Category Archives: Wage Slavery

The Rev.Jesse Jacksonreturned to Memphis on Monday to markthe54th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther KingJr.'s assassination.

King was killedat the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

Jackson,then a 26-year-old rising figure in the civil rights movement,wasinMemphis with King for the sanitation workers strike and witnessed his assassination that evening on the balcony.

At the time, Jackson was a worker for King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and helped found Operation Breadbasket. He hasdedicated his career to advocating for human rights domestically and abroad.

Jackson has spokenin-depth about the impact the assassination has had on him and the country.

On Monday, Jackson was accompanied by Pastor Peris Lester of Mount Olive Church; Bishop Henry Williamson, presiding prelate of the First Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church; and family friend Joseph Kyles, nephew of legendary civil rights leader the late Rev. Samuel (Billy) Kyles, who was one of the last people to speak with King before he died.

Jackson visited The Commercial Appeal offices around 10 a.m. to share reflections on King's assassination and the sustained fight forvoting rights for Black people, Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court nominationand the role of the press during times of civil unrest.

Jackson emphasized the necessity for nonviolent conflict resolution, addressing current events including the war in Ukraine and the incident involvingChris Rock and Will Smith at the Oscars.

"We have to teach conflict resolution in our schools," he said.

MEMPHIS HISTORY: Meet Kathlyn J. Kirkwood, a South Memphis native who helped make MLK Day a federal holiday

BLACK HISTORY BOOKS: From Opal Lee to MLK, this Memphis author chronicles Black history for children

Jackson also addressed the shooting of unarmed Black men by police and gun violence in communities.

"We must be able todefend ourselves and not be nave about violence," he said. "We mustlearn the skills of deescalating violence. Our children must be able to let their aggression out in organized... ways."

Jackson, who has publicly talked about his battle with Parkinsons disease, was aided by an assistant who was constantly by his side.

At noon, Jackson held a press conference atMt. Olive CME Church in Memphis. He energized the congregationwith a call and response.

"I am somebody. I am somebody. Respect me. Protect me. Keep hope alive," he said.

Anengaged crowd nodded and affirmed aloud:"Stop the violence. Save the children."

Some attendees recalledhow Jackson had touched their lives personally during school visits or marching by their side in protests. One family caught an overnight flight to be in his presence.

During the press conference, he advocated for free higher education, gender wage parity, an increased minimum wage and sustainable work practicesunder capitalism as necessary for the advancement of all people.Heoutlined the main legs of the movement as ending slavery, ending Jim Crow and gaining the right to vote,access to healthcareandaccess to capital. To achieve these, Jackson said, litigation, legislation and education are imperative.

Shelby County Commissioners RegnialdMilton and Eddie Jones and Memphis City Councilmember Cheyenne Johnson also paid their respects to Jackson, thanking him for his work.

Jackson was also scheduled to tour the historicCollins Chapel Connectional Hospital.

Later Monday, Jackson made an appearance on the Lorraine Motel balcony at the National Civil Rights Museum during the museum's commemoration of King. He sat in the front row as about 500 people gathered to honor the slain civil rights leader with music, speeches and a solemn wreath-laying ceremony.

Astrid Kayembe covers South Memphis, Whitehaven and Westwood. She can be reached atastrid.kayembe@commercialappeal.com,(901) 304-7929 or on Twitter @astridkayembe_.

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Jesse Jackson visits Memphis to mark anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death - Commercial Appeal

Content warning: this article contains mention of abuse.

Phoebe Dimacali is a domestic worker from the Philippines and Chairperson of the Filipino Domestic Workers Association (FDWA-UK). Francesca Humi is the Advocacy and Campaigns Officer at Kanlungan Filipino Consortium providing immigration casework for undocumented migrants, including domestic workers.

Every year, around 20,000 Overseas Domestic Worker visas are issued to migrant domestic workers who enter the UK from outside the EU with their employers as sponsors for whom they work inside their households. 6 April 2022 marks a decade since Theresa May revoked the Overseas Domestic Workers (ODW) visa concession, removing hard-won rights for domestic workers ushering in the start of the notorious hostile environment policy.

The concession allowed migrant domestic workers to switch employers, register these changes with the Home Office, and apply for extensions of stay and settlement. With the change to the visa in 2012, stays are limited to six months and migrant domestic workers have become tied to individual employers as sponsors, often compared to the kafala system prevalent in the Gulf region, which many workers face prior to arriving in the UK. Domestic workers on the ODW visa can no longer freely switch employers even in cases where a worker is a victim of modern-day slavery or human trafficking and have lost their right to long-term settlement in the UK.

Filipino Domestic Workers Association (FDWA-UK) is a grassroots organisation for and by Filipino women working as domestic workers in the UK, established in response to the 2012 change in visas. It is a member of Kanlungan Filipino Consortium, which provides immigration advice and mental health and welfare-related support for Filipino migrants including survivors of human trafficking and modern-day slavery. As frontline support providers to migrant domestic workers, we know first-hand that these workers face systematic labour exploitation and a heightened risk of human trafficking, which the change in legislation has only exacerbated.

As frontline support providers to migrant domestic workers, we know first-hand that these workers face systematic labour exploitation

Every month, the FDWA-UK rescues a dozen domestic workers from abusive employers. Kanlungan and FDWA-UK receive weekly requests from traumatised domestic workers in urgent need of immigration advice, emergency accommodation, and welfare support. The workers we support are predominantly young women who have left the Philippines to work in private, wealthy households in Gulf countries, Hong Kong or Singapore to send remittances back home to support their families. Many describe difficult working conditions that worsen after being brought to the UK by their employers, where they have no knowledge of support available to them locally.

