Category Archives: Wage Slavery

[co-author: Georgina Hatch]

In Part 2 of our series, we set out our insights on what differentiates the few organisations who are noticeably leading the pack in their disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) (Act) how they are going above and beyond the minimum requirements of the Act to understand their supply chains and the modern slavery risks within and taking measured steps to identify and mitigate these risks.

Key stakeholders such as investors, employees, customers and suppliers increasingly demand corporate efforts to address their modern slavery risks and broader human rights and environmental, social and governance risks. As such, modern slavery Statements are proving useful tools to monitor corporate compliance and improve this space.

In Part 3 of our series, we highlight our observations of some gaps in reporting by businesses who are taking a race to the middle approach and only meeting the bare minimum of the Acts requirements. This is designed to assist our clients in improving their reporting for the upcoming third reporting season if they want to join the organisation who are leading the way.

Areas for Improvement

From our review of the first two tranches of modern slavery Statements submitted to date, we have identified below the key issues and gaps:

(a) Limited operational and supply chain awareness

One of the predominant reporting gaps was mapping and addressing potential risks in the reporting entities operations and supply chains. The laggers only provided a very brief description of their supply chain, demonstrating a superficial understanding of the source of exposure to modern slavery risks.

Our review revealed that many companies had only a basic understanding of their supply chain at the contractual level but not of the risks beyond this. Most companies could not identify or assess the risks beyond their tier 1 suppliers and lacked visibility of their supply chain as a whole. Additionally, many organisations failed to evaluate and address risks within their operations (such as through recruitment, procurement, investments, customers etc).

Statements should adequately disclose, at the minimum, which the entities suppliers are and the risks of modern slavery present along the entire supply chain and within their operations.

(b) Inadequately identifying and assessing risks

This criterion appears to be the most difficult for organisations to grapple with. Whilst organisations are not required to report specific individual risks or actual cases of modern slavery (although they can voluntarily include case studies or examples), they are at least required to identify how risks of modern slavery practices may be present in the organisation and their supply chain. The Government Guidance provides that:

risks of modern slavery practices means the potential for your entity to cause, contribute to or be directly linked to modern slavery through its operations and supply chains.

The concept of risk in this context means risk to people rather than risk to the entity. However, these risks may often intersect. The terms cause, contribute to or be directly linked stem from the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, with which all reporting entities should ensure they familiarise themselves.

Most Statements merely described how risks of modern slavery are being identified, rather than properly identifying and describing the present risks.

While in some instances, non-disclosure of actual incidents may be for a legitimate reason (such as to avoid compromising ongoing investigation), reporting entities should aim to provide as much practicable information on the present risks to promote transparency and disclosure in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles.

(c) Inadequate disclosure of actions taken to assess and address modern slavery risks

The UN Guiding Principles make it clear that entities must provide for, or cooperate in, remediation if they identify they have caused or contributed to adverse impacts. Whilst some organisations detailed their whistle-blower procedures, additional information could be provided on how organisations monitor their grievance processes and ensure they effectively receive and resolve incidents of modern slavery. Most entities failed to disclose information about the use of their grievance mechanisms and the extent to which they are responding to modern slavery risks identified through these mechanisms.

Some specific actions for entities to consider implementing and disclosing in their subsequent Statements include: disclosing responsible procurement practices, enforcing a commitment to ensuring workers in their operations and supply chains are paid a living wage, taking responsibility for and remediating the harms occurring in supply chains and implementing proper grievance mechanisms (such as a hotline, online complaints system or a disclosure app).

(d) Failure to assess the effectiveness of actions and reporting results

In both tranches of Statements, we saw an incomplete picture of how entities assess their actions effectiveness in addressing the risks of modern slavery.Many organisations provided a summary of the processes they have implemented to oversee, monitor and report on their actions to address modern slavery risks (such as internal reporting channels, accountabilities and working groups). Still, they failed to disclose or assess the results of these processes.

Entities should ensure they are disclosing the steps they are taking to assess the effectiveness of their actions in addressing modern slavery risks. Reporting entities should enhance their tracking of the effectiveness of their responses and communicate how impacts are addressed. This can include disclosing the specific key performance indicators or other metrics used to measure their efforts.

Conclusion

Our review of the Statements submitted by the entities sitting in the middle of the pack, or lagging, reflects that there is a significant improvement to be made in disclosure moving into the third reporting season. Entities wishing to improve should aim to provide a deeper assessment of the risks of modern slavery in both the operations and supply chain and draw on specific examples and case studies. Additionally, transparency needs to improve in assessing the effectiveness of the steps taken to address these risks. As part of this process, entities should consider consulting with a broader range of stakeholders, including working groups in all owned and controlled entities, unions and suppliers.

In our next and final part of this series, we will explore practical recommendations moving into the third reporting season to ensure a compliant and robust modern slavery Statement and reporting framework.

Continued here:

Modern slavery reporting series: Part 3 what can Australian businesses learn? - JD Supra

By choice, or out of necessity, how people make a living is undergoing fundamental change, said Marina Gorbis, Executive Director of the Institute for the Future (IFTF), a 50-year-old nonprofit research and educational organization based in Palo Alto, CA. Her remarks closed the IFTFs 14th annual conference, held this past April at The Center for Transformative Action at Mills College.

The conference, titled The Great Awakening: Redefining Work, Values, and Purpose, featured current questions, problems, and opportunities regarding the world of work. In light of the intense economic shift underway as workers continue to resign in record numbers and the labor movement experiences renewed energy, the conference sought to identify shifting perceptions about work, values, purpose, and justice. Its wide-ranging audience and participantsincluding grassroots leaders, business owners, politicians, social movement activists, and entrepreneursshared their insights, successes, and struggles to survive during unprecedented times.

Featured speakers included directors and leaders at several major nonprofit organizationsincluding the Institute for the Future, Common Future, Jobs with Justice, the Ford Foundation, Conscious Culture, and others all of whom iterated variations on Gorbis concluding theme: The way we work is not pre-ordained.

In 2021, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy made almost $213 million, or 6,474 times the companys median worker salary of $32,855. The company claimed that the lions share of that number came from a stock award that Jassy received when he was made CEO after Jeff Bezos stepped down. This practice is not particular to Amazon: in the past three decades, CEO pay has soared by over 1,322 percent, while typical worker compensation has risen only 18 percent. These figures are so disproportionate because stock options have become an outsized form of compensation for those in the C-suite.

What this means, Marina Gorbis explained in her keynote address, is that while income inequality is a popular paradigm for understanding what is wrong with the economy, wealth inequality is ten times worse. Wealth derives in large part from income, but it also consists of assets such as pension funds, savings accounts, and homeowner equity. Before the onset of deindustrialization in the 1970s, which was accompanied by a political assault on the labor movement, jobs in the US afforded those workers who were allowed to belong to unions benefits and security, creating the middle class. In contrast, according to research done by IFTFs Equitable Enterprise Initiative, most businesses in the US today do not enable their employees to build wealth for long-term economic security.

To understand why work has changed, we must look to the economy at large. For one, newer platform technology companiessuch as Uber, Airbnb, and Snapchatare much smaller than the manufacturing giants of decades past. Some of Americas wealthiest, highest-wage companiesincluding Apple and Microsofthave fewer than half a million employees. For example, Meta Platforms, better known as Facebook, employs just over 70,000 staff, with an average salary of over $250,000. In contrast, mega-corporations like Amazon and Walmart, which together employ over three million people, pay median salaries of around $30,000. This means that the largest employers in the United States are low-wage ones.

The organization and operation of the wealthiest businesses in the US drive both income and wealth inequality, Gorbis stated. The only solution to rectify this inequality is a shift towards more equitable enterprise, defined by IFTF as business structures and strategies that equitably distribute economic assets among those who contribute to the value of the business.

