Monthly Archives: April 2022

Review of Grand Army of Labor: Workers, Veterans, and the Meaning of the Civil War, by Matthew E. Stanley (University of Illinois Press, 2021)

How should we remember the Civil War? For many liberals today, the story is one of the North winning the war but losing the peace, acquiescing to a sectional reconciliation that left white supremacy intact. Racism won out, plain and simple.

But this is only part of the story. The precipitous decline in union membership, labor militancy in the workplace, and Marxist scholars in academia have conspired to obscure what historian Matthew Stanley brings to light in his recent book: that the Civil War, for black and white workers alike, was an enduring touchstone for popular struggles from Reconstruction to the New Deal, shaping class consciousness in the process.

Grand Army of Labor:Workers, Veterans, and the Meaning of the Civil War shows how industrial workers, farmers, and radicals deployed an antislavery vernacular in their struggles against Gilded Age and Progressive Era capitalism. They cast themselves as the natural torchbearers of the antebellum free labor ideal, which, they argued, targeted not only chattel slavery, but wage labor heralding what Karl Marx envisioned as a new era of the emancipation of labor.

Stanley details the collective construction of a red Civil War, built by radical workers in countless trade union halls, workshop floors, and third-party soapboxes. In this crimson-hued vision, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln featured as paragons of abolitionism, the vanguard of W.E.B. Du Boiss abolition-democracy. And although the Union Army had crushed the landed aristocracy of the Slave Power, capitalist expansion had bred new monied interests and created new forms of corporate dominance. That despotism called for a new generation of emancipators.

The Knights of Labor a trade union federation founded in 1869 that reached a peak of 800,000 members in the mid-1880s was one prominent organization that brandished Civil War language to fight wage slavery. War gave one kind of master for another, one Knight explained at a Blue and Gray Association meeting in 1886, and wealth once owned by the masters of the South has been transferred to the monopolists of the North and multiplied a hundred-fold in power, and is now enslaving more than the war liberated. The Knights advocated a class-based, cross-racial alliance to wage this next stage of the war for emancipation. They proved remarkably adept at organizing black southerners and convincing their white counterparts of the necessity of it.

In the 1880s and 1890s, agrarian reform parties such as the Greenbackers and Populists mobilized producers across sectional and racial lines. Veterans were central to these campaigns. But the Blue-Gray collaborations in the Populist Party evoked something far different than the white nationalist reunions of the day that often went by the same bichromatic name; devoted instead to causes not yet won, as Stanley argues, the radical worker-veterans and their comrades used the words and wounds of war to envision a left alternative of the producing class liberated from the yoke of economic bondage.

Fittingly, as the Populists spoke in neoabolitionist dialect, their opponents recycled old slurs once hurled at their antebellum forebears. Denounced as Jacobins, socialists, and communists, many Populists at least for a time reveled in bridging wartime divides along class lines as their antagonists waved the bloody shirt or wept over the Lost Cause. Populists harnessed Civil War memory for a very different sort of commemoration, a reconciliation predicated on mutual opposition to elites, to the conditions of industrial capitalism, or to the economic system altogether.

While the Populist movement died out by the mid-1890s, the antislavery vocabulary endured in other class-based projects. The American Socialist Party, founded in 1901, relied heavily on the antislavery vernacular. Socialists frequently spoke of class struggle as an irrepressible conflict and an impending crisis. The Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs cultivated a self-image as a second Great Emancipator, a Midwestern radical vowing to organize the slaves of capital to vote their own emancipation. He asked, Who shall be the John Brown of Wage-Slavery? and answered elsewhere: The Socialist Party.

But as Stanley shows, the radical lefts appropriation of Civil War iconography didnt go unchallenged. The federal governments repression of labor radicalism and left-wing politics during and after World War I elevated a reformist current of Civil War memory over the revolutionary one. The reformist narrative prized social order, legalism, and loyalty to the state wresting the image of Lincoln from the reds and draping him in patriotic cloth.

The American Federation of Labor (AFL) played a leading role in repurposing Lincoln. Stanley writes that the AFLs conservative president, Samuel Gompers, envisaged the Civil War not as an inclusive stage of impending proletariat revolution but as a nostalgic event of national trial, rejuvenation, and harmony. To Gompers, this meant not only a balance between labor and capital but, just as importantly, between white workers emphasis on white of all regions of the country. The craft unionism that he espoused excluded black workers en masse.

