Category Archives: Wage Slavery

When a group of fellow refugees asked for help navigating the construction industry because they believed they were being exploited, Hedayat Osyun decided to go one step further.

He started his own construction company as a social enterprise, now known as CommUnity Construction, that solely hires and trains recently arrived refugees and asylum seekers. Its the kind of safe haven he would have benefited from as a teenager who escaped the Taliban in 2009 and arrived in Australia.

I decided to provide a safe platform for refugees and migrants so they can flourish, contribute to this country, and where they can work proudly.

I found that hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers were being exploited at their workplace because they didnt speak English, they dont have a strong network, and they dont know how to navigate the system.

Since it was founded in 2017, the company has employed and trained 65 refugees from a variety of backgrounds including Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Not only are they paid a living wage, they get support to help settle in Australia.

When they start working with me, I become like a member of their family, Osyun says. When they received documents or letters, they contact me. I help them enrol for courses, I help them sponsor their families, get their licences, everything.

They held informal English lessons on lunch breaks, before forging a partnership with Navitas to provide professional lessons for staff.

All the basic stuff we take for granted is a struggle for them, and I try and help them through the whole settlement process.

CommUnity Construction has worked on a range of projects, from commercial buildings and hospitality fit-outs to home renovations. It recently completed cultural installations at Darling Harbour and Parramatta, and renovated a five-star hotel in Manly.

Nasrat Najafi, 25, worked at CommUnity Construction for three years before recently establishing his own painting business.

I worked with [Osyun] for years, he trained me, taught me waterproofing, tiling and painting. He helped me get my licences and my paperwork in order, and now I have my own business, with four employees, Najafi said.

Before I worked with him, I worked as a mechanic, but I was an apprentice so my pay was very low. I worked like that for one year, before Nick [Osyun] told me to come work for him.

Najafi, who arrived in Australia as a 19-year-old in 2012, said he decided to work with Osyun because he offered to mentor him through the settlement process.

Hes a good man. He helped many refugees like me, just making our lives easier. He taught me the trade and how to run a business, and with all the paperwork.

He was a very good boss and a good teacher.

While his language skills and networks have helped Osyun with the business, being a refugee himself has enabled him to win the trust of his workers.

When the Taliban attacked his village in Afghanistan in 2009, Osyuns mother implored him to leave and find a future elsewhere. On the journey to Australia he thought multiple times that he would die before arriving on Christmas Island, where he was detained for three months. He says he was treated like a criminal and that his detention there affected him physically and emotionally.

It was like being in jail, it was such a traumatic experience. Its become a permanent part of my memory. Now, 11 years later, I still feel the trauma.

Newly arrived migrants and refugees have a higher unemployment rate compared with the rest of the country, although it does vary based on skill level, age, English proficiency and how long they have been in Australia.

Refugee and migrant agency Ames Australia released an analysis of employment data from the National Skills Commission (NSC) in September 2020 and found the pandemic was exacerbating a gap between the migrant unemployment rate and that of the Australian-born population.

There are twice as many migrants and refugees looking for work as Australian-born jobseekers, the analysis says.

Traditionally, newly arrived migrants and refugees have a higher unemployment rate than the general population about 5.9% compared with 4.7% for the Australian-born population, based on 2019 figures.

After he was released from Christmas Island, Osyun worked as a labourer in Sydney a job he describes as akin to modern slavery. He says his experience is not uncommon.

Some of my colleagues from refugee backgrounds told me they worked for a company for three months and were never paid. Some have been asked to do extra hours for free, some are fired without explanation or pay.

And they have no idea what to do about it. Some come from corrupt societies and think its the same here. Others are afraid they may impact their settlement process if they complain.

He says he witnessed recently arrived refugees and migrants grow hopeless and disaffected by their experiences in the industry, compounding the trauma they would have already endured trying to get to Australia.

This exploitation, its a very deep and fundamental problem. Theres no accountability, theyre just using people. I just thought this is not OK, and I can do something about it.

He is determined to grow the social enterprise.

I think it can go national, even international. If you give refugees and asylum seekers a chance, they can show you how hardworking they are. They just need equal opportunities.

The sky is the limit, he says. Im so proud of it and all the work we do, and Im very hopeful for the future.

Link:

A safe haven: refugee builders are being helped to a job by one of their own - The Guardian

Its Thanksgiving season, and whatever your manner of celebration, chances are that youve enjoyed some time off from work. If, like most of us, you gathered with family and friends, you might even have paused to consider what exactly gives meaning to your life.

And, just in time, Pew Research Center is out with a survey of 19,000 people in 17 developed countries on exactly that question. Respondents were given 17 possible sources of meaning and asked to rank them. Whats remarkable is how consistent the answers are but also how the U.S. is different.

Family dominated. In 14 of the 17 countries, family ranked first; in another it was tied for first. In the other two, family ranked third. Nearly everywhere, occupation or material well-being occupied the second spot. And although friends made the top five in 13 of the surveyed countries, the U.S. was one of two countries where friends ranked second.

Families and friends: the people who sit around the Thanksgiving table.

The U.S. was also unique in being the only developed economy where religious faith made the top five sources of meaning. Nowhere else did faith make even the top 10. The nations degree of religious belief continues to distinguish us from other developed countries a truth many seem to find disagreeable, but which some of us consider valuable and important.

All of which brings us back to work: the thing Thanksgiving gives most of us time off from.

