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Yearly Archives: 2013
A Christmas message to Amazon
You heard about Amazon in an earlier blog (see Amazon undercover). Please sign this petition, which demands the “Living Wage” for Amazon workers. I know the petition describes the “Living Wage” as a living wage, which you may find, as I do, very annoying indeed. But sign the petition anyway – Amazon deserves it. It also deserves to find its warehouses and offices occupied by its own workforce, who, if left to themselves, could run the whole show better than the current owners. But I suspect that’s not going to happen before Christmas!
So SIGN THE PETITION: https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/amazonuk-this-christmas-pay-the-living-wage-across-uk-operations
Immigration, the family & the archbishop
In the UK the right to family life (Art. 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) has been increasingly refused through all sorts of rules and bureaucratic delays, refused even to refugees and other immigrants who have already gone through enough hoops to achieve British nationality status. “You don’t earn enough”, says the Home Office, “so your spouse will be a drain on the state.” “Your wife must do an English course,” it says, “even if she has to travel through dangerous areas of Afghanistan to Kabul for the classes.” “Your wife must go from Afghanistan to Islamabad for an interview,” it says. And on, and on, and on. People wait years for their applications to be processed, and it takes even longer when the UK Border Agency + the Consulate + the private companies (the last, of course, are “our partners”) who are part of the process lose the application, and then have the cheek to ask the applicants to start again.
It looks as if these refusals will be hardening up in future, according to legislation before parliament. One result is that Vincent Nichols, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, has written an article in today’s Guardian criticising the government’s policy on these matters. Before he wrote he did his homework, including talking to many of the victims of the policy. As a result, he says that the regulations now in place are anti-family, unsavoury and a scandal. He asks:
“… is it the government’s intention to penalise British citizens? To undermine marriages and to split up families? Other EU citizens are free to come and live in the UK with spouses from outside the EU. And yet British citizens do not enjoy the same rights. The feeling of being victimised by one’s own government is a bitter pill to swallow.”
Strong words from an Archbishop, and his article should be read in full. As might be expected of an archbishop, he ends with a pious hope: “I hope that parliament, in considering the current immigration bill, will take the opportunity to correct this clear injustice.” Amen to that, Archbishop, although snowflakes’ chances in Hell (if you’ll pardon the expression) do spring to mind.
But to help the process along, let’s all write to our MPs expressing our disgust at the government’s unsavoury, scandalous (and, not least, cruel), policies.
Here’s the archbishop: http://gu.com/p/3y7nx
Here’s some research suggesting that government statistics trying to justify the policy have been – er, well, cooked:
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/07/09/revealed-the-financial-cost-of-theresa-may-s-immigrationl
Right in it with George: making the poor pay
I see George Osborne is preparing to make the poorest people pay even more for the mess capitalism has got us into. He told the Treasury select committee that “many billions” would need to be “shaved” from welfare to avoid deeper cuts in Whitehall.
Many billions? That doesn’t sound like a shave, George. That sounds like a major operation needing a general anaesthetic.
George wants us to know he finds some of these decisions “difficult”. The decisions only seem to be difficult, however, when it comes to cutting the Whitehall bureaucracy. In the case of cutting welfare, he can just go ahead and do it. Not that he mentions the bureaucracy. He indicates that any further cuts in Whitehall would endanger education and science. Well, that’s sliced-bread territory for sure – can’t touch them. So what to do? Let George explain:
“I don’t think all the savings need and should be made within the departments. I think we should make a balanced judgment about where government spends its money and, yes, we have got to make difficult decisions to save money further in Whitehall, but we should accompany that with savings in the welfare budget.”
So what are the results of these “accompanying” savings in welfare? They sound a bit like a piano in the background, soothing, encouraging, comforting. But it’s not quite like that. Just one example will do – and it affects some of George and Dave’s favourite people: the “strivers”, the people who are allegedly happy to work for low pay rather than claim benefits because, again allegedly, “they know it is the right thing to do”. Hidden away in two sentences in Osborne’s autumn statement are £600m worth of cuts to Universal Credit. The Guardian explains that the cut comes
“because Universal Credit work allowances will now be maintained at their current cash level for three years from 2013. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts inflation (CPI) of 8.7% over this period, meaning that the value of universal credit work allowances is set to fall significantly in real terms. During last year’s autumn statement it was announced that most working-age benefits and tax credits were to be uprated by 1% a year for three years from 2013. Taken together, the 1% uprating and the reduction in work allowances mean that by 2017 a single-parent household will be up to £420 per year worse off and a couple with children up to £230 a year worse off.”
