Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

I found an anecdote towards the end of The Road to 1945, the late historian Paul Addisons history of how the second world war changed Britain. It centres on Winston Churchill, Ernest Bevin then minister of labour in the wartime coalition government and thousands of soldiers setting off to mainland Europe. In June 1944, two days before the D-day landings, Churchill and Bevin went to Portsmouth to say farewell to the troops. They were going off to face this terrific battle, Bevin recounted, with great hearts and great courage. The one question they put to me when I went through their ranks was: Ernie, when we have done this job for you are we going back on the dole? Both the prime minister and I answered: No, you are not.

Despite the self-evident caveat that wars and pandemics are very different things, the parallels between the uneasy historical moment that story captures and the current phase of the Covid crisis are obvious. The past 12 months have seen a mixture of unprecedented deaths and huge collective sacrifice. Moreover, as the crisis has gone on, profound social questions that have been rattling around British politics for at least a decade about poverty, inequality, work, and housing have roared into the foreground. If some people are asking questions about a return to normal and the dashed hopes that would represent, that hardly seems unreasonable.

Eighty years ago, in the wake of campaigning and political work that had bubbled away between the wars, we all know what happened: a drive to decisively tackle want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness led first to the report on social insurance and allied services authored by William Beveridge, then to the programme enacted by the Labour government elected to power in 1945. The convulsive crisis of our own times, by contrast, has so far not produced anything even remotely similar. Worse, after a 40-year journey away from the postwar social settlement, a society of benefit sanctions, tent encampments in city centres, in-work poverty and so-called holiday hunger remains essentially unchanged, even though Covid has made the consequences for public health and our national resilience so clear.

The political conversation about these subjects is comically small. The government affects a belief in levelling up, but has not even dedicated a minister to the policy, if thats what it deserves to be called. In his supposedly big speech, Keir Starmer referenced Beveridge, the 1945 spirit and a determination that our collective sacrifice must lead to a better future, but offered nothing that really matched such grand words. A few days later, Boris Johnsons former homelessness adviser Louise Casey said it was time for a new Beveridge report, focused on the fact that the nation has been torn apart. But the current politics of poverty seem to extend little further than the pre-budget argument about the fate of last years 20 increase to universal credit, which is the only sign of a huge elephant in the national room: a welfare state that too often both sustains and deepens scarring inequality, and a benefits system that needs to be drastically changed.

Last week, I read the Joseph Rowntree Foundations latest report on UK poverty. Even before coronavirus, it explains thanks partly to the cruelties of a four-year benefits freeze incomes were falling, and falling fastest for people at the very bottom of the income hierarchy. In 2019, more than one in five of us was living in poverty, and 2.4 million, including more than half a million children, were destitute at some point in the year, an increase of about 50% compared with 2017. The proportion of people in work who were classified as also living in poverty was 13%, and among certain social groups that number was much higher: people from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds, for example, registered a figure of 34%.

Now, 5.8 million people are experiencing the impossibility of life on universal credit, up from 3 million just as the pandemic began. Rates of destitution have skyrocketed. Covid deaths and infections map tightly on to patterns of disadvantage, and the governments Joint Biosecurity Centre traces severe outbreaks in poorer parts of the country to unmet financial needs. The disproportionate effect of the pandemic on black and Asian people, linked to the grimly enduring way in which race overlaps with material disadvantage, is obvious. This is the kind of scourge that mere numbers cannot capture, along with the way the benefits system sits at the heart of a culture in which people have no choice but to take on precarious and often dangerous work, something manifested lately in thousands avoiding the test-and-trace system for fear of lost earnings and reprisals from their employers, and the overlooked issue of workplace outbreaks.

A conversation about a fundamentally different welfare state ought to fall two ways: between immediate answers to the cruelties of our current systems, and longer-term ideas about how to completely reinvent it. The former might include an end to universal credits built-in five-week wait, the abolition of the cruel and arbitrary benefit cap, and no more sanctioning. It should extend to a recalibration of housing benefit so that people including key workers can afford to live in even high-cost areas, a watershed rise in our miserable rates of statutory sick pay, and the upgrading of the minimum wage and national living wage to the so-called real living wage (9.50 across the UK and 10.85 in London), with an ongoing link to inflation.

But as a means of pushing the conversation towards fundamental change, we really need to take things back to first principles. A good example is contained in the Scottish Social Security Act of 2018. It covered only the limited range of grants and payments devolved to Holyrood, but began with a set of starting-points that, in the context of Westminsters conversations about welfare, still seem almost heretical. Social security, said the legislation, is an investment in the people of Scotland, a human right essential to the realisation of other human rights, something founded on respect for the dignity of individuals, and a public service explicitly aimed at reducing poverty.

Policies that might make such ideas a reality are not hard to find. The central place of housing in any viable welfare state ought to be restored by a long overdue drive to build hundreds of thousands of homes for social rent. A first step towards a basic income might guarantee that, say, a family of four could count on a minimum of 10,000 a year. Seizing on the logic of Rishi Sunaks furlough scheme, we might consider a European-style way of helping unemployed people back on their feet whereby benefits for those who lose their jobs are not set at a level that does not even cover basic subsistence, but calculated as a proportion of lost earnings.

A 21st-century system should reflect peoples lives not just as workers, but carers, members of support networks and volunteers. Because ours is an age of participation rather than deference and diktat, it ought to originate not in the designs of politicians and bureaucrats, but the experiences of people in the everyday world, not least those who intimately know the welfare state and how it works. This, surely, is the only convincing response to one of the key stories of the last year: people with much the same hearts and courage that Bevin observed, being let down by systems that had become so inhumane and threadbare that they were always going to lead us to disaster. If we do not start to change them now, we will not have learned even the most basic lessons of the Covid era.

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What British politicians won't admit we need to transform the welfare state - The Guardian

When we talk about clean energy and affordable housing in America, what often gets left out of the conversation are the ways in which energy insecurity and racist housing practices intersect.