We dont know how many people like their jobs. In the U.S., job satisfaction is as high as 85% in some surveys, and under 50% in others. A recent survey by Goodhire found Generation Z to be most unhappy with their jobs. (Its not clear how greatly that last result is influenced by pandemic conditions.)

But whether or not were happy with our work, in the Pew survey, occupation ranked as the fourth-most important source of meaning in the U.S., just behind material well-being, for which work is the typical source, unless you inherit wealth (or become well-off through some less savory means).

This being Thanksgiving season, however, perhaps we should all be giving thanks for the existence of work itself.

Seriously.

The historian Jan Lucassen, in his splendid new volume The Story of Work, reminds us that although slavery has been a dominant form of labor throughout history and in every culture, where labor has been freer, workers for millennia have taken pride in a job well done. For many, it seems, work was a source of meaning in life long before we set about the conscious search for meaning in life.

Its common these days for even well-salaried professionals to complain about the drudgery of work, but Lucassen suggests that weve never had it so good. Even as enslavement faded as a source of labor worldwide, wage-work was harsh: Around 1830, earning a living in Britain required, on average, more than 300 11-hour days, or 3,300 hours net per year.

True, the early hunter-gatherers worked less than many of todays professionals do an estimated eight hours a day for men and 10 hours a day for women but they also had a life expectancy of perhaps 30 years, not least because their existence was ravaged by predators and disease.

The 19th-century utopians imagined that by now the human race, buoyed by mechanization, would lead lives of leisure, but that fantasy still lies somewhere in the misty future.

Like other theorists, Lucassen points to the rising standard of living: Some people work hard because they like their work but others work hard to live up to the standard. He quotes an unemployed English miner from the 1960s: Frankly, I hate work. Of course, I could also say with equal truth that I love work.

Is our problem, then, that we like too many nice things?

Turns out, the desire for nice things also isnt new. Lucassen points to evidence, for example, that already in the eighth or ninth centuries B.C., the development of tools was hastened by the desire to cut and polish precious stones.

Yet leisure does matter, and relatively speaking, we enjoy a lot of it. The rise of free labor, alongside improving technology and a burgeoning welfare state, has led to lives where we start our careers later (all that schooling first), work fewer hours (difficult to believe but true), and generally have the option, at some point, of deciding to lay down the burden of work and enjoy our relatively extended life spans.

Thats more time for family and friends the things that give life meaning than at any time in recorded history. And if thats not reason enough to enjoy a happy Thanksgiving, I dont know what is.

Read more here:

Stephen L. Carter: In time for the season, some answers on the meaning of life - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

Australian favourites Myer, Just Jeans, Peter Alexander have been named and shamed in a new list of naughty or nice brands for failing to spill the beans on where and how their clothes are made.

Anti-poverty group Oxfam says some of Australias largest retailers are still failing to walk the talk when it comes to exploitation in their global supply chains, with some failing to ensure workers are paid a living wage.

Oxfam Australia chief executive Lyn Morgain said millions of Australians are buying clothes from retailers that are making global poverty worse.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, which is why transparency around issues of power, whether business or politics, is so important, Ms Morgain said.

Three major clothing companies in Australia Lorna Jane, Myer and The Just Group have failed to take the basic step of publishing key information about where they manufacture their clothes.

Some retailers have taken steps to ensure workers making their clothes are paid enough to afford basic necessities over the past year, including H&M, City Chic, Bonds, Cotton On, Forever New and department store David Jones.

These retailers have backed up their commitments to pay a living wage to workers, which allows them to cover basics like food, housing, transport, education and clothing, Ms Morgain said.

Mosaic Brands, owner of the Katies, Rivers and Noni B chains, made a huge jump from last year after making a living wage pledge, she said.

Its outstanding to watch the way brands have come to the party, Ms Morgain said.

Many have made the commitment and then followed through.

Oxfam said the brands on its naughty list have failed to disclose up-to-date lists on all the factories where their products are made and are not forthcoming about the labour costs in their supply contracts.

Ms Morgain said this is a crucial step, because without transparency it is impossible for advocates or shoppers to know whether workers are actually paid a living wage irrespective of what companies profess.

Lorna Jane has said it does ensure workers are paid a living wage.

In a statement toThe New Daily,the company said it reports on its practices through the federal governments modern slavery act requirements, and so did not co-operate with Oxfams investigation.

The federal government introduced rules requiring companies with more than $1 billion in annual turnover to submit annual reports on modern slavery in their supply chains in 2018.

We are focused on continuous improvement and investment in our ethical sourcing program. This includes a commitment to a living wage for all involved in the manufacture of our products, a spokesperson said.

We have also adopted a Modern Slavery Statement as part of our compliance with the Australian government regulations. This is our primary reporting method, hence our absence from the Oxfam review.

Other brands on Oxfams naughty list have less stringent wage pledges.

Premier Investments owner of Peter Alexander, Just Jeans and Jay Jays requires its suppliers to pay the legal minimum wage in the countries in which they operate, according to its modern slavery report.

Premier said it ensures wages are sufficient to meet basic needs and to provide discretionary income, but stipulated this was for full-time staff.

Where minimum wage laws exist, they are often below a living wage, meaning workers struggle to pay for essentials.

The minimum wage for garment workers in Bangladesh, where Premier has an office, is equivalent to $85 a month a living wage, measured by the global living wage coalition, would be equivalent to $349 a month.

