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Daily Archives: January 27, 2020
‘National shame’: MP sounds alarm over UK fast fashion factories – The Guardian
Posted: January 27, 2020 at 12:35 am
Concerns over the ongoing situation of up to 10,000 garment workers in Leicester, who are feared to be trapped in conditions of modern slavery and paid 3 an hour, have been raised in Parliament.
Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire, raised a question on Tuesday about the continuing state of working conditions in factories supplying the UKs booming fast fashion industry, and sought a meeting with business secretary Kelly Tolhurst for clarity over enforcement of the national minimum wage.
Speaking to the Guardian, Bridgen said what is happening in Leicester is a national shame and must not be allowed to continue.
This is Leicesters dirty secret, he said. These illegal businesses are not only keeping their workers in miserable conditions, theyre also undermining the marketplace for legitimate businesses to make a living in a very difficult market. Ive seen the buildings where these workers are and it is shocking: the buildings are condemned if there was a fire there then hundreds would die, and this is Britain in 2020. Its a national shame.
Persistent investigations into the UKs domestic garment industry has raised the spectre of serious labour abuses thriving in factories across the north west of England with relative impunity.
Last February, an Environmental Audit Committee heard evidence of environmental and labour abuses flourishing in the UKs fashion industry. MPs found that the Modern Slavery Act was not sufficient to stop wage exploitation at UK clothing factories and issued a series of recommendations, including forcing brands to increase transparency in their supply chains. However the government refused to implement any of the committees recommendations, which also included moves to improve environmental sustainability and limit waste.
In November 2019, a scoping survey on the Greater Manchester textile and garment industry that included 182 companies operating across the region, also found evidence that workers were being paid as little as 3-4 an hour.
The survey, conducted by HomeWorkers Worldwide, a labour rights NGO, found that the garment workforce across the region was diverse with British workers employed alongside European and other migrant workers, but that many were working in insecure environments without permanent contracts. Some of the most vulnerable workers were undocumented migrants who had little recourse to public assistance or support.
One worker quoted in the report described illegal working practices at one factory: Were paid in cash instead of a bank transfer. They give us payslips but they only show 16 hours a week at 7.50 an hour, whereas in fact were doing many more hours than that usually we do 40 hours a week from 8am to 6pm and were paid around 500 a month.
Other workers interviewed for the survey claim that they have been forced to hand over part of their wages to their employer, and faced demands for money in return for help with passport applications.
The survey also highlighted concerns from small manufacturers that they were under increasing pressure from large retailers whose purchasing practices were driving down prices to levels at which it was impossible for them to pay their workers properly.
Last November campaigning group Labour Behind the Label said there needed to be greater accountability for brands sourcing goods from factories across the UK. It called on fast fashion brands sourcing clothing from factories in Leicester to end potential labour exploitation and increase transparency in their supply chains.
Transparency is the first step to holding brands accountable to the conditions their workers could be facing, said Meg Lewis, spokesperson at Labour behind the Label . A lack of accountability can lead to situations where really serious labour abuses can flourish and the anecdotal evidence we have received from Leicester indicates that this is happening in the UK.
In the Commons yesterday, business minister Kelly Tolhurst agreed a meeting to discuss conditions in Leicester but said, This is a particular sector that has been under focus; there has been much work that has been carried out by HMRC and cross-border agencies HMRC enforce the national living wage.
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MP: 10,000 people working in ‘conditions of modern slavery’ in clothing industry in English city – Irish Examiner
Posted: at 12:35 am
Thousands of clothing industry workers in an English city are feared to be receiving 3 (3.52) to 4 (4.70) an hour in conditions of modern slavery, MPs have heard.
Conservative Andrew Bridgen asked ministers to meet with him to discuss allegations he made connected to Leicester.
He offered no further specific details when raising the issue in business, energy and industrial strategy (Beis) questions.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) said: Would the minister agree for a meeting with me to discuss the situation in Leicester, where I believe there are approximately 10,000 people in the clothing industry being paid 3 to 4 an hour in conditions of modern slavery?
Business minister Kelly Tolhurst replied: Yes, I would be absolutely happy to meet with him.
This is a particular sector that has been under focus, there has been much work that has been carried out by HMRC and cross-border agencies HMRC enforce the national living wage but Id be happy to get any details that he particularly has thatd be helpful.
The minimum wage is currently 8.21 (9.64) an hour for people aged 25 and over, which will increase to 8.72 (10.24) from April 2020.
For workers aged 21 to 24, it is 7.70 (9.04) an hour rising to 8.20 (9.63) in April, for 18 to 20-year-olds it is 6.15 (7.22) rising to 6.45 (7.22), for under-18s it is 4.35 (5.11) rising to 4.55 (5.34) and for apprentices it is 3.90 (4.58) rising to 4.15 (4.87).
Labours Rachel Reeves, who chaired the Beis committee in the last parliament, said the Government was offering warm words on enforcing the minimum wage.
She said: The truth is in the last 10 years just nine firms have been prosecuted and fined for non-payment of the minimum wage.
Where those fines are levied they are only half of the level that they could be levied at.
Why is that if this is such an area of importance for this Government?
Ms Tolhurst replied: I would like to correct her that there have been 14 prosecutions for the national minimum wage.
But also what Id like to make clear to the House is there are other ways in making sure employers pay without just bringing prosecutions.
Shadow minister Rachael Maskell said there has been a decade of workers being exploited under this Governments watch.
Ms Tolhurst described this as a complete misrepresentation of the Governments work over the last 10 years.
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Cameron Rowland: 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73 – FAD magazine
Posted: at 12:35 am
Cameron Rowland Jim Crow, 2017 Jim Crow rail bender 35 1/2 x 7 7/8 x 17 3/5 inches (91.4 x 20 x 44 cm) Jim Crow is a racial slur, derived from the name of the minstrel character played by Thomas D. Rice in the 1830s. A Jim Crow is also a type of manual railroad rail bender. It has been referred to by this name in publications from 1870 to the present. The lease of ex-slave prisoners to private industry immediately following the Civil War is known as the convict lease system. Many of the first convict lease contracts were signed by railroad companies. Plessy v. Ferguson contested an 1890 Louisiana law segregating black railroad passengers. The Supreme Court upheld the law as constitutional. This created a precedent for laws mandating racial segregation, later to be known as Jim Crow laws.
