Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Elizabeth S. Anderson

First, there are some easy fixes that could be achieved within the terms of current law, or with some modifications of current law.

Chief among these would be rigorous enforcement of existing labor laws, abolition of mandatory arbitration over violations of wages and hours regulations, and abolition of bans on class action suits by groups of workers over unfair treatment by their employer. Rigorous enforcement especially needs to include protecting the free speech and association rights of workers to complain about working conditions and to organize labor unions at the workplace.

In addition, non-compete agreements need to be banned. These prevent workers from taking their human capital with them when they quit or are fired. If workers cant exit without abandoning the use of their skills, their already weak bargaining power within the firm is destroyed.

Immigrant workers, too, need the freedom to quit. Without that freedom, they are grievously exploited. Interns, who do work of economic value to their employers, should have the same rights to pay and other legal rights as any other employee. So-called independent contractors are often functionally employees, and should have the same rights as employees. Temps should enjoy the same pay, benefits, conditions, and rights as regular employees of the firm.

Second and more ambitiously, the rules of workplace governance need to be changed to give workers a permanent institutionalized voice at work, whether or not they belong to a labor union.

This is the system that prevails among larger employers in many rich European countries. It requires that workers be consulted about how the work process is organized. In such systems of co-determination, workers have a real say in how they are governed, and the work process is jointly determined by workers and managers.

Labor unions engage in collective bargaining over wages and benefits, but the conditions on the shop floor are managed by co-determination. This means that workers are entitled to a real say in how they are governed even if they have not elected a labor union to represent them exclusively in collective bargaining.

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Where Despots Rule - Jacobin magazine

On the eve of what would have been Princess Dianas 56th birthday, Ryle Dwyer reveals her hidden Irish connections.

On the eve of what would have been the late Princess Dianas fifty-sixth birthday, it may seem like everything of interest or historical significance about her has already been written, but an extraordinary Cork/Kerry link has essentially been ignored.

At this time of the year we read and hear so much about Killarney, but how many people know that Dianas great, grandfather was the MP representing Killarney at the turn of the last century?

James Boothby Burke Roche had a colourful past that the people of Killarney could not forget fast enough, but maybe this will change when they realise his future significance.

In the wake of the Irish Parliamentary Partys split over Charles Stewart Parnells involvement in Kitty OShea divorce, Roche was elected to Parliament for East Kerry as an anti-Parnellite nationalist, which seemed particularly incongruous because Burke Roche was divorced himself five years earlier.

As such he was a real historical curiosity.

He was the third son of Edmond Burke Roche (1815-1874), who lived at Trabolgan House, Trabolgan, and owned extensive property in north and east Cork, as well as in the Dungarvan area of Waterford. A staunch backer of Irish causes, Edmond Burke Roche was MP for County Cork from 1837 to 1855.

He was closely associated with Daniel OConnell in the repeal movement. In 1865 Queen Victoria conferred the title of Baron Fermoy on Roche, who then sat in the House of Lords, where he continued to take an active interest in Irish affairs.

His son, James, lacked the fathers drive, and, as a result, developed into the classical neer do well. While on a visit to the United States in 1880 he met and married Frances Fannie Work, the daughter of Frank Work, one of New Yorks richest bankers. James and Fannie lived together in London, but she later testified that he never contributed anything towards her support.

James Boothby Burke Roche.

Her father provided her with $7,000 a year, and she gave it to her husband, who used some of it to fund his gambling. In December 1886 Roche sent his wife to New York to ask her father for more money. She brought their daughter with her, while he held on to their twin sons to ensure her return.

By then, however, her father had enough of his son-in-laws profligate ways. Work refused to provide further money for her reckless husband, and persuaded her not to return to London.

If I had my way I would make international marriage a hanging offense, Work stated. Its time this international marrying came to a stop, for our American girls are ruining our country by it. Roche arrived in New York with the twin boys in February 1887. He sent a message asking Frank Work to meet him and the boys at the steamer wharf, but his father-in-law sent a servant instead.

Roche met his wife the following day at her fathers mansion in the presence of her father, who flatly refused to provide any further money. This was possibly the last time Fannie saw her husband.

One day, shortly afterwards, Roche arrived at his father-in-laws mansion with the twins who were almost two years old. He rang the doorbell, and abandoned the boys on the doorstep. He just took off in his carriage without speaking to anyone.

Fannie Roche was granted a divorce on the grounds of desertion in March 1891. The case received widespread coverage in the United States, especially in New York, where it was front-page news in The Sun, and The Evening World, which reported that Scotland Yard detectives were unable to find her husband to serve the papers on him. The case was also reported in Irish newspapers, because of the familys political prominence. The Cork Examiner had carried an extensive report of the divorce case on March 2, 1891. It therefore seemed strange that people did not know that James Burke Roche had been divorced when he was selected to run for parliament in East Kerry in 1896 as an anti-Parnellite.

