Daily Archives: April 2, 2017

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Picture credit: Akhil Kumar

Modern-day slavery

The Guardian has a series on slavery as it exists today that covers the abuse of migrant domestic workers in Jordan, an investigation into the abuse of Romanian migrant female farm workers in Italy, a video on rescuing Russian workers held as slaves in brick factories and farms, and a report on murder and slavery in Thailands fishing industry.

Saudi Arabias terrible record of human rights continues

Three cases of abuses against Indian workers in Saudi Arabia surfaced in the last two weeks. The firstwas whenArasukumar, a 30 year-old IT diploma holder, went to Saudi with 29 others butfound the job at odds with what they had been promised. When they went to the labour court, they were allegedly locked up by the company and denied food and water. The secondcase is eerily similar. 29 men were locked for 12 days without food or water for demanding leave to go home. The labour court had ordered that the company give them leave and pay for their travel when they were locked up. They are surviving on the generosity of other Indian labourers.

The thirdinvolved Jaswinder Singh, a 56 year-old man, who died in Saudi after fighting for two years to recover his passport and salary dues. He couldnt pay for his dialysis as his medical insurance had expired and he couldnt return home. He had been working for the company for 23 years. According to the Hindustan Times, Thousands of Indian workers have lost their jobs due to slowdown in Saudi economy, caused by both low oil prices and cut in spending by the government.

Women and night shifts

Three months after the Karnataka government removed restrictions on women working night shifts in any sector, the Ladies Finger reportsthat a joint legislature panel thought it important to recommend on 27th March, that IT and BT companies in Bangalore should avoid assigning night shifts to women. Because evidently they cant stick to decisions. According to the report, this benevolent recommendation is in the interest of womens safety and privacy needs. Hilariously, Congress MLA NA Harris added that IT and BT companies should hire moremen.

Unions to organise against Cognizant layoffs

Three sectoral unions in the IT sector have announced a joint campaign against the proposed mass layoff of employees by Cognizant Technologies Solutions. NDLF (New Democratic Labour Front), FITE (Forum for IT Employees) and KPF (Knowledge Professionals Forum) have issued a common statementurging employees not to accept forced resignations while demanding that the company invest in re-skilling employees. Earlier in 2016, NDLF, through a court case, had won a favourable clarification by Tamil Nadu government, that declared that all industrial and labour laws appliedto the IT Sector. In that event, workers will be able to challenge the proposed layoffs as an industrial dispute under the Industrial Disputes Act.

Tamil Nadu farmers agitation hydrocarbons and droughts

Farmers from Neduvasal and adjoining villages of Pudukottai district in Tamil Nadu are protestingagainst the proposed Hydrocarbon extraction projects in the region. In February 2017, protests had erupted in the area against the extraction of hydrocarbon which was suspendedafter 22 days with assurances from state government and central ministersthat the project will not be approved without local consent. A detailed article on the issues raised by the farmers and the environmental concerns was published in The Wire.

However, on 27th March, the Union Government approved the project, awarding contracts to GEM laboratories to begin work. The farmers have formed a protest committeeand have begun their protests.

The protests by Tamil Nadu farmers in New Delhi continued into its third weekat Jantar Mantar. Rahul Gandhi, who participated in their protests, demanded that the Prime Minister show respect to the farmers and concede their demands.

Updates on the Maruti Verdict: Solidarity and Support Continues for the Incarcerated Workers

As we mentioned last week, demonstrations marking Bhagat Singhs martyrdom anniversary became sites of protest against the recent verdict in the Maruti riots case. In Delhi, workers took out a massive rallyin support of the convicted and imprisoned workers. They demanded an independent judicial probeinto the events of July 18th. In Chennai, in a rally held by AICCTU, the workers demanded the immediate dismissal of the false cases foisted againstthe workers. An international day of protesthas been called for by Maruti Workers Unions and supporting organisations on the 4th and 5th of April 2017.

Current workers of Maruti Suzuki raised over 9 lakhsfor the wedding of the sister of a jailed worker. They also volunteered to help the family in organising the wedding. Unfortunately, the worker was denied parole for even a few hoursto take part in the wedding.