A new exhibition from Cameron Rowland: 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73 opens at the ICA London on Tuesday 28th January.
WHEREAS divers Persons are holden in Slavery within divers of His Majestys Colonies, and it is just and expedient that all such Persons should be manumitted and set free, and that a reasonable Compensation should be made to the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves for the Loss which they will incur by being deprived of their Right to such Services.
An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves, 1833.
29th January 12th April 2020 Public opening: Tuesday 28th January, 6 8pm, all welcome
About The ArtistCameron Rowland is an American artist, chosen as a MacArthur Fellow in 2019. He is one of the six fellows from New York City. Rowland graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in 2011, and after being awarded the MacArthur Fellowship returned there to address the student body. He spoke about his 2018 work Depreciation that critically examined the economics of slavery. Cameron Rowlands art has been featured in such collections as the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among others.[3] Rowlands artwork focuses on critiquing systems and institutions that perpetuate or benefit from racial injustices. Notably, his work featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art, entitled 2015 MOCA REAL ESTATE ACQUISITION, revealed the Museums history of benefiting from racist systems like redlining. In it, he used the Museums donor plaque listing the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeless sale of the land on which the Museum sits to point out the 8.4 million dollar profit the Museum gained from the redlining process.[4] Other works of his use such objects as manhole leveller rings, wooden desks, and wooden benches manufactured by prison labourers for far less than minimum wage.
Cameron Rowland 2015 MOCA REAL ESTATE ACQUISITION, 2018 Donor plaqueThe redlining map of Los Angeles drawn by the Home Owners Loan Corporation in 1939 gave Bunker Hill, block D37, the lowest possible rating. D37 extended from West 4th Street to West Temple Street, and from Figueroa Street to South Hill Street. The report indicated that residents were low-income level and were predominantly Mexicans and Orientals. The HOLCs Residential Security Map report for Bunker Hill states:
It has been through all the phases of decline and is now thoroughly blighted. Subversive racial elements predominate; dilapidation and squalor are everywhere in evidence. It is a slum area and one of the citys melting pots. There is a slum clearance project under consideration but no definite steps have as yet been taken. It is assigned the lowest of low red grade.
The Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles was formed in 1948 under the California Community Redevelopment Act of 1945, in conjunction with the 1937 and 1949 federal Housing Acts, which authorized its slum removal. The CRA was granted powers of eminent domain to be used in the redevelopment of blighted areas. A primary purpose for the CRAs redevelopment projects was to increase tax revenue for the city. One of the first redevelopment projects proposed by the CRA was in Bunker Hill, on the basis that the neighborhood spent more tax dollars on police, firefighting, and healthcare than it generated. A CRA pamphlet promoting the project stated, Blight is a liability, Blight is malignant, Blight is a social peril. The CRAs slum clearance project in Bunker Hill was adopted in 1959. Through seizure and through sales under the threat of eminent domain, all 7,310 residential units were demolished and their residents were forcibly removed. The CRAs slum clearance in Bunker Hill was one of the first redevelopment projects to rely on tax increment financing.
In 1980, the CRA issued a request for proposals for a project called California Plaza. Proposals were required to include an outdoor pedestrian plaza, a parking structure, and a modern art museum. The winning group of architects called themselves Bunker Hill Associates. The museum outlined in this proposal became The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 1983, the CRA offered MOCA a lease on the land located at 250 South Grand Avenue for a ninety-nine-year term at no rent.
In October 2015, the CRA sold the land at 250 South Grand Avenue to MOCA for $100,000. One month later, in November 2015, a tax assessment triggered by the sale recorded the value of the land at $8,500,000.
Mark Westall is the Founder and Editor of FAD magazine, ' A curation of the worlds most interesting culture'[PLUS] Art of Conversation: A tri-annual 'no news paper'
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Martin Luther King Jr. and the fight for social equality – World Socialist Web Site
Posted: at 12:35 am
Martin Luther King Jr. and the fight for social equality By Tom Mackaman and Niles Niemuth 23 January 2020
On Monday, the United States observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a holiday commemorating the birth of the civil rights leader.
Since its inception in the 1980s, the holiday has aimed to turn King into a harmless icon of social conciliation, while obscuring his radical criticisms of American capitalism and militarism. But now, in 2020, this has been joined by a new thrust. Kings conception of a mass democratic movement for civil rights based on the unified action of all the oppressed sections of the population is being replaced with an essentially racialist narrative that presents all American history in terms of a struggle between whites and blacks. This racial narrative requires the marginalization of Kings historical role.
This is exhibited starkly in the New York Times 1619 Project, whose reframing of the history of American race relations makes no mention of King. This is not an oversight on the part of a project that proclaims itself as nothing less than a new curriculum for school children. The core of Kings politicsthe struggle for equalityruns counter to the aims of contemporary liberalism, which is predicated on a fight for privileges among the upper-middle class.
King, a Baptist minister and theologian, emerged as the most prominent leader and voice of the mass civil rights struggle for racial equality that emerged in the period after World War IIfrom the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955 against Jim Crow segregation until 1968, when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while supporting striking sanitation workers.
King was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929, during a period that scholars have called the nadir of American race relations. In the Jim Crow South beginning in the 1890s, a raft of laws stripped the right to vote from the vast majority of blacks. All public space was segregated by law or customschools and colleges; busses, trains, streetcars; water fountains and bathrooms; diners and movie theaters. Interracial marriage was illegal, and even casual interactions between whites and blacks, for example on city sidewalks, were to play out in a custom designed to humiliate and degrade blacks.
The Democratic Party ruled the Jim Crow South unchallenged. Behind it stood the ever-present threat of state-sanctioned racist violence. By one count, mobs and bands of killers lynched more than 4,000 blacks in the South from the 1870s through the 1940s.
Yet racism was not an end in and of itself. As C. Vann Woodward long ago established in The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955), it was imposed as a direct response to the Populist movement of poor farmers, which, in the 1880s, had raised the specter of interracial unity among the oppressed. That Woodwards book was upheld as the historical Bible of the civil rights movement reflected that movements agreement with its key finding, that, as King put it, racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the racesthe position advanced by the 1619 Projectbut was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land.
