Three-quarters of Chilean voters want new constitution: partial count



By Aislinn Laing, Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chileans have voted overwhelmingly for the country’s Pinochet-era constitution to be redrafted, with more than a third of votes counted from around the nation and abroad, the electoral service said on Sunday evening.

A total of 77.71% had approved the option of a fresh charter to replace one drafted in 1980 during the Augusto Pinochet military dictatorship, compared to 22.29% who voted against with 36% of votes counted, the Servel election authority said.

With 19.5% of the second voting card counted, asking voters if they wanted the new charter drafted by a specially-elected body of citizens to draft the new charter over a mixed convention of lawmakers and citizens, 75.5% picked the former.

As votes were counted on live television around the country, excitement built as citizens streamed towards the capital Santiago’s main squares.

In Plaza Italia, the central hub for protests, a small number of rock-throwing demonstrators clashed with police using tear gas and water canons but they were later replaced by massive crowds in carnival mood letting off fireworks.

Police estimated their numbers at 9 pm local (2400 GMT) at 15,000 people, who wielded green lasers as “rebirth” was beamed in lights on a nearby tower.

Record turnout seen as Chileans vote in constitutional referendum

By Aislinn Laing, Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chileans turned out in record numbers on Sunday to vote on whether to tear up the country’s Pinochet-era constitution in favor of a fresh charter drafted by citizens - a key demand of fierce anti-government protests that erupted last year.


Electoral and government officials and analysts pointed to a particularly high turnout and significant representation of young people among voters, despite Chile continuing to be blighted by the coronavirus pandemic and recent violence linked to the demonstrations.

As dusk fell, police fired tear gas and water cannon to try to disperse hundreds of people who gathered in Plaza Italia, the central Santiago square that has been the focus of protests. The officers later appeared to stand down as the crowd grew with more people arriving to celebrate the likely result.

Patricio Santamaria of the Servel elections body said turnout would probably exceed 49% - the highest level recorded since voting was made voluntary in 2012. “Today, people have heard the call of history,” he said.

Claudio Fuentes, a political scientist at Chile’s Diego Portales University, said the months of protests had served to reverse a downward trend in voting engagement.

“I think we could see turnout of around 55 to 58%,” he said. “The more people who vote, the more legitimate and overwhelming the result.


Few Chileans are indifferent to the outcome of the referendum, and opinions were strongly-held among voters polled by Reuters on Sunday.

Natalia Ramos, 43, a kindergarten teacher who voted in favor of a new constitution in Santiago’s affluent Las Condes suburb, praised the protests that began a year ago over patchy public services and societal inequity, saying they had brought about radical change.

“The protests were unfortunately violent but history tells us that without violence, there is very little we can achieve to bring about important revolution - they raised awareness of the inequality of the past 30 years,” she said.

Jose Tomas Olivares, 18, voting for the first time at the same polling station, said only the current, free-market friendly constitution could safeguard the economic growth required to uplift more citizens.

“There is a lot of populism among young people but many people are voting to approve a new constitution just to be part of a trend,” he said.


More than 14.8 million people are eligible to vote up and down the long thin country, although COVID-19 sufferers have been told to stay away from polling centers on threat of arrest.

Chileans can decide whether to approve or reject a new constitution and whether it should be drafted by a specially elected citizens’ body or a mix of citizens and lawmakers.

The winning camp needs a simple majority. Opinion polls suggest a new charter will be approved by a significant margin. First results are due between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. local time, according to Servel.

Unofficial results from votes cast by 5,208 Chileans living in Europe and Asia, tallied by Diego Portales University, showed more than 87% voted in favor of a new constitution.

The country’s current constitution was drafted by dictator Augusto Pinochet’s close adviser Jaime Guzman in 1980, and has only been tweaked by successive governments to reduce military and executive power.

Reporting by Aislinn Laing and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Daniel Wallis

PORTLAND RECKONS WITH POLICE ATTACKS ON PROTESTERS AFTER MONTHS OF UNREST

Witness testimony and a video reconstruction detail deliberate violence by police against peaceful protesters.

Alice Speri October 25 2020

DAYS INTO THE nationwide protest movement sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, the Black-led, police accountability group Don’t Shoot Portland sued the city of Portland, Oregon, over use of tear gas against protesters. The lawsuit led to a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Portland Police Bureau from using tear gas, except in narrow circumstances. But officers quickly switched gears, and in response to growing protests, they ramped up the deployment of OC spray, rubber bullets, pepper balls, flash bangs, and other impact munitions known as “nonlethal” or “less-lethal” weapons. Don’t Shoot Portland again sought and obtained a court order to limit police’s use of those weapons.

Then on June 30, just four days after a federal judge had sided with protesters and issued a restraining order on the use by police of less-lethal weapons, Portland officers meeting protesters outside the local police union building again fired smoke grenades, rubber bullets, and other impact munitions into the crowd, injuring several people. They then declared the protest a riot and deployed tear gas despite the court order restricting its use.

“They blatantly ignored the order,” Tai Carpenter, Don’t Shoot Portland’s board president, told The Intercept. “What happened on June 30 was just an all-out attack on civilians. That night just really stands out for the vast amount of violence that was being inflicted on the street.”

In August, as protests in Portland continued uninterrupted for a third month, Don’t Shoot Portland filed a new motion, asking the federal judge in the case to hold the city in contempt of court over police use of “less-lethal” munitions that night. In a court hearing this week, protesters testified in graphic detail about what they described as an unprovoked, violent response to a protest that had been largely peaceful.

A spokesperson for the city of Portland declined to comment on pending litigation. Attorneys for the city said in court that police response “was based on good faith and reasonable interpretations of the less-lethal order.” They argued that police were responding to protesters throwing bottles, rocks, and cans and shining green lasers at them, and that officers feared that protesters would set the police union’s building on fire. In court filings, they wrote that plaintiffs had offered “vague descriptions of uses of force such that it is not possible to begin to evaluate whether the uses violate the Less Lethal Order.”

The implication that a confrontation between protesters and police was too chaotic to discern, and that police were justified in their outsize response by some individuals’ actions toward them, is one that’s been regularly invoked following violent repression of protests. Often the official narrative established by police is hard to challenge in a court setting, because evidence is usually messy or incomplete, or the chain of events gets obscured in the fog of war surrounding many protests.

