Category Archives: Wage Slavery

19 Apr 2017, 1:30 p.m.

Four years after the Rana Plaza disaster, nine brands refuse to say a word about what they're doing.

Well-known Australian fashion companies are keeping their overseas supply chains cloaked in secrecy, with the likes of Wish, Oxford and Roger David refusing to detail their efforts to stamp out exploitation and sweatshop conditions.

Ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed more than 1120 Bangladeshi garment workers, Baptist World Aid (BWA) has graded 106 companies A to F based on how transparent they are about their supply chains.

Topping the list are Australian Fairtrade-certified companies Etiko, Mighty Good Undies and RREPP. They are closely followed by global names such as Patagonia, Inditex (Zara), and Reebok.

Overall, half of those surveyed were able to boost their grade, with adventure brand Macpac, luxury label Oroton, and fast fashion chain Cotton On making the biggest jumps.

But nine companies refused to answer questions and were accordingly slapped with an F, including fashion brands Oxford, Wish, Decjuba, Roger David and Betts.

"If they don't share this information, there's no way that consumers can know they're doing enough to ensure that workers aren't being exploited," said BWA's advocacy manager Gershon Nimbalker.

"We sent emails, wrote letters to the company, CEO and chair of the board, made follow up phone calls multiple times and gave them long lead times of three to six months."

Oxford, Wish, Decjuba, Roger David and Betts did not respond to Fairfax Media's request for comment.

The "Ethical Fashion Report" shows that in the past year the proportion of companies publishing their final stage suppliers' business names and addresses has grown from 16 per cent to 26 per cent.

The report shows that more companies are diving deeper into their supply chains to identify who farms the raw material and spins the fibres but only 7 per cent know where all of their cotton is coming from.

Some of the world's biggest cotton producers, including India and Uzbekistan, continue to be plagued by slavery and child labour issues.

It also shows the proportion of companies that could demonstrate improved wages for workers has grown from 11 per cent in 2013 to 42 per cent this year.

"Paying workers a living wage is achievable even for high volume, low cost operators, and it could transform the lives of millions while driving economic growth in their communities," Mr Nimbalker said.

Low wages continue to be one of the fashion industry's biggest problems, with companies flocking to countries such as Bangladesh to take advantage of cheap labour.

Salaheya Khatun, 25, is one of Bangladesh's 5 million garment workers. She sews T-shirts all day at a factory in the heart of the country's capital, Dhaka.

She is only paid $113 a month, which is slightly higher than the minimum wage but far below the living wage which would cover her basic needs. She sends nearly half to her parents who are raising her daughter.

"I am in debt by around 1000 Taka [$16] every month because I need to pay for groceries and supplies on credit," she said. "I just want to be able to support my family."

Carolyn Katto from Stop the Traffik, a coalition of 30 groups fighting to end human trafficking, said while the report showed big progress at the cut-make-trim stage of production, there was still "huge abuse" further down the supply chain.

She said in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which produces most of the world's cotton knit fabrics, more than 300,000 young women were trapped in the Sumangali labour scheme.

"I met one woman who said to me, 'I am just like a machine trying to survive amongst machines'," Ms Katto said. "She regularly worked double shifts but didn't get paid for it. They would lock the doors."

She said one mill owner told her that demand for quicker turnaround times and cheaper prices meant they couldn't pay their workers properly.

"There are children in Uzbekistan and widows in India that are part of this supply chain, and we're on the other end, so what we choose to do will determine the living conditions for these people," she said.

Mr Nimbalker said he hoped the federal government would adopt the UK's Modern Slavery Act, which requires businesses to take decisive steps to eradicate slave labour.

"What we want to see is a robust piece of legislation that has the right mandatory disclosures and penalties to make it meaningful to address the problems of slavery," he said.

"We want consumers to vote with their wallets and call on companies to lift their game."

The 2017 Ethical Fashion Report can be seen here.

The story The Australian fashion brands that are silent on sweatshops first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.

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The Australian fashion brands that are silent on sweatshops - Newcastle Herald

Six days before the commemoration of the 2017 Workers Day, the leadership of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) threatened to mobilize Nigerians against State Governors and members of the National Assembly behind the bill which seeks to remove the National Minimum Wage from the Exclusive Legislative List to Concurrent Legislative List.

The proponent of the bill, Ayeola Abayomi Abdulkadir (APC-Lagos) seeks to alter the Second Schedule, Part 1 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) by deleting item 34 from the exclusive legislative list and renumbering the existing item 35 as item 34 and subsequent items accordingly:

(b) Part 11 by inserting a new item HH Labour immediately after the existing item H and renumbering the existing paragraph 21 as paragraph 23 and subsequent paragraphs accordingly: HH Labour:

21. The National Assembly shall have power to make laws for the Federation or any part thereof for the regulation of labour, including trade unions, industrial relations, safety and welfare of labour, industrial disputes; prescribing a national minimum wage at the federal level and industrial arbitration;

22. Nothing in paragraph 21 shall preclude a House of Assembly of a State from making laws with respect to the regulation of labour and Industrial relations including the prescription of minimum wage for the State, the bill read in part.

While reacting, Ayuba Wabba, NLC President who issued the threat notice while reacting to BusinessDay inquiry over the bill obtained by our Legislative Correspondent, accused some members of the Nigeria Governors Forum of sponsoring such anti-workers legislation.

The bill which scaled through first reading before the House exbarked on Easter recess, has been gazetted for second reading on the floor of the House where members will debate on it.

Wabba who kicked against fresh moves by some cabals to strangulate Nigerian workers who are currently undergoing frustrations due to the lingering socio-economic hardship, assured that the labour movement will explore every legitimate legal means that the law provides, we are going deplore it. Every legitimate means as we have done in the past, we are going to deplore it.

