Daily Archives: July 17, 2017

MODERN slavery, human trafficking and illegal immigration are among the key targets of the biggest operation of its kind launched in the region this morning.

Law enforcement agencies across the North-East are mounting a crackdown on foreign national offenders in an operation which will including raids on premises, joint patrols and other activities over the next fortnight.

Operation Kestrel involves the regions three police forces Durham, Cleveland and Northumbria working alongside Immigration Enforcement, Border Force, the North East Regional Special Operations Unit, the Department Work Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs.

It is aimed at developing a template to be used for future operations across the country, while at the same time building up intelligence on the scale of the problem.

Speaking ahead of the operation, Northumbria Assistant Chief Constable Helen McMillan said: It is a targeted operation which is looking at the harm caused by foreign national offenders across the region.

Normally we do all cooperate and go about our business when we come across foreign national offenders.

But this is a much more co-ordinated approach towards foreign criminality and its victims. We hoping to develop a model fully integrated collaborative working.

She added: Some of the activity well target is modern day slavery and human trafficking offences, which would include labour exploitation and the safeguarding of victims.

Its fair to say that some foreign nationals who are here legally will be victims of exploitation sometimes by foreign national offenders and sometimes by UK nationals, who are seeking to exploit a vulnerable community

The victims may well not be aware of the labour laws, the minimum wage and health and safety.

Sometimes they will be targeted by unscrupulous employers or landlords who will seek to take advantage of them. Well be taking action against those people too.

ACC McMillan said: We are not carrying out this operation because we have had a rise on foreign national offenders or because we have a particular issue in the North-East - because we dont.

This is about trying to be much more efficient and effective at what we do in a much more multi-agency collaborative way.

Immigration Enforcement director Eddy Montgomery said: Illegal immigration cuts across the work of a number of Government agencies. It impacts not just on the community but economy as well.

This will enable us to us to develop a wider intelligence picture.

He added: Our key priorities will be illegal working, rogue landlords, modern slavery and identifiying those who have no right to be in the UK, ranging from from low-level offenders to serious criminality.

Illegal working encourages illegal migration, undercuts legitimate businesses, by illegal cost cutting activity and is often associated with exploitative behaviour like tax evasion and harmful working conditions.

He said every landlord had a legal responsibility to rent only to people who had a right to be in the UK.

ACC McMillan said Operation Kestrel was driven by the Chief Constable Steve Ashman who was the National Police Chiefs Councils lead in international criminality.

She said: He is very keen to drive the agenda and try and co-ordinate increased capacity and capability across the the services across the UK.

One of the things he wanted to do as that was to try and develop a template that can be used across the county by forces and services to co-ordinate better. It makes sense for us to do it here.

Originally posted here:

Law enforcement agencies join forced across region in crackdown on "foreign national offenders" - The Northern Echo (registration)

The so-called communists in the SACP, who were deployed in government, are nothing but careerist cowards and opportunists with no capacity to introduce anything leftward. Instead those like Jeremy Cronin and Secretary-General Blade Nzimande are stumbling blocks to progressive proposals in government.

When presenting the South African Communist Partys leadership view on its relationship to electoral politics and state power, the recently outgone First Deputy Secretary General remarked that perhaps it is difficult to find intelligent people in the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Jeremy Cronins shallow and decidedly incorrect view is not a surprise because for a very long time now, this liberal airhead masquerading as a communist has thought of himself as the paragon of political virtue, a messiah and intellectual par excellence, only rivalled by Joe Slovo. Intelligent people to him are only those who are sub-controlled by white people, and no African child or collective can ever be considered intelligent.

In his unsubstantiated remark about the lack of intelligence (revolutionary intellectual capacity) of EFF, he fails to ideologically, intellectually and politically pinpoint unwise and unintelligent ideological, political and intellectual mishaps of the EFF both as an organisation or otherwise. He cannot do so because in all forms and shapes of measure, the EFFs ideological, political and ideological perspectives represent superior logic and that is evidenced by its upward qualitative and quantitative development. As a matter of fact, the EFF is the biggest (qualitatively and quantitatively) socialist political movement on the African continent that is not under the ideological control of white people, now and in the future.