Wage agreement at Tata Motors, Pune

Tata Motors concluded a long pending wage agreement with the workers of their Pune plant introducing a performance-based variable pay scheme. The agreement would enhance the fixed pay of workers by around Rs. 8500/- over 3 years. 10% of the wages of the workers will be linked to performance by the workers. While a number of business newspapers have hailed this as a landmarkagreement that would improve industrial relations, experience suggests a mixed outcome, with workers having to bear the risks of business downturns. The wage agreement, that comes after 19 months of negotiation, is being implemented with retrospective effect.

In a related development, workers and management of Tata Motors plant at Sanand, Gujarat, remained at loggerheadsover their wage agreement. The workers, who had gone on symbolic protests in the past month, have been demanding wage hike to reflect the raising costs and a wage agreement for the next three years. The negotiations are being mediated by the labour conciliation officer. Reports from the management seem to imply that they intend to finalise an agreement on the lines of the Pune agreement.

Other News

GDP Grows But Job Security Falls: Only 16% Indians Earn Regular Wage: An excellent article about the casual work and who does it.

The Kashmir Reader reportsthat, At least 30,000 teachers appointed under central sponsored scheme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) during last ten years remain unpaid for last six to seven months. Despite being permanent employees, their salary gets delayed and they have to sell possessions in order to survive.

In an incident similar to the two deaths at Anna University in Chenna last year, 5 workers asphyxiatedat an aqua food processing plant in Andhra Pradesh. They were cleaning a tank used to store chemicals.

Meanwhile in UP, in a speech delivered on March 26th, CM Adityanath warnedthat the state government will not tolerate any laxity in implementation of the government schemes. Officers who are willing to work 18-20 hours daily can continue with the government or else they are free to leave.

This week also saw municipal sanitation workers protest in Khammam, Andhra Pradesh seeking a hike in their wages and in Chennaiagainst termination of services and demanding induction into permanent staff rolls.

Cab drivers in Karnataka are set to release their own cab aggregator app that will have a fixed rate, and a fleet of about 50,000 cabs. The minimum rate is Rs.12/km for a small car, which drivers say will be a relief from the unrealistically low rates they get paid through Ola or Uber.

The organisers of the Anganwadi workers who were protesting in Karnataka last week have been booked for causing major traffic disruptions and violating permit conditions.

An all-female folk quartet in China named Jiu Ye write for and about migrant workers. The musicians have themselves been migrant workers, and continue to work their jobs while they play for little or no money.

See the original post here:

The Life of Labour: Protests Against Cognizant Layoffs, Wage Agreement at Tata Motors - The Wire

Tipping is racist.

That's the argument being forwarded by some liberal activists and politicians as a way of stigmatizing laws that exempt certain professions, mainly restaurant workers, from the federal minimum wage.

However, there is little historical evidence for the argument.

"I don't think tipping was particularly racial It was more a matter of customers showing off their wealth," said Gerald Friedman, professor of economics and history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and associate editor of the scholarly journal Labor History.

Nevertheless, activists pushing for a higher minimum wage have pushed the argument now that their movement has gained ground. Nineteen states are set to phase in higher minimum rates this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That has brought more attention to the exception for tipped employees in most minimum wage laws. Those employees, mostly in the service industry, can legally be paid less the standard minimum on the grounds that their tips make up for it.

Minimum wage fans have argued that that's not merely wrong but a vestige of 19th racism. Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges said in a February op-ed that "tipping as an institution is rooted in the history of slavery." Hodges has advocated that her city adopt a $15 minimum wage that would not allow exceptions for tips.

"The notion of tipping is not native to America, but was imported from Europe just as slaves were emancipated. At that time, restaurants and railroads insisted that the now-former slaves who were working in those industries were not worthy of earning a wage and should subsist on the kindness of customers' tips alone," she said.

Shake Shack franchise founder Danny Meyer, who has prohibited tipping at his restaurants, made a similar claim in a January speech at New York's Manhattanville College.

Meyer said the restaurant and railroad industries "successfully petitioned the U.S. government to make a dispensation for our industries that we would not pay our servers" and have them rely on gratuities instead. "And no surprise, most of the people who were working in service professional jobs and restaurants and in Pullman train cars were African-American."

Also from the Washington Examiner

Alexandra Billings said they need to "take courage" and talk to people who don't agree with their point of view.