Just look at predominantly Black neighborhoods throughout the country, such as Detroit, Michigan, and Columbia, South Carolina. The median energy burden of Black households in Detroit is 54 percent higher than that of non-Hispanic white households. Black families who face high energy burdens have to make tradeoffs between utility payments and other necessities, and now that burden has made those same families more susceptible to the life-threatening impacts of COVID-19.

What these predominantly Black communities have in common is a practice known as redlininga racial residential segregation policy from the 1930s. Through redlining, financial institutions can either refuse to offer mortgages or offer worse loan rates to customers looking to buy houses in neighborhoods occupied by people of colordenying hardworking families access to homeownership and the American dream.

The racist redlining practices of the housing industry created neighborhoods throughout the United States with high energy burdens, and in those areas, Black communities often show a higher prevalence of exposure to pollution and poverty. For example, due to systematic racist targeting through redlining, much of Michigans energy insecurity is concentrated in Detroitthe largest Black-majority city in the United States. The mayor of Detroit recentlystatedthat African Americans are more likely to suffer from heart disease, asthma, and chronic kidney disease, which could be making their recovery from the virus more difficult.

In Columbia, South Carolina, many of the redlined communities are predominantly Black and experience a high energy burden. Energy expenditures remain the same regardless of income level, with some predominantly Black communities with median household incomes of $30,000 spending the same amount on energy as predominantly white communities with median household incomes of $100,000.

The United States long, shameful history of discriminatory housing policies and racial segregation is part of the reason why Black families are more likely to live in older, energy-inefficient homes that saddle them with higher energy burdens (6 percent energy burden or higher) than white families at almost every position in the income distribution. High energy burdens not only threaten a familys ability to pay for energy, but it also forces already struggling families to make tough choices between paying energy bills or buying food, medicine, or other essentials.

Fifty years after the abolition of slavery, local governments still found a way to disenfranchise Black communities by legally enforcing housing segregation through exclusionary zoning laws that prohibited the sale of property to Black people. In 1917, when the Supreme Court ruled these zoning laws unconstitutional, homeowners swiftly replaced them with racially restrictive covenantsagreements between property owners that banned the sale of homes in a neighborhood to certain racial groups.

In 1934, the FHA and the Homeowners Loan Coalition (HOLC), a federally funded program created to help homeowners refinance their mortgages, introduced redlining policies in over 200 US cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and others with large minority populations. The HOLC included in the FHA Underwriting Handbook residential security maps, which were color-coded according to racist, anti-Black guidelines: Green (Best) represented in-demand, up-and-coming neighborhoods where professional men lived, lacking a single foreigner or negro; Blue (Still Desirable) neighborhoods that had reached their peak but were thought to be stable due to their low risk of infiltration by non-white groups; Yellow (Definitely Declining) areas considered risky due to the threat of infiltration of foreign-born, negro, or lower grade populations; and Red (Hazardous) neighborhoods where infiltration had already occurred.

While the Fair Housing Act of 1968 explicitly ended legally sanctioned redlining policies, practices that encouraged lending discrimination, like those used by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), were difficult to eliminate and have continued even in recent years.

We will never be successful in our movement for a healthy, safe, and sustainable planet if we do not intentionally and actively fight to dismantle racism in all of its forms. If we address structural racism and inequity in the way that we combat the climate crisis, we can stop investments in aging coal power plants and gas infrastructure and drastically reduce energy insecurity and fossil fuel pollution for Black communities.

Increasing investments in energy efficiency programs and targeting those investments to Black communities can help reduce high energy burdens, make energy bills more affordable, and vastly improve worsening health disparities caused by COVID-19. There are opportunities to work with utilities, local, and state governments, and utility commissions to set energy affordability goals and track outcomes while identifying and targeting Black communities for programs to serve. Additionally, there is an opportunity to increase a homes value when energy efficiency upgrades are made.

Many of the same utilities that are holding on to coal plants and spending billions of dollars on gas infrastructure also serve Black customers that have the highest energy burdens in the country. Southern Company claims on itswebsitethat racism has no place in our company and communities. Alabama Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, supplies electricity to 1.4 million Alabamians including the city of Birmingham. In Birmingham, a town that is over 70 percent Black, 153,330 households have a high energy burden. The 2020 ACEEE scorecard ranked Alabama Power as 52nd in energy efficiency among the countrys 52 largest utilities. The Southern Company system generates approximately 22 percent of its electric power from coal and 50 percent from natural gas.

We Energies, the electricity supplier for Milwaukee,statesthat it stands with its customers in rejecting all forms of racism. But in Milwaukee, one in four Black families has an energy burden at or above 15.5 percent. We Energies generates 45 percent of its electric power from coal and 24 percent from gas. The 2020 ACEEE scorecard ranked We Energies as 23rd in energy efficiency among the countrys 52 largest utilities.

An anti-racist climate movement gives us the foundation to build a more durable base of environmentalists who are focused first and foremost on their health, their wealth, and their community's survival. This is key to building the kind of lasting political power we need to make the changes that are necessary to confront the overlapping crises of these times. This is especially important for Black people who are being hit by the syndemic of COVID-19, energy burden, climate crisis, white supremacy, and state-sanctioned economic deprivation.

It will take a truly inclusive movement to remediate the earth from centuries of systematic racism and ultimately save our planet.

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From Redlining to Restorative Justice - Sierra Magazine

Kashmirs sanitation workers, who include local Muslims and Valmiki labourers, are being paid Rs. 100 or Rs. 500 per month by the government, reportsRAJA MUZAFFAR BHATfrom Srinagar. The situation has not changed for decades in the Valley or Jammu despite a High Court order and tall claims made during and after the abrogation of Article 370.

AFROZA has been a part-time sweeper in the Jammu and Kashmir Health Department for more than 22 years. Her engagement order, issued on 27 January 1998 by the Block Medical Officer at Pulwama, says that she has to keep the sub-center at Tiken clean at the dues of Rs. 100 per month.

If the wages were not already low enough, what is shocking is that even after more than two decades, her services have not been regularised though she was hired against a vacant sweeper positionand her wages have not changed either. Afroza is not even paid wages as per the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. At present, she is working at the Government Sub-Health Center, Chewa Kalan, in Pulwama district of South Kashmir.

