Daily Archives: May 26, 2017

The South African Football Players Union (SAFPU) say that its just a matter of time before there is a player strike in the country due to slavery wages.

Reports have stated that Maritzburg United midfielder, Siphesihle Ndlovu, is currently earning less than R7000 per month at the club despite being a regular first team player and SAFPU say that they intend to do something about it.

The unions Deputy General Secretary, Nhlanhla Shabalala, explained how seriously they are taking the matter, saying that there are players eating from rubbish bins because of the wages theyre getting.

He told the Siya crew, We are in the process of engaging the PSL to investigate these matters. With every pro contract that is signed, it goes to the PSL.

It is up to Maritzburg to prove to us that what were saying is not true. There are players earning slavery wages here, even though its the players who are the focal point of the league.

Im not going into the details of his contract, but hes had three increases since his debut and is still on a slavery wage. There are commentators earning much more than players, and its not right.

I know that it's not only Siphesihle whose earning this rubbish salary at Maritzburg but others as well, and it's even worse than what were discussing. If were wrong then we challenge them to prove it!

Meanwhile, on the topic of general wages in South African football, the former Ajax Cape Town man said, Weve spoken regularly about a minimum wage and have tried to speak to the PSL about it. Weve spoken to players and we think that a minimum wage for a professional footballer should be between R16,000 and R18,000.

It seems like the PSL is avoiding these issues and now were tired of writing letters. We are now mobilising players and trying to educate them on what theyre not aware of.

We are going to have a strike, he says. Its only a matter of time before that happens. The PSL would not exist without the players, and some of them are being treated like slaves. We are the voices of the players and we must do our job. We cant allow a situation where we have some of our players eating from the rubbish bins.

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SAFPU Plan PSL Strike, Fight Against 'Slavery Wages' - Soccer Laduma

CUMBRIA police were tipped off about 130 cases of modern-day slavery during the last year, with some victims being forced into prostitution.

The shocking revelation came as senior officers and other professionals gathered for a conference examining what the force and other agencies can do to tackle the scourge of slavery.

Police chiefs including Cumbria's police and crime commissioner Peter McCall want to explode the myth that slavery does not happen in Cumbria.

A key aim of the conference yesterday was to highlight how such exploitation thrives on the profound fear of vulnerable victims, often forced to live in squalor and left so terrified they dare not ask for help.

For that reason, police want more help from the public to spot the tell-tale signs of exploitation.

There have been examples across the whole county.

Detective Chief Inspector Lesley Hanson, the senior officer responsible for coordinating efforts to fight the problem in Cumbria, said: "This is relevant to our county because we've had 130 intelligence reports of what we felt were cases of modern slavery in this county. In terms of sexual exploitation we've had instances of pop-up brothels with Lithuanian females brought into the county.

"We've also had labour exploitation and we have looked at particular car washes in the county.

People may have the misconception that modern-day slavery doesnt happen in Cumbria, and that it's only an issue for big cities. However, human trafficking and slavery can happen anywhere and I'd urge anyone who has concerns to report them to the police immediately.

She described how gangmaster criminals strip the victims of their official documentation, including their passport, and then pay them a pittance for work, and intimidate or beat up anybody who protests.

Young women forced into prostitution are being sexually abused. The victims are very vulnerable, said DCI Hanson. They're effectively held to ransom. They may have come from the EU so travelling to the UK is not an issue but they come over for false promises. We've had instances of people earning 20 per week.

Some come across to the UK believing they'll be doing something completely different to what they end up doing.

In some instances, said the officer, victims were forced to work on illegal cannabis farms in remote Cumbrian locations.

People don't think this kind of thing is happening in Cumbria but it really is. We want people to know what it is and to recognise the signs.

DCI Hanson said Cumbria police had carried out numerous investigations in the last year, and safeguarded several victims as a result.

She added: But it's not always about prosecution. It's about keeping victims safe. Anyone of any race or background could be a victim of modern-day slavery.

We often rely on the public for valuable information and evidence when investigating these types of crimes. I would urge people to take the time to learn the signs and get in touch if you have any suspicions that something is not quite right.

DCI Hanson's colleague, Detective Inspector James Yallop, said victims often isolated and vulnerable because they have no English can find themselves dominated and ruthlessly exploited.

He said: They're in a foreign country and they feel lost. They have their identity documents and money taken from them and they're already in debt. They're forced to work for well below the national minimum wage.

They often live in substandard conditions, in multi-occupancy houses and they don't know who to turn to for help. It's intimidation.

The conference heard from several experts who urged those attending to give priority to fighting slavery.

Mr McCall said: The first step to eradicating the scourge of modern slavery is acknowledging and confronting its existence.

"The threat of modern slavery is real and is happening in Cumbria and we cant allow this type of crime to become established.

