Category Archives: Wage Slavery

Nicoleta Bolos and her baby daughter in Ragusa province. Photograph: Francesca Commissari for the Observer

Every night for almost three years, Nicoleta Bolos lay awake at night on a dirty mattress in an outhouse in Sicilys Ragusa province, waiting for the sound of footsteps outside the door. As the hours passed, she braced herself for the door to creak open, for the metallic clunk of a gun being placed on the table by her head and the weight of her employer thudding down on the dirty grey mattress beside her.

The only thing that she feared more than the sound of the farmers step outside her door was the threat of losing her job. So she endured night after night of rape and beatings while her husband drank himself into a stupor outside.

The first time, it was my husband who said I had to do this. That the owner of the greenhouse where we had been given work wanted to sleep with me and if we refused he wouldnt pay us and would send us off his land, she says.

I thought he was crazy, but when I refused, he beat me. He said I had to do everything our boss told us to do it was the only way we could keep our work. When my employer came, he threatened me with a gun. He told me that if I moved he would blow my head off. When he finished he just walked away.

The next morning Bolos was back at work, crouching beside her husband in a sweltering greenhouse, tending and harvesting the produce that has helped make Italy the biggest grower and exporter of fruit and vegetables in Europe. The province of Ragusa is the third-largest producer of vegetables in Europe.

During her time on the farm, Bolos says, workers were given scarcely habitable accommodation, fed cat food for their evening meal and were refused medical treatment. At night, Bolos and the other female Romanian workers became entertainment for the farmer and his friends, repeatedly raped and abused over many years.

When I came here I thought I was coming to a hard but decent job in another European country, but we ended up as slaves, she says.

Hidden among fields of flapping white plastic tents across Ragusa province, 5,000 Romanian women like Bolos are working as seasonal agricultural workers. Their treatment is a growing human rights scandal, being perpetrated with almost complete impunity.

An Italian migrant rights organisation, the Proxyma Association, estimates that more than half of all Romanian women working in the greenhouses are forced into sexual relations with their employers. Almost all of them work in conditions of forced labour and severe exploitation.

Police say they believe that up to 7,500 women, the majority of whom are Romanian, are living in slavery on farms across the region. Guido Volpe, a commander in the carabinieri military police in Sicily, told the Observer that Ragusa was the centre of exploitation on the island.

These women are working as slaves in the fields and we know they are blackmailed to have sex with the owners of the farms or greenhouses because of their psychological subjugation, he says. It is not easy to investigate or stop this from happening, as the women are mostly too afraid to speak out.

Many of the Romanian women leave children and dependent families at home and feel forced into making the desperate choices that have carved deep lines of grief into Boloss face.

Where I come from in Romanian Moldavia, nobody has a job, says Bolos, as she nurses her five-month-old daughter in a dark warehouse that is now her home on another farm in Ragusa province. The average salary there is 200 a month. Here you can make much more, even if you need to suffer.

The Observer spoke to 10 Romanian women working on farms in Ragusa. All detailed routine sexual assault and exploitation, including working 12-hour days in extreme heat with no water, non-payment of wages and being forced to live in degrading and unsanitary conditions in isolated outbuildings. Their working days often include physical violence, being threatened with weapons and being blackmailed with threats to their children and family.

Professor Alessandra Sciurba from the University of Palermo co-wrote a report in 2015 that documented the abuse that Romanian women in Sicily were facing. She says conditions are worse now.

The women are telling us they need to migrate to try to ensure their children are not living in complete poverty in Romania, but that they themselves are being forced to endure terrible conditions and abuse as a result, she says. There is no other work, the women told us, so in order to provice for their families they felt they had to accept this deal. It is a conscious choice they are having to make. What we witnessed is nothing less than forced labour and trafficking as defined by the United Nations International Labour Organisation.

Prosecutor Valentina Botti is pursuing multiple charges of sexual assault and labour exploitation against farmers. She says that the abuse of Romanian women is a huge phenomenon.

Kidnapping, sexual assault and keeping people in slavery are three major crimes we have detailed in our investigations to date, she says.

We are talking about potentially thousands of Romanian women as victims of serious abuse. Very few women are coming forward with their stories. Most accept the abuse as the personal sacrifice they must make if they want to keep their jobs. The implication of losing work for many of them is devastating.

Eliza, a 45-year-old Romanian women, told the Observer that she felt she had no choice when her new employer pulled her into a shed on her first day at work.

I tried to run away but he told me clearly that if I did not do this I would have to leave, she says. It had been months that I had been out of work. I realised that if I wanted to stay in Italy I had to accept this.

The huge rise in the number of Romanian women seeking abortions in Sicily is also alarming medical professionals and human rights groups. According to Proxyma, while Romanian women make up only 4% of the female population of Ragusa province, they account for 20% of registered abortions.

The numbers of abortions among Romanian women is very alarming, says Ausilia Cosentini, coordinator of the Fari project, which provides assistance for Romanian women at a clinic. She says that many of the women coming to seek abortions were accompanied by their employers or other Italian men. While you clearly cant conclude that all these pregnancies are the result of sexual violence or fear of losing their work, the high number of abortions in relation to the few thousand Romanian women in the province has to be taken very seriously.

Working conditions are in some cases highly dangerous. One young Romanian woman told us that she became sick when she was forced to handle and work with agricultural chemicals without protective clothing. I had to handle foods covered in pesticides and it made me really sick. I was coughing and I couldnt breathe, she says.

I was pregnant and I started to feel sick and then I gave birth to my baby when I was only five months pregnant. The doctors said she was premature because of the work and that she is probably going to have brain damage because of the chemicals.

Those who did report their abuse to the authorities said they then often found themselves unable to find work elsewhere.

I worked with my husband in the greenhouses and the owner wanted to sleep with me, says Gloria, 48. I refused and he fired me. I reported him to the police but since then I cant find a job. The other farm owners know I went to the police and they dont want me to work for them.

Eventually, Nicoleta Boloss nightly ordeals proved too much. She fled the farm and her husband but was left without work and unable to send money home to her two young children in Romania. By the time her friends had raised enough money for her bus ticket home, she had lost legal custody of both children. They are now living with her ex-husbands uncle and she has not been allowed any contact since. Yet despite the abuse, she returned to work in Ragusa, taking the 50-hour bus journey from Botosani, in Romania, back to Sicily and the greenhouses.

Opportunities for casual farm work in Ragusa are abundant. In recent years, Italian exports of fresh fruit and vegetables have grown and are now worth some 366m a year. Much of this produce is grown in the 5,000 farms across Ragusa province.

