Alberta votes on time change

Alberta's referendum should not focus on daylight time, 

psychologists say

The Canadian Press - Oct 16, 2021 / 8:26 am | Story: 348822

Photo: The Canadian Press

The Calgary skyline.

Ditching the practice of switching the time twice a year may seem like a no-brainer to some, but Alberta psychologists warn that the result of a provincial referendum could have unexpected consequences.

The referendum on daylight time is on the ballot alongside Alberta’s municipal elections on Monday. There is also a referendum on the federal equalization program. Additionally, in Calgary, there is a plebiscite about adding fluoride to the city's drinking water.

In recent years, there has been a push to stop forcing people to change their clocks, particularly in the spring when people can lose an hour of sleep.

Studies all over the world have linked the time change to increases in car crashes, depression, lower productivity, as well as to higher risks for heart attacks and strokes.

Michael Antle, a psychology professor at the University of Calgary who studies circadian rhythms, said ending time changes is a good thing. But Alberta should stick to standard time, not daylight.

"We do have some acute mismatch between our circadian clock and our work cycle in the spring when (we set our clocks forward)," he said.

"The better choice for Alberta in particular, but we are advocating for this everywhere, is the more natural standard time, where what your circadian clock is telling you to do and what your boss is telling you to do are less mismatched."

The Alberta referendum does not give people that option. The question posed to voters is: "Do you want Alberta to adopt year-round Daylight Saving Time, which is summer hours, eliminating the need to change our clocks twice a year?"

Antle said the question isn't well phrased and shouldn't put an emphasis on summer.

"Everybody loves summer. If you vote against summer, you are just mean," he said. "I think that will influence a lot of people's choice."

He noted that switching to daylight time permanently will not make a difference in Alberta in the summer, but it would mean dawn at about 10 a.m. in most of the province in the winter.

The best time zone puts 12 p.m. as close as possible to solar noon, which is when the sun is at its highest point the sky, he said.

But Alberta is farther west than other places in the Mountain Time zone. That means in Calgary, for example, solar noon during standard time can happen as late at 12:50 p.m. During daylight time, he added, it happens around 1:45 p.m.

"In fact, we already have daylight time when we are on standard time and we are on double daylight time when we are on daylight time," Antle said.

In 2019, Service Alberta posted an online survey about daylight time and 91 per cent of the 140,000 responses voted in favour of sticking to daylight time year-round, the ministry responsible for the agency said in an email.

"Many governments across Canada and United States are bringing forward or contemplating legislation to lock their clocks to a single time year-round," said Taylor Hides, spokeswoman for Service Alberta Minister Nate Glubish.

"While we are not bound by the decisions made by other jurisdictions, we are affected by them, so it makes sense to ask Albertans this question."

British Columbia and Ontario have said they would wait until neighbouring jurisdictions agree to make the change at the same time. In the U.S., states cannot make the change without the approval of Congress, which has yet to happen.

Yukon made the change to permanent daylight time last year and Saskatchewan, with the exception of the boundary city of Lloydminster, stopped changing clocks decades ago.

Alberta's time referendum is binding, but Premier Jason Kenney has said the province could hold off until other jurisdictions make the same change.

Kyle Mathewson, an associate psychology professor at the University of Alberta, said having fewer hours of sunlight in the morning could have long-term health consequences, such as increases in certain cancers, obesity and diabetes.

"The issue with this from a neuroscientific perspective is that our rhythms of waking up and going to sleep are governed by the amount of lights in our environment," he said. "These early morning light hours are very important in setting that rhythm for us."

Mathewson suspects daylight time might also be favoured from an economic perspective.

"Thinking about this extra hour after school when there is lightness, you could think of that as stimulating the amount people go out and spend money at the local shops and those are all good things," he said.

"But that stimulus of the economy shouldn't come at the expense of our health."

 

Loss of sea star population negatively impacts Howe Sound: report

Impacts of sea star collapse

The Squamish Chief - Oct 16, 2021 | Story: 348849

Photo: Contributed

The loss of a sea star population has led to destructive impacts which are affecting Howe Sound.

