Category Archives: Wage Slavery

Photo Illustration by Elena Scotti/Lifehacker/GMG, photos via Shutterstock

The maddening paradox of child care in this country is that day care and nannies are really expensivecosting at least more than in-state college tuitionand that child-care workers are generally poor. The domestic work industry is largely unregulated, and workers are vulnerable to exploitation, a direct consequence of domestic works roots in slavery.

Ilana Berger, the director of Hand in Hand, the domestic employer network, says In the 1930s ... both domestic workers and farm workers were mostly black. So [in a nod to the Southern Congressional Delegation], they were left out of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Fast forward to today, so much exploitation happens because workers have been left out of protections, because its this shadow work force. Even when there are laws on the books, theres not a lot of enforcement.

Which means that choosing and hiring a nanny is a process more fraught with ethical considerations than, say, choosing a pediatrician or an electrician.

Besides how to find a good babysitter, one of the top questions for hiring a babysitter is how much

First, the biggest question: Is it ethical to to even participate in such an unjust system, especially if a potential employee is undocumented? Setting aside, for the moment, the question of what middle-class families would do if the answer were no, is it ethical to enter into a professional relationship when the power differential is so great?

Yes, says Randy Cohen, the host of the Person Place Thing podcast and the former author of the Ethicist column at the New York Times. There is generally a huge power differential in all employer-employee relationships ... [Particularly for undocumented workers,] its a difference of degree, not a difference in kind. And people need jobs.

Berger affirms this sentiment: The way domestic work is set up (and in most work) the employer really has all the power. Legal status is just one additional degree of vulnerability, but its pretty much on a continuum.

To better understand the responsibilities of a nannys employer, I asked Berger to break down the duties of an ethical employer. Hand in Hand advocates the fair-care pledge, a three-pronged strategy for hiring of domestic workers: fair pay, clear expectations, and paid time off.

This means, in major metropolitan areas, at least $15 an hour, according to Berger. A good thought experiment is to multiply the hourly wage by 40 and ask yourself, Can someone live on this in my area? She recommends using this living wage calculator to get an idea of a reasonable wage for an adult in your area.

When I tell her a lot of the middle-class families I know in New York say they cant afford to pay, say $20 an hour, she says, There are other optionsyou can do a nanny share, you can find a way to make it work. And skimping on the person taking care of your children is not a wise choice for your child, as well as ethically, morally, and in every other way.

In general, we want our kids to be better people than we are. We insist they eat their vegetables

And if you can pay on the books, you should: Its better for everybody. Its better for the employer, and its better for the worker because it buys them into the systemthey get social security and other benefits. Now obviously undocumented workers might not want to be paid on the books (Berger cites a workaround for the undocumentedan individual tax identification numberbut notes that workers might not be willing start that process, particularly at this political point in time). She says, In general, we say you should do what works best for you and the worker. If you need to pay on the books, you should make that clear at the start of the process.

Finally, pay on time. Dont make a worker wait for her check at the end of the week.

This is where you should be drawing up a contract that lays out duties, hours (including breaks), pay, sick leave, and vacation days. You should also include things like emergency plans, rules about guests, expectations around screen time and meals, expectations around caring for sick kids, housekeeping (like childrens laundry or dishes), reading to kids, petty cash, termination, etc. Need a sample contract? Start here.

The work agreement should be re-evaluated regularly, at least every six months. Did you think youd be home by 6 but its really more like 6:15? She needs to be paid for that extra timeor this is her opportunity to say that she needs you to be home at 6. People have a really hard grasping the fact that nannies have families too, and they might need to get somewhere to pick up their kids, says Berger.

I knew even before I had a daughter that I was going to raise her to laugh in the face of sexist

Would be it be helpful if she starts dinner on Wednesday nights? That can be built into the check-in. Does she need a break mid-day and isnt getting it because the kid dropped his nap? Perhaps the check-in relaxes some screen-time rules. Its a pressure release, says Berger. Ongoing proactive communication is really beneficial for everyone involved.

