Notices by Emeritus Prof Christopher May (chrismayla6@zirk.us)

Could you work only knowing what your schedule was less than a week in advance? or (like 15% of low-wage workers) less than 24 hours in advance?

The Living Wage Foundation, found this experience for over half of low paid workers; the risk of fluctuating demand has been pushed down to them to deal with.

How can you arrange child-care, school meetings, health appointments in such an environment?

Low wage Britain is hard work for the poor & the middle classes often just don't see it!

#workers

We see a lot of discussion of 'illegal migration' that either treats the migrants merely as objects of opinion, or sometimes ventroilquises their lives/views.

So rather than do that, here's a real migrant's story - of migration, (as it turned out) false imprisonment for being a 'smuggler' & the frustrations of having skills that are in need (here kitchen fitting), but being advised to take cleaning jobs.

Its a heartbreaking story & unlikely to be uncommon!

#migrants

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/i-sought-safety-in-the-uk-i-was-sent-to-prison-instead-labelled-a-smuggler/

Hmmm... the C-Lion1 fibre optic cable that connects Helsinki in Finland & Rostock in Germany has been cut.... with suspicions falling (immediately) on Russia... The night before a similar link between Sweden & Lithuania was also cut.

So on one hand this looks like a programme of communicative disruption... but one might wonder whether its a sign of the start of something else (my old IR training leads me to pose the Q. at least).

#internet #communications #security

h/t FT

Its sometimes been said that rather than being a rich country, the UK is a poor country with a rich elite living in enclaves... now you might think that's a politically-driven exaggeration, but looking at new figures on the incidence of poverty you'd be hard pressed to deny there is some truth to that depiction....

#poverty #inequality

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/18/more-than-one-in-three-uk-children-poverty-deprivation-record-high

Looks like the end for Northvolt, the Swedish hope for expansion of European battery production.... confronted with production & management problems, and the withdrawal of a major BMW contract, it looks like the firm will be entering insolvency in the next days/weeks...

This will leave most auto-manufactures continuing to be dependent on non-EU supplies of batteries for electric vehicles, seen by the EU as a strategic problem.

Will another start-up try to fill that space?

#batteries
h/t FT

@christineburns @Nicovel0

Yes, again that's a fair comment (and an issue, like the politicians I had probably downplayed in my mind)... I guess this is where a concerted EU-led project might work? Or maybe its too late even for that?

I have posted quite a lot on the gender pay gap, and the motherhood penalty in both wages & career terms that confronts women (still!).

Here is an interesting report that focusses on the return to work of new mothers, the lack of support in the workplace for their changed (personal) circumstances and why we will only start to resolve the gender pay/career gap if we tackle & improve the plight of new mothers who want to return to work.

#gender #workers #parenting
https://www.thefemalelead.com/_files/ugd/05606b_04ec83fcc3ad49d0b99367842e54320b.pdf

If you thought Trump's war on women's reproductive rights (and rights to action contraception) was limited to there USA, think again... as Michael Jennings notes, looking back at Trump's first term, the global negative impact on women's health & healthcare is likely to be relatively immediate.

#women #health

https://theconversation.com/how-a-second-trump-presidency-is-likely-to-threaten-abortion-rights-and-womens-healthcare-globally-243346

I don't always agree with Will Hutton, but on inheritance tax and farming, I think he's on the right track - we need to remake farming & IHT is one mechanism for starting to do that - farming needs to move beyond a semi-feudal hoarding of land & look to different modes of agricultural organisation.

He is right about the direction in which farming policy needs to move; its just contemporary farmers often find it difficult to see that....

#farming #politics

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/farmers-have-hoarded-land-for-too-long-inheritance-tax-will-bring-new-life-to-rural-britain

Inequality 1/2:

In the Observer today, Eliza Filby (in an article summarising her new book, not yet online) uses a term I'd not heard before & like (but which doesn't originate with her):

the Inheritocracy

As she points out int he article & in her book, Britain has become a society patterned by what you inherit from your parents, alongside what after net they can provide as you build your life.