According to a new report from Ocean Wise, the sunflower sea star population diminished by nearly 90% in British Columbian waters because of sea star wasting disease (SSWD). This decline led to a quadrupled green sea urchin population in Howe Sound, which demolished too many kelp forests.

“Kelp forests are important breeding grounds and nurseries for many fish and invertebrate species, such as rockfish, herring, crabs and prawns, as well as sea otters,” reads the news release from Ocean Wise. “They also play a role in countering the impacts of climate change by sequestering carbon and acting as an ocean acidification buffer.”

According to the report, in 2013, the disease hit the sunflower sea star and in some cases diminished populations by 99 to 100%. Warming ocean temperatures due to climate change were a key factor in the severity of the disease.

“Climate change plays a role in exacerbating the impacts of marine diseases and is impacting marine biodiversity and taking away from essential ecosystem services provided by the ocean,” reads the report.

Currently, the sunflower sea star is not listed for protection in Canada. However, experts are currently working on better ways to protect and restore the sunflower sea star.

“Once completed, this research will be submitted to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and the Species at Risk Act (SARA) in the hopes that sunflower seas stars will see greater protection,” reads the news release.

Furthermore, the release said Ocean Wise will take steps to conserve kelp forests by harvesting urchins as well as planting new kelp fronds.“By harvesting green sea urchins from areas previously well-populated by sunflower sea stars the expectation is that newly planted kelp fronds might flourish.”

The report encouraged individuals, governments and organizations to make attempts to lower their carbon footprint, support research about the disease and bolster conservation efforts for the sunflower sea star and kelp forests.

“While we rely on the many dedicated researchers to learn more to save this species, we can all still play a part in lessening our environmental impact and helping to reduce climate change.”

B.C. ocean researchers push to help understand, restore all but extinct sunflower sea stars

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Restoration of kelp forests and listing under the federal

 Species at Risk Act is needed, say conservationists

Chad Pawson · CBC News · Posted: Oct 16, 2021

A sunflower sea star in the waters off B.C.'s coast. (Grant Callegari/Hakai Institute)

A Vancouver-based conservation organization is pushing for continued study and more resources to help restore a species of sea stars following a mass die off and cascading consequences for other marine life.

A study released this week from Ocean Wise says that the decimation of sunflower sea stars, which began in 2013, has resulted in barren underwater landscapes in places like Howe Sound as the disappearance of the marine animals has thrown ecosystems out of whack.

"The issue of sea stars is highlighting the importance of doing far more aggressive ocean restoration," said Carlos Drews, executive vice president of conservation with Ocean Wise.

Ocean Wise wants to better understand how to restore sunflower sea star populations through captive breeding and replant sea kelp in places where it's been wiped out as part of an ecosystem domino effect caused by the sea star die off.

A sunflower sea star that appears to be affected by a wasting disease that has killed close to six billion sea stars since 2013. (Grant Callegari/Hakai Institute)

Ocean Wise also wants to have sunflower sea stars recognized by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and the Species at Risk Act (SARA).

"We need to act on many fronts," said Drews.

Ocean Wise's study is just the latest from researchers across the globe tackling the biggest marine life mortality event ever recorded.

• 5.7B sunflower sea stars have died in past decade, bringing species to brink of extinction

In 2013, sea stars — also known as starfish — like the sunflower, which can grow up to a metre in diameter and have two dozen arms, began displaying lesions, which eventually caused the sea star to dissolve and die.

In the sunflower sea star's case, 99 to 100 per cent of the creatures were wiped out in some areas, said Ocean Wise. 

With sunflower sea stars gone, their main diet — green sea urchins — multiplied in number and ate through entire forests of sea kelp, eventually wiping out the plant in some areas and creating what Ocean Wise describes as 'urchin barrens.'

Sunflower sea stars can live for up to 37 years, grow up to one metre in diametre and have as many as 24 arms by the time they reach maturity. (Grant Callegari/Hakai Institute)

The agency says kelp forests are important breeding grounds and nurseries for many fish and invertebrate species, sequester carbon, and help prevent ocean acidification.

Drews said researchers with Ocean Wise are working on projects that would have humans harvest the urchins for food as a way to keep their numbers in check and plant sea kelp seeds to restore underwater forests that were wiped out.