04/02/17 1:30 AM

It is not clear what action Meyer was referring to. The first federal minimum wage law, which included an exception for tipped employees, passed in 1938 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

Hodges and Meyer were both apparently citing claims of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a labor-backed nonprofit activist group that has been a major advocate of the $15 minimum wage.

ROC United co-director Saru Jayaraman said in a 2015 op-ed for the New York Times that the minimum wage had an "ugly, racialized history." She said that 19th century restaurant owners and railway companies fought legal efforts to outlaw tipping "especially since many of their workers were African-American, in many cases freed slaves whom these employers resented having to pay at all."

She repeated the comments in 2016 interviews with outlets such as the Washington Post and Mother Jones and in a recent book. Her claims have been advanced in places such as the comedy site Cracked.com.

ROC United did not respond to a request from the Washington Examiner to provide historical citations for the claim or to identify any economists or historians who could back it up.

Also from the Washington Examiner

Expert says misunderstanding of the word, "could lead people to have unrealistic expectations."

04/02/17 12:01 AM

Friedman says it is true that the practice of tipping was largely imported from Europe. It began with wealthy Americans imitating aristocrats who they met while traveling abroad. There is little evidence that employers first promoted tipping, he says.

There was a racial aspect to tipping in the U.S. in that the recipients of tips were typically people in service-related jobs, where African-Americans often found employment. However, women and the Irish were also common in those professions, Friedman noted.

"It was probably more of a gender thing than a racial thing," he said.

It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that some employers began to realize that tipping worked to their advantage because it allowed them to pay lower wages. Railroads in particular took advantage of that. But by that point tipping had become common, Friedman said.

"The companies were happy to take advantage of it once they saw what was going on," Friedman said.

Tipping was controversial throughout the 19th century. Many people resented having to pay tips, viewing it as a form of extortion. Others viewed it as a degrading practice that was "un-American."

Many companies actively discouraged workers from requesting tips, viewing it as a nuisance to customers, notes Tipping: American Social History of Gratuities by Kerry Segrave. The 1998 book appears to be one of few historical studies done on the issue.

"Prominently displayed on the Cunard line ships was a notice asking that any demands from (stewards) for tips be reported to management 'so the matter can be dealt with,'" Segrave writes.

The New York Central Railroad issued similar instructions starting in the 1890s. New York City movie ushers went on strike in 1919 because management discouraged customers from tipping.

Many states in the early 20th century passed laws that prohibited tipping altogether. Those included southern states such as Mississippi in 1912, Arkansas in 1913 and South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia in 1915. In 1910, Washington D.C., made it illegal for the city's waiters to accept tips.

"The fact that the states made the practice illegal weighs against the race argument," Friedman noted. The laws were eventually repealed because of widespread noncompliance.

Read the original:

Minimum wage activists call tipping racist - Washington Examiner

by Murzban Jal

The following paper emerged from a seminar on Pluralism and the Crisis of Identity organised by Zaheen Ali and Surendra Jondhale at the Mumbai University on March 12 and 13, 2017. The author writes: I am thankful to them for inspiring me to write this piece.

Bourgeois society continuously brings forth the Jew from its own entrails.

Karl Marx

There is no Negro problem in the United States.

There is only a white problem.

Richard Wright

It is not the Jewish character that provokes anti-Semitism but, rather it is the anti-Semite who creates the Jew.

Jean-Paul Sartre

One should know one thing as a fact: global totalitarian governments cannot be wished away, especially not by wishful thinking. And most certainly those cannot be wished away by the liberal narrative that is constructed to counter it. Authoritarianism is to stay in the world determined by late imperialism in perma-nent crisis. And the quicker one recognises it, the better.

One thing that could be said is that it is not authoritarianism that is a problem. It is liberalism. And this is because authoritarianism is not a problem, it is a reality. It is liberalism that is a problem and it is liberalism that is actually fueling authoritarianism. One forgets what Lenin said about the liberals, namely, that they are civilized hyenas whetting their teeth on Asia.1 And thus what is liberalism? Liberalism and liberal science are nothing but (to follow the revolutionary repertoire) the defence of wage slavery.2 One imagined that it was the liberal discourse of representative government, bourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legislation, bourgeois liberty and equality that would serve as the messianic end of history and the triumph of the last manthe theme best made famous by Francis Fukuyama. True, a certain sort of end did come. And so did this last man come. But one found that this last man was not the smooth- speaking and suave liberal. Instead one found the fascist.