The Populist movement collapsed a few decades before Kings birth. Its inability to overcome the southern oligarchy resulted from its social composition among isolated rural farmers, an undifferentiated and rapidly declining section of the population. Yet its achievements were extraordinary. Shaking the two-party system to its foundations, Populisms challenge to capitalism ultimately fed into the emergence of American socialism.
While King looked to Populism for inspiration, it was ultimately a far more profound transformation, arising from the powerful development of American capitalism, that provided the basis for the civil rights movement: the development of the working class.
In 1900, after the defeat of the Populist movement, 90 percent of African Americans lived in the South, most in conditions of rural isolation. In the 1920s, over 1.5 million blacks left the South for northern cities, bound for wage work. Many more moved to cities in the Southincluding Atlanta, where King was born, as well as Alabamas industrial cities of Birmingham and Montgomery, which birthed the modern civil rights movement. By 1960, only 15 percent of African Americans remained on farms, a dramatic social transformation which historians now term the Great Migration.
In the cities, the black migrants faced new forms of racism and, as in East St. Louis in 1917 and Chicago in 1919, occasional paroxysms of vicious violence, typically overseen by their historical antagonists in the Democratic Party. Yet it is undeniable that this vast movementfrom country to city, from farm to factory, and from South to North and Westwas an intensely liberating development. Its impact on American culture can only be called exhilarating.
The arrival in the cities of this brutally oppressed people, a mere half-century separated from chattel slavery, germinated the cultural and intellectual florescence associated with the Harlem Renaissance, the first mass African American political organizations and trade unions, as well as the great forms of popular music including ragtime, rhythm and blues, jazz, and rock and roll.
The Great Migration raised African-American workers as a critical section of the working class. But the fusing of that class across racial and national lines was no mean task under conditions in which capitalist employers knew well that they could pit workerswhite, black, immigrantagainst each other in wage competition. The American Federation of Labor, among the most provincial and reactionary labor organizations on the planet, fed into these divisions. Most of its unions imposed racial exclusions against blacks and agitated against immigrants. Reformist socialists that oriented to the AFL, such as Victor Berger of Milwaukee, also excluded blacks from their conception of the working class.
Under these conditionsthe emergence of a powerful industrial working class, but one hamstrung by outmoded forms of organizationthe Russian Revolution of 1917 hit with meteoric impact. Among the black intellectuals inspired by the Bolsheviks were Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and A. Phillip Randolph, who co-founded the socialist magazine The Messenger in 1917 and went on to head the largest predominantly black trade union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
These intellectuals immediately drew comparisons to the situation of Jews under the seemingly eternal Romanov dynasty. For American Negroes the indisputable and outstanding fact of the Russian Revolution, McKay explained in 1921, is that a mere handful of Jews, much less in ratio to the number of Negroes in the American population, have attained, through the Revolution, all the political and social rights denied them under the regime of the Czar.
In the North, socialists took the lead in the fight for the great industrial unions in auto, meatpacking, rubber, and steel, insisting that blacks be accepted on equal footing with all others. Even in the Deep South, socialists fought under the banner of the Russian Revolution in the 1920s and 1930s, winning the allegiance of militant workers, black and white, in such places as Alabama, where the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African-American youth falsely accused of rape, won the support of workers the world over. It is difficult to overstate the heroism of these workers who braved the wrath of the southern lawmen as well as the Ku Klux Klan.
The Stalinists of the Communist Party, along with the supposedly left CIO bureaucracy, betrayed these workers in the name of their alliance with the Democratic Party, whose southern wing remained in the hands of the white supremacist oligarchy. Nonetheless, socialism remained the bte noire of the Jim Crow politicians, who saw in every stirring of the southern workers the work of outside agitators and communists. And, despite the best efforts of reactionary red-baiters, socialism continued to influence a layer of southern intellectuals and leaders.
King was neither a Marxist nor a revolutionary. But his socialist sympathies, and those of his wife, Coretta Scott King, were well-known. He agitated for a significant economic restructuring of American society, albeit without calling for the overthrow of the capitalist system. Even though he cautiously adapted his politics to the pressures of the red-baiting environment of the United States in the 1950s, King spoke a language utterly incompatible with the racial narrative of contemporary rightwing affluent petty-bourgeois nationalists.
Communism should challenge us first to be more concerned about social justice, King noted in a sermon first delivered in 1953. However much is wrong with Communism we must admit that it arose as a protest against the hardships of the underprivileged. The Communist Manifesto which was published in 1847 by Marx and Engels emphasizes throughout how the middle class has exploited the lower class. Communism emphasizes a classless society. Along with this goes a strong attempt to eliminate racial prejudice. Communism seeks to transcend the superficialities of race and color, and you are able to join the Communist party whatever the color of your skin or the quality of the blood in your veins.
King eloquently articulated the democratic sentiments of Americans of all races and ethnicities striving to tear down all the artificial barriers erected by the ruling class in a conscious effort to divide the working class.
In a 1965 sermon King explained that the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson, that all men are created equal, were the cornerstone of the civil rights movement. He did not see that document, which gave expression to the Enlightenment principles which animated the American Revolution, as a cynical ploy or a lieas 1619 Project figurehead Nikole Hannah-Jones imagines itbut an as yet unfulfilled promise, lifted to cosmic proportions, and one the civil rights movement was fighting to make a reality.
He and many others who were part of the mass movement in the 1950s and 1960s understood very well that no lasting progress could be made without the unity of the working class and recognized that under capitalism workers were being oppressed regardless of the color of their skin.
Writing in 1958, King noted that two summers of work in a factory as a teenager had exposed him to economic injustice firsthand, and [I] realized that the poor white was exploited just as much as the Negro. Through these early experiences I grew up deeply conscious of the varieties of injustice in our society.
Whether or not Kings assassination was more than the work of the small-time hood James Earl Ray, it is a documented fact that, from the early 1960s on, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover aimed to destroy the civil rights leader through a campaign of dirty tricks, media leaks, intense surveillance, and even encouraging King to kill himself. Yet somehow, historian William Chafe writes, King emerged from the ordeal a stronger, more resolute, more courageous leader.