No wonder Gavin Kelly of the Resolution Foundation calls it “a real blow to the working poor”. “It’s the sort of stealthy measure”, he says, “that often attracts little attention but still has a real impact.”
“Little attention” was George’s aim, of course when he hid this lot away in two sentences. The question for us all is: should someone as tricky as this be in charge of the public purse? Or, indeed, our welfare?
Some of the detail: see http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/12/osborne-working-families-reduced-allowances-2017
Flora’s story
Those of you who remember Moh (see the Dangerous Detention and Dangerous Job pages here) may be interested to hear about Flora. Flora lives in Hull. Her case is different to Moh’s case because she is not an asylum seeker, and her claim to stay is on other grounds, as I explain below.
What happened
Flora Yennyuy has applied for leave to appeal to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal against the Home Office’s refusal to allow her to remain in the UK. An acquaintance from Cameroon, who is an EU citizen, sent her the names of several universities to apply to in 2006. She came to the UK from Cameroon in 2007 to do a Master’s degree at the University of Hull, and she received her MSc in Environmental Technology in 2010. They later began a relationship in the UK and he supported her application for a work visa based on their relationship. The visa was due to expire in 2016.
However, the relationship broke down after he subjected her to abuse, violence and, finally, sexual assault. He then informed the Home Office that the relationship had broken down and the Home Office revoked her work visa. They did not inform her of this. She went to Germany to visit friends and on her return she was refused entry and placed in Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre. She was released on bail after 5 months, and she had a tribunal hearing in October 2013. The tribunal judge rejected her appeal, saying that she did not believe her claim of domestic violence and that Article 8 (the right to family life) of the human rights legislation was not engaged. If her claim of domestic violence had been accepted she believes she would have been given indefinite leave to remain. She has now made an application for leave to appeal to the Upper Tier of the Tribunal.
Flora’s history in Hull
Flora came to the UK as a student and then to work. She has made herself part of the community in Hull in a number of different ways: she has worked at the Open Doors Project at Princes Avenue Methodist Church since 2008 as a volunteer, where she campaigned in schools together with other volunteers to break the stigma attached to refugees and asylum seekers. She has also worked in Humber All Nations Alliance (HANA), the Mental Health Action Group (MHAG), the Refugee Council, The Haven Project, Positive Assets and Environmail Hull. She has also been an active member in the Catholic Compliancy. In terms of jobs she has worked as a Health Care Assistant under NHS-Hull and HICA, a sales assistant in the British Heart Foundation and as a factory operative at Greencore cake and dessert factory. The relationship she was in broke down through no fault of her own and she should not be punished for it. She wishes to stay and continue building her life in the UK.
Flora’s application is supported by Unite the Union’s community branch in Hull.
Amazon undercover
Just watched Panorama on Amazon’s ultra-exploitative battery-hen type working conditions (and pay scales – the daily rate is £6.50 per hour, the nightly rate £8.25). See the BBC’s webpage report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25034598
In addition to the stress of work patterns, the constant surveillance, the system of disciplinary warnings, intense pressure on how fast you work and the real health issues that arise from this exploitation, there is the fact that profit-rich Amazon has been given millions in taxpayers’ money as an incentive to set up warehouses in Wales, Scotland and elsewhere. So the state uses public money as a bribe to big business but withdraws public money (in the shape of benefits) from individuals in order to force them into low-paid, temporary, health-threatening jobs at places like – well, yes – Amazon.
What can be done? The GMB was mentioned in the programme but I’m not sure that the union has members there. Individuals, of course, could withdraw their custom or other kinds of involvement (I have published a book in the Kindle store, for example, and could withdraw it). But individual action (though it makes you feel better) feels like a long route to nowhere. At the end of the day union organisation and action is the answer. I can’t apply for a job myself – I’m 71, and the young man who did the undercover job for Panorama was 23 and he nearly keeled over! There are worse epitaphs than one that says, “He tried to organise a union at Amazon”, but I’m not volunteering!