The message to you is simple if you see something suspicious, please report it.

"We see people being exploited in agriculture, in tourism, in car washes. It takes all sorts of forms."

The event was funded by the police and crime commissioner and held at Carlisle Racecourse with 215 professionals in attendance.

Signs that someone is being exploited could include:

* Scared and withdrawn

* No confidence

* Unexplained injuries

* May live and work in same place

* No access to passport or documents

* Limited contact with family, or outside world

* Doesnt know home or work address

* Forced or intimidated to work, with low or no pay

* Distrustful

* Poor hygiene and unkempt appearance

*Speaks little English

Anyone with information or concerns regarding exploitation is asked to contact police on 101. Alternatively you can contact Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

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Public urged to help drive out scourge of slavery from Cumbria - NW Evening Mail

Three times last February, Eugene police officers found Rod Adams, a 60-year-old homeless man, lying in a sleeping bag downtown in the middle of the night. They arrested, handcuffed and took him to Lane County Jail each time, where he stayed for three total days on trespassing charges.

Since Adams moved to Eugene nine years ago, police have arrested him 40 times on 44 counts of being homeless: trespassing, prohibited camping and violating park rules lead the laundry list of minor crimes, plus warrant arrests for missing scheduled court dates. Adams received 10 tickets last year, putting him in the top one percent of all people cited last year.

Never has Adams been charged with a felony or violent crime, but hes been booked 15 times in Lane County Jail, where hes spent 32 nights, jail records show.

And thats only the ones they document, Adams says. Every fucking day theyre in my face.

Once a middle-class citizen, a disgruntled Adams left his job in corporate America at a tech company and stopped making payments on his home, which was repossessed. He now spends his time documenting the class war happening on the streets of Eugene. Hes become infamous for videotaping police interactions with homeless people downtown.

Adams intervenes when he sees the unhoused being harassed and often spews vitriol at officers. Hes posted dozens of videos to his Facebook group, RE-volt, over the past year, sometimes documenting officers ticketing sleeping homeless people late at night and others times calling the cops fascists.

Now, fed up with a justice system that penalizes being poor, Adams is taking his three recent criminal trespass cases to jury trials, where he will invoke the necessity defense, arguing he had no choice but to commit the crimes because the city offered him no viable alternative.

Its a rarely used and rarely won defense, and Adams does not necessarily expect to win. But he says the trials are necessary work that has to be done and only a prelude to greater efforts to end criminalization of homelessness. He hopes it will encourage other homeless people to do the same.

THE SOFTKILL

Adams is thin, about 5-foot-9 with blue eyes and an untrimmed white ponytail and a beard. He wears a camo hat and black combat boots and lives off his military pension Eugene Weekly confirmed his veteran status but can no longer afford rent, healthcare and other basic needs. Many of his possessions have been stolen, but hes managed to hang on to an Acer laptop and out-of-service LG smartphone. Those, he says, will be stolen one day, too.

Adams maintains a list of all the homeless people whove died in Eugene and often invokes their names when yelling at the cops. He counted 25 deaths in 2016 alone. Some hes heard about from friends, others hes seen for himself lifeless bodies under the bridges. One of these days, he says, thats going to be him.

Many people are upset with me because I do yell at the cops, he says. I say nasty, foul things to them. But they take no responsibility for what they do to those people out there, and those people wind up dead. So I absolutely will never apologize for verbally abusing them.

Adams plans to subpoena Eugene police chief Pete Kerns in his upcoming trials to talk about compliance training. He says police are trained to subject homeless people and all marginalized communities to character assassination, dispossession and the psychological inferiority. Adams calls it the softkill.

Ken Neubeck, a longtime local homeless advocate, described Adams as principled and fearless passionate about his beliefs, but frustrated at the slow rate of change. Neubeck thinks a lot of Adams toughness and prickliness toward the police is a product of his experience on the streets.

If you give him a chance, his whole voice changes, Neubeck says. Hell be sitting beside me in the car as a passenger, and all the sudden hes much more relaxed, and hes friendly. Hes talkative and respectful. I dont think theres really a mean bone in his body, from what Ive been able to see.

Wayne Martin, a retired pastor who housed Adams in his basement for a week in 2013, says he has great loyalty to Adams. He described him as a poet, giving eloquent homilies about corporate demons and his belief in a sort of agrarian democracy. He says he sees a fire light up in Adams eyes when he gets on a roll while delivering a speech.

Rod has had to have strong legs to keep standing, Martin says. Hes a whimsical guy and I think that helps. I think hes been really insulted a lot, both his intelligence and his person. Hes in serious disregard about a system that treated him badly.

When police officers interact with Adams, he asks them for their business cards. If they comply, he emails them The Package, which consists of excerpts from three philosophical texts that he says are the minimum comprehensions necessary to address the failing state. One text asserts the main difference between the unhoused in America and those in other countries is the publics attitude toward them.