Italian agriculture has for many years been heavily reliant on migrant labour. One farming group, Coldiretti, estimates that about 120,000 migrants are working in the sector in southern Italy.

After years of damaging allegations of exploitation and a resulting clampdown by the Italian government, Sicilian farmers who once filled their greenhouses with undocumented migrants and refugees arriving by boat have turned to migrant workers from within the EU.

The number of Romanian women travelling to work in Sicily has increased hugely over the past decade. According to official figures, only 36 Romanian women were working in Ragusa province in 2006, rising to more than 5,000 this year. Romanians overtook Tunisians this year as the largest group working in Ragusas fields.

Greenhouse owners are now afraid of being prosecuted for facilitating illegal migration by hiring undocumented migrants, says Giuseppe Scifo, a union leader for CGIL, Italys largest union. So the new targets for exploitation are EU citizens, who are willing to accept low wages because of the desperate situation in their home countries.

Gianfranco Cunsolo, president of Coldiretti in Ragusa, says he has no choice but to pay low wages.

The exploitation of workers in Ragusa is also the consequence of EU policies, he says. I dont want to justify the actions of farmers and greenhouse owners who pay low wages to migrant workers, but these people often dont feel they have any alternative if they are to compete with other European markets.

When it comes to sexual abuse of women workers, there is obviously no excuse for that. The people doing this need to be arrested and jailed. Women are welcome to work here in Ragusa and must be treated equally. We completely condemn this.

Under Italian law, farm owners must provide seasonal workers with official contracts and a daily wage of 56 for an eight-hour day. Yet Romanian women arriving in Sicily often find a more brutal reality.

Romanian women are paid three times less than the wage required by law, and most of them dont have legal contracts, says Scifo. Many of the women interviewed by the Observer say they are rarely paid more than 20 a day.

Yet there is little political or economic incentive for the authorities to take action and end the abuse. Although the police say they have dozens of open cases and ongoing prosecutions, only one farmer has so far been charged and convicted of abusing Romanian women.

The problem is the farmers are not rich men, says Scifo. If the owners paid their workers legal wages, they would lose too much money and the entire agricultural economy of the province would implode. This is why the authorities look the other way and why it is so hard to get anyone to take action to stop this.

Attempts to raise the issue in the Italian parliament have floundered. In 2015, MP Marisa Nicchi launched a parliamentary inquiry into slavery among Romanian workers in Ragusa and asked the prime minister to launch an investigation.

Two years on and the Italian government has yet to take any action, she says from her parliamentary office in Rome. But we will not give up. These crimes must stop.

In Ragusa, local politicians say that they are trying to provide services to Romanian workers facing abuse. Giovanni Moscato, who last June became mayor of Vittoria, a town in the west of Ragusa province, said the exploitation was persisting because too many economic interests were being served at present, but that the city was opening a hostel to shelter Romanian women fleeing violent employers.

Since returning to Italy, Nicoleta Bolos has met a Romanian man and had two other children. She reported her previous employer to the police, and the man was charged with labour exploitation but his case has yet to come to trial.

Now, she says, she is sick of the abuse. She has decided to go public with her story in an attempt to get justice for herself and other Romanian women caught in a web of exploitation and impunity. Holding her baby and sitting on a cracked plastic chair, she gestures at their home. The walls are wet with damp and there is no heating or running water.

Look at how we live. But this is our life here. I am not going to lose my children again. They are the reason that I have lived through this, why Ive become a slave, she says. It was for them that I had to let that man into my bed every night. Now I want people to know that this is happening and that it must stop.

Some names have been changed to protect identities

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Raped, beaten, exploited: the 21st-century slavery propping up Sicilian farming - The Guardian

The advert which caused outrage when it was circulated on social media was described as racist and slave labour.

Youre expected to be diligent willing hardworking smart and quick (sic) the advert posted by a resident living in Cape Towns southern suburbs.

Youre required to follow instructions and clean thoroughly & maticulously (sic). (the way I want).

You should have no illness. Youre expected to be clean and smell good and bath and change everyday (and twice a day if necessary.

Work is sleep in Monday to Sunday. 2 Sundays off every month (sic) it added.

Estelle Nagel speaking on behalf of Gumtree told TMG Digital on Friday that the advert was clearly exploitative.

We are very aware of the advert we were very concerned about it. It is clearly exploitative".

Nagel said as an investigation was launched into the advert the person who uploaded it had removed it. Gumtree she said would monitor the account.

"We are busy setting up a hub on our blog just to make advertisers aware of what the laws are with links to the South African labour website sample contracts and also for job seekers just to know their rights when they are applying for a job like that she said.

TMG Digital tried to contact the woman responsible for the advert via phone and Whatsapp but received no reply.

Domestic workers minimum wages effective as of December 1 2016 in major metropolitan areas is R12.42 per hour or R2422 per month provided the person works more than 27 hours per week.

However the advertisement stipulated a seven day working week.

The job was advertised at a starting salary of R2000 including food and accommodation.

I will increase your salary even after the 1st month if you are capable of doing all my work THE WAY I WANT) up to R2500 said the advert.

You must have a valid passport which I keep while you work for me it added and no criminal records the advertisement said.

Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete says when an employer wants to keep a persons passport it is some form of exploitation in one way or another.

People should be cautious when applying for a job where the employer wants to keep their passport as this could be a slave-wage type setup".

You can keep a copy of someone passport so you know who is working for you thats fine but there is no valid reason why anyone should keep your passport for you. No one is allowed to keep your passport.

Social media users who circulated the advert reacted with shock.

I think youll find its standard practice in the industry. The human trafficking & modern slavery industry that is said Matt du Plessis on twitter.

Gumtree does not check every advert placed on the website but Nagel said those which were reported or violated human rights would be taken down.

Read more:

Gumtree pulls 'slave labour' domestic worker advert - Times LIVE

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

(Photo: eirigipics )

Although it might be conventional wisdom that Western colonialism no longer exists, this is a dangerous myth. Colonialism persists in the form of the continued oppression of Indigenous peoples worldwide. Moreover, when it comes to the relationship of Europe and the US to the Global South, the old system of direct colonial rule has actually been replaced with financial control over many of the same countries that were colonized. The onerous financial conditions placed on many developing nations through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund -- including austerity measures and spending requirements for goods from developing nations -- represent the colonialist notion of knowing what's in the best interest of other countries. Like colonialism, it also happens to financially benefit the former ruling powers.