The keynote address emphasized that the way we work can change because it is based on things that are always in flux: social and cultural norms, available technologies and scientific knowledge, regulatory regimes, power dynamics, labor availability, and the social safety net. Work has been shifting towards an asset-poor model, Gorbis explained, ruled by short-term contracts, poor pay, and minimal benefits, and constituted by piece-meal tasksa trend that will eventually reach all sectors.

How do we rework the future? As an organization, IFTFs mission is to offer skills and context to forecast what will happen in the economy, public policy, and technology. As futurists, Gorbis declared, were not just looking at the future. A lot of our work is going into the past and understanding history, and why this is happening in larger patterns. To guide this work, the Equitable Enterprise Initiative maps out the following levers with which to shape economic transformation:

Guided by these questions, the nonprofit sector can mitigate inequality by transforming the economy, labor, and technological infrastructure.

About a year ago, UK think tank Autonomy released a report on a groundbreaking experiment: the four-day work week. The trial was conducted in Iceland with 2,500 participantsmore than one percent of the countrys workforceand was a massive success. Participants reported lowered stress levels, more energy and focus, and better work-life balance. Supervisors too said that employees were happier and worked harder.

The four-day work week and other workplace policy changes were discussed at Transforming Time and Space: Organizational and Policy Innovations that Center Human Wellness, a panel moderated by Alex Soojun-Kim Pang, Global Programs Manager at 4 Day Week Globalthe nonprofit coalition that ran the Iceland trial. Four US-based nonprofit panelists discussed their experiences with workplace changes that were implemented to enhance employee wellbeing. Hilary Abell, co-founder and Chief Policy and Impact Officer at Project Equity, an organization that builds economic resiliency in low-income communities, set the tone: income and wealth inequality, the worsening racial wealth gap, and the decline and concentration of homeownership are all happening in a financialized economy where working people lose and investors win big.

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

In this context, we have an opportunity to examine assumptions about organizational structure and policy, said VP of Common Future, Joanna Lee Wagner. As an organization that often speaks truth to powerwhether its to philanthropy or funders, or just the way that nonprofits operate in generalwe really saw it as a chance to look into and challenge these assumptions. Common Future is mostly led by women of color. Changing its priorities to include the teams wellness was a way to better realize the organizations project of realizing racial and economic justice. Policy changes aim to recognize the invisible labor that is involved, not only in the work that we doin a justice-oriented organization, but also the invisible labor that happens at home as caretakers, as leaders in our community. It isnt just about changing working hours, the panelists agreed, its about changing our attitude towards work and what makes a good worker.

Business as usual is not only no longer appealingits no longer effective, said Heatherly Bucher, Executive Director of Conscious Culture. Bucher encouraged managers and leaders to follow the organizations motto to bridge execution with humanity, warning that prioritizing productivity at the expense of employees leads to burnout. Instead, organizations can use time as a forcing function, limiting hours to get work done in less time while also allowing for leisure.

Revaluing time at work is a win-win for both organizations and the people that work at them. When asked to share her experience working at a company with a four-day workweek, Panelist Tamilore Oladipo, a content writer at Buffer, put it succinctly: I have more time to be a person outside of work.

What could workers do if they had more control over their time? Right now, most US employees work at low-wage jobs with long hours, leaving them little time for leisure, let alone participation in civil society. If workplaces are run in undemocratic and authoritarian ways, so are the societies in which they exist and operate.

In a fireside chat, Sarita Gupta, Director of the Future of Work(ers) at the Ford Foundation, and Erica Smiley, Executive Director of Jobs with Justice, discussed the economic piece of democracy, how to actualize the vision of multiracial democracy in the US and how working people can apply their collective bargaining power outside the workplace. What would it take for the majority of working people to negotiate their conditions, not only with their employers, but also with the other powerful entities that control their lives?

Centering the struggles of people who have been historically left out of labor protections is a strategy to combat the ways that government and capital reproduce racism and other forms of exclusion. Gupta pointed to the domestic workers movement as key to understanding the central role of the labor movement in struggles against white supremacy and gender discrimination. We should be clear that there is entrenched white supremacy and patriarchy that has shaped labor laws in this country, Gupta explained. Domestic workers, like nannies, are excluded from some of the most foundational legislation for worker rights, such as the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. This deliberate exclusion, which also applies to agricultural workers, is a direct legacy of sexism and of slavery and political compromises between politicians who sought to appease plantation owners during the formation of the New Deal.

In the last decade, however, the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) has advocated for and built a strong movement to secure basic protections and benefits for house cleaners and care providers. The organization has won standards for fair treatmentsuch as the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, for example, which requires employers to provide workers with written agreements covering wages, benefits, sick leave, and other matters pertaining to employmentin 10 states.

This work is not happening in the policy arena alone, Gupta added. NDWA has also advanced changes to Handy, the biggest online platform for cleaning workers, where housecleaners can book cleaning jobs and other domestic employment. The Gig Worker Advocates of the NDWA piloted an agreement with the app that guarantees paid time off, a $15 hourly minimum wage, occupational accident protections, and monthly meetings to discuss workplace issuesthe first agreement of its kind negotiated with a platform company.

Pointing to a map titled Path to Power, which provided a visual overview of civic engagement, labor protections, and democratic participation in the US, Smiley explained that one of the most exciting aspects of NDWAs Handy campaign wins is that they happened in states like Florida, Indiana, and Kentucky, where the erosion of democratic standards is highly advanced. In other words, workers living in places where unions and progressive politicians have limited political power turned a policy weakness into a protective agreement.

Smiley turned to the efforts of essential workers in Harris County, TX including construction, airport, and retail workerswho built a coalition during the COVID-19 pandemic to advocate for their collective rights outside of traditional labor protections. After being defined as essential to the economy, these workerswho were historically underpaid and undervaluedenjoyed newfound political visibility. They went from a position of exclusion to a position of power, Smiley explained, demanding decision-making power and negotiating with the government and their respective industries over safety protocols, compensation, and protections.

When Texas was hit with a terrible ice storm in the middle of the campaign, workers fought even harder, pointing out that they were more essential than ever. Working through a pandemic and an extreme weather event, they proved that their contributions to the economy were indeed indispensable. They broadened the scope of their efforts and solidified the case for an essential worker board, which would address workers experiences during any crisis, not just the one brought on by the pandemic. What the pandemic proved, Smiley concluded, is that were all better when working people have decision-making ability. Smiley laughed. Its so simple.

In a healthy democracy, everyday people find power in their collective voice and actions. Smiley and Gupta highlight such collective action in their forthcoming book, The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy for the Twenty-First Century, pointing out the various contexts and strategies in and through which working people have won better work conditions and more power and autonomy in the workplace.

Overall, the conference drew together these threads of rising inequality, redesigning workplace values, and building worker power. In their mission to realize social equality, nonprofit organizations have an opportunity to change their workplaces and campaigns to reverse inequality, reflect their stated values, and encourage democracy. The event was an excellent overview of the work it will take to do so, and the urgency of the project.

See the article here:

The Great Awakening: Redefining Work, Values, and Purpose - Non Profit News - Nonprofit Quarterly

Biden administration officials promised to end the abhorrent practice of modern slavery across the world as a ban on goods from Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region goes into effect Tuesday, bringing with it an unprecedented level of scrutiny into the supply chains of everything from clothing to solar panels.

Our department is committed to ending the abhorrent practice of forced labor around the globe, including in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where the Peoples Republic of China continues to systemically oppress and exploit Uyghurs and other Muslim-majority communities, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said at the launch of the Strategy to Prevent the Importation of Goods Mined, Produced or Manufactured With Forced Labor in the Peoples Republic of China on Friday. We must combat these inhumane and exploitative practices while ensuring that legitimate goods can enter our ports and reach American businesses and consumers as quickly as possible.