The Parnellite organ, The Irish Daily Independent, highlighted the story during the latter days of the 1896 campaign. Roches solicitor issued a statement emphasising that his client emphatically declared to me that he was never served with any divorce proceedings. Although Roche won the seat comfortably, less than half the 5,600 eligible voters cast their ballots. Moreover, the 680 votes for his opponent Captain John McGillycuddy was more than double the 253 votes he had received in 1992. The formal announcement of the election result was received with absolute silence, according to the Kerry Sentinel.

Edmund Maurice Burke Roche, Baron Fermoy (1885 - 1955) and his wife Lady Fermoy after attending a society wedding.

Despite his win, Roche appeared very agitated. He was left severely alone by the members of the Party, the Kerry Sentinel noted. These gentlemen appeared to be ashamed to be seen in the company of Mr Roche in public. Indeed, the reporter concluded that it seemed they would have preferred to hear of his defeat rather than his success. During his one term as an MP, Burke Roche was hardly seen in the House of Commons. He never made any speech and was not even mentioned in the house records during his final two years. He just faded into obscurity.

When the Irish Parliamentary Party reunited in 1900, there was obviously no room for him. At a big unity rally in Killarney on April 8, 1900, the mere mention of his name provoked groans from the gathering.

If you show you can purge the representation of Ireland of men of the stamp of your own misrepresentative, Mr Burke Roche, William OBrien told the crowd, it would be an easy preliminary step to the abolition of the accursed foreign rule. Roche did not stand for re-election.

Twenty years later when his older brother the 2nd Baron Fermoy died without a son, James Burke Roche became the 3rd Lord Fermoy, but he died the following month. He was succeeded by the eldest of his twin sons, Edmund Maurice Roche, who returned from the United States.

Edmund stood for parliament as a Conservative in an English constituency and duly won a seat in the 1924 general election, and was re-elected at each subsequent general election, until he stood down in 1935. In 1931 he married Ruth Gill, and they had three children.

Their daughter Frances married Edward Spencer at Westminster Abbey on June 1, 1954. The Queen and other members of the Royal Family were among the 1,800 guests at what was one of the society weddings of the decade. The fourth of their five children, was Diana Spencer, who married Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1981, and became the mother of both Princes William and Harry.

If Prince William becomes King, it will mean that an ancestor on his mothers side was the MP representing Killarney, at the same time one of his fathers ancestors was Queen Victoria, who had played a major role in putting Killarney on the international tourist map.

Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

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Princess Diana's hidden Irish roots - Irish Examiner

THE National Economic Council (NEC) has resolved that state government with the capacity should rehabilitate prisons and provide facilities to decongest them.

Arising from its 78th session presided over by acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abujaon Thursday, it expressed worries over the appalling conditions of structures and logistics in the nations prisons.

This followed a presentation to the council made by the Minister of Interior.

Briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State said the governors were unanimouson the need to rehabilitate prisons in the country.

He added: It was indicated that States that have the capacity should as soon as practicable lend a helping hand to provide facilities that will help decongest the prisons and help improve the state of the inmates.

Council expresses the need for private and the public sectors to collaborate for more effective and humane prison services.

Stated the need to visit the Prisons regularly in order to determine those that are supposed to be there and those that should be out of prison.

Also speaking, Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe State, gave an update on the Excess Crude Account (ECA) put at $2.3billion as well as Stabilization, Natural Resources Development and Ecological Funds.

Damkwambo who gave NEC a brief update on the progress of work of NECs Ad-hoc Committee on Excess Crude,disclosed that about 18 Ministry. Department and Agencies (MDAs) were now being audited, and in 10, the audits have being completed already.

He said a more comprehensive report was expected by next NEC meeting.

According to him, NEC was informed thatStabilisation Balance isN28.5 billion as at

28/6/17;Natural Resources Development Fund,N87.6 billion andEcological FundN28.9 billion.

On Budget Support Loan Facility, Dankwambo said although Finance Minister presented that the facility has being fully disbursed, she also announced that the Acting President has directed that the facility continues until other states claim are paid.

The Budget Support Loan Facility is an initiation of the Buhari administration to help states get boost in their funding in the light of the dwindling Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) allocations.

NEC also received briefing on HIV update in the country, noting that an estimated three million were living with the virus in the country.

The Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Dr. Sani Aliyu, who spoke on the subject at the briefing, said some states have budget allocation for HIV programmes but not released.

He said Issues of HIV needed to be prioritized, noting that atleast 0.5% to 1% of monthly Federation allocation to states be set aside for financing the implementation of the HIV/AIDS programme.

He added: A universal free antenatal services and abolition of user fees associated with accessing prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) services.

Each State to set up an ANC/PMTCT revolving fund.

State Health Insurance and contributory schemes include HIV as an indicator disease for both testing and treatment particularly as it relates to community health insurance programme.

NEC also received an update on Improving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its implementation in the country.

Top adviser to Pope charged with sexual assault offenses

DISCOP to encourage business in rapidly growing countries

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NEC okays states' rehabilitation of prisons - NIGERIAN TRIBUNE (press release) (blog)

Elizabeth S. Anderson

First, there are some easy fixes that could be achieved within the terms of current law, or with some modifications of current law.