Cronin will not admit to this fact because, despite claiming to be a scientific socialist, Cronin is an undercover white supremacist whose participation in the Communist Party leadership was aimed at sanitising the radical manifestation of Marxism-Leninism in a country that is defined by white political, economic and social domination. Cronins role (and perhaps that of his ideological father Joe Slovo) in the National Liberation Movement has always been a sophisticated form of white entryism because uncompromising implementation of the NLMs original vision would lead to the complete destruction of his kin and kiths absolute dominance over society and the economy. Entryism refers to the infiltration of a political party by members of another group, with the intention of subverting its policies or objectives, and that is exactly what Jeremy Cronin has been in the liberation movement.

The task of revolutionary leaders in South Africa and all over the world is to constantly provide thorough diagnosis of societal challenges and provide durable solutions. Since Cronin was elected as part of the SACP leadership he has never provided any substantial and clear ideological and political guidance that unsettled white minority control of SAs wealth and got to benefit the black majority and Africans in particular.

His role has been to correct the grammar, prose and form of emerging revolutionaries who in the process of development will objectively make some theoretical and superficial mistakes in their application of Marxism to the South African problem as it can be expected. Of course, Jeremy would understand English (the language) better than other African leaders in the and society because thats the only language he knows and its his birth language. This is a leader of the so-called vanguard of the working class, who has not bothered to understand the language of the people he is vanguard of, and always ready to belittle them when they make genuine semantic errors in their attempts to explain society through the Marxist-Leninist telescope.

On several occasions, Cronins role has been to suppress its understanding of society better. Here are some of the examples: When the decidedly neoliberal Growth, Employment and Redistribution(GEAR) economic policy was adopted, the SACP issued a statement to welcome it, and only somersaulted when Cosatu opposed the macroeconomic strategy. The SACP verbatim said, The South African Communist Party welcomes the governments Growth, Employment and Redistribution Macro-Economic Policy. We fully back the objectives of this macro-economic strategy and note, in particular, the following key features: Contrary to certain attempts to use the macro-economic debate to shift government away from its electoral mandate, the strategy announced today firmly and explicitly situates itself as a framework for the RDP.

Despite the many justifications and exonerations of GEAR, it represented ideological and global economic dynamics naivet on the part of the liberation movement, which had been in political power for two years. As a so-called vanguard of the working class, the SACP should have foreseen that neoliberal trade liberalisation, lowering of tariffs, taxation and fiscal reform would destroy industrialisation and the state's capacity to deliver services. The so-called vanguard of the working class should have foreseen that loosening of exchange controls would lead to massive capital flight, outflow of capital necessary for industrialisation to destinations that did not play any meaningful role in its generation.

In the 2000s, Cronin and the SACP forgot that when GEAR was adopted, the SACP fully back(ed) the objectives of this macro-economic strategy. They then conceptualised what they termed the 1996 class project, which was loosely defined as an ideological trend that forced GEARs adoption, in pursuit of a neoliberal crisis and therefore responsible for all South Africas developmental and economic problems. The defeat of the 1996 class project was then mixed with the removal of Thabo Mbeki as the Godfather of the class project. The ANCs 52nd National Conference was the theatre upon which the class project would be defeated and succeeded by a progressive reconfigured alliance. This, the intelligent Cronin argued, would lead to a permanent solution to our problems.

Hindsight reveals the simple fact that the SACP and its lead ideologue, Jeremy Cronin, the intellectual, misdiagnosed the South African problem, and history proves that the so-called 1996 class project does not have any scientific basis. The 1996 class project, conceptualised by Cronin, was nothing but a factional hogwash of the Communist Partys (an organised faction in the ANC) bid for its leaders, not its ideas, to be accommodated and mainstreamed in the ANC as ministers and deputy ministers. This is evidenced by so many statements made by SACP leaders that they are tired of hunting for nogwaja (rabbits) alongside the ANC, and the ANC leaders eat alone.