The age of triumphant authoritarianism and the emergence of a violent Right-wing narrative throughout the world, including in India, have consequently brought in new concepts: need of a new tolerance, multiculturalism without clashes, free choice, crisis of pluralism, etc. It is then said that to counter the politics of identity, one needs to recreate the ethics and memory of liberalism. Liberalism becomes the new emancipator. One needs an Indian Hillary Clinton to be emancipated from a Hindutva Donald Trump. In this narrative one forgets that Clinton is Trump with a human/humanitarian face.

What is locked in the ideological cranium and unfortunate Faustian breast of this New Narrative are the two souls that have been haunting contemporary civilised world. These are: liberalism/totalitarianism, democracy/fascism, free speech/censorship, tolerance/intolerance, peace/war, non-violence/violence. Little does one recognise that these binaries are false. Instead of analysing the entire body of contemporary society, one is forced to analyse the two parts of the Faustian soul, not knowing that souls have never existed. One is then, like Goethes Faust, forced into the capitalist hell.

Once upon a time throughout the world it was said that the good Doctor Jekyll ruled. Now it is MrHyde ruling. Doctor Jekyll and his band of liberal followers claim that MrHyde are intolerant. Little does one understand that the good Doctor Jekyll and MrHyde are one and the same person. What does this mean? That liberalism and fascism, free speech and censorship, tolerance and intolerance, peace and war, non-violence and violence are one and the same? How, so one may ask, is this possible?

The problem is that concepts like liberalism remain ethereal, un-thought of. Or if thought of, liberalism remains half-thought. Liberalism then becomes like the good god who created the world, the god that is eternally good. But little does one understand that gods are Janus faced and along with the good god, stands the wrathful godthe god that is not good, but powerful enough to doubt the very existence of this liberal god himself. The liberal god is dead. And we do not need Nietzsches Zarathustra to tell us.

With the death of this liberal god, the fascist god is born. Fascism is thus this angry god. And late capitalism in permanent crisis is fascinated with angry gods. One prefers angry gods to polite ones. Anger and intolerance are commodities that are very saleable.

What liberalism did was it never wanted to talk of the political economy of this tolerance debate. It never wanted to know why the gods are on the rampage attacking seminars, declaring a great part of the Indian population as traitors and anti-nationals. Instead of claiming that the gods are angry because global accumulation of capital necessities this awful and greatly unjust anger, it talks of multiculturalism and the crisis of identity.

The idea of pluralism and the crisis of identity is tied down to the question of history and political economy. Both these are themselves tied down to the question of the nation-state, and tied to this question is the question whether nation-states are inevitable, or in contrast, whether these have been forced by colonialism onto the greater part of the world. Consequently to the question of pluralism and the question of identity is tied the question of history. Is history thus to be understood as a unilinear type of progress (from the so-called primitive commu-nism via the slave-feudal-capitalist that finally and most miraculously culminates into socia-lism), or is there a different type of history that one needs to reconstructa history that is mulilinear and democratic?

So how does one refigure scientific discourse such that a truly democratic society can be possible? Should one move in the arena of traditional philosophy and thus merely analyse what identity, difference and pluralism mean, or is it necessary to transcend the entire repertoire of philosophy? Should then one involve what Marx one said: To involve a transcendence (Aufhebung) of philosophy by involving a realisation (Verwirklichung) of it?3 And to which new site do we go? Which New Continent of Knowledge would one discover such that the false consciousness (tolerance in the age of the dictatorship of finance capital) of the earlier liberal repertoire is critiqued in its revolutionary perspective?

One way is to follow Marx who had said that there is only one sciencethe science of history.4 It is to this New Science that we turn our attention to. What are the contours of this New Science? They are humanism and naturalism. What we find is that this science has to be understood as a human natural science5 which involves the humanisation and naturalisation of society itself. What one needs to recognise that the dimension of the human condition is to be understoodas humanism and historicism (as Antonio Gramsci pointed out)the human condition in its concrete dialectical and historical materialist context. Marxs words to his daughters Jenny and Laura in 1865 ring out: Nihil humani a me alienum puto (Nothing human is alien to me).