Chief among these would be rigorous enforcement of existing labor laws, abolition of mandatory arbitration over violations of wages and hours regulations, and abolition of bans on class action suits by groups of workers over unfair treatment by their employer. Rigorous enforcement especially needs to include protecting the free speech and association rights of workers to complain about working conditions and to organize labor unions at the workplace.

In addition, non-compete agreements need to be banned. These prevent workers from taking their human capital with them when they quit or are fired. If workers cant exit without abandoning the use of their skills, their already weak bargaining power within the firm is destroyed.

Immigrant workers, too, need the freedom to quit. Without that freedom, they are grievously exploited. Interns, who do work of economic value to their employers, should have the same rights to pay and other legal rights as any other employee. So-called independent contractors are often functionally employees, and should have the same rights as employees. Temps should enjoy the same pay, benefits, conditions, and rights as regular employees of the firm.

Second and more ambitiously, the rules of workplace governance need to be changed to give workers a permanent institutionalized voice at work, whether or not they belong to a labor union.

This is the system that prevails among larger employers in many rich European countries. It requires that workers be consulted about how the work process is organized. In such systems of co-determination, workers have a real say in how they are governed, and the work process is jointly determined by workers and managers.

Labor unions engage in collective bargaining over wages and benefits, but the conditions on the shop floor are managed by co-determination. This means that workers are entitled to a real say in how they are governed even if they have not elected a labor union to represent them exclusively in collective bargaining.

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Where Despots Rule - Jacobin - Jacobin magazine

"Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed. You control the Senate. You control the House. You have the presidency. There's no reason you can't get this done. Get it done and we'll open it back up."--Doug Deason, rich Texan and conservative donor to Republicans through assorted Koch brothers' organizations, as quoted Monday by The Associated Press.

Contemporary Republican politics in the Citizens United era has never been expressed so clearly.

Billionaire conservatives gave massive amounts of money to Republicans to facilitate the GOP's takeover of our government. These rich conservatives did so to invest in the greater goal of getting their general high-end taxes reduced.

They also invested in these Republicans--invested being a kinder word than might be used--so that they could achieve an ancillary greater goal. It was to take health insurance away from poor people through Obamacare repeal so that the money used to treat boo-boos on the riff-raff could be transferred to them through the abolition of taxes targeted to high incomes contained in Obamacare.

This fellow was saying two things. One was that rich people bought from Republicans in Congress a political result that hasn't been delivered. The second was that rich people will cut off money for Republicans henceforth until they deliver what was bought, by which he means lower taxes for the rich in general and repealed taxes on the rich in Obamacare specifically.

Billionaire donors are saying, essentially, that, even now, if the Republicans deliver lower taxes and Obamacare repeal, they'll pay bonuses.

Republicans are working in Congress on a commission basis. But they're not doing it well. Thus, no commission.

They can't turn their attention to tax reform until they pass something--any blamed thing--that they can call a repeal of Obamacare whether it is or isn't.

Just on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had to postpone a procedural vote on taking Obamacare away from poor people because three or four GOP senators in his caucus must not have been in on the deal with rich people.

And there was another interesting angle to that on Tuesday.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, started to look a tad wilted under intense pressure from his heroically decent home-state Republican governor, John Kasich, to back away from the repeal's phasing out of Medicaid expansion for the states. Two other Republican senators--Dean Heller in Nevada and Bill Cassidy in Louisiana--had already openly expressed the same concern about their states losing a lot of money and jerking a lot of people off health insurance.

The New York Times said McConnell was openly frustrated with Portman for signaling such a concern because he had worked hard to keep expansion-state Republican senators quiet about those worries until he could take his best shot at passing the bill.

He wanted them to shut up, vote for repeal to keep the rich investors at bay, and see what could be done quietly for their expansion states in the conference committee reconciling the Senate and House bills.

That explains why the Arkansas Senate GOP phenom, Tom Cotton, wouldn't answer any questions--not just mine, but anybody's--about whether he wanted to protect Medicaid expansion as embraced by his home-state Republican governor. It would seem to explain why the state's other Republican senator, John Boozman, was evasive as well.

They were going along with their party's interest to oblige a rich Texan so that a majority leader from Kentucky could deliver passage of a bill to take health insurance from a quarter-million poor Arkansas people.

It looks like the poor people of Arkansas are going to have to ante up.

And there was another little gem of a factor in the Republicans' embarrassing retreat on Tuesday from billionaire-service. It was an article in Politico asserting that McConnell had "warned" President Trump that, if the Republican Senate can't push through this billionaire-serving Obamacare repeal, then they'll be "forced" to negotiate with the Democrats.

Can you imagine?

What an affront--having to sit down with dirty-fingernailed Democrats and let them have a few things in order to achieve a form of bipartisan consensus on fixing one of the biggest public-policy challenges of our time.

That rich guy in Texas is going to be high-peeved for sure if, after Republicans fail to deliver what he bought, he catches them trying to do real Senate work for non-rich people.

Finally, I repeat my assertion that the 48-member Democratic caucus in the Senate should write a credible Obamacare-fix bill and reach out for negotiated compromise to the moderate Senate Republicans who balked on the McConnell effort to pay off the billionaires.