The globalization of exploitative labor further reinforces the relationship of capitalism to erstwhile colonialism. The squalid working conditions and meager wages of many workers in the Global South is the focus of a revealing book by John Smith, Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalisms Final Crisis, which is this week's Truthout Progressive Pick. Capitalism provides the vehicle for much contemporary imperialism, but is often not perceived as such because it is not as directly visible as, say, an occupying army (although, of course, the US and Europe still occupy countries militarily as well). Colonialism used to be dependent upon direct rule of areas and countries by agents, bureaucracies and militaries representing the colonial power. Now, colonialism largely consists of financial dependencies and labor markets characterized by poverty.

In an excerpt featured on Truthout, Smith reflects on the 2014 collapse of a substandard garment factory building in Bangladesh that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,300 workers:

The collapse of Rana Plaza not only shone a light on the pitiless and extreme exploitation of Bangladeshi workers. It also unleashed a powerful pulse of x-rays that lit up the hidden structure of the global capitalist economy, revealing the extent to which the capital/labor relation has become a relation between northern capital and southern labor -- in no other sector has production shifted so completely to low-wage workers in oppressed nations while control and profits remain firmly in the grip of firms in imperialist countries.

Smith notes that "just 2 percent of the clothing worn in the United States is actually made there." Ultimately, however, this unsustainable economic imbalance of the global manufacturing labor force will implode, Smith argues.

Smith presciently asserts,

Outsourcing has boosted profits of firms across the imperialist world and helped to sustain the living standards of its inhabitants, but this has led to deindustrialization, has intensified capitalism's imperialist and parasitic tendencies, and has piled up global imbalances that threaten to plunge the world into destructive trade wars.

This leads Smith to conclude:

Neither...is the future pre-determined, but that does not mean that there are infinite number of possible futures. In fact, there are just two: socialism or barbarism.

If capitalist production continues to grow more dependent upon the "super-exploitation" of workers in many nations in the Global South, it will lead to a grave international financial crisis that Smith refers to as "a crisis of imperialism." The manner in which profitable corporations such as Apple use competitive sub-contracting to suppress wages and boost profits -- while often giving nothing more than lip service to ensure safe and humane working conditions overseas -- creates a race to the bottom in labor force manufacturing. (Countries in the Global South are hardly getting a "boost" up the capitalist ladder.) After all, as Smith observes, if globalization represented a free market, then why aren't third-world workers paid a livable wage for their generally high productivity? That is because corporations are investing in labor pools that ensure an enormous profit. They are not building up economies in need or paying outsourced overseas workers a livable wage.

Smith describes how a Sword of Damocles hangs over poor nations:

The social power of capital is enforced through the so-called rule of law, which exalts the sanctity of private property and negates the sanctity of human life. Any people that dares to defy laws protecting capitalist property, e.g. by defaulting on debts or by expropriating assets, is subject to the most severe economic penalties, and, if that is not sufficient, is threatened with subversion, terrorism and invasion. The transition from colonialism of yesteryear to the neocolonialism of today is analogous to the transition from slavery to wage-slavery, and merely signifies that capitalism has largely dispensed with archaic, pre-capitalist forms of domination and exploitation, while taking great care to preserve its monopoly of military force for use in cases of revolutionary challenge to its rule.

Colonialism hasn't ended; it has just morphed into a less visible form.

Excerpt from:

Capitalist Globalization of Labor is Modern Colonialism - Truth-Out

Ten years ago, I walked into my boss's office at the large corporate company where I worked and announced that I was quitting my job. What are your plans? my boss asked casually after he had time to absorb the unexpected news. I took a deep breath and began to explain that I had been reading a book by William Bridges called Managing Transitions,and I wanted to take some time away from the rat race. He looked amazed. Is this a midlife crisis thing? he asked bluffly.

Actually, I had decided to take a mini-retirement. The term originates fromTimothy Ferris'The 4-Hour Workweek,in which he argues the case for taking a series of meaningful respites from our structured 9-to-5 careers rather than an end-of-the-line grand exit. I had always planned to retire early and follow a FIRE -- financially independent and retired early --lifestyle. I had read about it, joined forums, and I started to save and invest my money in real estate to reach this goal. I did well, and by the time I stood in front of my boss, I was 40, financially independent and 50 percent on my way to joining the FIRE set.

There was one problem; I didn't want to retire. What I really wanted was not so much freedom from wage slavery(as Noam Chomsky and others call it), but a meaningful life. I wanted to climb Abraham Maslows pyramid to the self-actualization apex. The work that I had been doing on developing leaders still interested me, I just wanted to have a deeper understanding and to work more independently rather than being bounded to a single organization. So I opted for mini-retirement.

Related: 5 Lessons From People Who Retire at 40

Mini-retirement is different from a sabbatical or career break, which connotes taking time out and resuming where you left off. I needed a complete severance, atransitionfrom my entrenched thinking and task and targeted career path. The idea of personal transition came to me when reading the aforementioned Managing Transitions.This brilliant book tells the story of Bridges, who left his career in teaching and found himself facilitating a weekly support group for people going through major changes in their lives. Based on his experience and observations, Bridges theorized that successful personal transitions go through three stages -- ending (letting go), neutral zone (a moratorium from the conventional activity of your everyday existence) and new beginning (embracing the new opportunity).

The idea of leaving my comfortable life and voluntarily entering a phase of structurelessness and uncertainty (what Bridges terms the wilderness) in order to experience growth, potential and new opportunities appealed to me. For the next five years, I lived in 10 different cities across the world for six month periods studying, researching, writing conspiracy thrillers and having the time of my life.

Today I am back on the hamster wheel and loving every minute of it. I started my own leadership consulting company and feel that my mini-retirement experience enriched my life and allowed me time toassess my life values and preferences andgain a deeper appreciation and passion for developing leaders. The mini-retirement bug is still in my blood. I work for part of the year before heading out into the wilderness with my backpack and laptop.

Here are five insights that I picked up with respect to leaving behind the structured life of work.

Despite a progressive move toward flexible, mindful and holacratic working environments, the majority of organizations still move around in narrow functional hierarchies as John Kotter termed it in his book Leading Change--presentism, fixed hierarchies and transactional management are still depressing realities in our workplaces. With the average retirement age remaining at 64 for men and 62 for women, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College,and presidential candidates telling us that we need to work longer hours, we may need to take matters into our own hands to bring about the white space needed in our lives.

This is where reality kicks in. You can't contemplate time away from work unless you have the means to support yourself. Most experts focus on the saving habit, but I think the real secret lies in managing the spending habit. I stayed in affordable locations and rented budget apartments where I lived as a local, shopping in the local markets and cooking at home. It is easy to fall into the Diderot effect, the kind of spiralling consumption that the French philosopher Denis Diderot wrote about in his quirky essay Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown.Simplifying your life and reducing your spending habit will make your mini-retirement plans more than just a pipe dream.