He noted that the Congress will mobilise all its affiliates to campaign against all the current political office holders linked with anti-workers legislations and policies ahead of the 2018 and 2019 general elections.

The NLC helmsman who noted that all the labour centres are unified in the previous struggle that led to the extinction of such bill, condemned the intendment of the bill in its entirety

All over the world, minimum wage is on the exclusive list, we are talking about protecting the most vulnerable group that is the principle and philosophy. It is an ILO core issue under decent work agenda. It is a core ILO issue and all countries of the world are conformed to.

So, first is that it is the level of ignorance because he thinks that it is only for the state. No. It is for the self employed for those that are from the private sector to protect the most vulnerable people from being exploited from false labour and slavery, that is why minimum wage law is there. It is a core ILO convention and in many countries of the world including capitalist economy. As capitalist as US is, they have a minimum wage law.

So, he must first understand the concept, it is not state government, it is all employers of labour generally both private and public. So, for public sector who fixes their own? That is why it is a tripartite issue. So, I think that there is a level of ignorance he has demonstrated in this without even knowing what minimum wage law is all about.

First, we condemned it in entirety, we are going to respond immediately and effectively. Two, let him also go back to the archives. This issue was introduced even by some cabals within the governors forum at the last Constitutional amendment and it was defeated. It went to referendum and it was defeated flat. So, we should start from where we stopped and not to take us back to areas we have actually advanced on.

Is he against the workers? Is the wages of politicians not fixed centrally across the country? All the governors in Nigeria, their wages are fixed centrally both states that are viable and states that are not viable. All National Assembly members, all Councillors their salaries are fixed centrally by Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission.

Presently in Nigeria, workers are not paid the same salary, but the mi imam wage law protects every worker that that is the minimum. Below which more employers of labour in Nigeria should actually fix wages. So, this is the philosophy and the concepts and therefore, I think he has demonstrated not understanding the real issue and therefore it is condemnable and we are also going to mobilise workers from his constituency immediately. We are going to dispatch our members from his constituency to also engage him seriously because he doesnt understand the issue.

He ought have consulted even workers from his constituency, whose interest is he protecting? Is he protecting his own interest, why cant he say his salary should be deregulated even when there are bad times, how many days a week do they sit, are they not paid as full time workers? So, these are the issues.

So I am sure that this issue will not see the light of the day but it is highly condemnable because one, he has demonstrated lack of understanding and ignorance on what minimum wage stands for. It is a core convention of ILO globally. Every country has this position in its law to protect the most vulnerable group from exploitation. So, our position is that we condemn it from totality and we want to educate him to know what is the concept of minimum wage, the NLC President said.

He noted that millions of Nigerians who are self employed and those working in the private sector will be subjected to undue exploitation if the national minimum wage is removed from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List.

Who will regulate the case of the self employed. For instance now, you are self employed, you are not working under either state or federal government that you will even negotiate. So the implication is that once you remove that from the exclusive list, workers will be exploited. We are not even talking of the maximum, we are talking about the minimum.

Assuming the alteration bill sells through in the National Assembly, what will the organised labour, especially the leadership of the NLC do? It will not sell through because we will stop it at all cost because Nigerian workers will not accept this, Wabba vowed.

Read more here:

2017 Workers Day: NLC threatens to mobilise Nigerians against State Governors, NASS - BusinessDay (satire) (press release) (registration) (blog)

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By maintaining a minimum wage that is below the poverty level, we are literally keeping a significant segment of our population in income slavery

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James Marcovis,West Des Moines, Letter to the Editor 5:20 p.m. CT April 24, 2017

Claire Celsi attended the Polk County minimum wage increase celebration(Photo: Molly Longman/The Register)Buy Photo

The most cruelthing the 2017 Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature did was to take away the authority of cities and counties to raise the minimum wage, then do nothing to raise it at the state level.

I am a small businessman who pays my employees much more than the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and many of them still barely get by. It is a disgrace that the state of Iowa doesn't raise its minimum wage to between $10 to $12 per hour. Why is a large number of our population forced to work two and three jobs just to get by?

Every time the minimum wage has been raised,hundreds of businesses haven't closed and hundreds to thousands of people haven't lost their jobs. Almost every penny paid out in increased wages goes right back into the economy improving business and creating jobs. By maintaining a minimum wage that is below the poverty level, we are keeping a significant segment of our population in income slavery.

Let's give the next legislature a mandate to raise the minimum wage and help the least fortunate of our workers have a chance to lead a better life.

James Marcovis,West Des Moines

Iowa Legislature adjourns: What bills passed in 2017 session?

Obradovich: Can't fix stupid: The 2017 Legislature in three words

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Iowa Legislature's minimum wage rollback was a cruel move - DesMoinesRegister.com

That evening, Stuart left the office at lunchtime. Working flexi-time, as he did, he was well in credit for that week and could take the afternoon off if he wished. A meeting had been pencilled in for three that afternoon, but since that involved only two others, one of whom was the insufferable Elaine, Stuart felt he could ask for it to be transferred to the following day.

Thats a pity, said Elaine, when he called her to put her off. I was looking forward to going over this mornings ordeal with you.

Stuart grimaced. It would not have been an ordeal for her, nor indeed for Faith; rather, it would have been what people called a shoo-in for both of them.

I withdrew my candidacy, he said tersely.

There was a shocked silence at the other end of the line. You? You withdrew?

Thats what I said. I thought it best. There are good reasons why one should not take that particular job.

Again there was a silence this time one of unease. Why do you say that, Stuart?

Stuart took a deep breath. Something of a poisoned chalice, he said quietly. But I cant talk about it freely over the phone.

Now Elaine sounded alarmed. What do you mean by that?

I mean that I dont fancy being in that seat when Look, I really cant talk about it.