Gone was the Lincoln who challenged the rights of property on a mass scale with uncompensated wartime confiscation; the AFLs Lincoln stood for conciliation, compromise, and healing. The antislavery vernacular suffered a similar deradicalization. Emancipation now signaled a break from partisanship and labor militancy, an incremental process of reform within capitalism guided by conservative labor leadership. Perhaps most perversely, Lincoln was cast as the great emancipator of white laborers, with antislavery rhetoric retooled to accommodate segregation in the workplace.

In short, the loyalty politics of the AFL economic, patriotic, and racial assimilated organized labor into the US body politic on conservative terms.

A counter-memory of the radical Civil War lived on.

In the 1930s, the red Civil War flourished in Communist Party organizing, particularly with black southerners, who were seen as naturally hostile to the white ruling class. When Black Communists Hosea Hudson and Angelo Herndon likened their organizing efforts to a restored abolitionism that might finish the job of freeing the Negroes, white comrades agreed, Stanley writes. When James S. Allen, a Marxist historian of Reconstruction and editor of the Communist Partys newspaper the Southern Worker, penned a defense of the Scottsboro Boys, it represented to many Southern whites a reconstituted carpetbagger threat. Allen himself saw the Communist Party as a means by which to complete the unfinished tasks of revolutionary Reconstruction.

The Cold War ultimately decimated the labor left and with it the anti-capitalist and anti-racist revolutionary exemplar of the Civil War. But Stanleys exhaustively researched and illuminating study reveals just how durable the cultural counterinsurgency of Civil War memory has been. As thousands of labor activists and organizers had long insisted, and as too many Americans have long since forgotten, the struggle of the 1860s was never just a national one or a racial one but one about liberation from all manners of despotism. It was a blow to white supremacy that heralded a broader emancipation a more devastating blow to the rule of property.

For todays socialists, the history of the American Civil War can again be plumbed for inspiration in fashioning an anti-capitalist, anti-racist politics and a radical vernacular for solidarity and revolutionary transformation. The red Civil War is ours for the taking.

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The Abolitionist Legacy of the Civil War Belongs to the Left - Jacobin magazine

PALM BEACH Calls for solidarity echoed through Palm Beach and downtown West Palm Beach on Saturday afternoon as about 400farmworkers and supporters marched to call attention to what they say are unfair and exploitative working conditions perpetuated by Wendy's.

The five-mile March to End Modern Slavery in the Fields" kicked off Saturday at about 1:15 p.m. as farmworkers withthe Coalition of Immokalee Workerscalled on the fast-food restaurant chain to join the Fair Food Program.

The program targets assault, verbal and physical abuse, wage theft and the mistreatment of farm workers nationwide.

"It's about justice," Toms Terraza, a 43-year-oldfarmworker who livesnear Homestead, said in Spanish. "We're fighting for our basic rights in the fields, inconstruction, in roofing and in many different job fields."

Terraza said all workers need access to legal resources if their rights are violated at work. Hot weather, inadequate access to clean drinking water and few rest periods make farm work dangerous, he said.

The march targeted Wendy's Board Chairman Nelson Peltz, who lives in Palm Beach. Organizers said they hope toput pressure on Wendy's top decision-maker to start conversations on their concerns about working conditions.

As the United States gets warmer, outdoor workers and farmworkers are at increased risk for heat-related injuries and death.

Though heat-related injuries are hard to track and likely undercounted, excessive heat seriously injured nearly 70,000 U.S. workers and killed 783 peoplebetween 1992 and 2016, per federal data gatheredby the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, PBS News Hour reported last August.

"They must listen to us,"Terraza said of Wendy's and other food companies. "They have to recognize and uphold human rights."

Agriculture in Palm Beach County: Opinion | End the injustice of sugarcane burning

More: 'Almost impossible': Food banks struggle to feed needy as pandemic keeps volunteers away

Lack of care and resources for workers tasked with harvesting the nation's food leads to exploitation, organizer Gerardo Rayes-Chvez said.

"Since I was a kid I've been working in the fields," Rayes-Chvez said of his 14 seasons picking oranges, tomatoes and watermelon. "Now I'morganizing people in the fields ... the dignity of workers is at stake here."

The Fair Food Program is an antidote to exploitation, according to Reyes-Chvez.

McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Yum! Brandsand Chipotle, as well as major grocers and food service companies such as Whole Foods, Walmart, Aramark and Compass, have joined the Fair Food Program,the coalition said.

Saturday's march garnered support from farmworkers around Florida and as far away as Minnesota and Vermont. Attendees wore T-shirts that identified them with worker's groups that read "We Count!" and "Justice for Farmworkers," and "Worker Power. Tenant Power. People Power."

