Daily Archives: June 24, 2020

IN Mark Smiths column on Scottish history ("We Scots have been looking at our history the wrong way", The Herald, June 22) he states that one of the great myths about the First World War ... is that Scots suffered more per capita than other parts of the UK. He must consider Professor Niall Ferguson as one of the myth makers.

Prof Ferguson tells us that the Scots were (after the Serbs and Turks) the soldiers who suffered the highest death rate of the war; yet the Scot regiments fought on to the end. He tells us that 26.4 per cent of Scots mobilised were killed, 10.9% of males of military age in the population. For Britain as a whole the figure was 11.8% of those mobilised and 6.3% of those of military age (The Pity of War, page 298) These figures may not include merchant seamen who accounted for many of the losses from island communities and they wont include Louisa Jordan and Elsie Inglis. There is little to suggest that the Scottish soldiers saw themselves as victims.

I believe the situation is broadly similar in just about every other war in which Britain has been involved from the French Revolutionary Wars to Korea and maybe even Afghanistan. Mr Smith also seems keen to perpetuate the myth that Earl Haig was a callous and incompetent commander, whereas informed military historians are inclined to regard him as the most successful commander on either side and to accept his claim that he never launched an attack just to wear down German resources.

Ronald Cameron, Banavie.

ANENT the skimpy history of Scotland that featured in Scotland's schools (Letters, June 23) , this was less the case in my days as a primary pupil and I remember Mons Meg, the characters of the successive Jameses, and the little light blue hard cover textbook in which these accounts were packed. As for the mainly English history on which secondary schooling O- and Higher Grade history was based, the sanitisation of this is nowadays only too clear no allusion to Gladstone and his enormous financial stake in the slave trade and so on. There is more authentic history divulged on the Letters Pages of The Herald than was ever subject matter of secondary exam-level history papers.

But a whole lot more can be said regarding, for example, slavery, which should not only be defined in the context of trading, but also in such contexts as the wage slavery so associated with the studies of Karl Marx. Systems of bonded slavery were commonplace up and down Scotland, from Shetland to the agricultural practices on the Scottish mainland. The bothy ballad lyrics of Scotland's north-east betray all this bonded labour in its stark and harsh realities, and the resilience of its sufferers, for whom the ballads were a repository of their tough sense of humour and relief from their unending toil.

Ian Johnstone, Peterhead.

BOTH David Stubley and Ruth Marr (Letters, June 23) rightly bemoan the absence of Scottish history from their education. If they had shared my own good fortune in being taught by Doctor Iain McPhail, things would have been different. The Doc, as we knew him, made sure that his charges were well educated in the history of their own country, even back to the pre-historic cup and ring marks at the Whangy, in the hills above Clydebank.

To ensure material, he even went as far as writing his own textbook the two volume History of Scotland, now sadly out of print, but still available second hand.

During my working career, it never ceased to surprise me when my own knowledge of Scottish history caused a reply such as How do you know that? I thought Scotland was only discovered in 1603.

As Ms Marr presciently observes this morning, in making today's history, how we deal with present issues, many of which are rooted in the past, will determine our future, but if we have no, or little knowledge of our own past, no sense of historical context, then learning from it is really not an option. As Mr Stubley observes history is written by the victors, which of course, quite deliberately, puts the "losers" at a significant disadvantage. The involvement of the education system in perpetuating this lack of awareness is doubly unfortunate, but as Iain McPhail demonstrated all those years ago, it is not necessary and certainly not inevitable.

Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton.

I HAVE a problem with the current distribution of guilt complex that I am supposed to feel regarding Scotlands shameful past involvement in the slave trade and colonialism.

It is a truly shameful history and needs to be acknowledged more openly. However, I resent being tarred with the same racist brush from centuries ago, as though I was somehow responsible for those events.

I was born in 1952 not 1652. I have no connection with the tobacco barons or the sugar barons, other than I was born, by pure chance, in the same city as many of them.

The colour of your skin is of no concern to me as a positive or a negative. I feel no guilt, but the media has presented this as though we are all guilty by default for actions taken centuries ago by people we never knew and had no control over and have no real connection with.

Not guilty.

Robert Taylor, Newton Mearns.

Read the rest here:

Letters: It is no myth that Scotland's war toll was the highest - HeraldScotland

According to Bank of Korea's figures for 2019, South Korea's household debt is rising by an estimated US$100,000 (3.1 million baht) every minute, amounting to a whopping US$1.7 trillion today. Every day, more than 100 South Koreans are declared bankrupt. Meanwhile, the government's debt has skyrocketed to a total of US$693 billion, increasing by 111 trillion won (2.83 trillion baht) in just six months in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But debt is not only a Korean problem. In fact, according to S&P and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the debt of all nations reached US$53 trillion in the first quarter of 2020, out of which 34 of the world's richest nations borrowed US$11.4 trillion. For corporations, the debt at the end of 2019 reached an all-time high of US$13.5 trillion.

These figures are massive. But what's alarming is the repayment potential of these countries. For the world's richest nations, their national growth over the past 10 years has been dismal. What answer then do these countries have for the piling up of debt when the economy is not growing?

For many, quantitative easing (QE) seems to be the answer. What was once unconventional monetary policy is now becoming the new norm since the crisis of 2008. The central bank buys government bonds and other financial assets through the printing of money. As more money circulates in the economy, people's spending power increases. For an economy that is growing, this is fine. But if not, this can lead to economic ruin. As it turns out, many countries will proceed with QE measures amidst Covid-19.

So what's next for the global economy? The world has been slowing down since its recovery from the 2008 crisis, hovering between 3.5-3.9% of real GDP growth before dipping to 2.9% in 2019, and is expected to dip further to -3% in 2020. To jolt economic growth back to life, countries embarked on massive global infrastructure spending (estimated to increase to US$94 trillion by 2040) to boost production capacity and increase global GDP growth.

Unfortunately, little has changed. Why is the economy still slowing down? Why do these massive investments lead to only marginal increases in productivity?

Here are three explanations:

First, the widening wealth gap. When you have 1% of the population owning half of the world's wealth, we have a problem. In the OECD, 99% of all businesses are SMEs, with almost one out of three people working in a micro firm. In Asean, SMEs represent 95-99% of all businesses, generating 97% of all employment.

That's a pretty steep number. This means that only 1-5% of businesses have the financial power to create deep economic impact. And only 1% of the population have the privilege to fund new creations and explore different frontiers because they can afford to do so. But most people can only afford to survive and produce just enough to pay back their debts. Creativity for them remains in the realm of the mind.

Indonesia, for example, has around a 130 million active work force. Indonesia's fiscal space still depends largely on energy and commodity sectors (around 70%) and is unable to develop other innovative industries effectively because a significant number of its population are struggling workers who are stuck in poverty. This is the same story in many countries in Asia and Africa. No amount of education investment will ever change that situation because people are focused on surviving, not creating.