King responded to the attack from the FBI in 1967 by launching his interracial Poor Peoples campaign, an initiative seeking economic justice for all impoverished Americans. He also became among the most outspoken critics of the American onslaught in Vietnam, memorably denouncing the United States government as the greatest purveyor of violence today in his 1967 Riverside Church speech.
He had become convinced, King told his staff the same year, that we cant solve our problems now until there is a radical re-distribution of economic and political power. It was time, he said, to raise certain basic questions about the whole society We are engaged in a class struggle dealing with the problem of the gulf between the haves and the have nots.
Kings recognition of the necessity of interracial struggle and the contributions that whites had made to the civil rights movement informed Kings criticism of the racial separatism espoused by the Black Power movement, which he rightly called, in 1967, a cry of disappointment born of the wounds of despair.
Kings turn to the left caused alarm among conservative civil rights leaders. To them, King respondedin words that echo with the same force against the lavishly funded race experts of todayWhat youre saying may get you a foundation grant but it wont get you into the Kingdom of Truth.
The logic of these positions, indeed his entire lifes work, placed King on a collision course with the Democratic Partythe same party that ruled over the Jim Crow South and the big city political machines in the North, and had led the United States into Vietnam. Even if his political limitations caused him to delay this reckoning to the end, his lifes work had a real impact on the lives of millions.
Now the universal, Enlightenment principles King fought for and defended are under vicious assault. It is striking that in the 1619 Project, the Times initiative to write the true history of America as rooted in slavery and racism, Kings contribution to the fight for equality is totally ignored. This doesnt represent a different interpretation of facts or a mere oversight but an outright historical falsification.
The Times is seeking to impose a new narrative on US history in which anti-black racism is presented as an immutable feature of Americas DNA. This, Hannah-Jones argues, emerged out of the original sin of chattel slavery, itself a function not of labor exploitation, but of white racism against blacks.
Promoted by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, which is heavily endowed by corporations and billionaires, the 1619 Project proposes itself as a new curriculum for public education. Crumbling schools and hungry children from Chicago to Buffalo are being given lesson plans that argue the American Revolution and Civil War were conspiracies to perpetuate white racism, and that all manner of contemporary social problemslack of health care, obesity, traffic jams, etc.are the direct outcomes of slavery.
Following other eminent historians interviewed by the World Socialist Web Site, Stanford Professor Clayborne Carson, director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, criticized the 1619 Project from the standpoint of its treatment of history, its dismissal of the American Revolution, and the obscure and rapid process through which it was produced. He went further, however, making powerful observations about King and the civil rights movement he came to leadtwo subjects almost entirely absent from the 1619 Project.
Carson noted that the ideals of the American Revolution and the Enlightenment played a key role in the civil rights movement and Kings own role as a political leader. One way of looking at the founding of this country is to understand the audacity of a few hundred white male elites getting together and declaring a countryand declaring it a country based on the notion of human rights, Carson explained.
Obviously, they were being hypocritical, but its also audacious. And thats what rights are all about, he noted. It is the history of people saying, I declare that I have the right to determine my destiny, and we collectively have the right to determine our destiny. Thats the history of every movement, every freedom movement in the history of the world. At some point you have to get to that point where you have to say that, publicly, and fight for it.
It is these principles and perspective which are being explicitly rejected by the New York Times as upper middle-class layers marshal various forms of identity politics to jockey for a greater share of the massive amounts of wealth which have been piled up in the coffers of the top one percent. In this struggle for privilege and wealth the political principles which King stood for can find no place and therefore he too must be excised from the historical narrative.
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Employment law: what lies ahead? | NZBusiness Magazine | The Business Magazine For NZ SME – NZ Business
Posted: at 12:35 am
James Warren takes a look back at the changes in New Zealands employment law delivered in 2019, and shares his outlook for 2020.
Ongoing change is the notorious hallmark of New Zealand employment law, and 2019 maintained that reputation. We saw a number of fundamental revisions in the legal landscape the full implications of which are yet to be seen.
2020, as an election year, may have less legislative reform on the agenda, but the long term outlook remains set to changeable.
2019 in review
Here were the key legislative changes:
Major case law developments included:
Other changes of note from 2019 include:
Overall, the general picture has been one of increasing compliance risk and cost for employers.
Some 2020 horizon gazing
As highlighted above, the current Labour-led coalition government has introduced a range of reforms aimed at increasing the power of unions and further protecting employees. A number of significant proposals remain on the agenda, these include Fair Pay Agreements, new safeguards for migrant workers, and potential tax changes together with new protections for independent contractors.
The outcome of the general election scheduled in 2020 will likely determine whether these come to fruition. A National-led coalition could also be expected to reverse some of the recent reforms, but fundamental reform of the Employment Relations Act 2000 still currently seems unlikely.
The Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Act will come into force in June. This will implement a new right for employees of labour hire companies or who are otherwise working for a controlling third party separate from their employer to bring claims against those third parties.
Whatever the result of the general election, the Government is likely to support the general desire amongst employers for changes to the complex and opaque obligations imposed by the Holidays Act 2003. The present review of the Act is very likely to lead to it being amended or replaced, in an effort to simplify the calculations required to manage leave entitlements and pay.
Looking across the Tasman, numerous employee underpayment scandals have led to a focus on wage theft. New Australian legislation may impose criminal sanctions in this area, potentially having direct consequences for company groups which operate in both locations. Likewise, the recent introduction of the Australian Modern Slavery Act and its stronger whistleblowing protections may have an impact. These changes may also be pointers for future reform in New Zealand.
James Warren is a partner in the Employment team at Kensington Swan, with specialist experience supporting organisations in both the UK and New Zealand with workforce change, employee relations and disputes, and the employment issues arising out of commercial transactions.
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Picking a seat more than just place to sit – GamingTodaySlotsToday
Posted: at 12:34 am
You have just arrived at your local casino to play your favorite poker game $4-$8 limit Texas holdem. Signing up for a seat, there are several names ahead of you so you can expect to wait a bit before you are called to one of the tables.
Thats O.K. That gives you time to look over the games in play. There are four full tables, nine players plus the dealer, at each. Casually and unobtrusively walk around and observe the games underway.
For various reasons, you may prefer one of them over the others. Some are loose and aggressive lots of players staying to see the flop, and lots of raising before the flop.