The vulnerability of migrant domestic workers through the current ODW visa cannot be overstated. A survey conducted in 2019 by the Voice of Domestic Workers found that:

These numbers reflect the experiences of FDWA-UK members. Domestic workers that we support tell us they didnt know where they were going before landing in London. As one FDWA member shared in a 2020 BBC London report, she travelled to the UK with her employer, without access to her passport, and then was subject to physical and verbal abuse until a fellow Filipino domestic worker rescued her. Many feel helpless about their situation after they escape, without the right to settle or work in the UK due to the restrictive terms of their visas their only source of support and joy is the community they find through organisations like FDWA-UK and Kanlungan.

The current ODW visa effectively transforms migrant workers into commodities with little consideration for their needs or rights. Alongside other organisations working to empower migrant domestic workers, we are calling for a return to the pre-2012 ODW visa and demanding better protection of the labour rights of domestic workers.

Just last month, the Government accepted the Low Pay Commissions recommendations that live-in workers should no longer be excluded from the National Living Wage and will put forward secondary legislation to Parliament to make these recommendations into law, based on testimony provided by members of Kanlungan and FDWA-UK. This is a welcome and long overdue sign that the chronic exploitation of domestic workers is finally being addressed and taken seriously.

The current ODW visa effectively transforms migrant workers into commodities with little consideration for their needs or rights

But still, there needs to be a firm commitment to the enforcement of labour law when it comes to domestic work, especially when abuse occurs behind closed doors far from the eyes of regulators. This win also comes in the context of the draconian Nationality and Borders Bill, Part 5 of which further curtails the rights of survivors of modern-day slavery and human trafficking. Last month, the government refused to consider a proposed amendment to the bill (Amendment 70A, backed by JCWI, Kalayaan, Kanlungan, the Voice of Domestic Workers, and others in the sector) that called for a reinstatement of the visa, arguing that the Home Office was beginning a new round of consultations with organisations working with migrant domestic workers. This is despite the fact that Amendment 70A itself was created with direct input from said frontline organisations that know the needs and experiences of migrant domestic workers.

A reformed ODW visa is an essential first step in preventing abuse and exploitation. It must allow workers to change employers, enforce rights in the workplace, give them the option to report abuse and guarantee their rights in the workplace, renew their visas and allow them to be joined by their spouses and children in short, giving migrant domestic workers the right to work and settle in the UK like other migrant workers.

All migrants have a right to a life of dignity, stability, and joy

However, we cannot stop there. For many migrant domestic workers, the impacts of the restrictive visa are only compounded by the hostile environment policy and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Research conducted by Dr Ella Parry-Davies for Kanlungan on the experiences of undocumented migrants in 2020 and 2021 found that migrant domestic workers were frequently exposed to Covid-19 without adequate personal protective equipment, were without sick pay or leave entitlement, and were at risk of losing their employment and housing (for live-in workers) if they or their employers became infected with Covid-19.

We firmly believe that all migrants have a right to a life of dignity, stability, and joy regardless of their immigration status or how they arrived in this country. The call from migrant domestic workers is simple: you entrust us with your houses, your children, your elderly isnt it time we were granted basic rights in this country? We call on the Government to reinstate the Overseas Domestic Workers visa. Domestic work is work. Migrants rights are human rights.

If you or someone you know has been affected by human trafficking, modern-day slavery, or exploitation, you can contact the Modern Slavery and Exploitation Helpline: 08000 121 700.

If you are a migrant domestic worker who needs urgent support with your current immigration or employment situation, please contact:

Kung ikaw o may kakilala ka na biktima ng human trafficking, pang-aalipin, o pang-aabuso, pwede mong kontakin ang Modern Slavery and Exploitation Helpline: 08000 121 700.

Kung ikaw ay migranteng domestic worker na nangangailangan ng agarang suporta sa kasalukuyan mong sitwasyon sa immigration o sa trabaho, maaari mong kontakin ang:

To keep up to date with our campaign to reinstate the pre-2012 visa and ratify the International Labour Organization Convention No. 189 on Domestic Workers:

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Why the Government must reinstate the pre-2012 Domestic Workers visa - gal-dem

UCLA Bruins guard Tyger Campbell shoots the ball against Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Drew Timme during the second half in the national semifinals of the Final Four of the 2021 NCAA Tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis April 3, 2021. (CNS/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters/Robert Deutsch)

In American sports, March offers a favorite event: March Madness, which can be a welcome distraction at various times of violent unrest and international tragedies, such as the unjust invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yet sports can also be the very site of its own kind of immorality.

For every pregame prayer led by Loyola Chicago's Sister Jean, there are dozens of star basketball players who rake in untold amounts of money for their universities and conferences, not to mention the literally millions of people (estimated 50 million this year) who will place bets on the games. And yet, the athletes who compete whose labor generates the millions of dollars to be pocketed by corporate sponsors, academic institutions and athletic organizations will not be sufficiently remunerated for their efforts.

In his magisterial study University Ethics, Jesuit Fr. Jim Keenan notes that the three main categories of alienation in the university community are along the lines of class, race and athletics. In fact, these three areas often overlap in the most successful student athletes we have seen throughout the tournament.

The financial windfall to a university from having a star student athlete play for either a football or men's basketball program is almost incalculable. Right away, the financial benefits are obvious. CBS Sports and Turner Sports pay the NCAA $850 million per year for the rights to broadcast the NCAA men's basketball tournament over a period of three weeks each March and April. That number will jump to $1.1 billion in 2025.

