Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

To the Editor:

The hours of the Womens Rights National Historic Park are now reduced to three days a week, and this is just before the peak visitor season. Its the result of budget cuts in Washington, were told. Or is it a thinly veiled effort by Pres. Trump to deny access to the history of womens struggle for equality?

Its a movement begun in New England by Quakers for the abolition of slavery spread rapidly to central New York and Seneca Falls particularly. There it was taken up by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott. As the conditions of slavery were soon realized to be very like those of women generally. No rights and no protection under the law.

Women and the few thoughtful, caring men who supported them pushed forward to work for and finally achieve the vote for women. It took some 70+ years. And the struggle for full equality has not been won yet!

Shall todays women and girls not have the opportunity to learn of the sacrifices and human cost our brave foremothers endured? Museum hours should not just be limited to three days per week! Agreed? If so, resist! Contact your representatives and just say no! to reduced hours at the Womens Rights National Historic Park.

MARY ANN FISCHETTE

Clyde

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LETTER: 'Just say no' to reduced hours at Women's Rights Historic Park - Finger Lakes Times

Two days after taking over the reins of power in Punjab, the new Congress government under Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today started work on the state's development agenda at its first cabinet meeting, taking several key decisions.

The first Cabinet meet of the new government adopted the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee manifesto as its work programme for the next five years, and took more than 100 important decisions aimed at fulfilling one-third of the electoral promises in the first phase, an official spokesperson said.

To meet some of the expenses involved in taking the work programme forward, the cabinet decided to recall the unutilised funds, amounting to thousands of crores of rupees, which had been granted by the previous SAD-BJP regime to various government departments in the run-up to the polls, he said.

The key decisions taken by the cabinet, attended by all the nine ministers of the newly-constituted government, include a major crackdown on the drug mafia and corruption, abolition of Inspector Raj and VIP culture, time-bound waiver of farm loans, constitution of various high-level committees to bring agriculture and industry on track, reforms in education and health, extension of various benefits to Dalits and other backwards and employment generation.

To ensure rule of law and speedy justice, a series of new legislations, as proposed in the manifesto, will be enacted at the earliest. This includes the vital Confiscation of Drug Dealers' Property Act.

The concerned departments would prepare the necessary legislation for immediate enactment through an ordinance.

Thanking the people of Punjab for their emphatic mandate to the Congress in the recent assembly polls, the cabinet resolved that the administrative secretaries would be entrusted with the task of time-bound implementation of every single commitment in the manifesto relating to their respective departments.

It was also resolved that the government would pursue all legal and administrative measures on the SYL canal issue to protect the state's water.

During the meeting, which lasted over three hours, Amarinder directed his ministerial colleagues and the various departments of the government to get down to the task of implementing the manifesto promises in all earnestness, taking all necessary measures to ensure that there is no delay in taking the reforms and development process to the people.

Abolition of District Transport Officers (DTOs), as well as elimination of the "controversial halqa in-charge system" of the previous Akali government, are among other important decisions taken by the cabinet as part of the anti-corruption agenda of the government.

"Immediate steps will be taken to abolish the VIP culture in the state in line with the promises made by the Congress in its manifesto," he said.

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From cracking down on drug menace to abolition of VIP culture: Key decisions at Amarinder's first Cabinet meet - Daily News & Analysis

Now that the White House and Congress have taken up the herculean task of repealing and replacing Obamacare, everything else in Washington must wait.

That's true for both procedural and political reasons. Republicans control only 52 Senate seats, so they are pursuing repeal through a complicated budget-related process called reconciliation. That allows them to avoid Democratic filibusters and pass legislation with just 51 votes rather than 60. The GOP healthcare bill is unlikely to get one Democratic vote in the Senate, much less eight.

Republicans are also going to spend political capital on healthcare, leaving them less of that capital to pursue other projects because any legislation on this issue will create winners and losers. Some people's health insurance will become better and cheaper, some worse and more expensive. The Congressional Budget Office projection estimated that millions fewer will have coverage compared to under Obamacare, due to the individual mandate repeal and Medicaid cuts. Coverage lost by the abolition of the mandate is, of course, voluntary not something taken away but something discarded.