Adams says no police officer has ever responded to Adams emails and lately theyve stopped giving him their cards.

Neubeck uses the term structural classism to describe the systemic criminalization policies that Adams deems the softkill.

In 2008, for example, the city established a downtown public safety zone from which it could legally exclude people convicted of certain crimes. But according to a 2010 police activity report, almost 60 percent of the people excluded were homeless. Neubeck says laws like Eugenes camping ban may not appear discriminatory it prevents everyone from camping in the parks, not just the homeless but that they have a disproportionate negative impact on people who dont have anywhere else to go.

I think thats what Rod is principally upset about, Neubeck says. Not only does the city not offer enough help to house people and provide them emergency shelter, but on top of that it is punishing people for doing things outside that they have no choice but to do.

Homeless people can be arrested for things housed people do regularly in their homes: drinking, smoking and going to the bathroom are illegal in public spaces. Adams has been arrested for smoking, drinking, littering and even theft of electricity for having his laptop plugged into a wall power outlet behind an auto shop.

In 2014, Adams spent 11 days in jail for a noise disturbance that occurred six years prior.

Its the laws that are bad, Neubeck says, but police officers still use discretion to enforce them. So Adams takes his frustration out on them.

SHAKING COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Winning the necessity defense will be a tall order for Adams and his public defender, Ryan Gifford. They must prove that had Adams slept on private property due to: a specific threat of imminent danger; a necessity to act; and no practical alternative, while showing that the harm caused wasnt greater than the harm prevented.

Kathy Walker, a longtime Eugene resident who has dedicated much of her life to assisting the homeless, is helping Adams prepare for the trials and thinks theyve covered all their bases. Adams acquittal, she says, could set a precedent for future cases of homeless criminalization. A guilty ruling would only serve as evidence in an even bigger case, she says. A class action lawsuit could be possible, but expensive.

In 2016, the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts tossed out six trespassing convictions against a homeless man, ruling that he should have had the opportunity to argue the necessity defense in front of a jury.

The prosecutors in Eugene may argue Adams could have spent the night at Eugene Mission, a local shelter. Adams responds, Im poor, I cant afford rent and Im not going to retire to the Mission, so that only leaves the street.

The prosecutors may argue that if Adams cant afford housing, he needs to find work. You just authorized wage slavery, Adams replies. What part of retirement dont you understand?

Adams often says the case is not about him. He does not care if the court finds he broke the law; if he can change the six jury members predispositions about homelessness, he says, hell have done his job.

It doesnt matter what happens to me, Adams says. What happens is people get shaken out of their cognitive dissonance, so my grandchildren dont have to grow up with this.

The first of Rod Adamss three trials begins 9 am May 31 at Eugene Municipal Court.

Original post:

44 Counts of Homelessness - Eugene Weekly

May 24, 2017 11:36 AM

CHICAGO (CBS) The Fight for $15 movement took aim at shareholders meetings for two Chicago area corporate giants on Wednesday McDonalds and United Airlines as low-pay workers continued their push for a higher minimum wage.

Hundreds of McDonalds workers and other activists marched outside the fast food giants corporate headquarters in Oak Brook as shareholders held their annual meeting. Protesters began gathering outside McDonalds headquarters around 7 a.m., and staged a boisterous protest as they chanted and marched outside the corporate campus.

Police shut down Jorie Boulevard for several hours to accommodate the protesters, who were marching as part of the Fight for $15 movement.

Activists said McDonalds, the worlds second largest private employer, fails to pay a living wage.

McDonalds workers demanded union rights and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

Were tired of living in poverty. Meanwhile, they get to build a new headquarters in downtown Chicago, which Im pretty sure is pretty expensive; and we cant even afford to buy our children they toy that they want, or put food on the table, and that is absolutely unacceptable, Adriana Alvarez said.

McDonalds employee Betty Douglas said working for the fast food giant is like modern-day slavery.

It doesnt make any sense. We deserve dignity. We deserve $15 an hour. We deserve to be able to take care of our kids. My son, I cant even buy him any shoes, she said.

Protest organizers said, since the Fight for $15 movement launched nearly five years ago, more than 20 million low-wage workers have received pay raises.

However, they said McDonalds hasnt done enough, and essentially is exploiting its front-line workforce while executives line their pockets.

In response to Wednesdays protest, McDonalds issued the following statement:

Our commitment to the communities we serve includes providing opportunities for those who work in our restaurants to succeed at McDonalds and beyond. For hundreds of thousands, a job at McDonalds is their very first and our world-class training and education programs begin building the skills first time workers will need to succeed in the workforce. In recent years, we have raised pay and started offering paid time off at our company-owned restaurants. Additionally, eligible employees (at both company-owned and participating franchised restaurants) can take free high school completion classes, get upfront college tuition assistance and learn English as a second language. In just two years, we are proud that over 17,000 employees have participated in this extended learning. Together, these important investments in our people show why we are committed to being Americas best first job.