Related:11 Ways To Be Frugal Now So You're Rich Later

Isn't it curious that whenever we do something that is a little offbeat and goes against received wisdom, we suddenly find a bunch of previously disinterested parties becoming passionate about how we should run our lives? I received my fair share of negative comments.

You're bonkers to leave a responsible position just when you're hitting your maximum earning potential.

Aren't you scared that people will think you're a drop out?

Have you considered therapy?

It is best to ignore the naysayers and create an inner circle with people who really believe in you.

In Henry IV Part 1, Shakespeare wrote: If allthe yearwere playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work. Sitting in hammocks watching sunsets willsoon feel every bit a routine as a 10:00 amteam meeting. Have some fun, but also set some goals. It will feel more rewarding and your re-entry into the workplace will be easier if future bosses and clients see personal growth and a transitional journey.

One of the myths about mini-retirements is that it shuts doors and leaves awkward employment gaps. Employers are becoming more tolerant to breaks in resumes especially if you can demonstrate that the time was used in a meaningful way. Keeping a blog is a good way of charting your experience. Trust your network and a little serendipity. Ironically, the first person who offered me a job when I came out of mini-retirement was my old cynical boss, but I already had other plans.

Related:Ignore the Cynics, Hope Is Your Greatest Asset

I guess reading about mini-retirement in a publication dedicated to entrepreneurship may seem a little discordant, but I think reflection, personal transition and a generous sprinkling of nonconformity is key to being an effective entrepreneur. The ancient Sanskrit text, Mundaka Upanishad, uses the metaphor of a bow and arrow to describe how reflection and concentration can help us hit the target: Draw the string with full absorption and shoot at the target. I concede this is not going to be for everyone, particularly thosepeople who find purpose and importance in the workplace, preferringstructure, a built-in social group and hierarchical status. But taking time out can help us determine whats important to usandgive us the ideas, vision and confidence to become who we truly want to be.

Dr. Ric Kelly has spent 25 years developing leaders for multinational companies. He is currently launching a leadership consulting company in Europe and South America and finishing a book on leadership and enablement. Ric editsleaders...

Link:

How a Mini-Retirement Brought Meaning to My Life - Entrepreneur

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Saturday, March 11, 2017, 3:00 AM

Manhattan: Its tempting to be snarky about the ludicrous statement made by Ben Carson when he equated immigration in search of a better life to the forced removal from their homelands and transport under horrifying conditions of millions of human beings who then would be sold into slavery and held captive the rest of their lives (They came in chains, Ben, March 7).

Instead, I am going to be earnest and suggest that Carson might have been onto something if he had compared immigration to migration , in this case, of the millions of African Americans who, in the last century, came north to escape the horrifying prejudice of the Jim Crow South.

But heres the rub: Its unlikely that anyone in the Trump administration would utter out loud those last three words. The white South was influential in electing Trump, and a good slice of that cohort has, for more than 150 years, continued to think of itself, and not African Americans, as the true victims of history. One piece of evidence: many whites in the South still call the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression. Judy L. Richheimer

Salt Lake City: Im sure by now Leonard Greene has learned that President Obama said basically the same thing, making this article quite lame (Ben Carsons a disgrace for calling slaves immigrants, column, March 7). If you just want to attack Dr. Carson, why don't you accuse him of plagiarism? Harley Griffith

Bronx: To Voicer Rosemary E. Kennedy: Surely you cannot be defining action to mean not the action of the persons concerned? Isnt the use of language colored by custom? Calling a slave an immigrant is a stretch. Robert G. Gallimore

Nyack, N.Y.: In his takedown of Ben Carson, Leonard Greene got a lot of things right, but got one thing wrong: We are not, the sons and daughters of slaves. We are sons and daughters of the enslaved. A slave is a kind of being. Enslavement is a state of being. R.K. Byers

Valley Stream, L.I.: The article about the CIA's eavesdropping doesnt surprise me in the least (They hee-ear!! March 8). Years ago when we were first introduced to cable TV programming, I watched the little green light on the cable box go on and off; with that I thought to myself, If we all have account numbers assigned to us, and the cable companies transmit video and sound to the box, Im sure they can in some way extract the same video and sound from the same place just by entering an account number. Well, it seems like they did it! John Esposito

Manhattan: Obviously, Republican politicians havent got a clue about health insurance: Thats because they have excellent insurance that were paying for. We should demand that they share the same insurance that the rest of us have, and repeal and replace the politicians who refuse. Carol Robinson

Brooklyn: I think they must make it mandatory that you have to disclose your taxes when running for President or you cant run at all. This will tell, in addition to ones income, what business interests they have, as in President Trumps case that he was doing business in Russia. Perhaps if they had this law prior to the past election, it would have saved us from having this unhinged individual in the White House! Dave Silverblatt

Brooklyn: Much thanks to the Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark for putting her time, effort and love behind the beaten and left-for-dead dog, Peanut Butter (formerly known as Hennessy). Its law enforcers and politicians like her that put the scum of the earth in jail (hopefully in general population ) for their horrific deeds. This human piece of garbage beat this puppy and left her for dead in a snowbank. Thanks for making our laws work and for making Raul Cruz, Peanut Butters abuser, pay for it! Kelly Starr

Perth Amboy, N.J.: Raising the minimum wage is a good idea but it would only apply to a portion of wage earners. There is another solution that would apply to most people: raise the standard income tax deduction to $40,000 or more. This would benefit more people than an increased minimum wage alone. While the federal budget isn't balanced now, limiting capital gains deductions could adjust for lower revenues. Everyone who buys a domestic product or service pays for someones income tax, which is built into the price or cost. Imported goods and services should pay a tariff of 35% to adjust for their non-payment of income taxes, Social Security and Medicare. While the laws cant and shouldn't prevent sending jobs offshore, they can adjust for these losses. Ronald A. Sobieraj

Forest Hills: To pay for his wall, Trump plans to cut funding for the Coast Guard and the TSA by 14% and 11%, respectively, thus making life easier for drug smugglers and terrorists. But to look at the bright side, the wall will thwart any attacks by Gen. Santa Anas army. Alan Hirschberg

