Global Justice Manchester

GJM

Obituary, Brian Hepworth 1950 – 2019

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Brian Hepworth was a member of our local group “South Manchester WDM” having joined us by signing up in 2014 on the 191122_Brian Hepworth TTIP outside UnicornYahoo group we used then. He came at the suggestion of a friend (Tom Skinner) and was initially apologetic for his age (then 64) as he was older than most activists he knew.

Age however never stopped his enthusiasm, nor jaded with cynicism his passion to put things right in the world.

Brian had a bumpy life. He carried the emotional scars of being separated from his family and this was doubly poignant as his childhood had been blighted by the removal of his mother. He found solace in a developed circle of friends around the world, some of whom he had met through churches, some through causes, some through the internet. (Talking with him in his last fortnight one was “paused” when his mobile brought someone calling from SE Asia to his flat on the Chester Road in Stretford. The call developed into his helping them rather than being a passive recipient of pity.)

Brian had come to Christian faith when in Bristol and this orientated the way he looked at the world and led him to be outward looking when he could easily have retreated into himself. However he wasn’t content with staying in a cosy huddle and this led to his involvement with many secular organisations and causes where he saw injustice being tackled. Some (like GJN) tackle worldwide issues, others more local such as those campaigning on homelessness or fracking.

He also had traveled widely on limited budgets and brought his memories of real experiences to support the campaigning that many of us do informed only by the proxy of NGO briefings or Guardian articles.

Living alone and on limited means he used PCs in the public library and a non-smartphone but informed himself by buying phrasebooks and atlases. Sometimes one might feel his ideas were strange- in his last weeks much of his flat was lined with aluminum foil to protect him from new generation mobile phone radiation. However he was no fool; despite having dropped out of university and worked much of his life as a bus-driver, he confidently engaged and built a reciprocally respectful relationship with his MP, Kate Green.

On the 24th. May 2019 he emailed telling of the ending of his chemotherapy. He was resigned to death and concluded:

“… I am still hopeful and comforted in the Lord. Thank you all for prayers and concerns. The Lord is good and praise Him! 

Brian”

His last substantial campaigning initiative was a race against time as he appreciated his days were numbered. Having worked as a bus driver for years and dying of lung cancer he felt a special burden to expose the damage caused by the particular emissions from idling buses at stops and depots. Having spoken with drivers and got nowhere with writing to TfGM, he tried to write to Andy Burnham. Defeated by his weakness stopping him concentrating at the computer, he agreed to recording a video message which we did and sent to the GM Mayor’s office.

There were delays and in desperation Brian gave permission the story to be shared with the M.E.N. which we did and resulted in publicity made all the more affecting by it’s appearing (with his family’s blessing) a week after he had died. This report can be seen here.

There are many lessons here for others who want to change the world for the better: build a civil and listening relationship with your political representatives, use your life experiences and contacts to inform your opinions and arguments, give more than you take, bring original insights to causes, do not be afraid of being outside the party line, and persist when you don’t get your message through.

It was a joy to see his last days comforted by the reconciliation and love shown by those he had been apart from for years.

Brian died at the end of July having known of his serious cancer for 18 months. His funeral, across the road from his flat, at St. Matthew’s Stretford (where he was a regular), brought to an end a life helping others. He leaves a former partner, daughter, granddaughter and friends around the world of many faiths and none.

Stephen Pennels

Save our NHS, StopISDS, stopping “Trade with Trump”, Climate Emergency and Brexit- all in the mix.

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I find it all too easy to get confused at the moment with so much stuff going on- and that’s not counting the domestic concerns like harvesting the apples or getting the paddy that was our lawn cut for the last time.

But perhaps that’s because a lot of these concerns are inter-related and one thing leads to another.

So when local GJN member Pia Feig, also a member of Keep our NHS Public, was putting together a public meeting with People’s Assembly’s “alternative Fringe” during the Conservative Party Conference she thought Global Justice might contribute. This led to Heidi Chow, being invited and speaking. Heidi was ideal as GJN’s senior campaigns manager and leading on the Pharmaceuticals campaign.

Heidi solidarity message Transform the Medicines System_web
We tweeted Heidi challenging other parties to follow Labour’s lead.

Her talk followed the news of Labour adopting a radical stance with respect to medicines and was entitled “Trading with Trump, what a trade deal will mean for the NHS and Trump”. It followed several activist NHS workers talking about their problems and campaigning where they work and developed people’s understanding of where things appear to be heading.

Heidi had already blogged on the threat to the NHS from American trade aspirations several months ago; she went further in Manchester, updating on the winds blowing to and fro with statements, push-back and denial (perhaps camouflaging under-the-table reformulation of ideas to be brought out later).