Vacation is usually decided in conjunction with the familyIve heard of some families offering vacation days when they take their own holidays, plus additional paid time off to be taken at the employees discretion. Berger notes that a common type of question among employers is We got these last-minute tickets to Costa Rica! Do we still need to pay the nanny?

Berger says Employers often says things like Shes like family! but its also an employment relationship. The Golden Rule applies: How would you want to be treated in your own workplace? When your boss goes away, expectations change, but you still get paid.

Need more information? Take a look at the employers checklist. (And as for whether you need to pay the nanny when you take an impromptu trip to Costa Rica, the answer is yes.)

After talking to Berger, I looked up the living wage calculator for where I live now, in Brooklyn, and where I grew up, in West Virginia. A single adult raising two kids in Brooklyn would have to make $37.49 an hour to make ends meet. In West Virginia, it would be $28.20. Now this wage would be impossible for most middle-class families to pay to a caregiver, and it doesnt even touch the problems of extraordinary medical expenses, college savings, or retirement savings. Which means we are, as a culture, trapped in a sick system: one in which middle-class families are stretched thin because of care costs (both child care and elder care) and domestic workers are both exploited and not able to make ends meet.

If you have a son whos the youngest or middle child, youre going to want to watch them like a

Berger is clear that her organizations (and others) guidelines are a stopgap solution to a profound problem. She says, We cant expect individual employers to close the gaping holes in our care infrastructure in this country. So we encourage our people to take part in our campaigns and work to create an affordable care system so the burden is not on individual employers, or workers, to make up for what the government is not providing. People can get involved in the National Domestic Workers Alliance or with the Sanctuary Homes campaign, both of which advocate for domestic workers rights.

Cohen echoes this sentiment: If you believe, as I do, that our current immigration policies and the current status of workers rights are really barbaric, you have an affirmative obligation to do something to address that ... Youre a citizen, and you should be doing something.

Even if, say, youre not a parent, or not hiring a nanny after alleven if youre not participating in the system? Whether you want to or not, youre participating in the system. Theres no way you can exempt yourself from the social trends of the day.

See the article here:

How to Ethically Hire a Nanny - Lifehacker

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ceremony honors victims of Battle of Homestead Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The starting point was seen as symbolic, as the Homestead strikers included Union veterans and others who saw their past struggle against slavery as similar to that of the strikers' battle against wage slavery. The battle on July 6, 1892, was the ... and more »

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Ceremony honors victims of Battle of Homestead - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

America is the land of the second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

President George W. Bush

Michelle Alexander is correct: The new slavery is the prison industrial complex.

Noted in Alexanders best selling book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, more African Americans are under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850.

According to the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, the annual cost to incarcerate one person in Pennsylvania is $840 a week, which is $43,680 annually this amount is equal to a life-sustaining salary.

The fiscal burden of incarcerating people at this expense is taxing on our communities, particularly impoverished communities because they are losing members to the prison system the most. When they become absent from the community, they are unable to do their part to sustain and grow the community.

To that end, the City of Philadelphia has invested $6 million in an initiative aimed to reduce the citys prison population by 34 percent in three years.

This will be achieved by creating programs to expedite the release process, working with nonviolent offenders to keep them out of the system and creating alternative methods to rehabilitate people other than imprisonment.

For instance, a third of the countys prison population is detained for minor traffic violations and probation violations. There are more cost-effective ways to penalize people for such offenses and it is a heavy burden putting the onus on taxpayers to bear the exuberant expense of incarcerating minor offenders.

The Washington Post examined the racial disparities at each level in the criminal justice system and discovered that every aspect of the system from arrest rates and bail amounts, to probation time and sentencing showed inconsistencies in the outcomes based on race.

Per the Philadelphia Department of Prisons in January nine in 10 of those in prison are men. Of that number, seven in 10 are African-American men.

This study shows that Blacks are arrested at twice the rate of whites for comparable offenses.

Being a person of color is already challenging enough because of the disparities in opportunities that are associated with being Black. This bias coupled with being an ex-offender can be life-crippling.

