 cents.

Compare that to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. How can a free American worker compete with an inmate laborer making less than one-tenth that amount? Even if prisoners are less productive than free workers, the wage difference is overwhelming.

Nor are these prison workers breaking rocks, like in the old movies. In the modern day, the government contracts them out to private companies, offering inmates as a way to boost the bottom line. Over the years, prisoners have packaged coffee for Starbucks Corp. and wrapped software for Microsoft Corp. They manufacture furniture, schools supplies and food products. They make dental products, train animals, work in call centers and even pick cotton.

All of these activities put prisoners in direct competition with blue-collar American workers; the latter has essentially no chance. In recent years, there have been political uproars over guest workers, unauthorized immigrants and offshoring U.S. jobs to low-wage countries such as Bangladesh. But low-wage immigrants dont do much to lower native-born wages, and laborers in Bangladesh dont have the tools or the proximity to compete directly with most American workers.

If you want to ease the pressure on the beleaguered U.S. working class, paying prisoners more is the best bet. Mandating that prison labor receive the federal minimum wage would open up lots of job opportunities for low-wage workers on the outside.

It would also be the moral thing to do. Detractors often call the prison labor system slavery, and while there are differences between modern prison labor and the slavery system of the old South, the similarities are way too close for comfort. The U.S. has always valued free labor over compulsory work -- as historians have documented, this was one reason slavery aroused such ire in the antebellum North.

Prison labor therefore goes against traditional American values and humanitarian concerns alike. Writers who have gone to watch the prison labor system in action report being stunned by how widespread and accepted this un-American system has become, especially in states like Louisiana with high rates of incarceration.

Morality also demands that prisoners should receive more of the money that customers pay for their services. Currently, inmates receive only about a quarter of that money, including the portion that goes to victim reparation funds.

Reduced demand for prison labor due to higher wages, especially if prisoners are allowed to keep more of what they earn, would mean government finances will take a hit. Incarceration is expensive, costing about $30,000 a year for a federal inmate. But maybe raising the cost of throwing Americans in prison is a good thing.

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The incredibly high U.S. incarceration rate is a strong indication that the country is locking people away for crimes that dont really require it, such as drug use or petty theft. But recently, high costs are forcing states to reduce their prison populations. Presumably, that will limit incarceration to those who really need to be locked up. The end of mass incarceration will also help the economy and reduce inequality -- some estimates claim that the practice of imprisoning millions of Americans has increased the countrys poverty rate by 20 percent, even before taking into account the wage competition from cheap prison labor.

So paying prisoners the minimum wage shouldnt be seen as an act of charity. It will take pressure off of working-class American laborers, encourage governments to reduce mass incarceration, and move the country back toward valuing free labor.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Noah Smith at nsmith150@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.net

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Paying Inmates Minimum Wages Helps the Working Class ... - Bloomberg