Poetry, music, call-and-response, and a theatre-like performance called on marchers to demand change from U.S.-based fast food and chain restaurants.

In the case of Wendy's, aspokeswomantold the Palm Beach Daily News and Palm Beach Post on Thursday that the company sourcesfood such as tomatoes"exclusively from indoor, hydroponic greenhouse farms," while the Fair Food Program operates in outdoortomato growing and harvesting environments.

"The idea that joining the Fair Food Program, and purchasing field-grown, commodity tomatoes, is the only way that Wendys can demonstrate responsibility in our supply chain is not true," spokeswomanHeidiSchauer wrote in a statement to the newspapers.

The organization saidKerry Kennedy, an attorney who is the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy, andArchbishop of Miami Thomas Wenski participated in the march.

Other members of the South Florida faith community supported the mission Saturday.

Kim Roblez, the 40-year-old pastor of Miami Shores Presbyterian Church, brought a group of congregants to the march to show solidarity with farmworkers.

"We're coming because we believe that Jesus was one that always stood with the oppressed and marginalized and it's our call to do the same," she said. "I would like to see the entire industry change so we don't have any more abuses in the fields."

Speakers and poets at Saturday's rally shared testimonials from farmworkers that included people being injured on the job, not having access to clean water to drink while working, and being sexually harassed and at times assaulted while working on farms.

Rayes-Chvez, who lives in Immokalee, said the Fair Food Program allows workers the right to complain about working conditions without fear of retaliation, the right to be parts of health and safety committees and frequent assessments of working conditions.

"We need to work free of abuses that include modern-day slavery. That is a serial killer as well as sexual assault and child labor. We need zero tolerance," he said.

The 2016 march generated controversy because of geographiclimits Palm Beachhadset on the march. In the end, about 500 people protested through town streets on March 12, 2016, and the town later paid more than $160,000 in attorneys' fees and costs after a federal lawsuit filed by the march organizers.

kkokal@pbpost.com

@katikokal

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Farmworkers protest for end to 'slavery in the fields,' target Wendy's chairman - Palm Beach Post

SLAVERY is an abomination; it never should be or should have been tolerated. I can guarantee you that nobody in my family as far back in the generations I can trace ever owned a slave or a plantation. My ancestors who had gainful employment didnt have philanthropic employers and were paid as little as the Establishment thought they could get away with. It is a fallacy to suggest that society in general profited from historical slavery, it was the few in the Establishment who did so and to suggest that the common man in the UK profited from it is farcical.

When the UK is still struggling to right the wrongs done to the Windrush Generation its ridiculous that its in vogue to apologise for the actions of a few long-dead capitalists who were handsomely rewarded firstly for being involved in the slave trade and then again from the public purse when the practice was outlawed. The fact that today we have a Government-mandated minimum wage that is recognised to be less than the living wage shows that the Establishments attitude towards the workforce hasnt changed dramatically. Dare I mention P&O?

Why todays politicians and activists feel the need to apologise for the actions of a few individuals who profited from slavery beats me, as it does nothing for those who were adversely affected by the practice and the descendants of those who profited from the trade carry on regardless. What about all the Scots who were forced off the land and made to emigrate; does that not warrant a few statues being tumbled?

David J Crawford, Glasgow.

FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE BANKS

I ENVY Rosemary Goring ("The customer is no longer king. The customer is now always on hold", The Herald, March 30). At least she can vent her anger and frustration in a column in a national newspaper. Her bank will continue to treat her like dirt, as all our banks treat us all, but at least shes got it off her chest. The rest of us suffer the same contempt and indifference with no steam valves available. My own bank used to be Scottish, venerable and customer-friendly. Now it has changed its name to a tabloid jingle and seems to think I should be more interested in getting cash back if I spend money in the fawning retail outlets it has signed up than actually having someone to talk to when I need it.

Ms Goring captures graphically the telephone misery and will-to-live erosion of trying to phone them. Clicking contact us on their website leads you on a fruitless game trying to dodge their traps to force you down one of their predetermined routes to bland generic nothingness. They never offer even an email address where you can state your issue and wait for an answer. This would waste their time and its far preferable for them to waste yours. Of course they have no trouble issuing emails to you when it suits them. But try replying to their email and you will swiftly be told no one reads such replies and you should go to the website. In my professional life I used to act for a bank. If I had treated it as my client the way it now treats me I would have been rightly and summarily terminated.