Elaine was quiet for a few moments before continuing, By the way, what did you mean when you said something about long division? When you left the waiting room this morning, you said something about long division and

Oh, that was nothing, said Stuart. Just a little joke.

Well, I didnt think it was terribly funny. You know that were not meant to make jokes in the office. Jokes can be offensive.

Stuart felt his anger rise up within him. Oh, he said, Id forgotten. We have to be humourless.

I didnt say that. You really twist peoples words, you know, Stuart.

Well, anyway, I have to go now. Congratulations on getting the job. He knew that the results would not be known officially for ten days, but he was confident enough of his prediction.

Elaine gasped. How did you know that? I was told that nobody would be informed until She stopped herself. But it was too late, Stuarts suspicions had been confirmed.

I hear that they told you this morning. On the spot.

Youre not meant to know that.

Stuart smiled to himself. It was so predictable. Well, I do, but dont worry, I wont tell anybody. Ill let them keep up the faade of open competition. He looked up at the ceiling, trying to imagine Elaines expression as she took his call. Smugness would have changed to disquiet and then returned to smugness once more.

He rang off and walked across the floor of his office to the window overlooking the harbour. The thought occurred to him that he could go to sea. People did that in the past they gave it all up and went to sea. But he could not do that; there was Bertie and little Ulysses and years of wage slavery ahead of him. Wage slavery it was not an expression he would have used of his own position, but now that he came to think of it, it was not all that inappropriate. Everyone or just about everyone was a wage slave, in a sense. They went to the office, put in the hours, often working with people they did not like (Elaine and Faith), sometimes with people who could not even do long division (Elaine) or who kept going on about Dunfermline and what people in Dunfermline thought about this, that or the next thing (Elaine) or who were fanatical about some issue (that man in the post room who listened in on his portable radio set to ground-to-air transmissions from Edinburgh Airport Control Tower), or who were sycophantic to those in authority over them (Faith, principally, but Elaine too when the opportunity arose).

He watched as a small boat nosed its way out to sea. Boats were a metaphor for freedom. Setting sail meant more than simply slipping away from the quayside; it meant putting the constraints of terra firma behind you; it meant turning your back on the security of the land for the uncertainties and risks of the sea. The sea was water theres an insight, thought Stuart and those who went upon it put themselves, composed largely of water, at the mercy of that medium that would dissolve us all. And the sea did that, as sailors in the past used to recognize; if they went overboard they would simply compose themselves and wait for an end that was ordained to be.

Existential freedom As a young man he had flirted briefly with philosophy, and had read, in a directionless and untutored way, various paperback books he had found in an Oxfam shop. He had stumbled across a book on the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and had been taken by the whiff of freedom that emanated from its pages. Authenticity, it seemed, was everything: you had to make choices about your life, you had to live in the fullest way, to be authentic. That was real freedom, the author suggested, and M. Sartre, sitting in his Left Bank caf with what was her name again? Simone de Beauvoir that was echt authenticity. They were no wage slaves, Jean-Paul and Simone; they did not have to clock into their caf at nine in the morning and stay there, being appropriately authentic, until five oclock.

He moved away from the window. I shall never be authentic, he said to himself, as long as I work in this place, with these people, doing the sort of thing they want me to do. Im fed up with inventing inauthentic figures; Im fed up pretending that things are better than they are and expecting the public to believe it all. Ive finished with that now. No longer. No more.

He went downstairs to the floor on which the office of the Supreme Head of Personnel was located. He went to her assistants door and knocked.

Do you have an appointment to see me? asked the assistant.

Stuart laughed. To see you? Are you seriously suggesting that people need to make an appointment to see you to make an appointment to see her?

Yes, said the assistant. I am.

In that case, said Stuart. Please note down this message to yourself, to pass on, in due course, to her. Pollock, S, Department of Creative Statistics: resignation, with immediate effect, coupled with a request to be allowed not to work one months notice, as per contract, and to take the notice period as accumulated leave in lieu. He paused. Did you get that?

Yes, said the assistant. I did.

Good, said Stuart, and he left by the door that, although unmarked, was in his mind labelled Freedom; the door we all long to find, and sometimes never locate, but sometimes do.

More here:

44 Scotland Street: A road to freedom - The Scotsman

Every literary season deserves at least one unexpected pleasure. For the fall of 2016, this pleasure appeared with the discovery and publication of a long-lost novel by Claude McKay. Known as the rebel sojourner of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay enjoys more than his fair share of supporters and detractors. His sense of rebellion persisted throughout his unsettled life, as compulsive and widespread as his travels. The newly discovered novel, with the suitably prickly title of Amiable With Big Teeth, wont likely alter or settle McKays reputation conclusively, but it will complicate it, and in a good sense. Most striking, perhaps, is that the book has a deft plot, rather unlike his earlier narratives (recall that Banjo is subtitled A Story Without a Plot). Some issues and concerns recur from the previous fictions, but they often appear to be over-shadowed by the political questions of race and color. Amiable certainly continues in that vein, but adds to it a smoother sense of conflict and development, complete with revelatory surprises and a range of tonal situations, from romantic innocence to farce to grim burlesque.

What chiefly sets Amiable off distinctively from other McKay novels is the presence of full-throated political disputes, most of which were burning heatedly in the 1930s, during the rise of fascism. Home to Harlem and Banjo, written in the late 1920s, both made room for politics, and in both places, the character of Ray served as McKays spokesperson and main political theorizer. But in Amiable, no character commands center stage, which means McKay can show everyones political views in all their complexity. But such complexity can also be read as a form of universal rejection. Many readers of this new novel will catch more than a whiff of McKays cynicism, if not a quiet nihilism. The entire novel is set in New York, and the bulk of it takes place in Harlem. But the date is 1937, so the Renaissance has begun to fade, and the Harlem riot of 1935 is also only lightly mentioned, and though some Depression culture appears, it registers only as a thin, indefinite shadow. But leftist revolution and anti-colonialism dominated the main questions of the day.