Read Our Complete CoverageProtests for Black Lives


But the June 30 incidents were not only among the most violent in Portland’s summer of protest, they were also some of the best documented, captured in several long videos shot from different angles by protesters and bystanders. “It was one of the most heavily visualized nights of the protests,” said Carpenter. “There were a lot of livestreamers there, there were people on their balconies, because it was in a residential neighborhood.”

In fact, the number and quality of videos has allowed attorneys for Don’t Shoot Portland, working with the applied-research group SITU, to produce an unusually detailed reconstruction of that night’s events, a granular analysis of a number of incidents of police violence over a 90-minute period of time that clearly shows the circumstances, and lack of justification, that preceded each deployment of force. The reconstruction, which was shown in court, offered a forensic analysis of a protest with a level of detail that is usually reserved for criminal investigations. It provided a rare piece of evidence of abuse by officers that is much harder to dismiss than many witness accounts of police violence, opening the door for an equally rare moment of accountability.

“What these protests have exposed is the utter contempt that the police bureau has for criticism or even the idea that anybody should question what they do at any time,” Jesse Merrithew, one of the attorneys representing Don’t Shoot Portland, told The Intercept.

“You can watch it on video what actually happened,” he added.“What we’re hopeful of is that this helps the court impose the accountability that the city has been unwilling or unable to impose on the police bureau.”



Video: Courtesy of SITU Research
The Night of June 30

On the evening of June 30, protesters who had previously stayed mostly downtown for the first time moved to the more suburban area where the Portland Police Association has its headquarters. By then, a growing number of people in Portland had begun to protest not only to demand justice for Floyd, but also large cuts to the police bureau’s budget and accountability for violence carried out by local police. In court documents, Don’t Shoot Portland called the police union “the chief obstacle to police accountability in this city.”

Protesters met a line of officers before reaching the union’s building and stopped at a distance, chanting or listening to speakers. Witnesses described seeing a couple plastic bottles hurled toward the officers, but no further criminal conduct and “nothing shocking or riotous.” But within minutes of protesters’ arrival, officers in full riot gear filled the street. Using a loudspeaker on an LRAD truck, a type of sonic weapon sometimes deployed at protests, they announced that the assembly had been declared unlawful and threatened to deploy force to arrest protesters. Then, as the crowd complied with orders to move back, police, unprovoked, begun pushing and beating people back with batons. Almost immediately, and responding to no visible provocation, they fired the first impact munitions and pepper-sprayed people at close range.

The reconstruction of the following hour and a half that was presented in court zeroed in on four moments that evening during which police deployed multiple types of less-lethal weapons, as well as a moment when they “bull-rushed” into the crowd. It ends showing police as they declared a riot and deployed tear gas.

In the first incident, police can be seen shoving and beating people with batons and pepper-spraying them in the face, before shooting munitions at them at close range, even as protesters are moving back as directed. Police are also shown grabbing a protester holding a banner, ripping it, and preventing people from dispersing despite ordering them to do so. In the second incident, a protester can be seen throwing a bottle on the ground in front of police — in response to which police fire impact munitions at the protester multiple times before rolling a smoke grenade into the receding crowd. Officers are then seen firing at a different protester who kicked away a smoke canister. In the third incident, police are seen shooting impact munitions at a crowd that was posing no threat, from 120 feet away, and then doing so again at a closer distance during a fourth incident.



Video: Courtesy of SITU Research

In court, James Comstock, a lead investigator in the case, walked a judge through SITU’s reconstruction, which he explained was built using a laser scan of the area to reproduce a three-dimensional model of the street where the protest took place. Visual evidence of each incident was then mapped onto the model and replayed in real time. Each incident was presented from multiple viewpoints, including side views and aerial views captured by a bystander filming from his balcony. And each deployment of force was shown in the context of the 30 seconds that preceded it, in order to paint as accurate a picture as possible of any action that might have justified it.

“I don’t know that anybody has used a reconstruction like this in a protest case,” Merrithew told The Intercept. “We use them all the time in criminal cases and we’ve used similar reconstructions for police shooting cases.”

“It gives a really good overview for people to understand what’s going on, the movement of the police and the protesters, and the violence, and it’s in real-time so you can actually see what’s happening,” echoed Carpenter. “It will show a lot of people what we’ve been saying, that it was all unprovoked.”

In court, the judge also heard firsthand accounts from protest participants, including Pedro Anglada Cordero, the protester who was shot with a rubber bullet after kicking a smoke canister away, and Eric Greatwood, a livestreamer and a regular presence at Portland protests who recorded most of the evening with a video action camera placed on top of a 20-foot pole, and who was shot in the groin with a FN303 round, a type of impact munition that has caused fatal injuries in the past.

Anglada Cordero, who was at the protest with his wife, was retreating from police along with most others in the crowd when a smoke canister was tossed toward him. Anglada Cordero, who noted that his wife had already been coughing because of the chemical agents in the air, said that he instinctively moved to kick the can away. When the can barely moved, he took a few more steps and kicked it further away, the video shows. Police immediately shot him with rubber bullets, hitting him once behind the knee and once in the thigh, and leaving tennis ball-sized bruises later documented in court filings.

“My first, spontaneous reaction was to get it away from us,” he told The Intercept, referring to the canister. “It was in my interest to keep our immediate group safe from being exposed to more agents.”

But police took the gesture as an attack on them, and right after he kicked the canister, things escalated quickly, Anglada Cordero said. Moments later someone who tried to grab and toss a can was tackled to the ground. In court, city attorneys sought to describe the incidents as evidence of protesters’ violent conduct. Anglada Cordero said he was just trying to protect his wife, himself, and those in his immediate vicinity.

“The moment they toss a smoke canister our way and the moment someone kicks it back, that constitutes a reason for them to escalate and retaliate,” he told The Intercept. “So suddenly they are in the right to use ammunition against the crowd, but the crowd has no right to defend themselves.”



Video: Courtesy of SITU Research

Eric Greatwood, an independent livestreamer who has filmed dozens of protests, captured much of the evening on video, providing footage that was used for the reconstruction presented in court. At one point, officers recognized him and called him by name, ordering him to move back. “That just sent the hairs of my arm up, just to call me by my name like that,” Greatwood told The Intercept. He complied but kept filming from the sidelines as police arrested protesters. Then moments later, as Greatwood crouched down to look at an unexploded smoke grenade, police fired an impact munition at him, hitting him in the groin.