In violation of all labour laws, Afroza and hundreds of other workers, who are known as consolidated health department workers are being paid very meager monthly remunerations. This author learned of the injustice being committed by the government of the J&K Health Department, particularly in the Kashmir valley, after researching Afrozas case.

The sweepers who work in the sub-centers, primary health centers (PHCs), sub-district hospitals (SDHs), and district hospitals in almost all the districts of J&K, particularly in the Valley, have the same fate.

When Article 370 was repealed a lot was said about how it would give the Valmiki community of Jammu the rights due to them. This community, which has lived in Jammu for the last more than 64 years, is mostly employed as sanitation workers in the Jammu Municipal Corporation or in private institutions. However, their conditions are still being neglected despite the miserable lives they are forced to live. The challenges they face at the workplace are not even recognised or documented.

Ironically, the rest of the country is hardly aware that even Kashmiri Muslims work as sweepers and sanitation workers. They, too, are paid as little as Rs. 100 or Rs. 500 per month. The government must identify all such neglected and exploited workers and address their grievances. If on the one hand, the government enacts laws to ensure social justice and empower disadvantaged communities, how can people then be used as bonded labourers in government institutions?

As she belongs to a community that has traditionally been made to perform menial tasks, Afroza accepted the job she got, but with the hope that one day her position would be regularised as she was appointed against a clear vacancy, but that did not happen.

Getting regularised is only a dream now. I ruined my youth for the government and got nothing in return. I am already 42 years old. I and hundreds of sweepers and others who work in the health department are not even paid the minimum statutory wages of Rs. 225 a day [Rs. 6,750 a month]. In Delhi the pay is higher, Rs. 596 a day [Rs. 15,492 a month], Afroza told The Leaflet.

Afroza was made to work in many government-run health institutions in Pulwama district. She was posted at the Sub-Health Centre at Tikin for six years, then asked to work as a sweeper at the PHC at Manghama for five years. She was then sent to the PHC at Puchal where she worked for two years, after which she was posted at the PHC, Newa, where she even worked during the night shift. Since 2010, she has been working at the Sub-Health Center at Chewa Kalan.

During the last 20 years, I have spent huge money on travelling [to work] using public transport. Had the doctors and other paramedical staff not been cooperative and helpful, I would have left the job long back. They have helped me a lot. On holidays and Sundays, I work on local farms to make ends meet. My husband does menial jobs like removing dung from the cattle sheds and carrying it to the fields. Even in our abject poverty, we did not compromise on our childrens education, she says. Her sons are in classes X and III and her daughters study in classes IV and VII. I have only one dream now, and that is to give my children the best education, Afroza says.

The so-called consolidated workers are mostly the sweepers who work in the Health Department. Earlier, they were not organised, but six months back, some workers initiated attempts to organise their tribe. Gulzar Ahmad, Abdul Ahad Sheikh and dozens of other workers have united to fight this long battle under the aegis of the Consolidated Health Workers Union J&K. They went to several districts of Kashmir Valley to get actual details of these health department workers and the remuneration they get.

Gulzar belongs to an economically and socially backward community and is employed as a driver in the Health Department, Budgam, also on a meagre wage of Rs. 3,000 per month for 15 years. As a skilled worker, he is supposed to be paid Rs. 350 per day [Rs. 10,500 per month]. Abdul Ahad Sheikh, who is 54, belongs to the border district of Kupwara and is paid Rs. 100 per month.

Had my sons not been running a smalldhabait would have been a miserable life. I am already 54 and have suffered a lot in the last 25 years of service, but I will now fight for the other people who should not be discriminated against. Even if we have to go to the Supreme Court we will fight against this injustice and bonded labour, says Abdul Ahad.

Earlier, Gulzar had been fighting for consolidated workers alone, but now he feels stronger, having got the support of colleagues and as the patron of their united front. In 2011, he met the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who sought a detailed report from the J&K Finance Department. The Finance Department issued a circular asking the Health Department to provide details of people working on a consolidated basis. After a long struggle, the department prepared a list of 1,541 persons (mostly sweepers and helpers).

We have no update on how many are working in the Jammu region as consolidated workers but we are trying our best to organise this [information] as well, Gulzar says.

Initially, the Finance Department raised the query whether these 1,541 workers are employed part-time or full-time. The Directorate of Health and the Drawing and Disbursing officers (DDOs), such as the Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) and Block Medical Officers (BMOs), clarified that all 1,541 were full-time workers in the Health Department, on the job from 9 am to 5 pm, and many at night too.

The Finance Department once again asked the Director, Health Services, Kashmir, about the accounting head under which these consolidated workers were being paid wages. The director responded that the workers were paid wages, and not salary in terms of the accounting head, says Gulzar Ahmad.

In 2016, the Health Department civil secretariat [Communication No: HD/NG/06/2011 dated 4 August 2016] recommended a hike in the wages of the consolidated health workers. Workers being paid Rs. 100 were to get Rs. 500 a month, those paid Rs. 500 a month were recommended wages of Rs. 1,000 a month and a wage of Rs. 1,500 was fixed for the workers who were already being paid Rs. 1,000 per month. The maximum wages were fixed at Rs. 3,000 a month, which would be paid to only a handful of drivers.

However, even this small increase has not been implemented by the government, except for a handful of drivers who now get paid Rs. 3,000 a month. On 26 October 2017, the J&K government notified [under SRO 460] the revised wages under the Minimum Wages Act. Then onwards, unskilled labourers became entitled to a minimum wage of Rs. 225 a day, skilled workers to Rs, 350 a day, and highly-skilled workers to Rs. 400 per day.

As the revised wages were not implemented for the consolidated health workers, Gulzar Ahmad gave a written representation to the Secretary, Finance, J&K government, with demand for implementation. The Finance Secretary forwarded the case to the Health Department and sought an update. The Director forwarded a detailed report and recommended the implementation of the Minimum Wages Act for part-time workers as well as consolidated cleaners and helpers.