Published by the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF), the strategy is the culmination of months of robust engagement with brands, suppliers, Congress and other key stakeholders over the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which prohibits any product made in whole or in part in Xinjiang from entering the United States unless importers can provide clear and convincing evidence that forced labor wasnt involved in its mining or manufacture. It comes amid an explosion of anger at United Nations human-rights chief Michelle Bachelet for having whitewashed the Chinese governments human-rights abuses, which it has repeatedly denied, during a recent visit.

The importation of goods made using forced labor is an affront to human rights and our national values, said Robert Silvers, under-secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. Forced labor places legitimate manufacturers, domestically and abroad, at a competitive disadvantage. I am honored to serve as the chair of the FLETF, a body that leads our governments response to this scourge. The strategy that we have delivered to Congress will produce meaningful progress in combating the use of forced labor while we continue to facilitate lawful trade.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will apply the rebuttable presumption under the UFLPA to detain, exclude, or seize and forfeit shipments linked to Chinese forced labor beginning June 21. Operational guidance from the agency recommends that importers map their supply chains to the raw material level, particularly high-risk commodities such as cotton and tomatoes. It also advises companies importing goods from outside China to conduct their due diligence given that products may be shipped to third countriesfor further processing.

When requested, importers should be able to trace the complete supply chain of the product under CBP review, the guidance noted. This includes detailed descriptions of how it was made, by which entities and where, including all in-house manufacturing, sub-assembly operations and outsourced production. Where possible, unique identifiers should be used to track raw materials and other inputs as they move downstream. And when raw materials or inputs from different suppliers are commingled, there should be an auditable process for demonstrating the origin and control of each raw material or input.

While DNA traceability or isotopic testing may make it possible to identify the origin of particular goods or materials without tracing the supply chain, their reliability must be proven for such evidence to be considered. To obtain an exception to the UFLPA presumption, the importer must provide clear and convincing evidence showing that indicators of forced labor, including intimidation and threats, abuse of vulnerability, restriction of movement, isolation, excessive hours and abusive living and working conditions either do not exist or have been fully remediated.

The UFLPA enforcement strategy demonstrates the Biden administrations unwavering commitment to fully enforce our laws prohibiting the import of goods made by forced labor into the United States, said U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. It highlights our resolve to fight against the economic exploitation and human-rights abuses committed against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in the Peoples Republic of China. This enforcement strategy will help us in our work to eliminate this practice from our global supply chains.

In an open letter published Tuesday, the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region urged all companies with global sourcing operations to comply fully with the UFLPA and apply a single global standard, consistent with the requirements of the law, across their entire supply chain for all retail markets. The civil-society organization, which includes Anti-Slavery International, the Clean Clothes Campaign, the Uyghur Human Rights Project and Worker Rights Consortium, also urged brands and suppliers to refrain from re-exporting any goods denied entry to the United States under the UFLPA to other markets.

Operating in the Uyghur region in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights has become a practical impossibility, the coalition wrote. There are no valid means for companies to verify that any workplace in the Uyghur region is free of forced labor or to prevent the use of forced labor in these workplaces in line with human-rights due diligence; therefore, business[es] must operate on the assumption that all products produced in part or in whole in the Uyghur region are at high risk of being tainted by forced labor.

Though the coalition said it welcomed steps taken by lawmakers worldwide to prevent companies from profiting from forced labor, including the European Unions draft corporate sustainability due diligence directive, only a universal stance will prevent other countries from becoming dumping grounds for goods tainted with modern slavery. All nations, but in particular Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and EU member states, should embrace robust measures to ban the import of products made with forced labor, it added.

Meanwhile, brands and retailers arent off the hook. There is significant, credible documentation that Uyghur forced labor is used in global supply chains across a number of sectors, the coalition said. All companies must fully extricate their supply chains from the Uyghur region to ensure they are not complicit in human-rights abuses. Further, companies must prevent the use of forced labor in facilities elsewhere that use workers forcibly transferred from the Uyghur region, including by ending relationships.

It was partly in response to the UFLPA that Sourcemap, a New York-based supply-chain transparency company, developed its Forced Labor Compliance Platform to help businesses meet evolving human-rights standards. Unveiled publicly Thursday, the platform attracted more than 3,000 companies in advance of the UFLPAs enactment.

Members of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement protest Chinas treatment of Uyghurs, during a protest near the State Department, Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021, in Washington.

The system is an expansion of what Sourcemap has always done, Leonardo Bonanni, the firms founder and CEO, told Sourcing Journal. It helps companies grapple with the chain-of-custody challenge by focusing on the verification of data from entities within their supply chains down to raw material suppliers. This includes an automatic classification of suppliers through forced-labor risk heat maps for increased due diligence, the collection of all documentation required to validate the chain of custody, and real-time monitoring of suppliers and overall supply chain risk exposure to conditions such as sanctions, affiliations and negative news reports.

The Forced Labor Compliance Platform also automatically generates chain-of-custody and compliance reports of individual shipments in response to CBP inquiries and Withhold Release Orders.

We basically are introducing something called Verified by Sourcemap, where every container that enters U.S. ports [via the platform] has been mapped and traced using Sourcemap, Bonanni said. That means we have all the documentation we need and that all of it has been checked for consistency and completion. And its not enough to just trace products that are coming from China. Our job here is to do a broad sweep of a companys supply chain, map every raw material down to the origin and then gather enough information to look for patterns of waste or fraud or abuse at any stage.

Sourcemap is able to do this by digitizing transactions from every supplier in every link of the supply chain and then applying big data analytics to give its customers a thumbs up or thumbs down so that they know which shipments have sufficient documentation and which need additional work. And we give them that information long before the goods have actually left for the U.S. so that they can put in a corrective action plan and collect the missing data and work out the problems with their suppliers, Bonanni said.

The process for collecting the evidence that a company needs to be compliant with the UFLPA can take as little as three months, he said, noting that the fashion industry has become Sourcemaps biggest customer, helping it grow 10-fold since the Covid-19 pandemic began. The new law, Bonanni added, marks a huge shift in the responsibility the businesses have over their supply chains. And where supply-chain mapping and tracing was challenging a decade ago, its now eminently possible.

The ULFPA is a turning point where no company can ignore its raw materials, its suppliers, he said. Its really a leadership position that the U.S. government is taking worldwide in enforcing the ban of forced labor and because of that, its become so much easier to do this because now every company that exports to the U.S. has to respond. [Businesses are] all providing traceability and transparency in their supply chain. And theyre providing it much more quickly than ever before.

What this regulation has done is [create] a level playing field so anybody who wants to do business in the U.S. needs to map their supply chains, Bonanni added. And theres simply no excuse not to.

But some companies are more prepared for the regulatory onslaught than others, said Clare Bartram, ESG specialist, modern slavery, at Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a global investment advisory firm. While its research indicates that 84 percent of textiles, apparel and luxury goods companies have operations in China, nearly one-third (30 percent) are considered laggard performers in their modern-slavery risk mitigation, meaning they lack transparent and robust policies and procedures to identify and address modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chain.

ISS released last week a modern slavery scorecard to enable investors to identify, evaluate and prioritize modern slavery risks in their global portfolios while supporting any supply-chain reporting. Already, it covers roughly 7,4000 issuers globally. This number will grow on a regular basis to meet client demand, it said.

Aside from the clear moral case, we saw that there was a strong business case to address modern slavery for both investors but also for their portfolio companies, Bartram told Sourcing Journal. But the challenge is that this is a hidden crime, and its typically concealed in the lower tiers of the supply chain.