Brooklyn: As a New York State resident and a volunteer for the American Heart Association, I am extremely excited at the prospect of the Empire State Trail, a 750-mile hiking and biking trail that would run north from New York City to the Canadian border, and west from Albany to Buffalo. The trail which Gov. Cuomo proposed in this years budget would provide a new opportunity for millions of New Yorkers to engage in physical activity in a safe, community space. Exercise is a great way to prevent heart disease and stroke, the nation's No. 1 and No. 5 killers. New York State currently spends more than $11.8 billion dollars annually on obesity-related health care costs. Every $1 spent on biking trails and walking paths could save approximately $3 in medical expenses. I strongly urge the state Legislature to approve the Empire State Trail. Yuki Courtland

Manhattan: Following International Womens Day, the cover choice of Jennifer Lopez and A-Rod was incredibly poor. The Daily News decrees that who J-Lo. is dating is more important than the scores of women around the world making a statement on their second-class treatment, more important than the travesty to our democracy thats going on in Washington. Step it up; your readers deserve better from you. Laurie Jakobsen

Lawrence, L.I.: The question here is not whether women are capable of coaching men (Hey Mike Francesa, stop spewing sexist garbage that women cannot coach men and just shut up, March 6). The question is whether the players can bring themselves to respect a woman coach; the players are the ones who need rise above generations of convention. Most of us have a weak ego that prevents us from rising above our basic nature and ideally one would hope that we are capable of doing this. Being successful as a coach is a two-way street that requires every player and staff member to be on board. Its not just sexism; its male biology and psychology at play. So maybe a select few with exceptional character can rise above, but expecting every team member to rise above is not a reasonable expectation. Michael Weiss

Hawthorne, N.Y.: I understand that WFANs Mike Francesa is retiring at years end. He has really been phoning it in for a long while. It is obvious to any knowledgeable sports fan that Mike does no homework and is poorly prepared for his show and his interviews. He is always the last to know what is going on in the sports world, relying on tired cliches and picking heavy favorites to mask his incompetence. And now he feels women cannot coach? Lazy men like him should not be on the radio. Mitch Green

Island Park, L.I.: To Voicer Sonia Valentin: Sonia, Sonia, Sonia no, actually I dont care. You dont get it. The only reason I actually know who won and why I chose to write in about it is because of the news created last year by the crybabies who that did not win. Otherwise, any award show is a non-event for me. My point is, in case you missed it, that I am against people receiving awards, promotions, trophies, etc. because they think they deserve them for some unjust action perpetrated years before this generation was born just to even a score. It is not who won the Oscar. As far as watching the PBS show, its not necessary. I've heard that story before; its time to move on. Rose Johnson

Original post:

Readers sound off on slavery, the CIA and Mike Francesa - New York Daily News

A roundup of stories we're reading at BillMoyers.com HQ...

Daily Reads: Trump Fills Government [...]

President Donald Trump enters the Oval Office on March 5, 2017. (Photo by Erik S. Lesser-Pool/Getty Images)

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Whos who > Although there are still tons of government jobs to fill, Donald Trump has been at workinstalling loyalistswithin federal agencies to serve as his eyes and ears. Hundreds are now on the job, and someone leaked a partial list to ProPublica.The list is striking for how many former lobbyists it contains, Justin Elliott, Derek Kravitz and Al Shaw note. We found at least 36, spanning industries from health insurance and pharmaceuticals to construction, energy and finance. Many of them lobbied in the same areas that are regulated by the agencies they have now joined.

Blame climate change > Weve got another two weeks until spring officially starts, but the weather doesnt seem to know that. It once was risky to tie unseasonable temperatures to climate change; climate change research had not progressed enough that scientists definitively could make a clear link. But Brian Kahn writes for Climate Central that the freakishly warm February in the US was at least three times more likely than it was around 120 years ago, according to the analysis by scientists working on the World Weather Attribution team. While it was a month to remember, by mid-century that type of heat could occur every three years unless carbon pollution is curtailed.

Those who should know oppose GOP health care> It only took two days: hospitals (and the American Medical Association) already have come out against the Republican Obamacare replacement. In a letter to Congress, Richard Pollack, head of the American Hospital Association, writes, We look forward to continuing to work with the Congress and the Administration on ACA reform, but we cannot support The American Health Care Act in its current form. The group is particularly concerned about the part of the bill that scales back the Medicaid expansion, effectively blocking access to health care for millions of the poor.

The AARP also quickly cut an ad coming out against the bill for effectively hiking prices for older Americans which the talking squirrel in their ad calls an age tax. Patrick Caldwall writes for Mother Jones that Obamacare said that health insurers could not charge their older clients more than three times as much as the youngest consumers. The GOPs plan would bump that ratio up to 5-to-1.

Better late than never? > It turns out that from August until November 2016, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was paid half a million dollars to lobby the US government on behalf of the Turkish government. That could explain why he published an op-ed on Election Day calling for the US government to kick Fethullah Glen, the cleric who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan considers an enemy, out of the country (Glen lives in Pennsylvania). Flynn just filed forms with the Justice Department, declaring himself a foreign agent.

What a coincidence > Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are renting a house in a fancy DC neighborhood from a Chilean billionaire. Interesting. More interesting: The Chilean billionaire owns a mine in Minnesota, and is suing the US government over Obama-era policies that he thinks will cut into his mines profits. Hes currently lobbying Donald Trump to reverse those policies.

Lucky break? > Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may have still owned millions of dollars of ExxonMobil stock at the time President Trump made praising the oil giant a matter of White House policy, Claudia Koerner reports for Buzzfeed. Before becoming secretary of state, Tillerson owned 600,000 shares of Exxon stock. He pledged to divest them by May 2.

Its good to be king > According to the AP, China has granted preliminary approval for 38 new Trump trademarks, paving the way for President Donald Trump and his family to develop a host of branded businesses from hotels to insurance to bodyguard and escort services.

Pay to stay > In jail with money to burn? Some California jails will let you upgrade to a nicer cell, or stay in a nicer jail, The Marshall Project reports.

Artists and writers interrogated > In addition to stories of deportation under the Trump administration, PEN America notes that more and more reports are emerging of travelers including US citizens returning home being subjected to aggressive interrogations at the border that leave them humiliated, angry, and bewildered. Several prominent writers have spoken out in recent weeks about such experiences, which have altered their views of the United States and what it stands for.

Working-class roots > In more than 50 countries, women protested and went on strike in observance of International Womens Day. At In These Times, Kate Aronoff digs into the history of working-class women fomenting change in America. And at Jacobin, Cintia Frencia & Daniel Gaido write about the holidays socialist origins:

Simply put, International Womens Day was, from the very beginning, a Working Womens Day. While its immediate objective was to win universal female suffrage, its aspirations were much grander: the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of socialism, abolishing both the wage slavery of workers and the domestic slavery of women through the socialization of education and care work.

Morning Reads was compiled by John Light and edited by Michael Winship.