We really ought to be able to fight back. Banks are far from the only culprits among the corporate mighty. But lets start with them. Is there any bank out there which promises and achieves instant telephone and email availability the way helpful businesses do? How about a league table putting banks into a pecking order in these respects? I for one would happily switch to the league leader. Right now banks cant contain their indifference to the plight of an individual customer. But if we start to move away in droves?

Donald B Reid, Bearsden.

WHY THE RAGE AGAINST MUIRBURN?

IT was very interesting to read the report on the fire on the island of Gruinard ("Island of Death fire gives native wildlife the chance to regrow", The Herald, March 30). The gist of the report was that a controlled fire would have a beneficial effect on allowing regrowth of native species and hence native fauna. This is in contrast to uncontrolled moorland fires which actually burn the underlying peat and cause a massive release of carbon dioxide and are extremely difficult to extinguish.

I wonder why then there have been several letters to The Herald criticising muirburn on sporting estates? Could it possibly be that they are ignoring the facts and the welfare of native flora and fauna in order to wage war on sporting estates and the rural economy in some ill-conceived attempt to wage a class war?

David Stubley, Prestwick.

KITCHEN SMOKE ALARMS ARE TOAST

RICK Lawrie (Letters, March 31) asks if someone can explain why his old smoke alarm is activated when he burns the toast whilst his new system is not.

Smoke alarms are no longer recommended for use in the kitchen and heat sensors should be used instead. If the new system is, as he says, correctly installed it should include a heat sensor in the kitchen and not a smoke alarm. The new system should reduce if not eliminate false alarms from burnt toast.

David Clark, Tarbolton.

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Letters: Forget the row about slavery: when are we going to see apologies to the Scots who were forced off the land? - HeraldScotland

Low-wage migrant workers have been forced to pay billions of dollars in recruitment fees to secure their jobs in World Cup host nation Qatar over the past decade, a Guardian investigation has found.

Bangladeshi men migrating to Qatar are likely to have paid about $1.5bn (1.14bn) in fees, and possibly as high as $2bn, between 2011 and 2020. Nepali men are estimated to have paid around $320m, and possibly more than $400m, in the four years between mid-2015 to mid-2019.

The total cost incurred by Qatars low-wage migrant workforce is likely to be far higher because workers from other labour-sending countries in south Asia and Africa also pay high fees.

Migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal, who make up around a third of Qatars 2-million strong foreign workforce, typically pay fees of $3,000 to $4,000 and $1,000 to $1,500 respectively. This means that many low-wage workers from Bangladesh who can earn as little as $275 a month have to work for at least a year just to pay off their recruitment fees.

With just months to go until the World Cup kicks off, the findings reveal the scale of exploitation endured by some of the worlds poorest workers, including many who have been employed on World Cup-related construction and hospitality projects.

The figures, which have been calculated by the Guardian and corroborated by a number of labour rights groups, are an estimate based on the prevalence and cost of recruitment fees and related expenses reported by numerous human rights groups and labour experts between 2014 and 2022.

The charging of recruitment fees is illegal in Qatar and beyond a maximum limit in Nepal and Bangladesh, but the practice is widespread and deeply entrenched. It is commonplace in all the Gulf countries. The figures calculated by the Guardian include all fees, including those within the maximum limit.

It takes different forms, but often sees companies or brokers in Qatar and recruitment agents in labour-sending countries colluding to force workers into paying for their own recruitment. The fees are paid to agents in workers home countries before departure.

Workers often have to take out high-interest loans or sell land to afford the fees, leaving them vulnerable to debt bondage a form of modern slavery as they are unable to leave their jobs until the debt has been repaid.

Despite the costs, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi and Nepali workers continue to seek work in the Gulf and beyond each year, largely due to a lack of jobs and low wages at home. Many pay the fees knowing the risks but calculating that it will pay off in the long term.

Their dilemma was plain to see in the departure hall at Kathmandus international airport, where workers made hurried video calls to their families, thick red tikka smeared on their foreheads; a symbol of good wishes from friends.

Im feeling really worried, said one worker, going abroad for the first time. But I have to go. I have money problems.

Another, taking up a construction job in Qatar, waved goodbye to his baby son on his phone. Im so sad to be leaving my children, he said. I paid 150,000 [Nepalese] rupees [NPR] [$1,230]. The agent told me, If you want to go, you have to pay.

The Qatari authorities say they have taken steps to address the problem by opening recruitment centres in eight countries, starting in 2018, where workers must go to complete various administrative tasks and sign their contracts before departure.

While the centres may have reduced the incidence of contract substitution where workers find different terms and conditions in Qatar to what they were promised at home experts said they have done little to curb recruitment fees, because these are paid much earlier in the recruitment process.

