Monthly Archives: January 2022

The subminimum wage for service workers is a direct legacy of slavery and perpetuates some of the worst sexual harassment of any industry. And yet for years, Congress and the 43 states that still have a subminimum wage have been dragging their heels on ending it despite widespread public support for raising wages.

Then something changed. During the pandemic, restaurant owners in New York and nationwide have seen their workers struggling more than ever to survive on poverty wages. When restaurants closed, many service workerscouldnt even get unemploymentbecause under state law they earned too little to qualify. And for restaurants that have remained open,tips have gone down, while the demands on workers to enforce public health regulations have only gone up.

And then came the shortage of workers not surprising, given the increasingly challenging working conditions amidst declining take home pay. Suddenly we saw something no one anticipated, fed up service workers especially restaurant workers walking off the job, tired of being paid less than a full, fair minimum wage while beingharassed,spit on, andpunchedby customers angry about wearing masks.

Since the inception of the subminimum wagefollowing Emancipation, when restaurant owners did not want to pay newly freed Black workers and invented the idea of tips as a replacement for wages, the restaurant lobby has claimed their industry would collapse if forced to pay their workers a living wage. But it turns out the current worker shortage shortage is really a wage shortage andthousands of restaurants around the countryand over 300 in New York have started offering wages far and above the subminimum rate. In other words, restaurant owners some of whom are literally the ones who have fought tooth and nail to maintain subminimum wage laws are now not only finding a way to pay much, much higher wages but actually doing so to save their restaurants and the industry. Indeed, thats the clear lesson from theseven statesthat have One Fair Wage laws in place not only are wages higher, but restaurant industry growth and sales are higher, too, all of which resulted in these seven states losing fewer restaurants during the pandemic. Now, across the country, the entire argument for subminimum wage laws has evaporated. Its time for political leaders to catch up.

New York City restaurants are trendsetters for the nation, and the citys policies also hold powerful sway in influencing the rest of the country for the better. Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she supports One Fair Wage because she understands the real harm subminimum wages are causing workers and our economy. And she has the power to end the subminimum wage and level the playing field for workers and restaurants across the state through a simple executive action. Indeed, statewide leadership is the only way to send a resounding signal to workersfleeing the service industrythat these jobs will now be worth it, and also ensure that these temporary wage gains dont evaporate if owners change their minds.

Ending the subminimum wage and raising wages is smart politics. Voters will enthusiastically turnout and help reelect political leaders that they see enacting real meaningful changes that make a difference in their pockets and their lives.

But its also the moral thing to do and the right thing to do for New Yorks economy - and the only way local restaurants will be able to fully reopen. The oppositions arguments have crumbled. There are no more excuses. If the pandemic has taught us one thing, its that we cant go back to the way things were.

Link:

Opinion: How the current worker shortage is really a wage shortage - New York Nonprofit Media

Most folks in Black and brown communities have heard of The 1619 Project published by the New York Times Magazine in 2019. This important and ambitious project, led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, pulled back the curtain of euphemistic rhetoric in American historiography that points only to the good in our history and sweeps under the rug the evil deeds perpetrated against people of color for more than 400 years.

The 1619 Project sought only to do one thing start an honest conversation about how toxic attitudes about race have shaped this nations past and made America the country it is today.

For her effort, scholarship and truth-telling, Hannah-Jones has been subjected to foaming-at-the-mouth attacks by conservative politicians and right-wing pundits. They want to wage war against anyone who dares to reveal Americas true history.

This is a battle for the truth. Nikole Hannah-Jones and the people who developed The 1619 Project should not be left to fight this battle alone. We all must arm ourselves with knowledge of the truth and enter the fray. It is our duty. And I would like to play my part by pointing out some truth about American history.

Some of the loudest howling from American white supremacists against The 1619 Project has been to denounce the statement that one of the principal factors driving the American Revolution was the fear that Britain would bring an end to slavery in the colonies.

There are numerous historical data points that can be examined regarding the causes of the American Revolution, enough to fill books comprising a large library. But the examination and consideration of a few facts will corroborate what the project has said about the relationship between slavery and the American Revolution.