They say it's a futile tactic because McConnell would never permit such a compromise's advancement.

I say it's the right thing.

------------v------------

John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial on 06/29/2017

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Not what they paid for - Arkansas Online

Every year on June 19or Juneteenth, as it is often calledwe commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. While the Emancipation Proclamation was signed on New Years Day of 1863, it took more than two years for the news to travel to Texas. Finally, on June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Texas, announcing the abolition of slavery in the last Confederate stronghold.

Historically, Juneteenth was a day that the freed people of Texas celebrated with family and food as a way of measuring progress and instilling the values of racial uplift and freedom in the generations to follow. Today, however, Juneteenth is a day not only to celebrate freedom but also to contemplate, educate, and discuss the improvements that our society still needs to make.

The institution of slavery is inextricably rooted in the foundation of the United States. Likewise, abolitionism remains a fundamental component of our countrys identityand its very much needed today. Juneteenth is a time to remember that while the United States may have seen the end of legal slavery more than 150 years ago, the end of slavery altogether has yet to pass. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are an estimated 20.9 million people living in slavery worldwide today. Many of these victims are in the United States.

Horrific though this number is, global and U.S. anti-slavery efforts offer some hope. A 2015 amendment to the Tariff Act of 1930 explicitly prohibits the import of any goods produced by forced labor into the United States. In 2016, the End Modern Slavery Initiative passed, providing grants for programs and projects that aim to combat slavery in key areas across the globe.

Recently, lawmakers have drafted new legislation to combat slavery in the United States. In the Senate, Senators Cornyn (R-TX), Klobuchar (D-MN), Grassley (R-IA), and Feinstein (D-CA) have introduced the Abolish Human Trafficking Act (AHTA) of 2017. In the House of Representatives, Chris Smith (R-NJ) has introduced the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Act of 2017. If signed into law, both of these bills would reauthorize and update the hallmark piece of federal human trafficking legislation, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).

Juneteenth is a time to recommit to the work that still remains. Passing legislation to combat human trafficking here at home and across the globe is an important step that the United States can take now; discouraging trafficking worldwide by rejecting all products created by forced labor is another.

In the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln declared all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free. The United States should consider President Lincolns words, and use its position in the world to protect vulnerable individuals and bring their perpetrators to justice.

Continue reading here:

Juneteenth: A Day for Remembrance and Awareness - Human Rights First (blog)

Reforming the welfare system has been a key aim of British government since 2010. Richard Machin writes that the concept makes no economic sense, it does not produce the outcomes the government is seeking, all while the UK is actually spending less on welfare than countries with comparable economies.

Back in 2010, the coalition government stated that welfare reform is essential to make the benefit system more affordable and to reduce poverty, worklessness, and fraud. The 2017 manifestos of the main parties offered a genuine choice of whether to pursue or abandon this policy. For working-age benefit claimants, Labour and the Liberal Democrats proposed a series of sweeping reforms including the abolition of the bedroom tax and the sanctions regime. A lack of detail in the Conservative manifesto could be read as an intention to continue with the roll-out of the many changes that we have seen over the last seven years, although planned changes to benefits for pensioners have been abandoned under the confidence and supply agreement with the DUP.

In the aftermath of the election where does this leave us? For working-age claimants presumably we will see the minority government pursuing the welfare reform programme. Political opposition to austerity both in Westminster and with voters has gained some traction as a consequence of the election result, and there are strong arguments that welfare reform has failed to meet its intended aims and negatively impacted on claimants.

Welfare reform does not make economic sense

Research by Sheffield Hallam University found that the post-2010 welfare reform policies will take 27 billion a year out of the economy, or 690 a year for every adult of working-age. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimate that the cash freeze to most benefits, and cuts to child tax credit and universal credit, to be pursued in this parliament, will affect 3 million working households. The Cambridge University economist Ha Joon-Chang argues that the mainstream political narrative that welfare spending is a drain and should be reduced is illogical. He asserts that a lot of welfare spending is investment and believes that appropriate funding in areas such as unemployment benefits can improve productivity and workforce capability.

When thinking about what an appropriate welfare state looks like in this parliament we would also do well to consider the findings of Professor John Hillss latest book, which emphasises that we all rely on welfare at some point in our lives. A sensible debate about the affordability of welfare benefits should be framed with reference to accurate statistics about the recipients of welfare spending. The Institute for Fiscal Studies report that 46.43% of total social security spending goes on benefits for older people, with only 12.82% on benefits for people on low incomes (for example housing benefit) and just 1.11% on benefits for unemployed people. The governments aim of producing a fairer and more affordable system is hamstrung by ignoring fiscal facts on one hand while perpetuating inaccuracies about the profile of benefit claimants on the other.

Professionals working in the advice sector have long advocated the principles of the multiplier effect. This argues that there are economic advantages to high levels of benefit take-up as claimants spend money on goods and services in the local community. Ambrose and Stone (2003) found that a multiplier effect of 1.7 exists, meaning each pound raised in benefit entitlements for claimants should be multiplied by 1.7 to give a much greater overall financial benefit to the economy.