A 2021 report on recruitment between Nepal and Qatar led by migrant rights group FairSquare said Qatar has largely seen recruitment and fee payment as an origin state concern, and recruiters have generally been subject to relatively limited regulation.

However, the local organising committee of the World Cup introduced a scheme in 2018 to ensure companies with stadium contracts repay the recruitment fees of their workers, as well as some workers on other projects. Workers are not required to show proof that they have paid fees, which is almost impossible to do given that the practice is illegal. Companies have pledged to repay roughly $28.5m to about 49,000 workers. So far around $22m has been reimbursed.

The number of workers who will benefit, however, is only a tiny fraction of the total in Qatar. In many cases, the repayments only cover part of the recruitment fees, and do not provide any additional compensation or account for the cost of the workers loans.

The Guardian understands the scheme has also not been extended to thousands of workers in the hospitality sector who are playing a direct role in the World Cup. Last year, the Guardian interviewed workers in Fifa-endorsed hotels who said they had paid recruitment fees of up to $2,750.

The supreme committee organising the World Cup said in a statement, We remain committed to delivering the legacy we promised. A legacy that improves lives and lays the foundation for fair, sustainable, and lasting labour reforms.

Narad Nath Bharadwaj, a former Nepal ambassador to Qatar, called the practice a gruesome story, saying more than 90% of workers pay fees.

Payment is illegal and mostly takes place under the table, so the workers have no proof they have paid. But they are unable to get a job if they do not pay 150,000 or 200,000 NPR. For better jobs the rate is higher, he said.

While some workers are recruited for free or minimal cost, the vast majority are forced to pay; often victims of deals between employers and agents in Qatar and a chain of recruiters and brokers in Nepal and Bangladesh.

In some cases, employers or agents in Qatar secure visas to recruit workers and then demand kickbacks of about $300 to $500 for each worker from agents in labour-sending countries in exchange for the visas, the cost of which is passed on to workers.

A report for the Qatar Foundation said: The costs borne by workers are essentially bribes demanded (extorted) by recruitment agents to secure the jobs in Qatar for which they enter into debt with high-interest rates.

Bangladeshi workers, like Aman Ullah, pay by far the highest fees. In 2016, Ullah was charged 360,000 taka ($4,190) for a job in Qatar. He was promised work as a welder on a monthly wage of 2,500 Qatari rial ($686), but on arrival, he was taken out to the desert to work on a farm for 800 rial.

There was no limit to the work, he said. We had no electricity or air-conditioning and were not allowed to leave the compound. His employer would not let him return home until he begged for permission to visit his sick mother. Back in Bangladesh, with nothing to show for his time in Qatar, his debt had ballooned to 800,000 taka forcing him to take out further loans to pay off the original debt.

Even in death, workers are not released from their recruitment debt. Hoping to earn money for his daughters dowry, Mahamad Nadaf Mansur Dhuniya, from Nepal, paid an agent 150,000 NPR for a construction job in Qatar in 2018. He could only afford the fee by taking out a loan with an annual interest rate of 48%. Last year, he was found hanging in his workplace.

His wife, Mairul Khatun, is unsure why he killed himself. I think it may have been the pressure of the loan, his daughters marriage, the need to look after his family, she said, from her home in southern Nepal.

Her hands and feet are smeared in mud from labouring in the nearby fields, for which she earns 300 NPR a day and a few potatoes, which lie on the ground beside her.

She may have lost her husband, but his debt remains. I have a lot of tension now. Before, we sometimes ate meat and milk but weve stopped now. How can we afford these things? Khatun said. I cant sleep at night.

The Qatar government said companies involved in illegal recruitment practices have been severely punished. Twenty four recruitment agencies were recently shut down and had their licences revoked for breaking Qatars laws.

A spokesperson said: There are complex challenges that need to be overcome to protect economic migrants globally, including in Europe. For its part, Qatar is committed to eradicating illegal recruitment practices in its labour market and supporting efforts to tackle abuse and exploitation throughout the global economy.

Dr Ahmed Munirus Saleheen of Bangladeshs ministry of expatriates welfare and overseas employment said: The government of Bangladesh is strongly committed to ensuring safe, orderly, regular and responsible work migration.

He blamed visa trading by middlemen in both the country of origin and destination for the high cost of recruitment and said legal action was immediately taken against recruitment agencies when complaints of unfair recruitment practices were received.