There were three sets of events that are interconnected although their connection is often overlooked by most historians that led to slavery being a driving factor of the American Revolution.

The first set was the taxation issues of the 1760s. As a result of the costly French and Indian War, Britain began to tax its North American colonies on items such as glass, lead, paint, paper and tea. There were other taxes, including the notorious Stamp Act, which levied taxes on paper products and documents on paper.

Secondly, the British Parliament passed the Declaratory Act of 1766. When Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, it simultaneously sought to strengthen its control over the colonies by declaring that the British Parliaments taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. In this way, it was asserting its complete authority to make laws binding in its colonies in all cases whatsoever.

Even with the passage of the oppressive Declaratory Act, there was not a great deal of fervor for independence among the colonists until the third series of events was precipitated by the Somerset case in 1772. James Somerset was an enslaved Black man who had been taken from Norfolk, Virginia, to London by his enslaver, Charles Stewart. Once in England, Somerset began to realize that he might live as a free person. Stewart got wind of Somersets interest in freedom and had him chained in a ship scheduled to sail for Jamaica, where Somerset was to be sold. Abolitionist friends of Somerset petitioned the highest court in England for his release. And after months of legal maneuvers, Lord Mansfield, chief justice of the highest court in Great Britain, ordered Somersets freedom, stating that slavery is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law.

This ruling by Lord Mansfield sent shock waves through the American colonies, especially those in the agrarian South. It was clear that Britain would not long abide slavery in its possessions overseas.

The handwriting was on the wall. Southern planters and northern slaveholders would not be able to hold onto their slaves for more than a generation or two. America would become a very different place without slavery. Rather than have that happen, the colonists went to war.

These are facts white supremacists and their right-wing pundits do not want you to know. But they are not hard to confirm. Books that speak to these facts are in libraries and online. We must arm ourselves with the facts and use them to battle for truth. We cannot let Nikole Hannah-Jones and The 1619 Project fight this fight alone.

Oscar H. Blayton is a former Marine Corps combat pilot and human rights activist who practices law in Virginia.

Excerpt from:

Support Nikole Hannah-Jones and The 1619 Project - BayStateBanner

DYLAN MABE| Staunton

Half of our two-party system is consistently rewarded for running campaigns centered on conspiracy theories and lies. There was no huge satanic cult in the '80s. Obama didnt take your guns, is not a Muslim, and did not become the Antichrist and start the end times or take over the United Nations and bring in a new world order.

Over 80% of adults are vaccinated and nothing bad has happened to them. Common-sense social safety nets like child care and expansion of healthcare benefits have not set us on an irreversible course to become a socialist state any of the times we have done it.

On the flip side, gun violence has risen to unbelievable proportions, to where active shooter threats are becoming a staple of the grade school experiences. Trump and a sizable share of Republicans in the House and Senate participated in a bloody coup attempt to stay in power. While doing that, the Republican Party has taken it upon themselves to spread misinformation about a lifesaving vaccine, as well as completely block any healthcare expansions, during a global pandemic simply for political gain.

How long are we going to continue to fall for this stuff? How long until it results in irrefutable damage to our democracy? How long can we go on with half of our government having openly attempted to overthrow an election?

This year, in Virginia, we went from expanding Medicaid, legalizing marijuana, raising the minimum wage and passing the ERA to electing a Republican who ran on anti-vaccine/mask mandates and allowing schools to not include slavery and civil rights in their curriculum properly. There is nothing there to help the people.We cannot keep destroying every speck of progress by allowing Republicans to keep courting extremism and still win elections.

DYLAN MABE

Staunton

Link:

Staunton citizen says Republicans have spread lies that are hurting our country: Letter - The News Leader

The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland, by Mark Kruger. 330 pages. October 2021. ISBN: 978-1-4962-2813-0

One of the most revolutionary events in American history is also one of the least known: In July 1877, the working class in St. Louis launched a general strike and seized power in the city, establishing a short-lived proletarian dictatorship. Led by the Workingmens Party of the United States (WP), a descendant of the First International, St. Louis workers elected an Executive Committee to direct the functions of government and oversee the economy for a brief day or two until the leadership vacillated and caved in the face of capitalist repression.