My own experience of working in advice services demonstrated that where household incomes are protected through adequate levels of social security there are direct savings to the public purse: rent/council tax arrears are avoided, contact with overstretched public services is reduced and improved health outcomes reduce burdens on the NHS.

Welfare reform is regressive

There is clear evidence that welfare reform has a disproportionately negative impact on some groups in society and some areas of the UK. The Sheffield Hallam research found that those particularly hit by welfare reform are working-age tenants in the social rented sector, families with dependent children (particularly lone-parent families and families with large numbers of children) and areas with a high percentage of minority ethnic households. Geographically, the impact of welfare reform is stark with the greatest financial losses being imposed on the most deprived local authorities. As a general rule, older industrial areas and some London Boroughs are hardest hit, with southern local authorities the least affected.

The mainstream media often fails to report the true impact of welfare reform that this research highlights. A more accurate account of the human costs can be found in For whose benefit? The everyday realities of welfare reform in which Ruth Patrick documents her research on the impact of sustained benefit reductions. Dominant themes include the stigma felt by benefit claimants, the negative impacts of a punitive sanctions regime, and living with persistent poverty.

Welfare reform does not produce the behaviour changes sought by the government

Although welfare reform is a values-laden policy underpinned by a strong, but flawed, ideology (only those who fail to do the right thing are affected) there is little evidence that the retrenchment of the welfare state has been accompanied by the change in claimant behaviour that politicians desire. The bedroom tax was supposed to provide an economic incentive to move to smaller accommodation. The evaluation indicates that more than 7 in 10 claimants affected had never considered moving, with an estimate that no more than 8% of those affected having downsized within the social sector.

The Benefit Cap places a limit on the total amount of certain working age benefits available to claimants. One of the governments main intentions was for this to improve work incentives. There is no common consensus on the extent to which this aim has been achieved: the Institute for Fiscal Studies have suggested that the majority of those affected will not respond by moving into work, however, government ministers rarely waste an opportunity to tell us that low levels of unemployment are partly due to the benefit changes introduced.

The research of David Webster into sanctions argues that Sanctions are not an evidence-based system designed to promote the employment, wellbeing and development of the labour force and that this regressive system results in lower productivity, pointless job applications, and poverty-related problems.

In the last days of the previous administration we saw the introduction of the 2-child limit for child tax credit and universal credit. Child Poverty Action Group emphasise the contradiction in a policy which supposedly provides parity between those in work and those out of work, when 70% of those claiming tax credits are already working.

Comparable countries spend more on their welfare systems than the UK

Given the huge variations in social security systems across countries, a true comparative exercise is somewhat problematic. However, we can again rely on the analysis of Ha-Joon Chang who debunks the myth that the UK has a large welfare state. Taking public social spending as a percentage of GDP, the UK is only slightly higher (21.5% of GDP) than the OECD average (21%):

Moving forward a key challenge for all political parties is to start a serious conversation about benefits for older people and how to create a sustainable system with an ageing population. At the other end of the age spectrum, much has been said about the increased engagement of younger people in the political process; ironically many commentators argue that it is this age group that will be hardest hit by a continuing programme of welfare reform.

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About the Author

Richard Machin is Lecturer in Social Welfare Law, Policy and Advice Practice at Staffordshire University.

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Four reasons why welfare reform is a delusion - British Politics and Policy at LSE (blog)

Emily Heron: I would be good at nursing but I feel the government is saying to people like me Im not worthy of the training. Photograph: Luke MacGregor for the Guardian

Universities are warning that the government is quietly reneging on its promise to provide 10,000 new nursing degree places, intended to relieve pressure on the NHS.

Student nurses must spend 50% of their degree working under supervision, usually in a hospital. But universities have told Education Guardian that not a single extra nursing training place has been funded or allocated for the future. It would cost 15m over five years to fund training placements for 10,000 new nurses, according to the Council ofDeans of Health, the body that represents university faculties of nursing.

Applications to study nursing in the new 2017-18 academic year have slumped by 23% compared with last year, after the abolition of bursaries. The government said last year it would free up 800m and pay for an extra 10,000 places by ending bursaries and shifting student nurses to the standard system of 9,000-a-year tuition fees supported by loans. Angry academics now say this was a hollow promise.

Emily Heron, a 22-year-old healthcare assistant who works in a trauma unit in a hospital in Newcastle, says she will have to abandon her dream of becoming a nurse because she cannot afford a degree now. I first realised I was good at caring for people when my dad became terminally ill and I had to leave college to look after him, she says.

I still care for him, and I live on my own with no family to support me. Without a bursary Id have to take out a big loan on top of paying for my house and car. As a student nurse you basically work a full-time job in a hospital and fit your degree work around that, so there is no chance of doing paid work to help support yourself. She adds: I am really committed to nursing and I know Id be good at it. But I feel like the government is saying to people like me that Im not worthy of the training.