The deepening crisis of the ANC-led liberation movement which will lead to its total destruction and ruin of all its component parts reveal that the SACPs unscientific characterisation of the South African post-1994 problem as a problem of the 1996 class project was not only scientifically lousy, but was totally wrong. The socio-economic crises facing South Africa today reveals the fact that the so-called communists in the SACP, who were deployed in government, are nothing but careerist cowards and opportunists with no capacity to introduce anything leftward. Instead those like Cronin and Secretary-General Blade Nzimande are stumbling blocks to progressive proposals in government. Government under Jacob Zuma is directionless, the most corrupt, confused and self-contradictory, but the communists are there. Where is the intelligence of the Cronin and the SACP collective to rescue the situation?

When there were problems in Cosatu, Jeremy Cronin was part of a factionalist perspective that justified why Numsa and subsequently Zwelinzima Vavi should be expelled from Cosatu.It is not a secret that the SACP played a central role in fomenting the divisions that led to the split of the trade union movement. What is intelligent with a Communist Party that splits a workers movement and constantly banishes progressive forces into many components that do not speak in one voice? Isnt the role of the vanguard party to unite all working-class forces?

Perhaps one of the most misleading things about the Communist Party was Jeremys concoction of pure lies about the leadership of the ANCYL, the Economic Freedom Fighters generation of the Congress Movement, which advocated for land expropriation without compensation and nationalisation of mines. There is no doubt that one of the greatest opportunities to radicalise the ANC-led liberation movement into a decisive, principled and ideologically steadfast Left movement was during Commander-in-Chief Julius Malemas leadership of the ANC Youth League. Instead of rallying all progressive forces behind the radical calls for socialist economic freedom in our lifetime, the SACP through Jeremy Cronins lies and conspiracy was at the centre of driving a wedge between progressive workers and youth movements.

Sophisticated and intelligent revolutionaries always know when to maximise on revolutionary unity for a common socialist cause. The nature of Leninist movements in the world is their ability to gather immediate interests of different groups in society and consolidate them into a strategic vision and path towards socialism. Instead of playing this role, the SACP has always been at the centre of fomenting divisions in the liberation movement and casting aspersions on the true nature and character of socialist demands. The SACP and subsequently Cosatu was misled (lied to) by Jeremy Cronin that the then leadership of the ANCYL wanted to rescue some BEE deals in the correct and genuine call for nationalisation of mines. This has been proven to be conspiratorial hogwash promoted to protect Cronins kin and kith because black peoples ownership of mines in SA is less than 5%.

Parliament recently underwent a process of drafting an Expropriation Bill, and Jeremy suspended all his ministerial responsibilities and went to camp in the portfolio committee on public works every day to prevent an insertion of a clause that would have secured expropriation without compensation. Ministers and deputy ministers (executive) draft legislations and submit them to Parliament (legislative body) to deliberate and conduct public hearings. After this process, Parliament adopts the bill and sends to a president of accession, and the bill becomes law, an Act of Parliament.

During the process of deliberating and conducting public hearings on the Expropriation Bill, Jeremy Cronin, the intelligent Deputy Minister of Public Works, was camping in the committee to specifically prevent expropriation of land without compensation, something which he successfully managed to achieve. It is not surprising because in the course of pretending to be revolutionaries, the majority of white political activists in the Congress movement and other formations are inclined towards defending the true interests of kin and kith at the expense of principle.

In all the parliamentary debates led by the EFF and recently the NFP, Jeremy self-appointed himself as the defender of the status quo. He always comes to debate that the constitutional and therefore land status quo should remain because anything else will disrupt and disturb his kin and kith. This is the intelligent communist who struggles to find intelligent people in the EFF, and the reason they are not intelligent is because EFF leaders and members are demanding the land without compensation. To white supremacists, the legitimate demand for land to be returned to its rightful owners is of course unintelligent.

Jeremy Cronins other role in the SA Communist Party has also been to suppress internal organisational democracy. In the SACP 12th congress in Port Elizabeth, Jeremy is the one who changed the majority of congress view on state power and drafted something called a reconfigured alliance. We are aware of this because we were part of the resolutions committee and know that the majority of SACP members wanted SACP to contest political power independently from the ANC. SACP members might be wrong or right in their demand that their party should contest elections, but their intellectual contributions always get undermined by Jeremy Cronin, who has no regard for organisational democracy, in particular the view that the views of the majority must dominate over the minority views.