The Director, Health Services, Kashmir, sent an official communication on 12 October 2020 requesting the Administrative Department to implement the Minimum Wages Act. He told the Financial Commissioner, Health and Medical Education, that as per the Budget Estimates for the financial year 2021-22, submitted by the subordinate drawing and disbursing officers of the department, there are 1,541 consolidated safaiwalas, part-time workers and helpers in the department, who fall in the category of unskilled labourers.

These workers do menial work like sweeping and scavenging and are paid remuneration rates ranging from Rs. 30 (thirty only) to Rs. 4,000 a month and are regularly pleading for payment of remuneration as per the rates applicable under the Minimum Wages Act, says his letter.

A petition was also filed by some workers before the High Court of J&K [Writ Petition 3840/2019, Nazir Ahmad Hajam and others vs Union Territory of J&K]. The High Court directed the government to determine the eligibility of the petitioners on the touchstone of the SRO No. 469 of 2017, read with the government order no 27-F of 2018, issued on 25 January 2018. The High Court also said that necessary orders are to be passed and the payments cleared.

The Director, Health Services, Kashmir, also referred to this petition in his letter. He sought a budgetary allocation of Rs. 12,92,64,750.00 [Rs.12.9 crore] so that the 1,541 workers could be paid wages as per the Minimum Wages Act.

As of now, the government only provides Rs. 1.50 crores annually to the Directorate of Health, Kashmir, for this purpose. Some officers in the Finance Department claim that consolidated workers such as sweepers and helpers are part-time employees and do not fall under the definition of scheduled employment. However, the respective Drawing and Disbursing Officers have already made it clear that all 1,541 workers were employed full-time and even during night hours.

During the Novel Coronavirus pandemic, sanitation workers were at the forefront of fighting the dreaded COVID-19 disease. These workers, helpers, and drivers risked their lives when most of the country did not even dare come out of their homes. These workers, along with medics and paramedics, fought COVID-19 bravely, yet their services go unrecognised.

According to section 22A of the Minimum Wages Act, any employer found in violation of the act in regards to minimum wages, working hours can be penalized for five years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 10,000. The government of J&K is not only violating this act but also the human rights of these workers as per the provisions of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.

How sanitation workers, helpers, and drivers working on a consolidated basis in the J&K Health Department are being made to work on a pittance for the last 15-20 years or more is simply criminal. The authorities can be held liable under the Bonded Labour Abolition Act for this.

The government had claimed that people belonging to the weaker sections of society would get justice after the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. However, people like Afroza and Abdul Ahad in Kashmir, and thousands of others who belong to the so-called sweeper community, continue to face gross neglect and discrimination.

If central laws have been applicable in J&K for more than 19 months since 5 August 2019, then why are people being denied their benefits? Afroza does not want a government job for the sake of it. She wants to get paid as per the Minimum Wages Act, which is her right. If this right is also snatched and she remains tied to a bonded-labor-like situation for 22 years and counting, who will take the government to task for violating its own laws?

(Raja Muzaffar Bhat is a Srinagar-based activist, columnist, and independent researcher. The views are personal.)

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Life After Art. 370: How J&K Government Insults Covid Warriors - TheLeaflet - The Leaflet

If youre taken aback by the question, youre not alone. Casual students of US history might recall the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, and figures like Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth, John Brown and Abraham Lincoln. Others might think about efforts to end human trafficking and forced labour that still afflicts some 40 million people. But for many, the term 'abolition' connotes the struggles of a bygone era.

Abolition, however, is not a relic of history. It is an ongoing movement to rethink the systems that produce inequity and build a society that values the lives of the most vulnerable. It permeates almost every issue that the World Economic Forum includes on its 2021 Agenda, from COVID-19 to tax policy.

Social innovators address the worlds most serious challenges ranging from inequality to girls education and disaster relief that affect all of us, but in particular vulnerable and excluded groups. To achieve maximum impact and start to address root causes, they need greater visibility, credibility, access to finance, favourable policy decisions, and in some cases a better understanding of global affairs and access to decision makers.

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is supporting more than 400 late-stage social innovators. By providing an unparalleled global platform, the Foundations goal is to highlight and expand proven and impactful models of social innovation. It helps strengthen and grow the field by showcasing best-in-class examples, models for replication and cutting-edge research on social innovation.

Meet the World-changers: Social Innovators of the Year 2020. Our global network of experts, partner institutions, and World Economic Forum constituents and business members are invited to nominate outstanding social innovators. Get in touch to become a member or partner of the World Economic Forum.

In his seminal 1935 work, Black Reconstruction in America, the black scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term abolition democracy. He used it to describe the post-slavery struggle for a society that offers each member the economic, political, and social capital to live as equal members. In other words, abolition democracy isnt just the fight to destroy oppressive institutions. Its the fight to build just ones in their place.

In that context, the need for abolition has never been more alive than it is today.

Worth saving or burn it all down?

We are in the midst of a global democracy recession. Representative governments have failed to address the existential crises of our time, including runaway economic inequality and climate change. Authoritarians around the world stand emboldened by those failures. Just weeks ago, in the US, a defeated president incited a white supremacist riot that temporarily brought the federal government to a halt.

Young people are asking whether the building blocks of society are meant as a common foundation or as a wall to keep them at bay. They are, fundamentally, thinking about abolition. They are asking whether what we have is worth saving, or if its time to burn it all down.

The people who annually find their way to Davos, myself included, need to ask these questions, too. Whether we come from the private sector or philanthropy, government or advocacy, we need to think about the ways in which our systems are set up to stratify and exclude. If we do not at least take seriously an abolitionist mindset, our solutions will be nothing more than Band-Aids on democracys sucking chest wound.

In my own work as the CEO and Co-Founder of the Center for Policing Equity, that means fundamentally reimagining public safety. It means removing police from enforcing laws meant to punish people without housing and investing in institutions that prevent housing insecurity. It must also mean preventing police from having to show up in the first place, not just improving practices when they do. It means measuring justice along with crime, and aligning our mechanisms of public safety with the values of the communities particularly communities that have historically faced discrimination and disinvestment.