The St. Louis Commune of 1877 formed the revolutionary center of gravity of the spontaneous Great Railroad Strike, which started at the beginning of July and ended in September 1877. Ruthless wage cuts, unsafe working conditions, and unprecedented inequality triggered the uprising, which swept across the United States, coast to coast. Its scope and spontaneity rocked the very foundations of capitalist rule and ushered in a new epoch, with the working class stepping forward as a powerful force.

This rich history is found in a new book on the subject, The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland, written by Mark Kruger, a retired professor who lives in the city. Krugers book is valuable. Little has been written on the St. Louis Commune since David Burbanks Reign of the Rabble, published in 1966, a meticulous blow-by-blow narrative. The entire strike wave was covered by Robert Bruce in 1877: Year of Violence (1959) and Philip Foner in The Great Labor Uprising of 1877 (1977).

Krugers book is a rebuke against the most basic lie of American history: that there has been no class struggle or socialism in the United States. Just one decade after the Civil War, socialism found fertile soil in America as workers were thrown into massive, and often bloody, struggle against the capitalists. The American working class, though ethnically and racially diverse, bitterly fought to raise its living standards, and for basic workplace rights, against the bourgeoisie.

But the Commune cannot be entirely understood separated from the international influence of socialism and the revolutionary uprisings of the mid-19th century. Krugers success is placing it within this broader context: the 1848 revolutions in Europe, the First International and the Paris Commune, all of which had profound influence on American politics and society.

Krugers book has valuable lessons. It should find a working class audience at a time when socialisms popularity is on the rise, capitalism is increasingly becoming a dirty word, and with the first strike wave in decades gathering force, uncorked by the COVID pandemic and the ruling classs criminal profit-over-lives policy which has killed over 800,000 people in the United States and millions across the world.

Out of the destruction of chattel slavery in the Civil War a new era emerged. Kruger sets the stage with discussion of the trends of industrial development and its depressions, the poverty and oppression of the working class, the vileness and corruption of the rich, and the growth of the massive railroad industry.

American capitalism entered into unprecedented expansion. Between 1865 and 1873, industrial production grew by more than 75 percent. The railroad industry would lead the way, linking city and country together, birthing andin objective termsuniting a restive working class.

All the growth was not the work of the invisible hand of the market. The government offered lucrative public land grants, contracts and subsidies, passing the Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1863. With government largesse the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869. And with the anti-competitive fostering of state and federal government, the Pennsylvania Railroad would grow into the largest corporation in the world, Kruger writes.

St. Louis, like many other cities, grew by leaps and bounds. Situated at the westernmost industrial portion of the country, St. Louis marquee location made it a potential gatekeeper for westward expansion. Vast sums of capital fed into the city in an effort to propel St. Louis to first place in a no-holds-barred race over competitors such as Chicago. John OFallon and James Lucas, two of the citys richest capitalists, rushed to finance the Iron Mountain Railroad and adjacent industries such as passenger and railroad car manufacture, meatpacking and coal production. Notorious Robber Barons such as Jay Gould gobbled up railroad market share. Profits grew to stratospheric levels.

In the period known as the Gilded Agea double entendre coined by Mark Twain the bourgeoisie shamelessly pursued wealth and self-aggrandizement, flaunting status symbols. Kruger gives the example of William Vanderbilt, son of Cornelius, the tycoon of the New York Central Railway, who constructed a mansion in Midtown Manhattan mimicking the French Renaissance chateau. Its walls were decked out in Renaissance Italian tapestries depicting scenes from classical Greek and Roman mythology. A stained-glass window depicting King Henry VIIIs dtente with Francis I of France underscored the embrace by the emerging financial oligarchy in America of the blood-soaked, filthy-rich monarchies in Europe.