Remnant populations

According to other researchers, successful restoration efforts for sea stars will depend on more clearly understanding what caused the wasting disease to begin with.

"It's imperative to understand before we can really consider restoring this population — what killed it?" said Alyssa Gehman, a marine disease ecologist at the Hakai Institute, and an adjunct professor at the UBC Institute of Oceans and Fisheries.

Warmer ocean temperatures, which result in less oxygen for sea stars to breathe seem to be a factor, but Gehman says scientists still aren't sure of all the factors.

• Sea urchin explosion decimates kelp forests off Pacific coast

• Washington biologist breeding critically endangered sunflower sea stars

Gehman has also been studying pockets of the creatures that still exist. The ones that remain are mostly found in fjords along the coast of Washington State, B.C., and Alaska.

Gehman, who calls the survivors remnant populations, does not yet know if they exist in those places because the disease never made it there, or if the cooler water is helping sea stars to persist.

It shows just how many unanswered questions remain over the die off, which happened nearly 10 years ago.

A sunflower sea star in B.C. waters in 2021. Researchers are still trying to determine what has caused a mass die off of the species. (Grant Callegari/Hakai Institute)

Researchers still need to figure out just how big a sunflower sea star needs to be to reproduce or what time of year spawning occurs.

"This kind of information is critical for informing captive breeding efforts and for understanding if the individuals remaining in wild populations are large enough to reproduce and sustain a population," reads the Ocean Wise report.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared the sunflower sea star critically endangered globally in 2020.

Researchers like Drews and Gehman want a similar designation under Canada's laws so the sea star would be afforded greater federal protections and resources to help with its recovery.

Ocean Wise is part of a team that hopes to make an application to the federal government as early as next year.

 

Asteroid hunter Lucy soars

NASA's asteroid hunter Lucy soars into sky with diamonds

The Canadian Press - Oct 16, 2021 / 5:09 pm | Story: 348847

Photo: NASA

Lucy Mission Prelaunch

A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the sky with diamonds Saturday morning on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids.

Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.

An Atlas V rocket blasted off before dawn, sending Lucy on a roundabout journey spanning nearly 4 billion miles (6.3 billion kilometers). Researchers grew emotional describing the successful launch — lead scientist Hal Levison said it was like witnessing the birth of a child. “Go Lucy!” he urged.

Lucy is named after the 3.2 million-year-old skeletal remains of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia nearly a half-century ago. That discovery got its name from the 1967 Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” prompting NASA to send the spacecraft soaring with band members' lyrics and other luminaries’ words of wisdom imprinted on a plaque. The spacecraft also carried a disc made of lab-grown diamonds for one of its science instruments.

In a prerecorded video for NASA, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr paid tribute to his late colleague John Lennon, credited for writing the song that inspired all this.

“I'm so excited — Lucy is going back in the sky with diamonds. Johnny will love that,” Starr said. “Anyway, if you meet anyone up there, Lucy, give them peace and love from me.”

The paleoanthropologist behind the fossil Lucy discovery, Donald Johanson, had goose bumps watching Lucy soar — “I will never look at Jupiter the same ... absolutely mind-expanding.” He said he was filled with wonder about this “intersection of our past, our present and our future.”

“That a human ancestor who lived so long ago stimulated a mission which promises to add valuable information about the formation of our solar system is incredibly exciting,” said Johanson, of Arizona State University, who traveled to Cape Canaveral for his first rocket launch.

Lucy’s $981 million mission is the first to aim for Jupiter’s so-called Trojan entourage: thousands — if not millions — of asteroids that share the gas giant’s expansive orbit around the sun. Some of the Trojan asteroids precede Jupiter in its orbit, while others trail it.

Despite their orbits, the Trojans are far from the planet and mostly scattered far from each other. So there’s essentially zero chance of Lucy getting clobbered by one as it swoops past its targets, said Levison of Southwest Research Institute, the mission’s principal scientist.

Lucy will swing past Earth next October and again in 2024 to get enough gravitational oomph to make it all the way out to Jupiter’s orbit. On the way there, the spacecraft will zip past asteroid Donaldjohanson between Mars and Jupiter. The aptly named rock will serve as a 2025 warm-up act for the science instruments.