When people enter the prison, it becomes systemic. Re-entering society is a challenge because employment becomes an issue.

In Philadelphia, the recidivism rate is 65 percent and the three-year reincarcerated rate is 41.1 percent. This is largely attributed to the lack of jobs that are available to re-entrants.

As president and CEO of Philadelphia OIC, some of our students are re-entrants to society, looking for an opportunity to earn a life-sustaining wage. We teach them that if they possess the drive and determination, then they have the wherewithal to overcome their setback.

We are working directly with our national office, OIC of America, and other satellite OIC offices across the country to solve this complex issue and provide an opportunity for people to acquire industry-recognized credentials to obtain a life-sustaining job. We realize that we must tackle this issue at its core to keep people out of the prison system.

And, it is only then that they will be able to truly re-enter the working world and reach their full potential. As David Millar said, People do make mistakes, and I think they should be punished. But they should be forgiven and given the opportunity for a second chance. We are human beings.

As always, keep the faith!

Kevin R. Johnson, Ed.D. is president and CEO of the Philadelphia OIC, and the lead pastor of Dare to Imagine Church, 6611 Ardleigh St., Philadelphia, PA, d2ic.org. Follow him on Twitter @drkrj.

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Rev. Kevin Johnson: Re-entrants need a second chance - The Philadelphia Tribune

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Next Page: The change Homestead wrought Pittsburgh Post-Gazette They feared wage slavery enforced by low pay and debt as a more subtle form of chattel slavery. Like freed slaves in the postwar South, who were subjugated by voter suppression and Jim Crow segregation, free labor in the North was being ... and more »

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The Next Page: The change Homestead wrought - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Thursday July 06, 2017

It takes time and money to write a book. Mark Brandi, author ofcrime novel Wimmera, decided to find cash by taking a journey that involved risk, humiliationand getting up closeand personal with Eddie McGuire.

No one needed to know. Not my work, or my friends. Definitely not my family.

After all, it might be a disaster I could walk away with nothing. Or worse, be humiliated on national television.

Despite hopes of becoming a writer, Id found myself trapped in the drudgery of a policy job in a government department. But with a mortgage and bills to pay, staying put made sense in my head, if not my heart.

Still I wondered could I escape this life of wage-slavery and pursue my dreams? Maybe. But I needed some kind of circuit breaker, something to kick-start a new career. And if I was to write, more than anything, I needed cash.

So I find myself, on a steamy February afternoon, waiting nervously in the green room forMillionaire Hot Seat.

While my fellow contestants scope out each others quiz show expertise, I vividly imagine my impending humiliation. What if I bomb out first question, or just completely freeze? My nerves are jangling. What the hell was I thinking?

I seriously consider doing a runner. But then, I remember something.

In the darkest recesses of my backpack battered and almost two years out-of-date an old packet of Xanax. The stuff never agreed with me, but desperate times

Before I know it, were on set and each waiting our turn in theHot Seat. The studio lights are blinding and the audience are going nuts; and theres Eddie sharp-suit and make-up like a rat with a gold tooth.

The pills (four within an hour) start hitting me hard.I feel myself drifting outside my body, away from the set, as though watching the whole thing unfold from somewhere in the audience.

Paul, a former AFL footballer, is up and nails the first question before passing. Jim, a video store employee, answers a few before bombing out.

Then comes Kathy.

Kathys the battler with a back-story. She works at Bunnings and keeps greyhounds. And shes from Frankston. Eddies eyes light up.

Despite not knowing the answers, she guesses three and seems destined for the remaining $100,000. Eddie is delighted, the crowd is loving it, and I feel like I might throw up.

But then, it happens.

Kathy falls short, just one question shy of the cash. She trudges off stage and Eddie hides his disappointment ever the pro, the thousand-watt grin shines right through.

Well be right back and Mark Brandi will have one question for the cash onMillionaire Hot Seat!

My turn. One question. $50,000.

I am thrust, with one almighty thump, back to reality. My breathing is rapid and my heart beats up inside my throat.