But this orgy of wealth was rudely interrupted by crises. In 1873, a global financial meltdown shocked the United States, and then the world, sending over half of railroad companies into receivership by 1876. Railroad stocks fell 60 percent. The depression lasted through the remainder of the decade, immiserating society and sharpening working class anger.

The considerable strength of Krugers book is his careful attention to international influences on American workers. The American working class, Kruger shows, has always been highly international.

An enormous share of the working class was comprised of first- or second-generation immigrants. Among them were thousands of radical German workers, many of them political refugees from the 1848 revolutions in Europe. They contributed a powerful and healthy impulse to American politics. Kruger shows that these immigrants contributed decisively to the victory of the Union in Missouri during the Civil Warthe Germans were overwhelmingly hostile to slaveryand he argues that these political exiles were indispensable to the general strike and Commune, providing the philosophy and leadership.

Sixty-three thousand Germans immigrated to the US in 1848, increasing to about 230,000 within six years. In St. Louis, one-third of the population had been born in Germany and the adult population consisted of 77 percent immigrants, mostly from Germany and Ireland. German newspapers proliferated, totaling 80 percent of all foreign-language newspapers by 1880. And St. Louis was not alone. Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati and other major American cities had large German populations.

The most renowned German immigrant in St. Louis was Joseph Weydemeyer, a friend of Marx and the founder of the American Workers League, who became colonel of the Forty-First Missouri Infantry for the Union army in the Civil War. Credited with introducing socialism into the city, Weydemeyer moved to St. Louis in 1861 by suggestion of Friedrich Engels, who thought socialist ideas would resonate in the large German population. He edited a German-language newspaper, Die Neue Zeit, and was elected auditor of St. Louis County, advocating for the eight-hour workday. Weydemeyer died in 1866 in a cholera epidemic.

The banner of scientific socialism then shifted to the American section of a new organization of socialists and militant workers: the International Workingmens Association, or the First International, which had held its first Congress the same year as Weydemeyers death.

Events with the First International in Europe impacted American developments. In 1872 at the Hague Congress of the First International, after the irreparable split between Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on the one side and the anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin on the other, Engels introduced a motion to move the General Council to New York for fear of a Bakuninist coup. Friedrich Sorge, a German immigrant and leader of the German section of the International in New York, took on day-to-day management of the organization.

Saving it from a premature demise would pay historic dividends to the working class movement in the United States.

Kruger writes that at the First Internationals last Congress in 1876, dubbed the Unity Congress, 19 sections formed a new Marxist political party, the Workingmens Party USA. Albert Currlin, a baker and future leader of the Commune, marshalled the St. Louis delegation to this landmark achievement. WP members were elected to office in Chicago, Milwaukee and Cincinnati, publishing 24 newspapers in total.

Despite a short lifespan in the United States, dissolving in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in July 1876, the First International sowed seeds in the young American labor movement. In 1871, it had a total of 19 sections, jumping to 35 by the end of the year. St. Louis had German, English, French and Czech language sections.

According to Kruger, the First International was the first time workers had organized on an international scale, disseminating radical ideas and spearheading the international fight for the eight-hour workday. The American branch, an eclectic mix of Marxists, anarchists, reformists and followers of Ferdinand Lassalle, supported strikes of over 100,000 workers in 32 different trades across the East and Midwest.

The Paris Commune, another seminal episode inspiring the international working class, germinated radical ideas among American workers. The First International, which had 17 members elected to the leadership of the Commune on March 28, 1871, brought this experience into its cadre and the international working class, notably in Marxs incisive pamphlet, The Civil War in France, which saw several editions within the first year and was translated into many different languages. Communist workers and members of the International supported the Commune and played an active role in its consummation, manning the barricades against the French army and the butcher Adolphe Thierswho would murder over 20,000 Parisians.

The Paris Commune also terrorized the American capitalists, sending them into panic and bloodlust. The pro-Democratic Party New York Herald ranted, Make Paris a heap of ruins if necessary, let its streets be made to run rivers of blood, let all within it perish, but let the government maintain its authority and demonstrate its power. In similar news articles and political speeches across the country, the American ruling class let workers know that it fully embraced Thiers methods.