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Some tables are very tight few players staying to see the flop and little raising. The pots are much smaller.
Do you have a preference? At those limits, I dare say that most are recreational players. The pros prefer the higher stakes games. Your goal is to win money, the more the merrier. You cant do that at a tight table. The cost-to-play (about $25 per hour for each player) will eat up your profit.
Whats more, imagine catching Aces-full with only one opponent remaining in the pot to call your bets. Frustrating to say the least.
I speak only for myself, but I think I am pretty much typical of recreational players. I prefer games that are neither too tight nor too loose three or four players staying to see the flop, with a modest amount of aggressiveness to help build the size of the pots. And I expect to contribute to the aggressiveness by betting out or raising when its in my best interests building the pot or reducing the size of the playing field by forcing out some opponents, as best suits me at the time, considering the situation and my seat position.
Some players prefer very aggressive games with lots of raising. Whats your preference?
Its only natural to look to see who the chip winners are and who are the losers at the table. How many stacks (racks) of chips does each have in front of him? But be aware that players with lots of chips are not necessarily winners. They could just as well have started with even more chips.
On the other hand, those with relatively few chips less than the minimum buy-in are losers, for sure. Personally, I prefer playing at a table with lots of losers and few opponents with two or more stacks that are could-be winners. Losers usually play much tighter than the others. That makes it easier to play marginal drawing hands from early position preflop without a huge investment risk too high for comfort.
Time permitting, also observe the general mood at the table. Is everyone laughing and chatting away? Is there a lot of drinking? Are there players who keep their eyes on the football game being shown on the big TV up on the wall? Thats the kind of table at which I like to play. A player who does not focus on the poker game gives a real advantage to a serious player who is there to win.
After you are called to a table, if its not one you prefer, simply tell the floorperson: Ill wait for a different table. Hopefully, the next table will be more to your liking. If not, you can play cautiously for a while; and, if it doesnt improve to your liking, ask for a table change. It does take patience but the reward is bound to be worth the effort.
After being seated, its not enough to recall your earlier evaluation of that table. Continue your observations of these factors as long as you are playing there. Players come and go. It would be wise to make note of each opponents approximate chip count as the game progresses. Did a player buy more chips? How many more?
Now, with a quick glance at your notes, you know whether he is winning or losing valuable information that gives you an edge over all the others.
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Best poker halls in Boca Raton – The Boca Raton Tribune
Posted: at 12:34 am
There are lots of things here in Boca Raton that would attract the tourists and the locals. Beaches, Sugar Sand Park, Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, Spanish River Park, Mizner Park, Town Center at Boca Raton, Red Reef Park, Deerfield Beach International Fishing Pier, FAU Stadium, and Deerfield Beach Boardwalk are some of best places and among the things to do in Boca Raton. But casinos of this city of Florida are also great places of attraction and if you are traveling here you need to visit them.
There is no need to visit the Vegas if you want to play some casino poker games like blackjack, baccarat, Texas Holdem, or any poker games as there are many casinos in Boca Raton that offer some of the best poker halls.
Well, there are some of thebest online poker tournaments for US playerson several online casino platforms but playing in a real casino is irreplaceable. So if you are planning a vacation here or you are local of Boca Raton then here are some of the best poker rooms in Boca Raton casinos.
Seminole is one of the best casinos in Boca Raton if you are looking for some best poker rooms near the beachside in the city. The casino covers more than 140,000 square ft of areas including slots and poker games like three card poker, let it ride, blackjack, baccarat, and many more.
According toWikipedia, the poker room at Seminole casino is located in a former ballroom area as construction work is in progress. This is a luxurious casino and hotel in the city. Artists like Tenor Andrea Bocelli andMaroon 5 have their shows at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
Located at Kimberly Boulevard, this casino has a good poker hall if you are looking to play blackjack, video poker, and baccarat along with slot machines and other casino games.
It is quite a friendly place to visit with your friends and family with helping staff. It is open all week from 10 AM to 12 AM. Hollywood Arcade also offers $100 free bingo if you want to try something other than poker games.
It is rated 4.1 among a total of 5,788 Google reviews. It has a great poker hall in the Boca Raton with over 70 live table games with real cards and dealers along with more than 20 live poker tables. Poker games include baccarat, 3-card poker, and blackjack and others.
If you do not smoke or dont like smoking then this casino has a smoke-free zone to play various casino games. Slots fans also have various slot games with over 2,000 slot machines.
Located at Pompano beach Isle Casino Pompano Park has a good poker room with blackjack, Texas Holdem, baccarat, 3-card poker, and 1-card poker at the lowest rate in South Florida. We have also mentioned this casino in our post A poker players guide to Boca Raton. If you are a new or have limited bankroll to play poker games then this could be the best destination for you to have some ream and live table games.
No need to tell where it is located as its name tells itself. This casino has a card room known as Dania PKR room with over 21 hottest tables for real card games with real dealers.
Poker hall in this casino is located at the second level where you can play games like Texas Holdem and 3-card poker at minimum bets of $5. On its website, you can their payouts of the past months or years. They have poker room tournaments on Sunday to Thursday from 12 PM to 3 AM and on Friday and Saturday it goes on till 5 AM.
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Fame, immortality and a paw: The Tiger Trail – The Auburn Plainsman
Posted: at 12:33 am
The Tiger Trail of Auburn is Auburns walk of fame, a stretch of sidewalk that owes its existence to the walk of fame 40 years older in Hollywood, California. The names on plaques along the Tiger Trail are both familiar and lesser known, and refer to men and women from close and far. Like Hollywood has their superstars on the silver screen, Auburn has their own on the field, court, pitch, pool and gym.
The Tiger Trail began over two decades ago as a joint venture between the Auburn Chamber of Commerce, Auburn University Athletics and the City of Auburn. The project was started in 1995 as a way to honor Auburn athletes.
It was primarily made up of a group of men who were retired at the time, said Mayor Ron Anders, who has been involved with the program for several years in different capacities. The primary person was Ken Brown.
Brown was, at that time, retired after a career with Alabama Power and serving on the Auburn City Council, Anders said.
It was really his brainchild to create a kind of Hollywood Walk of Fame in downtown Auburn, Anders said.