Second, the fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is being powered by an engine from the Second Industrial Revolution (2IR).

The discovery of fossil fuels in the mid 19th century powered the 2IR, vastly changing the landscape on energy, technology and infrastructure in the global economy. This gave birth to petrol powered vehicles, which we still use until today. We are in the year 2020. How can we even conceive 4IR globally when we still depend on fossil fuels for our transportation and industrial needs? A huge number of countries are still stuck on a 2IR economy, some are struggling on 3IR, and we have a saturated fossil fuel market. Why then do we still invest in 2IR infrastructure and expect exponential productivity?

Third, problems with aggregate efficiency. This is a term to denote the efficient use of energy in transforming a commodity up the value chain. In the height of the 2IR in 1905, the aggregate efficiency of production is around 3%, which means that 97% of energy used gets lost in the process. We are now currently at 20% aggregate efficiency. Hence, we still need to use vast amounts of energy to produce a disproportionately smaller output, and massive pollution.

For example, it takes 3.5 kilogrammes of feed to create just 400 grammes of beef. That's massive wastage. Therefore, no amount of market or labour reform will meaningfully change productivity, unless we change the engine of growth.

All these are interrelated factors. We cannot diversify our fiscal space, as long as the vast majority of our people cannot effectively innovate. And they cannot innovate when the structure of our economies only favour the 1%, and we depend on the 1% to create miracles for the economy. They cannot innovate because they are struggling and are preoccupied with basic survival.

Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, former chairman of CIMB Group, once said in 2016 that one of Asean's biggest obstacles to progress is the linkage between governments and big corporations. Indeed, this linkage is what stifles creativity and efficiency in economic distribution. It enriches only the top layer of society, leaving the other parts to fend for themselves.

This linkage is what perpetuates the 2IR infrastructure. Coal, fossil fuels, petrol vehicles -- no wonder why we are stuck in 20th century productivity, because there is vested interest in maintaining status quo and thus a hesitance to move into a new frontier.

The good news is things are changing. Europe is investing heavily on renewable energy, and China is working on achieving power grid parity between renewables vis--vis fossil fuels. But for the world to really stand a chance to curb environmental disaster, this should be a global commitment at all levels.

Technology has helped us increase aggregate efficiency. It gave birth to big data which is utilised by artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, enabling us to greatly enhance our production systems and achieve near zero marginal cost. This incentivises people to produce and share things with fellow human beings for free, creating a truly global sharing economy.

This is not a distant dream. In 1999, Napster was the first experiment of a sharing economy. Then came Wikipedia. Who would have thought we could create an active global encyclopaedia for free? Wikipedia has kicked the doors to knowledge wide open for everyone, not just the rich, but also poor people everywhere.

On the job front, creative destruction will step up in the next 10 years. Massive job losses due to automation will be followed by the creation of new jobs. But what is certain is the death of wage slavery -- a feature of the 20th century -- as menial jobs will be taken over by robots.

So what jobs are left? As marginal cost plunges towards zero, people do not require big fat salaries to afford things anymore. Entrepreneurship will be a thing of the past, as the creation of value will be the work of robots. The sector of the future will be that of the humanities -- those which preserve our humanity in a highly digitalised world, such as nursing homes, nurseries and inter-faith institutions. And perhaps by that time, the mass majority can finally be emancipated and contribute value to the next frontier of human civilisation.

Read more:

Why is the world economy slowing? - Bangkok Post

When the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City in mid-March, the citys restaurant industry was among the first to feel the shock. With so many restaurants shuttered since then, restaurant workers are reeling. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 200,000 restaurant and bar staffers lost their jobs between March and April, a 68.1 percent reduction.

As part of an effort to lay the foundation for reopening, last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a $3 million Restaurant Revitalization Program, which will provide funding to 100 family-run restaurants forced to close due to COVID-19.

The project is part of a collaboration with One Fair Wage, a national organization dedicated to raising wages and increasing equity for service workers. Restaurants are eligible for a $30,000 grant from New York City and a $5,000 grant from One Fair Wage. Restaurants that dont land $30,000 from the city, but commit to One Fair Wages equity program, also have the opportunity to apply to get the entire $35,000 from One Fair Wage. The group launched a version of this initiative, which they call High Roads Kitchens, in California in May.

In line with One Fair Wages mission, the funding comes with a few stipulations: Restaurant owners must pay $20 an hour (before tips) to each worker for six weeks, and then must commit to paying $15 an hour for all workersincluding tipped workerswithin five years. The requirement is an effort to end a practice still in use in 43 states that allows workers who receive at least $30 per month in tips to be paid just $2.13 per hour.

Restaurants must also provide 500 free meals per week to low-wage workers, health care workers, or others who are struggling as a result of the pandemic. Priority will also be given to restaurants in neighborhoods hardest hit economically by the pandemic, especially in low-income communities of color.

Having 100 restaurants commit . . . will go a long way toward moving to one fair wage at the state level, says Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, co-founder of Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) United, and the director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

The idea that tips can count against wages is a direct legacy of slavery, [and] we were seeing it spread to other tipped workers, even gig workers, she added. So what we really needed to be fighting for is the notion of no worker left behind. Nobody in America who workstipped, not tipped, incarcerated, disablednobody should get less than a full minimum wage when they work.

Civil Eats spoke with Jayaraman after the Restaurant Revitalization Program was unveiled about the program and what it means for restaurantsand food service workersin New York City and nationwide.

This project takes aim at the sub-minimum tipped wage. How has the pandemic highlighted why this is a terrible idea?

Saru Jayaraman.

On Friday, March 13, 10 million restaurant and other service workers lost their jobs. We started an emergency fund for workers on March 16. We raised $23 million, we got almost 180,000 applicants from around the country, and weve been handing out cash payments. We have a legal clinic, financial counseling for these workers, and a tax prep program for them.

But most importantly, weve been organizing them at large tele-town halls with U.S. senators, governors, and state legislators. And what they are saying in vast numbers is that they are not able access unemployment insurance largely because of the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers. Many states are being told that the wage plus tips is too low to meet the minimum threshold to qualify for benefits.

Or theyre being told, Your boss never reported your tips, so you either dont qualify or youre gonna earn a lot less than you should have. And its worse for workers of color, because they tend to work in more casual restaurants where there are cash tips, as opposed to fine dining, where tips are typically on credit cards.

Whats it like right now for restaurant employees in the seven states that have committed to paying a minimum wage for all workers?