Rebuilding systems with equity at their core

This year illustrated the consequences of our past failure to take abolition seriously. Our inability to redress racial inequities in our essential systems and protect the most vulnerable has fueled the spread of COVID-19, costing more than 420,000 lives in the US alone. In the wake of George Floyds murder, entire neighborhoods went up in flames because of the unpaid debt owed to black communities after generations of white supremacy and neglect.

Do you believe in democracy? If the answer is yes, the best way to revitalise it may be to embrace the work of abolition democracy, from whichever powerful perch you occupy.

Even before the pandemic, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has disrupted the ways we work, learn and live. That disruption is an opportunity to build equity into the base of our evolving systems, from internet access to public education to corporate governance. If we fail, we will have literally built them to burn.

So, ahead of this years forum, ask yourself a different question: Do you believe in democracy? If the answer is yes, the best way to revitalise it may be to embrace the work of abolition democracy, from whichever powerful perch you occupy.

Charity alone, kindness from those who have benefitted most from institutions that marginalise the vulnerable, cannot lead us to justice. Abolition democracy, the working of rebuilding our systems with equity at their core, just might be able to.

After all, in the long view of history, our choices are simple: build systems that empower the least of us, or prepare to watch them torn down until we do.

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'Abolition' isn't a relic of our past. It's the key to revitalising democracy - World Economic Forum

Joe Biden is the first president in U.S. history to openly campaign on abolishing the death penalty and win. Now that hes in the White House, pressure is already mounting from activists and lawmakers for him to fulfill that promise.

Pointing to the more than 160 Americans whove been exonerated from death sentences since 1973, Biden pledged on the campaign trail to work to pass legislation eliminating the federal death penalty and incentivize states to follow. Former President Trumps Department of Justice had been run with a polar opposite view: In the last seven months of his presidency, the Trump administration oversaw the most federal civilian executions since 1896, putting to death 13 death row prisoners amid a raging pandemic and despite a litany of legal challenges. Six of the deaths came after Bidens win in the 2020 election, the most executions during a presidential transition period in U.S. history. The last threethose of Lisa Montgomery, Corey Johnson and Dustin Higgstook place mere days before Biden took his oath of office.

The unprecedented spree of executions brought increased focus to the issue right as Biden assumed the presidency. On Jan. 22, U.S. Representatives Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley, along with 35 other Democratic House members, sent a letter to Biden urging him to commute the death sentences of all 49 people remaining on federal death row.

We appreciate your vocal opposition to the death penalty and urge you to take swift, decisive action, the letter reads, arguing that while President Obama suspended federal executions and commuted the sentences of two federal death row prisons while in office, his administrations reticence to commute more death sentences has allowed the Trump administration to reverse course and pursue a horrifying killing spree.

Read more: The Death of the Death Penalty

Commuting the death sentences of those on death row and ensuring that each person is provided with an adequate and unique re-sentencing process is a crucial first step in remedying this grave injustice, the letter goes on.

Biden did not address the issue during his very first days in office, but a Jan. 19 memo from then-incoming White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said that, between Jan. 25 and Feb. 1, the President would sign several execution orders including action to begin fulfilling campaign promises related to reforming our criminal justice system.

Its unclear what exact orders Biden might issue; asked by TIME for more details, the Biden administration declined to comment. But Robert Dunham, the executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, says there are a range of things that [Biden] can do that would have the effect of clearing death row and stopping federal prosecutions.

Heres what to know about what could happen to the federal death penalty in a Biden administration.

My working assumption is that the Biden White House and the judiciary committees will want to incorporate the elimination of the death penalty in a larger criminal justice and sentencing reform measure, writes Steven S. Smith, a professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis, in an email to TIME. That bill will take time to construct, although the Biden campaign had [a] long itemized list that can serve as the framework.

At any time during his presidency, Biden has the power to issue a blanket executive order commuting the sentences of all 49 people on federal death row to life without parole. He could also declare a moratorium on all federal executions via an executive order, similar to the one issued by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 that halted executions in his state. The move would mostly be symbolicas it wouldnt extend past Bidens termbut like Californias moratorium, the order could serve as an admission about how broken the system is, says Dunham. Like Newsom, Biden could also withdraw the governments execution protocol and dismantle the execution chamber where prisoners are killed.

In a Dec. 15 letter, Pressley and 44 other lawmakers had urged Biden to issue such a moratorium his first day in office, as well as to direct the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop seeking the death penalty. (There have been several periods in history where the U.S. government hasnt sought capital punishment in sentencing, but never due to an executive order from the president.) Biden could also withdraw any notices of intent to seek the death penalty that the Trump administration had already filed in ongoing cases, effectively de-capitalizing them, says Dunham.

Only Congress can officially end the federal death penalty with an act of legislation. Several prominent Democrats have already introduced bills to do just that: in early January, Rep. Pressley and Rep. Adriano Espaillat each introduced their own bill into the House of Representatives to eliminate the federal death penalty; Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the incoming Senate Judiciary Chair, has announced plans to introduce a companion bill to Pressleys into the Senate. The legislation would end the death sentence at the federal level and require the re-sentencing of federal prisoners currently on death row.

A June 2020 Gallup poll found that 54% of Americans believe the death penalty is morally acceptable, a record low since Gallup began polling on the issue in 2001. And while opposition to the death penalty has become more bipartisan at the state level, it still tends to fall along party lines in national politics.

With Democrats now also in control of the U.S. Senatedue to a 50-50 split and Vice President Kamala Harris tie-breaking votethe legislations chances of becoming law have risen, but still remain in flux.

I dont think a federal definitely abolition bill is going to get through the Senate of the United States, says Austin Sarat, a professor of law and politics at Amherst College. It seems unlikely, he explains, that the current makeup of Congress will provide the 60 votes needed to override the Senate filibuster and get the bill onto Bidens desk. But these bills are still important, he continues, because they further signify increasing doubts about the death penalty in the United States.