Browns brainchild soon became reality as the first granite plaques were placed in the concrete in 1995. The inaugural class was large compared to a typical induction class now; 13 former athletes, coaches and administrators were honored, among them football coach Ralph Shug Jordan, football and baseball star Bo Jackson and football star Pat Sullivan.
Typically, induction classes consist of roughly five to six members, Anders said, depending on the Chamber of Commerces budget for the project for that year costs of the plaque as well as the induction ceremony must be taken into consideration for each inductee.
So keeping in mind the number of inductees that the budget allows for each year, a process of deciding who will be one of the distinguished few for that years induction class begins. That responsibility is left in the hands of a small group of people the Tiger Trail selection committee.
The group is made up of fewer than 10 individuals from both the private and public sector who serve for a term.
Exactly who is on the selection committee, however, is kept secret. The Auburn Chamber of Commerce doesnt give out the names of the committee members, said Auburn Chamber of Commerce Vice President of Communications and Marketing Jennifer Fincher.
The groups privacy is protected to prevent people from lobbying members of the selection committee to induct a certain member of Auburn athletics, Anders said.
Weve never wanted the Tiger Trail to be a political process, Anders said. We wanted it to be everything but a political process.
In the past, Anders has served as a member of the selection committee, but is not sure what his level of involvement will be in the future. However, the mayor of Auburn is always involved in the installation ceremony at the least, Anders said.
Bill Ham, who served as mayor until Anders was elected in 2018, helped with the ceremony, as did Mayor Jan Dempsey, Hams predecessor.
The committee typically only has two or three meetings per year, at which committee members go through a process of nominating who they feel is representative of Auburns history. Committee members then debate and vote according to their own research, due diligence and experiences, Anders said.
The candidates who receive the most are then honored in that years induction class. A ceremony is held and the selected candidates name and accomplishments are immortalized in the sidewalks along College Street and Magnolia Avenue.
While the trail was intended to serve as a unique way to honor Auburn athletes, coaches and administrators, it has also benefited the community in other ways.
This trail is another reason for people to come to downtown Auburn to shop and be a part of our community either as a visitor, alumni or resident, Anders said. It was certainly an economic development, community development mindset behind doing this.
Over the years, its become clear that maintenance is required to keep the plaques in good shape.
We have not had a Tiger Trail since Ive become the mayor, Anders said. What weve done is weve had a number of broken stars downtown because of all the construction, and weve got some of that construction behind us, so what weve tried to do is get some of those plaques replaced, so weve been focused on doing that. Its easier if we dont add six more to the list.
However, the tradition is expected to continue in the future.
Were certainly planning to continue on with the Tiger Trail here in 2020, Anders said.
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GELFAND: on Tom Brady and Immortality – Zone Coverage
Posted: at 12:33 am
No quarterback in the NFL playoffs this year looked as lifeless and disconsolate as Tom Brady. If you somehow construe Brady as a sympathetic character, you might feel relieved that the loss in the Wild Card round shielded him from future embarrassment. For the record, the 20-13 defeat yielded Brady 20 completions in 37 attempts for 209 yards, zero touchdowns, one interception and 5.6 yards per attempt.
Of course, Brady is hardly a sympathetic character. Indeed, hes more than just one of the most dominant quarterbacks of all time. He is, in fact, every guys fantasy. Especially if the guy is an adolescent. Hes tall, good looking, a winner, has so much money that he could run for President, and, yeah, theres that super-model thing.
So when Brady says he plans to be an NFL hero for years to come actually, he uses the word quarterback, but thats just a code word we shouldnt be surprised. Hell be 43 in August, which makes him the Methuselah of pro quarterbacks. But age, after all, is just a number.
Remember, facts no longer matter, so even though age is just a number is a palpable lie, its OK to believe it. Plus its Brady.
You might also ask: can a man have more than it all? Is Brady kidding us or himself? What exactly are we looking at? Is it arrogance? Hubris? Self-delusion? Greed?
Maybe all of the above. But one thing seems evident: Brady is looking for something far more than a seventh Super Bowl ring. If I had to guess, Id say that his aging body is chasing the tail of immortality.
You can hardly blame him. In fact, Brady and his mentor, Bill Belichick, deserve nothing less than our undying adulation. Look in any record book and there they are. And yeteven if this past season was just an anomaly, there is no denying the fact that they are the past. The future belongs to the likes of Lamar Jackson, who just turned 23; and Jimmy Garoppolo, who is 28 but had to wait until he found life after Brady before he could prove that he, too, is Super Bowl ready. Then there is Patrick Mahomes, who, at 23, doesnt even have to get better in order to become the greatest quarterback of all time.
The celebrated author, contrarian, wit and atheist Christopher Hitchens, as he was dying of cancer, wrote a book called Mortality. In which he wrote: As with the normal life, one finds that every passing day represents more and more relentlessly subtracted from less and less.
Brady probably doesnt see his career that way. But I cant help but wonder if sometimes he feels like he is. Clearly, he cant imagine life without football. Hes already shopping around for his next team. Hell be an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career, but from where I sit, his view isnt so expansive any more.
Granted, he didnt have much to throw to this year, but that didnt seem to matter nearly as much in the first half of the season. It was the second half that betrayed an anxious, middle-aged man. Damn, hes got a great head of hair, but its whats under it that matters. In the nine games before the bye, the Patriots averaged 30 points; afterward, and including the Tennessee disaster, the Patriots averaged just over 20 points.
Brady has been the Patriots starting quarterback for 19 seasons but finally you can see the fear in his eyes. He spent much of the year flinging the football into the ground at the mere hint of malicious contact. Nobody in their right mind could blame him for a bunker mentality, yet it was a surprise to note that even with another championship looming on the horizon, he was no longer willing to leave the pocket and risk bodily harm in exchange for a first down.
The NFL is no country for old men. In fact, for all the leagues bluster, there were even more concussions in 2019 than there were the year before. Players have figured out that the penalties for using their helmets to concuss an opponent are relatively mild. Theres even one clown T.J. Watt, the Pittsburgh defensive end who goes around punching anyone holding the ball under the guise that hes trying to cause fumbles. Hell break ribs and mangle hands and perhaps even cause permanent brain damage before his career is over, but the league doesnt seem motivated to put a stop to it. That has to be harbinger of a dangerous future for quarterbacks in their mid-40s.