He seems to have done the same thing in the 14th Congress, because the reports point to the reality that if the question of the SACPs relationship to state power was voted on, the majority would have voted that the party should contest independently. Like they did in the SACPs 12thNational Congress, the leadership duped their membership by cutting and pasting resolutions on the partys relationship to state power.

In 2007, the SACPs resolution on its relationship to state power and electoral politics read as follows:

That the SACP contests state power in elections in the context of a reconfigured Alliance.To mandate the incoming CC to actively pursue the different potential modalities of future SACP electoral campaigning. These modalities could involve either:

An electoral pact with our Alliance partners, which could include agreement on deployments, possible quotas, the accountability of elected representatives including accountability of SACP cadres to the Party, the election manifesto, and the importance of an independent face and role for the SACP and its cadres within legislatures. OR,

Independent electoral lists on the voters roll with the possible objective of constituting a coalition Alliance agreement post elections.

In 2017, in their 14thNational Congress, the SACP resolution on state power and its relationship to electoral politics reads as follows:

The SACP must actively contest elections. That the modality through which we contest elections may, or may not be within, the umbrella of a reconfigured alliance.

The declaration of the 14thCongress says,

TheSACPremains committed to strengthening and consolidating our ANC alliance. This will require a significant reconfiguration. Whether the ANC has the capacity to lead its own process of renewal, and whether it will be able to once more play the critical role of uniting itself and its alliance remains uncertain.

Many newspaper and television headlines ran front-page and leading stories announcing that the SACP will contest elections in 2019 independently, and such represents a dismal failure to understand the SACP and particularly Jeremy Cronins ideological misguidance.

As a matter of fact, the SACP is not planning to contest any elections because of principle issues, but instead is waiting for the outcomes of the ANC elective conference in December 2017. When the leadership outcomes favour the careerist and factional interests of the Communist Party leaders, they will re-assert their loyalty to the ANC, and when the outcomes are not favourable, they will try to cobble up some broad front to contest elections. If the latter is the case, the SACP will encounter its rude awakening that boardroom politics are not the same as groundwork. They will evidently not achieve even a fraction of what the EFF achieved in less than 12 months.

The SACP resolutions are drafted, justified and presented by Jeremy Cronin because, like a large number of the so-called communists, he lacks principled Marxist-Leninist discipline of not sacrificing principle on the altar of political convenience. The fact of the matter is that Jeremy Cronin is a liberal airhead masquerading as an African communist. He does not have the lived experience of blackness and does not understand the pain of landlessness and hopelessness that black peoplehave suffered and continue to suffer 23 years after democracy.He has misled on many occasions. Under his leadership, the SACP has been used as an instrument of causing disunity among progressive working-class forces in and outside the Congress movement.

As a deputy minister of public works, Jeremy Cronin never came up with any innovative solution to the reality that the state is largely a tenant of white property owners in the capital cities for administrative headquarters, functional and service offices and even police stations. When Jeremy was appointed deputy minister of public works, he found the state renting offices and he will leave it like that. There has never been an intelligent solution he provided as a deputy minister of public works. Government is occupying rented property all over South Africa, and the Department of Public Works he leads and led with a fellow communist does not have a plan out of such. The Department of Public Works is instead renowned for justifying the patently illegal construction of the Nkandla private residence of Jacob Zuma. The Department of Public Works is also known for the creation of lousy underpaying jobs called expanded public works, which converts youth into cheap and easily disposable labourers for rapacious and callous contractors who loot state resources.

Blade Nzimande, who is overstaying his welcome as the General Secretary of the Communist Party, is Minister of Higher Education and Training, and yet the Communist Party has never provided any substantial and intelligent solution to the need for fee-free quality education. This is despite the fact that the ANCs 52ndNational conference resolved to introduce free education for the poor until undergraduate level. Amid the #FeesMustFall struggles, the SACP of Blade Nzimande and Jeremy Cronin chose to concoct conspiracies around the activists, and never proposed any intelligent solutions. The Communist Party deployees have illustrated beyond any doubt that they will never do anything different from the neoliberal ANC even when they are given political power.