“I know for a fact that they did it intentionally because there have been other people who have been fired on in that area,” said Greatwood, who can be heard moaning in the video as his camera kept rolling. “They have sights on those things, they know exactly how to fire them, they are supposed to bounce them off the ground. They fired directly at me.”

A U.S. Air Force veteran, Greatwood said that anyone in the military caught doing what police did to him would be in prison. “I don’t know how a man can actually hit another man in the groin, that just completely baffles me, he totally aimed for it.” The officer who shot him, Brent Taylor, said in court that had had not intended to target Greatwood’s groin. “I’m shooting at a moving target,” he testified. “I’m aiming at his lower legs but how quickly he changes his position, I cannot control.”

Greatwood, who has filed notice of his intent to sue the city for using excessive force, said that he was in pain for weeks after being shot and had difficulty using the bathroom. But he was back the next day to livestream another protest, and many more since then. “I just couldn’t not film what was happening.”
Competing Narratives

In court, attorneys for the city pushed back against the reconstruction presented on behalf of Don’t Shoot Portland. “It wasn’t an effort to provide an objective presentation from both police perspective and demonstrator perspective, right?” an attorney for the city asked Comstock in cross-examination, noting that the reconstruction focused for instance on the actions of Portland police, and not of Oregon State Police who were also on the scene. “The purpose of this video is giving context around the video that we’ve collected,” Comstock replied.

In fact, the legal team representing protesters said that they chose to reconstruct the June 30 incidents over other episodes during which police may also have violated court orders in part because of the volume of evidence available about them. “It’s important for the case to be able to give the court the best possible, quality evidence so the court can determine whether or not they violated the order,” said Merrithew.

But as Portlanders reckon with the historic wave of protests that has gripped the city for months, leading to two deaths and hundreds of arrests, and as the upcoming mayoral race is likely to be determined in large part by officials’ response to the protests, the broader public also has a right to see evidence of what happened, Merrithew argued.

“Probably a very small percentage of the public is looking at these things every night and actually paying attention to what’s going on; they’re hearing it from a 10,000-foot view, which allows them to sort of be naive in whatever camp they’re predisposed to be in,” he said. “We’re trying to bring the same quality of evidence to the public as we are to the court, because the public needs to understand that the justifications that are being made by the bureau are false. The public needs to understand what these public employees are doing in their name.”

The impulse to discern and record what was happening is also what drove Greatwood to start livestreaming the protests in Portland. “I’ve seen a lot of footage that was basically just the backs of people’s heads, and there was a lot of chaos, but you couldn’t exactly see anything,” he said, adding that his video camera, placed on top of a pole or sometimes on a drone, offers a bird’s eye view of the protests. “I wanted to figure out if protesters were causing the police’s actions or if the police were just being a little bit heavy-handed.”

Greatwood said that he has always been respectful toward officers at protests, getting out of their way when asked and limiting himself to documenting what was happening, including on June 30. But he felt he had been targeted that night because he was there with a camera. “They are probably upset because they know that they have been acting out of line, and they don’t like it being broadcast,” he said. “If you are doing things that are proper, you shouldn’t be afraid of a camera and the truth.”

That night, he said, he had seen “barely anything happening” before police unleashed on protesters. “I saw more things that seemed blown out of proportion when it came to the police providing footage or photos to the press,” he added. “I felt like there was a lot of gaslighting from the police, and that there was not a whole lot that the protesters were doing to get them egged on.”

Others who testified last week also said that regardless of the outcome in court, it was important for Portland residents to document and address the harm and trauma inflicted on countless protesters over the last months. “There are so many people that have gone through something so similar to what I went through that night,” said Anglada Cordero, who after being shot helped other protesters who were maced at close range and couldn’t breathe. “When you go through such an experience, and you see others hurt, then you feel compelled to come out and be in solidarity with others. And that’s what happens every night, when people are getting hurt, more people come out and help each other.”

The judge in the case is expected to rule on whether to hold the city in contempt of court in the coming days.

“It’s hard to have faith in the court system when it’s been proven all your life that your civil liberties don’t matter,” said Carpenter of Don’t Shoot Portland. “But the trauma and the violence have been clearly documented on the record; they’re facts that can’t be ignored. Even with the way that our justice system works, there has to be accountability.”

POLICE FAILING TO PROTECT PROTESTERS FROM VIOLENCE, AS VOLATILE ELECTIONS NEAR

October 23, 2020

Law enforcement agencies across the United States are failing to facilitate people’s fundamental right to freedom of peaceful assembly, and to protect protests and counter-protests from violent disruption by armed groups among others, Amnesty International said today in a new report, Losing the Peace: US Police Failures to Protect Protesters from Violence.

Since the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020, there have been thousands of peaceful anti-racism and political protests and counter-protests across the United States. Yet in nearly 200 incidents where violence occurred between participants in conflicting protests, Amnesty International found that US police forces frequently failed to take preventive measures to avoid the disruption of peaceful assemblies and failed to protect protesters from violent attacks when they did occur.

“Amidst unprecedented rises in political volatility and violence, US government and law enforcement authorities at all levels must meticulously protect people’s human rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. “In the context of hotly contested elections and a nationwide civil rights movement, no one should fear for their lives when they try to cast a vote or have their voices heard at peaceful assemblies.”

From May to September 2020, Amnesty International has documented and verified violent confrontations between protests and counter-protests in approximately 75% of all US states, and in about half of all US states it confirmed cases of police forces failing to keep assemblies peaceful and to protect participants from violent confrontations with counter-protesters. In particular, law enforcement agencies often neglected to:
Deploy appropriately trained police in adequate numbers to address potential violence between protesters and counter-protesters;
Separate protests and counter-protests, and de-escalate tensions, when necessary to avoid violent confrontations;
Prohibit and prevent threats of violence by armed groups and individuals at peaceful assemblies.
Halt acts of violence by intervening in disputes between protesters and counter-protesters; and
Differentiate between violent and nonviolent actors in law enforcement responses to violent incidents, including by avoiding the dispersal of assemblies when they remained otherwise generally peaceful.