Myer was also listed on the naughty list for failing to provide a full list of the factories from which its products are sourced.

In its latest modern slavery statement, the department store said its private label clothes come from more than 400 factories in 17 separate countries, including Bangladesh.

Myer makes no mention of a living wage in its modern slavery report.

Oxfam said this isnt surprising, as a living wage isnt captured by the modern slavery reporting regime in Australia.

Myer and Premier Investments were contacted for comment.

Excerpt from:

Big retailers named and shamed over living wage - The New Daily

Many Bitcoiners have highlighted parallels between some of Bitcoins ideals and the book first published in 1997, The Sovereign Individual. To take you in an altogether different direction, Ill draw attention to a relatively unknown and gentler text, which Ive noticed also contains a number of parallels to the Bitcoin world. This is How To Be Idle, written by Tom Hodgkinson, who also edits the Idler magazine.

Written in 2004, it predates Bitcoin. But it extols libertarian virtues in the same ways many Bitcoiners do today, such as extolling the virtues of freedom from debt, freedom from consumer culture and excessive consumption, and freedom from the wage slavery which can result from such.

Firstly, lets establish some neutral ground on the definitions front, and define the word idle as simply inactive. Many would use the word idle as a straight swap for lazy, which has negative connotations, but as well see throughout this article, its not quite that simple. Hodgkinson is aware of the many ways modern day society preys on idleness, and looks to fight back, often offering historical precedent.

Whilst How To Be Idle isnt directly concerned with economic policy or money, there are persistent themes that are symptomatic of the age we live in which Bitcoiners especially will recognise. Lets dive into some of the main ones.

Why do we work? The book is forthright at asking the reader to evaluate the status quo. To quote the text:

The idea of the job as the answer to all woes, individual and social, is one of the most pernicious myths of modern society. It is promoted by politicians, parents, newspaper moralists and leaders of industry, on the left and on the right: paradise they say, is full employment.

It is a myth convenient to the rich that it is your patriotic duty to work hard. The book quotes the late British journalist and writer Jeffrey Bernard ... as if there was something romantic and glorious about hard work ... If there was something romantic about it, the Duke of Westminster would be digging his own f*cking garden, wouldnt he?

Ahem no punches pulled there then! But there is a subtext here that most Bitcoiners will recognise, with implicit references to Keynesian economics and resulting policies which dominate our lives. In the 21st century the lot for the average working person doesnt necessarily appear to be getting easier, as aptly shown by WTFhappenedin1971.com. It generally requires two household incomes to support a family, rather than one a generation or two ago. Home prices are sky high. Though mortgage rates are low, the path for the young to own a property is to take out huge debt in the form of a mortgage.

Society is led, naturally, into a lifetime of work. And due to the pressures of inflation, if youre standing still, youre going backwards.

Technology should increase the quality of our lives and make them easier, but it often doesnt feel like this is happening. To quote the book ... technology has been a complete disaster when it comes to lightening the load. Labour saving devices have not saved any labour.

Over to Bitcoin. As Jeff Booth covers in the book The Price Of Tomorrow, technology is gradually replacing labour in many areas and the greatest changes are still ahead of us. All else being equal, this brings enhanced productivity, but our economic system requires endless debt, Gross Domestic Product growth and inflation to function, and ends up fighting against the tide and negating the benefits for the majority.

Generating inflation via quantitative easing and other measures deepens socioeconomic divides and centralises power. The question we should be asking is how to share the spoils of technological advancement more equally. One answer is Bitcoin.

Many of the books 24 chapters (each for a notional hour of the day) are devoted to extolling the virtues of what are, at heart, simple pleasures. Most of these concern the use of our time the most precious commodity we have, and the need to claim it back for ourselves.

Some examples include, having a lie in! More examples from the book would be: celebrating the art of enjoying a leisurely lunch; fishing; drinking tea; Ttaking naps; smoking; the ramble and the lost art of the flaneur (meaning a pedestrian walking the streets for nothing more but for pleasure and to pass the time) As well as recognizing and acquiescing to our innate love of a party, of music, and dancing.

Admittedly, the smoking chapter might feel dated to some, 17 years on, but its consistent with the libertarian ethos throughout. Personally Ive always liked the observation that smoking is the only pursuit one can indulge in where you can simultaneously be doing something and yet be doing nothing.

The idler enjoys earthly pleasures ... Talking, sharing ideas with friends old and new, this is the lifeblood of the loafer. And so the book identifies another simple, life-enhancing pleasure.

Moreover, Hodgkinson notes, this is a facet in which humans thrive:

ideas emerge in conversation and are embellished, improved, contradicted or torn about by the assembled company...

... Ones ideas are developed, modified. They are taken down from the museum shelf, dusted and put on view. And their true worth is revealed: the diamond turns out to be a piece of glass, the dusty stone a rare fossil.

The world of Bitcoin is nothing if not an endless conversation, an open discussion being played out in meet-ups, Twitter, Reddit and so on. The passage above reminded me of a tweet sent by Preston Pysh to Steve Hanke:

Your idler believes in both the power of dreams, and in contemplating the moon and the stars. To quote the book Stars ... have inspired our philosophers and poets to dream of better worlds on Earth Freedom is out there, somewhere, glittering, almost visible, but just out of our reach.

However, the text points to our use of language in society to demonstrate the negative use of terms that befit your average idler, and nowhere is this more on display than in the chapters entitled The Moon And The Stars and A Waking Dream.