Lawmakers could separately amend the federal death penalty statue to eliminate several of the federal crimes currently punishable by death. They could also change the appellate process for federal capital cases, which has fewer constitutional protections than those appealed at the state level, argues Dunham. And along similar lines, Congress could also past legislation requiring stays of executions be granted if there are issues of disputed law or fact in the case, so that the United States Supreme Court cannot allow an execution to go forward when there are doubts about its legality.

During the 13 federal executions in the last months of the Trump administration, several high profile casesincluding those of Lisa Montgomery and Brandon Bernardwere granted stays by lower courts to allow time for legal hearings, only for those stays to be overruled by the Supreme Court.

Theres a sense [that] the current U.S. Supreme Court pretty much acted as a rubber stamp, Dunham adds. It didnt matter what the legal issues were, they were always decided in favor of executing prisoners.

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of the anti-death penalty advocacy group Death Penalty Action, says his organization wants to see movement to abolish federal capital punishment within the first 100 days of the Biden administration. And while issuing an executive order would be an important step, it wouldnt be enough, Bonowitz says.

Abolition fits squarely into the racial reckoning that has to happen, and just basic recognition of the unfairness of the system, he continues. The Biden administration should do what they said theyre going to do.

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Write to Madeleine Carlisle at madeleine.carlisle@time.com.

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What Happens to the Federal Death Penalty in a Biden Administration? - TIME

Until yesterday, Joe Bidens agenda was stalled in the Senate by a primal conflict over power.

The context was negotiations over how the two parties would navigate their 50-50 split. While, as majority leader, Chuck Schumer would control the legislative calendar, he offered to divide committee membership equally under Democratic chairsreplicating the arrangement in 2001 when there was an evenly divided Senate with a Republican vice president. Incredibly, the newly demoted Mitch McConnell responded by demanding that Democrats agree not to abolish the filibuster.

The requirement of a 60-vote supermajority had enabled McConnell to stonewall Barack Obamas legislative agenda. Yet he blithely repackaged it as a lubricant for bipartisanship while striving to re-empower his party, once more, with a legislative stranglehold on another Democratic presidenteffectively requesting that Schumer and his caucus become senatorial castrati.

Unsurprisingly, Schumer declined. Knowing that Schumer could use an arcane maneuver to pass the organizing resolution by a bare majority, McConnell ultimately yielded. But by then he had achieved his goal: moving moderate Democrats from red statesJoe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jon Testerto expressly oppose abolishing the filibuster, underscoring the partys divisions and the vulnerability of Bidens agenda.

The unanimous support of Schumers caucus is the mathematical prerequisite for changing the Senates rules and, therefore, abolition. Still, he at least retained the threat should the GOP prove obstructive, and the moderates backed his refusal to cave.

This suggests the possibility, however dim, that scorched-earth opposition could affect their thinkingespecially if it scotches proposals popular with crucial constituencies. As Tester told the New York Times: If all that happens is filibuster after filibuster, roadblock after roadblock, then my opinion may change. This augurs the three-dimensional chess ahead, and the prospects of two different Biden presidencies: consequential or ineffectual.

To be sure, Biden can enact much of his COVID-19 stimulus package through budget reconciliation, a means of passing fiscal measures with a simple majority. But reconciliation has real limitations: It does not apply to most legislation, and on spending measures can be used only once a year. Moreover, turning Bidens stimulus plan into a meaningful package with majority support will prove more than challenging enough.

Beyond that, the GOP can use the filibuster to block major Democratic initiatives. Heres a representative sample: a $15 an hour minimum wage; comprehensive immigration reform; repairing the Voting Rights Act; strengthening the right to join a union; granting statehood to Washington, D.C. and, perhaps, Puerto Rico; enacting ethics and campaign finance reform; curbing gerrymanders; and passing initiatives to combat racial inequities in law enforcement.

Among most Democrats, particularly progressives, these proposals are popular. But query whether their death by filibuster would move red-state moderates to sign on for abolition. It seems equally likely that the artful threat of filibusters could divide the Democratic caucusnot just over the filibuster itself but over what legislative compromises with Republicans, if any, are acceptable.

This prescription could doom much of Bidens agenda, and make McConnell the most powerful minority leader in memory. To reinforce his leverage, yesterday McConnell threatened that Democratic efforts to eliminate the filibuster would destroy any hope of comity and create a legislative wasteland:

But suppose that Republican obstreperousness created a critical mass among Democrats. If they could abolish the filibuster, should they?

As Jonathan V. Last spelled out on Mondayits complicated.

First, the equities. Even without the filibuster, the structure of the Senate itself frustrates popular democracy by giving each state two votes. Due to demographic sorting, the 50 Republican senators represent nearly 42 million fewer people than the 50 Democrats; the 41 Republicans necessary to sustain a filibuster reflect a relative fraction of our populace.

This is a prescription for quashing popular legislation and imposing legislative stasisMcConnells specialty. Given that restructuring the Senate would require a constitutional amendment supported by the very states it overrepresents, the only way of making the Senate less undemocratic is eliminating the filibuster. Those who laud the filibuster as a safeguard against the tyranny of the majority enshrine the tyranny of a minority.

So why should Democrats keep it? First, because legislation which survives the filibuster is more apt to endure. Second, given the advantages which may create a Republican majority two years hence, Democrats could constrain it through the filibuster.

But consider history and human nature. When Democrats tried to filibuster Neil Gorsuch, McConnell and his caucus simply killed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Can anyone seriously argue that McConnell wouldnt once again invoke this nuclear option whenever it suited him?

Moreover, during Trumps presidency Senate Democrats could not use the filibuster to frustrate the GOPs major goals. Republicans tax cuts passed through reconciliation; the slew of judges they confirmed were no longer subject to the filibuster. Given the GOPs general lack of enthusiasm for governance, the filibuster affects them less than Democrats.

In this moment, there is an urgent need for Joe Biden to reinvigorate democracy by making government work for the greater good. If the Democrats dont succeedor at least do their damnedestwhere would that leave us? In the hands of a party which will do its worstor nothingperhaps despoiling Americas last, best chance to do better.

If Democrats garner the votes to kill the filibuster, they should.