The Nepal government did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at http://www.befrienders.org

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Revealed: migrant workers in Qatar forced to pay billions in recruitment fees - The Guardian

I FIND it difficult to rationalise David Livingstone being included in the report purporting he was an integral figure in Glasgows complicity in Atlantic slavery (City statues singled out for links to slave trade, The Herald, March 29). To imply that as a child labourer from the age of 10 in H Monteiths Blantyre Mill earning money first to support his parental household including seven siblings, and later his medical studies, he was somehow condoning the mill owners partnership with two Glasgow West India merchants is surely stretching into the realms of fantasy.

Furthermore, from study of his diary and other writings it is abundantly clear that he was totally opposed to slavery. For example, in a letter to the editor of the New York Herald he wrote: And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the east coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together. It is also recorded on the legend board on the site of the former slave market site in Zanzibar, The trade in men, women and children was stopped by decree from the Sultan of Zanzibar following the appeal made by Dr David Livingstone in 1857 to the men of the English Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to liberate Africa from slavery.

Finally, the brass plaque on his grave in Westminster Abbey includes reference to his effort to abolish the desolating slave trade of Central Africa. David Livingstones Glasgow statue can rightly be regarded as commemorating his anti-slavery stance.

Jon Cossar, Edinburgh.

* BILL Brown (Letters, March 30) bemoans the invasion of "woke" issues in our daily lives and cites the example of two brave British soldiers and their heroic military achievements, both of whom had historical links with slavery.

He then adds that the British Army's links with the slave trade were rightly ignored and that their heroic deeds could not have been carried through if they had disobeyed orders and dissociated themselves from those "attitudes".

Mr Brown ends with the words "is it fair to punish someone for obeying orders and being like everyone else of that time?"

Very similar words were applied at the time of the Nuremberg trials. The Nazis obeyed orders too.

Kevin Orr, Bishopbriggs.

MASKS ARE FOR GOOD OF SOCIETY

MARK Innes (Letters, March 28) does some very selective quoting. If he thinks "there is no evidence that cloth and surgical masks offer any protection against viruses" then he should ask himself why we see most people wearing them in those cities in Far East countries which have learned to cope with MERS and SARS, and now Covid. These are countries which cumulatively, relative to population size, have done far better than us.

I think he shares a common confusion that the usual face masks work by protecting the wearer directly. I do agree that, if you are indoors in a ward full of Covid sufferers, you will need much stronger and more expensive masks, like a surgeon in an operating theatre. But outside of this, in shops and public transport, the usual masks work well but in a different way. They work by protecting others from the wearer, who may not know he or she is infectious. The difference is that Covid virus that is breathed out wants to hitch a ride on a tiny water droplet or cloud of vapour. The mask interferes with that, and stops it going very far (the details depend on an understanding of fluid mechanics).

Thus we are talking about a public health measure, where we do something to protect others for the good of society, and not thinking only about protecting ourselves. Alas, wearing face masks only works well if almost everyone complies. Thus if most of us stop wearing them then their failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Peter Gray, Aberdeen.

ANDREW AND A MOTHER'S LOVE

I AM sure that most, if not all, were impressed with the Service of Thanksgiving for the Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, particularly with the address by the Right Reverend David Connor, the Dean of Windsor, which was so fitting in content and delivery ("Andrew plays prominent role in memorial service to Prince Philip", The Herald, March 30). What did take most people by some surprise was the high profile of the disgraced Duke of York in escorting the Queen to her place in the Abbey.

The background to his involvement in this way is not known. Did Andrew promote his own significant involvement in this way? Did his mother request his assistance in particular? Whatever the reason, the Queen was openly declaring that, in spite of everything, she still finds time for her son and one is reminded of the words of Washington Irving: "A mothers love endures through all."

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

* RE Denis Bruce's comments on the "streamlined royal family of the future" (Letters, March 29), we are certainly witnessing the end of an era. Even the Commonwealth, so close to the Queens heart, may be on borrowed time. Our colonial past was of its time; we cannot change history.

A streamlined institution under William as king may well fit the bill and, with it, a more modest lifestyle. He and Kate must move with the times, and will, I am sure.

Brian D Henderson, Glasgow.

LODGING, A COMPLAINT

DAVID Miller comments on the 2 a month he was paid as an apprentice accountant in the 1950s (Letters, March 30). In 1955 I applied for a student apprenticeship with a luxury car maker of that time. The wage was 3/15s a month but it was a condition of employment that all students had to stay in the firms hostel for which the charge was 4 a month. On successful completion of the first year, the wage increased to 4/5s a month. I declined the offer.

David Waters, Blackwood.