We generally disapprove of dreamers or star gazers in todays society. Dont believe me? Consider the negative connotation with which we use the following terms:head in the clouds, starry eyed, lunatic, on another planet, away with the fairies; yet it is praiseworthy to be considered anchored, down to earth, or grounded.

The notorious idler Oscar Wilde neatly inverted these sentiments with the following famous quote:

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Bitcoin? It embodies a vision of a better world, but the vision takes work, and its up there in the stars for sure. A friend of mine was contemplating bitcoin and said to me last year I dont get it. Its either worth a million dollars a coin, or nothing. Ultimately, he has rejected it as he cant compute the world where the bitcoin price has come from nothing barely a decade ago, to one, as Michael Saylor views it, where ... its going up forever, Laura.

Its much more than just potential price appreciation though. As outlined by the likes of Alex Gladstein and Tomer Strolight, its a vision of a better future. A global sound money aiding the unbanked, decreasing our collective time preference, and helping the billions of people currently living under authoritarian regimes.

Getting back to Hodgkinson in How To Be Idle, he states that Real dreams are about seeing things that others miss. If you have your head in the clouds, you can see the world more clearly.

There is an entire chapter devoted to riot. Am I stretching this connection to Bitcoin too far? Lets consider a dictionary definition of the word: a wild or turbulent disturbance created by a large number of people.

Hodgkinson notes Paradoxically, idlers are given to riot. Our rulers tend to use relentless drudgery to create oppressing, grinding bureaucracies which stifle us with boredom. Every now and again brute force is wheeled out. The idlers modus operandi, on the other hand, is to sit around talking and thinking for months, and then to act with impetuosity, with rapid and violent diligence, with a visible outburst of passion, a rising.

Ultimately, sadly, Hodgkinson questions the ultimate impact of most of these actions throughout history on society, and concludes at the end of this chapter that perhaps the only sane thing to do is to create ones own paradise: One might conclude sadly that a better place to effect change is in oneself and in ones own immediate surroundings.

This for me contained shades of the famous quote by Friedrich Hayek in 1983 which many bitcoiners cite: We cant take it [money] violently out of the hands of government. All we can do is by some sly, roundabout way introduce something they cant stop.

Separate to the above themes, there is a good narrative for bitcoin as the perfect savings vehicle for your archetypal idler. I have heard gold in the past described as a non-investment. It sits out of the financial system. It yields nothing. It just is. And yet it has more than matched many stock markets in terms of overall returns over a 50-year period (evidenced by link below).

Nowadays, bitcoin is surely the ultimate non-investment, surpassing gold easily in its monetary properties. And its a match made in heaven for idlers. Physically, it comprises nothing. It yields nothing. It costs nothing to hold. It costs near nothing to acquire (and it will only get cheaper Jack Mallers is wholly right about the race to zero fees in this respect). And yet what has been the best investment over the last decade? Simply buying and holding bitcoin.

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual. -Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist, on HODLING Bitcoin

As a frustrated value investor, it maddens me that we currently drive every individual now to be their own fund manager, being pushed out on the risk curve to try and juggle investments and keep pace with monetary debasement. Under a bitcoin standard, this becomes much simpler. A bitcoin holding naturally retains purchasing power as a fixed percentage of the overall supply, by doing ... nothing.

How about altcoins, I hear you say? What would your self-respecting idler make of air drops, yield farming, atomic swaps, gas, rehypothecation, staking..?

I think you know the answer. I can only revert to the wisdom of Albert Einstein at this moment:

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein

Its Bitcoin.

Fast-forward from 2004 to the present day, and its unclear whether the ongoing Idler magazine, as still edited by Tom Hodgkinson, has yet recognised the alliance of bitcoin and idlers. I could only find a single disappointing Idler article published in 2018 by Andrew Smart:The Liberating Promise Of Bitcoin Is A Fantasy.

However, Dominic Frisby is a friend of the Idler magazine and also a Bitcoiner, so perhaps there is hope. In any case, let me put out an open message to Tom Hodgkinson. Hes probably got his feet up somewhere on a chaise longue, having a nap. He certainly doesnt waste his time on Twitter. But if anyone knows him, given the chance Id happily write an article for the Idlerto reach out to all those aspiring idlers worldwide and highlight the benefits of Bitcoin.

For Bitcoiners and idlers are natural bedfellows. And for anyone to have the best chance of pursuing some of the laudable ideals outlined in How To Be Idle (at least without having a huge inheritance), they need access to the soundest money to preserve the value of their precious time.

Bitcoin and idlers were made for each other, given that bitcoin is the ultimate idle investment. Moreover, idlers are in control of their time, the most precious commodity we all have. Do not mistake this as just laziness its that in exercising this control over time, they do not automatically prize work over leisure, consumption over non-consumption, activity over inactivity.

For inactivity can be hugely valuable. They think, they dream. They talk, they scheme, they plot.

They riot.

And what is Bitcoin if not an idea? Speech? A dream? And ultimately, the most peaceful and potentially largest riot the world has ever seen?

Please read the book, and let me know your thoughts!

This is a guest post by BitcoinActuary. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

The rest is here:

The Parallels Between Bitcoins Principles And How To Be Idle - Bitcoin Magazine

Garment workers in Leicester are being sought to take part in a study to understand what can be done to improve their lives and working conditions.

Researchers from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) and the Rights Lab based at University of Nottingham, are hoping that their findings will help to make changes in the industry.