The trend toward single-issue legislation like forced labor and broader mandatory human-rights due diligence aside, ISS is seeing increasing reputational risks related to modern slavery, especially with the impact of the pandemic on global supply chains. The EU and U.S.s measures aside, New Zealand has just proposed modern slavery legislation which would apply to investment and lending activity. Australia, too, is looking at tightening up its modern slavery regime, including the possible appointment of an anti-slavery commissioner. All of this has accelerated investors drive to address modern slavery.

The ISS scorecard leverages data and insights from three of the firms ESG solutionsthe ESG Corporate Rating, Norm-Based Research and the ESG Country Ratingto assess issuers on 25 quantitative and qualitative factors. Because of the limits of good data, what the scorecard does is situate modern slavery within the broader labor rights and human rights context by using red flags such as wage underpayment or hazardous working conditions as proxies for modern slavery risks.

Its a really valuable tool for supporting investors, Bartram said. They can use those data points to identify leading and laggard companies to monitor where theyre exposed to unsavory controversies, and then use some of those more granular data points to inform their engagement objectives and dialogue.

Investors can play an important role in driving improvements in corporate practice in high-risk regions like Xinjiang, she said. Using the scorecard for engagement allows investors to have a more tailored dialogue with companies to encourage them to improve their policies and processes.

One of the key challenges connected to the region is that the risks extend to other regions of China, where several sources, including the UN, suggest Uyghur and other ethnic minority workers may be transferred to factories and subject to exploitative working conditions, Bartram said. Investors, through engagement, can set expectations for companies operating in, or sourcing from, China, to carry out enhanced human-rights due diligence to ensure they are not linked to forced labor.

See the article here:

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is Now in Effect - Sourcing Journal

In honor of Juneteenth this year, The Brooklyn Bank, also known as BKBNK, assembled some of the biggest, most influential wealth-building leaders and game changers to offer attendees financial knowledge at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. The free, one-day event was hosted by Brooklyn Bank CEO Jude Bernard and co-hosted by The Breakfast Clubs Angela Yee. DJ Skatz provided the catchy tunes of the day choosing to make hip-hop the unofficial soundtrack of the event.

The first-of-its-kind financial forum featured several panels, discussions, and workshops with powerhouses such as NY Times best-selling Personal Finance Educator Tiffany The Budgetnista Aliche, Award-Winning Educator, Dr. Jatali Bellanton, and Earn Your Leisure podcast hosts, Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, to name a few.

BET.com was there for it all. Heres a look back at some of the highlights from this Juneteenth's incredible forum.

From beginning to end, the theater was packed with attendees from all over New York City. Most were Gen X, with a few millennials sprinkled in. There were a fair amount of couples, groups of girlfriends, and even one woman carrying her months-old baby. I sat behind a woman who attended with two pre-teens. As the panelists gave advice and tips, she glanced at them eagerly throughout the event to make sure they were taking notes.

When I first walked in the theater it was completely quiet, but once Bernard took the stage, the energy in the room immediately changed. The crowd stood up and gave him a standing ovation. Since the event also coincided with Fathers Day, Bernard gave a shout out to all of the fathers in the room. He asked half of the audience to scream out real estate money and the other half to yell stocks money, for a minute or so, which kept the crowd buzzing with excitement.

Just like how the slaves did not know that they were free for years, is the same way we dont know that we have access to financial freedom for years, he stated.

Bernard also shared the reason why he is so focused on bringing financial literacy to the Black community. I hate being the only one in the room, I hate when Im on a first class flight and somebody asks me, so what do you do, like its strange because Black wealth is not normalized. Many of yall that can get the information, so come and join me.

As business gurus Tiffany the Budgetnista, Sabine Franco, Ellie Diop, Sheneya Wilson, Shaquanna Brooks, Tonya Rapley, and Aristotle Varner all took the stage, the electricity in the room made you understand that you were someplace important about to receive the details of a mission you have been tasked to complete. One of the nations top personal finance experts Ash Cash moderated the panel as each of these brilliant minds gave valuable financial advice on how to start a business and the power of investing especially during a time when many are fearful of a recession. The main focus of the discussion was the best way to establish credit, build generational wealth, and make your money work for you.

Ellie Diop, founder of the YouTube show, Ellie Talks Money, stressed the importance of becoming recession rich, and clarified that theres never going to be a perfect time to start a business. We cant rely on a job or on one string of income. Now is the time to form that LLC, take your skills that you already have and give it to the marketplace, build your business credit, and make sure you have multiple streams of funding. That is how were going to make sure we stay above the recession.

Aristotle Varner is a military-veteran and the founder of Aristotle Investments. He shared his advice for making smart moves with your money. Plant seeds nowseeds turn into trees. You have to know what stocks are going to last during the recession and buy when people are fearful.

Real estate investor and entrepreneur Jullien Gordon encouraged people to look deeper, way beyond their vision boards if they want to reach true success and find ways to change their mindset around wealth.

Your financial systems are broken, shared Gordon. It's not about how much money you accumulate, its how much you circulate. The only way to get financial freedom is investing. Slavery is not over, we are still dealing with mental and monetary slavery.

He also explained that while many of us are more interested in purchasing the most expensive shoes and clothes, too many of us have never thought deeper about investing our money into anything bigger. The sentiment made the crowd nod in agreement.

Storm Leroy, Reshauna Scott, Welby Accely, Brian Waldron and Dr, Jatali Bellanton sat down with entrepreneur and mortgage banker, Matt Garland to discuss how to be a bonafide player in the real estate game. Throughout the panel, the recurring theme was how to manage a fear of the unknown, especially within the current state of our economy.

Do not listen to fearmongers. This is exactly what weve been waiting for; this is your time. Don't run away from the fire, run to the fire. This is where you want to be, shared Welby Accely, a multiple, multi-unit rental owner and house flipper.

Real estate investor and entrepreneur Storm Leroy, discussed the importance of taking action, instead of waiting for the market to change.

Act your wage. If you have $10,000, there is somewhere you can buy a house. If you have $20,000, there is somewhere you can buy a house, shared Leroy. Youre doing this for your legacy. This is bigger than everybody in here. This isnt about your children. Its about your childrens children.

One of the more popular discussions featured Earn Your Leisure podcast hosts Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings who have become wealth building powerhouses. The hosts talked about how they developed their brand and podcast, the importance of having something to offer, and getting people to like you, which has clearly been part of their recipe for success.

I want to encourage everybody to do yourself a favor, take the time out to use resources to educate yourself because this revolution will be monetized and you already know its going to be televised, said Millings, in his lessons on how to elevate and expand a business.

After Bernard thanked everyone for coming out, I got up from my seat and walked into the lobby. It was still packed to the brim with attendees who were newly filled with the knowledge to better secure their financial futures. As people mingled with old friends and networked with new friends. I could clearly see that every person had been touched by what they experienced that day. The hope is that with this newfound sense of power on Juneteenth, Black people will finally be able to achieve freedom in every sense of the word.

Ali McPherson is a freelancer based in New York City.

Here is the original post:

The Black Money Forum: Top Experts Come Together To Teach Lessons On How To Make, Keep, And Enhance Your Money - BET

Stories like Cayanan's are not uncommon, Luciano said. Most undocumented migrants immigrate legally but lose their status due to problems with employers or changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program. In 2013, Alberta had 77,000 TFWs living and working in the province. Five years later, that number had dropped by 60% to 32,000, according to a report from the Parkland Institute, leaving thousands to either face removal or remain without status.

"They're good enough to work for us, but not good enough to be allowed to become citizens," said Alvin Finkel, president of the Alberta Labour History Institute. "We have to get rid of this idea of temporary work, there's really no such thing. People are coming here to do jobs. These jobs are ongoing."

Finkel pointed to the restaurant industry, where Cayanan primarily worked while a part of the TFW program, as an example of work that is ongoing, but where the workers are classed as temporary. In the current system, migrant workers are tied to a single employer, who has the power to decide whether their contracts will be extended or terminated.