ALARMING OCCURRENCES

CAN somebody explain to me why my old-style smoke alarms which I retained alongside my new, all-singing, all-dancing and expensive system go off when I burn the toast but the new system does not? It does however spring into action with a dreadful din all over the house when somebody is vaping, which is an apparently harmless pastime.

The system is correctly installed. This is a bit worrying, to say the least.

Rick Lawrie, Aberdour.

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Letters: It is a nonsense to put David Livingstone in the line of fire over slavery links - HeraldScotland

Modern slavery has become a major talking point in recent years.

Many of us are familiar with the statistics: 40.3 million people are a victim of modern slavery, half of which perform forced labour. While not uncontentious, these figures are now well-known thanks to the advocacy of public figures and politicians.

While the abuses described by the term modern slavery do sadly occur, there are reasons to suggest that modern slavery is being weaponised for political purposes.

The big, invisible problem of modern slavery allows the global system of production and its exploitative features to continue relatively unopposed;it is a useful tool in trade warsand it helps to control the borders.

Modern slavery is a non-partisan issue. No one in their right mind is in favour of slavery.

Problematically, modern slavery is ill-defined: it evokes historical slavery and the most shocking kinds of exploitation. Neither of these facts does people being exploited much good.

The term modern slavery describes abuses such as forced marriage, domestic servitude, bonded labour, and other forms of exploitation where labour is performed under the threat of punishment without the possibility for victims to leave the abusive situation.

Modern slavery is obscured from view while simultaneously occurring right under our nose. It taints the products that we all consume every day, while every business is at risk of being linked to modern slavery that occurs deep in their supply chains.

There is truth to all of this. And yet, without trivialising the abuses that people suffer, we should ask why politicians have become so devoted to addressing this elusive problem.

Arguably, modern slavery is hyperbole that shifts the Overton Window.

This term refers to the broadening of public debate: notions that were previously deemed to be radical become more commonly accepted when the Overton Window expands.

Why is this relevant for modern slavery?

Up until a few years ago, few people would have been familiar with modern slavery. In contrast, the existence of sweatshops in developing countries was relatively well-known. Slavery, however, was considered a thing of the past.

Crucially, conditions in sweatshops do not technically constitute modern slavery. People in sweatshops generally do not perform labour under threat and are usually free to leave.

To be clear: people working in sweatshops do have their labour and human rights routinely violated, but they are not commonly subjected to forced labour.

The point is that all the attention for modern slavery detracts from lesser abuses such as long hours, low wages, disregard for health and safety in the workplace, repression of organised labour, and other forms of hardship experienced by workers.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that if fashion brands would have inspected their supply chains looking for modern slavery, they would likely not have prevented the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh in 2013, which killed 1,134 garment workers.

The UK introduced its Modern Slavery Act in 2015and Australia followed in 2018.

The acts require entities meeting a revenue threshold to report on modern slavery risks in operations and supply chains, actions taken to address the risks, and progress being made.

Both the Modern Slavery Act in the UK and in Australia were introduced by conservative governments. This is remarkable for several reasons.

Conservatives have a dislike for red tape, they are not the defenders of the downtroddenand they are typically free marketeers and champions of global trade.

Why would conservatives go against their own ideological agenda? The answer is simple: they are not.

No red tape is created, as there are no sanctions for non-compliance. In the UK, two in five companies are non-compliant. Entities do not regard reporting to be too onerous either, with the average length of statements of ASX200-listed companies being only eight pages.

Conservative governments have also not suddenly become the champions of the working people. In both the UK and Australia, conservative governments suppress wage growth, undermine job securityand agitate against trade unions and their members.

Finally, by producing modern slavery statements, business operations and supply chains arguably become sanitised.

No modern slavery found? Nothing to see here!

I am not, of course, suggesting that modern slavery does not exist, or that businesses should not examine their operations and supply chains to identify labour exploitation.

What I am saying is that there is a significant degree of political opportunism at play.

The attention to the plight of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region in China is an example of this.

While concerns expressed by Western governments about forced labour in Xinjiang are justified, they became especially prominent in the context of the trade war between Western nations and China, while the abuse of Uyghurs has been known for two decades.

A bill proposed in Australia would prohibit the import of goods produced using forced labour. Similar legislation already exists in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Labor has identified 64 goods from 41 countries as being tainted by forced labour.

At present, 62 Withhold Release Orders have been issued for goods from 11 countries, meaning that U.S. customs are holding these goods. 44 of such orders (70 per cent of the orders that have been issued) relate to goods from China.

While China is the workshop of the world, and although concerns about forced labour are legitimate, modern slavery does seem to be used as a tool in the trade war with China.