The study was commissioned by the new Leicester Garment and Textiles Workers Trust, which has been given 1m by fast fashion retailer Boohoo to spend on improvements.

Garment workers can take part in the study through a 30-minute anonymous questionnaire, available from Sharma Womens Centre in Leicester or Hope for Justice this week. Everyone will receive a supermarket voucher for taking part.

Participants will be asked about their experiences working in the garment sector good and bad and if they have ideas around how peoples working lives can be improved.

Findings from the survey will be used to make recommendations to the Leicester Garment and Textile Workers Trust. The study will also examine other actions businesses, government agencies, NGOs and communities can undertake to improve the lives of garment workers.

Dr Alison Gardner, Rights Lab Associate Director (Communities and Society Programme) and Nottingham Research Fellow in Slavery-Free Communities, is leading the project. She said: This study will provide a holistic overview of the current situation in Leicester with an emphasis on workers perspectives. We are pooling all of the insights and experiences from across the community to identify realistic, evidence-based solutions that local partners can work on together.

Co-researcher Professor Dave Walsh, Professor in Criminal Investigation at DMU, said: It is vital that the community are involved in helping provide solutions to the problem of labour exploitation in the garment industry in Leicester so that the rights of workers are respected where, for example, they receive a fair wage for the work they do.

Khudeja Amer-Sharif, CEO of Shama Womens Centre, said: Shama has a 35-year history of empowering thousands of women in Leicester, many of whom have gained machinist skills in our purpose-built industrial unit; helping them gain work in the garment industry.

More importantly we are committed to ensuring that women seeking work in the garment industry are armed with the knowledge of their employment rights and the confidence to seek help when needed.

I believe this research will be key in identifying the barriers that many of these women face and inform workable solutions to address some of the ethical issues facing the garment industry."

Paul McAnulty, UK & Europe Programme Director at the charity Hope for Justice, which has a Community Engagement Hub in the East Midlands, said: We have been helping people to empower themselves and others to freedom, and we are proud to be working alongside the partners on this project. Together, we want to ensure that the true nature of exploitation in Leicesters textile industry is understood.

Posted on Wednesday 24th November 2021

Go here to see the original:

Researchers to hear textile workers' views of working in fashion industry - De Montfort University

Its Thanksgiving, and whatever your manner of celebration, chances are that youll enjoy some time off from work. If, like most of us, youre gathering with family and friends, you might even pause to consider what exactly gives meaning to your life.

And just in time for the long weekend, Pew Research Center is out with a survey of 19,000 people in 17 developed countries on exactly that question. Respondents were given 17 possible sources of meaning and asked to rank them. Whats remarkable is how consistent the answers are but also how the U.S. is different.

Family dominated. In 14 of the 17 countries, family ranked first; in another it was tied for first. In the other two, family ranked third. Nearly everywhere, occupation or material well-being occupied the second spot. And although friends made the top five in 13 of the surveyed countries, the U.S. was one of two countries where friends ranked second. Families and friends: the people who sit around the Thanksgiving table.

The U.S. was also unique in being the only developed economy where religious faith made the top five sources of meaning. Nowhere else did faith make even the top 10. The nations degree of religious belief continues to distinguish us from other developed countries a truth many seem to find disagreeable, but which some of us consider valuable and important.

All of which brings us back to work: the thing Thanksgiving gives most of us time off from. We dont know how many people like their jobs. In the U.S., job satisfaction is as high as 85 percent in some surveys, and under 50 percent in others. A recent survey by Goodhire found Generation Z to be most unhappy with their jobs. (Its not clear how greatly that last result is influenced by pandemic conditions.)

But whether or not were happy with our work, in the Pew survey, occupation ranked as the fourth-most important source of meaning in the U.S., just behind material well-being, for which work is the typical source, unless you inherit wealth (or become well-off through some less savory means).

This being Thanksgiving season, however, perhaps we should all be giving thanks for the existence of work itself.

Seriously.

The historian Jan Lucassen, in his splendid new volume The Story of Work, reminds us that although slavery has been a dominant form of labor throughout history and in every culture, where labor has been freer, workers for millennia have taken pride in a job well done. For many, it seems, work was a source of meaning in life long before we set about the conscious search for meaning in life.

Its common these days for even well-salaried professionals to complain about the drudgery of work, but Lucassen suggests that weve never had it so good. Even as enslavement faded as a source of labor worldwide, wage-work was harsh: Around 1830, earning a living in Britain required, on average, more than 300 11-hour days, or 3,300 hours net per year. True, the early hunter-gatherers worked less than many of todays professionals do an estimated 8 hours a day for men and 10 hours a day for women but they also had a life expectancy of perhaps 30 years, not least because their existence was ravaged by predators and disease.

The 19th-century utopians imagined that by now the human race, buoyed by mechanization, would lead lives of leisure, but that fantasy still lies somewhere in the misty future. Like other theorists, Lucassen points to the rising standard of living: Some people work hard because they like their work but others work hard to live up to the standard. He quotes an unemployed English miner from the 1960s: Frankly, I hate work. Of course, I could also say with equal truth that I love work.

Is our problem, then, that we like too many nice things? Turns out, the desire for nice things also isnt new. Lucassen points to evidence, for example, that already in the eighth or ninth centuries B.C., the development of tools was hastened by the desire to cut and polish precious stones.