What strikes home, and stands as the novels main underpinning, is the emphasis on the problems of group identity and the international range of revolutionary sentiments. All of this thematic and emotional material arises from the first pages as what we might call the problem of Ethiopia. A war is taking place overseas between Italo-Fascist forces and a near-mythical model of liberation in the form of the North African state of Ethiopia. Led by Emperor Haile Selassie, the country has been called the most mysterious and misunderstood political nation in the 20th century. For many readers there persists the memory of Mussolinis savage suppression of Ethiopians, woefully under-equipped and the helpless victims of aerial bombardment. The Harlem community of African Americans (McKay refers to them as Aframericans) turned to this small, underdeveloped country to support it against fascism and hold it up as a symbol of anti-colonialism and national liberation.

As a novelist, McKay was vividly political. One commentator on Banjo, his picaresque story of dockside workers, pointed to its sailors in Marseilles as emulating a form of oppositional primitivism, that is, a rejection of the values of industrial capitalism by contrasting it with group solidarity and an embrace of personal freedom, if not license. Though Amiable is thick with political values of all kinds, McKay invokes only a little of the vast tangle of primitivist culture (until late in the book, more of which below), and to speak bluntly, he offers no overriding solution, or even a weak resolution, to the tangle of political stances and emotions that drive the story. Something like a deeply rooted sense of unfettered nature and camaraderie is on offer and, with luck, it might prevail against wage slavery and a repressive social order. Still, MacKay captures some of the rhetorical temperatures of radical leftist politics, in what W. H. Auden called the low dishonest decade of the 1930s, and shows us more of the problem than of any solution.

MacKay gives each viewpoint a full hearing, and his outsider status based on his birth in Jamaica, his coming late to the Renaissance because of his exilic imagination, and his feeling that American blacks sometimes treated him with condescension resounds here and throughout all of his writings. If we insist on some label, perhaps we could settle on radical individualist, with a broken socialist heart. (Alain Locke, accurately but unfairly, accused him of spiritual truancy.) Amiable, however, at once presents his outsider dimension with a new brighter glow, but not, as they say, unmixed with heat. McKay utilized the strength of his mentors, forming several solid friendships with some of his fellow writers, but when it came to foursquare social and political questions and affiliations, he was a scold and he held his often-solitary opinions fiercely. This novel clarifies the sources of his many disaffections, using the dyspeptic genre of the satirical novel of manners.

The long arc of Amiables plot involves the rivalry between two groups, the Hands to Ethiopia and the Friends of Ethiopia. (The latter group is sometimes called the White Friends of Ethiopia.) Both groups are involved in fundraising to help finance the Ethiopian army, led by Emperor Haile Selassie, in their fight against the invasion by the fascist government in Italy, led by Mussolini. The first pages describe a volatile public meeting meant to introduce a spokesperson for the Ethiopians, a supposed prince by the name of Lij Tekla Alamaya. The rivalry to garner Alamayas prestigious support grows immediately complicated as both the Hands and the Friends have distinct and disputatious desires and cryptic allegiances. The Hands are led by Pablo Peioxta, whose modest fortune and bourgeois taste were won by mounting a numbers racket in Harlem, though by now Peioxta has gained a veneer of respectability. His fellow member of the Hands is Dorsey Flagg, a combative type who mistrusts the machinations of the Stalinists. As for the Friends, their leader is the mysterious Maxim Tasan, the most villainous person in the novel. He is aided by a helper named Newton Castle, a clever two-faced manipulator who mistrusts the credulity of the masses. Tasan and Castle are indeed supporters of Stalin, almost to the point of being stooges. The rivalry between Flagg and Castle, the Executive Member and the Secretary, respectively, of the Hands, serves as a counterpoint to the competition between the two groups. Both groups, however, are staunchly anti-Fascist, at least in their public faces. But as the old-line Trotskyists used to say, it is all splits and fusions.

All this combines to produce a novel in which most everyone appears a knave or a fool, as we watch members of each of the two groups engage in the plots twists and surprises as well as in its daily Harlemite flavor.

The main preoccupation of the novel is shaped by the congeries of arguments, pettiness, and duplicity between the various political causes and groups. These include Stalinists (plotting to build their control over the Popular Front); Trotskyites (trying to prove that Stalin is evil); black Harlems elite (often accused of toadying to whites); white visitors to Harlem (frequently baffled by, or mistrusting, what they see); and assorted organizers and money seekers (whose commitments lag considerably behind their self-aggrandizement).There is tension here of a special kind, however. A sentiment shared by many blacks, and close to McKays heart, is the feeling that time, money, and energy might be better spent on raising the salaries of people (as Langston Hughes said about the Renaissance) rather than on distant, high-minded causes. The bitterness of McKays sense of alienation was always short-circuited by his unfailing anti-racism, the kind that the novelist meant in everyday life, every day. It functioned as the core of his political imagination and ethos. Virtually every character and complication gets plotted on a graph of racist feelings, from Peioxtas assimilationism, to Tasans opportunism, to the desire of Seraphine, Peioxtas daughter, to move downtown to a freer life and her mothers desire for respectability.

The storys main complication occurs with the discovery that Haile Selassie has been forced into exile by the Italian fascists and thus has abandoned his role as spokesman for the oppressed blacks in Africa and across the globe. This totally unexpected development turns everything upside down. The leader of the Friends, Tasan, is largely unfazed by the exile of Selassie and sees it only as a chance to further gather and strengthen the support of stooges from the Popular Front. As for Peioxta, he celebrates the uncovering of Tasans intensely Stalinist bad faith, and does what he can to comfort Alamaya, who has won the affection of Gloria Kendell, a secretary in the office of the Hands. She is chosen to accompany Alamaya on his cross-country lecture and fundraising tour, and their impulsive romance helps him survive the crisis of the Emperors forced exile. His political neutrality and his good-natured pragmatism are revealed as his best features.