Not everyone, anyway, believes those coverage estimates. "CBO scoring is like the National Weather Service," quipped Peter Pitts of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. "You get all the best guys in a room with the best data and they all come up with the wrong answer." But the CBO score still has a political impact, and blizzards do sometimes happen.

President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., are pressing forward anyway. Trump predicted a "bloodbath" for Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections if they fail to keep their longstanding promises on Obamacare. Ryan said failure would be "momentum-killing" for the rest of the GOP agenda.

"Think of legislation as one train track with a bunch of trains on the track," Ryan told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. "If you don't get these trains through the system, it slows everything else down."

President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan are pressing forward with the GOP healthcare bill. (AP Photos)

That doesn't mean everyone is happy about it. Even before Trump's speech to Congress in February, several GOP lawmakers told the Washington Examiner that tax reform was most important because it could noticeably accelerate economic and wage growth.

"If we get to 4 percent [gross domestic product] growth and 8 percent wage growth, the American people will be happy again," Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., said. "Then the Left will be irrelevant."

Also from the Washington Examiner

"Shut your mouth," one audience member yelled.

03/19/17 3:35 PM

Although he is going along with the Obamacare effort, Trump appears to share that opinion. "I want to get to taxes," he said in a March speech in Nashville. "I want to cut the hell out of taxes. But before I can do that I would have loved to put it first, to be honest there is one more very important thing that we have to do. And we are going to repeal and replace horrible, disastrous Obamacare."

"We're going to reduce your taxes," Trump also said. "Big league. Big. Big and I want to start that process so quickly. Gotta get the healthcare done, we've got to start the tax reductions."

Tax reform won't be easy either, thanks to the major debate over the concept of "border adjustability." The corporate income tax rate would be cut to 20 percent and transformed into more of a consumption tax. Corporations would be taxed on products consumed in the United States rather than worldwide, in effect taxing imports but not exports.

There are several arguments for this change. It would move the United States toward a "territorial" tax system like many of its trading partners. It would seemingly keep corporations from moving jobs overseas to avoid taxation. Because America runs large trade deficits, taxing income from imports would raise an additional $1 trillion, helping to offset tax rate cuts.

Supporters also hope border adjustment will satiate the demand for protectionism without actually imposing large tariffs, as Trump has proposed, or risking trade wars with other countries. But opponents believe it will mirror protectionism too closely when corporations pass the tax on to consumers.

Also from the Washington Examiner

"We have a civic duty not to be quiet," the networking site's CEO says.

03/19/17 3:24 PM

"The broader plan is a tax cut," argued Brian Reardon, a former special assistant for economic policy to President George W. Bush, in a March conference call with reporters. "Prices will be lower, not higher." Border adjustment supporters believe changes in currency valuation will prevent tariff-style price increases. But some lawmakers, major importers and consumer groups are skeptical.

Trump has called border adjustment "too complicated" and there have been conflicting reports about whether the White House is warming to the idea. Nevertheless, tax and regulatory reform are the two biggest areas of common ground between Trump's economic program and the "Better Way" agenda championed by Ryan during the 2016 campaign.

Trump and Ryan may disagree on what to do to companies that move jobs overseas, but they speak with one voice on the taxes and regulations American job creators face. Both want to cut them.

Another agenda item delayed by the Obamacare push is the infrastructure program Trump promised during the campaign. "We're like a Third World country," he said at an October rally. "Our airports, our roads, our bridges are falling down."

Like tax reform, an infrastructure package could create jobs. It might also be easier for Trump to create construction jobs for his working-class voters through the infrastructure plan than to bring manufacturing jobs back by renegotiating trade agreements.

Infrastructure doesn't excite conservatives as much as tax reform. Trump floated a $1 trillion infrastructure price tag during the campaign, although it has since been suggested that would be the combined total of private and public funds. That sounds too much like the $1 trillion stimulus package President Obama pushed through Congress and Republicans overwhelmingly opposed. Obama's stimulus made the deficit balloon even as the unemployment rate was still hovering around 9 percent three years later.