The national headquarters of the NCAA, or National Collegiate Athletic Association, in Indianapolis (Dreamstime/Jonathan Weiss)

Each school that appears in the tournament receives a "unit" for every game they play in that year's event. These units are worth more than $337,000. This money is then pooled together and given back to the individual conferences, who are then encouraged, though not obliged, to split up the money evenly.

For smaller conferences, then, these units turn out to have outsized importance, sometimes accounting for up to 70% of their annual operating budget.

And exactly zero of those dollars go to the individual athletes whose talents keep ticketholders in line and home viewers tuned to the tournament.

The most important development to take place in recent years on the issue of financial remuneration for college athletes is the June 21, 2021, opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in NCAA v. Alston. In his concurring opinion to the unanimous verdict in favor of the athletes who sought compensation from the NCAA, Justice Brett Kavanaugh concluded that the annual NCAA traditions "cannot justify the NCAA's decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs of student athletes who are not fairly compensated. Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate. ... The NCAA is not above the law."

The ruling, though, only benefits college athletes invited to sign endorsement deals, thereby making money off of their own name, image and likeness. Even though these agreements often ramp up in the days surrounding the tournaments, they will still only apply to the biggest stars. The vast majority of student athletes will not benefit from this ruling, either because they play a sport not frequently seen on television, or because they play in a smaller school or conference.

What does Catholic ethics have to offer in response to the unjust way in which their colleges and universities fail to remunerate their student athletes? I offer three principles that ought to be combined with the most obvious first step: paying student athletes. This practice, while it should be a prerequisite of any ethical relationship between a student athlete and the university, is not a panacea, but rather a step toward a more integrated vision of athletic freedom.

The poverty of student athletes is especially poignant and sinful when compared to the wealth of those coaching their teams.

First, Catholic ethics says we should resist the commodification of bodies. In Jesuit Fr. John Kavanaugh's Following Christ in a Consumer Society, he contrasts the values of the Commodity Form with those of the Personal Form. One of the most striking critiques Kavanaugh makes regards the commodification of bodies in our society today. The lens through which he examines this phenomenon is sexuality, but the parallels with college athletics are too obvious to ignore.

Kavanaugh notes "three particular aspects of advanced industrial and capitalistic sexuality which are worthy of special mention. It is strikingly voyeuristic; it has a highly developed technological rendition of sexual relations; and it is marked by a severing of human sexuality from the totality of the human person, and a fortiori from personal commitment."

Kavanaugh describes the act of voyeurism, which resonates with the "madness" tournament fans feel even when they have no specific relationship with individual players: "It demands no personal involvement, no commitment, no recognition of the personhood of the sexual object."

What must be built up in athletics in Catholic colleges and universities is the "power of relationship."

At my own institution, Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of our campus ministers, Immaculate Heart of Mary Sr. John Michele Southwick, has modeled the Personal Form with the student athletes in an exemplary way. She instituted a program for a day of reflection for all the student athletes on campus, offering breakout groups on various questions for self-evaluation. She encouraged the participants to examine their strengths and weaknesses, and to understand their choices as autonomous agents of their own lives, and to share their reflections with their colleagues and teammates.

She posed a series of questions about their time in college, on and off the court or field, and then asked them to think about what their life would be like after graduation. What were their goals? How could they best go about achieving them?

Such an exercise was straightforward and profound. Southwick addressed these student athletes as human beings, as young people striving for multiple goals while living varied, complex lives, not simply as athletes working for a higher score, a longer run, a faster time. This sort of care invites the common good to flourish among them both now and in the future.

The second Catholic ethical principle that applies to this issue is the preferential option for the poor. Part of caring for the whole person is ensuring that those who are materially poor are especially cared for. Even after taking into account the value of the "full ride" scholarships for student athletes in the "moneymaker" sports football and men's basketball, especially most athletes still fall below the poverty line.

The University of Notre Dame plays Stanford University in a Nov. 27, 2021, football game. (Wikimedia Commons/Chad Kainz)

The poverty of student athletes is especially poignant and sinful when compared to the wealth of those coaching their teams, who are among the highest paid employees at their universities. As with adjunct professors who often do not make a living wage and don't have benefits, student athletes are treated as objects. Scholarships don't count as sufficient remuneration because they are nontransferable; a student athlete cannot pay their parents' rent or other bills with those funds, for example.

So, the Catholic institution, vis--vis student athletes, has a simple choice: either it acknowledges that student athletes function as employees who earn huge sums of money for the university and then pays them accordingly or it continues to exploit the labor of student athletes and refuse them a just remuneration, continuing a practice that directly contradicts the church's social teaching.

Finally, college athletics also has a racial justice component. As Keenan reminds us, "That universities did not admit African Americans to their student body until rather recently is part of the often unacknowledged history of the American academy, but now through the work of administrators working with historians, we are learning how well major American universities profited by the slave trade. The American university houses the ghosts of slavery."

When millions of Americans turn on the television to follow the NCAA men's basketball tournament, perhaps the last thing on their minds is chattel slavery. The young men playing in these games seem to be enjoying themselves; they link arms with their teammates, hug their coaches and execute the plays to perfection. And yet, financial exploitation is on dramatic, public display.

A media timeout during a Big East match-up between Seton Hall University and Marquette University in January 2020. (Wikimedia Commons/DeFazioNJ)

Shaun Harper's research on the Power Five conferences is instructive. "Black men were 2.4% of undergraduate students enrolled at the 65 universities but comprised 55% of football teams and 56% of men's basketball teams on those campuses." Harper also notes that the audience for these games, both in person and on television, is overwhelmingly white.