This political neutrality dominates Seraphines outlook and makes her rebellious against her parents. Shes beautiful, nave, socially ambitious, and eager to marry a prince. However, Alamaya chooses Gloria Kendell instead, even though he discovers that she has gone on stage to imitate an Ethiopian princess, a clearly fraudulent counterpart to fundraising by whatever scheme works. There is also a clever plot contrivance whereby Alamaya thinks hes lost the diplomatic letter, complete with the Emperors seal, that will demonstrate his official standing as Selassies envoy. In fact, Maxim Tasan has stolen the letter from him in order to discredit him and hobble the money-raising by the Hands. In turn, the letter is uncovered by Seraphine, which ought to make life a bit easier for Alamaya by restoring his legitimacy. All this takes place while most of the women in the novel Seraphine and her mother, Gloria Kendell, working as a clerk for the Hands and Seraphines friend and roommate, Bunchetta deal with domestic issues and affairs of the heart. The tone never descends into that of a soap opera, and it serves to offer a contrast to the political discussions, which sometimes read like harangues. To McKays credit, the plot and structure of the novel stand as leagues ahead of those in Home to Harlem and Banjo. His artistry impresses even more when we realize the weight of his chronic illness during the time he was working on the novel.

McKay introduces some minor characters throughout, almost as if he were trying to use the complications of novelistic devices to give the novel breathing space, lest the politics overwhelm its interest. But there are two men who have rather sizeable roles in the book, coming into the scene in Chapters 20 and 23, very near the end of the story. Chapter 20 introduces a painter called DD, whose gallery opening takes up the whole chapter, and could be a stand-alone satire about the art world. This material is probably based on McKays work in the FWP, the Federal Writers Project, which absorbed much of his time and his frustration in the last years of his life. It seems as if McKay needed to satirize each cultural group active in Harlem. The events with DD and his crowd dont get fully integrated into the novel, nor, in the final chapter, number 23, does the introduction of a mysterious shaman-like character named Diup Wuluff. Diup makes use of full-size leopard skins in an African style ritual that is cryptically performed to serve as the climax of the novel.Diup is invited to a farewell party planned by and for Tasan himself, and Tasan inveigles the shaman into a wild and implausible scheme. The ending of the party forms the gruesome climax of the novel, but I wouldnt want to ruin the shock by spelling it out. Suffice to say, MacKay has never been more over the top. We have, at the closing moment, left the political disputes behind.

The discovery of Amiable will not likely deepen McKays reputation widely and quickly. He never attained the folk-based affection afforded Langston Hughes, though Home to Harlem vied with N Heaven as the periods most shocking black novel. His membership, so to speak, in the Renaissance was always based on underfunded dues. But what he offered remains strong and distinctive, a large body of work made through toil and persistence. Amiable wont readily be seen as a crowning glory of craftsmanship. But it extends McKays historic and thematic reach, which makes his last decade considerably brighter. Darryl Pinckney summarizes McKays career, mixing hope and clarity:

McKays reputation may have declined in his lifetime, but the worth he found in the culture of the black masses had an immediate influence on a generation of Harlem writers . . . and few black writers have so dramatically embodied the problem of identity, the matter of standing between two worlds, removed and distant from one, yet not completely belonging and then compelled to not want to belong to the other.

This reads like a special adaptation of Du Boiss famous passage about the black consciousness as it confronts its own twoness. But divided consciousness can serve as a mark of modernism as well as of black experience. McKays fiction recalls, at different points, some of the brittleness of Wallace Thurmans Infants of the Spring or the grating satire of Wyndham Lewis. In turn this can foster the sense that McKay is beyond national identity, a true internationalist. It may be one of those ironies that writers howl at, in painful self-recognition, when we remember that McKay travelled everywhere, yet he could never quite come home to Harlem, even though he remains one of its indispensable lights.

Yet the coda of McKays work and its afterlife offered little of the bright lights of fame that some of the Renaissance writers would enjoy, though some had it only posthumously. Again, Pinckney sums up:

Weary of the poverty of his European exile, McKay . . . returned to the United States in 1934, where he was met by a changed market for book publishers and a Harlem hostile to his independence of it. He lived at the YMCA, considered going on relief, endured a stint in a labor camp that was little more than a sanatorium for casualties of the Depression. His autobiography, published in 1937, was also a failure and he managed to offend just about everyone mentioned in it.

Some have suggested that, because of his sense of hopelessness, McKay belongs more to the Lost Generation than to the Negro Renaissance. It serves as McKays singular honor that he belongs to both of these literary periods. But also equally striking is that neither period can completely contain the force of his vision.

Editorial Note: Jean-Christophe Cloutier, a graduate student working with Brent Hayes Edwards at Columbia University, discovered the novel in an archive. The two men have done an excellent job editing and introducing the novel, as well as explaining the circumstances of its appearance.

Feature image and article images by Shannon Sands; source images courtesy of George Dance and laT aurora via Wikimedia Commons. Book covers courtesy of the publishers. Photograph of the Harlem YMCA courtesy of Beyond My Ken via Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons).

Charles Molesworth has published a number of books on modern literature. His most recent book is The Capitalist and the Critic: J.P. Morgan, Roger Fry and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (U. of Texas).

See more here:

Amiable with Big Teeth - The Smart Set

Brendan Cox bcox@norwichbulletin.com, (860) 425-4225 bcoxNB

Of all the disagreements that define modern politics, perhaps the most divisive of them all, the battle over health care policy, has always been the most perplexing to me.