The EFFs leadership collective has on the contrary produced creative and innovative and groundbreaking exact diagnosis of the SA problem, and constantly provides durable solutions. All the 15 diagnoses and analyses contained in the EFF Founding Manifesto are an exact reading of South Africas political and economic landscape. The EFFs policyproposals are trendsetting, and always influence a discourse previously ignored or suppressed by the capitalist establishment. The EFFs submissions on how multinational capital steals wealth through tax avoidance and illicit flows has led to SARS establishing andstrengthening the internal units that deal with transfer pricing and aggressive tax avoidance.

The EFF's submissions on land has placed the land question on the agenda, even of the confused ANC. The EFFs qualitative analyses and interventions have translated into quantity, leading mass protest actions and securing votes. The Communist Party has never organised or led a mass protest action that is even 10% of the protest action organised and led by the EFF. The Communist Party lacks relevance in society, and yet there is no sane political analysis and understanding of South Africa that can exclude the EFF.

The EFF is also able to build a dynamic relationship between the mass struggles and effective parliamentary work. We have made substantial and impactful transformative submissions on the transformation of the financial sector, and despite having taken up a campaign in 2002, the SACP has not made any substantive and impactful submission anywhere, let alone in Parliament.

The EFF has achieved in fouryears what the Communist Party could not achieve as an organised faction in the ANC. The SACP under the intelligent leadership of Jeremy Cronin does not have comprehensive policies on many key areas of society. The EFF has. Policy in SACP is the feelings of its leaders, and not scientific diagnosis of societal problems and solutions, hence the entire recent conference discussed only state capture that was introduced by the EFF.But well, Jeremy Cronin will never acknowledge the success of the EFF nor its potential because its policies will overturn his kin and kiths economic dominance.

The EFF will never be diverted by liberals masquerading as communists because in 2013 we adopted a Founding Manifesto that inter alia diagnosed that, the Congress-aligned left-wing formations have been swallowed into reform politics of patronage and will never regain integrity to pursue real working-class struggles any time soon. The organised Left has been swallowed by the state, and is currently at the forefront of justifying the rapacious and callous theft of public funds by the incumbent president of the republic. That is what the SACP has become under the intelligent leadership of Jeremy Cronin. Let us see what will be of a Cronin-less Communist Party, will they unite working class forces, and stop the blind loyalty to the corruption-ridden and captured ANC?

All of South African society knows and now understands that the true voice of the working class and the poor, the vanguard movement for socialist economic emancipation, is the EFF, and not Cronins SACP. The SACPs relationship to state power and electoral politics is dependent on whether its preferred faction in the ANC wins elections. The SACP fails to internalise the most basic Leninist observation that, Whatever guise a republic may assume, however democratic it may be, if it is a bourgeois republic, if it retains private ownership of the land and factories, and if private capital keeps the whole of society in wage-slavery, that is, if the republic does not carry out what is proclaimed in the Programme of our Party and in the Soviet Constitution, then this state is a machine for the suppression of some people by others.

The only movement that understands this in South Africa is the EFF through lived experience and once again, there are no white messiahs who will define the contours of our revolutionary struggles. DM

Floyd Shivambu is EFF Deputy President

Original post:

Jeremy Cronin's shallow and decidedly incorrect view is not a surprise - Daily Maverick

Matthew Taylor seems more concerned to preserve the gig economy business model than worried about the resultant exploitation, writes Simon Diggins. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters

Rafael Behrs commentary on Matthew Taylors gig economy report is too kind by half (The gig economy can be exploitative but there is no easy path to Good Work, 12 July). Both in the report and in interviews, Taylor seems more concerned to preserve the gig economy business model than worried about the resultant exploitation. Thebusiness owners excuse, that they couldnt run their business otherwise, is exactly the same old excuse used right back to the slave owners.

If the only way the business model can work is by denying workers rights, rights hard-won by generations of struggle, then that flawed model has no place in any kind of decent, fair society. The Orwellian rebranding of the workers title dependent contractors, or some such nonsense, should tell you all you need to know about how flawed Taylors proposals are. It really is that simple. Simon Diggins Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

Rafael Behr agonises over the trade-off facing the gig economy, between having a flexible labour market and guaranteeing a minimum hourly income for people who work flexibly.