"If things don't work out with that employer, then that person has to go back. So that means, for example, when a worker is sexually exploited by the employer, or is made to do dangerous work that is not legal in this country, if they refuse or they complain about it, then the employer has the perfect right to fire them and send them back home," Finkel said. "So you have women working, essentially, in sexual slavery here. You have both men and women forced to do work that violates human rights laws in this country violates labour laws in this country. It's disgusting."

Cayanan herself reported abuse from a manager at the employer she first worked for in Edmonton, and said that female temporary workers at her location faced sexual exploitation and harassment.

There is no exact figure for the number of undocumented workers in Alberta. In 2020, the Parkland Institute put the number between 10,000 and 20,000, but Luciano said there are anecdotal projections that estimate as many as 50,000.

"Many of them have been living in Edmonton, in Alberta, for a long time five years, 10 years, 20 years and they are able to find jobs, to find a place to live through their own underground network," Luciano said. These networks allow people to find employment by cleaning, working in kitchens, or doing other cash jobs. Because of their status, they are again often exploited by their employers, being paid less than minimum wage and subject to abuse.

To address the precarity experienced by migrants, the City of Edmonton introduced the Access Without Fear policy in 2018, which made it easier to access city services and programs.

"The vast majority of City of Edmonton services and programs do not require proof of identification or income verification, and are accessible to all residents regardless of immigration status," a spokesperson for the City of Edmonton said. The variety of types of identification that are accepted was also expanded, and safeguards are in place to ensure the type of ID provided remains confidential.

As of May 1, Alberta signalled it was again looking to expand its reliance on temporary foreign workers, lifting restrictions and removing the nearly 500 occupations on the "refusal to process" list that limited temporary workers to select industries. The federal government has also announced it intends to make it easier for newcomers to become permanent residents, but it is unclear how this will affect undocumented people already in the country or whether it would address the churning of immigrants and deportations caused by fluctuations in existing programs.

"Whatever happens to Vangie, it's important to look deeper into this whole deportation culture," Luciano said. "There are many, many migrants here that were invited to come to Canada to work under the program, but they're not invited to stay. They cherry-pick who they want to stay. And all those that are not, they deport. Meanwhile, they open the borders for new temporary foreign workers."

In a statement to Taproot, the Department of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship said that all foreign nationals are expected to maintain legal status while in Canada, and that migrant workers have the same rights to workplace protections under applicable federal, provincial, and territorial employment standards and collective agreements as Canadians and permanent residents do.

This story has been updated to include the immigration department's statement.

See the original post here:

Mother and advocate wages final campaign to avoid deportation - Taproot Edmonton

Juneteenth celebrates the movement that ended chattel slavery in the U.S. in which African Americans played a central role.

Great leaders Frederick Douglas, Charlotte Forten Grimk, Sojourner Truth along with others initiated and built a united, Black and white struggle that propelled human society forward, ending chattel slavery in the U.S. over the course of centuries of protracted struggle.

Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, which declared that all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free, ended slavery in the rebellious states.

Almost three years later, on December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

Texas ignored the Emancipation Proclamation until June 19, 1865, when U.S. Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order 3, freeing the slaves in Texas, the last state with institutionalized chattel slavery.

Juneteenth arose from the celebrations of the enslaved Black people in Texas upon winning their freedom.

The day was recognized as a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.

Texass attempt to prevent emancipation signaled the beginning of the states rights strategy to preserve white supremacy. It became the racist rallying cry during the civil rights movements and continues to be used to advocate for anti-human and anti-worker policies. States rights is also used to oppose policies that have broad, national democratic support but, due to the limits of bourgeois democracy, gerrymandering, and other distortions of democracy, must be enacted at the federal rather than the state level. The efforts by states to restrict womens access to health care, including abortion services, is a present-day example of using states rights to undermine democracy.

The Thirteenth Amendment left enslavement legal as punishment for a crime. It underpins the school-to-prison pipeline that literally enslaves more than 2 million people in the U.S. today, denying recognition of their human dignity and taking no substantial responsibility for protecting the health and well-being of those enslaved and incarcerated. The Amendment must be modified to remove the slavery-for-crime clause.

The brutal exploitation of chattel slaves that ended in 1865 was transformed into wage slavery, where humans are forced to sell their labor for subsistence or less. While the wage slave is not owned under the law, the capitalists control over the workers lives is real. Wage slavery encompasses all peoples but is most heinous for Black folks who experience super exploitation and the concurrent police violence echoing the KKK and others from the Reconstruction era.

While we celebrate the end of chattel slavery on June 19th, we also celebrate on June 18th the ongoing struggle demonstrated by the Poor Peoples Campaign and Call for a Moral Revival, demanding that the needs of the poor and workers be addressed.

As the Poor Peoples Campaign proclaimed: There were 140 million people who were poor or one emergency away from economic ruin before the pandemic. Since March 2020, while hundreds of thousands of people have died, millions are on the edge of hunger and eviction, and still without health care or living wages, billionaire wealth has grown by over $2 trillion.

We celebrate that the slave rebellions of the pre-Emancipation days continue today in the indomitable spirit of Black people, in union with all workers globally standing against exploitation, in demanding equality and a society that meets the needs of the masses of humanity.

The obscene maldistribution of wealth today, where individuals have more than entire countries, proves the centrality of capitalist exploitation and wage enslavement in our economy and society. Billionaires dont deserve their wealth; they steal it by privatizing the social profits of workers labor.

Workers of all colors and ethnicities continue to unite and fight for their lives, for their dignity, and for an end to capitalist exploitation and wage slavery. Every day reveals the fierce struggle to minimize or overthrow wage slavery, including recent victories by Amazon Labor Union workers, Starbucks workers, and others, and the work of the Communist Party USA.

This unity in struggle is the foundation for celebration today, along with joy in recognizing the huge victory by Black and white people in ending chattel slavery.

Juneteenth is celebrated with cookouts, family and community gatherings, music, and dance. Its a time to recommit to the struggles of the enslaved elders of the Black community, elders that were still alive within the lifetime of some today.

The struggle for freedom includes demanding an end to capitalist exploitation, building strong unions, winning community control of the police and ending police murders of Black people, and ending the prison industrial complex. It means moving funding from the military to community needs and protecting the environment. Only united action can move these struggles forward.

Celebrate, but struggle onwards to completely end exploitation and slavery in the United States. Join the Communist Party USA (cpusa.org/join-us) to help in this struggle today.

Image: Raise Up (Twitter).

View post:

Juneteenth: Celebration and ongoing struggle Communist Party USA - Communist Party USA

(Editors note: This is part of Just Securitys Juneteenth Reading Recommendations.)

What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its promise.-Barbara Jordan.

On the occasion of Juneteenth, I recommend that you read the book Barbara Jordan: American Hero, by Mary Beth Rogers (2000). The life of Barbara Jordan (1936-1996) provides a lesson in quiet dignity, moral character, elegance, passion, and patriotism. Jordan was the first post-Reconstruction African-American elected to the Texas Senate and later went on to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, the first African-American woman from a southern state to do so. She exemplified resilience in the face of adversity, serving with grace and grit, and evincing a fighting spirit that we can draw on today. Her sonorous and honeyed voice called all of us to our higher selves. It is appropriate and fitting that we celebrate one of the greatest Americans and dedicated patriots that this country has ever known. Jordans family has roots in Juneteenth and Reconstruction, and these ingredients combined to produce an orator, advocate, and politician of historical importance. The life of Barbara Jordan, and her unyielding commitment to the Constitution and democracy, have deep roots in the emancipation of African-Americans from slavery.