In other words (as I've posted on before) inheritance is an engine of inequality.

#inequality

Another Brexit fiasco.... British cheeses failed to get to the World Cheese Awards in Portugal as they failed to clear customer in time (now being from a non-EU country).

In the scale of the disasters of Brexit its not going to to be a big thing (although it will be for the frustrated cheese makers), but is emblematic of how myopic the Brexiters were about the impact of their successful plan to leave Europe....

#brexit #cheese #food

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/16/uk-cheeses-miss-out-on-international-prize-after-getting-stuck-in-customs

Having learnt little from the problems caused by school league tables, now Wes Streeting looks interested in introducing hospital league table into the NHS.

Its just what a workforce already patterned by overwork, exhaustion & burnout, does not need.

With the NHS already losing staff as fast as it can train & recruit them, this just looks like one more body blow intended to strengthen the appeal of the private sector...

not so much a 'solution' as a further attack.

#NHS #health
h/t FT

Big oil = Big tobacco.... both knew the danger heir products were doing & hid it while arguing the science was mistaken.

If you wanted a reason not to trust the corporate world (many Im sure are already well past this point), this would look like a good one.

#FossilFuels #Tobacco #climate #health

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/12/big-oil-fossil-fuel-warning

ICYMI: Kim Darroch (former Ambassador to the US) makes the simple but powerful diplomatic point, that looking at Trump's record in office, he respects strong leaders not those that seek to accommodate him....

Darroch's lesson for Keir Starmer is stick to positions on international & trade affairs, don't seek to accommodate Tump's demands... as all he will then do is demand more.

Simple advice but right on the button.

#Trump #diplomacy #KeirStarmer

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/09/to-dismiss-trumps-pledges-as-campaign-rhetoric-is-a-triumph-of-hope-over-experience

Victims of sexual assault, don't just suffer abuse & harm on the day, the Police then manage to compound the injury through their treatment of the victims.... so bad is that that most, suffering a similar attack would not report it to the police again.

So, despite the pious words of police chiefs & politicians, the everyday policing of sexual assault remains dysfunctional & actual harmful to victims!

#SexualAssault #women

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/12/rape-sexual-assault-survivors-report-crime-england-wales-survey

Across the world its becoming clear that both inflation itself & wages that have not kept up with price rises are key issues for voters & are causing major problems for incumbent Govt.s

Some of this pressure is being deflected into blame politics & the use of identity as a political weapon of division.... but, of course, ironically the very appeal to identity, reveals the continuing importance to voters of their material standard of living.

As such a failure of 'identity politics'?

#politics

And so it starts.... the bending (to destruction) of due governance processes, in the appointment of Trump cabinet members.

No-one will be surprised, and no-one will expect much (effective) resistance... and in any case confirmation hearings, in Republican controlled Houses of Congress would have gone his way (surely?)... but Trump is in a hurry to get on with his second term.

The future of American politics is fast solidifying.

#USPol

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/11/trump-senate-administration-hearings

@ekis

Ha ha, I just ran out of characters.... the list could have been a lot longer & more detailed....

This weekend I've been confronted, as have we all, with the commentariat trying to figure out how Trump won & who to blame, so far an incomplete list seems to be:

Trump (of course)
The Democrats
Kamala Harris
The Republicans
Third party candidates
White men
White women
Hispanic men
Stupid people
Women betraying their sisters
the media
Big Tech
Elon Musk
The economy/inflation
Migrants
Other countries/wars
Luck
The electoral system
Non-voters
Voters...

Might we say 'over-determined'?

#USpol

Another group of gig economy workers for for their employment rights & won.... as the lawyers representing them conclude:

'gig economy operators cannot continue to falsely classify their workers as independent contractors... to avoid providing the rights those workers are properly entitled to'!

As I've said before; if your businesses 'innovation' is the exploitation of you workers, your business is neither innovative nor a tech company!

#workers #rights #gigeconomy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7047kz0vr0o