Yet leisure does matter, and relatively speaking, we enjoy a lot of it. The rise of free labor, alongside improving technology and a burgeoning welfare state, has led to lives where we start our careers later (all that schooling first), work fewer hours (difficult to believe but true), and generally have the option, at some point, of deciding to lay down the burden of work and enjoy our relatively extended life spans.

Thats more time for family and friends the things that give life meaning than at any time in recorded history. And if thats not reason enough to enjoy a happy Thanksgiving, I dont know what is.

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of law at Yale University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. His novels include The Emperor of Ocean Park, and his latest nonfiction book is Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down Americas Most Powerful Mobster.

Read this article:

For Thanksgiving, some answers on the meaning of life - Frederick News Post

Amid the catwalk shows and millinery workshops, a key theme of this years Melbourne Fashion Week was sustainablity, offering designers with strong ethical foundations an opportunity to join our runways, or opening up dialogue on sustainability into our talks program.

Events during the week included industry representatives discussing shifting the status quo and moving beyond greenwashing.

On the panel at the latter event was Eloise Bishop, head of sustainability at Country Road Group, one of Australias largest specialty fashion retailers. Meanwhile workers from the company were on strike, chaining themselves together and staging other protests outside Country Road stores in pursuit of better wages and working conditions.

Among the complaints of these workers, mostly women from the companys distribution warehouse in Melbournes west, was being paid an average of A$23 an hour, compared to about A$30 for workers doing similar work at the Pacific Brands warehouse across the road.

On Monday the workers returned to work after reaching an agreement with the company that includes improved job security, union recognition and a 13.3% pay rise over four years. Thats about an extra $3 an hour.

While this has brought the strike to a celebratory end, questions remain. How could a company so highly regarded for its commitment to sustainability have provoked staff to strike for almost a fortnight?

Country Road Group is a subsidiary of South Africas Woolworths Holdings Ltd (which also owns David Jones). The companys clothing brands include Country Road, Witchery, Trenery, Politix and Mimco. Despite the pandemic, in the past fiscal year Country Road Groups sales grew by 13.5% to A$1.05 billion.

The company is considered by many an industry leader on ethics and sustainability. The 2021 Ethical Fashion Guide compiled by Baptist World Aid, for example, awarded it an overall A grade. It did well on four of five rating criteria, scoring an A+ on its policies and governance, A+ for trading and risk, A for supplier relationships and human rights monitoring, and another A for environmental sustainability.

On worker empowerment, however, it scored just a C.

These results suggest the company has a blind spot in addressing concerns about labour conditions in its supply chain.

In part because of the disparities between how the fashion industry markets its products and the way workers are treated, the global fashion industry is a notorious example of exploitation engendered by opaque supply chains.

Questions about ethics become divided across asymmetrical lines: the global North as fashion consumer and the global South as fashion producer.

Read more: Why the fashion industry keeps failing to fix labour exploitation

Attempts to bring greater transparency and accountability to these supply chains include Australias Modern Slavery Act. This requires large companies to submit an annual statement to a public registry outlining efforts to identify and eliminate the risk of exploitative labour practices.

Country Road Groups 2020 Modern Slavery statement states the company is committed to upholding the highest social, ethical and environmental standards in its supply chains.

But commitment to ethics is arguably easier when the problem of labour rights is far away and things like modern slavery statements (which rely on third party auditing) can help to conceal unethical practices. What happens when the issue is on our doorstep?

Read more: At last, Australia has a Modern Slavery Act. Here's what you'll need to know

We often think about the concept of a living wage in relation to garment workers overseas. But these warehouse workers told their union representatives they could not afford to live on the wages paid by Country Road Group, much less clothe themselves or their children in the very garments they pick and pack at the warehouse.

According to industry body the Australian Fashion Council, 77% of the 489,000 workers employed in Australias fashion and textile industrys workforce are female. This makes fair pay and conditions in the industry an important driver of womens economic advancement. Industrial action is about more than money; it is about respect and recognition.

Responsibility for change in the fashion industry is frequently feminised. Women are not only the primary workforce; they are at the front lines of sustainable action, consumer activism and labour rights movements. It was a proposed strike by members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York in 1909 that led to the establishment of International Womens Day.

The move towards sustainability and ethical production in the fashion industry is necessary. But if action does not extend to the realities of all workers across the supply chain, the rhetoric is empty.

Note: co-author Lauren Kate Kelly is a researcher with the United Workers Union, which covers Country Road warehouse employees.

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Like most of the fashion industry, there's a blind spot in Country Road's ethical focus - The Conversation AU

Former PCC appointed new chair of the GLAA

Former police and crime commissioner (PCC) Julia Mulligan has been confirmed as the new chair of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA).

Nov 24, 2021

By Paul Jacques

She takes over from Margaret Beels, who has stood down after more than ten years in the role, both for the GLAA and its predecessor the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

Ms Mulligan was the PCC for North Yorkshire, before taking on dual governance in the region as one of the countrys first police, fire and crime commissioners in 2018, subsequently sitting on the national Fire Standards Board.

She was a director of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners for six years. During that time she chaired the Police Reform and Transformation Board, set up by the Home Secretary to lead the transformation of policing across England and Wales.

Ms Mulligan held three national portfolios Victims, Rural Affairs and Integrity and Transparency, working closely with the then Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Independent Office for Police Conduct on reform of the police complaints system.

She has been a member of the advisory panel to the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner since January 2019, chair of the Independent Domestic Abuse Service since January 2020 and the chair of the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales since April 2021.