The holiday of Juneteenth, as it is colloquially known, represents Galvestons most important historical moment. It stemmed from General Order No. 3, read on June 19, 1865, announcing that all enslaved people were free. The most important thing to know about Juneteenth is that it was late. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation on Sep. 22, 1862, yet the proclamation had little impact on Texans at the time it was originally issued, because there were not enough Union troops available in Texas to enforce it. Two and a half years later, in June of 1865, more than 2,000 federal soldiers of the 13th Army Corps arrived in Galveston. Major General Gordon Granger, Commanding Officer, District of Texas, delivered to Galveston General Order No. 3, informing Texans that all enslaved people were free.

When we consider the significance of Juneteenth, it is essential that we recognize that African-Americans, women and men, fought for the Union and against bondage before they were legally emancipated. African-Americans were not passive recipients of emancipation. Instead, they were active agents battling for their own liberation. Indeed, according to the National Archives:

By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war 30,000 of infection or disease. Black soldiers served in artillery and infantry and performed all noncombat support functions . . . Black carpenters, chaplains, cooks, guards, laborers, nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, surgeons, and teamsters also contributed to the war cause. There were nearly 80 black commissioned officers. Black women, who could not formally join the Army, nonetheless served as nurses, spies, and scouts, the most famous being Harriet Tubman, who scouted for the 2d South Carolina Volunteers.

Given the context of the long struggle for freedom, the official end of slavery tasted sweet to the liberated. On Jan. 2, 1866, a Galveston newspaper, Flakes Bulletin, reported that over 1,000 colored people of Galveston celebrated their emancipation from slavery with a procession, and by listening to an address of Gen. Gregory, Assistant Commissioner of Freedmen. The program included a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the singing of John Browns Body. Juneteenth was celebrated across the state, in Brenham, Marlin, Liberty, Bastrop, and elsewhere, with parades, picnics, speeches, and dancing. Ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished chattel slavery nationwide on Dec. 6, 1865, after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on Apr. 9, 1865. Unquestionably, news of their freedom came late to the African-American people of Texas, yet they celebrated. The end of the Civil War and the end of slavery were their victories too. Freedmen were not passive recipients of emancipation. They fought for it with their very lives.

During the period from 1865 to 1877 termed Reconstruction the nations laws and institutions were rewritten and reshaped in an effort to ensure that newly freed people could claim their basic rights under the Constitution. Reconstruction represented a heady period when newly freed people not only could exercise their basic rights and (for men) vote, but could also hold office. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 aimed to enforce the rights of Black men to vote. African-Americans voted in large numbers and held office at every level of government. Under Reconstruction, newly refashioned state governments established public schools, reunited families torn apart by slavery, and outlawed discrimination in transportation and education. During Reconstruction in Texas, notes the Texas Almanac, 52 African-American men served Texas either in the Legislature or as delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

Just as Barbara Jordan fought for freedom and democracy in the 20th century, her family fought for freedom and democracy in the 19th century. Her great-grandfather was Edward A. Ed Patton, a Republican, who, according to the Texas State Historical Society, was born in Texas around 1859, came of age at the height of Reconstruction, and, as a teacher and farmer, won election to the 22nd Legislature of Texas in 1890, where he served as its only Black member and, among other positions, opposed the adoption of a poll tax.

Patton served a single term. By the late 19th century, the backlash to Reconstruction was in full swing, and new laws increasingly sought to curtail African-Americans efforts to exercise their rights to vote and to serve in public office. Indeed, following Reconstruction, the Texas Senate would not see another African-American member until Pattons great-granddaughter, Barbara Jordan, was elected in 1966.

Pattons great-granddaughter, Barbara Charline Jordan, was born on Feb. 21, 1936, in Houston, just a few miles from Galveston. Life in Texas when Jordan came of age was shaped by racism that, decades after Reconstruction, had never been expunged. She attended the segregated Phyllis Wheatley High School, which lacked adequate resources for students of color. She was a member of the inaugural class at Texas Southern University (TSU), a historically Black college created by the Texas Legislature to avoid integrating the University of Texas, where she excelled, leading the debate team to national renown and graduating magna cum laude. In 1959, she earned her law degree from Boston University in 1959 as one of only two African-American women in her class. She passed the Massachusetts and Texas bars and returned to Houston, where law firms refused to offer her a position because of her race, so she began her own practice at the kitchen table of her parents home.

Jordan was instrumental in the election of John F. Kennedy, securing unprecedented voter turnout in her area. In 1966, after two previous unsuccessful runs for a State House seat, she won the contest for a newly created State Senate seat, becoming the first African-American woman elected to the Texas State Senate and the first African-American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction. One of her greatest achievements in the Texas State Senate was leading the passage of legislation that gave millions of Texas farmworkers a living wage. In an honor remarkable for her era, she was elected President Pro Tempore of the Texas Senate in 1972.

In 1972, Jordan won election to U.S. Congress from Houstons 18th district, with a decisive 81% of the vote, becoming the first Black Texan in Congress and the first African-American woman from the South in the House. During her tenure from 1973-1979, she developed a reputation as a member of the liberal wing of the Texas Democratic Party who maintained good relationships with the conservative wing, and who also showed the pragmatic political instincts of her mentor, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Her opening statement to the U.S. Judiciary Committee on July 25, 1974, during President Nixons impeachment hearings, catapulted her onto the national platform. Despite noting in her remarks that women and African Americans were not included in the original draft of the Constitution, she offered a stirring defense of the document, stating, My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. Jordans 13-minute speech would be lauded as one of the most remarkable in American history. In 1976, she was the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. After an exceptional career in politics, she returned to her home state and taught at UTs Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

I met Barbara Jordan in person during her final years, when I was lucky enough to sit in on a seminar she taught at the LBJ School. She taught up until the end of her life. She believed in education, she believed in government, and she believed in serving the people. She also believed that, if you could get the best education, you could be a more effective individual. Citizens of the United States face numerous threats to democracy. Among the most worrying are efforts to implement voter suppression, which include interfering with electoral processes, concentrating power in the state executive, and reducing the powers of secretaries of state.

One of the lessons of Juneteenth is that we cannot wait for others to save us. We must engage, and actively fight for freedom. One of the lessons of Barbara Jordans life, as she stated in the Watergate Hearings nearly 20 years ago, is that we cannot sit here and be [idle] spectators to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. Instead, each of us must ask what active steps we can take to protect our Constitution. Former Dean of the LBJ School Max Sherman remembers Jordan as bold, and said that although she was incredible at compromise, when it came time to fight, she would fight.

On this Juneteenth, we can honor Jordan, and honor the tens of thousands of African-Americans in the Civil War who fought for their own liberation, and honor all those who, in the face of racism and injustice, chose public service. We too can choose to resist instead of standing by while we lose our rights. We must make sure our family and friends are registered to vote. Too many sacrifices were made to secure the franchise for women and people of color; we must never take our vote for granted. Jordans legacy demonstrates the power of our voices. On this, on the other independence day, let us continue to work towards an America as good as its promise.

Read the rest here:

Remembering Barbara Jordan on the Occasion of Juneteenth - Just Security

In an 1898 speech honoring the memory of Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington told of a former enslaved person who described his life since emancipation by saying, Is got my second freedom.

His first freedom, Washington explained, had come with the end of chattel slavery. His second freedom the promise of relief from the peonage that followed emancipation came with a cost. It would take 20 years of severe struggle to get out of debt, pay for his 50 acres of land, build a home, and educate his children. But his was a rare story of success.

Far too many Americans are still searching for their second freedom. The nations four million enslaved people learned quickly that physical freedom did not mean equal access to economic opportunity. The law can abolish servitude, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America in 1835, but only God can obliterate its traces.

On June 19, 1865, the last enslaved Americans and their captors became no longer enslaver and enslaved but employer and worker. With limited job choices, thousands began working for the single largest post-slavery employer of African Americans: the Pullman Palace Car Co.