“As President Trump calls on his supporters to ‘go to’ and ‘watch’ the polling stations, and white supremacist armed groups to ‘stand by’ during the elections, law enforcement officials should be on high alert to prevent political violence in this explosive moment,” said Brian Griffey, regional researcher and advisor for North America at Amnesty International. “Government authorities and the police forces they direct must adopt new policies, strategies, and tactics to facilitate and protect peaceful protests, and prevent their disruption by armed groups or other violent actors.”

Among the incidents documented by Amnesty International, over a dozen protests and counter-protests erupted in violence with police either mostly or entirely absent from the scene. A frequent catalyst for violent confrontations between protesters and counter-protesters was the presence of vigilante armed groups. The Trump administration’s rhetoric, policies, and practices have appeared to encourage the prevalence of armed groups unlawfully assaulting protesters and counter-protesters around the country.

In one example, an anti-racism protest organizer, Tony Crawford, told Amnesty International that “people could have gotten killed” during a violent confrontation his community had with armed counter-protesters at demonstration calling for the removal of a Confederate civil war statue in Weatherford, Texas in July.

In a series of text messages to the Weatherford police chief, reviewed by Amnesty International, Crawford wrote: “The patriots [armed group members] are surrounding us to force confrontation. We are surrounded by guns and people talking about shooting us loudly… Where are the police, Chief? This is ridiculous. We are being abused. Where are y’all… Y’all abandoned us Chief. You abandoned us. You let us get dragged and attacked while you did nothing.”

US government and law enforcement authorities at all levels must reform their police forces’ policies and practices to better facilitate freedom of peaceful assembly and protect protesters from widespread threats of preventable violence. In the marked absence of federal protection, local-level governments should safeguard protests from violence by issuing temporary executive orders to restrict the presence of weapons in public properties, parks, polling stations, and peaceful assemblies; and by instructing their law enforcement agencies to prevent armed individuals and armed groups from disrupting peaceful protests and civic activities during the elections period.

Police forces at city, county, state and federal levels should all immediately reform their conduct and implement specialized trainings on the human rights-compliant facilitation and protection of freedom of peaceful assembly, in line with their obligations under the US Constitution and good practices in policing of assemblies.

Background and context

On August 4, Amnesty International published the report The World is Watching: Mass Violations by US police of Black Lives Matter protesters’ rights.

On October 6, the organization called upon United States governors to issue executive orders prohibiting non-state actors from possessing firearms at or near polling places during the 2020 general elections. Six states already prohibit guns at polling places: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.

On October 20, Amnesty International also issued a joint letter with Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, calling on US municipal governments to adopt temporary special measures to prevent armed individuals or groups from intimidating or threatening protesters or voters during and following the elections.

Media contact: media@aiusa.org

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Losing the Peace

 

White poppy campaign launches with call to remember Yemen

By agency reporter

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Remembrance Day risks being a 'festival of forgetting' if we ignore Yemen and other wars going on today. That is the message from the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) as it launches this year's white poppy campaign.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Yemen, which has already killed over 20,000 people and left 10 million on the brink of starvation.

The PPU is this year using the slogan 'Remember Yemen', along with the usual call to 'Remember Them All' – victims of all nationalities in all wars, including current wars and lesser-mentioned colonial wars of the past.

White poppies, which have been worn since 1933, have three meanings:

• Remembrance for all victims of war, both civilian and military, of all nationalities
• A commitment to peace
• A rejection of militarism and any attempt to celebrate war

The PPU has repeatedly condemned British complicity in the bombing of Yemen, pointing out that Saudi forces have been trained by UK forces, both in the UK and in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the UK government has recently allowed the resumption of arms sales to the Saudi regime. In August, British soldier Ahmed Al-Babati was arrested by Military Police for peacefully protesting against the war in Yemen.

While white poppy sales and remembrance events this year are likely to be affected by the ongoing pandemic: the PPU has reported that there has already been an increase in orders of white poppy material for schools. This includes a new Remembrance Education Pack, featuring suggested activities and lesson ideas for both primary and secondary schools.

Geoff Tibbs, the Peace Pledge Union's Remembrance Project Manager, said: “White poppies stand for remembrance of all victims of war – including those it suits the UK government to forget. Many white poppy wearers this year will remember Yemen, where British-trained pilots are dropping bombs from British-made planes. White poppies challenge militarism, as well as the hypocrisy of those who talk of remembering the past while ignoring the present.”

Adhiyan Jeevathol of London Students for Yemen, who is backing the white poppy campaign, said: “We should remember Yemen because we are in part responsible for the misery in Yemen if we do not take a stand against the policies of the UK government and arms companies. Through remembrance we can endeavour not to be responsible for another Yemen.”

White poppies were first introduced by the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1933, and are now distributed by the Peace Pledge Union, a pacifist campaign group, though not all white poppy wearers are pacifists. Money raised through sales goes towards promoting nonviolent approaches to conflict and producing educational materials. Many white poppy wearers also donate to charities supporting veterans or other victims of war.

The Peace Pledge Union will hold an Alternative Remembrance Sunday Ceremony on 8 November. Owing to the Covid pandemic, it will this year be largely online. More details will be announced shortly.

* White poppies and resources available to order here

* Peace Pledge Union https://www.ppu.org.uk/

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Domestic workers in Qatar suffer extreme overwork and abuse
By agency reporter
OCTOBER 21, 2020


Migrant domestic workers in Qatar have been pushed to breaking point by extreme overwork, lack of rest, and abusive and degrading treatment, says Amnesty International in a major new report.

Amnesty spoke to 105 women who had been employed as live-in domestic workers – 90 of the women said they regularly worked more than 14 hours per day, while half worked more than 18 hours per day, almost double their contracted hours.

Eighty nine of the women who were in contact with Amnesty regularly worked seven days a week, and many of the women had never had a single day off at all.

Though Qatar has introduced a Domestic Workers Law for its 173,000 migrant domestic workers - with limits on working hours, mandatory daily breaks, a weekly day off and paid holidays – many women told Amnesty they were scared to refuse their employers’ endless requests, even when they desperately needed to rest. Eighty seven of the workers had also had their passport confiscated by their employers.

Some also reported not being paid properly, while 40 women described being insulted, slapped or spat at. One woman said she was treated “like a dog”, with others describing sexual abuse (see cases below).