The last chapters bring together these strands in 1877 St. Louis, where what started as a labor dispute against wage cuts and unsafe conditions transformed into a revolutionary uprising of the working class. In the authors words, the strike that began over bread-and-butter issues expanded its focus and took on the elements of class warfare.

American railroad magnates in May and June 1877 simultaneously slashed wages for the second or third time since the start of the depressionwage reductions totaling as much as 50 percentdespite raking in large profits and divvying up huge salary increases among managers and shareholders.

Railroad workers refused to be beaten into poverty. The Great Railroad Strike erupted in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland, on July 16. Alternatively called the Great Uprising, it still stands out for its spontaneity, massive scope and ferocious working class solidarity.

The strike snowballed, seemingly of its own volition. In Baltimore, box makers, can makers and sawyers joined the strike, demanding their own wage increases. Miners and boatmen stopped trains in West Virginia, unemployed workers snubbed overtures to scab, and railroad property such as the B&O fell into the hands of workers. Coal miners joined in Pennsylvania. The strike swept north and south, east and west, reaching as far as California. Massive eruptions took place in West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri. Kruger says by July 22, over 1 million workers went on strike.

Caught off guard at first, governors rushed to dispatch militias to decapitate the growing movement, but some refused to fire on their class brothers or were overpowered by the sheer number and willpower of the masses. President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in 3,000 federal troops to various locations. Violence rocked Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, Buffalo and Scranton, Pennsylvania. Hundreds were killed and wounded.

The bourgeois press smeared the workers as blood-thirsty communists, Ill-dressed, evil-looking, hard-featured, beetle-browed, grimy unkempt menscowling faces. And it warned that in St. Louis, a branch [the WPUSA] of the [Paris] Communeconspires for the overthrow of the Governments of the world.

The Workingmens Party, itself blindsided, had to catch up with events, throwing its weight behind the movement. On July 22, Philip Van Patten, the WP Corresponding Secretary, called on all sections of the party to support the strike, advocating demands such as an eight-hour day and nationalization of the railroad and telegraph industries.

It would be in St. Louis, however, where the 1,000-member-strong WP played the most consequential factor, as Krugers work shows.

The WP hurried to organize meetings to win over the movement and give it direction. At one meeting, Peter Lofgreen, financial secretary of the WPs English-speaking section, Albert Currlin, and Henry F. Allen, a utopian socialist and sign painter by trade, all members of the Executive Committee of the WP, demanded a return to the 1873 pay scale, amounting to a 50 percent raise, as well as nationalization.

On Monday, July 23, the WP called another mass meeting, bolstering its leadership credentials of the strike and steering the discussion to the crux of the problem, the capitalist system. Setting up three speakers stands so the enormous crowd could hear, WP members and workers called for revolution. Lofgreen asked, Why should we allow ourselves to be trodden upon by a few monopolists, who having the reins of government in their hands, are using the organized assassins to crush us? Cheers exploded.

The crowd roared when another speaker had said that the working class was taxed to sustain a standing army to be used to repel invasions by foreign powers, but the army is now used as a tool to oppress and slaughter innocent men, women, and children. Another decried, Why this state of things? Because its so, according to the law. Well, if thats law, then dn the law. [Prolonged cheers]. If that is the rule that governs society, then the sooner it is broken, the better.

Meanwhile the citys elite and two former Union and Confederate generals organized the Committee of Public Safety, whose new purpose was to put the working class under the jackboot of the bourgeoisie. Federal forces entered the city bringing manpower, arms and ammunition. A bloodbath was being prepared.

The high-water mark of the strike wave was Wednesday, July 25. The very next day the steam had dissipated. The Commune fell without much of a fight. Its leadership was rounded up and sent to jail in St. Louis and East St. Louis, located across the Mississippi River in Illinois. By Sunday, July 29, the ruling class regained the city. After the Communes fall, the citys elite created the Veiled Prophet organization, staging yearly parades celebrating the victory over the strike.