And to return to the leaders of these programs, "Black men are 11.9% of these head coaches. Power 5 athletics directors earn on average, $707,418 annually. Black men are 15.2% of these athletics directors. The five conference commissioners earn, on average, salaries that exceed $2.5 million. None are Black."

Clearly, there is an important connection between race and class not just in society at large but within the university, and also within their athletic departments. Catholic higher education leaders ought to be on the front lines advocating for fair financial remuneration for their athletes. Failing to do so will only add another chapter in the shameful history of racism in the Catholic church.

As Pope Francis has reminded us, everything is connected. Once the best college basketball players begin earning a salary, these young people will be treated more and more as subjects, and we the viewers can be more than consumers. Until that day comes, we should be cheering for more than our alma maters to succeed in March Madness; we should also long for the end of this uncompensated labor.

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Three reasons this Catholic ethicist thinks college athletes should be paid - National Catholic Reporter

In this week's newsletter, the right has predicted that 'the end of Britain' is night because a pub in Devon renamed the ploughman's sandwich.

In a week where the cost of living crisis is starting to hit home, with energy bills rising from April 1, right wing media commentators were particularly interested in meaningless culture war nonsense that requires them to have a meltdown about a sandwich.

In #RightWingWatch news, I covered movements among Conservative pressure groups in Parliament, with both the Net Zero Scrutiny Group and the Conservative Environment Network increasing their support among Tory MPs amid a tug of war over green policies which could have wider implications for us all

I also looked at another Steve Baker group (hes behind the Tufton Street Net Zero Watch and Net Zero Scrutiny Group), the Thatcher fan club, Conservative Way Forward. Baker announced he was relaunching the group in December, but its been delayed until April because they cant seem to decide what their raison detre should be.

Getting very mad about a sandwich

Nigel Farage is angry because Disney has decided that 50% of roles in its productions will be from underrepresented groups, like ethnic minorities and LGBTQ people.

GB News is angry because a single pub in Devon renamed the ploughmans sandwich the ploughpersons sandwich, in a tongue in cheek nod to female farmers.

Daily Mail hack Andrew Pierce is upset that people receiving NHS care have to fill out a generic form which asks if theyre pregnant, even if theyre a man.

When did the right get so angry all the time at such tiny things? Has it always been like this? This isnt normal behaviour, theyre losing their minds at a sandwich.

Nile Gardiner, the British mascot of US right wing think tank the Heritage Foundation, called the gender neutral sandwich the end of Britain. Wow, theyve cancelled Britain now? Why? Oh, just because someone renamed a sandwich.

I really never knew that the ploughmans was such a core part of British identity, but presumably thats because I live in London, which is not part of Real Britain.

But it seems that the fear of progressive sandwiches is actually a global contagion. In Australia, right wing politician Mark Latham was forced into publicly soiling himself over a vegan rainbow sandwich sold in the New South Wales Parliament.

These days, it seems that if you mention colonialism even happened, youll be accused by the frothing nationalists at places like GB News and Breitbart of attempting to literally destroy your own country.

Which in a strange way is actually a frank admission that a lot of Britain was indeed built by the dead labour of millions of exploited colonial subjects and the wealth extracted by their masters.

A couple of weeks ago, Breitbart London claimed that the National Museum Wales was trying to cancel the steam train, after it launched a BLM-inspired review of its collection with the intent of decolonising the museums production of knowledge about the past.

Admitting that items in its collection were historically linked to colonialism and slavery isnt what I would call cancelling the steam train. The steam train still exists, after all, but it appears that its the reassessment of past history which troubles the Defenders of Empire over at these right wing publications.

Because the museum was inspired to reassess its collection by the Black Lives Matter protests, they also decided to include placards from the 2020 BLM protests in its collection. And would you guess who was annoyed at that? Thats right, Nigel Farage.

Farage against the machine

Ive been reading Michael Cricks biography of Nigel Farage, which contains some rather juicy interviews with some of his contemporaries at school. I already knew the story about how he once marched through a Sussex village shouting Hitler Youth songs, and used to love the fact that his initials were the same as those of the National Front.

But there are accounts from a number of other pupils, one of whom said he suffered frequent anti-Semitic verbal abuse by Farage. Another Jewish pupil said Farage would walk up to him and say Hitler was right, or Gas em.

He was a deeply unembarrassed racist, another pupil said, who relished rubbing people up the wrong way. Like a lot of modern internet trolls, he would brush off his frequent use of racism as just a means to troll other pupils or the teaching staff who he considered to be too left wing.

Getting mad at BLM placards or a sandwich may seem bizarre behaviour, but its just what Farage has always been doing. Provoking, trolling, seeking attention. But I think the difference now is that the culture he represents is on the back foot.

No longer can you hide your racism among the generalised prejudices of 1970s Britain. Nigel Farages views in the 70s may have not been so remarkable because many more people held them. Now you cant go around saying Hitler was right on GB News, so you have to dog whistle about a sandwich, which looks pathetic and ridiculous.

Farage and co are still schoolboys trying to provoke a reaction. The difference is that now, people like him are in charge of the government and a lot of the media, and so they cant get angry about any of the things theyre responsible for, like the cost of living crisis, wage stagnation and poverty.

With the start of April and energy prices skyrocketing, Im sceptical about how many people will be convinced that a sandwich in Devon is really the main problem facing Britain.

John Lubbock leads on the Right-Watch project at Left Foot Forward

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Right Wing Watch Newsletter: When did the right become the snowflakes? - Left Foot Forward

As news reports uncover more information about the coal dealings of Joe Manchin III, the West Virginia Poor Peoples Campaign will hold a 23-mile march followed by a rally to pressure the US senator to change his ways and support actions that save both his own constituents and democracy.

The Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will support the West Virginia PPC with the march from Harpers Ferry to Martinsburg, which begins with a rally at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, April 5, outside Storer College. The co-chairs of the PPC:NCMR, Bishop William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, will speak at the rally, as will state leaders and impacted people.

Manchin's unyielding attacks on the poor such as blocking living wages and refusing to support a bill that extends the tax credit that helps children or expand health care and ultimately carrying the agenda of the Chamber of Commerce rather than having compassion for the people of his state and the country these are why West Virginia is our countrys Selma, Bishop Barber said. This is why we accepted the invitation from the West Virginia PPC to join this march and engage in direct action with poor and low-wealth people in the state where my grandfather was born. And its why we must hold the Mass Poor Peoples and Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls on June 18th.

The various programs can be viewed here.

Sen. Manchin has refused to help his own constituents, especially 710,000 poor and low-income West Virginians, by blocking the passage of even a watered-down Build Back Better. He has refused to save our democracy by blocking bills to restore and expand voting rights protections such as the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Rev. Dr. Theoharis said. More importantly, his refusal to end the racist filibuster or enact a fair taxation system blocks policies that protect the people and the planet. Time and time again, Sen. Manchin chooses the greed of the chamber of commerce and billionaires over the needs of the people. I am proud to march with moms who have lost the Child Tax Credit, low-wage workers, families impacted by coal waste Sen. Manchin profits from, and others who are demanding voting rights, living wages, clean air and water, and the right to thrive not barely survive.

Figures compiled by the Institute for Policy Studies last year showed that the $3.5 trillion (over 10 years) version of BBB would have: created 17,290 new jobs in West Virginia; benefited 346,000 children by extending the expanded child tax credit; and allowed an additional 88,050 people to take paid leave each year.

The WVPPC, the PPC:NCMR and partner organizations are demanding that Manchin move from policy cruelty to compassion and from policy meanness to mercy to help not just the 40% of West Virginians who are poor or low-income 710,000 people but the 140 million nationally who are since his votes hurt not just his constituents but people across the country.

Both Storer College and the town of Harpers Ferry are deeply connected to the civil rights movement. Storer was a historically Black college that opened in 1867 and served both Black and white students at times. It hosted the first American meeting of the Niagara Movement, the predecessor to the NAACP, in 1906.

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass described Harpers Ferry as the town where the end of American slavery began because John Brown tried to initiate a slave revolt there in 1859.

On Wednesday, marchers will rally at 4:30 p.m. ET against the Rockwool insulation plant in Ranson at a bike path across from the plant. Some residents opposed the plant because they fear damage to the environment.

Below is the schedule for the rest of the week. All programs begin at 10 a.m. ET unless otherwise stated:

_ April 7: Marchers will go by North Jefferson Elementary School and through Fox Glen.

_ April 8: March to Martinsburg.

_ April 9: Rally at Sen. Manchins office in Martinsburg and then support West Virginia Rising in its blockade at Manchins coal plant in Grant Town that afternoon.

_ April 10: Bishop Barber and Rev. Dr. Theoharis preach a Palm Sunday service across the street from Manchins dirty coal plant in Grant Town.

Last week, the New York Times published an article titled How Joe Manchin Aided Coal, and Earned Millions.

At every step of his political career, Joe Manchin helped a West Virginia power plant that is the sole customer of his private coal business, the article said. Along the way, he blocked ambitious climate action.

Read the original:

'This is our Selma': Poor People's Campaign begins 23-mile march on Tuesday to demand that Sen. Manchin stop abandoning poor and low-wealth people...

As more than three and a half million people flee to the borders of Ukraine, many of them are being helped to safety by the enormous efforts of charities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), friends, relatives and kind individuals with the drive to do something useful.

Yet there are also Ukrainians running for their lives who are at serious risk of being preyed upon by traffickers or predators once they arrive. They are under threat from people who see in the desperation of the displaced a financial opportunity.

Aagje Leven is secretary general at Missing Children Europe and is deeply concerned about children disappearing in the chaos of this conflict.

Its very hard to fathom that when war and disaster happen there are people who try to exploit that, she tells i, and it seems to be a constant. There are trafficking networks already present in Ukraine as well as border countries, as there are in every country, and they are the first ones to see the situation and take advantage of it.

Leven says that she is already aware of cases where people are posing as volunteers for NGOs and preying on children.

These people are catching children who are on the move trying to get to the borders, and those trafficking networks might convince parents to give them power of attorney or convince the child to travel with them. Thats a huge risk, and its very difficult for the border guards to screen all of that.

Charities working at the border report that the majority of children are accompanied by their mother, perhaps an aunt, or an extended family member, friends or volunteers. Children with their mothers, which is the best-case scenario, may still be at risk of exploitation, but its the unaccompanied children who are likely to be the most vulnerable.

According to Unicef, more than 500 unaccompanied children were identified crossing from Ukraine into Romania from 24 February to 17 March. The true number of separated children who have fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries is likely to be much higher, and separated children are especially vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation.

What makes this such a pressing issue is that 28 per cent of identified victims of trafficking globally are children, and child-protection experts believe that in the Ukrainian war, children would likely account for an even higher proportion of potential trafficking victims given that children and women represent nearly all of the refugees who have fled the country so far, as the men have stayed behind to fight.

Weve never seen such an influx of refugees on European grounds at such short notice, says Leven, so there are a lot of gaps in terms of registering every child who crosses the border, and accounting for everyone. People would have their IDs checked, but they wouldnt be able to be registered.