Workers in California, Washington, Nevada, and the four other states that [pay all restaurant workers a fair wage] are all getting unemployment insurance measured on a $15 an hour minimum wage plus tips. Theyre in the same occupation, its just that they happen to live in a different state. So maybe theyll be able to survive while youve got these millions of peoplemostly women of colorin other states not able to survive. The people who are applying to the fund are telling us that they have money for less than two weeks of groceries for their kids. Its a dire situation.

Workers are really up in arms about all across the country is being forced to go back to a sub-minimum wage job when tips are down nationally.

But the other thing that workers are really up in arms about all across the country is being forced to go back to a sub-minimum wage job when tips are down nationally. We estimate [theyre down] by about 80 percent, because people dont tip as much for takeout and delivery. Even when restaurants re-open, theyll be at half capacity. Workers are saying, How could you make me go back for $2 or $3 an hour, and there are no tips? So all of this is has led to employers who had fought us in the past on this issue now saying that they want to work with us to move their own restaurants to one fair wage.

What do restaurants pay before tips in New York City?

Its 66 percent of the overall minimum wage, which is now $15. So its $10. But outside of the city its $7. It doesnt have as far to go: New York could do thisits only a $5 [difference]!they could make this change, and when they do, it will have a significant reverberating impact on other blue states in the region.

And heres the biggest thing: There are a number of industry leaders, who fought us in the past or who didnt want to talk to us, who are now going to one fair wage or who are saying, Ill be vocal and fight!

It looks like there are two ways to apply for this grantthrough One Fair Wage and through the city. Which way should a restaurant apply?

I think its easier for people if they go through us, because we can help them through the process. And also, if theyre chosen by us, they [are more likely to get chosen] through the city. And the reason is that people who work with us go through our Equity Toolkit and Training Program.

Where does One Fair Wage get the funding for this program?

There were a lot of funders who wanted to support our relief efforts. Some gave to the Emergency Fund, some were very interested in the High Road Kitchens program, because it accomplishes many things at once. It hires people, it feeds people. But more importantly, it shapes the industry to be more resilient and equitable going forward. We also got a significant grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support the effort in New York.

Is $35,000 going to be enough to help a restaurant re-open?

We did less in Californiabetween $15,000 and $25,000and it allowed restaurants to re-open. Theyre not using the money to pay all their rent and pay off their debt. Theyre using it to get inventory, bring back some workers, and re-open with takeout and delivery in a way that allows them to re-engage with their customers and get back on their feet.

Once the restaurants are all signed up, well be doing events and promoting the hell out of them. Given the moment, theres so much desire among consumers to support restaurants that are committed to racial equity, so I have no doubt that the restaurants participating will get a lot of extra business.

How will One Fair Wage and/or the Mayors office know whether these restaurants actually pay $20 an hour now and $15 an hour in the future?

In California, we do regular audits of the restaurants asking for reports on their payroll and their wages, and also talking to workers. Well be doing that every month for five years to make sure everybody goes to one fair wage. And if the restaurants dont comply they wont be eligible to apply for any future city programs.

Obviously, 100 is just a small fraction of New York Citys 26,000 restaurants. Is the hope that this program will inspire good practices throughout the industry?

Yes, exactly. The leader of an independent restaurant association is planning to move to one fair wage without the [grant] money. And there are other restaurants that are planning to do the same thing. We just have to fix this tip-sharing rule at the state level to allow everybody to create some equity between front and back of the house as well. With some strict prohibitions against employers taking any portion of that.

Critics say that restaurants cant afford to pay $20 an hour, especially now when so many have fallen into debt due to the coronavirus. What do you say to that?

Weve had 31 restaurants sign up through us. So the idea that people dont want to do this is factually incorrect. This money helps people get back on their feet! So I would turn the question back on them: How could these groups [the New York State Restaurant Association and the New York City Hospitality Alliance] look down on free cash grants to restaurants? The only reason they are condemning it is because they know as well as we do that this is the first step toward winning this as policy in New York state. I think its important for everybody to raise the question: If these people really represent small business, how could they condemn a free cash grant program?

One of our High Road restaurant ownerswhen she saw this response from Hospitality Allianceshe forwarded me a quote [from the statement Mississippi issued when it seceded from the Union before the Civil War]: Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slaverythe greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. . . . These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. This is how theyve responded for 200 years when change is imminent: They claim there is no way we can make change.

And my God, if theres any moment to think about change, its now. Even I was skeptical that we could do anything in this moment. It was restaurant owners who were like, No Saru, this is exactly the right the timewere all closed, were all rethinking everything. This is the right time.

This article was updated to correct Saru Jayaramans title as president of One Fair Wage, not executive director.

See the original post:

One Fair Wage Wants to Help Reopen Restaurantsand Change How They Pay Workers - Civil Eats

In the early days of the lockdown, when COVID-19 cases began to rise, we witnessed a second virus spreading equally rapidly in the country the virus of communalism. But there is a third virus around which is less spoken about; a virus eating into and severely corroding our democratic structure the virus of arbitrary power. There is no better evidence of this than the denial of bail to a pregnant student-activist, arrested for creating disorder on an unprecedented scale when all she appeared to have done was actively participate, like many others, in a protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, proposed by the government.

This arbitrary use of power, implied by the absence or selective use of law, is deeply troublesome. More so, when exercised by a democratically elected government. Frequent arbitrariness in the political domain leads to tyranny, quite like when persistently present in the social sphere, it leads to slavery. Either way, it tramples upon basic freedoms. But what, one might ask, is the connection between arbitrariness and the loss of freedoms?

Individuals, communities or citizens cannot function freely without a stable set of expectations. By stabilising expectations, laws enable significant freedoms, even as they restrict some others. To take just one example, once it is widely known that I am legally restricted to driving only on the left, I drive with greater freedom, knowing that headlong collision is unlikely. I regulate the speed of travel and calculate the time to get from home to office. This helps me schedule my work for the day and coordinate with others who likewise make their own schedules. By jointly accomplishing our goals, we enhance our freedom. Laws enable our actions and interactions to become broadly predictable. Many of our freedoms require that the arbitrary, by which is meant unpredictable, random or unexpected does not throw us off balance. The arbitrary blocks freedom.

However, an even more basic feature of arbitrariness, one that produces much greater harm, is to be at the mercy of the whim or fancy of someone else, especially the powerful. Return to the traffic example. Suppose that two vehicles stop at the traffic light but just beyond the zebra crossing. The policeman, embodying the entire might of the state, issues a ticket or a challan to one but not the other. Worse, instead of fining the violators, he seizes the driving licence of a careful driver, who has stopped a good metre behind the crossing, merely because he dislikes the make of his car. Surely, this arbitrary implementation of the law is grossly unjust. This shows that the minutest aspect of daily life travelling to work can be dependent upon the arbitrary opinion of someone else. When power is exercised arbitrarily by the state, a person is made to act not in accordance with a legitimate, general rule but at the pleasure of state officials. The most extreme example of this is political enslavement, when an entire people are colonised, subjected to the will of the colonisers, where laws, good or bad, flow from the like and dislike of colonial masters.