Kruger is somewhat speculative about the reasons for the St. Louis Communes defeat. The bulk of his analysis seems to imply that it was owed to a lack of decisiveness in the leadership, which never really attempted to conquer power. He also refers to the exploitation of racial and ethnic tensions among black, native white, German and Irish workers.

Though race and nationality divided the population, this was partly overcome during the strike, in opposition to the racist attitudes of some leaders such as Currlin. For instance, the Executive Committee of the WPUSA with several hundred multi-racial, multi-ethnic strikers and supporters, demanded that wages of boatmen, all of whom were black, be raised by 50 percent, the same amount railroad workers demanded. Black and white workers, armed with clubs, encouraged workers to join the strike, shutting down several workplaces. At one mass meeting a black worker asked the crowd whether or not white workers stand with him: the crowed responded, We will!

In hindsight, it seems too much to have asked of history that there should have been a successful proletarian revolution in the US in 1877. The class struggle was new and powerful, but workers had accumulated little experience. Across the country, powerful strikes erupted without political leadership. In this sense, the success or failure of the St. Louis Commune can be attributed above all to the insufficient political consciousness of the working class on a national scale, even though in St. Louis the WP attempted to elevate this consciousness and reveal the necessity in seizing political power from the capitalist class. Though St. Louis was an important city, it was by no means comparable to the role of Paris in French national life.

What is astonishing is how far things went in 1877, especially in St. Louis. At its conclusion, none of the demands that workers had been fighting for were met, but the revolutionary potential of the American working class, though immature in its theoretical and organizational development, was in perfect display.

Over 140 years have passed since the events of 1877, but the experience still holds crucial lessons for the working class today as it confronts a capitalist system in terminal decline. It is imperative that before the next revolutionary outbreak happens, which will be international in scale, that its lessons are assimilated. The events of 1877, and the St. Louis Commune, show the enormous industrial power of the working class. But they also reveal the decisive nature of prepared revolutionary leadership, the necessity of raising the political consciousness of workers against the false promises of the ruling class, and the need for class unity in opposition to all efforts to divide workers along racial and ethnic lines.

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Book Review: The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland by Mark Kruger - WSWS

With only a year to go, the soccer World Cup 2022 is just around the corner; fans are already ordering their official jerseys and looking for a flight to support their favorite team in Qatar. Twenty-year-old Ghal Singh Rai is also getting ready for this worldwide event; to make sure the stadiums and roads are ready to receive these fans.

In his home country, Nepal, he paid a recruitment fee of 935 British pounds to secure a job as a cleaner. He said goodbye to his family and arrived in Qatar to find better economic opportunities. A week later, he killed himself.

Since 2010, when Qatar was designated the host of the 2022 World Cup, 6,500 migrant workers have died. Men from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kenya and the Philippines have arrived in the Gulf country in search of economic opportunities. Instead, they are exposed to extreme working conditions that lead to dreadful consequences even death. The true causes of the fatalities however remain uncertain, as Qatars government has failed to examine the victims, leaving their families with an unexplained void in their lives and without the ability to properly grieve. May Romanos, Gulf Researcher at Amnesty International, has been talking to families of workers who unexpectedly passed away.

None of the family members expected they would die, Romanos said. They are aware of the conditions which loved ones are working under, but their deaths are unexpected.

According to an investigation done by The Guardian, data from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal revealed that 5,927 migrant workers have died in Qatar, and Pakistans embassy reported 824 deaths. Numbers from Kenya and the Philippines remain unknown.

According to the Qatar 2022 Official website, approximately 1.5 million people are expected to travel to Qatar to support one of the 32 qualified soccer teams during the 2022 World Cup, which will take place from Nov. 21-Dec 18. The government has enlisted migrant workers to build seven stadiums, an airport, roads, a public transport system, hotels, and a new city for the final. While the Fdration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the host of the World Cup, has paid English football player David Beckham 150 million to become the face of the event, the two million migrants who have been working in Qatar for the past 11 years have been living paycheck-to-paycheck, with the uncertainty of a tomorrow.