The Taylor review posits that people in the gig economy who choose to work at off-peak times should not necessarily be entitled to the minimum wage. Butwhen I raised this in the House of Commons, the minister could not have been clearer in her assurance: Minimum wages rates are sacrosanct. There will be no trade-off when it comes to ensuring that everybody is paid at least the minimum wage.

This is a clear undertaking from the government. The Houses job now is to ensure that undertaking is honoured in any subsequent legislation. If gig companies are required by law always to abide by the minimum wage, even if that means a loss in flexibility, they will need to regulate the supply of labour or pay from their profits the minimum wage when there is not the level of demand to pay all workers at that rate. Frank Field MP Labour, Birkenhead

Theresa May doesnt need to introduce new laws to protect workers in the gig economy: British employment law is fair and robust already. But what she could do is ensure that the basics of the law and economics are explained to everyone before they start working, preferably at school, so they can assess the viability of an offer themselves.

Most of these workers are actually not self-employed, so are entitled to holiday pay, statutory sick pay and the other benefits of payrolled employment, while the rates their employers offer are not economically viable as a sole income.

A properly self-employed worker has to charge many times more per hour than their waged colleagues in order to achieve parity of income. Until this is explained to school leavers, this type ofexploitation will continue. Michael Heaton Warminster, Wiltshire

Can you be self-employed if you only have one employer? The taxman once had a rule that you couldnt. Whochanged that? Ian Davidson London

The Guardian has been conducting investigations into the gig economy over the past few months. The publication last Tuesday of the Taylor report into the same topic therefore ought to have justified more than the usual level of coverage. Instead, what did we get? Theresa May, Rebecca Long-Bailey and the GMB offer their reactions to the report, Robert Booth gives us a critical summary of the report, we get another two tales from the gig economy, and there is an editorial along with a comment piece by Rafael Behr.

What we do not get is a proper report of the report itself, its main recommendations, its findings and some key excerpts from it. When the facts of the matter are supplanted by a flurry of opinions from all and sundry, you do your readers a disservice. Id like to know what Taylor says, after which opinions can be aired. Roderick MacFarquhar Edinburgh

Wortley Hall, the self-styled workers stately home on the outskirts of Sheffield, is a wonderful monument to the co-operative movement and the trade unions and has been lovingly restored to its former glory. Is there any need for it to hire staff on zero-hours contracts? Malcolm Smith Pwllheli, Gwynedd

In defence of freelancing stewards at Lords (Letters, 12 July), while I appreciate the reasons that led Rick Hall to resign his Tate membership in sympathy with the staff on zero-hours contracts, the case at Lords is rather different. The Tate has a permanent exhibition and therefore a relatively constant need for a certain number of staff, but the number of stewards required at a Test cricket ground varies vastly. While crowds of over 20,000 can be expected to enter Lords on up to 15 days of the year, there will seldom be a 20th of that number for the other 350 days. For at least five months of the year there will be no spectators at all. To expect the MCC to employ full-time staff on that basis is maybe a little exaggerated. Juan Carlos Escandell Bonn, Germany

I am a chef and a father of four children. Today in the world of UK hospitality, working hours laid down in our contracts are 48 per week, but we are bound by signing an extra clause to our contract that commits us to work more as required by the establishment which usually means a working week of between 55 and 60 hours.

This evidently leaves little or no room for any quality life. Of course, you feel obliged to sign this clause as this is part and parcel of the job offer but you soon realise that it is a trap. You live a life of modern-day slavery in which you dont see your family, you have poor quality sleep and you never get enough rest. In short, you are exploited to the maximum. Needless to say, turnover is extremely high in the hospitality business among chefs.

In our job we know when we start our shift, but not when it ends. Why do we have to be different from any other profession that has reasonable eight-hour shifts?

The hospitality industry currently receives recognition in the form of star rankings from various reviewing bodies depending on the quality of menus, their creativity and presentation, prices, the excellence of service and so on.

But who is taking responsibility to ensure that cooks and chefs have a balance between work and family and living any sort of quality life? Surely, we are more important than the star rankings? Many people in this industry are suffering and they have no other choice as no law is protecting them. Jose Cacn Christchurch, Dorset

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Workers' rights need more protection in the gig economy - The Guardian