Reverse cuts to union learning

 From https://www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/uk-gov-don-t-cut-union-learning?utm_source=Musicians%20Union&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11922809_Take%20action%20to%20save%20the%20Union%20Learning%20Fund&dm_i=2QJ,73JP5,3ED622,SOSR1,1

To: Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education

Reverse the cuts to union learning

Campaign created by

Sean Dixon

The government's plans to cut the Union Learning Fund in England means hundreds of thousands of workers will miss out on skills and training.

Sign the petition calling on the government to reverse cuts to union learning and ensure working people can access education and skills training.

More at https://www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/uk-gov-don-t-cut-union-learning

Global economy as debtor's prison — Newint

This is the current lead article at New Internationalist magazine homepage:

New Internationalist online lead story, 16 Oct 2020:
It's official: The Global Economy is a 'Debtor's Prison'

 This is the current lead story at New Internationalist magazine home page:

It’s official, the global economy is a ‘debtor’s prison’

As the World Bank and IMF sound the alarm on debts driven sky high by Covid-19 in some of the world’s poorest nations, Nick Dearden explains why debt ‘relief’ will not cut it – we need system change....

More at https://newint.org/features/2020/10/14/official-global-economy-debtors-prison

Transparency in law enforcement

Hereford Times October 15 comment ‘Enforcement should be transparent’ informs us of police procedure and guidelines while a take-away outlet subjected to Covid-19 rules infringement fine of £1000 remains anonymous. Comment concludes, “Such secrecy risks undermining faith in a system that effectively imposes punishments without the public oversight that is part of the justice system.”

Hereford takeaway breaks 10pm hospitality curfew

There are potential dangers in ‘naming and shaming’, but identifying targeted ‘culprits’ can help highlight prejudices on the part of those doing the targeting.

At start of secondary schooling in Birmingham in 1965 I was subjected to 'shaming' by some peers after Year 1 class teacher informed those new little fish in a big pool who had shifted from being big fish in smaller ponds, that I had a disability. “Spas,” "The Handicap" and “Mongol Spastic” I was subsequently called in the parlance of the time. The 'shaming' in a predominantly White school took a new twist when I mentioned that I had been born in West Africa: I was then called ‘The White Wog’ and told that my father was “still swinging through the trees in Africa.” (My White UK national parents had just separated and I was an outsider or ‘immigrant’ upon moving from primary schooling in Staffordshire.)

We live in more enlightened times, both in terms of racial equality and the understandings brought about by the Social Model of Disability, which states that disability arises from social structures and prejudices rather than from culpable failings on the part of the person with an impairment.

But how enlightened are our police? In August, Liberty — formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties — revealed with the aid of Crime Prosecution Service data — that no police detentions of potentially infectious people under the Coronavirus Act were correct, while police were up to seven times more likely to fine people of colour than white people.(1)

Alan Wheatley

Toilet access and other questions

 After October eye tests reception questions and hand sterilising in Maylord Street, Hereford, I asked my own waiting room question: “The toilet?”

Answer: “Our customer toilet is currently out of bounds — no-one to clean it at present. If you are desperate, you could nip over to the toilet at M&S and then get back here for your appointment.”

Map showing Hereford's toilet hotspot plus Maylord Street
plus Widemarsh Street, which is a falls hotspot

Customers’ mobility and other requirements vary, as do toilet queue lengths with or without ‘social distancing’. (And nearby Widemarsh Street is a notorious falls hotspot.) So it’s better that we ask our own questions before we are desperate.

Even before a dodgy post-Brexit US-USA trade deal wipes out our NHS, how about these questions affecting more people than those of us going for free eye tests:

What toilet provisions have been accounted for in the planning of Hereford GPs’ ‘Super Surgery’ on which construction has already begun?

What impacts does Post-Covid-19 lockdown bring to Planning considerations?

And before the UK is "taken to the cleaners" by global profiteers, what about the working conditions of cleaners?

The deadline for responses to the UK Government’s Planning White Paper is October 29th, while that White Paper is oriented to central government overruling local democracy. Whose interests does it serve, and therefore what institutions are more likely to devote staff time to responding while local democracy is starved of cash while laundered money from abroad further damages UK democracy?

PS: From my e-mail inbox, fresh in today:

"oh golly, toilets are such an issue for me. at present, it is difficult to escape hereford. i would like to catch bus to ross just for a change of scene but am anxious that i won't find a convenience in ross! with my elderly female bladder, i don't travel far from sanctuary of my own bathroom these days!

"another unexpected result of covid restrictions!"

Consumer reviews vital in commissioning public service delivery

 

When I read this New York Times article opening paragraph

 LONDON — Inside a dormitory now known by students as H.M.P., for Her Majesty’s Prison, trash piled up in shared kitchens. Students washed their clothes in bathroom sinks. Security guards stalked the gates, keeping anyone from leaving or entering.

just now, my memory flashed back to a Wembley Matters blog post by Martin Francis from four years ago, when I was still a Londoner and Web Logging and commenting on behalf of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group in the Internet guise of 'Dude Swheatie of Kwug':

Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Awards Panel blasts private student accommodation providers

Unite student accommodation, Olympic Way LINK

As another student accommodation block opens on Olympic Way. Wembley, readers may be interested  in the decision of a panel deciding on an Award for Student Accommodation, sponsored by Property Week.

There were due to be more than 2,500 student units around Wembley Stadium whenI last checked.

The Panel refused to nominate a winner and wrote the following to the organisers:

Awarding panel concluded: "Unless all students have access
to safe, affordable accommodation, at every institution
and the means to pay for it, there is no cause for celebration,
nor the ability for us to award a for-profit sector
failing so many of our peers."