At least 23 women interviewed by Amnesty said they were not given enough food, while some described sleeping in cramped rooms, on the floor or without air-conditioning.

Amnesty’s 76-page report, ‘Why do you want to rest?’: Ongoing abuse of domestic workers in Qatar, highlights how the Qatari authorities’ are failing to conduct workplace inspections, and how recent reforms were failing to significantly address systemic abuse. Qatar recently introduced a minimum wage and abolished a requirement that workers obtain their employer’s permission to change jobs or leave the country. Though these changes may make it easier for workers to escape exploitative employers, they are unlikely to significantly reduce abuse itself or improve domestic workers’ conditions.

As a party to various international treaties prohibiting human rights abuses, Qatar is obliged to protect all workers, including domestic workers living and working in its territory, and should provide remedies when those rights are being violated.

Steve Cockburn, Head of Economic and Social Justice at Amnesty International, said: “Domestic workers told us they were working an average of 16 hours a day, every day of the week, far more than the law allows. Almost all had their passport confiscated by their employers, and others described not getting their salaries and being subjected to vicious insults and assaults.

“The overall picture is of a system which continues to allow employers to treat domestic workers not as human beings but as possessions. Despite efforts to reform labour laws, Qatar is still failing the most vulnerable women in the country.”

Amnesty is calling on the Qatari authorities to take concrete steps to ensure full implementation of the law, establish strict inspection mechanisms and take serious action against abusive employers.

Amnesty spoke to 40 women who said they had suffered verbal and physical abuse, often involved degrading treatment, shouting and insults.

Emily (not her real name) said: “Madam will say ‘[you are] a monster, I will cut your tongue’. I am scared. She will tell me ‘I will kill you’, always bad words. I am only a [maid], and I can’t do anything.”

Fifteen women said they faced physical abuse at the hands of their employers or family members, including spitting, beating, kicking, punching and hair-pulling.

Five women said they had been sexually abused by their employers or visiting relatives. The sexual abuse ranged from harassment to fondling and rape. Most women felt they could not complain to the police for fear of retaliation by their employers. One woman, Julia (not her real name), did report sexual abuse to the police. The son of Julia’s employer visited the house one day and attempted to rape another woman working in the house. The man offered the women money to keep quiet, but they went to the police. A police investigator accused Julia and her friend of “making up stories” and dropped the case. Finally, their employer bought them tickets home in exchange for the women signing a statement written in Arabic which they did not understand.

Some of the women Amnesty interviewed were still in their jobs, while others had left but remained in Qatar; others had returned to their home countries. Like the women themselves, the employers they described were from many different countries. All names have been changed to protect identities.

Qatar has utterly failed to hold abusive employers to account, meaning there is little to deter future abuses. Passport confiscation and unpaid wages are not being automatically investigated. Employers rarely face consequences when they refuse to hand back passports or pay unpaid wages.

Women who leave their jobs can face retaliation measures from their employers and be charged with 'absconding' or other offences. At least ten women Amnesty spoke to were accused of theft, and 13 others had an 'absconding' case filed by their employers. All women denied the charges and said they were filed after they fled abuses.

The isolation of many domestic workers and the restrictions imposed on their freedom of movement make it very difficult for them access support and flee abuse. While some businesses are beginning to set up workplace committees for other migrant workers, no equivalent initiative exists for domestic workers. Domestic workers, like other migrant workers in Qatar, are unable to form and join trade unions.

* Read ‘Why do you want to rest?’: Ongoing abuse of domestic workers in Qatar here

* Amnesty International https://www.amnesty.org.uk/

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We need to stop our children being monetised

By Bernadette Meaden

OCTOBER 7, 2020

Student accommodation is a lucrative business. One investment website says gross yields can be around 10-15 per cent, and adds, “Following the 2008 global downturn, it consistently remained one of the world’s best performing asset classes. Today, despite wider economic concerns, it remains one of the most popular investments in the UK and US respectively.”

These investments can change hands for huge sums. Earlier this year it was reported that New York-based private equity firm Blackstone had done the largest-ever private property deal in the UK, by agreeing to buy student accommodation company iQ  from Goldman Sachs – for £4.7 billion. 

The plight of students now locked down and studying online in this expensive accommodation is rightly receiving considerable attention, and the monetisation of university education and the student experience is being discussed – perhaps in part because people in the media can easily identify with the students, or may have family members affected.

But – providers of student accommodation do at least supply rooms or flats in a suitable location, ie near the university. Some of our most disadvantaged and traumatised children and young people do not even get that consideration, and few people in the media identify with their plight.

Children who are taken into care are often moved long distances away from their home areas, far from everything and everybody they know. Andrew Fellowes of the NSPCC has pointed out that these children are more likely to go missing, and says, “There needs to be coordinated action from national and local governments to provide high quality accommodation options close to where children live." 

One would think this was the least we could expect from a state which had any thought for the welfare of some of its least fortunate children – that some careful planning would go into where children’s homes are needed, and to establish them there.

But the reality is that, like so much these days, the care of vulnerable children is increasingly subject to market forces. The care of some of our youngest and most severely deprived and disadvantaged children have, like University students, become a source of big profits, and if there’s one thing we all know about profits, it’s that they are usually maximised where possible.

So perhaps it is no surprise to learn that a quarter of all England’s children’s homes are located in the North West, and that London children who go into care are quite likely to be sent far away from home. It seems likely that a big factor in this is property prices. If you were setting up a children’s home for profit, would you buy an expensive property in the South East, or a cheap one in the North West? So, children in care are shunted around the country.

Perhaps if we were confident that children would receive good care when they got there, location wouldn’t be so important. But sadly, we can’t be. In the latest government figures, for example, it was revealed that two large private providers had 28 per cent of their homes listed as “Requires improvement to be good”. 

What does it mean, for the children who have to live in homes that are not as good as we would hope? What is it like? Sometimes, not at all like a home in any real sense of the word. Ofsted inspection reports can tell a grim story.

For instance, on 11 August 2020, following a complaint, Ofsted carried out a monitoring visit to a children's home in Warrington. The previous inspection in 2019 had rated the home as Good. On this visit inspectors found, “Staff and managers are not meeting children’s basic day-to-day needs and physical necessities. This may re-enforce previous experiences for children and this does not meet the therapeutic approach described in the home’s statement of purpose." And then, sadly: ”The physical environment of the home needs improvement. For example, carpets in the home were stained and had burn marks on them. Basic items such as bathroom fittings and bedroom furniture were missing. This does not provide a homely environment for the children to live in.” The company that operates this children’s home was purchased in 2017 by a private equity company based in Savile Row, Mayfair, London. 