This is equally true of the arbitrary exercise of social power, for instance under social slavery. A slave must comply with any, just any whimsical order of his master. Since the master owns him, the master is legally permitted to do just about anything with the slave. The slave breathes at his pleasure, sits or stands at his pleasure, eats, works, sleeps at his pleasure. Slaves can be awakened and asked to work in the field at an unearthly hour of the night, if the master so desires. They are never sure of what to expect from the master. One moment, objects of affection or charity, at the very next, they are treated with utter disdain, sold, even killed. After all, the master can dispose of his property at will. Such arbitrary power was routinely exercised by the patriarch in the family and continues even today. Likewise, unbridled capitalism is marked by an absence of laws to regulate labour; workers can be hired or fired at the will of the employer and no fixed hours of work exist. Unregulated wage-labour works pretty much like slavery. Are not domestic workers still treated in many homes like slaves?

Coronavirus | U.N. warns of a human rights disaster

These examples strengthen my point about an inverse relation between arbitrary political power and freedom. In dictatorships, entire populations are subject to the whim of the supreme leader or a tiny elite. Who did not fear the midnight knock in the regimes of Hitler and Stalin? While the devastation they caused is well chronicled, smaller tyrannies abound in our world too. Even democracies contain authoritarian spaces within them where the law can be used to continuously harass opponents. Anyone who has lived through the Emergency knows that Opposition leaders were thrown in jail on the false charge of conspiring against the state and thereafter a small crack unit began to arbitrarily control the activity of anyone politically significant. Surely that experience should have sufficed to make all of us realise the supreme value of freedom from arbitrary rule. However, with the number of first information reports (FIRs) being filed at the behest of random persons, on unsubstantiated complaints and little explanation, largely uncontested by a tired, silent political Opposition, one begins to wonder if we are headed in that awful direction once again.

Also read | U.N. chief warns against repressive measures amid coronavirus crisis

Consider the arrest of activists. Article 21 of the Constitution gives every citizen the right of basic liberty and security. No one can be deprived of liberty, held without properly following procedures prescribed by law. Article 22 requires that anyone arrested and detained must be informed of the ground for such an arrest and must be brought before a competent legal authority within a prescribed time frame. Legal scholars have rightly pointed out that the best interpretation of this Article requires that the grounds of arrest and detention must be reasonable. The grounds of preventive detention, to be used in very rare cases, must likewise assume that the suspicion of offence is well-grounded, based on available evidence, on relevant information that satisfies any objective observer, and not on mischievous allegations. But reality seems to confirm what every other Indian movie has shown about police acting on the caprice of a ruling leader, and the law being used to harass citizens. Is suspicion always supported by available facts? Is the offender really a threat to internal security, or merely present at the scene of the crime? Whatever the facts of the case, was the offence committed by a pregnant student-activist so grave that bail could not be granted until yesterday, on her 4th attempt? If ordinary persons could smell arbitrariness here, why could not the sessions judge? Anyhow, why fill our coronavirus-infested jails with what are largely political prisoners, when other countries are releasing even non-political inmates? Minimum lock-up during lockdown should be the political slogan in our catastrophic times.

Arbitrary curtailment of liberty existed under previous State and central governments. This is deplorable. Yet, what is worrisome today is its frequency and brazen partisanship. We should remind ourselves that participants in the anti-corruption movement of 2011-12 were not thrown in jail. Nor was the media muzzled when it went after the central government of the day, Why are political activists and journalists charge sheeted today for simply doing their job?

Also read | NHRC issues notice to government on migrant worker deaths

The Emergency, whose anniversary falls tomorrow, was meant to be a watershed in the life of Indian democracy, a brief, critical phase when the Indian political system could have gone either the way of authoritarian rule or mature as a democracy. By restoring faith in democracy, India appeared to have passed one of its crucial tests and firmly taken the second route. But are we on the verge of giving up the gains from that chastening experience? Has the struggle against the suspension of democracy been in vain? Have a small section of its victims now become perpetrators?

Rajeev Bhargava is Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi

See original here:

Arrest the virus of arbitrary power - The Hindu

The systemic effects of racism in child care and early childhood education (ECE) policies, systems, and workforces are apparent in the wide range of social, economic, educational, and wage inequities that disproportionately impact Black children, families, and care providers. These effects are present in the implicit and explicit bias and racism used to justify more frequent and harsher punishments for Black children in comparison to similarly behaved white children. They undergird the marginalization of Black parent voices from policy conversations and legislative decisions that directly impact their communities. And they diminish the value of child care because of its association with Black women, who were forced to care for white children during slavery and are now paid poverty-level wages. However, despite the longstanding and far reaching impacts on communities of color, the child care advocacy spaceparticularly in research, policy, and legislationis predominantly white. Now is a critical moment for organizations to address how a lack of representation within these spaces has upheld the systemic effects of racismincluding within the Center for Law and Social Policys (CLASP) child care advocacy work.

In recent weeks, many early childhood organizations took an important step in declaring their commitments to stand with Black communities against systemic racism and police brutality in response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and countless others. While these statements are important, they are insufficient. Truly standing against racism requires a commitment to dismantle the culture of white supremacy that supports itespecially when the goal is to equitably support children, families, and care providers. However, advancing equity only works when people from historically marginalized communities are leaders in the processas child care grassroots organizers and people of color-led ECE organizations have clearly demonstrated.

The child care sector has not escaped the wide-ranging effects from the deep-rooted culture of white supremacy. It is rooted in the internal policies, practices, and patterns that drive early childhood research, funding, advocacy, and policy. These effects are visible in how the social norms, perspectives, skills, voices, concerns, and interests of non-white, and particularly Black, people are often diminished. This, in turn, shapes hiring, retention, and promotion patterns that establish professional and social norms. These norms shape partnerships, policy perspectives, and funding priorities, which ultimately inform the work. An organizations effectiveness and reach is reducedand children, families are providers are ultimately harmedby failing to remove and replace a culture of white supremacy with one that promotes sustainable equity at all levels.

Dismantling white supremacy and centering equity are more than organizational goals, they are ongoing processes that require organizational, team, and individual accountability and commitment particularly from white people. Those working in early childhood advocacy, research, and policy who are serious about tearing down racism can:

The process of uprooting white supremacy in the early childhood community will take serious, persistent commitment from all of us. Our racial equity journey to identify and disrupt internal systems of white supremacyas individuals, as a team, and as an organizationhas had failures and successes both. And we know that, like many of our partners, we have much more to learn and do. We call upon our partners in the early education fieldparticularly our white partners and white-led organizationsto identify new or additional steps we all can take as we invest time, resources, and funding into these efforts. Build on this list and lets learn and grow together, holding each other accountable along the way. There is no other choice. Because if we fail to reckon with white supremacy and center racial equity in our own spaces, we will continuously fall short of providing the necessary advocacy, resources, and policies to support all children, families, and providersbut especially Black and other communities of color.