Bradys determination to play forever reminds me of a lot of losing gamblers Ive known. When things go bad, they never back off; they just double down. Pretty soon theyre chasing their money and wishing theyd quit at the top of their game.
Not that Brady is going to go broke. It seems that he has a new hustle these days: The TB12 Method. Which happens to be the name of the book he sort of wrote which celebrates his recipe for eternal muscles, if not eternal life.
Years ago, Brady fell in with a body coach, Alex Guerrero, who helped Brady develop pliable muscles that are damned near impervious to injury. Not everyone swears by this amazing new method, or, for that matter, Guerrero himself.
Muscle pliability, it seems, isnt actually a thing.
The New York Times review of the book noted as much.
Mr. Brady and Mr. Guerrero have not conducted or published clinical trials of muscle pliability, the reviewer stated. Neither has anyone else. On the huge PubMed online database of published science, I found only one experiment that contains the words pliability and muscles, and it concerned the efficacy of different embalming techniques.
I have to admit that when I perused Bradys website, I wasnt entirely convinced. On the other hand, Im an enfeebled old guy who got a stiff neck just from writing this column. In fact, as I paged through the catalog of Bradys amazing products, the trademarked TV12 Vibrating Pliability Sphere start to look like the cure to at least two or three of my many ailments. Its just that it kind of looks like a tire that wobbles, and Ive got one of those on my 20-year-old Camry.
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Remembering Rob Rensenbrink: the overlooked Dutch master who came within inches of immortality – These Football Times
Posted: at 12:33 am
Originally featured in the Netherlands magazine, if you like this youll love our work in print. Thick matte card, stunning photos, original art and the best writing around. Support our independent journalism.
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From the outside looking in, its a strange concept, but just how close the Netherlands came to winning the 1978 World Cup hasnt left too noticeable an imprint on the national psyche, or at least certainly not in the same way as the failure to prevail in 1974 has.
Rob Rensenbrink came to within the width of an Estadio Monumental goalpost from pure footballing immortality. An inch further to the right and the Oranje would have become the sixth different winner of the World Cup, rather than Argentina. Rensenbrink would have joined a special collection of players to have scored a World Cup-winning goal, and he would have finished the tournament as its leading scorer.
By the finest of margins, Rensenbrink was deflected away from immortality, as he instead arguably so drifted into a world of under-appreciation in his home nation. Apart from in the Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, and among football hipsters the world over, Rensenbrink is widely forgotten.
He is a peculiarity. Strikingly gifted with skill to burn, he was blessed with a wonderful left foot and bewitching close-control which saw him drift past defenders as if they werent there, an ability that sprang from a dribbling style which gave him the rare propensity to be able to take a ball right into the face of opposing defenders before changing direction at the last second. Unpredictable, dangerous and, at his peak, impossible to play against, he should be far from forgotten.
Born in Oostzaan, almost nine miles to the north of Amsterdam, Rensenbrink slipped through the prolific Ajax net, instead finding his way into football with city rivals DWS. Essentially on an amateur footing despite gracing the top flight, and enjoying occasional forays into the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, DWS were never likely to contain Rensenbrinks talents for a prolonged period.
In the summer of 1969, at the age of 22, a year after making his international debut, it was the ideal time for Rensenbrink to move on from DWS. The inexorable rise of Ajax had gained pace, having just contested their first European Cup final, while their bitter rivals Feyenoord, who had won the Eredivisie title, were just a year away from going one better in the 1970 final against Celtic.
Read | Willy Dullens: the Dutch talent many thought couldve been better than Cruyff
While Ajax had been interested observers in Rensenbrinks development at DWS, they were a club blessed with an abundance of left-sided attacking options. Favouring a position on the left-hand side of the forward line, yet equally adept as an out-and-out left winger, Rensenbrink was under no illusions that Ajax had the continually blossoming Johan Cruyff and the legendary Piet Keizer in the two positions he could occupy.
Feyenoord also monitored his progression and there were tentative inquiries. As reigning champions, however, they elected to rest on their laurels to an extent. The brilliant but slowly ageing Coen Moulijn, a player who drew comparisons to Stanley Matthews, was deputised at times by the wonderful Wim van Hanegem. Again, Rensenbrink would have had his work cut out to displace some formidable figures from the Feyenoord line-up. Yet, in retrospect, Rensenbrink would have been the perfect long-term successor to Moulijn.
In the summer of 1969, an entirely different path was taken by Rensenbrink and he would never again kick a ball in competitive anger within club football in his homeland.
Frans de Munck, a former international goalkeeper for the Netherlands, had been appointed as the new coach of Club Brugge that summer, and spotting an opportunity to step in where both Ajax and Feyenoord wouldnt, he swooped for the services of Rensenbrink.
At the Stade Albert-Dyserynck, Rensenbrink took the change of environment in his skilful stride. The Brugge that Rensenbrink joined was essentially sitting upon the eve of greatness. Their solitary league title had been won almost half a century earlier, but from the mid-1960s they had risen to become an increasing thorn in the sides of both Anderlecht and Standard Lige.
Scoring goals on a regular basis during his debut season in Belgium, Rensenbrinks new club finished runners-up to Standard in the league and swept to domestic cup glory. A near miss on the title followed in 1970/71, combining with a run to the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners Cup.
The summer of 1971 proved pivotal for Rensenbrink. Board member Constant Vanden Stock departed the club, only to resurface at Anderlecht. Utilising their friendship, Vanden Stock coaxed Rensenbrink to Brussels, from where he would go head to head with his former club for most of the domestic honours on offer throughout the remainder of the decade, as Standard fell away.
Read | Johnny Rep: the natural Total Footballer who weaved his way into legend
Brought in by Georg Keler the man who had given Rensenbrink his international debut as part of a number of sweeping changes at the club, Anderlecht narrowly edged out Brugge in a tense battle for the title, and defeated Standard in the cup final to clinch the domestic double.Alongside his compatriot Jan Mulder and the Anderlecht legend Paul Van Himst, it was the added attacking potency this triumvirate provided to the team that enabled Rensenbrink to help break the hearts of all those involved with his former club, as his new employers took the title on goal difference.