Last year the Local Government Select Committee investigated the funding of children’s care, and said, ‘Concerns were raised about local authorities’ reliance on private providers and the cost and quality of some of this care. Professor Jones [Emeritus Professor of Social Work, Kingston University and St George’s, University of London] told the Committee: “at the moment, 40 local authorities do not provide any residential childcare themselves; they buy it all in the market”. He considered that the overdependence on the private sector meant “the market is now escalating the price [of residential care] because they can afford to, because they have local authorities over a barrel”. He also considered that “the same is true of independent foster care agencies”.’ 

Then in January 2020, research commissioned by the Local Government Association found, “Professional investors and markets have brought financial engineering techniques to the children’s services sector, and these include significantly increasing debt levels and their associated risk.”

Financial engineering techniques. It’s disturbing to remind ourselves that we are talking about the care of traumatised, unhappy and suffering children, being treated as income streams for big businesses and hedge funds to gamble with. This, to me, indicates how unjust and money-driven our society has become, and how the lives of those most in need are too often disregarded and ignored – at great cost to them, and to us. Many of the costs, in personal and social harm, are unquantifiable. But the financial costs alone can be quite staggering.

In September 2020 the Children’s Commissioner reported: “local authorities can pay extortionate amounts for residential care – usually more than £4,000 a week, with local authorities reporting that the costs of such placements are rising sharply.” When children are 16 or older they may go into ‘unregulated accommodation’, where they receive support rather than care – again often provided by private companies at a profit, sometimes of poor quality (caravans and even tents have been reported) and often at great cost. The Children’s Commissioner said “we have heard evidence of one local authority being charged £9,000 per week for a place in unregulated accommodation” 

Even foster care, where an individual or family opens their homes and their hearts to children, the epitome of kindness and generosity, has been affected by this monetisation, as private equity firms have moved into this sector too. The three dominant independent groups in the foster care ‘industry’ are all backed by private equity.

It is of course essential to say that the actual foster carers and staff who are working on the front line in children’s care will be doing everything they can to keep children safe and improve their quality of life and prospects. This is emphatically not intended as a criticism of those dedicated people who are working so hard, but of a system that allows profit to be a priority, and sees growing amounts of public money channelled into the bank accounts of hedge funds.

And if, thanks to the support of good people and their own determination and talent, children survive and go to university, they may remain a source of profit, for investors in student accommodation.

* I became aware of these issues through the work of Martin Barrow, a local authority foster carer and journalist who tirelessly campaigns for scrutiny, transparency, and accountability in children’s social care. Follow him on Twitter @MartinBarrow

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© Bernadette Meaden has written about political, religious and social issues for some years, and is strongly influenced by Christian Socialism, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker movement. She is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor. You can follow her on Twitter: @BernaMeaden

 

Climate crisis reducing food supply for Canada's First Nations

By agency reporter

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Climate change is taking a growing toll on First Nations in Canada, depleting food sources and affecting health, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. The Canadian government is not adequately supporting First Nations’ efforts to adapt to the mounting crisis and is failing to do its part to reduce the global greenhouse gas emissions that are driving it.

The 120-page report, ‘My Fear is Losing Everything’: The Climate Crisis and First Nations’ Right to Food in Canada, documents how climate change is reducing First Nations’ traditional food sources, driving up the cost of imported alternatives, and contributing to a growing problem of food insecurity and related negative health impacts. Canada is warming at more than twice the global rate, and northern Canada at about three times the global rate. Despite its relatively small population, Canada is still a top 10 greenhouse gas emitter, with per capita emissions three to four times the global average.

“Climate change is pushing increasingly dangerous levels of food poverty in First Nations”, said Katharina Rall, senior environment researcher at Human Rights Watch. “By flouting its emissions-reduction commitments, Canada is contributing to the global climate crisis that, within its borders, is being felt most acutely by Indigenous people who live off the land.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 120 people, including residents, chiefs, and council members in First Nations in Yukon, northwestern British Columbia, and northern Ontario, as well as medical providers, educators, and environment and health experts, including Indigenous mental health counsellors and staff of Indigenous representative organisations. Human Rights Watch also reviewed academic research and peer-reviewed scientific studies documenting and projecting the impact of climate change in the areas studied, and contacted federal, provincial, and territorial government officials about the issues.

In the three geographic locations studied, residents reported drastic reductions in the quantity of food they are able to harvest, and increased difficulty and danger associated with harvesting food from the land. These changes are being driven in significant part by climate change impacts on wildlife habitat, including changing ice and permafrost conditions, more and increasingly intense wildfires, warming water temperatures, changes in precipitation and water levels, and unpredictable weather.

Households must supplement their traditional diet with more purchased food. But grocery stores are often remote and the prices for nutritious foods prohibitive. As a result, people said, they tend to eat more affordable but less nutritious foods, compounding existing health conditions resulting from historic marginalisation and poor access to health care in rural and remote Indigenous communities. Children, older people, and people with chronic diseases are particularly affected. Some children go to school hungry, and some older people cut down on their food. People with chronic diseases often cannot afford to follow medically recommended diets. Access to adequate and sufficient food corresponding to cultural traditions is an essential component of the human rights to food and health.

Across the country, First Nations are working to address the impact of the climate crisis. Some maintain strong traditional food sharing networks, while others have created monitoring systems for climate change impacts on their environment. Yet, all these efforts require resources and capacity, which many communities lack, and the federal and provincial governments are not doing enough to support them, Human Rights Watch found.

Federal climate change policies have largely ignored the real impact of climate change on First Nations. While climate change is already exacerbating historic inequalities experienced by First Nations, most existing policies fail to monitor – let alone address – current human rights impacts in these settings.

Subsidies, health resources, and other resources needed to respond are often not available, insufficient, or do not reach those who need them most. The federal government’s Nutrition North programme subsidises transporting nutritious foods from registered southern retailers, but healthy store-bought food options remain financially out of reach for many in remote and northern communities.