Ms Mulligan said: Im delighted to be appointed chair of the GLAA. Protecting vulnerable workers from exploitation is something I am hugely passionate about and I look forward to helping play my part in being able to do that, supporting the dedicated team at the GLAA.

Ms Mulligan, who has been a non-executive director on the board of the GLAA since May 2020, was the Governments preferred candidate for post.

Her position was confirmed following a pre-appointment hearing with the Home Affairs Select Committee earlier this month.

The committee said on the basis of the evidence provided by Ms Mulligan at this hearing, we have concluded that she is a suitable person for the post.

Ms Mulligan will be responsible to the Home Secretary in delivering the strategic objectives, governance and performance of the GLAA.

The GLAA is responsible for protecting vulnerable and exploited workers. It investigates reports of worker exploitation and illegal activity, including human trafficking, forced labour and offences under minimum wage or employment agency legislation.

The GLAA licensing scheme regulates businesses that provide workers to the fresh produce supply chain and horticulture industry, to make sure they meet the employment standards required by law.

Continued here:

Former PCC appointed new chair of the GLAA - Police Professional

Making its way through parliament, the new Nationality and Borders Bill is likely to deter modern slavery victims from coming forward and make life easier for traffickers, critics say

Its been over four years since Analiza Guevarra packed her belongings in a black bin bag and walked away from what had become unbearable work conditions.

At the time, the softly spoken 41-year-old was working in an upscale neighbourhood in West London as a live-in domestic worker for a Qatari family. She had been with the family for a couple of years in Qatar, where working hours were long and the pay meagre. Things further deteriorated when they decided to move to London and bring her along. She didnt have a choice in the matter, and was the only one of four domestic workers flown to the UK with the family, expected to do the same amount of work, including looking after the youngest of the familys eight children.

Overworked, exhausted and underpaid, she slung the black bag over her shoulder. She was given so little freedom that she felt she had to justify her outing by telling the family she was taking out the trash. She never returned.

Guevarra has since then been recognised by the UK government as a victim of modern slavery. The final decision on her case was issued about two years after she entered the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the UKs framework for modern slavery and trafficking victims, referred by a local NGO. Modern slavery is used as an umbrella term to describe a wide range of exploitative crimes that include domestic servitude, human trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage and forced marriage.

However, under the UK governments proposed Nationality and Borders Bill, Guevarra who had become undocumented by the time she approached the UK authorities would likely fall through the cracks or at the very least find it more difficult to have her case heard.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the bills aim is to increase the fairness of our system and prevent abuse.

Few, however, agree with that statement, and the bill, which focuses on migration and asylum, has been strongly criticised from its inception for several of its provisions. Among the most controversial is a proposal for an Australian-style offshore processing of asylum claims, and the creation of a two-tier asylum system that would see asylum seekers who have entered the country through illegal routes the vast majority of refugees - receive a lower class refugee status. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has warned it could undermine the 1951 Refugee Convention.

There is an equal amount of concern among groups working in the field of modern slavery and anti-trafficking about the effects the bill could have on the system of identification of victims and prosecution of the crime of modern slavery with even senior police officers warning it could make life easier for traffickers.

It represents a continuing trend from the British government of conflating immigration compliance with modern slavery protections, Jamie Fookes, advocacy coordinator for the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group at the human rights group Anti-Slavery International, told TRT World.

There are two main provisions that those working in the modern slavery sector are concerned about: requiring a victim to self-identify as such early in the process to avoid damage to credibility, and the exclusion of offenders from victims support.

Just being illegally present in the UK could be enough of a criminal offence to disqualify you from accessing trafficking support, Fookes explains, adding that the bill remains vague on many points.

Traffickers will know how to abuse the system, and if you make it harder to get support for migrant victims of trafficking and you make it harder for them to come forward out of fear they will be deported or detained, traffickers will exploit that, he added.

The Conservative government was also slammed in late November for introducing a new decision-making body tasked with identifying victims of modern slavery, the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority. NGOs and human rights groups decried this was done without civil society consultation and point out that its name alone suggests an inherent bias, which could lead to an unjust two-tier system that could further deter undocumented victims from coming forward.

No evidence

Guevarra left the Philippines in a bid to provide some security for her four children, some of whom are teenagers now. Just like many other women who become their familys only breadwinners, she found an agency that arranged for her to fly to Qatar. At the time, the kafala system of sponsorship for migrant workers which ties them to their employers - was still in place in the country. It has since been partially reformed.

My husband doesn't have permanent work, she says, all I want is to provide for my family.

In London, Guevarra ended up barely getting any sleep. The employer was also retaining some of her wages at this point.

If I didn't finish my [tasks], my employer would get angry, she recounts. Until the time she slapped me. Then I told myself, this is enough, I need to look after myself, she recounts. I started thinking that I needed to leave this house, but I didnt know anyone in London, Guevarra tells TRT World.

A Libyan family who had become aware of her situation eventually offered to take her in. Guevarra, whose main concern was sending money to her four children back home, took it.

The new employer appeared kinder at the outset, but was paying her just over 300 ($401) a month, far below the minimum wage.

The attitude of the lady [had become] a lot like that of my previous employer. I wasnt comfortable, she says. She still had no idea who to turn to or how to change her situation.