See the original post:

Standing With Black Communities by Standing Against White Supremacy in Child Care and Early Education Spaces - The Center for Law and Social Policy

The system-wide challenges the United States faces with policing are entrenched and deeply rooted. When the historical and current practices of police are examined, it is evident police have been designed to uphold the status quo including racial injustice and class inequality. Whenever political movements develop to respond to racial and class unfairness, the police have undermined their politically-protected constitutional rights.

Police have used infiltration, surveillance, and violence against political movements seeking to end injustices throughout the history of the nation. It is the deeply embedded nature of these injustices and the structural problems in policing that are leading more people to conclude police must be completely transformed, if not abolished.

We advocate for democratic community control of the policeas a starting point in addition to defunding the police and funding alternatives such as programs that provide mental health, public health, social work and conflict resolution services, and other nonviolent interventions. Funding is needed for the basic human needs of housing, education, employment, healthcare, and food especially in communities that have been neglected for years and whose low-wage labor has enriched the wealthy in this unequal society.

The needs of the wealthy have been the driving force for the creation of police. Policing developed to control workers, many who were Irish, Italian and other immigrants seeking fair wages in the North and African people who were enslaved in the South.Victor E. Kappeler, Ph.D writes inA Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing that Slave patrols and Night Watches, which later became modern police departments, were both designed to control the behaviors of minorities.

In the south, the driving force of the economy was slavery where people kidnapped in Africa were brought to the Americas as chattel slaves, workers who created wealth for their owners. TheTrans-Atlantic Slave Trade Databaselists 12.5millionAfricans who were shipped to the Americas, 10.7 million of which survived the dreaded Middle Passage. Of that, 388,000 were brought to North America.African slaves were forced to reproduce for their owners and to sell.

From the start, African people revolted against slavery and fought to escape it. This400years legacyof racist injustice that helped form the United States is the history we must confront.The roots of policing in what became the Confederacy and later the sheriffs who enforced Jim Crow grew out of the containment of slaves,the most valuable property in the nation.

Olivia Waxman describes this history writing that in the South, the economics that drove the creation of police forces were centered . . . on the preservation of the slavery system. She describes slave patrolstasked with chasing down runaways and preventing slave revolts as one of the primary police institutions.

Gary Potter writes in The History of Policing in the United States, thatSlave patrols had three primary functions: (1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules.The purpose of slave patrols was to protect the wealth of the white people who owned slaves.

Potter writes, the first formal slave patrol had been created in the Carolina colonies in 1704. During the Civil War, the military became the primary form of law enforcement in the South, but during Reconstruction, many local sheriffs functioned in a way analogous to the earlier slave patrols, enforcing segregation and the disenfranchisement of freed slaves.

Hundreds of laws were passed in the South around slavery and its enforcement but laws were also passed in northern colonies includingConnecticut, New York, and others to control slaves. The U.S. Congress passed fugitive Slave Laws allowing the detention and return of escaped slaves, in 1793 and 1850. Racist police made up the kidnap gang in New York City in 1830 who would capture Africans and bring them to a rubber stamp court that would send them to the South as captured slaves often before their families knew they were arrested. Throughout this history, there were people who fought police violence and abuse as is discussed inThe Black New Yorker Who Led The Charge Against Police Violence In The 1830s.

The history of racist policing did not end with the abolition of slavery. Police forces were involved in enforcing the racist Black Code, the Convict-Lease System, and JimCrow segregation. The terrorism of white supremacist groups like the KKK, the burning of black schools and churches andlynchingbecame the common realities of the south. White police often did not stop, or seriously investigate these crimes; some even participated. In the era of Civil Rights, southern police used violence against nonviolent protestersbeatings, fire hoses and dogs.

This also occurred in the north. For example, Minnesota was infamous for arrestingindigenous people on charges like vagrancy and forcing them to work for no pay. This spurred the formation of the American Indian Movement. Dennis Banks describes,The cops concentrated on the Indian bars. They would bring their paddy wagons around behind a bar and open the back doors. Then they would go around to the front and chase everybody toward the rear. They would be taken to stadiums and convention centers and forced to work for no pay. The police did not do this at white bars, only bars where Native Americans gathered.

The War on Drugs became the new disguise for police violence against black people.We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news, said President Nixons domestic policy chiefJohn Ehrlichman to Harpers Magazine.Mass incarceration of the 1980s, begun under President Reagan and continued under President Clinton with Joe Biden leading efforts in the Senate, disproportionately impacted black and brown people. Now slavery legally continues as prison labor.

The history of policing in the northern colonies was also driven by economics. Commercial interests protected their property through an informal, private for-profit form of hiring people part-time. Towns relied on a night-watch to enforce laws.Boston started a night-watch in 1636, New York followed in 1658 and Philadelphia created one in 1700.

As cities become more populated, the night-watch system was ineffective. Commercial interests needed more regular policing and so they hired people to protect their property and goods as they were transported from ports to other areas.Boston, a large shipping commercial center, became the first city to form a police force when merchants convinced the government that police were needed for the collective good thereby transferring the cost of maintaining a police force to the citizens.

A driving force for police expansion was workers, who were often immigrants, seeking better pay and working conditions.Abolishing The Police: A Radical Idea Thats Been Around For Over A Century, describes how the first state police force was formed in 1905 in Pennsylvania to combat workers forming unions.According to a study in 1969 bythe National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, the United States has the bloodiest and most violent labor history of any industrial nation in the world.

Sam Mitrani, author of The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850-1894, writes in In These Times that as Northern cities grew and filled with mostly immigrant wage workers who were physically and socially separated from the ruling class, the wealthy elite who ran the various municipal governments hired hundreds and then thousands of armed men to impose order on the new working-class neighborhoods. Class conflict roiled late-19th century American cities like Chicago, which experienced major strikes and riots in 1867, 1877, 1886, and 1894. In each of these upheavals, the police attacked strikers with extreme violence, even if in 1877 and 1894 the U.S. Army played a bigger role in ultimately repressing the working class.

Martha Grevatt points out thatThroughout labor history, one finds innumerable accounts of cops engaging in anti-union violence. Police viciously attacked unarmed pickets during the 1994 Staley strike in Decatur, Ill., as well as the 1995 Detroit newspaper strike, to name a few examples. They arrested and harassed UAW members during last years strike against GM.