It puzzles the logical mind to observe that uncertainty, misery and financial stress are accepted and even defended as norms when the obvious solution universal health care as a right of citizenship, sometimes branded as Medicare for all is staring us right in the face, most of the developed world having long since figured it out.

Abortion is perhaps the most morally and spiritually vexing issue ever to touch politics. There are big, important, abstract debates to have over foreign policy and our countrys role in the world. Ditto with the crisis of income inequality and policymakers role in perpetuating it. But health care? Please.

Last week, as Republicans in Washington were attempting to revive to laughable Trumpcare bill, their feeble attempt at repealing and replacing Obamacare after seven years of posturing, I couldnt help but recall the horrid politics of 2010 when the Affordable Care Act was under construction.

Obamacare, of course, was a big gift to the insurance companies, its most hotly debated provision a mandate that individuals buy their products or else deal with the IRS. In theory, it made sense because it created a much broader risk pool that helped insurers absorb other new requirements aimed at making health insurance a little bit more humane. ACA was hardly the socialist coup the right made it out to be, inspiring anger that resonates to this day anger that todays Republicans are not equipped to mollify, knowing full well that to strip Obamacare away outright would be to needlessly immiserate millions with pre-existing conditions and kick millions more off of their coverage.

Then, the political debate focused on liberty and the size of government, an eminently relevant discussion. In this case, I believe conservatives have miscalculated: We cannot be secure in our persons or our property when subjected to the dog-eat-dog capitalist wasteland that is American health care. What freedom is there in knowing that one accident, one diagnosis, one extended hospital stay might clear out our savings?

I dont consider the constant threat of personal bankruptcy due to illness not some unwise investment or business venture a feature of liberated society. I consider it a form of slavery we are slaves to the jobs that pay for our health insurance, slaves to wage garnishment and collections when those policies dont cover the bill and slaves to existential stress that pervades all corners of our lives, knowing that financial ruin lurks in every doctors office and emergency room.

No, freedom is knowing that when you get sick or injured, you will get the care you need at low or no cost. Liberty is certainty that your well-being isnt subject to the profiteering of insurance companies and the vagaries of capitalist markets.

Lets not pretend that our financial lives would be unduly affected if a higher tax contribution were to replace the health care premiums most of us already have deducted from our wages. Lets not allow dystopian visions of a nanny state preclude any rational discussion of the failings of a system that befuddles our international peers a system in which nominally free markets intersect with a labyrinthine regulatory structure, creating a netherworld thats neither government-run nor purely capitalist, leading only to confusion, opacity and half-measures of relief for the aggrieved and abused.

Keep government out of my health care is a nice idea, I suppose, but I would prefer to keep corporate profit motives out of mine. Government may not be the most efficient means of delivering a product, but its mission, to guarantee rights to life, liberty and property, is certainly more virtuous. We can demand a national health care system that hews to that purpose, if only we had the courage to accept the truth that lives in front of our eyes.

Brendan Cox is The Bulletins opinion page editor. Email him at bcox@norwichbulletin.com or follow him on Twitter: @bcoxNB.

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Brendan Cox: Want freedom? Try universal health care - Norwich Bulletin

Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou (Serpents Tail, 12.99)

THE BETTER to position an author on the bookshelves, its inevitable that a writer from the global south who catches the attention of readers in Europe and the US is framed by comparisons with dead white males.

Its a reference point of sorts and Alain Mabanckou (pictured), originally from the Republic of the Congo but now a resident of California, has been variously likened to JD Salinger and Samuel Beckett.

And his latest novel Black Moses, with its humanistic rawness and deployment of its main character and those he encounters as an allegory to describe a whole society, recalls the younger Salman Rushdie but with a less bloated style.

The main protagonist, with his lengthy name of Thanks be to God, the black Moses is born on the earth of our ancestors, doesnt just carry the burden of the expectations of Papa Moupelo, the orphanage priest who so named him, on his shoulders.

He also personifies a whole country still struggling to throw off its colonial past, overcome divisive tribal rivalries and deliver true national self-determination and liberation.

As such, Black Moses is an account of struggle and disappointment. Moses, far from guiding his people to anything like the promised land, finds himself following and accommodating himself to bigger and more powerful forces.

His name becomes increasingly ironic. Moses is clearly not a leader, just one out of many people struggling to get by.

That doesnt mean he doesnt try to rebel against the brutish director of the orphanage and the local hoodlums and hard boys in its vast dormitory. But such acts are limited in scope and effect.

The orphanage director Dieudonne Ngoulmoumako is one of those cunning brutes able effortlessly to prosper both under the old regime and the new Marxist government without changing his behaviour or corrupt practices.

Mabanckou shows a succession of authority figures who transcend the efforts at modernising the country and so thwart the noble aims of creating a more just society.

Aside from the kindnesses of the orphanage nurse Sabine Niangui, the institution is a repressive place full of ghouls like old Koukuoba, previously a necrophiliac undertaker.

Moses escapes to Pointe-Noire to become one of a gang of parentless children in the Grand Marche district of the city before the area is cleansed by the zealous mayor Francois Makele ahead of elections.

He achieves some stability in a brothel in the Three Hundreds district run by the formidable Maman Fiat 500. She sets him up as a worker at the port before Mosess world collapses again as he rebels against wage slavery and the brothel is levelled, again through the directions of a mayor keen to further boost his reputation by targeting non-Congolese sex workers.

Moses retreats to tending his garden but, inevitably, his earlier life experiences catch up with him and he suffers a massive and disturbing mental breakdown, losing both his hold on reality and his memory.

A doctor interested only in showing off his European medical qualifications fails to heal him as does the hocus-pocus of a traditional healer. Driven by his madness, Moses seeks out violent revenge as the only solution to his and societys parlous state.