This is an issue in which Trump could work with Democrats, however. "He won't get Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren," said James Burnley, former secretary of transportation under President Reagan. "But he could get some sensible Democrats."

It might also be easier for Trump to create construction jobs for his working-class voters through the infrastructure plan.

That might include Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist who caucuses with Senate Democrats and ran for the party's presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton.

"Trump has talked appropriately about a collapsing infrastructure our roads, bridges and water systems," Sanders told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this year. "If he is prepared to work with us on rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure and creating millions of jobs, and doing it in a way that doesn't privatize our infrastructure or give tax breaks to billionaires, yes, let's work together."

According to Burnley, plenty of worthy projects could be funded through public-private partnerships, as long as strict cost-benefit analysis is used. He warned against the political bias in favor of new projects over maintenance of existing infrastructure. "Nobody holds a ribbon cutting when you fill a pothole," Burnley said.

All these projects are going to have to wait, however. It is anticipated that an infrastructure bill will be delayed until 2018, in part because it is behind taxes and healthcare in the legislative queue.

Trump has issued executive orders greenlighting pipeline construction projects that were blocked by the Obama administration on environmental grounds. Others hope he will step up enforcement of the Open Skies agreement protecting American airline jobs against government-subsidized foreign competition, which wouldn't require congressional input.

Immigration was another issue Trump campaigned on. He has issued executive orders on the subject, including controversial immigration and travel restrictions from six terrorist-infested countries that are majority Muslim. But those are tied up in court. Big changes to immigration policy require congressional action action that is less likely to take place as lawmakers tackle healthcare.

Some work is being done in Congress to fund some version of Trump's promised border wall, in lieu of Mexico paying for it. But there are periodic rumors that Trump may be open to a comprehensive immigration reform bill, like the doomed Gang of Eight proposal of 2013, usually followed by the president doubling down on his hardline stance from the campaign.

Some work is being done in Congress to fund some version of Trump's promised border wall, in lieu of Mexico paying for it.

If Trump wants a more restrictionist immigration bill, he could back legislation introduced by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and David Perdue, R-Ga. Their Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act would significantly reduce legal immigration, reorient selection criteria away from family reunification toward a more merit-based system and eliminate the diversity visa lottery.

Cotton has emerged as a leading voice for immigration control in the Senate, replacing Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, who is now attorney general. The RAISE Act envisions an even lower level of immigration than the 1990s Jordan Commission, whose proposal was defeated in Congress when social conservatives balked at limiting family reunification and business groups rallied against curbing low-skilled immigration.

Other immigration hawks would like to see Trump trade the formal preservation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that prevents the deportation of undocumented immigrants who came to America as minors, for mandatory E-Verify and tougher border security.

Any effort to pass a big immigration bill, whether it is like Cotton's and Perdue's, the Gang of Eight's, or some Trump-negotiated middle ground, would take a great deal of work in Congress. That isn't likely to happen this year.

Trump has never been a fan of entitlement reform. "I'm not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I'm not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid," he said in 2015. But curbing entitlement spending has been central to Ryan's career. He finally has both a Republican Congress and White House while he is speaker, and Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, is an entitlement reformer.

With the insolvency dates for Social Security and Medicare creeping closer, it might be tempting to use the GOP's unified control of the federal government finally to address the issue. But that will be a taller task than Obamacare repeal and there is even less Republican agreement on what form reform should take. Social Security reform failed in 2005 despite a larger Republican Senate majority and the enthusiastic support of President George W. Bush, who had just won the popular vote and a second term.

No Democrats will be on board for entitlement reform either, as is the case with Obamacare repeal right now. "It's representative of a Democratic congressional caucus that is going to say no to everything and believe that is somehow going to lead them to electoral success," said Pitts, of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.

"I never give up on a dream," Ryan told reporters this year when he was asked about whether he was abandoning entitlement reform. But he did say repealing and replacing Obamacare was a "start" to such reform, especially with the substantial Medicaid component.