READ MORE: Intersections of Injustice | Philadelphia shootings surge in 2021, in communities historically affected by poverty, blight and systemic racism

In the 1860s, the engineer George M. Pullman designed a wildly popular sleeper railroad car that bore his name. When he went looking for workers for the rail line, he sought attentive servants who could cater to the whims of his well-heeled travelers, work under terrible conditions, and offer few complaints.

Underpaid, overworked, and forced to endure constant racism, Pullman porters were expected to work 400 hours a month. Pullman knew the workers would come cheap, and he paid them next to nothing, said the historian Larry Tye, the author of Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class.

Lincoln freed the slaves, went an oft-told joke of the day, and the Pullman Co. hired them. Coincidentally, it was Robert Todd Lincoln, Lincolns son, who became the president of Pullman cars in 1897, and who helped the company out of bankruptcy by cutting porters wages to nearly starvation levels, which forced them to live off tips.

After the creation of the first predominantly Black labor union and waves of intense negotiations with the Pullman Co., conditions had improved for porters by the late 1930s.

In the decades that followed, other efforts were made to improve the work lives of poor Black people. In the 1950s, leaders of the civil rights movement would draw upon the organizing tactics used by the Pullman porters in their efforts to bring an end to legalized segregation.

In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called on President John F. Kennedy to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation to free all Negroes from second class citizenship. After President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which created the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission to eliminate discrimination, the agency was deluged with cases, two-thirds of which came from the South, most of them about racial discrimination.

Still, the long, bleak history of marginal jobs for African Americans has kept the Black unemployment rate consistently twice that of the white rate. This means many of the descendants of enslaved people still havent found a secure economic footing in our society, making it the most significant unfinished task of the Emancipation Proclamation. A 2020 report from Citi estimated that had the Black-white equity gap closed two decades ago, it would have benefited the economy by $16 trillion.

READ MORE: Its no easier for Black Philadelphians to become homeowners now than it was 30 years ago

Before he was assassinated in 1968, King was planning a campaign on behalf of the poor in Washington, D.C., where he would construct a shanty town for 2,000 people seeking economic justice, including jobs that paid a living wage. The campaign went on despite Kings death, and on Juneteenth that year, an additional 50,000 people flooded into Washington, D.C., for National Solidarity Day and to support the campaigns efforts.

We will place the problems of the poor at the seat of government of the wealthiest nation in the history of mankind, King wrote in a magazine essay that was published not long after his assassination. If the power refuses to acknowledge its debt to the poor, it will have failed to live up to its promise to insure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to its citizens. If this society fails, I fear that we will learn very shortly that racism is a sickness unto death.

Over the past few years, Ive seen many advocates grow weary, burn out, and despair over the amount of unfinished work. Juneteenth was developed from the wisdom of former enslaved people who understood how to handle adversity. June 19 is a day to remember the successes. Like how against all odds, the Pullman porters became a significant force whose quiet innovative activism help give birth to the modern civil rights movement. It is a day for celebrating, despite imperfect outcomes, like an emancipation notice that comes two years late. And it demands we rededicate ourselves to securing for all Americans their second freedom.

Chad Dion Lassiter is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. He was honored as the 2021 Social Worker of the Year by the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

Here is the original post:

The unfinished business of Juneteenth - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Bang & Olufsen is a big name in the audio world, with its speakers, headphones and TVs and for good reason. The companys products usually test incredibly well when we get them in for review, and youll often see them featured in our best headphones, best true wireless and best speaker guides.

But, are its products sustainably made? As part of our core values that aim to highlight that global warming isnt a myth, Trusted Reviews sends a series of questions to every company about the efforts its making to help reduce the impact of its products on the planet.

Below is a breakdown of the answers we received from Bang & Olufsen on the measures its currently taking.

Answer: Yes. Bang & Olufsen is committed to minimising the adverse impact on the environment from the companys own operations and its supply chain, as well as being committed to continuously reducing the footprint of the companys products over their entire lifecycle. Resource efficiency, serviceability and high quality as standard have been an integral part of the companys daily operations for years, and Bang & Olufsen has been widely recognised from a functional, aesthetical and technological perspective for the design and long-lasting characteristics of its products. It is the companys ambition to push the boundaries even further by creating more sustainable products while also improving the user experience.

In September 2021, our Beosound Level became the first ever Cradle to Cradle Certified speaker in the consumer electronics industry. In addition, Bang & Olufsen is also among the first companies to receive the certification under the new Cradle to Cradle Certified Version 4.0 standard the most ambitious and actionable standard for designing and making products today that enable a sustainable tomorrow.

The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institutes Cradle to Cradle Certified Product Standard has long been regarded as the most trusted and advanced science-based standard for designing and manufacturing products that maximise health and wellbeing for people and the planet.

The fourth version of Cradle to Cradle Certified features new and enhanced requirements in all performance categories. This includes, but is not limited to, new frameworks for Product Circularity, more rigorous requirements in Clean Air & Climate Protection to promote urgent action to address climate change, as well as improved alignment of Material Health requirements with leading chemical regulations and other standards. The end goal of theCradle to Cradlephilosophy is to create a self-sustaining world where materials areseen as nutrients that circulate in closed loops and eventually help to design out waste.

Current environmental and circularity work on our products includes integration of the Cradle to Cradle standard into our product development process, exploration of the use of recycled materials, greater sourcing transparency, less impactful packaging, among others.

Currently, we do not currently have Environmental Product Declarations for our individual products.

B&Os Stakeholder and Sustainability Policy is available on our corporate website here.

Answer: Today, were not a carbon neutral company, but we have a stated ambition to work towards climate neutrality. Were working systematically to reduce the CO2 emissions of our operations by managing energy consumption and environmental impact in accordance with the principles of the ISO 14001 standard. So while were not yet a carbon neutral company, we have a roadmap to achieve this, and have two publicly stated targets for this financial year related to carbon reduction in our operations.

These are:

Answer: Yes. We dont have accreditation to validate this; however, all salaries start ahead of the London minimum wage, regardless of location.

Answer: At Bang & Olufsen, were committed to a framework of principles and policies that includes respect for universally recognised standards for protection of human rights, labour conditions, zero tolerance towards child or forced labour, and anti-corruption, as outlined in the 10 principles of UN Global Compact. As a result, we engage with our supply chain and partners to ensure certain minimum standards according to the UN Global Compact and other relevant standards and norms, as well as to drive continuous improvements to ensure that all our suppliers operate in compliance with the requirements. These requirements and ambitions are captured in our Supplier Code of Conduct, which is available on our website here.

Suppliers that are deemed to be at a high risk of deviation from the Code of Conduct requirements are audited through on-site evaluations by independent third parties at least once every two years. In the past two years, weve audited high-risk product related suppliers that account for 98.6% of our product-related spend. These audits include assessment of employee working conditions and practices. Its our view that if there were a concern around legal minimums being paid to our suppliers employees, it would have been uncovered during these audits.

For more information on our approach to being a responsible partner, please read pages 22 and 23 of our CSR & Sustainability Report 2020/21, which is available here.

Answer: We have an ambition to work towards climate neutrality, but we havent set a date for achieving our Net Zero target. However, we understand and are deeply concerned about the climate emergency that were all facing. As a result, well present at new ESG and Sustainability plan soon, which will include taking full responsibility for our value chain climate impact and striving to work towards a 1.5C future, in line with scientific advice. In August, well kick off a Scope 3 inventory of our entire value chain, so we can understand our total footprint and put in place a roadmap of emissions reduction activities.