The problem is that we have all forgotten this human condition in its proper dialectical and historical materialist context. Fascism along with liberalism and the transcendental memory of tolerance rides on the backs of this forgetfulness of the human condition.

Post-Enlightenment Culture as the Psychotic Culture Industry

Slavoj Zizek quite often chides culture theorists for fetishising culture by recalling the old fascist statement made fashionable by Goebbels: When I hear of culture, I turn for my gun.6 Culture theorists, in attempting to inverse economic reductionism thought that they were trying to bring in the studies of culture, which vulgar materialism had exiled as a mere reflection of a hidden economic base. But in inverting a fallacy, they were recreating another fallacy.

At this time we must say that there are four distinct methods of understanding what culture means.

1. Culture as a whole way of life and common resource of meaning (to borrow expressions of Raymond Williams). Here one also includes mind-sets, sets of values, realm of literature and the arts (the so-called high culture), also spelt out as refinement.

2. Culture as dieBildung, a theme derived from the European Enlightenment, most clearly in Hegels Phenomenology of Mind. Culture here is meant as cultivating human sensibilities and the acquisition of the knowledge of the true, the good and the beautiful. Along with these ideas is intrinsically tied the question of human freedom. Thus when one talks of culture, one does not move to ones gun in horrible fright. Here culture as cultivating humanity is not mere petty bourgeois cultivating, but is the cultivating of the desire for revolution. Rebellion is then related to this idea of culture.

3. The regression of culture from die Bildung to the emergence of the culture industrywhere shiny white teeth (as Theodor Adorno pointed out) matter more than humanity. In fact it is shiny white teeth and even more shiny white skin that matter the most when culture as Bildung moves into the state of regression. In this mode of regression, one also moves into the state of repression that Freud placed at the centre of his scientific study. In this domain of culture as culture industry, one also negates the old bourgeois idea of high culture as the Concert Hall idea of culture or even the Museum Definition of Culture where culture is understood as the collections of exotic objects. Culture is here commoditised, where the complete destruction of critical thinking and conse-quently the misuse and abuse of reason is placed at its epicentre. The use of reason then becomes the abuse of reason.

4. Culture as cultural nationalism. One now moves from the site of culture as commodity to culture as racial and theological supremacy. The spectaclisation of culture (that we borrow from Walter Benjamin) and the production of what we call after Fredric Jameson as the hysterical sublime become the two important motifs of cultural nationa-lism. Its leitmotiv is the devaluation of the idea of culture as resistance. Cultural nationalism is the epitome of the post-Enlightenment project where psychosis and mass hysteria replace the use of reason.

It is to this idea of reason (Vernunftor the Hegelian idea of reason as the dialectical struggle of freedom) that we need to turn to and not to questions of pluralism and multiculturalism. And with this new idea of reason as freedom where one understands the synthesis of German classical philosophy, French socialism and English political economy. And at the doorsteps of this triad that one cultivates a certain form of disdain that Marx and Engels talked of in the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Consider these immortal words:

The Communists disdain (my emphasisM.J.) to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.7

Note alongside the word disdain that the word fear is used. However this must be put in the proper context of the Manifesto where Marx and Engels chide the forces of Old Europe for calling the insurrectionist proletariat as a ghost, some sort of evil, a spectre haunting the good Christian world. What we also learn is that in this chiding, or to be precise manu-facturing of nursery tales (Mrchen) that the revolutionary proletariat is an evil ghost, that all European Powers acknowledge commu-nism as a Power (Macht).8 And it is to this Macht that we now need to turn to:

We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable.9

To recall Zizeks recalling of Robespierre:

Virtue without Terror is impotent, while Terror without Virtue is lethal, striking blindly.10

A Different Practice of Philosophy

What one needs to recognise is that one needs a different practice of philosophy (to recall Louis Althussers celebrated term from his Lenin and Philosophy).11 in order to understand the crisis of the liberal project. Philosophy as a radical philosophising enterprise, where analysis of the human condition is considered the essence of philosophical reasoning, refuses to be contem-plative, refuses to mutter angry phrases against the dominant conservative order.

Instead as analysis, it turns to the very problemthe liberal consensus. What is the essence of this liberal consensus? The essence is that one cannot revolt. That is why I am saying that what we need to recover is not the liberal order in order to counter the intolerant order. The liberal order has what become Jean-Paul Sartre called the practico-inert. The practico-inert crushes all desires of revolution.