I’m going to retweet this to various unions (GMB, Unite, Unison, USDAW – any more?). If you’re concerned, let them know. And let Amazon know.
And if you have any ideas, use the comment box or reply. I’m out of ideas. I’m just angry.
Don’t grovel – demand!
“It’s not much to ask in return for a year’s work”, argues Barrie Clement in the current issue of Unite the Union’s magazine, uniteWORKS. What’s this about? It’s the “Living Wage”.
The Living Wage was invented by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. The aim, says Clement, was “to provide the minimum pay rate required to provide the essentials of life.” According to Clement that means “enough to cover rent and energy bills and something left over for one cheap holiday in the UK.”
But the last part of that sentence suggests the grovelly position of the union on this question. Apart from eating and paying the bills, all we deserve “in return for a year’s work” is “one cheap holiday in the UK”. Thanks, Barrie.
Of course, everybody understands that the national minimum wage of £6.31 an hour is not a living wage. But neither is Loughborough’s £7.65 (£8.80 in London), although 5 million people across the UK are paid less than that. Yet, in September, Unite argued to the Low Pay Commission that “the statutory minimum should be uprated in line with the Living Wage.” Why did they argue for that? For replacing poverty wages with – er, well – poverty wages?
It looks like they were less robust than even that. According to Clement, Unite urged the Commission “to ‘take the boldest possible step’ towards doing so.” Whatever could that mean? Do it? Do a bit of it? Don’t do it? How hesitant and grovelly can you get?
It’s not clear what General Secretary Len McCluskey thinks. He says, “The legal minimum should be raised to a living wage to end the desperate wage depression inflicted on working people.” Well, a proper living wage would do that – but not Loughborough’s Living Wage.
There are a number of dangers here. Ed Miliband may have the odd nightmare about the first: the Tories could uprate the minimum wage to the Loughborough levels (Boris Johnson supports Loughborough, David Cameron apparently does) and that would leave Labour with no trousers.
The second danger is for the rest of us: McCluskey and Unite clearly want a Labour government. But – in line with previous form – Labour could promise to implement such an uprating and, on winning the 2015 election, break their promise. “It’s unaffordable to make it anything other than voluntary”, they might say, “both for the public and private sectors. The Tories have left such a mess, we didn’t realise.” If that happened the disillusionment of workers with politics would be increased beyond measure, with all the benefits that that might bring to outfits like UKIP, the BNP and the EDL. But even if Labour did raise the minimum rates to Loughborough levels, low-paid workers would still be left without enough to pay for Barrie Clement’s list of food, rent, energy bills and a cheap holiday.
But a better scenario is possible. Clement tells how cleaners in parliament went on strike to obtain the Loughborough Living Wage – and got it. London Underground cleaners did the same. So imagine what other workers might achieve if they strike, not just for Loughborough but for a proper living wage, well into double figures.
Well, Barrie, I don’t think you meant to send us in that direction – but thanks anyway.
A place to build and inhabit
As a relief from the demonising of niqabs and mosques, from the exceptional publicity given to the Al-Madinah school compared with non-Muslim academy schools also in special measures, and from Islamophobia generally, I take you back, gentle reader, to a time when, at least sometimes, multiculturalism was managed better. W. A. Meeks[1] writes of a time and place when a particular minority’s rights within the community were under threat. They protested to the local magistrates and council. The city authorities responded by declaring that the rights of those citizens should be maintained. They had, said the city council, the right to
“‘come together and have a communal life and adjudicate [their affairs and controversies] among themselves, and that a place be given them in which they may gather together with their wives and children and offer their ancestral prayers and sacrifices to God …’ The magistrates are to set aside a place ‘for them to build and inhabit’, and the market officials are to make provision for ‘suitable food’ to be available for [them].”
The time? 49 BC. The place? Sardis, in the Roman province of Asia. The minority? The Jewish community. Meeks continues:
“The subsequent history of the Jews in Sardis was apparently extraordinarily happy. In the second or early third century they were given for their ‘place’ a remodelled basilica, of huge size and elegant decoration, part of the monumental Roman gymnasium complex on the main street of the city, which they kept until the city itself was destroyed, long after the [Roman] empire had become officially Christian.”
Those were the days.
[1] Meeks, W.A. (2003), The First Urban Christians: the Social World of the Apostle Paul, Yale University Press, Yale, pp. 34-35.
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