That is, until she found out there was a Filipino church nearby, and went to mass one Sunday. Thats when she met activists from a community-led association, the Filipino Domestic Workers Association, that would provide her with a temporary place to stay and help her through the maze of bureaucratic steps she needed to take to make her case heard by the authorities. She is now one of its most active members.

Every year, the UK government issues around 20,000 special six-month visas to domestic workers, the vast majority of whom are brought to the UK from Gulf countries under the kafala system. And while not all will be victims of modern slavery, the system itself is known to fuel exploitation and abuse due to the dependency it creates. The precarity of workers immigration status helps merely re-create it in the UK, experts have argued.

The bill introduces a system whereby foreign nationals victims of slavery will have their credibility assessed by how timely the disclosure is, and the idea is that this is to encourage early identification, reduce delays and protect the system from so-called abuse, Natalie Sedacca, a lecturer in law at the University of Exeter whose research has focused on domestic workers and international labour law, told TRT World.

But it's a very problematic idea to assume that if a claim is late, it lacks merit, she continued. As with any kind of traumatic events, it can take a long time to disclose, but also even to recognise.

More than 10,000 people were referred to the authorities as victims of modern slavery in 2019. The real number, however, is estimated to be much higher and includes people trapped in sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and forced labour on farms, car washes and manufacturing. Vulnerable young people recruited by drug trafficking gangs are also considered victims, and are mostly UK nationals. The bill will affect nationals and non-nationals alike.

The UKs 2015 Modern Slavery Act aimed at making it easier to prosecute criminals and protect victims. But it ran counter to the Conservative governments hostile environment for undocumented migrants. The latest bill, observers fear, takes the hardline approach to the next level.

The government looks at the system and sees that delays are too long, the backlog is too big, it's not functioning very well. And we completely agree with that, Fookes says. The problem is, they looked at that and [concluded] the issue is migrants frustrating the process. And theres just no evidence of that.

Source: TRT World

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How the UKs new borders bill could hinder the fight against modern slavery - TRT World

Around 500 migrant workers from Vietnam are being exploited at a Chinese-run company in Serbia, local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) reported last week.

The rundown: The workers, who were hired to construct a tire factory in Zrenjanin, a city in the northern province of Vojvodina, are allegedly doing so under conditions that could endanger their lives, according to the NGOs. When work is over, they reportedly go to cramped dormitories, where they allegedly face even more issues such as lack of food, water and clothes.

The allegations come from A11, which advocates workers rights, and ASTRA, which fights against human trafficking. Both NGOs reported being denied access to the workers in their attempts to contact them.

The workers are officially hired by the China Energy Engineering Group Tianjin Electric Power Construction Co. Ltd., which is registered in Belgrade. The company, in turn, was hired by Shandong Linglong Tire, a Chinese tire manufacturer which has been subsidized by the Serbian government.

The workers, whose passports have also allegedly been taken, were recruited for 12-month contracts by Vietnamese employment agency Song Hy Gia Lai Company Ltd., which demanded $2,200 to $4,000 from each applicant in exchange for their services. However, their contracts were written in English, which only one of the workers understands, ASTRAs Tina Piskulidis told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).

Under the contract, each worker is required to work nine hours a day for 26 days a month. This means they work 234 hours a month, which violates provisions under Serbias Labor Law. Anyone who misses at least one day of work will not be paid for an entire month. Failure to work on time also results in a denial of daily wage.

According to the NGOs, no personal protective equipment is provided to the workers, while costs of some of their work equipment are even docked from their salaries. To make matters worse, these payments often come late.

The lack of food has forced some of the workers to hunt nearby animals, according to BIRN. In addition to hunger and the lack of clean water, they live in overcrowded rooms with only two toilets available for all 500 of them.

The workers also reportedly asked for COVID-19 vaccines, but their employer declined, saying the process was complicated. Anyone who falls ill is instead isolated in a makeshift hospital room until they recover.

What involved parties are saying: Linglong Tire has denied legal violations and claimed that the workers passports were only taken for document processing. Meanwhile, Serbian leaders including President Aleksandar Vucic slammed the allegations as an attack on Serbia and Chinas burgeoning ties.

Story continues

Serbia, which is currently under a populist administration, has bolstered bilateral relations with China by allowing Chinese investments and essentially becoming a European link to Beijings expansion projects. China, in turn, has granted billions of dollars in loans to Serbia to finance Chinese companies involved in such projects, AP News reported.

In a statement, Linglong Tire said the passports were taken to process temporary residence, work permit and vaccination preparation papers. The passports must be returned to the workers as soon as all the necessary permits are collected. At any given moment, if there is a need, everyone can come for their passport. There is no talk of having someones passport confiscated, the company told BIRN.

Linglong Tire denied that the workers had poor living and working conditions and insisted that their salaries, corresponding to the number of hours worked, are paid on time. Still, the company reportedly blamed the situation on subcontractors and employment agencies in Vietnam.

Serbian officials have spoken against the workers conditions but downplayed Chinese responsibility. Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, for one, said she would not rule out that the attack against Linglong Tire came from those against Chinese investments in the country, according to AP News. President Vucic, who announced the deployment of a labor official at the construction site, asked, What do they want? Do they want us to destroy a $900 million investment?

Several Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have called for action to end the ongoing modern slavery in Serbia. In a statement, they said they were appalled by the reports and urged Serbian authorities to immediately react to these blatant abuses of workers rights and human dignity.

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500 Vietnamese forced laborers at Chinese factory in Serbia have only two toilets, report alleges - Yahoo News