The truth of the working conditions in Qatar

Mohammad Shahid Miah left Bangladesh in 2017, after paying an agency more than 3,500 in recruitment fees to secure a job in Qatar. One night, as rain entered his home, exposed cables came into contact with the downpour. Mohammad was electrocuted to death. The still pending debts of the recruitment fees have now passed to his parents, who still await compensation from the Qatari government.

Migrant workers are given dirty, cramped and sometimes illegal accommodations. Amnesty International claims to have witnessed workers sleeping in bunk beds in rooms of eight or more; Qatari law allows a maximum of four beds per room, prohibits sharing a bed or the use of bunk beds. Romanos said that these accommodations are often called villas, " but she claims they are labor camps, where a kitchen and a toilet are shared among 50 people.

Without safe accommodations to sleep in, workers are exposed non-stop to the natural conditions of Qatar; in summer, temperatures can vary between 35 degrees and 45 degrees Celsius (95 to 113 Fahrenheit). FIFA took these dangerous conditions into account when organizing the World Cup; instead of hosting the event during the usual summer months of June and July, FIFA decided to hold the event during November and December. The workers, however, did not benefit from the same thought process.

Amnesty International claims that sometimes workers have to commute for long hours to get to their workplace and are then forced to work for 14 hours a day, without being paid for the overtime.

Sometimes the precautions to protect the workers are not there, Romanos said. That is leading to an increased number of young people dying from unknown reasons.

Workers sometimes die after suffering a cardiac or respiratory deficiency. Barun Ghimire, a human-rights lawyer from Nepal, noted that workers leave their home country healthy, and, a week after working in Qatar, die of what the government of Qatar titles, natural causes.

Its questionable because you send a healthy, young population to work abroad, and theyre dying, Ghimire said.

Even as migrant workers struggle to survive, huge debts keep them motivated to carry on. To secure a job in Qatar, the workers must pay a fee; fees range between $500USD up to $4,300USD. Burning their savings and leaving their country in debt is not a concern, as they believe they will be landing in a well-paid job. However, a report released by Amnesty International stated that these workers are promised a job that will pay around $300USD a month, but later find out this isnt the case; the average monthly salary of men who work for the Khalifa stadium is $220USD.

Even the reduced salary comes with complications: a report released by Business and Human Rights Resource reported that in 71% of the cases, workers claimed to have unpaid or delayed wages. This has affected 12,000 workers since 2016. Romanos said that the workers are aware they cant lose their job, leaving them vulnerable in front of their employers.

You come in a weak position to negotiate because you have loans to pay back home and a family that relies on you, Romanos said.

The workers home countries: economic deterioration and social pressure

The question remains: why do migrant workers, who have witnessed how people from their own countries are being treated, or see that they do not return at all, still decide to travel to the Gulf country in the hopes of economic opportunity?

In Bangladesh, the amount of labor available far exceeds the number of available jobs, leaving a big part of society unemployed. A report released by the International Labor Organization claimed that the unemployment rate reached 5.3% in 2020. Mohammad Jalal Uddin Sikder, Associate Professor and a member of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit at the Daffodil International University in Bangladesh, believes that the government encourages workers to go abroad to reduce unemployment figures.

They want to ensure the quantity of people they send, ignoring the quality of the conditions, Uddin Sikder said.

This all works to the advantage of the receiving countries. They know that, in many cases, employment in their country is the workers only option if they want to receive a paycheck at the end of the month.

That is why you are seeing that people are being exploited in Qatar or Dubai, Uddin said. They are picking up on the weakness.

In Nepal, the workers who decide to migrate come from economically vulnerable families and dont have the opportunity to sustain themselves in their home countries. In addition to this, Ghimire believes that social pressure plays a big role in why Nepalese workers migrate abroad. Even though they are aware that they might not find jobs in the host country, Ghimire believes that the social dynamics weigh heavier.