 

I commented then at the foot of that Wembley Matters blog post:

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group said...

Brilliant! I would say that the panel concerned were really well-educated, as evidenced by their response!

Would the Department for Work & Pensions [DWP], or, say, the 'Employment Related Services Association' venture so bold as to launch a user-led nominations award?

Perhaps if the DWP launched such an award, their way of engaging the panel's co-operation would be by fear of benefit sanctions? Centre for Crime & Justice Studies: Benefit sanctions: Britain's secret penal system

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

25 October 2016 at 13:24

 Of course, that was years before Coronavirus began to hit around the globe, but I would argue that all this emphasises the sheer stupidity of basing international economies upon the an ideology that venerates privatising public services, cutting taxation for the wealthy, and treating renters as criminals to be coerced into modern slavery.

Tale from a land that is sans free at point of delivery health and social care — and induces debt slavery!

American Academic Author, Community College Counsellor and Private Practitioner Left with > $114K medical debt to pay off after drunk driver incident

"You don't know what you've got till it's gone" — Joni Mitchell

As a disabled lifelong learner determined to make the most of my possibilities on a limited income and now a pensioner, I have a lot of decluttering to do. Thus last night I returned to a printout of publisher's information on a book, Moving through Life Transitions with Power and Purpose, 2nd Edition, by Cara DiMarco, Ph D of Lane Community College, Oregon, USA.

Waterstone's Bookshops info on Moving Through Life Transitions with Power and Purpose, 2nd Edition, price £42.49

As can be seen from the above screen capture taken from Waterstone's Bookshops website, the book costs £42.49 — that's about 1/4 of my weekly State Pension in the UK (that is paid monthly), and a much more sizeable portion of a UK jobseeker's income. I had kept the original publisher's information from Pearson's for something like 20 years, as the very idea of the title inspired me, but not got into purchasing the book.

Yet with advances in home computer technology since I originally saved the Pearson publishing page as print-out and going through my decluttering, I looked up Cara DiMarco, Ph D on youtube last night and came across the video of a training session that I present above. In the videoed session, Cara DiMarco talks about student's capacities to rcover from 'developmental trauma' (relating to early socialisation, as I would describe it, family influences as she puts it), and 'shock trauma' (relating to later life incidents). She observes that the intakes of American Community College students, being largely for poorer students, generally have much greater levels of 'developmental trauma' than students at universities.

(Meanwhile, those rejected by the admissions system and/or those turned off by the prospect of student debt are presumably left to flounder.) 

Yet she notes that Community College students probably have greater coping strategies than those who get turned down for places at Community Colleges, and humour in responding to students' distress helps them progress. None the less, I was struck by the nonchalance with which she stated in response to an audience member's question about what she meant by "Stop waiting for motivation"? that starts at about the 10 mins 16 secs mark of the 22 mins 50 secs video.

"Oh, yes, if you want the full chapter, from my third book, I could e-mail it to you; it's about three pages, it's not very much. But it's part of the example I explain in there is, I work a 15 hour day most days [as a hit-and-run driver] that didn't stop left me a million point three and medical debt and so I work a full-time faculty position  and a nearly full time private practice in order to pay $3,000 a month on the medical debt which will be gone in 38 more months, which is, yes, there will be a party you're all invited and then I will sleep for two days...."

"So, I never feel like working a 15 hour day. I don't think many people do, even though I love my work and to get in exercise I get up at this time of year around 5am and go into the dark rainy cold Oregon weather and go for a run, and no part of me goes, 'The alarms can go up at 5am, I get to leave this warm bed and put on 10lb of rain gear and run with a miner's light on my head flopping around my neighoburhood and then come home and get ready for my and if that was the case I'd never work out right.' No part of me at the end of the evenening goes, 'It's going to be so good to floss my teeth and clean the cat box or ....'"

The recording was uploaded in January 2017 [the month of President Trump's inauguration], and I believe that it helps to set the backdrop to the extent of Covid-19 pandemic in the USA, as student debt and medical debt etc. can be regarded as forms of debt slavery.

In the UK, we still have some level of 'free at the point of delivery' health care, though that does not apply to social care. For further information on the erosion of our welfare state, I refer my readers to the website of medically retired RAF medical veteran Mo Stewart, Mo Stewart Research.

As Mo states:

American corporate influence with the demolition of the UK welfare state

In 1982 the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the future demolition of the UK welfare state. With cross-party agreement, every government since Thatcher has worked towards that ultimate goal without the mandate of the British people.

In 1992 the John Major Conservative administration invited the American corporate giant UnumProvident Insurance to consult with the UK government regarding future welfare claims management, for claimants of long-term sickness and disability benefits.
By 1994 the company were listed as official government advisers, and by 1999 UnumProvident Insurance were identified in a Parliamentary debate as refusing to pay income protection insurance policies to genuine claimants. Yet, this American corporate giant’s influence with UK social security policies helped to create the agenda for the future demolition of the welfare state, with a 2005 official corporate document quoting Unum’s Chief Medical Officer confirming that the future UK welfare reforms were ‘…to a large extent being driven by our thinking and that of our close associates ’.

There are unaccountable drunk-drivers, and there are ideologically driven governments.

For information on how things could be in terms of Basic Income, I refer my readers to the work of Prof. Guy Standing and Basic Income Earth Network:

The justification for basic income is ethical

In conclusion, I state here, that my insights as a disabled person combine with my drive to fulfil my potentials, in order to help create a more humane world.

To parody Phil Ochs' song 'What — and Who — are You Fighting For?' that was addressed to willing draftees to the Vietnam War, 'What are You Working For or Toward?' What is precious in our lives?