Its time.

The source of comic-book superhero Green Lanterns special abilities is his power what?

A: Belt

B: Ring

C: Key

D: Watch.

I talk through the answers out loud, my voice distant to my own ears. The Green Lantern? I can almost picture him

Ten seconds, Eddie says.

I read comics as a kid, but more UK than USA. More dystopia than Marvel.

Five seconds

Then, in my minds eye, it appears. I dont know if its a false memory or the benzos or what. But I see my hand reaching inside a cheap carnival show-bag from my childhood, right down in the corner a small, green, plastic ring.

Ill go with B, I say.

Final answer?

Lock it in.

Eddies eyes sparkle somewhere between charisma and malevolence Im sure Ive blown it.

But then, he says it.

Mark. Youve just wonfifty thousand dollars!

The audience erupts. Fellow contestants shake my hand. Even some of the crew manage a smile.

As the lights fade and we walk from the set, Eddie pulls me aside.

Well done mate. Fifty grand! Tax-free! You know how long it would take to save that?

We pose for a photo at either end of a novelty cheque.

You won it though, he says. Its yours.

Then, quietly, some sage advice from the boy from Broady.

Dont let anyone get their claws into it, right?

He neednt have worried I had firm plans for the cash. Soon, I changed to part-time hours and tested the waters: the writing life felt good more than that, it felt right. The money gave me time and space to complete early drafts of my novel,Wimmera, while still keeping the wolf from the door.

Publishing is a tough industry for a first-time novelist to break through, all the stars need to align. In my case, one of those stars was a celebrity of debatable talent, but undoubted tenacity a quality also vital to any aspiring author.

So I will always feel a peculiar debt to Eddie McGuire perhaps the worlds most unknowing (and unlikely) literary benefactor.

Wimmera,acrime novel aboutsmall town with a big secret,wasthe winner of the 2016 UK Crime WritersAssociation Debut Dagger for an unpublished manuscript and is now published by Hachette Australia. Brandiwas born in Italy but grew up in rural Victoria and is a former policy advisor for the VictorianDepartment of Justice.

This article was first published on The Daily Review.

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Mark Brandi: Why I'll always feel a debt to Eddie McGuire - InDaily

July 5, 2017 by Charlotte Anscombe Credit: University of Nottingham

The sight of people cleaning cars in disused petrol stations and by the side of the road is now a common scene in towns and cities across the country, but have you ever stopped and thought about whether the person polishing your car is being treated fairly?

Up and down the country 'cheap' car washes are being exposed as 'hives' of modern slavery. Employees are being poorly paid, are being provided with little or no protective equipment and are made to work long hours without breaks.

The UK government estimates that there are 13,000 slaves in the UK. Globally, there are 46 million slaves alive today. However, government agencies, such as the police, face barriers to the identification and prosecution of perpetrators.

However, government agencies, such as the police, are faced with barriers which can impact on how easily they can identify and prosecute the perpetrators.

"Although they might not be aware of it, people are faced with modern slavery in their everyday lives," said Dr Alexander Trautrims, an expert in supply chain management at Nottingham University Business School and the lead on the Unchained Supply, a Rights Lab project.

"The signs of labour exploitation are often hidden, and are often seen as somebody just being in a bad job, making it hard for the general public and law enforcement to identify victims.

"Whilst companies have to disclose certain information and data on their business activities, their performance and the impact they have on society, it is difficult to see whether the information they provide is always accurate."

With this in mind, Dr Trautrims and Dr Thomas Chesney, also from the Rights Lab, have developed a new computer programme which will enable government agencies to uncover businesses that are using slave labour without them ever having to step foot on the company premises.

The team of experts have created a tool which can help to verify if the data being provided by a company is accurate. To make this even easier, the programme enables interested parties, such as the police, to make these decisions, merely by observing the company's activities.

"By using this programme, we aim to scrutinise businesses or organisations by using data that is publically available, so that outsiders who have no access to company accounts can use proxies and assumptions around the business that allows them to see what is taking place within the company itself," said Dr Trautrims.