The UK and Australia are countries where border control is something of a political fetish.

The Australian Border Force (ABF) is responsible for the implementation of the Modern Slavery Act, including offering guidance to reporting entities about compliance, a task that the corporate regulator (ASIC) or the workplace regulator (FWO) would arguably be better at.

On the first day that the Australian borders reopened for international travellers, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) immediately expressed concern that criminals would seek to exploit eased travel restrictions by trafficking people and exploiting them in Australia.

The attention towards human trafficking and modern slavery seems to have a lot to do with deciding who gets to enter and possibly stay in Australia,and under what conditions.

The UK is also a good case in point, where some must wait over 500 days to see whether their claim to be a victim of trafficking or modern slavery is confirmed by authorities, or whether they will be prosecuted for a crime they may have been forced to commit.

The proposed UK Border and Nationality Bill adds insult to injury.

It seeks to introduce deadlines by which modern slavery victims need to come forward to be eligible for supportand it increases the burden of proof against which the claims of abuse will be tested, while limiting the situations in which leave to remain in the UK is granted.

Australia will review its own Modern Slavery Act in 2022. Australians should also be on the lookout for a Draconian border bill, introduced in the name of addressing modern slavery.

Martijn BoersmaisAssociate Professor of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery at the University of Notre Dame Australia.

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Modern slavery shouldn't be weaponised by conservative governments - Independent Australia

The Rev.Jesse Jacksonreturned to Memphis on Monday to markthe54th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther KingJr.'s assassination.

King was killedat the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

Jackson,then a 26-year-old rising figure in the civil rights movement,wasinMemphis with King for the sanitation workers strike and witnessed his assassination that evening on the balcony.

At the time, Jackson was a worker for King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and helped found Operation Breadbasket. He hasdedicated his career to advocating for human rights domestically and abroad.

Jackson has spokenin-depth about the impact the assassination has had on him and the country.

On Monday, Jackson was accompanied by Pastor Peris Lester of Mount Olive Church; Bishop Henry Williamson, presiding prelate of the First Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church; and family friend Joseph Kyles, nephew of legendary civil rights leader the late Rev. Samuel (Billy) Kyles, who was one of the last people to speak with King before he died.

Jackson visited The Commercial Appeal offices around 10 a.m. to share reflections on King's assassination and the sustained fight forvoting rights for Black people, Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court nominationand the role of the press during times of civil unrest.

Jackson emphasized the necessity for nonviolent conflict resolution, addressing current events including the war in Ukraine and the incident involvingChris Rock and Will Smith at the Oscars.

"We have to teach conflict resolution in our schools," he said.

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Jackson also addressed the shooting of unarmed Black men by police and gun violence in communities.

"We must be able todefend ourselves and not be nave about violence," he said. "We mustlearn the skills of deescalating violence. Our children must be able to let their aggression out in organized... ways."

Jackson, who has publicly talked about his battle with Parkinsons disease, was aided by an assistant who was constantly by his side.

At noon, Jackson held a press conference atMt. Olive CME Church in Memphis. He energized the congregationwith a call and response.

"I am somebody. I am somebody. Respect me. Protect me. Keep hope alive," he said.

Anengaged crowd nodded and affirmed aloud:"Stop the violence. Save the children."

Some attendees recalledhow Jackson had touched their lives personally during school visits or marching by their side in protests. One family caught an overnight flight to be in his presence.

During the press conference, he advocated for free higher education, gender wage parity, an increased minimum wage and sustainable work practicesunder capitalism as necessary for the advancement of all people.Heoutlined the main legs of the movement as ending slavery, ending Jim Crow and gaining the right to vote,access to healthcareandaccess to capital. To achieve these, Jackson said, litigation, legislation and education are imperative.

Shelby County Commissioners RegnialdMilton and Eddie Jones and Memphis City Councilmember Cheyenne Johnson also paid their respects to Jackson, thanking him for his work.

Jackson was also scheduled to tour the historicCollins Chapel Connectional Hospital.

Later Monday, Jackson made an appearance on the Lorraine Motel balcony at the National Civil Rights Museum during the museum's commemoration of King. He sat in the front row as about 500 people gathered to honor the slain civil rights leader with music, speeches and a solemn wreath-laying ceremony.

Astrid Kayembe covers South Memphis, Whitehaven and Westwood. She can be reached atastrid.kayembe@commercialappeal.com,(901) 304-7929 or on Twitter @astridkayembe_.

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Jesse Jackson visits Memphis to mark anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death - Commercial Appeal