Both moderate and conservative critics of the law have taken to calling the House GOP healthcare bill "Ryancare" rather than "Trumpcare."

Some Trump supporters worry that the focus on Obamacare will crowd out the president's agenda, consuming political capital that could be spent on jobs, immigration and trade policy no matter what happens with the GOP healthcare legislation. Both moderate and conservative critics of the law have taken to calling the bill "Ryancare" rather than "Trumpcare."

"Ryan's preferred legislation is frankly presented as a substitute for [Trump] doing what he said he'd do," protested Mickey Kaus, a prominent liberal commentator who has supported the president mainly because of immigration.

A Fox News poll found that 33 percent of the public wanted Trump to focus on creating jobs, compared to just 7 percent whose priority was replacing Obamacare.

Congressional paralysis could lead to Trump doing more with executive orders on all fronts, although his experience with the travel ban is a reminder of the limitations of this approach. "I don't think the House or Senate want this driven by executive orders," Pitts said of Obamacare, although his observation applies to many other issues too. "That's the hammer hanging over the heads of both parties."

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Obamacare forcing Trump's agenda to wait - Washington Examiner

HYDERABAD: In a welcome move, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation on Friday handed over cheques of Rs 8 lakh to the kin of two men who had died while cleaning manholes on Wednesday. They families had been given Rs 2 lakh on Thursday. The Rs 10 lakh compensation was in accordance with a Supreme Court judgement passed on March 27, 2014.

However, in Telangana an independent Express investigation revealed that families of as many as 12 men killed while performing manual scavenging and related jobs had not received the Rs 10 lakh compensation, to be released immediately, as ordered by the apex court.

Six of the families are from Hyderabad, one is from Armoor, three from Nizamabad, one from Warangal and one from Sangareddy.

The men had died between 2002 and 2016.

The investigation was based on a report by Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), founded by Bezwada Wilson, who was awarded the Magsaysay award in 2016 for his work towards the abolition of manual scavenging. The SKA report documents the cases of families of 22 such men in Telangana who had not been awarded compensation as per SC order.

Express independently contacted families of 11 victims listed in SKAs report and family of one man whose death had not been documented by SKA and found that in not one case had the SCs order been implemented.

Take the case of A Ramulu who died in October 2015 at Uppal. Ramulu was a permanent employee of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB). According to his family, they received Rs 4 lakh, from his Employees Provident Fund and his son Balaraju was given his job.

Balaraju works as a line man and is a permanent employee while Ramulus wife recieves a pension of Rs 15,000, the latter due to her anyway. There is no sign any compensation for his death.

Then there are others, like Dangra Rahul, a resident of Nizamabad, who died in April 2015. Rahul was the sole breadwinner of the family which includes his parents and three siblings. They said they had not received a single paisa, despite their repeated attempts to get ex-gratia.

In the case of Sheikh Samad, Sheikh Jameel, Sheikh Ameer Ali, all of the same family, who died in Nizamabad in October 2014, Ghousia Begum, Jameels mother told Express that they were given Rs 10,000 to perform the last rites of the three men.

SKA has been visiting districts t o find famililes of deceased and to help them access compensation. We have been trying to put these deaths on record by visiting various districts across the country. There are no statistics available on the lives and death of manual scavengers.

In fact, any official body denies that the profession even exists, said Saraswathi, state coordinator of SKA, Telangana state.

Telangana secretary of Municipal Administration and Urban Development Navin Mittal, when asked for a response, sought time to look into the details. Efforts to reach MAUD minister K T Rama Rao proved futile.

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No compensation as per Supreme Court orders for kin of 12 men - The New Indian Express

President Dutertes latest threat to declare martial law in Mindanao has sparked further concerns in the European Union, this amid strong signals that his war on drugs and other anticrime measures that his administration is doggedly pushing for, like the death penalty, could have an adverse effect on EU-Philippine trade relations.