Academics are warning that the government must train more nurses as there is no longer a reliable recruitment pipeline from the EU after the Brexit vote. The number of EU nurses registering to practise in the UK has fallen by 96% in less than a year. Only 46 EU nurses came to work in the UK in April compared with 1,304 last July, according to new statistics from the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

David Green, vice-chancellor of Worcester University, one of the leading institutions for nursing, says: I dont believe the policy intention with scrapping bursaries was to expand places; I think it was just to save money. The fact the training placements havent increased shows there was no plan to increase numbers.

He explains: We can give student nurses all the theory, but they need to actually work on a ward. Theres no money for training and we cant take people on with a false prospectus. Thats the story across the country.

Prof Steve West, vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England, which also has high-ranking nursing courses, agrees: At the moment it is not clear how the 10,000 new places for nurses could happen. No new money has been announced so it isnt clear how you fund an increase in what we currently have. Universities are already struggling to protect hospital placements for existing students, he says. Asproviders are squeezed their number one priority has to be giving care, and education slips down the agenda, he says.

Nursing degrees have traditionally attracted relatively high numbers of mature female students, often with their own families to support and often from disadvantaged backgrounds. But universities are reporting that these are the candidates who are being frightened off by high fees and loans.

At Worcester, for the first time, nearly half the people selected for interview to study nursing or midwifery this autumn have either not turned up or explained they do not want to proceed because of the new financial arrangements.

They all say: Im really sorry but I dont know how I can manage with this level of debt, Green says. Because we are right at the top of the hierarchy for nursing, we will be able to fill our places: we have about 10 applicants per place, generally. But there will be no expansion. And watch what happens elsewhere. Other places will definitely have a drop. There are nowhere near enough students to meet the shortfall. And the NHS urgently needs this workforce to expand significantly.

Green is angry that the government now treats nurses and midwives as standard students who should fund their own degrees, when they work 2,100 hours for the NHS free as part of their course, with no promise of a high salary at the end. They work night shifts, weekends and a 45-week year. They are not ordinary students and everyone knows that, he says.

Midwives have to deliver 40 babies as part of their qualification. My wife became a midwife nine years ago. She had one week during her course when she delivered 10 babies in four shifts, all night shifts with no doctor on duty. There is nothing standard about this. Its really unfair to pretend there is.

Kevin Crimmons, head of the department of adult nursing at Birmingham City University, agrees: The environment we are asking our students to go into is unprecedented in terms of the challenges they will face and the pressure the NHS is under. They will be expected to present in a hospital at 7am and face some very physical and emotional challenges. Nurses arent likemost other students. We hold them to a much higher account.

He adds: Our applications from mature students and we take a lot of mature students are markedly down when compared to last year. We are now doing outreach work, going out to FE colleges and talking to students about studying nursing to ensure they are making a decision based on the full facts.

West argues that many student nurseswill have access to more funding under the new system, butadds: They dont tend to see that: what they see is the 9,000 fees. Either they worry that they have to pay it upfront or they worry about taking on the debt. The government has been lax in engaging with the sector on how to communicate a positive single message.

The switch to fees and loans has alsogot caught up in the negative coverage about morale in the NHS, hesays. We are haemorrhaging staff quite significantly. Put the two things together and Im not surprised applications to study nursing from certain groups are lower.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the planned changes would create up to 10,000 more training places for nurses and allied health professionals by the end of this parliament, adding that there was likely to be a bounceback on applications next year. She said that even with a 23% drop in applications the NHS would still be able to fill the required 20,000 student nursing places this year.

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Government 'reneging on promise to fund 10,000 extra nursing ... - The Guardian

WASHINGTON: Senate Republicans watched support for their Obamacare repeal bill slide into perilous territory after release of a non-partisan report forecasting that the plan would leave 22 million more Americans uninsured by 2026.

The legislation introduced last week by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was already in jeopardy, despite expressed optimism by President Donald Trump.

With Democrats uniting in opposition to the draft, Republican leaders have struggled to rally enough support from within their ranks to get the bill over the line.

McConnell has said he wants a final vote on the bill Friday, before a brief recess for lawmakers for the July 4 Independence Day holiday, but some in the party have balked at the short timeline.

The report by the Congressional Budget Office will no doubt sow deeper concerns about the viability of the legislation, which is aimed at fulfilling Trump's pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the landmark reform of his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.

"The Senate bill would increase the number of people who are uninsured by 22 million in 2026 relative to the number under current law," the CBO said in its much-anticipated report.

The estimated increase in the number of uninsured under the bill that passed the House of Representatives last month was 23 million.

According to the CBO, the Senate legislation would also slash federal spending by some $321 billion over the 2017-2026 period, a net savings of $202 billion over the House measure.

The CBO said that the bill's abolition of the provision requiring individuals to have insurance would lead to 15 million more uninsured people next year alone.

It also warned that some insurance premiums for individuals would be 20 percent higher next year than under current law, mainly because eliminating mandated coverage would prompt comparatively fewer healthy people to sign up.

The White House quickly dismissed the CBO report, citing what it called its "history of inaccuracy."

Five Senate Republicans publicly opposed the bill as drafted, even before the new CBO score.