Currently in our operations, we work to reduce the CO2 emissions by managing energy consumption and environmental impact in accordance with the principles of the ISO 14001 standard. We have two publicly stated annual targets related to carbon reduction in our operations. These are:

Answer: Bang & Olufsen believes that the integration of ethical, social and environmental perspectives is prerequisite for running a sustainable business. Were committed to conducting our business in a responsible and transparent manner, and we respect internationally recognised principles for protecting the environment, ethics, human and labour rights, and anti-corruption. Our business processes and policies are aligned with the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact; including environmental protection and respecting the fundamental rights of all human beings.

We engage with our supply chain and partners to ensure certain minimum standards according to the UN Global Compact and other relevant standards and norms, as well as to drive continuous improvements to ensure that all our suppliers operate in compliance with the requirements. These requirements and ambitions are captured in our Supplier Code of Conduct, which is available on our website here.

All suppliers are obliged to sign our Supplier Code of Conduct. Any suppliers assessed as being at a medium risk of deviation from the Code of Conduct requirements must undertake a supplier self-assessment audit, while those that are high risk suppliers are subject to on-site audits at their applicable manufacturing sites at least every second year. The audit is undertaken by an external third party, independent auditors according to rigorous ESG standards. Any non-compliances are remedied through an agreed upon corrective action plan, and expected to be closed within three months of the plan being agreed. If not, this is reported to our compliance committee for further review.

We have a zero-tolerance view of slavery and human trafficking, and we expect the same from all our suppliers. Our statement for Slavery and Human Trafficking in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 can be read here.

B&Os Stakeholder and Sustainability Policy is available on our corporate website here.

Answer: We havent disclosed data to CDP previously; however, well do this for the first time in the coming quarter, through the CDP Supply Chain Program.

Answer: Bang & Olufsen is committed to minimising the adverse impact on the environment from the companys own operations and its supply chain, as well as being committed to continuously reducing the footprint of the companys products over their entire lifecycle. Resource efficiency, serviceability, and high quality as standard have been an integral part of the companys daily operations for years, and Bang & Olufsen has been widely recognised from a functional, aesthetical, and technological perspective for the design and long-lasting characteristics of its products. It is the companys ambition to push the boundaries even further by creating more sustainable products while also improving the user experience.

While we dont have a publicly stated renewable energy sourcing commitment in place, were investigating this for the next fiscal year (from June 1, 2022) and there is work ongoing to support the green transition.

This includes the recent decision to fully halt the use of natural gas in our operations. Natural gas has been used solely to power the anodizing process at our manufacturing site. In September 2022, well move from natural gas power to electric boiler powered anodization. On top of this, 17% of our fleet is already electric and were currently reviewing the fleet policy. While the review is still in process, we expect that it will require that the whole fleet becomes electric by end of fiscal year 2024/2025 at the latest.

Here is the original post:

Bang and Olufsen sustainability What you need to know - TrustedReviews

GENEVA (30 May 2022) -- A group of UN human rights experts have welcomed the adoption of the Durban Call to Action on the Elimination of Child Labor on 20 May 2022 by *representatives of governments, workers' and employers' organizations, UN agencies, civil society and regional organizations attending the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in South Africa. They issue the following joint statement:

"The Call emphasizes the need for urgent action because the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts, along with food, humanitarian and climate change threaten to reverse years of progress against child labour. We echo the call for urgent measures to address this tragedy and remain deeply concerned that millions more children will be soon pushed into work, which can seriously jeopardize their physical and mental health. Child labour also produces a structural impact on the enjoyment of other human rights, including rights to adequate housing, education, right to the highest attainable standard of health, right to a healthy environment and often has its root causes in structural, racial and other forms of discrimination.

In 2020, the number of children in child labour around the world rose to 160 million, the first increase recorded in 20 years; today around 79 million children are engaged in hazardous work. Seventy percent of child labour is concentrated in the agriculture sector with an estimated 108 million children working on farms and plantations around the world, which can cause short-term and chronic adverse health effects. The same agricultural system that diminishes biodiversity and increases pollution harms children. Tens of millions of children are engaged in hazardous work, where they are often exposed to toxic chemicals, including highly hazardous pesticides. To this day, children working in agriculture continue to be exposed to hazardous pesticides that are banned in the country of export, resulting in abhorrent double standards and discrimination.

It is often the case that after exposure to toxic pesticides, the violation of a child's right to physical integrity from toxics cannot be undone. In this sense, agricultural workers are often neglected, and there is an urgent need for States and business to address the dramatic increase of child labour in the agricultural sector worldwide.

The Durban Call to Action includes 49 immediate and effective measures governments should take to end child labour with an emphasis on agriculture. Most crucially, this includes adopting an action plan to eliminate obstacles to the establishment, growth and pursuit of lawful activities of rural worker organisations to give agricultural workers a role in economic and social development.

The Call to Action further includes a commitment to reduce poverty and improve labour conditions of all people working in rural communities including peasants, fishers, forest dwellers, and pastoralists. It recommends ending their functional dependence on child labour, by securing adequate incomes through cooperatives, and representative organizations in line with relevant ILO instruments, reassessing piece-rate wage systems in agriculture; and recognizing the need to guarantee adequate minimum wages for agricultural workers, sufficient to meet their needs. Strengthening social protection is also key in eliminating child labour. It protects households from extreme poverty which could, otherwise, lead to taking children out of school and putting them to work.

While there may be a place for children exceptionally and occasionally helping on family-run farms, childrens' place is in school. The Call to Action commits States to realize the right to education, by ensuring universal access to free, compulsory, quality, equitable and inclusive education and training. When prohibiting child labour, Governments must also ensure that the necessary conditions for learning are met, including adequate nutrition, water and sanitation, healthcare, books and uniforms provided free of charge. Poverty cannot be a reason that children are not in schools.

Governments must act rapidly, effectively, and continuously to improve working conditions on farms and plantations to provide decent employment and eliminate child labour. Business enterprises must have due diligence processes in place to ensure that there is no child labour across the supply chains and, where it is found, to hold all their subsidiaries, contractors, and sub-contractors accountable in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Governments must ensure that all actors involved in the use of child labour are held accountable.

Governments must promptly implement the instruments already in place. For instance, the ILO Convention on the Right of Association in Agriculture is key to eliminating child labour and achieving decent work for adults in agriculture. We encourage States to ratify, domesticate and implement international labour standards. We also strongly encourage governments to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.

Finally, we hope to see a conference to follow-up on the Call to Action and the development of strategies for better international coordination and cooperation on eliminating all forms of child labour, especially in the agriculture sector."

ENDS

() The experts: Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food; Ian Fry, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change; David R. Boyd, Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment; Koumba Boly Barry, Special Rapporteur on the right to education; Clment Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; S. Tlaleng Mofokeng**, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context;**** Felipe Gonzlez Morales, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants; Olivier De Schutter****, **Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; E. Tendayi Achiume, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance; Tomoya Obokata, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences; Marcos A. Orellana, **Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes; Catherine S. Namakula, current Chair-Rapporteur, Barbara G. Reynolds, Vice-Chairperson, Dominique Day, Miriam Ekiudoko and Sushil Raj ***Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent; Elbieta Karska (Chair-Rapporteur), Fernanda Hopenhaym (Vice Chairperson), Anita Ramasastry and Pichamon Yeophantong; Working Group on Business and Human Rights

The Independent Experts are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

*For more information and media requests please contact Lilit Nikoghosyan *(lilit.nikoghosyan@un.org)

For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts, please contact Jeremy Laurence (+ 41 79 444 7578 / jeremy.laurence@un.org).

Follow news related to the UN's independent human rights experts on Twitter: @UN_SPExperts.

Concerned about the world we live in?*Then stand up for someone's rights today.*#Standup4humanrights and visit the website athttp://www.standup4humanrights.org

Read the original post:

UN experts urge action to address alarming increase of child labour in agriculture sector - World - ReliefWeb