Full of raw and vivid dialogue that captures the traumatic impact of neocolonialism on the heart and soul of a whole nation, Black Moses is an impressive work. Recommended.

Paul Simon

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Promised Land proves to be a mirage for Alain Mabanckou's black Moses - Morning Star Online

kramunni@nhregister.com @kateramunni on Twitter

HAMDEN >> Six former employees at Town House Restaurant and a group of their supporters protested Thursday afternoon outside the Whitney Avenue restaurant, hours after filing a lawsuit claiming they were underpaid and overworked.

The six Ivan Espejo Salazar, Omar Gonzales Arias, Oscar Mira Fuentes, Antonio Rojas Torres, Rafael Sedeo Amaro and Antonio Vidal Rodriguez filed a civil lawsuit in Superior Court in New Haven Thursday, for damages for wage and hour violations and tortuous conduct during the course of that employment, according to the suit.

Named in the suit as defendants are Spiro Protopsaltis, Dina Topcu, Aristotle Ari Protopsaltis and Ahmet Topcu.

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The six accuse the restaurant owner of paying them as little as $3.14 an hour, and that they worked as many as 72 hours some weeks without being paid overtime. They also were not given proper breaks, they claim, alleging that they worked as many as eight hours before being allowed to take a break. The would be subject to verbal abuse for what they said were minor infractions, according to the suit.

They were asked to do work outside of their assigned jobs, according to the suit, and one of the plaintiffs Amaro was fired in November for failing to fill customers glass with ice and for failing to clean the dishes, which, according to the suit, were not part of his job description. The suit also alleges that Topcu physically threatened Amaro, coming within inches of his face.

Ari Protopsaltis said the six former employees are all friends and came here from Mexico. They have each worked at the restaurant several times, Protopsaltis said. They get fired, and the beg to come back, he said. They worked here four times before they work, they leave, they come back, they work, they leave, they come back.

There are good reasons why they were asked to leave each time, Protopsaltis said, but when they asked to come back, he always said yes.

We have been here for 30 years and we have never had a problem, he said.

Three interns from New Haven Legal Assistance were outside the restaurant with the former employees Thursday afternoon. Heather Richard, Elise Wander and Megan Fountain assisted the six in the filing of the lawsuit.

They were illegally not paid for the hours they worked, and they werent paid what they were supposed to have been paid, Fountain said. The three declined to say whether the six are in the country legally, but regardless of their status, they are legally entitled to be paid for the work they do and on time, she said.

Rabbi Herbert Brockman from Congregation Mishkan Israel and the Rev. Paul Fleck from Hamden Plains United Methodist Church were both outside with the protesters.

Im a customer, and I came to find out how they treat the people who serve us, if they treat them fairly, justly and morally, Brockman said. If thats not true, its very upsetting. Its as old as the Bible, you are supposed to pay people fairly and justly and on time.

Its a moral matter, Fleck agreed. Its Easter week, and I follow a Christ who has said He stands for the least of people. From what he has heard from the workers, it seems they have been treated unfairly, he said.

We believe we can prove these allegations and we will receive justice, Richard said.

The living wage in Connecticut is at least $15 per hour, said John Jairo Lugo, a leader of Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA). At a time when many legislators are demanding that Connecticut raise the minimum wage to $15, its deplorable that many businesses are cheating and illegally paying $4 or $5 per hour. This is slavery in Connecticut.

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Workers file lawsuit against Town House Restaurant in Hamden alleging they were underpaid - New Haven Register

A report examining 106 clothing companies that operate or sell in Australia found that none could guarantee everyone who worked along their supply chain was paid a living wage. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Introducing modern slavery laws would force Australian clothing companies to clean up their supply chains and catch up with international competitors, the authors of the annual Baptist World Aid Ethical Fashion Report have said.

The report, released on Wednesday, investigated the workers rights policies of 106 clothing companies that operate or sell in Australia. It found the proportion of companies that were actively trying to trace their supply chain had increased from 49% in 2013 to 81% in 2017, but only 7% knew where all their cotton was manufactured.

It also found none of the surveyed companies could guarantee that everyone who worked along their supply chain was paid a living wage. Only one company, Australian-owned Mighty Good Undies, could guarantee that everyone involved in the final stage of its production processes was paid a living wage.

The Baptist World Aid advocacy manager, Gershon Nimbalker, said the majority of companies surveyed had greatly improved their practices since the first report in 2013, but a small number were lagging behind.

Nimbalker said modern slavery laws, similar to those recently introduced in the UK which require businesses to disclose what they are doing to minimise the risk of slavery in their supply chain, would force those companies to improve.

Where companies are sourcing from regions or nations that have low law enforcement, poor industrial relations systems, and they dont have traceability, the risks of the worst forms of exploitation, including slavery, are very high, he told Guardian Australia.

One of the reports Im getting back [on the effect of modern slavery laws in the UK] is that it has absolutely lifted the consciousness that people have that companies need to be doing more, or at least being seen to do more, to address the problems of slavery throughout its supply chain.

Australia launched a parliamentary inquiry into introducing modern slavery laws in February.

The mining magnate Andrew Forrest has thrown his support behind the proposed laws, telling a forum this month that Fortescue Metals Group had audited its supply chain and discovered some of its suppliers used forced labour.

Nimbalker said he had toured fabric mills in India that used child labour or bonded labour, and there was an enormous risk fabric manufactured through slavery would end up in garments in Australian stores.

Consumers have a huge capacity to make a difference in this, he said. We hear from companies all the time that its building trust with their consumer base that they all really value. So when consumers preference those companies that are doing more to support workers and vote with their wallets in that way then they encourage the industry to improve. And they call on the laggards to lift their game. The companies hear that and they respond.