Canada is also not doing its part to advance global efforts to address climate change. Canada has not set adequately ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets consistent with the goal of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C, in line with the Paris Agreement, and the government is not even on track to meet its own targets.

The federal government acknowledged that food security is a critical issue and that more work is needed to cut emissions and meet First Nations food security needs. But it has not clarified how it will curb emissions or concretely address climate-exacerbated food insecurity.

Provincial and territorial government responses varied. The Yukon territorial government has committed to monitoring and tracking food insecurity and acknowledged the need to address the unique impact on Indigenous peoples. Ontario’s government, by contrast, has cancelled numerous climate adaptation and mitigation programs that benefited First Nations.

British Columbia has collaborated with First Nations to develop a climate adaptation strategy but did not respond to requests for further information on the details of this strategy, due to be released this year. Neither Yukon, Ontario, nor British Columbia have made any significant progress in reducing their emissions.

“If Canada does not urgently scale up its efforts to reduce emissions, it will continue to fuel the global climate crisis that is already having an outsized impact on First Nations”, Rall said. “The government should also urgently provide financial and technical support to First Nations already facing the devastating impacts of climate change.”

Kyle Linklater, a resident of Weenusk First Nation, Ontario said: “My biggest fear of climate change [is] losing everything. Losing our tradition over the weathers, over melting ice. [I]f we lose what we have now, what will we have to show our children in the future?”

Chief Madeek, Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief, of Skeena River watershed, British Columbia said: “Climate change is really affecting First Nations right now. There is no food for animals to eat. The animals won’t be there for us to hunt.”

* Read the report ‘My Fear is Losing Everything’ here

* Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/

[Ekk/6]

I wouldn't have insurance without the Affordable Care Act. Now Trump is working to deprive millions of struggling Americans health insurance.
Bobbi Dempsey,
Opinion Contributor

Hundreds of people line up for assistance with their unemployment claim. Because of the pandemic, millions of Americans are out of work and don't have health insurance. Bryan Woolston/Reuters

Many Americans lost their jobs and/or their health insurance this year, leading to a surge in applications for medical coverage through Healthcare.gov and other government programs. 

People suffering from COVID-related medical issues during and after the pandemic will need the Affordable Care Act (ACA) more than ever. 

The Trump administration still hasn't yet unveiled any alternative healthcare plan, meaning the abolishment of the ACA would leave millions of Americans with no recourse.

Sitting at my desk, I can clearly hear my son hacking and wheezing in his bedroom upstairs. He's had a persistent cough for a while now, which is more than a little alarming, given the current landscape.

It isn't just the possibility of my child being infected with COVID-19 — and the serious and terrifying health risks that go along with it — that frighten me. It's also the realization that we cannot afford to pay for treatment he might need to save his life. Out of my three young adult children, only one currently has medical insurance. Unfortunately for the cough-plagued son in question, he is not so fortunate. 

Trump is trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act while millions are sick, dying, and out of work.

When faced with a deadly virus that's killing in staggering numbers, people shouldn't have to think about whether they can afford access to treatment that could possibly mean the difference between life and death. But that's the reality in a country where private healthcare is typically tied to employment, and the most vulnerable and needy people must rely on a patchwork of programs that make up our shredded safety net.

Right now, the combination of a pandemic and economic disaster means many Americans are experiencing parallel feelings of panic: struggling to survive financially, while also hoping they survive, period.


Given that harsh reality, it is mind boggling to me that the Trump administration would choose this particular time — during a global pandemic when more than 220,000 Americans have died and many more are sick and struggling — to try and rip healthcare away from vulnerable Americans who desperately need it now more than ever.

The Trump administration is currently urging the Supreme Court to throw out the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Depending on how the Court decides on the specific questions involved, the decision could invalidate the entire law completely and deprive millions of Americans of their only access to health insurance.

Ironically, the administration's initial Supreme Court filing came at almost the same time as a news release from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) — a division of the Department of Health & Human Services — announcing that nearly 500,000 Americans had applied for new healthcare coverage through Healthcare.gov due in large part due to coronavirus-related job losses. That figure included people who applied through a special enrollment period for those who qualified based on loss of minimum essential coverage, and specifically focused on data for a period which ran from the end of the Open Enrollment Period last fall through May of this year.

The more recent data about healthcare coverage (or lack thereof) paints an equally grim picture. A news update from the CMS on September 30 showed more than 4 million new Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollments between February and June 2020. This represents an increase of nearly 5.7 percent since March.

Highlighting the need for universal coverage

The crisis that would result from the loss of the ACA underscores the problem with having no universal healthcare coverage that's available to all citizens, and not tied to employment.

The United States is the only industrialized country that lacks some form of universal healthcare. Some countries, like Australia, have a dual-track system with both public and private options. Other countries like Canada and the United Kingdom have what most people envision when they think of universal healthcare: a government-run system where all citizens have access to coverage.

The public programs are typically funded through taxes, and insured citizens usually pay minimal premiums or none at all. Critics of universal healthcare programs point out some common complaints, such as long wait times and the challenge of getting pricey treatments approved without a fight. However, many Americans — especially those who have tried to get medical care while uninsured — also frequently encounter similar issues, without the benefits of universal coverage.

Giving scared people reason to panic about whether they would be able to get medical treatment if they should get sick at a time when so many are dying or facing life-threatening illness seems intentionally cruel.


This adds significant and unnecessary anxiety to what is already an emotionally stressful time, particularly for those worried about symptoms they or loved ones may be facing.

I am extremely grateful that this is one of the rare times in my life when I have decent health insurance. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, my children and I were unable to get insurance due to pre-existing conditions. However, I am still trying to pay off the bills for my out-of-pocket costs from a major surgery I had last fall. And my children have all reached an age where they can no longer be covered under my policy. (Important to note, though, that they would have been dropped from this coverage years earlier were it not for the protections made possible by the ACA.)

This crisis should serve as a wake-up call — a clear illustration of the pitfalls of forcing people to rely on employers or ravaged safety net programs for healthcare coverage. It should be crystal clear that we can no longer wait to initiate a universal healthcare program. During a pandemic, the last thing a sick person should worry about is whether they can scrape together enough cash for cough medicine or if they can afford to pay an ER bill.

And none of us should have to live in fear that the federal leaders who first failed to protect us from an impending pandemic will then further abandon us by ripping away our ability to get basic medical treatment that could mean the difference between life and death.