She pointed out the converging interests of a post-Brexit Brexiteer government eager to prove it can deliver a trade deal with the US and pressure on Trump to deliver “America First” trade deals as he comes up for reelection next year. Informal trade talks have been already going ahead and she believed it could be ready for signing as early as next July.

As trade deals normally take years one may feel this is likely to be a bit dynamic- simple horse-trading with quid pro quos rather than more careful considerations. The current loss of the Trade Bill with it’s pro-Trade Democracy amendments means the Government can strike and then bring a trade deal to Parliament for a take-it-or-leave-it decision as it has been accused of doing in respect to a “no deal Brexit”. This is in marked contrast to the existing EU system where the European Parliament is intimately involved in setting a mandate and continued scrutiny before voting. The Queen’s Speech contained nothing to dispel such fears.

A changed government (if Labour) might sink such schemes, but should a Tory Brexit happen, Heidi expected a UK-US trade deal very soon.

Heidi Chow speaking_web
Heidi explaining the threat of a Trump trade deal

She pointed out that traditional trade deals’ concerns over tariffs have been replaced by more extensive coverage of topics like “Intellectual property”, environmental regulation and access to public services and giving rights to foreign investors.

She went on to speak of the “negative listing” approach by which everything was up for trade (some might say “grabs”) that wasn’t specifically excluded. In the case of services for the NHS this ranges from portering, cleaning, and maintenance to clinical and testing- perhaps difficult for inexperienced non-hospital experienced trade negotiators to consider without leaving mistakes and loopholes. (Even sophisticated and experienced US negotiators had made about 1000 mistakes on such an exercise!)

The threat of US medicine prices hitting the NHS was no surprise to those of us who have been engaged in the GJN pharmaceuticals campaign. She saw Trump’s blaming the NHS for high medicines’ prices in the US as ridiculous when NICE here is having to ration medicines because of prices. The US explicitly wants high American prices to apply in the UK, thereby threatening the NHS’s work.

Beyond these immediate and more widely known threats she moved on to spell out the implication of corporate courts ( generically know as “Investor State Dispute Settlement”- ISDS). Although the US, already bitten by their rejection in the TTIP scheme, is not pushing these, our government hasn’t excluded them. This is despite their opening the door for massive drains on public healthcare funds, should claims be tabled objecting to healthcare-motivated policy decisions.

Caroline Bedale_web
Caroline Bedale of Keep our NHS Public showing a three-way link of NHS, Climate and Trade

But beyond these and more invisible is the threat posed by US corporate take-over of massive NHS data bases which could be transferred to the US and there mined to develop applications that can be sold back to the NHS providing it with diagnostics- not privatisation as usually understood, but nevertheless appropriation of NHS assets which will then be resold, ripping-off the NHS using its own resources; a more sophisticated 21st. century way corporate control can encroach on our NHS!

She said the US objected to any rules restricting cross-border data movement and wanted not only to take our data out of the UK, but then to keep their source code and algorithms.

When she had met Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary John Ashworth he hadn’t appreciate the probable implications of a trade deal with Trump- how much do most back-benchers unless we educate them?

Thanks are due to Heidi for an enlightening and inspiring talk- taking further even those who thought they were boned up on the subject. The only negative was that although those present were the sort of people who can be expected to go out and take the message to their communities and workplaces, we were a minute proportion of the Greater Manchester population who are at risk of these menaces.

The insidious influences of corporate lobbyists are constantly at work gently diffusing their world-view and norms into our society and decision makers’ thinking. To counter this we need to speak out now, whether it’s in relation to the NHS, other public services, the environment and dealing with the Climate Emergency, workers’ rights and conditions, food and chemical standards, animal rights or any one of any number of issues.

We need to speak loudly, clearly and repeatedly. Let’s do it!

–

We took the message out to the site of Peterloo to generate publicity pictures, generated interest from passers by and were noticed and photographed by tourists.

The business of forced labour in global agricultural supply chains

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Education can sometimes give us answers, but often raises questions which lead us to further thought and investigation.

Such was my experience at Professor Genevieve LeBaron’s University of Manchester Global Development Institute lecture “The business of forced labour in global agricultural supply chains”, a representation of her report on forced labour. This was given appropriately perhaps on International Workers’ Day.

Irritatingly I bungled and missed the beginning of the lecture, but what I heard was sufficiently challenging I write now in the hope it will be published online and this will lead you to give it time.

Poor conditions on tea estates have been published widely, often as an incentive to support Fair Trade.