It was a dream start to life with his new club. However, the following season proved a more difficult one, as Mulder jumped at the opportunity of a summer move to Ajax, while Van Himst struggled for form. It meant that Anderlecht relied on Rensenbrinks talents far more than they had during the previous campaign. This was offset by the gradual emergence of another precocious talent in the shape of Franois Van der Elst.
An inconsistent start to the defence of their title and an early exit from the European Cup meant that Keler departed the club before the year was out. Brugge swept to the title, and while collective form was hard to attain for Anderlecht, Rensenbrink was still scaling individual heights. Despite their problems in the league, the cup was retained as once again Standard were beaten in the final.
Out of sight and out of mind, Rensenbrink was on the outside looking in when it came to the national team, despite his fine performances for Anderlecht. He hadnt represented the Netherlands since departing DWS. In his absence, and despite the elevated club performances in European competition of both Ajax and Feyenoord, the Netherlands had failed to qualify for the latter stages of Euro 72.
Rensenbrink continued to apply himself to the Anderlecht cause. Under his new coach, Urbain Braems, playing alongside the prolific Hungarian striker Attila Ladinszky, and with the added support of the increasingly effective Van der Elst and the slowly ageing yet ever-dangerous Van Himst, Anderlecht reclaimed the title.
It was during the 1973/74 title-winning campaign that Rensenbrink made his return to the national side, initially recalled by Frantiek Fadrhonc, the man who led the Netherlands to World Cup qualification, before being replaced for the finals by Rinus Michels.
Read | Johan Neeskens: more than just the other Johan
Rensenbrink was viewed as the inside man, given that they were sharing a group with Belgium. When the two nations met in November 1973 in the decisive game at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam, the Netherlands knew a draw would be enough for them to reach the finals in West Germany. Intriguingly, Rensenbrink was up against four of his Anderlecht teammates on a dramatic night when a combination of fine goalkeeping and profligacy in the penalty area kept the Belgian goal-line unbreached.
Controversy and drama abounded when, in the last-minute, Rensenbrinks Anderlecht teammate, Jan Verheyen, stroked home what appeared to be a perfectly good winning goal. As the Netherlands defence stepped forward while defending a free-kick, Verheyen had been gifted the freedom of the penalty area. Played onside by at least three defenders, his legitimate goal was erroneously disallowed. By the finest of margins, the Total Football of 1974 might never have been given the opportunity to bloom.
In West Germany, Rensenbrink, for so long on the periphery of the national side, now took on a vital role. Michels opted to start him in all but one game, fielding him ahead of Piet Keizer. Rensenbrink, not involved in the Ajax-Feyenoord-PSV power struggle, was blessed with a remit of freedom that not everyone within the squad could match.
Some fine support performances, inclusive of a vital goal against East Germany during the second-round group stage, helped edge Michels and Cruyff towards the World Cup final. When Rensenbrink was on the receiving end of some painful challenges during the de facto semi-final against Brazil, a game marked by the breathtaking football ofOranje, and the brutality of Brazils approach, he was forced to hobble away from Dortmund with huge doubts over his fitness for the final.
Despite passing a fitness test on the morning of the final, in the heat of battle within the Olympiastadion in Munich, Rensenbrink was noticeably off the pace. Had the Netherlands not yielded the early lead they took, then maybe he would have been given further time in the second half. Trailing 2-1, however, Michels could afford no passengers and Rensenbrink was replaced by Ren van de Kerkhof. Had he been fully fit, it might have made the difference between success and failure.
Rensenbrinks importance to the national team intensified over the next few years, helping them to the finals of Euro 76, where they were denied the opportunity to face West Germany in a rematch of the World Cup final by the eventual champions Czechoslovakia.
Read | When Ajax didnt want Johan Cruyff he left for Feyenoord and won the double
By the time Johan Cruyff walked away from the international game in the autumn of 1977, Rensenbrink had inherited the role of chief creator in the side that Ernst Happel took to Argentina. Happel, coach at Feyenoord when they passed up the chance of signing Rensenbrink, deployed him on the left of a three-man forward line, in a loose adaptation of the formation his Feyenoord had won the European Cup with.
With Johnny Rep at the tip, Van de Kerkhof on the right, Rensenbrink to the left, and backed up in midfield by Johan Neeskens and Rensenbrinks Anderlecht teammate Arie Haan, they were a side which lacked the conductor supreme in Cruyff, but instead produced a more balanced and direct variant of play that still embraced sublime vision and skill.
During the span of time between the World Cups of 1974 and 78, Rensenbrink had cultivated a love affair with the Cup Winners Cup at Anderlecht. Molenbeeks shock title win of 1974/75 was followed by a hat-trick of successes for Brugge. While Anderlecht conspired against themselves domestically, in Europe they excelled. The club reached the Cup Winners Cup final in three successive seasons, defeating West Ham in 1976, losing to Hamburg in 1977 and dismantling Austria Vienna a year later. It was during this period that Rensenbrink attracted unfair criticism, that he would raise his game for the big occasions but become unreliable against the lesser teams.
Despite the title eluding them, Rensenbrink, alongside Haan and Van der Elst, made Anderlecht one of the most dangerous and feared sides in Europe. He scored twice in both the 1976 and 1978 finals, performances which enhanced his reputation and in turn raised expectancy levels.
In Argentina, he was in imperious form. A hat-trick against Iran was followed by further goals against Scotland and Austria. Combined with the drive and explosive finishing of Rep and Haan, the Netherlands rolled to the final.Rensenbrink came to within the width of the goalpost at El Monumental from pure footballing immortality.
At the age of 31, it proved to be a watermark moment. Within a year he had played his last game for the Netherlands, while his Anderlecht career ended in 1980 with what was essentially a trailing off, ending his playing days with short spells in the NASL and in France with Toulouse.
Rensenbrink, a man who never went into coaching, remains locked within that vivid moment when he hit the post with only seconds to go in the 1978 World Cup final. He remains a man under-appreciated by many in his homeland, and one often forgotten by football generally. Regardless of that, he will always be a man who hypnotically owned the ball, one who so very nearly inherited the world.
By Steven Scragg @Scraggy_74
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