Last March 9 in Davao City, speaking to about 300 local officials from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and central and northern Mindanao, Mr. Duterte raised the specter of martial law again, directing them to work with the police and help him fight terrorism and other forms of violence so that he would not have to resort to extraordinary measures to bring law and order in Mindanao.

Only local officials could prevent violence from spinning out, he said, adding that they had the police under their supervision and the military could be called out to help if necessary.

For the first time last week, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom spoke on the issues, joining a number of international organizations that have denounced the bloody drug war and the reinstatement of the death penalty. We are concerned about some of the issues here in the Philippines.

That means, the death penalty, the extrajudicial killings, the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility to nine years old, she told reporters at a press conference on March 10, and went on to emphasize that these are some of the concerns we have conveyed to our partners here in the Philippines.

The top EU trade official did not make conclusive statements as to how the recent developments would affect the blocs economic ties with Manila, but she noted these are all under discussion.

According to international press agency reports, she made mention of the Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+), which allows zero tariff for over 6,000 Philippine products that are exported to the EU. We have now an agreement between us, called GDP Plus, which opens up good trade possibilities, but is also subject to certain international conventions. So the European Parliament and member-states in the EU have some concerns about this development, she said.

She was referring to the passage of the death penalty bill earlier in the House of Representatives, which has triggered concerns among critics that it would violate international agreements, which would eventually affect GSP+.

In 2006, during the Arroyo administration, Congress passed a law that abolished the death penalty. This stand against capital punishment was carried over to the United Nations in 2007, when Manila ratified the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

International law experts say that ratifying the protocol binds parties to their commitment against restoring the death penalty. They say that since there is no opt-out mechanism in the agreement, reimposing the death penalty (as backed by the Duterte administration) will mean breaching the covenant.

The economic benefit, it was further pointed, is conditionaldependent on the Duterte administrations compliance with key international covenants, including their protocols. This puts the government in a bind.

As international diplomatic pressure mounted on the government to respect UN protocols in its brutal war on drugs, the French ambassador to Manila, Thierry Mathou, said he was hoping the death penalty will not be restored. He told the Inquirer that he has spoken to some legislators about the death penalty bill. France has been advocating the abolition of the death penalty everywhere in the world even in the US, he said at the sidelines of the ceremonies marking the 70th year of Philippine-France diplomatic relations.

Amando Doronila was a regular columnist of the Inquirer from 1994 to May 2016.

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EU trade sanctions on PH loom - Inquirer.net

A tough lesson: part-time tutors are one of the groups likely to be hit by the little-known change. Photograph: Alamy

Jane Clark, a self-employed maths tutor who earns around 2,500 a year, faces a 400% increase in her national insurance contributions (NICs) if she wants to retain her right to a state pension.

That equates to an extra 588 a year, which is a good chunk of Clarks earnings and she is far from alone. Potentially, several hundred thousand self-employed people who earn below 6,000 a year will be clobbered, unless the government brings in measures between now and April next year to reduce the impact.

Philip Hammond had to ditch his grand plan to increase class 4 NICs for the self-employed just a week after he announced it in the budget. Its a spectacular U-turn but it doesnt mean the self-employed have got off scot-free.

While the chancellors latest announcement means middle and higher-earning self-employed people those who would have been hit by the increase are now off the hook for the time being, their less well-off counterparts are not so lucky.

The government is pressing ahead with the previously announced abolition of class 2 NICs for the self-employed from April 2018. As things stand, this means many of Britains lowest-earning self-employed workers will either have to pay an extra 588 a year, or lose their entitlement to a state pension.

Tutors are just one of the groups likely to be affected by this little-known change, which could disproportionately impact women. Others who could be hit include those, for example, in hairdressing, and people working in the arts.

Clark is in her 50s and lives in the West Country, and while her earnings are relatively small, she and her husband are not solely reliant on her income he receives a pension.