Professor LeBaron spoke on research in tea and cocoa supply in India and Ghana respectively and was GL WAll(irritatingly) tightlipped in not identifying specific corporations and certification schemes though Fairtrade Foundation, Ethical Tea Partnership, Trustea, Rainforest Alliance and UTZ were familiar names from the supermarket shelf amongst the standards she had investigated. She also stressed her work was on forced labour, not other issues like environmental sustainability, protection of workers from chemicals et al. She has dealt with this in related fields in the past and can be seen at Yale and SOAS and her recent academic publications.

She seems to relish being a boat-rocker in popular articles such as https://delta87.org/2018/10/ethical-certification-doesnt-eradicate-forced-labour/ as well as academic research and boasts her work had not been welcomed by some businesses (who make a living from certification). She declared that she had stopped buying Fairtrade tea and wondered what other ways she might achieve the goal of helping workers. This is not without reaction- one can feel touchiness on Fairtrade Foundation’s part in the Church Times last year.

However, whilst sympathising with the impatience felt by some companies, she was wary of “in-housing” social responsibility certification (such as Sainsbury’s “Fairly Traded” teas which GJMancester campaigned against in 2017) as untransparent and unaccountable.

Key findings as she had already given included: widespread/prevalent underpayment of workers by employers GL greywithholding payment, imposing penalties due to alleged failures to meet quotas imposed by employers, revenue generation by plantations by imposing debt-bondage with high repayment rates (for often non-existent) essential services.

In the cocoa businesses investigated workers were often required to provide additional unpaid labour for small family businesses who then lent money at punitive rates. 60% of cocoa workers were found to be in debt and 55% had no savings. 95% didn’t know if their farms were certified and very frequently there was no difference in the standards followed.

It was not clear there was any difference between multinational corporations and non MNCs, in part due to the domination of the tea chain by a small number of companies which may have espoused various verification schemes but have no real grip of producers- auditing visits often being short, cursory and perhaps limited to only 5% of producers, and that not looking for signs of forced labour.

She identified key factors in this sorry state as: the lack of permanent employment contracts- in cocoa the model of family farms has to be revised as many have hired staff as well and members of extended families brought in- so stories of “slavery” likewise may not fit. Temporary workers and (not surprisingly) women are often forced into exploitative situations.

GL buildingWhy does this happen? She identified several drivers: low prices which have stagnated over many years, rising costs (especially of labour) coupled with the cutting of governmental support for inputs and pesticides, and climate change, including bush fires, all add to the challenging business environment. As a result businesses economically exploit workers to balance their books and survive. However she didn’t advocate paying more at the shop, feeling higher prices should be paid out of traders mark-ups.

She also pointed out that whereas British anti-bribery legislation had teeth, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 with its focus on trafficking and coerced prostitution in the UK had no effective enforcement relating to supply chains overseas or requirement to demonstrate the effectiveness of measures taken. However there are proposals to amend the Act.

An unsettling event- showing perhaps the weakness of Fairtrade as we know it and showing the virtues of Traidcraft’s recent campaign to get the major UK tea companies to publish the originating estates of their leaves. So perhaps Fairtrade, as it currently stands, is not such a first step towards Trade Justice as I had fondly supposed. Hmmmmmm… one will have to keep one’s eye on this!

If you wish to study her work further, the book the lecture relates to is available on http://globalbusinessofforcedlabour.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Report-of-Findings-Global-Business-of-Forced-Labour.pdf

From Fairtrade to Global Justice – campaigning in Fairtrade Fortnight 2019

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Chorlton Councillor Eve Holt shows support

Fairtrade can be regarded flippantly as an indulgence by the middle classes wanting to assuage their consciences by spending a few pence more on nice chocolate, wine, craft or textiles.

But although nobody ever gets rich from being a FT producer, the dividend paid and (self) respect accruing from having a fixed contract and not being at the mercy of manipulated markets is in itself not only a moral and morale good, it puts children in school and food in their bellies. And decisions made by community groups on the ground as to how they spend their money gives ownership and security to development projects such as clinics, infrastructure such as water supplies and roads, and training and communal workshop facilities.

Family Group2
Whole families got involved!

So it’s natural that whatever the “mainstream” campaigns Global Justice Now is running, each year GJManc. tends to do a campaign action for Fairtrade Fortnight. This year the campaigning side of FTF was more in evidence with a petition calling for guaranteeing a “living wage” for chocolate producers under the hashtag #Shedeserves.