It is imperative to understand that the liberal order now no longer stands as the ideas of representative government, freedom of the press, legislation, liberty and equality. Instead it stands only as an alienated superstructural gaze, gazing at the violent order of things without having any capacity to do anything. Not only is at an alienated gaze, it is also some form of violent masturbation. Liberalism then is understood as masturbation in the time of violent fascism. It becomes like traditional philosophy that Marx had critiqued:

Philosophy and the study of the actual world have the same relation to one another as onanism and sexual love. Saint Sancho (our liberal, my insertionM.J.), who in spite of his absence of thoughtwhich we have noted by us patiently and by him emphaticallyremains within the world of pure thoughts, can, of course, save himself from it only by means of a moral postulate, the postulate of thought-lessness. He is a bourgeois who saves himself in the face of commerce by the banqueroute cochenne (swinish bankruptcy), whereby, of course, he becomes not a proletarian, but an impecu-nious, bankrupt bourgeois. He does not become a man of the world, but a bankrupt philosopher without thoughts.12

Have we not become this bankrupt philoso-pher-bourgeois/bourgeois-philosopher without thoughts gazing at fascism that is creating global carnage?

It is for this reason that we critique liberalism. But there is another reason: liberalism is nothing but fascism without a gun, just as fascism is liberalism with a gun. We should have known this. Anyone who has read Robert Louis Stevensons classic will know that Dr Jekyll and MrHyde are the same person.

The question remains: Who is the fascist and who is the liberal? Is Hillary Clinton, Trump with a human face; or is Trump, Hillary with a humanitarian face? Would Trump and his whole gang of global authoritarianisms be serving humanity, by openly declaring that capitalism is essentially violent, racist, xeno-phobic and inward looking?

It is for this dialectical and historical reason that we look forward to the rule of authoritarian governments. For they signify the last stage of capitalism. So what do we learn from this? We learn that authoritarianism is the last stage of capitalism, just as we learn from Lenin that imperialism is the last stage of capitalism.

Capitalism exists in its terminal stage. And neither the sweet lies of liberalism, nor the hate-mongering of the fascists can save it.

Endnotes

1. V.I. Lenin, The Historical Destiny of Karl Marx in Lenin, Selected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977, p. 19).

2. V.I. Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism in Marx, Engels, Selected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 23.

3. Karl Marx, Introduction. A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right in Karl Marx, Early Writings (London: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 257.

4. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982), 98. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), 34, n.

5. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 99.

6. Slavoj Zizek, Tolerance as an Ideological Category in Critical Inquiry, Autumn, 2007.

7. Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party in Marx, Engels, Selected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 63.

8. Ibid., p. 35. See also Karl Marx, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei in Die Frhschriften (Berlin: Dietz Verlag 2004), p. 594.

9. Karl Marx, The Final Issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung (18 May 1849) in Marx-Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Vol. VI, p. 503.

10. Slavoj Zizek, Introduction. Robespierre, or the Divine Violence of Terror in Maximilen Robespierre, Virtue and Terror (London: Verso, 2007), p. XXV.

11. Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy (Delhi: Aakar Books, 2006), p. 17

12. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, pp. 253-4.

Prof Murzban Jal is the Director, Centre for Educational Studies, Indian Institute of Education, Pune.

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Did Someone Say Liberalism? - Mainstream

March 31, 2017 by Andrew Crane Credit: University of Bath

Theresa May's historic signing of Article 50 looks set to be her lasting legacy as Prime Minister. Unfortunately, it is also likely to derail her other signature policy on modern slavery. Our research suggests Brexit could increase modern slavery in the UK.

The signing of Article 50 marks the point of no return for the UK's exit from the European Union. Although she inherited the Brexit decision, Theresa May's political legacy will stand and fall on how successfully she manages to steer the country through the turmoil.

Without a doubt, Article 50 will bring untold changes to the political, economic and cultural landscape of the country. One change that will certainly be high on May's radar is its effect on modern slavery in the UK.

Modern slavery has been May's signature policy since she was Home Secretary. She introduced the landmark Modern Slavery Act in 2015 prior to becoming PM, and has since continued to champion the cause. In announcing a ramping up of Government efforts to improve enforcement last year, she identified modern slavery as "the great human rights issue of our time" and heralded the UK as leading the way in defeating it.