Class 2 NI is payable at the rate of 2.80 per week for the self-employed who earned more than 5,965 in 2016-17. Crucially, though, those who earn less than that can choose to pay class 2 NI contributions in order to gain entitlement to a state pension. Thats exactly what Clark does she voluntarily pays 145.60 a year (ie, 52 x 2.80). But from April 2018 she wont be able to do that she will have to either pay class 3 voluntary contributions, at a cost of 733.20 a year at current rates, or give up on a state pension. Thats a 404% increase.

Clark told the Guardian the extra 587.60 represents a sizeable slice of her earnings. She says: Until now, the low-paid self-employed have had, in some ways, quite a good deal via class 2 contributions. This will certainly affect many negatively by making it harder for them to accumulate pension rights.

She adds: Its going to affect mostly women. Id say probably older women whose husbands work or are retired, and who are suddenly going to have this huge change put upon them. For example, if you have a husband working who earns enough so that you dont get tax credits. Im not saying Im terribly poor my husband has a pension, and we do have money which we live off. Its not in itself that theres anything wrong with it its just that no one has highlighted these changes, and maybe there should be a period during which they are phased in.

This change only affects self-employed people whose earnings are below whats known as the small profits threshold (SPT), currently 5,965. However, there are more people in that bracket than you might think.

A few days ago the Office for National Statistics revealed that in 2015-16 there were 967,000 people with an annual income from self-employment of less than 5,965.

It is important to make clear that not all of these people will be adversely affected. Those with profits below the SPT, but who are eligible for national insurance credits, would continue to build up qualifying years for the state pension. This typically includes people who receive certain benefits (eg, working tax credit or universal credit), parents of children under 12, foster carers and those receiving carers allowance.

If you are not eligible for NI credits, and want to protect your future entitlement to the state pension, you would need to pay voluntary class 3 contributions, says the government. The current rate is 14.10 a week or 733.20 a year.

Another Guardian reader got in touch to say that nobody in the media seems to have picked up on this, adding that many of the low-earners affected will be people starting up and being self-employed for the first time, or those who can only work part-time because, perhaps, they have caring commitments for children, sick or elderly family members, or they work in low-paid sectors like the arts.

Can it be true that the government is really hammering people earning just a few thousand pounds a year in this way? We asked the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, and its technical director Robin Williamson confirmed this was the case. He told us: If youre opting into class 2 at the moment to preserve your state pension entitlement, from 2018 youre going to have to pay five times more if you want to maintain that contribution. This particular group of people will be worse-off.

But others will argue that even paying the increased 733.20 a year still gives the self-employed a very good deal. In simple terms, it means that, over 35 years, they would pay 25,600 at current rates to obtain the right to a full state pension, currently worth 8,093 a year.

Of course, the government may put transitional arrangements in place to mitigate the cost of the changes. As this week has shown, things can move fast in the world of NICs. Williamson reckons that if the government doesnt do something, theres going to be another big outcry.

HM Revenue & Customs says: Abolishing class 2 NICs removed a regressive levy on the self-employed. We expect a very small proportion, around 2%, will choose to pay class 3 NICs to build entitlement to contributory benefits, such as the new state pension which is worth 1,800 a year. Choosing to do so is entirely voluntary.

This 1,800 is the difference between the 8,093 new pension annual amount and the 6,203 basic state pension annual amount for 2016-17.

Jane Clark is not her real name

The low-paid self-employed arent the only ones who face having to cough up more money because of the scrapping of class 2 national insurance contributions in April 2018. Others affected range from fishermen to people doing volunteering work overseas.

As we explain above, the self-employed who earn less than a certain amount, are able to voluntarily pay class 2 NI contributions to gain access to the state pension.

However, they are also paid by certain groups who are not necessarily self-employed in the UK, in order to gain access to contributory benefits. They include those working abroad, either on a self-employed or employee basis. They will need to pay class 3 voluntary NICs instead to protect their state pension record, following the abolition of class 2 NICs. On a BritishExpats.com website forum, one poster said: It used to be an excellent deal, now its just a great deal.

Meanwhile, the special rates of class 2 contributions which two other categories of people share fishermen and volunteer development workers (those who take part in projects in developing countries) are able to pay, will no longer be available in future.