There were minimal checks to see if children were travelling with people they knew. It was a completely overwhelming situation, but the organisation at the borders is getting better now. Most of the authorities have been dealing with it as best they can, but its just not possible to do this completely right from the beginning.

It takes some time for a government to respond, to adapt to a new situation like this, and so people fall through the gaps.

Its impossible for a child-protection system to protect the child that theyre not aware of, says Leven.

As reports have emerged of suspicious behaviour from people waiting at the borders, police at the busy border crossing of Medyka in Poland have had a larger presence in recent days, to check the identity of volunteers and drivers offering lifts to refugees, but in the immediacy of the devastation of war, the screening processes are far from foolproof.

Irena Dawid-Olczyk, chief executive of the Warsaw branch of anti-trafficking NGO La Strada, told the BBCs Katya Adler that she and her colleagues were working on a case involving Ukrainian girls being offered plane tickets to Mexico, Turkey, the UAE, without ever having met the men inviting them. Charities have also raised concerns that as much as people are in great need of shelter and safety, and the kindness of people opening their homes under the UK refugee scheme is heartening, it could also provide an opportunity for abusers.

There are also other long-term risks for women and children, which will have ripple effects for a long time to come. While there is the immediate concern of trafficking, which is involuntary, other refugees struggling to reach safety may pay smugglers who promise them safe crossing, only to be forced into modern slavery later.

Philippa Southwell is a specialist human-trafficking and modern-slavery lawyer, who was called to give oral evidence as a legal expert in the Home Affairs Committee modern-slavery inquiry.

Cases like the ones I work on, she tells i, often come about from a desperate person fleeing conflict, paying someone willingly to smuggle them into a country. They pay an agent to facilitate getting them to another country or destination, but its when they become debt bonded, that exploitation takes place.

So, for example, to get somebody from Vietnam to the UK, it would cost someone around 50,000 which theyd pay to a smuggler. The average Vietnamese worker cant afford that so they will pay a deposit to arrange the travel, under the agreement that when they get to the UK they will work to pay off that debt. So then theyve become trafficked, put to work in domestic labour or cannabis farms, and that debt is actually never paid off. Its an invisible debt and the traffickers add interest and every time the journey fails at a certain level, more more money is added to the debt. So thats when an agreement becomes an exploitative situation.

If displaced Ukrainians are exploited in the UK, the trafficking situations wont come to the attention of the authorities for many months or years, until someone has liberated themselves from the situation.

I dont think its not happening, she says, I just think its premature, and these cases will begin to emerge six to 12 months down the line. There will be people who have fled from war whose immigration status is not settled, who will work illegally, or be exploited by cash-in-hand jobs which dont pay minimum wage, forced into criminal activity.

We see that very often with Vietnamese nationals coming to the UK, says Southwell.

They may not have been trafficked, they may have been smuggled, because they are desperate. They then engage with individuals who will exploit them in different sorts of criminality.

Many of Southwells clients have been exploited for many years. They feel they cant talk to the authorities because they have this mistrust and fear for the authorities because they dont want to be sent back home. They remain embedded in this underworld of exploitation because they cant liberate themselves. Its a vicious cycle.

So what can well-intentioned people at the borders do to help as the war rages on and more people flee their shelled homes? The best thing, says Leven, is to listen to the authorities, make yourself known to them properly.

Working with the authorities is the only way to make sure youre doing the right thing, she says.

Register, get the wristband that shows youve been checked, show your ID to people, work with the official authorities. If you identify an unaccompanied child, dont leave the child alone, keep them with you, until you can hand them over to official child-protection services that you can verify.

Sometimes its as simple as asking someone claiming to be a volunteer to identify themselves, and if theyre unwilling to show their ID, you know somethings wrong. If you identify an individual or situation that you think is fishy, alert the authorities, get them involved.

Of course, most of the volunteers have good intentions, says Leven, and she saw some great work being done at the border crossings. We saw a child who was cared for very well and all the right things were done for him.

Yet sometimes, even when people have good intentions, they are not necessarily good for the at-risk children.

Im getting people from other countries calling me and saying, I want to adopt a Ukrainian baby. With the Ukrainian children that we find, my job is to connect them with family, were not looking for people who want to adopt babies. This is not about adoption, its about caring for them, protecting them as near to their home country as possible until we can connect them with people from their cities, people from their communities who know them and can take care of them in safety.

Its all incredibly challenging. The key is to look forward to handle the next stage of this devastation.

When Leven was in Poland earlier this week, things felt a little more manageable on the border compared to a few weeks ago. That means this is a good time to discuss official structures to train people, she says, to get more capacity, for officials to work more closely with organisations with Unicef and other NGOs.

After all, as the war rages on, there are every day more women and children at the border desperately putting their trust into strangers they hope will help them to safety.

For more information visit https://missingchildreneurope.eu/

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The separated Ukrainian children at risk of predators, and misguided attempts to adopt babies - iNews

By Kieran Guilbert, Thomson Reuters Foundation

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Fashion giant H&M is failing to fulfill a pledge to ensure garment workers who supply its high-street stores are paid a fair living wage, forcing many employees to work excessive hours in order to survive, civil society groups said on Monday.

Based on interviews with 62 people in six H&M supplier factories in Bulgaria, Turkey, India and Cambodia, campaigners said none of the workers earned anything near a so-called living wage that would allow them to cover their families basic needs.

Major brands are under growing pressure from campaigners and consumers alike to improve working conditions along their global supply chains, and render them free of exploitation and slavery.

The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) said Swedens H&M - the worlds second-largest fashion retailer after Zara owner Inditex - had not met a commitment made in 2013 to ensure its suppliers would pay a living wage to some 850,000 textile workers by 2018.