As the number of cheap car washes using modern day slaves is on the increase, the team felt that a good pilot for the programme would be a business such as this in Nottingham, to illustrate how it may be violating UK minimum wage regulations.

Dr Chesney says: "What we want from this programme is to be able to look and observe what is going on within a business and to create a model which captures the realistic behaviour behind it."

From an external perspective, Dr Trautrims and his team were able to count how many cars were being cleaned by the car wash in an hour. Using the charges per car displayed by the car wash, they were then able to calculate how much the company was making on average a day. They are also able to see how many workers are based at the business, and over the space of a month, the computer programme can use this data to determine the amount of profit the company is making.

As well as the data that the team can collect by observing the car wash, they also used Google traffic datawhich is publically available, and means that they don't have to sit and count the number of cars going past.

"Whilst a car wash is relatively open and easy to observe, a lot of businesses will be behind walls, so you can't see what is going on," says Dr Trautrims.

"There are ways around this though as what we can see, is what is going in to the building, and what is coming outlike with the Google traffic data. So for example, in a factory you can see how many vans are going in and coming out. You can then make assumptions which allow you to come up with a robust statement saying that whatever they are claiming to be doing in therecannot be true. We can prove it from our external observations, without having to raid a business or go into it.

"You could, for example scrutinise the costs the company is claiming to the tax office for personal protection equipment and then the size of the car park, and you could make the assumption that there isn't enough protection for the people who work there. Or you could do it the other way around and say that maybe there are more workers in there than you say there areand why aren't they being accounted for?"

Dr Chesney adds: "We are not saying that all car washes are illegitimate, but we want to put a system in place which can help law enforcement agencies to uncover the ones who ARE breaking the law.

"We are now looking at a whole range of applications where this programme could be used. For example- we're reviewing harvesting fields in Spain.

"We can easily see how many workers there are and how many oranges are coming out. If you are using slaves then that means you have workers that are not accounted for in any of your records. So you could have a farmer who sells a certain amount of cabbage and declares a profitbut then they are only declaring a certain number of workers in the fields who couldn't possibly have achieved the amount of harvested produce.

"Our aim is to create a monitoring system to assist law enforcement agencies and to help expose those who aren't treating their employees in the right way."

Detective Superintendent Austin Fuller, of Nottinghamshire Police said: "We are really excited about piloting this new programme. We worked closely with Dr Trautrims and Dr Chesney to help develop it and have high hopes about what it can achieve. We're really stepping up a gear now to combat this horrific abuse and exploring all avenues to prevent it from happening in Nottinghamshire. We continue to urge people to look out for the signs of modern slavery and report any suspicions as soon as possible."

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Researchers developing monitoring system to expose modern slavery - Phys.Org

By Leith van Onselen

The Turnbull Government announced on Monday that it would expand its controversial Youth-Jobs PaTH program to prepare, trial and ultimately hire young Australians into the retail sector, which has driven a strong push-back from the union movement, Labor and The Greens. From 9News:

Up to 10,000 internships will be offered to unemployed youths over the next four years in a deal struck between the federal government and retail sector.

But not everybody is pleased with the scheme, with unions arguing if there are retail positions available, employers should instead be offering young welfare recipients ongoing work.

Jobless youths aged between 15 and 24 will undertake training before securing 12-week placements with major retailers under the governments PaTH internship program.

They will get a start at a job and, you know what, they could go on to great heights, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Monday

The PaTH scheme (Prepare, Trial, Hire) offers young jobseekers $200 a fortnight on top of their income support payments to undertake internships, and gives employers a $1000 upfront payment for taking them on

But Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney said the program offered no path to qualification, employment or workforce protection.

This is a government-sanctioned program that actually borders on slavery, she told reporters in Melbourne.

If this does create new jobs, then pay the kids for the jobs. Pay them a wage. Theyre going to be productive. Theyre going to be contributing to the bottom line of these businesses

Labor and the Greens are opposed to the program, insisting it will allow young people to be exploited by employers.