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Can Democrats Abolish the Filibusterand Should They? - The Bulwark

As the Iowa Legislature again considers ending tenure at Iowas public universities, two UI professors reiterate the benefits of tenure as listed by the American Association of University Professors.

Many things, large and small, have changed over the last four years. World leaders have come and gone. Important books have been written. Our planet has experienced a pandemic. We have both retired.

But some things dont change. The opening of the Iowa legislative session sees the introduction of a bill by Senator Brad Zaun proposing the abolition of tenure at our states public universities. To date, this years version has advanced from the House education subcommittee to the full committee. Chapters of the American Association of University Professors at all three of Iowas state universities oppose the bill. AAUPs reasons for opposing it remain much as they were four years ago. Here they are as published in February 2017, the top 10 ways tenure benefits students and all Iowans:

10. Tenure promotes stability. It enables the development of communities of scholars who devote themselves to the long-term pursuit of new knowledge and ongoing mentoring of students and beginning scholars

9. Tenure routinizes intensive evaluation of faculty members work. In the American academic community, tenure is a sign that a scholar has completed scholarly work at the highest level. To gain it, emerging scholars willingly undergo a series of grueling reviews of their scholarship, teaching, and service. If successful in earning tenure, they can expect ongoing annual evaluations and intensive periodic post-tenure reviews in order to maintain it.

8. Tenure permits independent inquiry. It ensures an environment in which scholars pursue research and innovation, and arrive at reliable, evidence-based conclusions free from commercial or political pressure.

7. Tenure encourages first-rate teaching. It permits scholars to bring their findings and research methods directly into the classroom, informing and inspiring Iowas future scholars and community leaders.

6. Tenure promotes effective faculty recruitment and retention. Were tenure to be prohibited, Iowa public universities would have a difficult time attracting and retaining the most promising teachers and scholars to work in our state and teach our students.

5. Tenure helps the economy. It is not, as some claim, a job for life. A tenured professor may be discharged for malfeasance or, sometimes, for financial exigency. Yet the security tenure provides is valuable and induces many highly credentialed scholars and professionals to forgo more highly paid employment elsewhere in industry or the private sector to work here in Iowa, teaching our future community leaders.

4. Tenure fosters students creativity and analytical skills. In classrooms led by faculty insulated from commercial and political pressures, students may examine important issues from a variety of perspectives and arrive at conclusions based on information and their own values.

3. Tenure advantages Iowa communities. It encourages scholars to contribute their expertise to the communities in which they live when issues related to their work arise, because they may do so without political or commercial pressures. An example of this could be seen in Flint, Michigan as issues with polluted water arose.

2. Tenure increases the value of Iowa degrees. It enhances the academic standing and economic value of degrees from Iowas public universities in national and international markets. Currently, Iowas universities are of such stature that they attract international attention from leaders of industry and the professions as well as academics. If Iowa were to prohibit tenure and be hampered in its efforts to hire and retain the most promising professors, regard for graduates of Iowas public universities would decline accordingly.

And the No. 1 reason tenure benefits students and all Iowans: Tenure is indispensable to academic freedom. It allows professors the independence to do the best work they are capable of doing without fear that they will be fired for their opinions or conclusions.

Lois Cox, Clinical Professor of Law Emerita, University of Iowa, Katherine Tachau, Professor of History Emerita, University of Iowa for the AAUP chapters at The University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and The University of Northern Iowa

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Guest Opinion | Top 10 ways tenure benefits students and all Iowans - UI The Daily Iowan

Submitted by DLC

Outspoken political leader and renowned author Angela Davis is scheduled to deliver the Distinguished Lectures Committee's first lecture of 2021 on Tuesday, February 16 at 7:00 p.m.

Outspoken political leader and renowned author Angela Davis is scheduled to deliver the Distinguished Lectures Committee's first lecture of 2021 at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb.16. The lecture will be virtual and a link will be accessible on the Distinguished Lectures Committee's website prior to the event.

For over 50 years, Angela Davis has been recognized as a committed torchbearer in the struggle for economic, racialand gender justice. A professor, activist, and cultural icon, Davis' voice has been and continues to be instrumental to social reform. She is the author of 10 books, including recent works Are Prisons Obsolete? and a collection of essays, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement.

"I am not only excited to bring a voice as influential and didactic as Angela Davis to our campus, but to see how her ideas and personal experiences can be applied to our daily lives and our university," saidMichael Fuhrman, vice chair of the Distinguished Lectures Committee.

Davis has taught at a number of American colleges and universities including San Francisco State University, Mills College, and UC Berkeley. She currently serves as the Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and of Feminist Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. In addition to teaching in the classroom, Davis has shared her expertise and scholarship in lectures throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. Central to her work as an educator are her own experiences as a leading activist of the seventies. Davis' recent activism is dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex. She founded the prison system abolition organization Critical Resistance in 1997, and she works closely with the abolitionist group Sisters Inside in Queensland, Australia.

This lecture will be moderated by Yvette Murphy-Irby, vice chancellor of diversity and inclusion and professor of social work at the University of Arkansas. Additionally, Murphy-Erby has held former appointments at the University of Arkansas as the director of the School of Social Work in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, director of the Bachelor of Social Work Program, associate director of the School of Social Work, associate dean of social sciences in Fulbright Colleges and interim director for the African and African American Studies Program.

This Distinguished Lecture will be presented as part of "Envisioning Justice: The Current Faces of Social Justice in America,"a virtual conference featuring a series of lectures from experts in racial, religious, and institutional discrimination. The event will be held Feb.16-17 and is co-sponsored by Volunteer Action Center, Associated Student Government, Distinguished Lectures Committee, and Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education. Registration and more information can be found at https://givepul.se/y5ek8d.

The Distinguished Lectures Committee decides which dynamic and pertinent speakers to bring to the University of Arkansas campus. These speaking engagements are completely free to all students. Some of the speakers brought over the past few years have included President George H.W. Bush, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, soccer star Abby Wambach, author Malcolm Gladwell, scientist Jane Goodall, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Elie Wiesel, Bill Nyeand John Legend.