H&M needs to take action immediately to stop the scandal of poverty wages and workers rights violations, said Bettina Musiolek of the CCC, an alliance of labor unions and charities.

However H&M - which has more than 4,800 stores in 69 nations - said it had reached at least 600 factories and 930,000 garment workers with its fair living wage strategy, and did not share the CCCs view of how to create change in the textile industry.

There is no universally agreed level for living wages, and wage levels should be defined and set by parties on the labor market through fair negotiations between employers and workers representatives, not by Western brands, a H&M spokeswoman said.

The CCC report found that workers in H&M supplier factories in Cambodia earned less than half the estimated living wage, dropping to about a third for those living in India and Turkey.

Many worked overtime hours that exceeded the legal limit without being properly paid, while others were only paid the minimum wage if they worked extra hours and met their quota, which the United Nations defines as forced labor, the CCC said.

Instead of empty public relations talk, we want to see transparent changes in the real wages of workers in H&Ms supply chain, Judy Gearhart, executive director of the U.S.-based International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), said a in statement.

The ILRF urged H&M to publish a road map with time-bound, measurable wage increase targets and outline how they will change purchasing practices to ensure workers get a living wage.

However the issue of living wages is bigger than one brand, and too few companies have initiatives to drive up wages, said Peter McAllister of the Ethical Trading Initiative, a group of trade unions, companies and charities of which H&M is a member.

If we are to make sure all garment workers receive a decent wage then encouraging industry-wide action must be a priority, the groups chief executive told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

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H&M accused of failing to ensure fair wages for global ...

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson is best known for his Century Cycle, a collection of 10 stories, each one set in a different decade of the 20th Century, that look at the lives of Black Americans and their struggles in a callous and unjust world.

Gem of the Ocean, which is currently onstage at Portland Center Stage, is the first of these stories chronologically, setting its action in 1904 and introducing audiences to Aunt Ester Tyler, a shamanistic woman who acts as a spiritual advisor to misguided Blacks who need to get their souls clean. However, absolution doesnt come easy, as one particular young traveler soon learns.

As Gem begins, Ester (Treasure Lunan) lives at 1839 Wiley Avenue in Pittsburghs Hill District with her caregiver Eli (Victor Mack) and her protg Black Mary (Andrea Vernae). When disgruntled mill worker Citizen Barlow (Henry Noble) arrives at her home, Ester, surprisingly, allows him in, promising to give the divine cleansing Citizen thinks he desperately needs (but not in the way he expects).

Gem of the Ocean sets itself apart from other plays in the Century Cycle by indulging in magical realism. Aunt Ester claims to be 285-years-old and remembers coming to America on slave ships. Her wisdom is a mix of African ritual and Biblical allegory thats just insightful enough to make the audience wonder how much of it is true.

The production wisely plays into the polysemy of the storyEsters home is a ramshackle old house, but it creaks and groans like a ship at sea. Citizens vision quest in the second half might be a genuine spiritual experience or simply the result of a wily old womans theatricality.

Lunan leans into the ambiguity, giving a performance that pays off tremendously. They imbue Ester with both wisdom and a cackling sense of humor that leaves the audience unsure of her powers, but grateful to see her onstage nonetheless.

Of course, Gem isnt without its more grounded, serious elements. The backdrop of the story is growing tensions between the resentful employees of a local tin mill and the wage-slavery practices of the mills owners. The two sides are represented by Solly Two Kings (WRICK Jones), a former Underground Railroad conductor who is sympathetic to the millers plight, and Caesar (Bobby Bermea), the local policeman who is Marys estranged brother.

Despite only appearing sporadically, Caesar is a surprisingly fascinating villain. Hes been able to advance and prosper in the immediate post-slavery age, but is unaware (or unwilling to admit) that he only succeeded by stepping on his fellow Blacks. His villainy is especially relevant given Portlands recent clashes with law enforcement, serving as a reminder that whats legal and whats right dont always intersect.

Caesar is unerringly devoted to upholding the law and makes no concessions, to the point where he shows no moral qualms about killing a suspect over a stolen loaf of bread. Even still, he wants desperately to maintain a relationship with his sister, ignoring how much she and everyone else despises him.

The cast is uniformly strong, but the one who ends up having to carry most of the play is Noble. Citizen is our everyman and our guide to Esters strange world. He has to reflect our curiosity and wonder at this maybe magical, maybe mundane matriarch, but never let his pain and desperation be forgotten.

Noble fulfills the plays demands, radiating energy and never letting his journey be swept away in the chaos. At the same time, Jones ably brings Solly to life, giving the character a wry sense of humor and rebellious spirit, but also a sense of gravitas and seriousness when called upon.

By storys end, Gem of the Ocean reminds the audience of the fact that while freedom is the ideal, it isnt freeand that for Black Americans, that bill has yet to be paid. So long as exploitative capitalism, oppressive law enforcement, and erasure of Black history live, freedom is under threat, and its on all of us to remember our past, learn in the present, and apply those teachings to a more equitable, more just future.

SEE IT: Gem of the Ocean plays at Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th Ave., 503-445-3700, pcs.org. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Sunday, 2 pm Saturdays and Sundays, 2 pm select Thursdays. Schedule may vary for some shows. Tickets start at $25.

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Portland Center Stage Delivers a Powerful Production of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean - Willamette Week

Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) at a rally outside the U.S. House on Feb. 8, 2022, calling for a raise to the minimum wage. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)

The parade of Equal Pay Days kicked off recently. The dates mark wage gaps for all women, Black women, Latina womeneach one more disheartening than the last. But then what? After we stand by the side of the road and watch, we go back to our lives, unsure why this is still going on, and what to do about it.