If the PaTH program becomes simply a supply of cheap labour for employers who would otherwise be paying people full time wages to do that work, then thats a bad thing, deputy opposition leader Tanya Plibersek said.

About 620 young people have been given internships through the PaTH scheme since it began on April 1, with 82 young people securing ongoing work.

Separately, the policy director at Interns Australia, Clara Jordan-Baird, also criticised the program, noting that it risked normalising internship culture in the retail sector:

My first job was at Bakers Delight. I didnt need to do unpaid work experience for 12 weeks to learn how to do it. Nobody needs to. After a short period, you are performing productive work and deserve to be paid for it as an employee.

It shouldnt be normal to pop into your local Coffee Club and see an intern waitress working for free.

MB noted similar concerns when PaTH was initially announced. That is, while the PaTH program may help at the margins, it wont do much to increase the overall supply of youth jobs and could also lead to employers substituting a regular employee for an intern, saving themselves money in the process.

Consider PaTH from an employers perspective. They will get a free kick as the Government is not only the one paying the intern, but the employer also receives $1,000 up front for employing the intern without the need to worry about sick days, annual leave or penalty rates.

Why would an employer hire a young worker on a casual basis when they can effectively get paid to take on an intern? Indeed, the evidence on these types of programs shows that employers will generally substitute a worker receiving a wage subsidy for another worker who would otherwise have been hired.

[emailprotected]

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Retail sector taps youth slaves - MacroBusiness (blog)

By Ben Railton

Special to The Washington Post

By now, most Americans have seen the jarring dash cam video of police officer Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile as Castile calmly reached for his license. Just as shocking, a jury acquitted Yanez. The verdict, in the eyes of many, was just one more piece of evidence for how American laws work to protect the powerful and oppress the powerless.

But while the American legal system can be seen as largely constructed to maintain the status quo, it has also served as an agent of change to expand rights -- even in the years before the Constitution was ratified. Activists -- even slaves -- have used the courts to weaponize American ideals and escape oppression.

Before debates about the Constitution began, states grappled with how to adapt the lofty ideals promised by the Declaration of Independence to the reality of slavery. The first was Massachusetts. Its 1780 Constitution marked Revolutionary America's first attempt to create new legal and political arrangements that gave individual citizens rights in the newly liberated nation.

Yet in Massachusetts, as in every other American colony, the constitutional promise that "all men are born free and equal" didn't hold true for African-American slaves. The application of the law exposed the imbalance between the powerful and the powerless, the included and excluded.

Two Massachusetts slaves highlighted this contradiction.

Sedgwick took Freeman's case.

In May 1781, the same month that Bett's case was heard in Great Barrington's County Court, a Worcester slave, Quock Walker, sued his former master Nathaniel Jennison for battery. Walker, likewise believing he had a legal right to freedom, had run away from Jennison and gone to work at the neighboring Caldwell farm, where the abolitionist brothers John and Seth Caldwell helped Walker find a lawyer and take his case to Worcester County Court.

The county courts decided in both Freeman's and Walker's favor. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest legal authority, was tasked with enforcing the state's foundational laws and applying its promised rights and freedoms to all residents. Freeman, Walker and their allies pressed the court to decide whether the Constitution's laws and rights pertained to slaves, hoping to change the conversation to include, rather than exclude, this Massachusetts community.

It worked. The Supreme Court Chief Justice William Cushing explained that the 1780 Constitution and the new nation's ideals rendered slavery illegal because "a different idea" had taken hold when the Constitution declared "all men are born free and equal." As a result, he could only conclude that slavery was "inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution."

Within a decade, pressured by both the court decisions and their communities, Massachusetts slave owners voluntarily freed their slaves, often by changing the arrangements to those of wage labor. The 1790 federal census listed no slaves in Massachusetts, making it the first state to comprehensively abolish slavery.

