Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 09 Jul 2015 02:00 AM PDT
By Fiona Twycross AM. Last week, I had the privilege to speak on a panel with a number of women speaking about their experience of being in low paid work in London. Two days later, one of these women, I can't name her for fairly obvious reasons although it still somehow feels wrong not to, lost her job simply for protesting for better pay. The common thread in the very moving stories – as the women described the long hours, poor conditions and inadequate rates of pay – was that these women were all starting to organise through trade unions. They reminded me of the Ford Dagenham women. To put it simply, these were women who not unreasonably, want to be treated fairly at work and who have been making a stand for better conditions. Not radical agitators but normal people trying to make a living who have just had enough. Two days later, after a protest demanding sick pay for cleaners and porters, my fellow panellist was effectively out of work. Sotheby's, where she has been employed as a cleaner, through an agency, Servest, has banned her and some of her colleagues from their workplace for protesting outside a record breaking auction. The demonstration over fair pay undoubtedly embarrassed the auction house on an otherwise good day for the company as the auction included a Warhol painting of a dollar bill that sold for £20.9 million. There is some dispute over the exact events on the day and subsequently. However what is clear is that the reasons Sotheby's have been giving for barring those concerned from work appear to have changed over the past few days. According to their trade union, United Voices, formed by and largely representing low paid migrant workers, Servest has now written to the cleaners. The letter states that: "Sotheby's has instructed us to remove you from their site with effect from 1st July 2015….because your involvement in the recent protests was a deliberate act to disrupt Sotheby's lawful business which may have resulted in a significant loss of revenue, and could have put their business at risk". Earlier reasons reportedly given to the cleaners include alleged (and strongly refuted) threats of physical assault of customers at the demonstration and alleged lack of qualifications and competencies. Previously it appears that the workers had been informed by the agency that protesting was a disciplinary matter. What the Sotheby workers' subsequent loss of work and income reminds us, however, is that agency workers in reality have very little legal protection if they are penalised for speaking up for fairer treatment. The meeting the woman I met spoke at last week was organised by Unite's Hospitality Workers Branch but included speakers represented by a number of trade unions. All three cleaners speaking had worked for more than one agency in the same work place. The work force had effectively changed hands as they changed agencies wholesale when the contract moved but their working conditions were not guaranteed in the same way as they would have been if they had been more formally transferred to another employer. In the absence of a government prepared to put in place legislation to provide greater protection, and without benevolent employers or a clientele – like that of the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton – prepared to show solidarity by supporting a call for a boycott, the Sotheby workers need all the help and publicity they can garner. Publicity matters to organisations that have a reputation to maintain. Picturehouse's parent company Cineworld had to step in after a media storm when a threatened reorganisation appeared to intentionally target those involved in the dispute. It is to be hoped that Sotheby's and Servest do the decent thing and rescind what they are now apparently referring to as a 'suspension'. However, we shouldn't and must not just leave it to low paid workers and trade unions to fight for their rights. We know we have at least five years left of this Government. We know that the changes to tax credits will hurt workers on poverty pay over coming months and years. We know that politicians like Boris Johnson may say the right thing on the living wage but that their record of delivery is risible. When we know all that and know what the cost of low pay is to the individuals concerned, we have to start making a stand. Many of those on low pay in London moved here from parts of the world we would refuse to buy coffee from if it doesn't state on the label it is Fair Trade. Important as it is to create publicity for the Sotheby's cleaners and porters and others in similar situations, it isn't enough for us just to debate or tweet about unfairness. We need to start making active social consumer choices on the basis of whether businesses treat their staff fairly. Fiona Twycross AM is Labour's London Assembly Economy Spokesperson and a Londonwide Assembly Member. A version of this article appeared in LabourList on 6 July 2015.  |
| The TTIP vote: the fight goes on Posted: 09 Jul 2015 01:57 AM PDT