This is not only a time of growing protest against police violence but also against the mistreatment of workers. Over the last two years, there has been a record number of strikers not seen in 35 years.PayDay Report countsmore than 500 strikes in the last three weeks with a peak number on Juneteenth at 29 ports across the West Coast and theUAW stopping production on all assembly linesfor 8 minutes and 46 seconds to honor George Floyd. They have tracked more than 800 strikes since March.

The rebellion by workers and anti-racism activists is unprecedented in the lives of most people alive today. There is anationwide uprising in every state and in thousands of cities and towns. Repression by the power structure with militarized police and the National Guard has failed to stop the protests. Democrats have failed to divert the movement of the energy into the elections, as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have offered inadequate reforms such as more police training. Fundamental changes are needed.

Police will continue to make efforts to shut down the unrest. The FBI and local police have a long history of combating movements. In addition to the violent response that has been well documented against the current rebellion, we should expect infiltration, surveillance, creation of internal divisions, and other tactics, even murder.

All of these acts against labor, civil rights, peace, environmental, and other movements have happened before and we should expect them again. Documents show a nationwide effort of police and the FBI to defeat the Occupy Movementthat included entrapment of activists in crimes. There has also been aggressive police violence against people protesting pipelines and seeking climate justice.

Black activists continue to be a major focus of the FBI and law enforcement. Media Justice and the ACLU reported last week that one million pages of materials on FBI surveillance were discovered in a FOIA request showing widespread surveillance of black activists.

The small victories that have been won by the movement are already causing repercussions. Police are threatening to quit because they are being held accountable for violence, even though they remain protected by immunity from prosecution. A survey last week found 3 out of 4 Washington, DC police were ready to leave the force. CNN reportedpolice in Minneapolis, Atlanta, South Florida, and Buffalo quitting. In Atlanta, police got the flu afterfelony murder chargeswere brought against the officer who killed Rayshard Brooks.

New York City police are planning a strikeon the Fourth of July to show people what life would be like without police. However, this may backfire as duringa 1997 slowdownand also duringa 20142015 slowdown, crime did not spike, and may even have declined a bit. The nations top law enforcement official, Attorney General Bob Barr threatened in December 2019 thatif some communities dont begin showing more respect to law enforcement, then they could potentially not be protected by police officers.

The U.S. Constitution, written by slaveholders and businessmen who profited from slave products, puts property rights ahead of individual rights. The Bill of Rights was an afterthought. The result of treating people as property, Jim Crow laws, redlining, and other racially unfair economic practices has left Black Americans with a $13 trillion dollar wealth gap.

Max Rameau told us in a recent podcast,To Deal With Police, We Must Understand Why They Even Exist, that when we understand the purpose of police is to protect property, it becomes more evident why they cannot be reformed. Unless we confront neoliberal capitalism that creates inequality and a hyper-class-based society, the wealthy will always find someone to pay to protect them.

In fact, the call to defund the police can be easily thrown off course by getting activists fighting for small gains of cuts to police budgets, while the police are increasing their funding from private corporations.Already, as reported byEyes on the Ties, Police foundations across the country are partnering with corporations to raise money to supplement police budgets by funding programs and purchasing tech and weaponry for law enforcement with little public oversight. Their report documents support to police from Wall Street and finance, retail and food industries, Big Tech, fossil fuel corporations, sports, and universities.

It is fantasy to believe police exist for public safety. As Justin Podur writes, Society doesnt need a large group with a license to kill.Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report advocates for community control over police but he doesnt stop there, writing communities should control, not just the police, but much of the rest of their neighborhoods vital services and resources.

As Richard Rubinstein writes in ThePolice May Pull the Trigger but it is the System That Kills, Racism, police brutality, and economic injustice can be thought of as separate boxes, but they are part of one self-reinforcing system. And that systems defining characteristicthe feature most resistant to changeis that it is based on the production of goods and services for profit, not to satisfy basic human needs.

Like many conflicts in the United States, the problems of police violence comes down to corporate-capitalists vs. the people. Racial separation and inequality are ways the ownership class keeps people divided so the people can be controlled. This is the reality of the U.S. political system and the reality of policing in the United States, but we can change that reality by continuing to organize, staying in the streets and building our power.

FALL FUNDRAISER

If you liked this article, please donate $5 to keep NationofChange online through November.

Read more:

Police violence and racism have always been tools of capitalism - NationofChange

Early in life, Maryam Abu Khaled saw that she was treated differently than others. As a child in her West Bank hometown of Jenin, the Black Palestinian had schoolmates who wouldnt sit beside her, fearing her color would rub off on them. Mothers of friends would warn their kids to stay out of the sun so they dont get burned and become like Maryam. A family refused to marry their son to one of Abu Khaleds friends because the woman was too dark-skinned.

I just thought, I have darker skin than she does. What would they say about me? Abu Khaled, 29, said in a phone interview

Which was why, when cries of solidarity rose in the Middle East in support of African Americans after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Abu Khaled came out with a message.

Police might not be attacking Black people in the Middle East, she said in an Instagram video earlier this month that has been seen more than 1.3 million times. But she then launched into a recitation of the racist comments and jokes she has heard over the years.

Do you know these things you say as a joke smashed the spirit of the person in front of you and shattered their self-confidence? No, you dont, she said.

Just as Floyds death has re-energized the focus on racism in America, it has also thrust a lens on discrimination against Black Arabs and other minority communities in Middle East societies. And theres a lot to see.

By and large, there are no government initiatives in the Arab world to counter anti-Black discrimination; a 2018 media law in Egypt banned racist content but has so far had little effect. Economic prejudices play out daily against migrant workers from poorer nations of Africa and South Asia. And while homosexuality is legal in Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan, most countries do not safeguard gay rights and societies remain overwhelmingly anti-LGBTQ, with religious authorities often depicting homosexuality as a wholly Western construct.

Across the Arab world, Black people face the same casual prejudice that Abu Khaled spoke of. Television shows regularly feature a Sudanese or dark-skinned character played by an actor in blackface for laughs. Migrant workers from Ethiopia and other countries, who form the backbone of the construction industry in Gulf nations and blue-collar work in countries such as Lebanon, face slave-like treatment.

Amid the blood-soaked chaos of Libyas conflict, the actual slave trade endures, with African refugees bought and sold while being used as cannon fodder. Its even in the language: A commonly used word in Arabic for a Black person is abed, meaning slave.

Thats just one of the words Omar Tom, the Sudanese founder of Dukkan, a Dubai-based media company, heard by the time he reached high school.

Slave, the black guy, the N-word or, whenever a new hip-hop music came out, the bling-bling guy, he said in an Instagram video he released earlier this month calling out racism in the region.