Abolition in Massachusetts happened because Freeman and Walker took the state's and the country's founding laws and precepts at their word. In highlighting the contradiction between concepts of equality and rights and the circumstances of slavery, they found powerful allies who helped bring their cases to the state's most powerful legal bodies, forcing collective decisions that would reverberate across the state.

Protection of the powerful is written into the law of the land, but so too are avenues to use ideas of freedom and equality to change communal conversations and legal practices. And it is this tradition that has begotten constitutional victories expanding rights and freedoms to increasingly greater number of Americans over the past two centuries.

A San Francisco-born Chinese American cook worked with attorneys and community organizations to win the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which made clear that the 14th Amendment's promise of birthright citizenship should apply to all Americans.

When that promised citizenship was still not extended to Native Americans, Yakama performer Nipo Strongheart and other native activists gathered tens of thousands of signatures on petitions, allied with the Indian Rights Association, and pressured Congress to pass the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.

And it was individual African American parents in Topeka pursuing educational opportunities for their children who worked with NAACP lawyers and their allies to win Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The landmark Supreme Court decision demonstrated that all Americans were included equally in our public education system, began the dismantling of Jim Crow segregation and launched the Civil Rights Movement. Those parents, like Strongheart, Wong, and Freeman and Walker before them, used ideas to create a more just society, providing hints as to how today's activists can best work to achieve progress.

Railton is a professor of English and American studies at Fitchburg State University.

Link:

BEN RAILTON: How two Massachusetts slaves won their freedom - Lowell Sun

Published Jul 4, 2017 at 8:00 am (Updated Jul 4, 2017 at 7:48 am)

The video of police officer Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile as Castile calmly reached for his licence is just one more piece of evidence for how American laws work to oppress the powerless

By now, most have seen the jarring dash cam video of police officer Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile as Castile calmly reached for his licence. Just as shocking, a jury acquitted Yanez. The verdict, in the eyes of many, was just one more piece of evidence for how American laws work to protect the powerful and oppress the powerless.

But while the American legal system can be seen as largely constructed to maintain the status quo, it has also served as an agent of change to expand rights even in the years before the Constitution was ratified. Activists, even slaves, have used the courts to weaponise American ideals and escape oppression.

Before debates about the Constitution began, states grappled with how to adapt the lofty ideals promised by the Declaration of Independence to the reality of slavery. The first was Massachusetts. Its 1780 Constitution marked Revolutionary Americas first attempt to create new legal and political arrangements that gave individual citizens rights in the newly liberated nation.

Yet in Massachusetts, as in every other American colony, the constitutional promise that all men are born free and equal did not hold true for African-American slaves. The application of the law exposed the imbalance between the powerful and the powerless, the included and excluded.

Two Massachusetts slaves highlighted this contradiction. Sheffields Elizabeth Bett Freeman heard the Massachusetts Constitution read aloud, and the next day approached prominent local lawyer Theodore Sedgwick, asking: I heard that paper read yesterday, that says all men are created equal, and that every man has a right to freedom. Im not a dumb critter; wont the law give me my freedom?

Sedgwick took Freemans case.

In May 1781, the same month that Betts case was heard in Great Barringtons County Court, a Worcester slave, Quock Walker, sued his former master, Nathaniel Jennison, for battery. Walker, likewise believing he had a legal right to freedom, had run away from Jennison and gone to work at the neighbouring Caldwell farm, where the abolitionist brothers John and Seth Caldwell helped Walker to find a lawyer and take his case to Worcester County Court.

The county courts decided in both Freemans and Walkers favour. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the states highest legal authority, was tasked with enforcing the states foundational laws and applying its promised rights and freedoms to all residents. Freeman, Walker and their allies pressed the court to decide whether the Constitutions laws and rights pertained to slaves, hoping to change the conversation to include, rather than exclude, this Massachusetts community.

It worked. The Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Cushing, explained that the 1780 Constitution and the new nations ideals rendered slavery illegal because a different idea had taken hold when the Constitution declared all men are born free and equal. As a result, he could conclude only that slavery was inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution.