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The Sleep of Reason

Gutting EPAs Budget and Staff Would Endanger the Health of Millions of Americans

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Daily Reads: Trump Fills Government with Lobbyists; It's Been a Hot Winter, Blame Climate Change - BillMoyers.com

The crime in American Crimes third season transcends the averagecourtroom-drama plotline, delving into the murky and dangerous world of 21st century slavery, includingimmigrants held prisoner and forced to work for less than minimum wage and a teen trapped inlife on the streets by bureaucracy.

In the first example, Luis Salazar (Benito Martinez) discovers the deplorable conditions under which the Hesby tomato farms migrant workers are forced to live and toil when he goes to work there. When a bunk full of workers burns down, Jeanette Hesby (Felicity Huffman) wants to help and is surprised her husband (Tim DeKay) covers it up.

In season 3s other tale, Shae Reese (Ana Mulvoy-Ten) has been working for a pimp since she ran away from home. A social worker (Regina King) tries to get her off the streets, but the legal system works against her.

Rotten Tomatoes spoke to American Crime creator John Ridley(12 Years a Slave) and cast member Lili Taylor(The Conjuring), who appears in the season starting in episode four, and also caught a panel discussion with more of the cast at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles.

Here are 10 ways American Crime exposes the modern slavery happening in America.

If a farm can get inexpensive labor by hiring undocumented workers, what makes them go the extra mile to treat them badly? Couldnt a farm owner mitigate the low pay by offering pleasant conditions? Ridley says theyre motivated to break the workers spirit.

The essence of human nature is to move towards freedom, liberty, and self-determination, Ridley told Rotten Tomatoes. When people come here, how do you keep them? You keep them through financial subjugation, through physical subjugation, through intimidation. Thats the only way to keep the human spirit down. They do it because they can do it. They do it because they have to do it. It is not our nature to be oppressed.

Richard Cabral plays a manager on the tomato farm. His character was a migrant worker himself, so why would he help perpetuate slave conditions?

He feels no remorse for what hes inflicting because he, too, went through this as a child, Cabral said during thePaley Center panel. Everything that hes asking from everybody, hes done himself. This is all he knows so thats his driving force that keeps on moving forward. The job needs to get done. Those are his survival instincts.

When Jeanette realizes something is wrong on the farm, her husband makes sure she cant change the system his family has in place.

She finds herself in a circumstance where she doesnt have a voice, where she doesnt have stature, where she needs to find out what shes about, Ridley told Rotten Tomatoes.

Playing someone with little agency or power was new for Huffman, and she embraced the challenge.

When she sees whats happening with the immigrant workers, she goes, Oh, Id like to help them, and Im sure you want to help them too. Huffman said on the panel. Its heartbreaking when she [realizes] oh, you dont want to help them?

Taylor and Timothy Hutton play parents Clair and Nicholas who hire Gabrielle Durand (Mickalle X. Bizet) as an au pair from Haiti.

Its not so usual that its a Caucasian woman whos hiring in a domestic like that, and it starts to get into problematic stuff, Taylor told Rotten Tomatoes. I hire this nanny to try and solve some of the problems in our marriage hoping that maybe it can give us some time alone, hoping it can take away the burden that he feels from the child. It doesnt answer our problems at all. In fact, I think it makes things worse.

On the tomato farm, slave labor conditions are part of their business model. Hutton and TaylorsNicholas and Clair Coates did not set out to be slave drivers. They just project their personal frustrations ontotheir au pair.

Part of what happens is Nicholas is very mean to Clair, and then I end up being very mean to the nanny, Taylor said. When we dont deal with our own stuff, it becomes an ethical situation where it gets put onto other things and other people when we dont deal with our unconscious.

When someone comes to America and doesnt speak English, they rely on people who speak their language to translate for them. As people on the farm, or the au pair in a suburban house find out, they can be misrepresented by English speakers. The season captures that experience by presenting some dialogue without subtitles.

We have a character who, by and large, through the first two episodes, his language is Spanish, Ridley said. You have to give credit to the network. When we present them with scripts and we tell them that large portions of that script are going to be in Spanish or in French or in Haitian or French Creole, they dont shy away from that. In fact, they support it.

Some scenes do have subtitles for the English-speaking viewers. Ridley decided when the information being discussed was too integral to leave ambiguous.

If the show can thrive on its emotionality, those are spaces where we will not have subtitles, he said.

Bizet herself speaks French and English, but she understands how vulnerable she could be if she were not bilingual.

Shes this woman who comes to a country and literally has no voice because she doesnt speak English, and she doesnt know anybody who speaks her language, Bizet said on the panel. She realizes that the American dream comes at a really high price that she wasnt expecting at all.

Clair enjoys France and speaking French. She got excited about bringing a Haitian into her home, but starts treating her like a new toy, not as a person.

I think some of its that Claire is a francophile, Taylor told Rotten Tomatoes. She spent time in France, just loves things French. Clair thought thatd be a great way for me to work on my French, a way to teach [her son] French. Thats a setup for things going wrong.

Taylor herself did take a crash course in French.

I knew in July and we were going to start filming in September, she said. So I started on my own, just 30 minutes a day every day. Then I found a great French helper who translated and coached me on sound. I realized what I needed to do was to not learn the lines with the meaning at all, which I dont do anyway. I try to just learn lines by rote and then start translating after Id gotten it down perfectly.

Shae turned to the streets to escape her abusive family. For her, prostitution was an improvement.

Her family is definitely more dangerous to her than the environment shes in, Mulvoy-Ten told Rotten Tomatoes on the red carpet before the panel. She actually thinks that where shes at now, living in a bedroom with six other people run by her pimp, that is better than what her family situation was. You can imagine what that was like. She thinks shes upgraded.

Shae needs an abortion because she was impregnated on the job. The law in North Carolina requires a teen under 18 to get her parents consent. Now Shae is caught between her abusive mother and going back to her pimp.

It just seemed completely unfair that her parents abused her and the whole reason she was on the streets doing the job she was doing was because of her parents, and then she cant even get an abortion, Mulvoy-Ten told Rotten Tomatoes on the red carpet. She has no money, she has no means to make money. The only way she makes money is through prostitution, and she doesnt even get most of it. Her pimp gets most of it. The whole thing is brutal.

Jeanette fights for justice but it may be too little too late. She realizes that this is not the first incident of the Hesbys mistreating workers

Shes been asleep for 30 or 40 years, Huffman told Rotten Tomatoes on the red carpet. Shes been married a good 30 years into that family, but she does wake up and wants to take action and wants to be a part of the solution and finds that she doesnt count. I think there have been things that have happened in that family. I think there were incidents that they kept from her and she chose not to investigate.