What workers see is the potential of financial growth and what they can bring from the destination country, which often outweighs what they can make in their home country, Ghimire said.

Beyond social and economic pressures, the fact is they are often unaware of the conditions they will be exposed to. In most of the countries from which these workers emigrate, there is mandatory training to ensure they learn about what jobs theyll be working on and the natural and cultural conditions of the receiving country, among other things. However, Ghimire claims that many Nepalese workers do not attend.

As an immigration lawyer, this is something that Ghimire is fighting for: he wants to give workers enough tools to defend themselves abroad if needed. He claims that the changes must begin within their own country and that Nepal should review its policies to ensure the workers are safe in the destination country.

Were not trying to influence what happens in Qatar, Ghimire said. Were trying to address the problematic aspect and try to empower migrant workers in a way that they could file a claim or be aware about the situation.

Training is not respected in Bangladesh either. Uddin Sikder said that the course provided by the government is false, as classes are given in a generic way, instead of in a personalized way, where each worker could learn about the work and country theyre going to be exposed to.

Uddin Sikder has also stated that, before leaving the country, each worker must sign an agreement which states the conditions of their employment. However, the information is written in a language that is not understood by the worker, without providing the option for translation.

Romanos claims that the abuse starts in the sending country, but is continued and intensified by the receiving country, where laws in place promote the term used by experts: Modern Slavery.

Qatars policies and institutions: The responsible for Modern Slavery

In Qatar, and other Gulf countries, including Jordan and Lebanon, there is a system called Kafala, which defines the relationship between the workers and their employers. With this system in place, employers, also called kafeel, have full control over their employees, by confiscating their passports and not allowing them to change jobs if they want. They are also responsible for issuing their work or residence permit, and if they fail to do so, the worker remains undocumented. If the employee leaves the workspace without the employers permission, they risk losing their legal status and potentially, face jail time or deportation. In addition, the workers are not included under labor law and dont have a standard contract. This system, together with the excessive fees and the unsuitable living conditions, is the definition of what experts consider Modern Slavery.

Since 2010, human-rights groups have pressured Qatar to change its system. With only a year until the start of the event, the government has been denying the numbers; they only link 37 deaths to World Cup preparation, and 34 of those cases are considered non-work-related.

But its not all bad news. Qatar has been making significant progress since 2017; in 2021, the government signed an agreement with the UN International Labor Organization (ILO) to tackle labor exploitation. The minimum wage is higher: before it was 750 QAR ($205USD), now it is 1,000 QAR ($274USD).

In 2018, Qatar also ended the need for an exit permit, meaning that workers can now leave the country without their employers permission, and in 2020, it ended the No-Objection Certificate requirement, allowing workers to change their jobs at will.

Unfortunately, these changes do not always trickle down: the abuse continues. Migrant workers still depend on their employers for their residency or work permits, and even though Qatar has introduced laws that set stricter penalties on employers who do not pay salaries on time, Human Rights Watch released a report showing that employers are not being monitored and that low salaries and delayed payments still occur, especially with the appearance of the pandemic. Passport confiscation, high recruitment fees and confusing recruitment practices have not been modified, and in some cases, undermine reforms done to the kafala system.

The employer takes their passport with the excuse of doing the residence permits, but they never return it, Romanos said. That makes their ability to leave the country even more difficult.

Even though there have been changes in the law, the government has still to enforce these practices.

And until these changes are enforced, the workers will continue to be deprived of their freedom, and every day abroad will be a day where their families remain fearful.

Romanos said that the responsibility lies in all involved actors: the sending countries, FIFA and the Qatari government. She claimed that the past 10 years have been useful to put Qatar on the spot to provoke changes on the system, but that these remaining 12 months are crucial as, even after the World Cup ends, Qatar will remain the home of 80 thousand migrant workers.

We talked to the wife of a worker who unexpectedly passed away in Qatar, and she claimed her husband had been sounding okay the previous days, Romanos said. They were talking on the phone one night and the next morning he didnt wake up.

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World Cup 2022: Behind the ball Annenberg Media - uscannenbergmedia.com