Share fishermen are those who work in the UK fishing industry and are paid a share of the earnings, or profits, of the boat they work on. They can pay 3.45 a week. Those doing voluntary work abroad are able to pay 5.60 a week.

Continued here:

New bombshell for self-employed: pay 400% more NICs or lose state pension - The Guardian

(ANSA) - Rome, March 16 - The Lower House's labour committee on Thursday is set to vote on abolishing controversial work vouchers used to pay for occasional work, the rapporteur of a bill on the system said. Scrapping the vouchers would avert a May 28 referendum on the system, which is widely being abused. "Today we will vote on the total abolition of the vouchers," said Patrizia Maestri of Premier Paolo Gentiloni's Democratic Party (PD). "There will be a transition period up to December 31, 2017 to make it possible to use the ones already bought. The abolition is an unexpected but positive result. "Let's hope that the government does not bring them back in another form". Unions say the vouchers are being widely abused to pay for long-term and sometimes steady jobs instead of the occasional work they were meant to pay for. The use of vouchers has expanded exponentially in recent years after they were first introduced after the turn of the millennium. The government is also reportedly weighing changes to contract law to avert a second referendum on May 28, both sponsored by Italy's biggest trade union, the left-wing CGIL. Vincenzo Boccia, the head of industrial employers' confederation Confindustria, was unhappy about the prospect of the vouchers being phased out. "We don't like the elimination of the vouchers, nor the way it has been done," Boccia said. "It a referendum it needed, let's have it. "Dismantling things without a debate does not seem the right road to us".

Originally posted here:

Committee to vote on scrapping vouchers (3) - English - ANSA.it - ANSA (registration)

The Housing Forum says that only planning applications for developments of more than 250 homes should be subject to democratic accountability.

The organisation, whose members include developers, contractors, suppliers and housing associations, says that taking politics out of planning for all but the biggest schemes would create a more benign environment for housebuilding. Decisions should be taken by unelected council officials, it says.

We are not advocating fundamental changes, but suggesting mechanisms to enable the system to work more effectively, the Housing Forum says.

Its report Future proofing housing supply1 says that directly elected members should set strategic planning policy but withdraw from deciding on individual planning applications below 250 homes. These decisions should be made solely by the professional planning teams.

The authors believe that the removal of political process would 'depoliticise the issue of housing' that the abolition of democratic accountability would somehwo eliminate controversy and local opposition to planning proposals that impact negatively on neighbours.

The report also calls for: wholesale reform of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and its levy system; the housing minister to be promoted to the cabinet; and the government to drive the large-scale use of prefabricated modular housing.

The report was produced by a working group chaired by Stephen Teagle, chief executive of partnerships and regeneration at Galliford Try and deputy chairman of The Housing Forum. He said: We have to recognise as an industry that the governments renewed focus on housing supply presents an opportunity for the sector to push for the kind of change that can make a real difference. The fact that the scale of the problem has been recognised by Whitehall means we now have a unique chance to open up the debate and put forward novel and bold ideas, like the ones within this report, that we genuinely believe can translate into more homes for communities around the country.

Shelagh Grant, chief executive of The Housing Forum added: We need to lift housing output to levels not seen since the late 1970s. That needs bold actions and brave decisions.

1. The full report can be found at http://www.housingforum.org.uk/resources/influencing/working-groups/future-proofing-housing-supply

This article was published on 15 Mar 2017 (last updated on 17 Mar 2017).

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Housing lobby calls for abolition of democracy in planning applications - The Construction Index

CERN/SPL

Laser physics is being targeted for better reporting of experiments.

In 2013, this journal and many of the Nature research journals announced initiatives aimed at reducing our irreproducibility (Nature 496, 398; 2013). These included a life-sciences checklist for authors and editors intended to improve the transparency of the statistical and methodological aspects of laboratory work, together with abolition of length limits in online methods descriptions and greater attention to statistical evaluation.