To this end we ran stalls on Friday and Saturday in Chorlton, picking up customers going to Unicorn on Friday and some ward councillors and Saturday shoppers. Initially leading with the FTF card, we followed up with GJN #StopISDS campaign cards, making the point that ISDS could stop the City council favouring Fairtrade (as well as a number of other evils).

Signing a campaign card

This worked well. People knew about FT and trusted it, appreciating the rationale of the campaign and its going beyond feel-good shopping; that done they were receptive to learning about the Trade (In)Justice potential of ISDS.

We also invited people to pose for photos (for tweeting) with messages and thereby promote this campaign further and reduplicate the effort. Chorlton councillors were happy to do so, and may be helpful in the future if their support is needed.  

Steph. Pennells

GJ Manchester

You can tell the Prime Minister that future trade deals should work for the poor here #SheDeserves

 

The stop ISDS petition is here

 

Is Fairtrade worthwhile? See the discussion on the GMTAN Trade Action Blog

“A World for the many, not the few”: Kate Osamor at the Global Development Institute

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Members of Global Justice Manchester and the Jubilee Debt Campaign turned out to hear Kate Osamor, shadow development secretary, speak at the University of Manchester Global Development Institute on Friday.

Kate stated that “aggressive change” is necessary since inequality is a defining feature of the world situation, and malnutrition is increasingly widespread. In addition, violence to women, unequal pay and climate change are issues that have their greatest impact on the poorest people. She pointed to an international system of tax avoidance, facilitated by local elites.

Introducing Labour’s Green Paper on international development, she called for a challenge to the fundamental economic causes of poverty, rather than the symptoms, outlining five necessary measures

KateOsamorMU

  1. The advance of feminism.
  2. A fairer global economy, including:
    1. an attack on tax avoidance;
    2. more debt relief;
    3. fairer trade;
    4. national wealth to remain in situ.
  3. A Global movement for public services and an end to PFIs.
  4. A drive for World Peace including restrictions on the international arms trade, increased help for migrants and an ethical foreign policy.
  5. Measures to mitigate climate change in recognition that it is a major driver of poverty and that we have only 12 years left in which to act including:
    1. an end to subsidies for fossil fuels;
    2. investment in renewable energy;
    3. new measures of wealth and wellbeing to replace GDP growth.

Kate spoke of alternative models of prosperity, based on the key recognition that inequality is holding back progress. It is a problem that industry is not currently rooted in local communities. We need to build worldwide progressive movements which will demand an increased say for civil society. We must also recognise that aid alone is not enough; donor countries must not take more than they give.

MembersMUOf course, this agenda faces many obstacles, some of which were raised in the questions that followed, but it came as a breath of fresh air in comparison to current government policy.

Afterwards, activists handed out ‘Drop the Debt’ and ‘Sick? Scratch Cards’ to people leaving the event.  These were well received and we had some interesting discussions,

Join the fight for affordable medicines

 

It makes yer fink! (visit to the Commons International Trade Committee)

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On 20th. June I arrived in London on an early morning coach and having time to spare before a meeting went along to Parliament where the Commons International Trade Committee was taking evidence. You can watch it (and me) on https://goo.gl/kQrBab.

There were two hearings on the impact of Brexit on “Trade with the Commonwealth: Developing Countries”; the first with Professor Tony Heron, Department of Politics, University of York , and Brendan Vickers, Head of Research and Policy for International Trade and Economic Development, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat. The Prof. was difficult to follow, Vickers had experience in the Commonwealth, presented some reports his body had produced and spoke energetically, drawing distinctions between different Commonwealth countries as trading partners.

JohnWeekesThe second sitting was perhaps more interesting in some ways as the line up were unreservedly “Free Traders” with a history of negotiation deals including NAFTA.

Not billed, but coming along to support the others was John Weekes, (Pic. Bennett Jones) is a member of the Institute of Economic Affairs and an architect of NAFTA which in the past he’s advocated the UK joining, along with TPP.

Second up was Alan Oxley, Australian former ambassador to GATT, Chair of the Free-Trade Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and International Trade and Competition Unit Advisory Council. His activities in relation to deforestation and the Palm-Oil industries were criticised by the Global South environmental group REDD-Monitor in 2010 citing an open letter sent by eminent scientists worldwide, including Sir Ghillean Prance FRS. Emeritus Director of Kew Gardens.