After the score's release, the prospect for advancing the bill was in doubt, as two Republican senators, Rand Paul and Susan Collins, said they would not vote for a motion to proceed to the legislation.

Should three Republicans join all Democrats in opposition, the bill would stall in the Senate unless McConnell returns with enough changes to draw some back on board.

"I want to work w/ my GOP & Dem colleagues to fix the flaws in ACA," Collins, a moderate from Maine, said on Twitter, in a noteworthy expression of support for fixing, and not replacing, Obamacare.

"CBO analysis shows Senate bill won't do it. I will vote no on mtp (motion to proceed)."

With Republicans in a 52-48 majority, McConnell can afford only two defectors. In the event of a tie, Vice President Mike Pence would still give Republicans a win.

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Republican health plan in peril as 22 million set to lose coverage - Economic Times

In the best soap-opera tradition, the ongoing process of constitutional reform in Georgia has yielded drama aplenty over the past week.

Just days after the Council of Europes Venice Commission of legal experts made public its final comments on the proposed draft amendments, the 115 lawmakers from the ruling Georgian Dream party unanimously approved a slightly different text in first and second readings at an emergency parliament session on June 22 and 23, ignoring appeals by President Giorgi Margvelashvili and NGOs to resume discussion of the draft with the aim of achieving the widest possible consensus.

The last-minute change, which triggered outraged protests from NGOs and opposition parties, reflected the decision taken by Georgian Dream on June 19 behind closed doors to postpone from 2020 until 2024 the proposed transition from the current mixed majoritarian-proportional electoral system to a fully proportional one. Observers attribute that volte-face to a rift within Georgian Dream, with a younger generation amenable to change being effectively held hostage by older majoritarian lawmakers averse to risking the loss of their mandates. One majoritarian, Kakha Okriashvili, is on record as telling the news portal InterpressNews on June 15 that the mixed system is better for Georgia and should not be replaced by a fully proportional system.

Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili and parliament speaker Irakli Kobakhidze, the constitutional lawyer who chaired the state commission tasked with drafting the amendments, have both hailed the parliament vote, which the three opposition parliament factions all boycotted, as a step forward in Georgias democratic development.

By contrast, parliamentary and extraparliamentary opposition parties alike have denounced what they perceive as an attempt to codify changes aimed solely at facilitating the preservation indefinitely of Georgian Dreams constitutional majority. The Alliance of Patriots, which has six mandates in the 150-member parliament, and the extraparliamentary Free Georgia party have threatened to launch street protests, the news portal Caucasian Knot reported.

The planned transition from the current mixed majoritarian-proportional system, in which 73 of the 150 lawmakers are elected from single-mandate constituencies and the remaining 77 under the proportional system, to a fully proportional system is one of the two issues that proved most contentious during the four-month discussion of the proposed amendments that got under way in January. The second is the role of the president, including as head of the National Security Council, and the planned abolition of direct presidential elections.

Those two provisions consequently figured prominently in both the preliminary comments and the more detailed and critical subsequent evaluation of the draft amendments handed down by the Venice Commission. With regard to the electoral system, the Venice Commission expressed overall approval of the planned transition to a proportional system, noting that a mixed system tends to lead to the governing party receiving an overwhelming parliamentary majority.

At the same time, it strongly criticized three related provisions that its experts perceived as deviating from the principles of fair representation and equality of the vote. Those were the imposition of a ban on electoral blocs, together with the preservation of the existing 5 percent threshold to qualify for parliamentary representation, with the party that polled the largest number of votes being granted an additional bonus in the form of those mandates that remain unallocated as a result of votes cast for parties that fail to surmount the 5 percent hurdle. In the five parliamentary ballots between 1999 and 2016, an average of 12.85 percent of votes were cast for parties that failed to qualify for representation; in 2016, the figure was 19.82 percent.

The Venice Commission said that, taken together, those three mechanisms limit the effects of the proportional system to the detriment of smaller parties and pluralism, and deviate from the principles of fair representation and electoral equality to a larger extent than seems justified by the need to ensure stability. It further questioned whether the winner-take-all model for distributing unallocated mandates serves to guarantee political pluralism.

The commission therefore strongly recommended considering other options that would ensure a more equitable division of parliament mandates. Those alternatives included lowering the threshold for representation to 2-3 percent and/or establishing a maximum upper limit for the number of wasted votes allocated to the winning party so that the latter has a workable, but not an overwhelming, parliamentary majority.

Alternatively, the commission suggested, the constitution could provide that 9/10 of the parliament seats (i.e. 135 out of 150) shall be distributed to the parties that have received more than 5 percent of the votes according to the principles of proportional representation, while the remaining 15 seats will be given to the winning party (or the winning party and the second party) as premium.

With regard to the election of the president, the Venice Commission expressed approval of the decision to delay the transition from a direct to an indirect ballot from 2018 until 2023. But it also advocated checks and balances to ensure that a ruling party with a large parliamentary majority would not automatically be in a position to engineer the election as president of its preferred candidate, thereby undermining the role of the president as an impartial arbiter.