At the same time, we encouraged the publishing of step-by-step protocols that are linked to the published papers and made available through the open repository Protocol Exchange. And, complementing our policy of mandated deposition for certain data types, we strongly encouraged or (in some cases) mandated the provision of source data underlying graphical items.

Anecdotal feedback suggests that our application of the checklistswhich represent extra time and effort by both authors and editorshas been much appreciated, although not by everybody: author compliance can be an issue, and we will soon announce steps to improve matters.

We have continued to implement policies that support reproducible researchby strengthening requirements for code availability in 2014, and introducing reporting standards for cell-line source and authentication details in 2015. A data policy, effective in 2016, introduces a mandatory data-availability statement in all papers published in the Nature journals and encourages data citation. Another notable step forward comes with the introduction of registered reports at Nature Human Behaviour, a format intended to minimize research bias by basing acceptance on the significance of the question and the robustness of the methods, rather than the outcome of the results.

On other fronts, we have explored reproducibility-related issues in our news and opinion pages (see go.nature.com/2ca0ej1). We have also developed the checklist approach by implementing new modules for specialized areas of research afflicted by poor reporting of experimental details in photovoltaics, laser physics and functional magnetic resonance imaging.

This week sees a further development. Nature and the Nature journals are published by Springer Nature, whose publications also include Scientific Reports, Scientific Data, Nature Partner Journals and BioMed Central and Springer journals. All of these publications are now committed to becoming formal signatories to the Transparency Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines. The TOP guidelines (https://cos.io/top) focus on transparency and openness in research design, data and materials to enable reproducible research. They were developed with the involvement of journals (including the Nature group), and were introduced in 2015.

The guidelines consist of eight standardscitation standards, data transparency, analytic methods (code) transparency, research materials transparency, design and analysis transparency, pre-registration of studies, preregistration of analysis plans, and replicationwith three levels of increasing rigour. The TOP guidelines provide a common set of standards and a useful framework for advancing an agenda for reproducible research, but uptake of individual standards by Springer Nature journals will be guided by disciplinary norms.

All of these initiatives should help those wishing to replicate our papers. The Nature journals do not have a dedicated format for replication studies, but we do consider high-value replications, subjecting them to the same criteria as other submitted studies. Scientific Data welcomes submissions describing data sets from replication studies, and recently launched an online collection highlighting a series of replication data sets it had published over the past six months. The collection was organized in partnership with the Open Science Framework, a service from the non-profit Center for Open Science in Charlottesville, Virginia, which has coordinated the development of the TOP guidelines.

As illustrated at a meeting on reproducibility issues and remedies last week at the US National Academy of Sciences, this journey is far from complete, and all of us in the research landscape are stakeholders in its progress. Nature will continue to play its part in championing the increased robustness of research.

Read the original here:

Announcement: Transparency upgrade for Nature journals - Nature.com

Media Release: Friday 17 March 2017

For Immediate Release

Petition launched to abolish Auckland Councils Maori Statutory Board

An online petition calling for the abolition of Auckland Councils Maori Statutory Board has been launched by Ngapuhi leader and Auckland property developer David Rankin, who has been heavily critical of the group of unelected Maori. The petitions statement says:

The Maori Statutory Board has worked against the interests of Aucklanders, has cost rate-payers millions of dollars, and is an example of race-based politics. Most of the Board's work has been focussed on bans: bans on people accessing Mt Eden; bans on people developing their own sections without paying a 'taniwha tax'; and bans on equal rights for all cultures. The Board is anti-democratic and as an experiment, has failed. We call for the Government to legislate to abolish the Maori Statutory Board

Mr Rankin plans to present the petition to the Prime Minister in August, a month before the election, and believes that Aucklanders will support it as its an issue that has adversely affected the plans of tens of thousands of the citys residents.

A number of prominent Aucklanders have signed the petition, including Don Brash.

The petition can be found at:

https://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-abolish-auckland-council-s-maori-statutory-board?recruiter=694585883&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink

Scoop Media

Read this article:

Petition to abolish Auckland Council's Maori Statutory Board - Scoop.co.nz (press release)