AlanOxleyLockwoodSmithThirds was Sir Lockwood Smith, of the International Trade and Competition Unit Advisory Council, a former New Zealand Parliament Speaker, High Commissioner and Trade Minister has a great smile, seemingly all the time. (Pic. from Legatum Institute)

He’s a kindred spirit, advocate of Britain being free to join the Trans Pacific Partnership and promoted by Brexiteers: http://www.leavemeansleave.eu/media/sir-lockwood-smith-winner-yesterday-uk/ShankerSingham.jpg

Lastly came Shanker Singham (Pic. from Twitter), a colleague of Alan Oxley and (at the time of the hearing) Director of the International Trade and Competition Unit and the IEA: “A hard-Brexit guru whose thinking has influenced senior cabinet ministers” who has since lost his job at Dept. of International Trade over a ““potential conflict of interest”. He had been advising on trade policy while working four days a week at the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank but this month took a part-time role advising the PR firm Grayling.” (Times; paywall). The extent of his work and his frequent privileged access as a “Hard Brexit svengali” has been catalogued by Open Democracy and his outlook can be see in https://reaction.life/brexit-golden-opportunity-reshape-way-world-trades/.

With such an interesting line-up their opinions, in as much as I could understand them, weren’t too difficult to guess. Sir Lockwood in particular rounding off his contribution with the confident assertion that the UK should clearly cut its ties with the EU.

The chair, Angus Brendan MacNeil (SNP for the Western Isles) showed that he had some awareness of Trade Justice concerns and the potential empowerment of women through trade, leading to Brendan Vickers and Tony Heron, talking about “Women’s empowerment”, though the magnitude of achievements they could point to seemed comparatively slight and fragile when compared to the vision of the Free Traders. (One might wonder if the few millions thrown into such projects through “Aid” are really mere sops.)

Challenging the Free Traders he asked where the wellspring for a trade agreement should be – perhaps Trade ministers meeting in an airport lounge? This was answered by Singham neatly hopping from the asserted necessity of executive government doing trade to the impossibility of a country negotiating with another parliament. He favoured the US system where parliament (through committees and “cleared advisors”) might play “an advisory role” with access to secret documents and industry and trade advice- not publicly available to every Tom, Dick or Harriet. MacNeil challenged again and Singham said Government should set the agenda with Parliament having an “up or down vote on the agreement”.

John Weekes’ shared Canadian experience where a government that had previously called an election to get a free trade deal through its parliament decided a policy of openness and candour (“without giving away secrets”) – resulting in more informed discussion and the trade minister saying that a well informed opposition was much easier to deal with than an uninformed one.

Oxley’s contribution seemed to reflect an assumption that business should be consulted, not civil society – although the public had to be told the purpose of discussions, ongoing consultation wasn’t espoused.

It was sad to see that some members of the committee were absent, not contributing or slipping out. The Committee has 11 members; not half attended. (This was particularly notable with Labour members, however Chris Leslie took an active part.) What sort of scrutiny and thinking does this reflect?

I wasn’t the only witness to proceedings. John Hillary (now Head of Trade Policy, Labour Party) and Manchester’s former trade doyen Gabriel Siles-Brügge, now moved to Warwick and “providing support and advice” to the Committee. Disagreeing about Brexit, they share misgivings about potential trade injustices.

I was left with several things to think about:

  1. If paying peanuts leads to hiring monkeys, what sort of advice can you get if you invite “Free Trade” negotiators from “think tanks”?

  2. Will the Committee hear the ideas of Trade Justice advocates or people engaged in shaping regulations to protect workers, industries, environment et al.? They heard Nick Dearden as an advocate of Trade Justice back in November (See https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/international-trade-committee/news-parliament-2017/trade-bill-evidence-17-19/), but what about actual negotiators?

  3. Why weren’t members of the Committee there?

  4. Do members of the Committee (or anyone else in Westminster beyond Carolyn Lucas) ever seriously ponder the desirability of (economic) “Growth” or even “Degrowth”?

  5. Why weren’t more members of the public there?

  6. Wouldn’t it improve our thinking, arguing and campaigning if we listened to and thought about what is actually said by people rather than depending on second hand images through NGO briefings and simplified stereotypes and slogans.

You can readily find such meetings on the Commons website and that day one was spoilt for choice, other hearings involving HS2, the state of Brexit negotiations, Northern Ireland agriculture, Benefit Sanctions, local authority support for Grenfell Tower residents, the proposed ASDA/Sainsbury’s merger and the work of the government’s equality office, to name but a few in the morning.

As long as you leave weapons, placards, tools, whistles and a few other things at home you can get in to walk the corridors of power for free with no more trouble than turning out your pockets and being frisked. They scan bags which you have to keep with you – though I don’t know if they would accept a suitcase. For more information see https://www.parliament.uk/visiting/visiting-and-tours/ukvisitors/committees/

Stephen Pennells

Take action for a more transparent and democratic trade regime