By Polly Jones. After many twists and turns, MEPs decided on 8 July what sort of Transatlantic Trade and Investment deal (known as TTIP) they want the European Commission to negotiate on their behalf with the USA. Negotiations were launched with many grand statements at the G8 Summit in Lough Erne in July 2013. TTIP was to be Europe's saviour from austerity and to be the blueprint for all future world trade, wherever it takes place in the world. Two years on and negotiations have been far from smooth. It was always going to be challenging to find common ground between the EU and US on public procurement, financial services and agriculture. But what has really got in the way has been the tremendous public opposition to TTIP itself. People do not want a trade deal which lowers hard won food, environmental and labour standards; weakens public services; or gives new powers to corporations to sue governments if public policy harms their profits (known as Investor State Dispute Settlement or ISDS). Trade deals have traditionally been about lowering particular tariffs for imports and exports of goods from one country to another. Trade is not as simple as that any more and for TTIP tariffs are a tiny part of the negotiations because tariffs between the EU and US are virtually non-existent these days. Trade in TTIP is about issues that are relevant and important to us all: from which services are publicly provided, to the safety of the food on our plates; from the regulations which keep us safe at work, to the very decisions governments can make in the best interests of us all. TTIP is so broad, we have every reason to be bothered about its contents. But trade deals are not negotiated with any real democratic accountability. On TTIP we have seen democracy thwarted at every turn. As a direct result of thousands of emails, tweets and public meetings, MEPs will decide today the sort of TTIP they want agreed. While MEPs are only agreeing a statement on TTIP which has no obvious part in the negotiating process, it will influence the way the European Commission proceeds with negotiations. This is because once the negotiations are complete, MEPs will get a vote to accept or reject TTIP. The Commission must ensure it negotiates a deal which is likely to get accepted. Bernd Lange, chair of the European parliament's trade committee drafted a resolution on TTIP which he hoped MEPs would agree. This made some concessions but remained committed to the TTIP that is currently on the table. Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), one of the most controversial aspects of TTIP is still in. TTIP is still on. Over 900 amendments were then submitted in the early stages of consultation. 13 of the parliament's committees called for ISDS to be removed from the deal. Yet ISDS remained in the draft resolution. On 9 June, the resolution was timetabled to be debated by MEPs. A range of amendments were tabled, including one to remove ISDS altogether. With less than 24 hours to the vote, Parliament President Shultz and Lange used technicalities to pull the vote entirely. The real reason was that they could not control which way MEPs might vote, in particular there was increasing support for removing ISDS entirely. Late last week, the vote on the resolution was rescheduled for today, along with a compromise amendment designed to take support away from anti-ISDS positions. This amendment addresses none of the fundamental issues with ISDS and adds additional costs to EU tax payers of running a new supranational ISDS court. If MEPs agree to table the amendment many of the critical amendments on ISDS, including to remove ISDS altogether, will automatically be taken off the agenda. Given the balance of powers in the European parliament, it is likely that the new amendment will be both tabled and passed. This may be an admirable piece of footwork by Shultz and Lange but it is a travesty for democracy. MEPs have been denied a chance to amend the resolution and the voices of EU citizens have been ignored again as a result. This is not the first time. TTIP is being negotiated in secret. Our elected representatives in the House of Commons are not allowed to see the draft negotiating texts. Our elected representatives in the European parliament had to hold a demonstration in the European Parliament before being granted permission to see these texts in January this year. Even now they can only see the texts in a locked room if they have removed any possible recording devices, including their mobile phones, and signed a 14-page agreement to keep the contents secret. When EU citizens have asked for the negotiating texts to be publicly available, the UK government and the European Commission argue that this would compromise the deal that could be done because EU and US negotiators need privacy to out manoeuvre each other. However, the World Trade Organisation, far from a bastion of progressive social and economic policies, has an established practice of making negotiating texts in trade agreements publicly available with any text which is not yet agreed marked by square brackets. If the WTO can make texts for global trade deals publicly available with this simple practice, there is no justification for TTIP texts remaining secret. ISDS remains one of the most controversial aspects of TTIP. This is a parallel legal system only open to corporations which enables them to sue governments if public policy harms their profits. Perhaps the most famous example is tobacco giant Philip Morris suing the Australian government over