American Crime returns March 12 at 10/9 Con ABC

Continued here:

10 Ways American Crime Season 3 Exposes Modern Slavery - Rotten Tomatoes

Photo: U.S. District Court

Federal prosecutors claim "C."was basically a slave, put to work by relatives -- includingMiguel Arcef-Flores, left, and Marbella Sandoval Mondragon --who had promised her a better life in America. They collected the wages she was paid by temp agencies that provided workers to factories, while leaving her hungry and trapped at a Federal Way apartment.

Federal prosecutors claim "C."was basically a slave, put to work by relatives -- includingMiguel Arcef-Flores, left, and Marbella Sandoval Mondragon --who had promised her a better life in America. They

Investigators contend "C.," 14-year-old Mexican girl, was forced to work at this Kent commercial bakery as well as several other factories around the Seattle area.

Investigators contend "C.," 14-year-old Mexican girl, was forced to work at this Kent commercial bakery as well as several other factories around the Seattle area.

Federal prosecutors in Seattle say a teen girl was forced to work at King County factories to pay immigration "debts." They say she was kept at this Federal Way apartment building.

Federal prosecutors in Seattle say a teen girl was forced to work at King County factories to pay immigration "debts." They say she was kept at this Federal Way apartment building.

Child labor in Seattle: Mexican girl kept in near slavery

Sometimes C. forgets her birthday.

She used to know it. Growing up outside Mexico City, it was not hard to remember her birthday. That changed when her uncle brought her, at age 14, to the United States.

Once in the U.S., C. was presented with forged green cards, Social Security papers and a string of bogus birth dates. Theyre hard to keep straight.

Who gave you many birth dates? Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Crisham asked C. during a Tuesday hearing at U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The accused, said C., facing her uncle, Angel Sandoval Mondragon, and three others who admitted to harboring her as she worked illegally at industrial bakeries south of Seattle.

Federal prosecutors claim C. was basically a slave, put to work by Sandoval, his sister, Marbella Sandoval Mondragon, and her husband, Miguel Arcef-Flores. They collected the wages she was paid by temp agencies that provided workers to South King County factories, while leaving her hungry and trapped at a Federal Way apartment.

The Sandovals and Arcef were sentenced Wednesday following a contentious three-day hearing. Prosecutors claimed their crimes extended far beyond the charge each pleaded to, conspiring to bring in and harbor an alien. Attorneys for the three defendants argued that C. greatly exaggerated their conduct to impress police.

Arcef, 42, was sentenced to more than three years in prison, while Angel Sandoval, 37, and Marbella Sandoval, 38, received slightly shorter prison terms. Each is expected to be deported.

The defendants promised the world, and then stole the childhood of a 14-year-old girl, U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes said in a statement. They preyed on a vulnerable relative for their own selfish and depraved reasons.

C. now has legal status in the United States through a program that provides visas to human trafficking victims. The visa allows her to stay in the United States for up to four years.

The allegations against Arcef and Marbella Sandoval include claims of sexual abuse. Seattlepi.com does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault absent a request from the alleged victim.

Like the Sandovals and Arcef, C. never had legal status in the United States. The Sandovals and Arcef entered the country illegally in the early 2000s, settling on the Washington coast.

They were living in Aberdeen in December 2004 when Angel Sandoval was caught by the U.S. Forest Service working in the woods near Vancouver. He was deported to Mexico four days later.

Angel Sandoval soon set about returning, this time with C. She was to join him, his wife and a cousin in Aberdeen.

Angel put (her) on the phone with Marbella and Miguel, both of whom promised her that she would have a wonderful life with them in the United States, that she could go to school, and that they would treat her like their own child, Crisham said in court papers.

Excited by the prospect of a better life, C. pressured her family to let her follow Angel Sandoval back to the United States. She and her mother paid Angel Sandoval to cover the costs of the trip, which saw them hire a coyote to smuggle them across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Arriving in Aberdeen in the spring of 2005, C. was told she owed her hosts thousands of dollars. Rather than enroll in school, she was put to work.

C. worked as a maid and nanny, then at temporary staffing agencies that provided workers to factories. She worked at industrial kitchens for eight months, making pies and chocolates sold in the Seattle area. Her workplaces included Plush Pippin and Seattle Gourmet Food, where she was paid through a temp agency.

Attorneys for the defendants dispute the claim, but prosecutors say the Sandovals and Arcef pocketed C.s earnings. They kept her fake IDs, preventing her from cashing the checks herself.

According to prosecutors, C. and another girl living with the Sandovals and Arcef were sick and starving.

They refused to provide them with sufficient food and other basic needs, including medical and dental care, wrote Crisham, who prosecuted the case alongside Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake.

C. slept on the floor while everyone else in the apartment had a bed. She and her 12-year-old cousin were forced to shower together in cold water and derided as lesbians by the Sandovals and Arcef for doing so.

One man, worried the girls were being abused, took his concerns to the pastor of a church where Arcef also preached. His complaint went unheeded.

Prosecutors claim Arcef sexually abused C.s cousin; as part of a plea agreement with Arcef, federal prosecutors agreed to urge King County prosecutors not to pursue additional criminal charges against him.

According to prosecutors statements, Marbella Sandoval touched the girls inappropriately and forced them to eat printed pornography belonging to her husband. She and the other defendants, Crisham said, taunted and laughed at the girls while they ate and gagged on the pages.

The girls were sent back to Mexico in the spring of 2006. C. had been fainting at work, and the temp agencies stopped hiring her.

C. returned to the United States the following year, coming back to Washington. The Sandovals, Arcef and others demanded she pay them $10,000 a sum well beyond her means as a minimum-wage worker and spread personal medical information about her to members of their church.

That time, though, a pastor at the church recognized the abuse and, in May 2008, went to the police. Investigators with the Federal Way and Kent police departments took up the matter, as did the Department of Social and Health Services. The investigation was dropped, though, after investigators could not find C. or her cousin.

Five years later, a Federal Way Police Department detective investigating other sexual abuse allegations against Arcef interviewed C., by then a young woman living in the Seattle area. In that case, Arcef, now 42, had sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl.

Troubled by the unrelated allegations C. made against the Sandovals and Arcef, the Federal Way detective contacted members of a Homeland Security Investigations human trafficking task force. An extensive investigation followed, culminating in a human trafficking indictment delivered Dec. 5, 2015.

The Sandovals and Arcef pleaded guilty to reduced charges late last year. Monica Arcef-Flores Angel Sandovals wife, and Miguel Arcefs sister had previously pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor immigration charge.