There were no incidents during the protest, and no demonstrators tried to cross police lines to get onto the McDonalds headquarters campus.

Fight for $15 protesters also sought to send a message to United Airlines at the companys shareholder meeting at Willis Tower on Wednesday.

Airport workers including baggage handlers, janitors, and security officers were joined by leaders of the Service Employees International Union, which has been trying to unionize the employees of subcontractors hired by the airlines.

OHare workers are coming together with other airport workers from major cities across the country, all fighting for a better life by sticking together and speaking out, SEIU Local 1 President Tom Balanoff said.

The workers claim contractors hired by United undercut jobs at OHare, and undermine safety and security.

We understand this is an important issue being raised in cities and states across the country. At United, we hold our vendors to the highest standards and require them to follow all applicable laws and regulations. Since we do not have a direct employer-employee relationship with our vendors employees, we must rely on them to work with each other directly, United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said in an email.

SEIU officials said 30 airport workers and supporters were arrested at the United Airlines protest, including Balanoff. Police issued citations for blocking traffic.

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Fight For $15 Protests Target McDonalds, United Airlines Shareholders - CBS Chicago

Adidas on a major drive to encourage workers to speak up and use this information to eradicate slavery and improve workers' conditions

By Belinda Goldsmith

LONDON, May 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Adidas executive Aditi Wanchoo is on a mission - to wipe out any slavery in the German sportswear company's supply chain, and she hopes giving workers the technology to speak out will help.

With a background in corporate social responsibility at consultancy firm Accenture, Wanchoo was hired 18 months ago in a new position created by Adidas, one of the first companies to set up a role dedicated to fighting slavery.

In recent years modern-day slavery has increasingly come under the spotlight, putting regulatory and consumer pressure on companies to ensure their supply chains are free of forced labour, child labour and other forms of slavery.

As apparel and footwear industries rely heavily on outsourcing, sportswear companies have faced growing scrutiny.

Wanchoo said Adidas had been actively working on this issue since it was revealed at the 1998 World Cup that footballs were produced by child labourers in India and companies realised they did not have control over their suppliers.

Governments are now trying to tackle the problem with new legislation, such as the UK's 2015 law requiring companies to disclose how they are ensuring supply chains are slavery free.

"We have found that the UK Modern Slavery Act and recent legislative action in France and Australia have helped take the conversations to the boardroom," Wanchoo told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview this week in London.

"My role was created to look at building relevant partnerships to continue our work on addressing potential modern slavery risks for our extended supply chain, i.e. our Tier 2 processing facilities and Tier 3 raw material sources."

Slavery has emerged as a major global problem with the Global Slavery Index by the Walk Free Foundation estimating there are nearly 46 million slaves in the world.

The United Nations has a global goal to eradicate forced labour and slavery by 2030 and end all child labour by 2025.

Wanchoo said she was tackling the issue in various ways such as collaborating with other companies, NGOs and governments, and training suppliers about the risks of bonded labour and the impact of recruitment fees on workers.

TECH TO GIVE WORKERS A VOICE

She said Adidas was also on a major drive to encourage workers to speak up and use this information to eradicate slavery and improve workers' conditions.

The company already has "worker hotlines" giving 300,000 factory workers in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia the opportunity to anonymously ask questions, make suggestions or express concerns via text messages and smart phone applications.

But the company found this was not enough, and over the past year Adidas has run a pilot project in China with apps for workers to anonymously report issues - data that is collected and then analysed.

Wanchoo said the aim is to introduce such a system in all of the company's 105 or so primary factories in the next five years and then look at cascading this down to second-tier suppliers.

In Turkey these worker grievance systems had uncovered concerns about child labour and reports of illegal workers from Turkmenistan, while in Asia workers had complained about abuse by supervisors, wage issues and food, she said.

She added that efforts to hear directly from workers was paying off. Last year campaign organisation KnowTheChain ranked Adidas top out of 20 firms, chosen because of their size, for its efforts to eliminate forced labour and human trafficking.

"We want to make it as easy and anonymous as possible for workers," said Hong Kong-based Wanchoo, whose official title is senior manager - development partnerships, social and environmental affairs at Adidas.

She acknowledged this did not always go down well with suppliers who aim to keep costs as competitive as possible.

"Sometimes there can be resistance from suppliers, but we work with them to demonstrate how this can help them in the long run by improving supply chain transparency, communication, productivity and worker retention," she said.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith @BeeGoldsmith, Editing by Alisa Tang.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)

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INTERVIEW - Adidas' slavery buster hopes technology can give workers a voice - Thomson Reuters Foundation