Its not a simple problem to tackle, thats for surebut its also not impossible. Lets start with the reality, and then look at the history and then some actions that would offer transformative change.

First, the wage gaps by gender, race and ethnicity happen at all levels, but the weight at the bottom is pulling us all down. The fact is that the low-wage workforce is wildly disproportionately made up of workers from historically marginalized populations: women and people of color.

When Oxfam recently analyzed data on who earns low wages in the U.S., we were prepared to find that the low-wage workforce was skewed by race and gender. What we didnt expect are the staggering gaps.

Nearly a third of the workforce (32 percent) is earning less than $15 an hour: roughly 52 million workers struggling to get by on less than $30,000 a year, even now, in the face of surging inflation and skyrocketing gas prices.

Simply put, federal law has enshrined a double standard. It has created a low-wage workforce that law ignores and employers exploit.

However, when you drill down, the structural nature of low wages jumps out. While 25 percent of men earn less than $15, 40 percent of women do. While 26 percent of white workers earn less than $15, nearly half of Black and Hispanic/Latinx workers do. Women of color? A full 50 percent earn less than $15; in some states, it soars to 70 percent.

So, how did this happen? It cant be an accident. And its not. Its the result of a long, tangled history in our country, one built on structural racism and sexism, along with a legacy of slavery and a broken immigration system.

It has turned into a kind of occupational segregation so ingrained that its become dangerously invisible. Consider gender: Women are often employed in jobs involve tasks historically considered womens work: serving, cooking, cleaning and caring for people. And race/ethnicity: Hispanic/Latinx workers make up a huge part of the agricultural workforce; women of color make up most of the workers in domestic labor.

And these jobs? Often fall outside the protections offered in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Employers can still pay tipped workers (two-thirds female) $2.13 an hour (stuck since 1991). Farm workers and domestic workers do not enjoy protections like overtime and rights to organize which are provided to most workers under the FLSA.

This is not a coincidenceits a direct result of discrimination against these populations. When the FLSA was first passed in 1938, it specifically exempted farm workers and domestic workers because of pressure from Southern legislators who insisted on excluding Black workers.

Not that the work, and the workers, are not essential to our economy and society. These workers harvest, cook and serve our food, and care for our children and parents. Their work has value, they have dignity.

But here we are: Simply put, federal law has enshrined a double standard. It has created a low-wage workforce that law ignores and employers exploit.

And in 2022, it has become nothing less than a civil rights emergency. Why are we comfortable, as a nation, in watching certain communities slide into despair and poverty-even as theyre working hardwhile corporations and shareholders enjoy record profits, and executives bring home record compensation?

It has to stop. Congress should do all in its power to mandate that employers pay wages that dont leave workers in precarity or even poverty.

At the end of the day, in light of this heavy history, where do we go?

Well, one solution is straightforward, and simple: Raise the federal minimum wage, and establish one universal wage. Thats on the table in Congress, in the form of theRaise the Wage Actbut you wont be able to find it. While it passed the House, once it entered the Senate it got lost under a blanket ofcorporate influence and political cowardice.

States have acted; many large corporations have acted, some announcing a$24 hourly starting wagefor certain workers. So why is the Senate blocking a piece of legislation that would have a transformative impact on wages and well-being of people in this country?

Raising the wage to $15 and establishing a universal minimum wage would go a long way toward chipping away at the gender and race wage gaps in this country. After years of watching the parade, maybe we can finally do more than watch: Lets shift the dates, reward the workers, and value the work properly.

If you found this articlehelpful,please consider supporting our independent reporting and truth-telling for as little as $5 per month.

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Millions of Women Would Benefit From a Minimum Wage HikeFar More than Men - Ms. Magazine

CEO Peter Hebblethwaite - who earns a base salary of 325,000 - did not answer when asked if he could live on 5.50 an hour, which is the new average wage paid to the companys seafaring staff.

Mr Hebblethwaite told a joint meeting of the Transport and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committees this morning that consulting unions on the new crewing model would have been a sham and that no union could accept our proposal.

He told MPs: We assessed that given the fundamental nature of change, no union could accept it and therefore we chose not to consult because a consultation process would have been a sham.

We didnt want to put anybody through that.

We are compensating people in full and up-front for that decision.

Almost 800 staff were made redundant last Thursday, including seafarers operating P&O Ferries route from Hull to Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

New crew have been hired on wages that fall more than 3 an hour below the UK minimum wage.

The entirely different model P&O now has, is about half the price of the previous model, Mr Hebblethwaite said.

Commenting on whether he believed that was a fair wage or whether he saw it as modern day slavery, Mr Hebblethwaite said: The rates we are paying are in line or above ITF minimum standards and it is the operating model that the vast majority of operators across the globe work to.

So this is the competitive standard.

When it was pointed out that the rate was below minimum wage, which is 8.91 an hour for workers over the age of 23, Mr Hebblethwaite replied: Where we are governed by national minimum wage, we will absolutely pay national minimum wage.

This is an international seafaring model that is consistent with models throughout the globe and our competitors.

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), told MPs that P&O Ferries made flagrant breaches of the law.

He said: Theyve done it deliberately and theyve factored in what theyre going to have to pay for it.

He said the company is threatening and blackmailing its former employees, telling them they must sign a document or youll potentially get no award whatsoever, and you have to give up all of your legal rights.

He added: This is absolutely outrageous.

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P&O Ferries boss admits unions were not consulted over sackings and new crew paid below minimum wage - The Yorkshire Post