Bobbi Dempsey is a freelance writer and an economic justice fellow at Community Change.

Joe Biden is doubling down on raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour despite the economic downturn. It could bump paychecks for over 27 million workers.

Joseph Zeballos-Roig


Biden is pushing ahead with raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour even as the downturn takes a toll on small businesses.

The Biden campaign hasn't laid out a timeline to implement it, and it did not respond whether it supported a House bill that would raise it to that level by 2025.

Congress last raised the federal minimum wage in 2009. It's the longest stretch without a wage hike in US history.

Republicans oppose it, arguing it hurts employers and causes job losses.
A growing amount of economic research so far indicates employment hasn't been negatively impacted in states and cities that implemented hourly wage increases.


Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is sticking by his push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, a move that would bump paychecks for millions of low-wage workers hit hard by the pandemic.

Biden and President Donald Trump clashed on the issue at Thursday's presidential debate. Asked about increasing workers' pay when many small businesses are struggling, Biden responded he still believed it was necessary to increase the hourly wage to $15.

"I do, because I think one of the things we're going to have to do we're going to have to bail them out too — we should be bailing them out now, those small businesses," Biden said.

Trump, however, argued lifting wages would harm employers and said it should be left up to the states. "I think it should be a state option. Alabama is different than New York, New York is different from Vermont," he said. "Every state is different."


The president has adopted various positions to a minimum wage hike since 2016, having previously expressed an openness to a higher wage floor.

The divide between the candidates highlights many years of heated economic debate on the impact of raising minimum wages on employment levels. A growing body of research so far indicates that some state and city-wage increases in recent years hasn't set back the ability of employers to hire more workers. Evidence of job losses has not been consistent.

Read more: An investing shop overseeing $476 billion analyzed 650 stocks to fine-tune its election strategy. The firm's experts break down the trades to make around a Biden win — and explains how investors can keep portfolios safe.

Last year, the Democratic-led House approved a plan to gradually lift the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. The GOP-controlled Senate dismissed the legislation and never took it up.


Biden has unveiled a plan to increase the federal minimum wage and index it to the median hourly wage, so low-wage employees' incomes keeps pace with those of salaried middle-income workers. The campaign hasn't laid out a timeline to implement a $15 hourly wage. It did not respond to a request for comment on whether it supported the House bill, called the "Raise the Wage Act."

"One other thing that people may not realize is we've raised the minimum wage in weak economies in the past," Jared Bernstein, an outside economic advisor to Biden and formerly a top aide during his vice presidency, told Business Insider. "The results have been the same."
The push for $15 an hour and its possible impacts

A nonpartisan analysis of the House Democratic proposal produced mixed findings. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it could increase paychecks for 27.3 million low-wage workers and lift 1.3 million workers out of poverty. It also suggested the economy could shed 1.3 million jobs.

Ben Zipperer, an economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, argues lifting wages would boost workers' incomes during a period when wage growth tends to sharply slow down and even decline.


"Workers really need the money during a downturn, especially the one now when high levels of unemployment are putting significant downward pressure on wages," Zipperer told Business Insider. "That's especially true for people at the bottom of the wage distribution where a lot of the employment losses have been in the pandemic."

But conservative economists say the opposite. They claim setting a $15 hourly wage would increase labor costs, constraining business growth and hurt the economy as a result.

Read more: Strategists at JPMorgan's $1.9 trillion asset management arm share 5 investing tips for navigating the fast-approaching election — including the sectors poised to profit from every possible outcome

"The U.S. economy will be very weak throughout 2021. The nation will need more business income, not less; more jobs, not fewer; and faster, not slower, economic growth," Michael Strain, the director of policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed. "A $15 minimum wage would move the economy in the wrong direction across all these fronts."

Trump echoed that during the debate as well. "How are you helping your small businesses when you're forcing wages?" he said. "What's going to happen, and what's been proven to happen, is when you do that, these small businesses fire many of their employees."

"I think many of these folks are impervious to evidence," Bernstein, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said. He also argued raising wages would stimulate demand by providing more money to workers who are the likeliest to spend it.

A 2019 analysis of over 130 minimum wage increases implemented since 1979 indicated the decline in jobs paying the hourly wage were offset by a rise in the number of jobs that paid more.

Americans overwhelmingly back a $15 minimum wage

Congress last raised the federal minimum wage from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour in 2009 during the Great Recession. The current wage amounts to $15,000 a year for a person working 40 hours a week.


In the past decade, lawmakers have not authorized any hourly pay hikes, the longest the US has gone without one since a wage floor was enacted in 1938. Republicans rejected attempts from Democrats to raise it during Barack Obama's presidency.

Many states and local governments increased minimum wages on their own, said Ernie Tedeschi, a policy economist at Evercore ISI, which helped lift incomes. Currently, 29 states plus the District of Columbia have implemented higher wages than what the federal government mandates.

Federal inaction also spurred a drive among progressive activists to raise it, culminating in the "Fight for $15" movement. The position garnered traction in last year's Democratic primary, with most presidential candidates endorsing a $15 hourly wage as part of their platforms. Now 22 mostly large cities — including San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles — have a minimum wage that's $15 or above.

Surveys have found widespread public approval for the measure as well.

—Will Jordan (@williamjordann) October 23, 2020



A Pew Research Center poll last year indicated 67% of US adults favored raising the wage floor to $15 an hour. Only 33% opposed it. A Business Insider poll conducted last summer found similar levels of support for it as well.

"Five to ten years ago, a $15 minimum wage was not a national issue. Now it is," Zipperer said. "It's both a combination of the success of a labor movement and people's growing awareness of how poorly some people in our economy are paid."

Many states and local governments increased minimum wages on their own, said Ernie Tedeschi, a policy economist at Evercore ISI, which helped lift incomes. Currently, 29 states plus the District of Columbia have implemented higher wages than what the federal government mandates.

Federal inaction also spurred a drive among progressive activists to raise it, culminating in the "Fight for $15" movement. The position garnered traction in last year's Democratic primary, with most presidential candidates endorsing a $15 hourly wage as part of their platforms. Now 22 mostly large cities — including San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles — have a minimum wage that's $15 or above.

Surveys have found widespread public approval for the measure as well.