While the Act is far from perfect, it has certainly focused increased attention and resources on modern slavery. Prosecution levels also appear to be improving. This was most recently illustrated by the sentencing of the Markowski brothers to six years in prison for trafficking and then exploiting 18 people from Poland, who they brought to the UK to work in a Sports Direct warehouse.

The problem is, despite the advances gradually being made in addressing modern slavery in the UK, the signing of Article 50 is likely to worsen the problem. As May is probably acutely aware (but is so far not saying), Brexit may well undermine the progress she has made to date. It is a case of two steps forward, one step back.

According to research I conducted with an international team of colleagues looking at forced labour in the UK (initially funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation), four main problems are evident.

1. Brexit will increase the demand for modern slavery

The Brexit vote has already created uncertainty among the legions of poorly paid, but legal migrant workers from Eastern Europe that are employed in the UK's low wage economy. Signing Article 50 may ultimately help stem the flow of workers into the country as intended. But who is going to replace them? Domestic workers will fill some of the gaps but companies are unlikely to be willing to improve wages and conditions to attract them in sufficient numbers. So there will be greater opportunities for unscrupulous middlemen to traffic in workers from overseas or prey on vulnerable UK citizens to force them into exploitative situations. Forced labour flourishes where local, low skilled labour is in short supply.

2. Brexit will facilitate exploitation

Modern slavery often occurs when workers do not fully understand their legal rights and status. Our research uncovered various examples of migrant workers being exploited because those exploiting them misled them into the belief that they were working illegally. Perpetrators would also wait for or deliberately engineer changes in workers' immigration status in order to exploit them. The point is that Brexit will create a period of increased uncertainty around legal status that will be a significant boon to exploiters.

3. Brexit will increase the supply of modern slavery

Modern slavery occurs when people are vulnerable, either because of legal status, poverty, mental health, or drug and alcohol problems. In our research, the most common victims were those from countries such as Romania and Bulgaria who, at the time, were able to enter the country but were unable to work legally. This vulnerability was exploited by perpetrators who were able to coerce them into working in highly exploitative situations. The more the UK puts up barriers to people entering the country legally, the higher the risk of traffickers bringing them in illegally and pushing them into debt. Once workers are in debt, perpetrators are adept at escalating their indebtedness and creating situations of debt bondage.

4. Brexit will turn victims into criminals

Our research found that many victims of forced labour in the UK were prosecuted under immigration offences rather than being identified as victims. The Modern Slavery Act has improved this situation but as the UK moves towards Brexit, the chances of this happening will increase because policing around immigration status is likely to intensify far more than around modern slavery.

May claims that under her leadership, "Britain will once again lead the way in defeating modern slavery". But the bottom line is that by triggering Brexit, May will be left trying to solve a problem that she is helping create.

Explore further: We need to change what people think modern slavery is

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Victims of servitude, forced labour and forced marriage will be able to obtain financial compensation more easily due to the passing of an amendment to federal crimes legislation in the senate on Wednesday, according to the ...

The Brexit vote and the election of US President Donald Trump have made many Britons anxious, according to a poll released on Tuesday and mental health charities dealing with the fallout.

A new article co-authored by experts at the University of Huddersfield bolsters a theory that the spread of agriculture throughout Europe followed migration into the Mediterranean from the Near East more than 13,000 years ...

A 40,000 year old piece of raven bone that was etched with near-even lines suggests Neanderthals had an eye for esthetics, French researchers said Wednesday.

A team of researchers, including UNM Honors College Professor Jason R. Moore, has found a new species of tyrannosaur dinosaurthe most popular of the prehistoric creatures.

Research grants issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) contribute to a significant number of private-sector patents in biomedicine, according to a new study co-authored by an MIT professor.

Large social networks foster connections by erasing national, geographic, and even linguistic barriers. But when it comes to fostering cooperation, global connectivity leaves something to be desired, new research says.

More details have emerged about one of the oldest sets of human remains found in the Americas, a young woman nicknamed "Naia" whose nearly complete skeleton was discovered in 2007 in a water-filled cave in Mexico's Yucatan ...

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Research suggests Brexit likely to increase modern slavery in the UK - Phys.Org