That dismal record continued even in some of the expressions of support that came out after Floyds death. Some celebrities, including Moroccan actress Mariam Hussein and Algerian singer Souhila Ben Lachhab, uploaded pictures of themselves in blackface with the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. (They subsequently deleted them after an online backlash.)

Us Arabs, we dont have racism, Hussein said in a later post. Black, white, we are all the same.

Tania Saleh, a Lebanese singer, went further: She posted a photo of her face superimposed onto a picture of Dominican American singer Amara La Negra that she found on Pinterest.

I wish I was black because my idols in music and dance are black, all the athletes I respect are black. I love their culture and respect their art, it is as simple as that, Saleh wrote. She refused to delete the image despite widespread calls for her to do so.

Beyond the tone-deaf expressions of solidarity, there has been fresh scrutiny of the kafala, or sponsorship system, which legally binds the millions of migrant workers in the region many of them from countries such as Ethiopia, Bangladesh and the Philippines to their employers and has been described by rights groups and others as modern-day slavery.

Under the system, only employers have the power to terminate the contract, while exercising full control over employees movements and presence in the country. It also puts a price tag on the nationalities of various domestic workers.

Even in the salary theres racism, said Nouna Roukoss, head of advocacy at Caritas Lebanon, a Catholic development and relief agency. [Its] $150 to $200 a month for someone from Bangladesh. Ethiopians get $200 to $250. Workers from the Philippines get $400, and even that isnt minimum wage.

The kafala system has long been a public-relations black eye for Middle Eastern nations, with millions of laborers who build the glitzy boulevards of Gulf cities, raise the children of the middle class and pick up their trash facing rampant abuse. And its been exacerbated by the economic devastation wrought by COVID-19, with the economic downturn leading to hundreds of thousands of workers being let go all over the region.

In Lebanon, which has an estimated 250,000 migrant workers and which is in the throes of a banking crisis that has seen the currency lose two-thirds of its value in recent months, dozens of Lebanese, no longer able to afford what meager wages they had paid their domestic workers, simply dumped them with their belongings in front of their respective countries consulates.

Many of these women showed up without their passport. Their employers had taken them and now we have legal follow-up to get those documents, Roukoss said.

It took another death besides Floyds to put the spotlight on other kinds of bigotry coursing through the region. Earlier this month, Sara Hegazi, a 30-year-old Egyptian lesbian activist, took her own life in Canada.

It was the end of a years-long journey of abuse that began in Cairo in 2017, when Hegazi unfurled a rainbow flag at a concert of the Lebanese band Mashrou Leila, whose frontman is gay. The move got her arrested for inciting debauchery.

Though homosexuality is not illegal in Egypt and many other Arab states, its very much taboo, and Hegazi and dozens of others proved an easy target, said Timothy Kaldas, an Egyptian analyst.

Moral issues have long been a crutch Arab governments lean on when they want to distract public anger and make them focus on something that doesnt cost them anything, Kaldas said. Theres no political cost to repressing the LGBTQ community in Egypt.

During her imprisonment, Hegazi later wrote, she was put in solitary confinement, and guards tortured her with electric shocks and encouraged other prisoners to sexually harass her.

She was released three months later, but the backlash continued, with Hegazi losing her job and abuse hurled against her online. She fled to Canada and claimed political asylum, but the damage was done, said Shrouk Attar, an Egyptian-born LGBTQ activist now living in Britain who was friends with Hegazi.

I could see her sanity slipping away after prison. She knew no one in Canada. She was lonely, Attar said in a phone interview.

Reactions to Hegazis death mirrored the bigotry she faced in life. Across social media websites, many said that she had gotten what she deserved for her sexuality as well as her religious and political views and that she wasnt worth the outcry.

You should see the comments on her pictures now, Attar said. They have no mercy. Shes dead.

Attar credits Hegazi with drawing attention to the issue of discrimination against gay people, but at a horrific cost.

Her waving the flag started a conversation that wasnt there, with people seeing something as important which they didnt see before, Attar said.

And I think it will put some pressure I dont know how much. But it shouldnt be worth my friends life.

Read more from the original source:

Prejudices in the Middle East highlighted after Floyd death - Los Angeles Times

As part of the 155th Juneteenth celebration this past Friday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, the Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights hosted over 350 attendees via Zoom to listen to Prof. Ervin Jordan, a research archivist at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, discuss Juneteenth and Its Historical Significance in George Floyds America.

This year, the University recognized Juneteenth as a paid holiday for employees of the Universitys academic division, following an announcement issued June 17 by University President Jim Ryan. The paid holiday did not extend to designated University employees required to maintain operations.

The first half hour was a presentation about Juneteenths origins and ways to celebrate the day such as reading a book about the holiday or eating traditional soul foods. Juneteenth combines the words June and 19th to commemorate the day when President Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation was adopted by Texas to liberate the last enslaved laborers in America on June 19th, 1865. Lincolns proclamation was first stated on Jan. 1, 1863, but the Confederacy did not follow the presidents declaration. The Confederacys reluctance to stop the practice of slavery forced Union troops to fight in every rebelling state in order to enforce Lincolns word.

Jordan noted that this event did not end slavery alone, as Congress still had to adopt the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery and was not ratified in Texas until 1870. He continued to say that liberated enslaved people needed more than just this amendment.

Emancipation was not enough, Jordan said. To tangibly secure their new freedoms, African Americans needed citizenship and voting rights, freedom of mobility and immigration, wage employment and military service, land ownership, reuniting of families, freedom of education and worship and equal access to public spaces.

The presentation then moved to the present day, as Jordan talked about Juneteenths significance in the wake of George Floyds death that resulted from a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes. This incident launched protests across the nation including several in Charlottesville demanding racial equality and social justice.

This solemn Juneteenth is indicative that the past is not done with us yet, Jordan said. Juneteenth has become an inspirational worldwide commemoration that enlightens us in ways its first beneficiaries never envisioned. Five generations after the Civil War, we continue to challenge and confront systemic racism in George Floyds America.

A public question and answer period focused on how to celebrate Juneteenth today, including whether a statue should be erected to honor the day. Jordan suggested that Confederate statues in Charlottesville should be removed through legal processes and new monuments such as those honoring Black history in America should be erected in their place. He also noted that, since statues cost several million dollars to commission, the funds could be used to instead improve community programs such as education.

During the event, Jordan suggested that the University host a community gathering at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center in the future. He said this will allow community members to discuss the significance of Juneteenth and get children involved by having them do research projects and presentations that explain the days importance.

One question at the heart of the conversation was whether the country is in the middle of a turning point in American race relations and how the momentum from the protests could be kept up. Jordan affirmed that we are in the midst of a significant moment due to the violent deaths of Black Americans whose names include Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, among others and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement this year.

I am heartened by the fact that many predominantly-white institutions and organizations seem to be making more sincere efforts to address racial policies and practices and racial history in this country, Jordan said. No one knows whether all this will bear fruit, but it is at least a start.

The community also inquired as to what efforts the University should take to combat racism and advance racial equity. Jordan commended the Universitys recently launched racial equity task force that includes Ian Solomon, the dean of the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy; Kevin McDonald, vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion; and Barbara Brown Wilson, an assistant professor in the School of Architecture and the faculty director of The Equity Center. The groups purpose is to identify concrete ideas to improve the experience of minority communities.

However, Jordan also noted that there are parts of the University that resist change, so the University must devise a plan to actually promote equality in practice.

The best thing U.Va. can do is treat African Americans equally, Jordan said. Anything less is mere lip service and window dressing if U.Va. wants to continue to do the right thing, they must consider that African Americans are fellow employees and citizens.

Follow this link:

Prof. Ervin Jordan discusses the importance of Juneteenth celebration amid protests against racism, police brutality - University of Virginia The...

In India, COVID-19 has put the spotlight on migrant workers precarious working conditions. First, the sweeping lockdown left many workers jobless, forcing them to walk hundreds of kilometers to their native villages. Now, in a reaction to the coronavirus, states are loosening labor laws in a bid to get their economies up and running. As a consequence, migrant laborers have to work even more hours.

Punjab and Gujarat amended their Factories Act in April, increasing the work time to 72 hours every week. Rajasthan has upped working hours from 8 to 12 hours per day. Uttar Pradesh (UP) has exempted companies from almost all labor laws for the next three years. The relaxed UP laws relate to occupational safety, health, and working conditions, and those that pertain to contract workers and migrant laborers.

An estimated 450 million internal migrant workers make up 92 percent of the workforce in India, and no one seems to be looking after these workers. More than 700 million internal migrants globally continue to navigate the risk of working, despite the health crisis.

Migrant laborers in India have long been particularlyvulnerable to unfair labor practices. And labor protections often weaken further during crises. The recent call to loosen labor laws in UP and Gujarat dangerously sidesteps the minimalprotections in place for migrant workers in India. This post draws from my dissertation fieldwork in 2019 that investigates the aspirations and migration decisions of rural households in Nuapada District in the state of Odisha.

To begin with, hiring practices fail to protect migrant labor. For example, labor contractors lure workers with the prospect of cash advances into modern bondage working in brick kilns. In many cases, these workers who come from rural areas dont know the destination and rely on the contractors verbal assurances. Labor contractors in the construction and brick kiln industries do not operate openly. In the case of brick kiln workers in Odisha, the District Labor Office (DLO) issues the license for contractors for a specific number of workers. These licensed contractors however recruit remotely through other unlicensed subcontractors in the village. My interviews with migrant workers indicate that unlicensed subcontractors hire four to five times more workers than the license permits. The additional workers are completely invisible to the District Labor Office, although contractors are expected to register workers by submitting their contact information. This registration is also mandatory so that a family can access benefits like life insurance in case of a fatality.

Without any records of who is hiring and who is being hired, labor subcontractors as well as workers are completely invisible to the state and therefore cannot get any formal state protection. Further, because licensed contractors and sub-contractors as well as undocumented labor operate behind the scenes, theres a dangerous accountability gap. Workers dont know who should ensure their safety. As the COVID-19 crisis shows, non-standard broker practices weaken the first line of accountabilityfor the workers, who are expected to arrange for everything from transport back home and food, to coronavirus tests after the last day of work.

Second, the physicallocation of worksites furtheradds to the vulnerability of migrantworkers. Most heavy industries are located on the periphery or outside the residential and well-connected areas of cities or towns. During my visit to brick kilnsin Karimnagar, for example, I found that worksitesthat doubled as workers homeswere in isolated areas far from the closest town. Any access to public amenities like a hospital or a police station largely depends on the mercy of brick-kiln owners.

Further, for workers living in makeshift roomsright beside the brick kilns, working hours are hardly regulated. A12- to 13-hour day is not unusual, according to migrant workers I met. The inability to move without the knowledge or support of industry owners leads to arbitrary and exploitative norms. The brick kiln owners allowed workers to visit the nearby village for grocery shopping only once a day. But they do not allow two brick kiln workers to go to the village on the same day of the week. Kiln owners seem to suspect workers may share stories of mishaps and accidents at their kilns.

Migrant workers involved in manual daily-wage work are traditionally exposed to bonded labor, which is forced labor in lieu of debt, and other forms of modern slavery. The protection mechanisms vary drastically across the country. Places that are historical sources of migrant labor are forced to develop protections like worker registration and licensing of labor contractors, that remain largely opaque. In Nuapada, the district labor office is the local authority closest to workers. For a long time, migrantworkers had to be registered at the district labor office which could be as much as 50 to 70 km or more away from the migrants village. The incentives to register include life insurance for the worker and a monetary allowance for childcare.

Now that panchayats, the village level governing bodies, register migrantworkers, the number of registrations may have risen. Even with more workers registered, freeing oneself from bonded labor remains a bureaucratic process. To be rescued, the worker must file a complaint at the labor office associated with their residence. However, its almost impossible for a worker at a brick kilnin Karimnagar to file a complaint with the Nuapadalabor office. Between the low literacy levels of migrant labor, their poor access to telephones, and the great distance between the workplace and workers home villages, this option is unrealistic.

Invisible migrant labor brokers, isolated workplaces, and prevalent bonded labor practices erode any safety mechanisms for migrant workers in times of crisis. Migrant labor protection has to compete with demands of economic growth and urban development, forces that would maintain the status quo.

The occupational safety protections for migrant workers are weak by design. The translucent (if not opaque) labor practices also indicate why the recent criticism of the central governments response will not lead to significant labor reforms. In Karnataka, builders actively lobbied with the regional government to restrict the mobility of migrant workers. The state governments recently announced the possibility of relaxing labor laws to help local manufacturing and constructionbusinesses.

Migrant workers in India were leading a life where exploitation and vulnerability were the norms. The COVID-19 crisis has made their vulnerability more visible to everyone. Lacking strong worker safeguards, migrant labor cannot claim protection from the state. And the state can conveniently forget about these workers.

Kundan Mishra, a PhD Candidate in the Global Governance and Human Security program at University of Massachusetts Boston, is currently working on his dissertation about internal migration and human security in India.

Sources: BBC, Financial Express, International Labour Organization, Labour Directorate (Government of Odisha), Quartz India, Reuters, The Atlantic, The Hindu, The Wall Street Journal, The Wire.

Photo Credit:A Labor pull cart for selling at the wholesale fruit & vegetable market in New Delhi, India, during the lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, Shutterstock.com, All Rights Reserved.

Read more:

COVID Crisis in India: Migrant Workers Exposed to Further Exploitation - New Security Beat