Within a decade, pressured by both the court decisions and their communities, Massachusetts slave owners voluntarily freed their slaves, often by changing the arrangements to those of wage labour. The 1790 federal census listed no slaves in Massachusetts, making it the first state comprehensively to abolish slavery.

Abolition in Massachusetts happened because Freeman and Walker took the states and the countrys founding laws and precepts at their word. In highlighting the contradiction between concepts of equality and rights, and the circumstances of slavery, they found powerful allies who helped to bring their cases to the states most powerful legal bodies, forcing collective decisions that would reverberate across the state.

Protection of the powerful is written into the law of the land, but so too are avenues to use ideas of freedom and equality to change communal conversations and legal practices. And it is this tradition that has begotten constitutional victories expanding rights and freedoms to increasingly greater number of Americans over the past two centuries.

A San Francisco-born Chinese-American cook worked with attorneys and community organisations to win the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v Wong Kim Ark, which made clear that the 14th Amendments promise of birthright citizenship should apply to all Americans.

When that promised citizenship was still not extended to Native Americans, Yakama performer Nipo Strongheart and other native activists gathered tens of thousands of signatures on petitions, allied with the Indian Rights Association, and pressured Congress to pass the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.

And it was individual African-American parents in Topeka pursuing educational opportunities for their children who worked with NAACP lawyers and their allies to win Brown v Board of Education in 1954.

The landmark Supreme Court decision demonstrated that all Americans were included equally in the public education system, began the dismantling of Jim Crow segregation and launched the Civil Rights Movement. Those parents, like Strongheart, Wong, and Freeman and Walker before them, used ideas to create a more just society, providing hints as to how todays activists can best work to achieve progress.

Ben Railton, professor of English and American studies at Fitchburg State University, is the author of four books, numerous online articles and a daily blog of public American studies scholarship

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How two slaves won their freedom - Royal Gazette

Up to 10,000 internships will be offered to unemployed youths over the next four years in a deal struck between the federal government and retail sector.

But not everybody is pleased with the scheme, with unions arguing if there are retail positions available, employers should instead be offering young welfare recipients ongoing work.

Jobless youths aged between 15 and 24 will undertake training before securing 12-week placements with major retailers under the government's PaTH internship program.

"They will get a start at a job and, you know what, they could go on to great heights," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Monday.

"They could go on to, like many others before them, running big businesses, owning big businesses and employing lots of other people, realising their dreams."

The PaTH scheme (Prepare, Trial, Hire) offers young jobseekers $200 a fortnight on top of their income support payments to undertake internships, and gives employers a $1000 upfront payment for taking them on.

Australian Retailers Association chief executive Russel Zimmerman says underprivileged youths will access the same opportunities as successful people before them who started out on the retail shop floor.

"We are hoping by this program, and being able to get people enthused about the retail industry and to get employers to take on more people, that we will get young people into retail, that they will see retail as a career, and work their way through," Mr Zimmerman said.

But Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney said the program offered no path to qualification, employment or workforce protection.

"This is a government-sanctioned program that actually borders on slavery," she told reporters in Melbourne.

It's offering them as free labour: ACTU

"If this does create new jobs, then pay the kids for the jobs. Pay them a wage. They're going to be productive. They're going to be contributing to the bottom line of these businesses."

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash says the partnership is aimed at getting young people job-ready, giving them a go and finding them work.

"When we say that the best form of welfare is a job, we mean it, and we will put both the resources and the programs behind it," she said.

Government vows new jobs will be created

Jobs created through the program will be new positions, rather than replacing current roles or filling existing gaps.

Labor and the Greens are opposed to the program, insisting it will allow young people to be exploited by employers.

"If the PaTH program becomes simply a supply of cheap labour for employers who would otherwise be paying people full time wages to do that work, then that's a bad thing," deputy opposition leader Tanya Plibersek said.

About 620 young people have been given internships through the PaTH scheme since it began on April 1, with 82 young people securing ongoing work.

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'Borders on slavery': Government's internships welfare program criticised by unions, Labor - SBS