This event is sponsored by Distinguished Lectures Committee through the Office of Student Activities and is supported by the Student Activities Fee. For questions or for accommodations due to disability please contact the Office of Student Activities, osa@uark.edu or call 479-575-5255. Distinguished Lectures Committee is a program in the Division of Student Affairs.

About the Division of Student Affairs: The Division of Student Affairs supports students in pursuing knowledge, earning a degree, finding meaningful careers, exploring diversity, and connecting with the global community. We provide students housing, dining, health care resources, and create innovative programs that educate and inspire. We enhance the University of Arkansas experience and help students succeed, one student at a time.

Originally posted here:

University Welcomes Activist and Author Angela Davis for First Distinguished Lecture of 2021 - University of Arkansas Newswire

By Caroline Mwanga

NEW YORK (IDN) Rejecting the existential threat to humanity that nuclear weapons pose, a wide coalition of faith-based communities from around the world has hailed the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the first international treaty to comprehensively ban nuclear weapons. Over 160 organizations endorsed a joint interfaith statement coordinated by the Faith Communities Concerned About Nuclear Weapons, which include Soka Gakkai International (SGI).

The statement accentuates that the Treaty, which entered into force on January 22, addresses "the disproportionate impact of nuclear weapons on women and indigenous peoples and the importance of victim assistance and healing environmental harms in a ground-breaking way". The endorsees congratulate, celebrate and appreciate the countries that have ratified and signed this important Treaty, as well as all who have worked for nuclear disarmament and abolition for many decades.

The statement emphasizes that the possession, development and threat to use nuclear weapons is immoral and that there are no safe hands for these weapons. Because the accidental or deliberate detonation of a nuclear weapon would cause severe, long-lasting and far-reaching harm on all aspects of our lives and our environment throughout the world.

Further, these technologies are part of structures and systems that bring about great suffering and destruction. The endorsers of the statement therefore "commit to the ethical and strategic necessity of working together for economic and social justice, right relationship with the Earth, and accountability and restoration where there is violence and harm".

(The list of endorsers, being updated regularly, is available here)

They add: "We rejoice at the possibilities of a new world that this Treaty ushers in. At a time when the world desperately needs fresh hope, the TPNW inspires us to continue to work to fully eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons, and to create conditions for peace, justice, and well-being."

The faith communities recognize the legacy of the global hibakusha, survivors whose courage and perseverance serve as inspiration, guidance, and moral foundation in the quest for a world free from nuclear weapons. "This quest will continue until all nuclear weapons are eliminated from our planet."

They also urge all States to join the growing community of States which have rejected nuclear weapons and to sign and ratify the TPNW, or work toward that end by joining the First Meeting of the States Parties planned to take place this year.

In conclusion, the statement looks ahead to the work that must continue: At this historic moment, we must act decisively to strengthen the power of the TPNW upon its entry into force, and to work for peace, cooperation, and common security. [IDN-InDepthNews 23 January 2021]

Photo: The Sun is Laughing by five-year-old Konstantin G., Russia| UNODA Art for Peace 2012 contest.

IDN is flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate.

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Faith-Based Communities Greet the Global Ban on Nuclear Weapons - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

MICHIGAN Tuesday afternoon, President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring the Department of Justice not to renew contracts with private prisons and facilities. Biden said he did it an effort to address and fix systemic racism in America.

Activist Ed Genesis of Kalamazoo was excited to see it.

I feel hopeful just seeing this, Genesis said during a Zoom interview on Wednesday afternoon. Private prisons was just wrong, period; just for somebody to be able to invest or build something for the pure gain of capitalism.

Years ago, Genesis served an eight-month jail sentence and also did several stints at various halfway homes. Now, hes currently the lead organizer for criminal justice reform on the west side of the state for Michigan United, a nonprofit dedicated to economic and racial justice.

When I first got into the work I would always downplay and say, Well Ive only been to jail, Genesis recalled. The guy that did 35 years, he told me he said, Man, they took your freedom the way they took mine. They just had us in different facilities.

That conversation always stuck with Genesis, he said. He believes that private prisons and other facilities were created for the sole purpose of making money, and it unfairly targeted poor people and communities of color. Those communities then became the face of mass incarceration.

RELATED: Biden outlines plan to promote racial equity, signs EOs aimed at police reform

America makes up just 5 percent of the world population but makes up an alarming close to 26 percent of incarcerated people, he said. The numbers are just ridiculous. Everybody can go to jail.

University of Michigan Ann Arbor Law Professor Margo Schlanger agreed that the number of people in prison is extreme. She said in the 1970s, the overall prison population spiked but has plateaued over the last decade.

Theres now a really broad agreement that that number is too high. You dont have to believe in abolishing prisons to think that some people are doing too much time for crimes that occurred a long time ago, Schlanger said during an interview with FOX 17 Wednesday morning over Zoom. I think the thing that is next is considering whos in prison and whether they really need to be there and trying to be smart about the use of what is a very damaging set of institutions.

While Schlanger applauded President Biden for fulfilling his promise to act on racial equity and criminal justice reform, she stated that the order only impacts private prisons on the federal level.

That level is more privatized than most systems, she said, and its only 10 percent. She added that the order does not cover ICE detainees.

The Bureau of Prisons has really found that its private prisons are less humane, and they provide less appropriate conditions of confinement than the public ones. And so I think its really important that theyre acting on that finding, Schlanger said. This is not the end of mass incarceration. This is not closing the prisons. This is not prison abolition. Its an incremental reform that is carrying out a promise that the administration made during the campaign.

Genesis said hes grateful that Biden signed the order. It motivates him to continue to do his best work. Currently, he and Michigan United are working on ending the school-to-prison pipeline. However, for now, Bidens decision to end contracts with private prisons he sees as a positive step forward.

Just to hear somebody, especially President Joe Biden, who spoke very candidly on the crime bill in the 90s, for him to make this step, it does make me feel hopeful, Genesis said. This is like, OK, yeah, youre making a step in the right direction,' and this is a huge step in the right direction.

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President ending contracts with federal private prisons a step in the right direction - Fox17