the future loss of profits as a result of new government policy to put tobacco products in plain packaging. There are numerous examples, often from the global south, where corporations have extracted billions from governments as a result of ISDS claims. Even without damages, the average cost to a government sued in this way is $4 million. This is why 145, 500 people (out of a total of 150,000) told the European Commission in its consultation on the issue that they wanted ISDS to be removed from TTIP. In fact, although MPs have had little opportunity to scrutinise TTIP, the Business Innovation and Skills select committee made up of MPs from across political parties concluded that the case for ISDS has not been made. Yet ISDS is still in TTIP and the UK government is committed to it. There is a little known clause in the EU's constitution which allows EU citizens, independently and not through their MEPs and governments to propose legislation, if a million people across the EU call for it. This is known as the European Citizen's Initiative (ECI). When anti-TTIP campaigners launched an ECI calling for an end to TTIP negotiations, it was rejected on a technicality. While this is challenged in the European Court of Justice, a self-organised ECI was launched on the same principles in October 2014. Within two months a million signatures had been collected. To date 2.3 million people have given it their support. This would make it the largest and fastest ECI to gain support in history. As a result of the imposition of crippling austerity policies on Greece and its recent rejection of them, democracy and the EU is already a hot topic this week. For the thousands of people opposed to TTIP, the systematic lack of democratic scrutiny and complete rejection of alternative perspectives on TTIP is yet another example of the EU's inability to act in the interest of its citizens, favouring capitalist interests above all else. A version of this article was posted on the Common Dreams site on 8 July and so the reference to the date has been amended. And, as Lauren McCauley writes, despite clear disagreement within European Parliament over the inclusion of a modified version of the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision, MEPs voted 436-241 in favour of a draft text of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).  |
| Working mothers set a good example Posted: 09 Jul 2015 01:09 AM PDT
A new study has confirmed what we daughters of working women have always known: that being a working mother doesn’t always harm your children. As soon as a woman becomes a mother, her choices are scrutinised and criticised by society at large in a way that fathers never experience. People seem to have an endless supply of opinions on how a mother chooses to raise her child. Breastfeeding or bottle? Co-sleeping or separate rooms? But the lion's share of guilt and criticism is reserved for the woman who goes to work, leaving her children with a childminder or nursery. Women have been fighting this stigma for years, and now working mothers finally have a study to back them up. Research from Harvard University have found that the children of working mothers go on to thrive – particularly daughters. The study found that, on average, the daughters of working mothers are paid around 4 per cent more than their peers, and are more likely to work in managerial positions. The study also revealed that daughters of working mothers are also likely to have more equal relationships, spending less time on housework. It's not just daughters who seem to be benefiting either; the research found that sons of working mothers "are more involved at home as adults, spending more time caring for family members than men whose mothers stayed home full-time." None of this should be taken as a criticism of women who choose to stay at home with their children; women and men have the right to parent in the way that works best for their family and no one should be judged for their choices. Many mothers who work do so because they have to. My own mother went back to work when I was still a baby, because she needed to put food on the table. As a toddler I had childminders who I loved, and later I spent my evenings in the After School Club. The idea that any of this has weakened my bond with my mother has always seemed ridiculous to me. By working full time throughout my childhood my mother ensured that my sister and I lived comfortably, never went hungry and always had birthday presents. But she also showed us that women can excel in the workplace and enjoy a wonderful family life if we choose to, and that anyone who tells us otherwise is lying. Both of my parents are in social work, and have always worked hard to change the lives of the most vulnerable people in our society. By going back to work when I was little, my mother was helping children who weren't lucky enough to have parents who were willing or able to care for them – and yet we're supposed to view working mothers as "selfish"? I want to live in a world where raising children is a responsibility that is shared equally, and women need not feel guilty for choosing to work after they give birth. For now, let’s take a moment to celebrate the working mothers who have shown us the way.  |
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