The Sandovals and Miguel Arcef tendered guilty pleas to felony offenses, but they and prosecutors did not agree on the extent of their crimes.

Little evidence was presented showing where C.s earnings had been deposited. She had made statements to investigators that proved false, and the seven-year gap between the alleged forced labor and the prosecution made records difficult to come by.

U.S. District Judge James Robart presided over a three-day evidentiary hearing meant to challenge both sides claims. The adversarial hearing meant C. had to endure an indignity usually reserved for crime victims whose assailants have risked additional prison time by taking their claims to a jury.

Defense attorneys picked apart C.s statements to police to weaken her claims of abuse. They pressed Seattle Police Department Detective Megan Bruneau, one of the lead investigators on the case, about C.s honesty as well.

A particularly hostile exchange between Bruneau and Marbella Sandovals defense attorney, Michael Martin, soured as Martin patronizingly asked Bruneau a veteran vice and human-trafficking detective assigned to a Homeland Security Investigations task force how long she had been a police officer.

From the witness stand, though, Bruneau described C. as a young woman who had survived tremendous abuse.

What has been very clear to me since the day I met her has been her fear of the defendants, Bruneau said from the stand, addressing a skeptical Martin.

Did you ever count up the number of people (she) said she was abused by? Martin asked the detective as they continued to spar.

No."

Would you say it is a large number?

Id say it is an unfortunate number.

If the exchange had any impact on the Sandovals or Arcef, they didnt show it. Dressed in brown jail uniforms and wearing translation headsets, each sat impassively, flanked by their attorneys, as C. and Bruneau made their claims.

The defendants each requested sentences that would have seen them released for deportation nearly immediately. Robart opted to impose sentences that will likely see them transferred to federal prison before they are returned to Mexico.

Brad Bench, special agent in charge from Homeland Security Investigations in Seattle, said he hopes the prison term will deter others who traffic in human beings.

No one should be forced to live in a world of isolation, servitude and terror as this young victim was, particularly in a country that prides itself on its freedoms, Bench said in a statement. Its a sad reflection on human greed and heartlessness, that people believe they can engage in this kind of egregious exploitation with impunity.

The Sandovals remain jailed, as does Arcef.

Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter attwitter.com/levipulk.

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Child labor in Seattle: Mexican girl kept in near slavery - seattlepi.com

Decider

Reese vs. Nicole vs. Bette vs. Joan? It's Not Too Early to Get Psyched for Best Actress at the Emmys Decider For season 3, the focus turns to modern-day immigrant farmers, wage slavery, sex slavery, all loosely situated around a family-run agricultural business in North Carolina. As with the first two seasons, Felicity Huffman takes a lead role as a member of ... and more »

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Reese vs. Nicole vs. Bette vs. Joan? It's Not Too Early to Get Psyched for Best Actress at the Emmys - Decider

( March 9, 2017, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) In January, following Trumps presidential inaugeration, women around the world took part in demonstrations and marches. International Womens Day (originally called International Working Womens Day) on March the 8th may well be equally if not more impressive. Women have plenty to get angry about but protests mean nothing unless practical gains in understanding, organisation and action spring from them. Part of the understanding is to link womens issues to the wider issues of the 95%, to realise the class nature of society. This movement will not have any future if it is not linked to the class struggle and to the class character of the capitalist society it is not a sexual confrontation between women and men.

Women worldwide carry the double burden of domestic labor and income-generating work outside the household. Despite working typically 12-13 hours per week more than men in developing countries in Africa and Asia, working women usually go unrecognized. Women in rural areas spend more of their time on domestic chores such as collecting water and firewood, preparing food, transporting goods and caring for children, the elderly and sick. They also work on family farms spending on average three hours more per day than men on unpaid agricultural work. Equitable access to decent employment opportunities for women is critical to the well-being of their families and communities. Yet most rural women are either unpaid family workers, self-employed or hold precarious jobs for low pay. It is estimated that if women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry people in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million. Rural women often work under conditions that are hazardous to their health. In Cote dIvoire, as in much of West Africa, women smoke fish in poorly ventilated rooms. Traditional smoking releases carcinogenic contaminants that lead to respiratory, eye and other health problems for women and their children.

Both sexes of the workers are exploited. Both are victims of those who live by the ownership of the means of life. Therefore the solution for working-class women lies in the emancipation of their class from wage-slavery. We must liberate ourselves as human beings and the Socialist Party have never tried to appeal to any one section of the population other than fellow workers. Members of the working class are treated with the same accord regardless of age or sex or ethnic origin. We do try to address certain social problems, hence our pamphlets, in the past on women, racism and education but our attitude is to link them to the whole and not view as separate issues deserving of any distinct attention. There is no league-table of oppression and exploitation, in other words.

Many newcomers to the Socialist Party are surprised by the critical attitude we held towards the Suffragette Movement. The suffragettes fought for the freedom of the vote so that they could have their say in the laws governing their property. The position of millions of working class women who had no property and were, in fact, bound hand and foot by their economic dependence upon the employer directly or upon some employed male relative did not rouse the ire of the suffragettes. Obtaining the vote has done nothing to alter that. Only when working class women learn their true position in society will they know how to use their vote wisely, and for this, the suffragette movement had no time.

The freedom upon which all freedom rests is the economic freedom of a class in society from the domination of another class. This freedom is the object of the Socialist Party and is the only freedom worth fighting for because it embraces all liberty that is possible for all mankind without distinction of race or sex. Working class women, as well as men, will find their political expression in the S.P.G.B. The woman question is no different from any other working class problem. Working women are either in economic bondage to an employer or to their husbands, and socialism ends both states of bondage. The tyrannies of domestic life are often the shadows of those in the industrial world. The worker eats, sleeps, and takes his leisure at the dictates of his job. His life is moulded around his job. In other words, while producing everything worthwhile in life his ability to enjoy life is regulated by the meagre amount of wages he receives. The man, then, should regard his wife as a partner and as a comrade to let off as lightly as possible and with whom to fight jointly against capitalism. Instead of this he sometimes assumes in his turn the role of master and initiates a fresh set of tyrannies. It is useless for women to fight against these various effects of the one great evil. They must break the economic stranglehold which holds the man, and they can only do this by breaking the economic stranglehold of capitalism upon the whole of the working class. On, then, with the fight for freedom, but let us first realise what we mean by freedom

In short, capitalism has largely nullified the intentions of those who thought to change womens position by legislation.

Source: Socialist Party in London

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Thinking about women Sri Lanka Guardian - Sri Lanka Guardian