In the event, Georgian Dream tweaked the draft amendments on June 21 to lower the barrier for representation under the proportional system in the 2020 parliamentary election to 3 percent. In line with the Venice Commission recommendations, it agreed on the maximum number of additional parliament mandates the winning party will receive as a result of votes cast for parties that do not qualify for representation. Indirect presidential elections will require a qualified majority in an open vote in the first round. In addition, candidates for the Supreme Justice Council and the Constitutional Court, and for the post of public defender, must receive three-fifths of the vote in parliament.

Sixteen opposition parties from across the political spectrum, including the former ruling United National Movement and European Georgia, which split from it earlier this year, have nonetheless addressed a statement to the Council of Europe secretary-general, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Venice Commission, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and foreign ambassadors in Tbilisi calling for a halt to parliamentary discussions of the draft (which the three parliamentary opposition parties boycotted last week) and the submission of a revised draft to the Venice Commission, all of whose recommendations would then be incorporated into the final version. They characterized the amended constitution unilaterally endorsed by Georgian Dream as antidemocratic, adding that it does not reflect the will of the Georgian people, and cannot be considered a legitimate document.

The 16 signatories warned that failure to reopen the discussion and amend the draft could undermine democratization and long-term political stability.

Meanwhile, 16 of the 23 NGOs aligned in the Coalition for a European Georgia launched a parallel appeal to suspend discussion of the proposed amendments in order to enable foreign experts to advise on those provisions, such as the planned abolition of the National Security Council hitherto chaired by the president, that directly affect the countrys defense capacity.

Individual opposition parties and political figures have been even more outspoken in their criticism. European Georgia, which has collected 150,000 signatures in support of its demand that the proposed constitutional amendments be submitted to a nationwide referendum, branded the document approved by Georgian Dreams parliament faction as not the constitution of Georgia, but that of constitution of Georgian Dream and [its founder, billionaire] Bidzina Ivanishvili.

(European Georgia split earlier this year from the former ruling United National Movement, which in 2010 similarly pushed through parliament, disregarding opposition criticism and without the monthlong public debate Georgian Dream conducted, constitutional amendments intended to enable then-President Mikheil Saakashvili to remain in power as prime minister after the end of his second presidential term.)

Opposition claims that the text of the amendments voted on by the Georgian Dream parliament faction last week was completely different from that approved by the Venice Commission appear to be a classic example of Georgian hyperbole. Similarly open to question is the opposition parties claim that during the discussion of the proposed changes by the state constitutional commission, not a single proposal by the president, the public defender, or opposition parties was taken into consideration.

That assertion is at odds with parliament first deputy speaker Tamar Chugoshvilis statement that 80 percent of such proposals were taken into account. It also ignores the fact that President Margvelashvili and his staff chose to boycott the work of the commission from the outset, a decision that the Venice Commission deemed regrettable.

Among the concessions Georgian Dream made in the course of the discussion were the postponement from 2018 to 2023 of the transition from direct to indirect presidential elections and that beginning in 2023 the president should be elected not by the 150 lawmakers as initially envisaged but by an electoral college that would also include representatives from all of Georgias regions, including the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Under the existing constitution, the proposed constitutional amendments will be submitted for a third and final reading at the start of the autumn parliamentary session. The hypothetical possibility thus exists for further revisions to be made. Whether the widest possible consensus, which both the Venice Commission and President Margvelashvili have called for, is realistic is questionable, however, in light of the intense animosity that exists between Georgian Dream and the United National Movement on the one hand, and between Margvelashvili and his team and parliament speaker Kobakhidze on the other.

Minister for Internally Displaced Persons Sozar Subari, who in 2009 publicly excoriated then-President Saakashvili for turning a blind eye to corruption and police brutality, summed up the perception that the United National Movement and its offshoot European Georgia systematically challenge and criticize every single statement by Georgian Dream, regardless of its merits.

Reaching consensus with the United National Movement is impossible...If we announced that tomorrow we shall win back [the breakaway republic of] Abkhazia, they would stand up and walk out of parliament [saying] You shouldnt do that, InterpressNews quoted Subari as saying on June 22.

As for the well-documented hostility between Margvelashvili and Kobakhidze, the two crossed swords yet again last week: When Kobakhidze invited the president to engage in a live televised studio debate about the merits of the proposed constitutional changes, Margvelashvili countered by proposing that a debate be held in the presidential palace in the presence of representatives of all political parties and NGOs, an audience that would be largely on his side. Kobakhidze rejected that format, complaining that the presidents role with regard to amending the constitution has been destructive from start to finish. Margvelashvili for his part complained that the only substantive constitutional changes are directed against the president.

Venice Commission President Gianni Buquicchio is scheduled to travel to Georgia later this week, Caucasus Press reported on June 23, quoting Buquicchios spokesperson. Whom he intends to meet with is not clear. Kobakhidzes credibility may have been damaged by the postponement of the transition to a fully proportional system, given his constant assurances, which the Venice Commission noted with satisfaction, that the Georgian authorities would not adopt any proposed amendment that the commission assessed negatively.

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Volte-Face Over Georgian Constitutional Amendments Triggers Uproar - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty