Monthly Archives: July 2020

The Manchester based fashion giant Boohoo is facing an investigation after workers in Leicester making clothes destined for the the Company are being paid as little as 3.50 an hour.

The undercover Sunday Times investigation found that Jaswal Fashions, was also operating last week during the localised coronavirus lockdown without additional hygiene or social distancing measures in place. The undercover reporter spent two days working in the factory where he was told to expect 3.50 an hour, despite the minimum wage in Britain for those aged 25 and over being 8.72.

He obtained covert video footage of himself packing garments made in the factory under the label of Nasty Gal part of the Boohoo brand says the report in this mornings paper.

Boohoo has already come under fire for allegedly risking the spread of coronavirus in Leicester after claims that factories supplying the online retailer told staff to come into work during lockdown despite being sick.

The Company which began life on a Manchester market store has been at the forefront of the internet shopping explosion for clothes and has steadily brought in new brands over the years including the Nasty Gal brand.

Along with Primark and Missguided, it has been criticised for fuelling a throwaway fast-fashion culture that has been linked to exploitation of low-paid workers in UK factories.

A statement from Nasty Gal said the company would investigate this newspapers claims, but insisted that Jaswal Fashions was not a direct supplier. It said: Nasty Gal does not allow any of its suppliers to pay less than the minimum wage and has a zero-tolerance approach to incidences of modern slavery.

We have terminated relationships with suppliers where evidence of non-compliance with our strict code of conduct is found.

We will take immediate steps to fully investigate the allegations raised and if the allegations are substantiated we will ensure that our suppliers immediately cease working with Jaswal Fashions.

The rest is here:

based Boohoo under fire after investigation over slavery wages at Leicester factory - About Manchester - About Manchester

UNDER the rubric of Black Lives Matter (UK limited) it is time that the objective of the discourse and movement is swiftly moved on from felling statues and begins to confront the political, moral and historical consequences of the terrible reality of West Indian enslavement.

Caricom, the 20-member association of Caribbean states (all but two, Haiti and Suriname, were former British colonial territories) have since 2104 submitted a 10-point reparations programme to the EU and specifically the UK Government.

Before laying out the details of the Caricom document that needs much greater popular support, allow me to indulge my personal/political reflections.

My partner of 40 years from Barbados can trace her mothers family back to enslavement (but not yet to Africa), all of whom either as chattle-slaves or low-wage labour worked the land on a Drax plantation in St John, Barbados. The Drax family, through James Drax, was the first to introduce chattel African enslavement in 1650 in Drax Hall, Barbados.

READ MORE:Gerry Hassan: A Scottish Border or a Great Divide?

His brother William established a huge slave property in Jamaica, again Drax Hall, while Henry Drax (an 18th-century MP for Dorset) established the St John plantation. The Drax family had a keen interest in protecting the West Indian plantocracy with a very long line of members of parliament. Indeed Richard Drax currently sits on the family seat in Dorset as a backbench Tory member. Some statues live.

Barbados is per capita one of the worlds centres for diabetic amputations after centuries of harmful diets of heavily imported salted fish, starches and sugar. My partners mother, a wonderful woman who after years of night school left the fields, lost half a leg (below the knee) and her left foot. Aunt Shirl went blind and lost both legs. The grandmother who helped raise my wife was wheelchair-bound for more than 30 years. My partner, with hypertension, had a triple bypass three years ago and my eldest son is already a diabetic. I want to expose these details so that when the 10-point declaration is raised, in which the Caribbean public health crisis is brought up, be assured black lives do matter.

Point five of the Caricom Reparation Commission declaration states: The African descended population in the Caribbean has the highest incidence in the world of chronic diseases in the forms of hypertension and type two diabetes. This pandemic is the direct result of the nutritional experience, physical and emotional brutality, and overall stress profiles associated with slavery, genocide, and apartheid.

Over 10 million Africans were imported into the Caribbean during 200 years of slavery. At the end of slavery in the late 19th century less than two million remained. The chronic health condition of Caribbean blacks now constitutes the greatest financial risk to sustainability in the region. Arresting this pandemic requires the injection of science, technology, and capital beyond the capacity of the region.

There is so much more. Below is a summary of the proposals submitted

and asserts that these several actions could constitute crimes against humanity.

The Caricom Reparation Commission asserts that European governments:

l Were owners and traders of enslaved Africans and instructed genocidal actions upon indigenous communities

l Created the legal, financial and fiscal policies necessary for the enslavement of Africans

l Defined and enforced African enslavement and native genocide as in their national interests

l Refused compensation to the enslaved with the ending of their enslavement

l Compensated slave owners at emancipation for the loss of legal property rights in enslaved Africans

l Imposed a further 100 years of racial apartheid upon the emancipated

l Imposed for another 100 years policies designed to perpetuate suffering upon the emancipated and survivors of genocide

l And have refused to acknowledge such crimes or to compensate victims and their descendants.

READ MORE:Revealed: Scottish landowners bid to shoot more birds to save salmon

Some of us may still need reminding of the atrocities and injustices perpetrated in the Caribbean.

When Columbus found the archipelago (and the figures are only for the island chain) there was an estimated 4 million Taino, Carib or Arawak indigenous people . By the time Cromwell sent in his troops in 1665 there were an estimated 2.5 to 3 million (Caricom figures). Today there are less than 30,000 across the 30-plus island archipelago.

Caricom estimates an approximate total of 10 million Africans were imported as enslaved labour in around 200 years. At Emancipation in the 1830s (later in French territories and Cuba) the figure was less than two million. More precise figures for Barbados indicate a total African population of 660,000 (from 1650 -1807) with 84,000 left in 1834. That is genocide in Holocaust dimensions.

This long Caribbean (the sea of the Caribs) chapter in European history with Spain in the vanguard followed by France, England then Scotland, Wales and Ireland joining in plus Denmark, and The Netherlands all have to answer to history and begin the process of healing. Scotland, with a historically long list of around 30 major enslavement investors and another several thousand second-tier participants, will need to address the Caricom concerns.

There are challenges to overcome. Why should we socialise the blame and reparations when it was private gain that lead the charge, supported by pro-enslavement Westminster Governments?

When enslavement has to be compensated in some form, what about shameful imperial commercial activity in other distant parts of the Empire? There is quite a catalogue.

While Scotland seeks its own road to some form of anti-imperialist sovereignty it must come to terms with its own historic commercial imperialism.

Thom Cross

Carluke

Link:

Reparations must be made for the toxic legacy of West Indian slavery - The National

These-days the Galwan valley of Laddakh is finding a mention in the headline news of all media outlets owing to Indo-Sino standoff at LAC in Laddakh. The word Galwan in the Galwan valley & its Galwan River has caught immediate attention of social media users who began trolling for origin of the name, Galwan, in the said Valley-River since this word finds good use in common Kashmiri parlance for describing & denoting a particular kind of an individual who is loud-mouthed, or vociferous shouter at others, like horse-keepers in olden days of Kashmir. So, the etymological origin of the name: Galwan. Yes, the Galwan valley-cum-river is named after Ghulam Rassul Galwan, a native Laddakhi Muslim traveler, adventurer & explorer, who in his short span of 47 year life, from 1887 to 1913, intermittently accompanied & worked in service of some famous English, Scottish, Italian & American travelers, of their times, during their expeditions of the Himalaya, Central Asia, Karakuram & Tibet. However, it was Robert Barrett, an American adventurer traveler, to whom he was chiefly devoted, who encouraged him to write down his experiences of various trips & having served his Sahibs: English, Scottish, Italian & American Masters. It was under the guidance of Robert Barrett that he wrote a small book titled Servant of Sahibs in his faulty English, writes Francis Younghusband, a reputed British Army officer, traveler & author of his days, who has written an introduction to this book which was first published in 1923. One can Google out all related trivia about the Galwan-story from the internet for ones academic quest & media posts.

But, what interests me here is not the Galwan-story, or the Galwan-valley-river, as such, nor the founder thereof, Ghulam Rassul Galwan, though his small work has made him a name to be reckoned with till times to come. Honestly, it is the title Servant of Sahibs of that book that specifically fascinates me to pause & ponder doesnt it smack of master-servant relationship. It looks archaic way of looking and thinking about the things. But, in his time of 19th & early 20th century, Galwan was definitely a servant of his masters. It was the time when master-servant-relationship was used for any kind of labour hired by the employers mostly in private domain. But then, Wage, Industrial & Labor Laws, growth of the industry, from 18th century onwards, the relationship came to be called employer-employee relationship which is based on defined terms of contract of employment, although critics still call it wage-slavery less than involuntary servitude. In organised sector, wage slavery does not have much role to play as the employees work voluntarily for the good wage under the protection of institutionalized-employment. But the main problem lies with unorganized sector where 80% of total workforce in India is still working for extremely low daily or monthly wages with no job security at all, mostly as non-unionized workers. It is generally the underprivileged members of our societies with their personal & domestic compulsions who work for pittance with private individuals, contractors, shop-owners, small scale & cottage industries, small private firms, media channels & multiple other private bodies & associations, and have to work literally as servants of their sahibs. The servants of their sahibs should not be confused with civil or public servants, who are the career bureaucrats in the State hierarchy of all countries.

The word sahib is an Arabic word which has found its place in multiple languages of Indian sub-continent & Central Asian States. Its short form is saab which is invariably used in Bollywood movies, TV dramas, offices, businesses & everywhere else in the sub-continental life. The servants of their sahibs are a commonplace of our societies & times since long. They owe their origin to the colonial period of British India. According to Collins Online Dictionary, the word Sahib is a polite form of addressing a man in a position of authority. Sahib was used especially of white government officials in the period of British rule of India. Hence, British Sahibs & Memsahibs. To enliven the discussion, let me tell you something interesting. Till recent past, whenever a tourist-gora-couple walked on Srinagar streets, the little children of the mohalla would assemble & tread on their heels all around & sing an old Kashmiri-distich like a chorus with hand-clapping: Memsahib- Sahib Salaam, Pate Pate Ghulam [Welcome Memsahib- Sahib, your servants follow you] The happy and smiling Memsahib-Sahib would then stop walking for a while, look behind and give some toffees to the singing-children. The toffees were all that for which the little children followed them and sung Kashmiri-distich. The little children, those days, must have memorized this Kashmiri-couplet on their lips from their elders-parents teaching. The colonial tradition did not end. With growth of businesses & expansion of employment sector in Kashmir, you will find, not children now, but big adults treading on heels of their bosses all around their offices, hurling loads of praises on their shoulders, for big toffees of undue favours. This is the area of flattery, a vicious mental-slavery, which abounds in innumerable examples around. In a banking organisation, I have seen, subordinates in presence of their bosses, responding & shushing their Salam-offering-colleagues, with finger- wagging & index on lips. Some would turn red & stammer Sa, sa, sa, sa, Sir before their bosses.

As the people of the Indian subcontinent were subjects of British Rulers, white Sahibs were their masters. However, even after their mastery ended with fall of their colonial rule, the word retained its permanent niche in daily conversations as a distinguishable form of address by subordinates towards their masters in some position of authority over them. So, in post colonial period, we see both black & white Sahibs on the heads of servants in all walks of life in the Indian subcontinent. The servants of their sahibs retain their position & relevance as literary servants too, since they are not independent of the social context in which they exist, for the literary men who use them as their prime characters in their fiction & prose. For the idealist German philosopher, George WF Hegel, in his The Phenomenology, the master-servant relationship exists between God & man. Frederick Copestone has explained Hegels philosophical thought in these simple words: Here the master is the one who succeeds in obtaining recognition from the other, in the sense he imposes himself as the others value. The slave is the one who sees his own true self in the other. [VIII: 183]

But here we may mention of servants of their sahibs who live in working class of our Kashmirian community. In view of long agonizing history of Kashmir, the British colonial legacy of slavery-mastery in employer-employee-relationships is deep-rooted in the psyche of many Kashmiris, and as such, it is reflected in all their commercial, business & official relationships. The workers, the employees, whatever you call them, work & serve their sahibs in businesses, trade, industry & offices , wholeheartedly & devotedly. So far, so good. This class of servants know the tricks of the trade either by themselves, their self-ability, or they learn them from their masters, who train & teach them on that. Their masters use their skills of the trade only for augmenting their own business interests, building their own empire of fortune to their misfortune. In one instance, I know, Rafiq & Shafiq, two Zchatebojis (apprentices) worked at home Karkhana (workplace) of a Srinagrian goldsmith who, as Ustad (teacher), had trained & taught them all skills of his trade. But one day, the goldsmith was heard saying to some of his friends that all kinds of defects [Kasr viz, Zchate Kasr, Phrate Kasr, Vate Kasr,] in manufacturing & assembling of his gold jewellery, were tricks of the trade carried out by Rafiq & Shafiq, for which he had no responsibility. What a shame? How that goldsmith was exploiting his poor apprentices? An Ustad imparting all in-genuine tricks of trade to his protg brazenly denying his liability for the defects in his goods!

To keep their bosses in good mood, these workers, servants of their sahibs, sometimes resort to , or are used to resort to, unfair means with customers in discharging their jobs. Most of the times, their bosses exploit not only their skills of the trade, but their compulsive financial needs & scarcity of jobs in the market, to their own advantage. Its direct result is that the servants of their sahibs internalize the corrupt conduct as a normal in their daily lives. Mama Kul a matriculate domestic-worker, (Gharailo Mulazim), faulty-flaunt English-speaker, was an example to elaborate the idea. He was used by a Pashmina-Shawl merchants family of Shar e Khas (old city Srinagar) as their business representative for his two qualities: First, Kasme Khitre [false-wearing]. As he was a well known profane swearer in his life, he always generously swore on every divine & sacred thing in the world for convincing a buyer about finality of the prices, durability & originality of the material used in manufacturing of his masters goods. Second, his faulty-flaunt English was utilised by illiterate merchant-masters for speaking for them in selling their goods to foreign English-speaking customers.

Tailpiece:

All servants of their sahibs are not lucky enough like Ghulam Rassul Galwan who had found selfless [not native] sahibs under whose tutelage he earned a permanent niche in history. But, Rafiq & Shafiq , and Mama Kul, whether consciously or unconsciously, consensually or un-consensually, will continue to serve their selfish-sahibs who will only exploit their skills of the trade for their own material good. The exploitation of the servants by their sahibs will go on till the problems of unemployment & compulsive economic needs of the servants persist in our society &, even in this modern age, the relationship between the two will continue to have a semblance of feudal phantom of bondage for necessity between them. The servants will go on slavishly subordinating themselves to their sahibs which will turn the whole relationship into an exploitative situation by their sahibs.

Link:

Servants of their Sahibs - Greater Kashmir

By Niles Niemuth 1 July 2020

An opinion piece by New York Times columnist Charles Blow appeared online Sunday under the headline, Yes, Even George Washington, calling for the removal of all public monuments to the first President of the United States, whom Blow has judged to be among the amoral monsters who led the American Revolution and helped found the country 244 years ago.

On the issue of American slavery, I am an absolutist: enslavers were amoral monsters, Blow declares. His argument is an extension of that advanced in the Times racialist 1619 Project, which claims that the aim of the American Revolution was to defend slavery against British plans for its abolition.

Blow writes: Some people who are opposed to taking down monuments ask, If we start, where will we stop? It might begin with Confederate generals, but all slave owners could easily become targets. Even George Washington himself.

Blow then proclaims, with the special elegance that distinguishes his columns, To that I say, abso-fricking-lutely!

Early Monday morning, not long after Blows column was published, the monument arch in Washington Square Park in New York City commemorating the centenary of Washingtons inauguration was vandalized with red paint. The paint dripped down from the heads of two statues of Washington, one depicting him as the commander of the revolutionary Continental Army and the other as president.

This latest assault on a monument to Washington follows the pulling down last month of Washington and Jefferson monuments in Portland, Oregon, and the toppling of a bust of Civil War general and Reconstruction President Ulysses S. Grant in San Francisco, California. Monuments to Abraham Lincoln, who led the Second American revolution and destroyed slavery, as well as monuments to abolitionists such as Robert Gould Shaw and Hans Christian Heg, have come under attack as racist and white supremacist.

The attack by the Times on Washington is a part of the effort by the Democratic Party and its operatives to derail the popular multiracial protests against police violence which erupted last month in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Capitalizing on the historical ignorance which they have fostered, Blow and the Times are working overtime to redirect popular opposition along racial lines and behind the Democratic Party.

There is nothing progressive in the destruction of statues and monuments which memorialize the leaders of the American Revolution and the Civil War.

But for Blow, there is nothing to discuss about the contradictory yet progressive legacy of the men who led the first Revolution and set the ground for the annihilation of slavery less than nine decades later.

If one accepts Blows definition of those who owned slaves as amoral monsters, beyond the pale, then even those who opposed slavery at the time, such as John Adams, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, cannot be judged innocent. After all, they collaborated with those evil beasts, Washington and Jefferson, in waging war against Great Britain and establishing a Constitution which protected slavery. The whole project to create A government of laws and not of men, a precept laid out by Adams, must be thrown out, having been tainted by the irredeemable sin of slavery.

If indeed the American Revolution was made by amoral monsters, how is it possible that these wicked creatures, beyond human compassion and unconstrained by any ethical considerations, came to produce such moral and epoch-shaping documents as the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights? How was it possible that Thomas Jefferson could claim, in a world dominated by monarchies and feudal relations, where birth meant everything and hierarchy dominated, that it is self-evident that all men were created equal? Or advance the conception that the people had a right to revolution, to overthrow an oppressive government and establish their own?

Prior to Jefferson the right to life, liberty and property had been clearly outlined, but in the Declaration of Independence he advanced a much more radical conception of the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Such a conception could only have been advanced at a time when questions were being raised about the very nature of property and what it meant to hold any form of property, particularly fellow human beings.

Despite Blows contention, even Washingtons relationship to slavery both in regards to the political as well as the personal was in fact quite complex and changed over time, from a position of taking the institution as a given, having inherited his first slaves from his father while still a boy, to questioning the institution among his closest correspondents and ultimately freeing his slaves after his death.

As with society at large, it was the American Revolution, with its declaration of fundamental human equality, which placed for the first time a question mark over Washingtons views on slavery. In 1774, he signed his name to the Fairfax Resolves, a document which included a denunciation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade as wicked, cruel and unnatural, and called for its immediate end.

During the American Revolution nearly 5,000 blacks served under his command in the Continental Army and Washington approved the formation of all-black battalions with the guarantee of emancipation for those slaves who fought for American independence. He wrote to a friend in 1786 that he had no intention of buying another slave, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by [inserted: The Legislature by] which slavery in this Country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptable [sic] degrees.

While he signed the first Fugitive Slave Act as president in 1793, allowing for masters to reclaim runaway slaves, Washington also signed the renewed Northwest Ordinance in 1789 which banned slavery in the areas north of the Ohio river and east of the Mississippi and the 1794 Slave Trade Act, which prohibited American citizens and residents from engaging in the international slave trade. Despite efforts to appease the slave interests, the growing divisions between Southern slave states and Northern free states which would erupt in the Civil War were already becoming clear at this early point in US history.

Revolutions are studied and celebrated, with all their blemishes, because they are key moments in history in which humanity pushed forward into the unknown. Such were the advances made by the American Revolution and the Civil War; the French Revolution and Haitian Revolution; and the Russian Revolution of 1917. The inconsistencies of the revolutionaries, and the setbacks that followed the advances, testify to the complexity and contradictory character of the historical process. But the failures do not discredit the advances made.

Blow is oblivious to history. Instead he advances a religious conception of history, in which man is fundamentally evil, having fallen from the graces of God. Anything which pays tribute to anyone or anything complicit in the sin of slavery must be condemned and expunged.

This moral certitude, however, raises serious questions about this wrathful moralists employment at the New York Times. How can Blow account for the fact that he works for a newspaper that defended slavery before the Civil War, and which inveighed mercilessly and ruthlessly against the abolitionists who fiercely agitated for the end of slavery in the 1850s? An editorial published by the paper on May 11, 1859, The Abolitionists Again, denounced abolitionist writings as trash and slandered William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips as stock actors of the troupe. The paper also carried a report that relished in the attempted lynching of an abolitionist in Mississippi in September 1857 who had a rope placed around his neck and was whipped 238 times by a pro-slavery mob.

Given the papers history of spewing anti-Abolitionist rhetoric, Blow is certainly obligated to resign from the Times and call for its closure. Under Blows rubric, there can be no excuse that these articles were written more than 150 years ago.

The New York Times certainly is rotten, not because of what was published in its pages in 1859 but because of what is published in its pages today in defense of capitalism (wage slavery) and imperialism. But it is doubtful that Blow will go that far. After all, his moral absolutes end at the point when they might adversely affect his own professional and financial interests.

Writing in 1939, Leon Trotsky, the co-leader of the Russian Revolution and founder of the Fourth International, took the measure of the moralistic, i.e., hypocritical and cynical, approach to history taken by the likes of Blow and the Times:

These gentlemen forget with remarkable ease that man has been cutting his path from a semi-simian condition to a harmonious society without any guide; that the task is a difficult one, that for every step or two forward there follows half a step, a step, and sometimes even two steps back. They forget that the path is strewn with the greatest obstacles and that no one has invented or could have invented a secret method whereby an uninterrupted rise on the escalator of history would be rendered secure. Sad to say, Messrs. Rationalists were not invited to a consultation when man was in process of creation and when the conditions of mans development were first taking shape. But generally speaking, this matter is beyond repair.

For arguments sake, let us grant that all previous revolutionary history and, if you please, all history in general is nothing but a chain of mistakes. But what to do about present day reality? What about the colossal army of permanently unemployed, the pauperized farmers, the general decline of economic levels, the approaching war? The skeptical wiseacres promise us that sometime in the future they will catalogue all the banana peels on which the great revolutionary movements of the past have slipped. But will these gentlemen tell us what to do today, right now?

We would wait in vain for an answer.

Go here to read the rest:

New York Times' Charles Blow demands the removal of monuments to Washington and other amoral monsters - World Socialist Web Site

The 244th anniversary of our nations founding promises to be one of the most contentious in recent memory. In the last few weeks thousands have taken to the streets in protests that questioned whether America values all of its citizens with the same worth. They began with decrying police brutality and quickly progressed to violence, fire and rage. The toppling of Confederate memorials escalated to attacks on statues of Washington and Jefferson, and even Ulysses S. Grant - who led the army that swept the scourge of slavery from the land. Meanwhile, a pandemic rages and a fractious presidential campaign rumbles on. As we mark this Independence Day, Americans are being forced to look around and inside ourselves, and ask if the story we tell ourselves is still worth believing.

The wisest among us have asked this before. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass addressed precisely this point in his oration, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Twenty times in the address, in referring to the American Founding, he invokes the phrase your fathers - America and the Americans being a thing, he says, from which he and the slaves of America are excluded. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. Yet at its close the address takes a turn. Having exposed and excoriated American hypocrisy on Independence Day (and rightfully so), he abruptly situates himself and his story and his hope squarely in the American Founding and its documents.

He dismissed the idea that the U.S. Constitution was pro-slavery, arguing that it contained neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing. Instead he declared that the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. In conclusion, Douglass says: I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hopedrawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions.

America was not living up to its own ideals, and Douglass was pointing that out in one of the most eloquent and important speeches in American history. The story Frederick Douglass told himself was a story in which he, and the lowliest of slaves, were all included in the American story.

The individual stories we tell ourselvesnot just about our hardships but about who we arecombine together to create our American story. Every one of us adds a small thread to the larger fabric of our culture. And as we change and evolve, so evolve our cultural norms. The American story itself evolves. This isnt a bad thing, either. It is natural and constant throughout history.

But something is changing for the worse. The American story that Frederick Douglass believed in is being threatened by people who have lost sight of his message. The fortitude that helped Douglass escape slavery, fight for its abolition and work to push America toward a fuller expression of its founding ideals is sorely lacking today. Now, powerlessness is a virtue. Weakness is strength.

People are told that not only are they powerless and oppressed, but there is a specific other group to blame for it. The phrase check your privilege becomes the favorite tactic used to discredit opponents and subvert real discourse. Groups are promised more power over other groups in the form of wealth redistribution, reparations or wage regulation. The resentment that individuals may have silently felt for one another is encouraged and even elevated as a virtue. Anger is good. Wear your oppression proudly. Resist. Seek revolution.

The politics of grievance and resentment become mainstream and arrive in full force. The institutions that our society is built upon law enforcement, religion, the financial system, the government are labeled as fundamentally oppressive and become shamed and discredited. And if our institutions are always to blame, then the next and final ultimate oppressor should be obvious: America itself.

In the search for oppressors to target, the identity politicians and outrage specialists have found the ultimate boogeyman: our American founding. In a growing number of circles, cheered on by major publications such as the New York Times, America is the vessel and origin of evil, the embodiment of sin against a more enlightened progressive ideal. This is the heart of the new culture war, which is the fundamental question of whether America is inherently good or inherently bad.

Take, for just one example, the New York Times 1619 Project, explicitly designed to reframe the American Founding around slavery, instead of its actual foundation in 1776 and the promise of liberty. Among many other historical inaccuracies, the Times conveniently ignores the fact that Americas founding documents were consistently used by abolitionists - like Frederick Douglass - as a primary argument for ending slavery. Grievance reaches back a long way to make its case in the pages of the Times, even blaming modern traffic jams on the legacy of slavery.

It is up to usall of usto reverse this trend. We must decide to tell the story of America that embodies the founding ideals and gave us the miracle of opportunity that we have today. Like many stories, it is filled with villains, heroes, dark times, proud victories, sadness, overwhelming joy, failures, and triumphs. It is a human story, after all. It carries with it all of the inescapable imperfections that are inherent to the human condition. But just as your story does not end with your suffering or your failings, neither does ours. America is a fabric woven from the threads of human historys best stories, best attributes, and greatest ideas. In The Roots of American Order, Russell Kirk wrote: Whatever the failings of Americathe American order has been a conspicuous success in the perspective of human history.

We can tell the story of our sinsand we should, for greater perspectivebut we must also recognize that these sins do not render corrupt the foundational ideals of America. Our imperfections do not define us. What does define us is the greatness that America has generated.

Dan CrenshawDaniel CrenshawWhat to us is the Fourth of July? Ocasio-Cortez builds political army, and a fundraising machine to match GOP lawmakers call for new sanctions on senior Chinese officials MORE, a former Navy SEAL, represents Texas 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives. This essay is adapted from his book FORTITUDE: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage, out now from Twelve.

Read more here:

What to us is the Fourth of July? | TheHill - The Hill

For Carolina*, who is from Honduras, Australia seemed like an ideal place to learn, explore and work.

But she soon found it wasnt all she expected.

"My hope is to leave this job because every time I remember that they've taken advantage of me, it annoys me," she told SBS News.

Carolina, who is in her 20s,has worked at a cafe-restaurant in Sydney for almost 18 months as a barista andwaitress while studying leadership and management at SELC Australia college.

Even before COVID-19 hit, Carolina was being paid just $20 an hour, which is below the minimum wage.When the business suffered during the pandemic, her wage plummeted to $11 an hour.

She was told she was paid "$11 because the sales weren't very high. So they told me that's all they could offer".

"If I didn't accept, they made me understand they'd let me go," she said.

Carolina's story isn't an isolated one.

A study released on Wednesday byUTS law Associate Professor Laurie Berg and UNSW Associate Professor Bassina Farbenblum shows wage theft is still endemic, four years since the last major study.

The study, International Students and Wage Theft in Australia,surveyed more than 5,000 international students across Australia between 9 April and 30 May 2019.

It found more than three quarters (77 per cent) were paid below the minimum casual hourly wage and 26 per centearned only $12 or less an hour, something most prevalent among Chinese respondents.

Almost two-thirds of respondents didnt try to access help, 48 per cent said this was because they feared losing their job and 38 per cent said they didnt want anything to jeopardise their visa.

More than three quarters of international students are being paid below the minimum wage according to one study.

Getty Images

"It's pretty clear that wage theft remains business as usual for employers of international students," Associate Professor Farbenblum said.

"It's really up to the government to make sure that employers are doing the right thing and to give students the message that they're not breaking the law and they are not at fault if their employer underpays them, it's the employer's responsibility to pay them correctly."

It's also why Carolina doesn't want to be identified.

"I don't know if I need a lawyer, I don't know to what lengths it'll go to, if it will affect my visa, so a lot of the time the most comfortable position is to stay quiet because you don't know what to expect if you say something."

The authors of the study say the tendency among international students not to speak up or report their employer sets up an environment where businesses feel they can get away with wage theft.

"When you have an exceptionally vulnerable cohort who don't have support and employers who are willing to act unscrupulously to exploit that, we definitely see the end of this veering into modern slavery," Associate Professor Farbenblum said.

As international students are ineligible for federal government support payments - except for being able to access some of their superannuation last financial year - she says many will be vulnerable to exploitation due to their desperate need to work among an already tight labour market.

It's something that is only going to get worse amid the impacts of COVID-19, they say.

We're going to see a perfect storm for increased exploitation as the labour market reopens, we're going to see increased employer impunity as international students are very fearful of coming forward because they don't want to lose their jobs in a market where jobs are scarce.

The study calls for the 40-hour a fortnight cap on the employment of international students to be scrapped and the creation of a wage claims tribunal.It also says a "firewall" blocking information passing between the Fair Work Ombudsman and Department of Home Affairs would increase the likelihood of students reporting exploitation in the workplace.

"The government has been tinkering around the edges and that clearly hasn't been working. We need strong and effective and deep reforms to our labour enforcement,"Associate Professor Farbenblumsaid.

"It's close to impossible for most temporary migrants to ever get the wages back that they're owed and so there's no real benefit to them risking their visa to come forward and report."

The government says it has no plans to change the 40-hour limit.

International students are being urged to report wage theft.

AAP

A spokeswoman for Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge said: "Students come here to study and their rights and obligations are very clearly stated. There are no plans to change these rules."

"Worker exploitation is illegal. Employers are required to abide by all relevant Australian workplace laws. If they are breaching these laws, they should be reported."

Employers doing the wrong thing can be reported anonymously at fairwork.gov.au.

One person who knows the issue better than most is the former chair of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce, Professor Allan Fels.

Last year, the taskforce found underpayment was widespread and entrenched, especially among international students.

Professor Fels says the sooner jail sentences for deliberate underpayers are brought in, the better.

"Action now is more important than ever. Coronavirus has made the problem worse there's more pressure on employers not to pay fully and students are more exploitable," he said.

Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter said: "the government continues to progress the recommendations of the Report of the Migrant Workers Taskforce".

"Proposals to introduce new penalties for the worst forms of worker underpayment are being progressed as part of the Compliance and Enforcement Working Group part of the Governments Industrial Relations Reform working group process which had a productive first meeting last week," he said.

Education Minister Dan Tehan says anyone being underpaid should contact the Fair Work Ombudsman.

"We don't want to see that occurring in Australia, it's why we've resourced the Fair Work Ombudsman to clamp down on any exploitation of workers," he said.

Carolina wants to encourage other international students to come forward.

"I'd like to tell them not to let yourself get taken advantage of and say 'no'."

*Name has been changed

The Migrant Worker Justice Initiative wants to get a better picture of the challenges facing temporary migrants in Australia during COVID-19 and is asking those interested to join their nationwide survey at mwji.org.

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International Student Carolina is one of thousands to have her wages stolen in Australia - SBS News

FGN7 NEPAL-OLI

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Kathmandu: Facing growing demand for his resignation, Nepal''s embattled Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli has said that the ruling communist party is facing a grave crisis, indicating that it may split soon, according to a media report on Sunday.

FGN10 US-TRUMP-LD INDIA

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Singapore: Singapore has recorded 136 new COVID-19 cases, mostly foreign workers living in dormitories, taking the total number of coronavirus infections in the country to 44,800, according to the health ministry.

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Clothing factory in UK faces modern slavery probe

London: A clothing factory named Jaswal Fashions based in the eastern England city of Leicester faces a modern slavery investigation after an undercover reporter alleged sweatshop-like conditions and below minimum wage payments to its workers, many of them from India. By Aditi Khanna

FGN3 WHO-HCQ-TESTING

WHO ending hydroxycholorquine trial for COVID

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Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 - Outlook India

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Fair Work Ombudsman v IE Enterprises PtyLtd [2020] FCA 848PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE application for partialdefault judgment under r 5.23 of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth)against respondents failure of respondents to defendproceeding failure of respondents to attend case managementhearing failure of respondents to comply with Court orders whether Court has jurisdiction to grant relief whether applicant is entitled to reliefINDUSTRIAL LAW application for declaratory relief andcompensation orders in relation to contraventions of the Fair WorkAct 2009 (Cth) failure to pay minimum hourly rates failure to pay employees in full failure to make and keepemployee records failure to provide pay slips whether contraventions are serious contraventions as they were partof a systematic pattern of conduct whether first respondentexpressly, tacitly or impliedly authorised contraventions whether second respondent knew that first respondent'scontraventions were serious contraventionsHeld: application for partial default judgment grantedFair Work Act 2009 (Cth) ss 45, 323(1), 535(1), 536(1), 536(3),545(2)(b), 547(2), 550, 550(2), 557A, 557A(1), 557(5A),557B(1)Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017(Cth)

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Kambouridis v L.R. Reed City Pty Ltd &Anor [2020] FCCA 1484INDUSTRIAL LAW Contravention of Fair Work Act2009 unfair dismissal penalties hearing failure to pay compensation ordered costs order sought penalties imposed.Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), ss.390, 392, 405, 539, 546, 550 and570.(1) The first respondent contravened s.405 of the Fair Work Act2009 (the Act) in failing to comply with the orderof the Fair Work Commission dated 11 October 2017.3) The first respondent pay to the applicant a penalty of $20,000pursuant to s.546(1) of the Act for its contraventions set out inparagraph 1 above.

Australian Building and Construction Commissioner vConstruction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (TheCollege Crescent Case) [2020] FCA757INDUSTRIAL LAW pecuniary penalties agreedcontraventions adverse action application of"no ticket, no start" philosophy coercion ofsubcontractor to pay "union rates" analysis ofthe nature, gravity, character and seriousness of thecontraventions whether history of contravening conductshould inform the court's assessment of how objectively seriousthe agreed contraventions were application of "civildouble jeopardy", "course of conduct" and"totality" principles personal payment orders appropriateness of declaratory reliefBuilding and Construction Industry (ImprovingProductivity) Act 2016 (Cth) ss 5 and 15Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), s 4AACrimes Legislation Amendment (Penalty Unit) Act 2015 (Cth), item 2of sch 1Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) pts 2-4, 3-1; ss 12, 336, 342, 346, 347,348, 363, 539, 545, 546, 556 and 793Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 (Cth) s 12The first respondent pay pecuniary penalties totalling$110,000.00.The second respondent pay pecuniary penalties totalling$7,500.00.The third respondent pay a pecuniary penalty of $6,000.00.

Fair Work Ombudsman v B2D Pty Ltd &Anor [2020] FCCA 1442INDUSTRIAL LAW Application for breaches ofcivil remedy provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009 employerfailed to pay wages and provide appropriate wage slips FairWork Ombudsman issued notice to produce records of wage payments respondents produced material that is alleged to bemisleading and deceptive respondents failed to take anysteps in the proceedings proceedings undefended matters to be considered.Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), ss.3, 535, 536, 539, 545, 547, 550, 687,701, 712, 716, 718A

Ross v Paea trading as Bombora Cafe[2020] FCA 766INDUSTRIAL LAW where Applicant employed as cook byFirst Respondent where Applicant claims unpaid wages,annual leave, taxation and superannuation under Fair Work Act 2009(Cth)(the Act) whether the RestaurantIndustry Award 2010 applies to First Respondent whetherFirst Respondent is employer under s 47 of the Act whetherFirst Respondent contravened the ActSUPERANNUATION whether employee can sue employer whereemployer fails to make superannuation contributions to complyingfund nature of compulsory superannuation laws as tax inconstitutional senseBANKRUPTCY where First Respondent has filed for bankruptcyprior to Court reserving judgment whether leave granted toApplicant to proceed under s 58(3)(b) of the Bankruptcy Act 1966(Cth) where Court has already heard evidence in the case where trustee of bankrupt estate neither agrees nor objectsto leave being grantedPRACTICE AND PROCEDURE where Applicant assisted byunadmitted acquaintance who appears to have been holding himselfout as lawyer whether judgment reasons should be referredto Law Society of New South WalesConstitution ss 51(ii), 51(xx), 51(xxxi), 51(xxxvii), 55, 122Bankruptcy Act 1966 (Cth) s 58(3)(b)Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) s 29(2)Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) ss 30H, 30N, 30L, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 61,87, 90, 539, 545Leave be granted to the Applicant to proceed against the BankruptEstate of the First Respondent.Judgment for the Applicant against the First Respondent for$17,583.26.

Commonwealth

Bills

Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Flexibility Measures) Bill2020Finally passed both Houses 11 June 2020 Assent Act no:53 Year: 2020 16 June 2020Amends the: Paid Parental Leave Act 2010 to implement changes tothe paid parental leave scheme to enable eligible claimants toclaim up to 30 days of parental leave pay (PLP)within 24 months of the birth or adoption of a child, in additionto 12 weeks of PLP within 12 months of the child's birth oradoption; and A New Tax System (Family Assistance)Act 1999 and A New Tax System (Family Assistance)(Administration) Act 1999 to make consequential amendments.

PaidParental Leave Amendment (Flexibility Measures) Act2020 Act No. 53 of 2020 17 June 2020

Fair Work Amendment (One in, All in) Bill2020Registered 15 June 2020 Introduced HR 15 June 2020This bill extends the FWC's jurisdiction to deal with disputesabout whether an employee is eligible for the JobKeeper scheme. TheFWC cannot make an order on or after the end date of the Jobkeeperscheme which is 28 September 2020

Regulations

PaidParental Leave Amendment (Coronavirus Economic Response) Rules2020This instrument amends the Paid Parental Leave Rules2010 to assist people who have been affected by the economicimpacts of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic tobe eligible for parental leave pay or dad and partner pay (17 June2020).

FairWork Amendment (Variation of Enterprise Agreements No. 2)Regulations 2020These regulations amend the Fair Work Regulations 2009 torepeal amendments made by the Fair Work Amendment (Variation ofEnterprise Agreements) Regulations 2020, which modified the periodthat employees must have access to a copy of a proposed variationof an enterprise agreement, and before which employees must benotified of the details of the vote on the variation (the'access period'), from seven days to one day. Thismeasure was intended to be a time-limited change to enableemployers and their employees to quickly respond to issues that mayarise in response to COVID-19 (12 June 2020).

AgedCare (Leave from Residential Care Services) (Situation ofEmergencyHuman Coronavirus with Pandemic Potential)Determination 2020This instrument declares the current COVID-19 pandemicas a situation of emergency for the purposes of subsection 42-2A(1)of the Aged Care Act 1997. Under this determination, emergencyleave will be available to permanent aged care residents acrossAustralia from 1 April 2020 to 30 September 2020 (2 June 2020).

Queensland

Bills

Community Services Industry (Portable Long Service Leave)Bill 2019Stage reached: Passed with amendment on 17/06/2020 Assent Date: 22/06/2020 Act No: 19 of 2020Commences: see Act fordetails

Subordinate legislation reminder This regulation commences on 1 July 2020

Building and Construction Industry (Portable LongService Leave) (Levy Changes) Amendment Regulation 2020 (Qld)This Regulation is made under the Building andConstruction Industry (Portable Long ServiceLeave) Act 1991. The policy objectives is to remove thetiered levy structure which currently provides discounted levyrates to very large projects and replace it with a single levy ratefor leviable matters, and to increase the portable long serviceleave levy from 0.25 per cent to 0.35 per cent.

Building and Construction Industry (Portable Long Service Leave)(Levy Changes) Amendment Regulation 2020 (Qld)

Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation (QOTE)Notice 2020 (Qld)12 June 2020 - This Notice is made under the Workers'Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (theAct). Compensation entitlements of injured workers anddependants of deceased workers under the Act are subject toindexation in accordance with increases in Queensland Ordinary TimeEarnings (QOTE) to ensure the relative value ofthose amounts over time. Under section 10A of the Act, theWorkers' Compensation Regulator must, before the start of afinancial year, notify QOTE for the financial year and thepercentage difference in QOTE for the financial year compared toQOTE for the previous financial year.

Victoria

Acts

Wage Theft Act 2020 (Vic)Act Number: 21/2020 Date of assent: 23 June 2020

This publication does not deal with every important topic orchange in law and is not intended to be relied upon as a substitutefor legal or other advice that may be relevant to the reader'sspecific circumstances. If you have found this publication ofinterest and would like to know more or wish to obtain legal advicerelevant to your circumstances please contact one of the namedindividuals listed.

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