The Ethical Fashion Report grades companies on their knowledge of suppliers at the raw material, inputs and final production stages, as well as on the strength of their policies and the level of transparency they provide to consumers.

Nine companies, including Patagonia, Cotton On, Adidas, Liminal Apparel, Inditex (which produces Zara), Nudie Jeans and Pacific Brands received an A grade, while ethical clothing companies Mighty Good Undies, Etiko and RREPP received an A+.

Ten companies received an F: Wish; Corporate Apparel Group, which produces the brands Ron Bennett, Sew253 and Get Formal; Roger David; Voyager Distributing Co, producing Jump, Kachel and Ping Pong; Oxford; Ally Fashion; Betts; Bloch; Decjuba; and Farmers.

Baptist World Aid said while all 10 companies declined to take part in the report, Corporate Apparel Group pointed to the governance policies on its website.

Oxford also responded by detailing its social audit process, which checks each factory for the use of child labour, forced labour, health and safety, working hours and other employment practices. It said those reports were too sensitive to release but invited Baptist World Aid to inspect them in person, adding: Our concern for worker exploitation is evidenced by our commitment and perseverance to ensuring organisations within our supply chain consistently treat their employees fairly and humanely.

Separately, Decjuba told Guardian Australia it was not obliged to complete or participate in the ethical fashion survey but was continually working to evolve our ethical footprint in line with its ethical supply principles, which included a requirement for workers to be paid a living wage and zero tolerance for child labour.

Guardian Australia contacted all 10 companies that received an F grade prior to publication. Those companies had declined to participate in the survey rather than being found to be non-compliant.

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Slavery laws would force Australian fashion labels to be more ethical report - The Guardian

Well-known Australian fashion companies are keeping their overseas supply chains cloaked in secrecy, with the likes of Wish, Oxford and Roger David refusing to detail their efforts to stamp out exploitation and sweatshop conditions.

Ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed more than 1120 Bangladeshi garment workers, Baptist World Aid (BWA) has graded 106 companies A to F based on how transparent they are about their supply chains.

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According to the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, garment workers face poor working conditions, but "when workers know their law and rights, they're eager to organise unions and form unions". Courtesy of Human Rights Watch.

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According to the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, garment workers face poor working conditions, but "when workers know their law and rights, they're eager to organise unions and form unions". Courtesy of Human Rights Watch.

Topping the list are Australian Fairtrade-certified companies Etiko, Mighty Good Undies and RREPP. They are closely followed by global names such as Patagonia, Inditex (Zara), and Reebok.

Overall, half of those surveyed were able to boost their grade, with adventure brand Macpac, luxury label Oroton, and fast fashion chain Cotton On making the biggest jumps.

But nine companies refused to answer questions and were accordingly slapped with an F, including fashion brands Oxford, Wish, Decjuba, Roger David and Betts.

"If they don't share this information, there's no way that consumers can know they're doing enough to ensure that workers aren't being exploited," said BWA's advocacy manager Gershon Nimbalker.

"We sent emails, wrote letters to the company, CEO and chair of the board, made follow up phone calls multiple times and gave them long lead times of three to six months."

Oxford, Wish, Decjuba, Roger David and Betts did not respond to Fairfax Media's request for comment.

The "Ethical Fashion Report" shows that in the past year the proportion of companies publishing their final stage suppliers' business names and addresses has grown from 16 per cent to 26 per cent.

The report shows that more companies are diving deeper into their supply chains to identify who farms the raw material and spins the fibres but only 7 per cent know where all of their cotton is coming from.

Some of the world's biggest cotton producers, including India and Uzbekistan, continue to be plagued by slavery and child labour issues.

It also shows the proportion of companies that could demonstrate improved wages for workers has grown from 11 per cent in 2013 to 42 per cent this year.

"Paying workers a living wage is achievable even for high volume, low cost operators, and it could transform the lives of millions while driving economic growth in their communities," Mr Nimbalker said.

Low wages continue to be one of the fashion industry's biggest problems, with companies flocking to countries such as Bangladesh to take advantage of cheap labour.

Salaheya Khatun, 25, is one of Bangladesh's 5 million garment workers. She sews T-shirts all day at a factory in the heart of the country's capital, Dhaka.

She is only paid $113 a month, which is slightly higher than the minimum wage but far below the living wagewhich would cover her basic needs. She sends nearly half to her parents who are raising her daughter.

"I am in debt by around 1000 Taka [$16] every month because I need to pay for groceries and supplies on credit," she said. "I just want to be able to support my family."

Carolyn Katto from Stop the Traffik, a coalition of 30 groups fighting to end human trafficking, said while the report showed big progress at the cut-make-trim stage of production, there was still "huge abuse" further down the supply chain.

She said in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which produces most of the world's cotton knit fabrics, more than 300,000 young women were trapped in the Sumangali labour scheme.

"I met one woman who said to me, 'I am just like a machine trying to survive amongst machines'," Ms Katto said. "She regularly worked double shifts but didn't get paid for it. They would lock the doors."

She said one mill owner told her that demand for quicker turnaround times and cheaper prices meant they couldn't pay their workers properly.

"There are children in Uzbekistan and widows in India that are part of this supply chain, and we're on the other end, so what we choose to do will determine the living conditions for these people," she said.

Mr Nimbalker said he hoped the federal government would adopt the UK's Modern Slavery Act, which requires businesses to take decisive steps to eradicate slave labour.

"What we want to see is a robust piece of legislation that has the right mandatory disclosures and penalties to make it meaningful to address the problems of slavery," he said.

"We want consumers to vote with their wallets and call on companies to lift their game."

The 2017 Ethical Fashion Report can be seen here.

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Oxford, Wish and Roger David slammed for their silence on their supply chains - The Sydney Morning Herald