Drawing power from two huge circular solar wings, Lucy will chase down five asteroids in the leading pack of Trojans in the late 2020s. The spacecraft will then zoom back toward Earth for another gravity assist in 2030. That will send Lucy back out to the trailing Trojan cluster, where it will zip past the final two targets in 2033 for a record-setting eight asteroids visited in a single mission.

It’s a complicated, circuitous path that had NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, shaking his head at first. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is possible?” he recalled asking.

Lucy will pass within 600 miles (965 kilometers) of each target; the biggest one is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) across.

“Are there mountains? Valleys? Pits? Mesas? Who knows? I’m sure we’re going to be surprised,” said Johns Hopkins University’s Hal Weaver, who’s in charge of Lucy’s black-and-white camera. “But we can hardly wait to see what ... images will reveal about these fossils from the formation of the solar system.”

NASA plans to launch another mission next month to test whether humans might be able to alter an asteroid's orbit — practice in case Earth ever has a killer rock headed this way.

Welcome to #Striketober  USA

 Thousands of workers are walking off the job at Kellogg's and John Deere amid the labor shortage

insider@insider.com (Juliana Kaplan,Andy Kiersz) 

© Provided by Business Insider 

Kellogg's Cereal plant workers demonstrate in front of the plant on October 7, 2021 in Battle Creek, Michigan. 

Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

Thousands of workers across the US are on strike, and thousands more are preparing to walk out.
It's being called "Striketober," and it shows a revitalized labor movement ready to down tools.
Workers are flexing their power across the economy by quitting, striking, and demanding better conditions.

A new month has been born in 2021. Instead of October, it's "Striketober."

That's because thousands of workers in every industry are saying no to current working conditions. They're not joining the wave of workers quitting during "the Great Resignation" phase of the labor shortage. They're staying at their current work - but demanding it change.

From Alabama coal miners to Hollywood theater hands and from Kellogg's to John Deere, American workers are flexing their power across the economy.

All told, The Hill reports that in the midst of a national labor shortage, more than 100,000 workers have voted to authorize strikes. That means that many employees will walk out of their jobs and stop working completely until they reach agreements with management on issues such as pay transparency, more manageable hours, and better benefits.

It could mark a new chapter in American labor history, while touching everything from your favorite snack to your favorite movies.

Dan Osborn - the president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Works and Grain Millers Union local 50G in Omaha, Nebraska - is one of the workers across four different Kellogg's plants who are currently striking for an equal wage system and stronger benefits.

Osborn, who's been a mechanic at Kellogg's for 18 years, said, "there seems to be a movement sweeping across America with labor right now. People are finally standing up for what they believe and the workers are trying to get what they deserve."

The labor movement largely slumbered in 2020. Striketober could stir it back to life.
These strikes are huge in scale

Over 60,000 Hollywood-based workers in the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) are preparing to strike on Monday, while over 24,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente have authorized a work stoppage, The Washington Post reports, if they don't get an equal pay system, raises, and more hires to help ease shortstaffing.

Thousands more are already actively striking. Besides the 1,400 Kellogg workers who have been on strike since October 5, over 10,000 John Deere workers went on strike at midnight on Thursday. In Alabama, 1,100 coal miners have been on strike since April, Mic's Kim Kelly reports.

"Without an end date, we could keep talking forever. Our members deserve to have their basic needs addressed now," IATSE President Matthew Loeb said in a Wednesday statement.

It's the first time that IATSE has authorized a strike, showcasing a breaking point. Insider's Elaine Low reports it could essentially shut down Hollywood. The number of IATSE workers on strike alone would be more than double the number of workers involved in major work stoppages last year.

Indeed, this round of strikes will be felt by consumers and workers alike. An IATSE walkout could slow the production of television shows and movies; Osborn is asking that strike supporters boycott Kellogg's products as the strike continues on.

In a statement, Kellogg's said "our proposals have been grossly misrepresented by the Union," and the company is "ready, willing, and able to continue negotiations at any time."
Workers are fighting back against unequal gains

Mike Mitchell, the director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative, told Insider the strikes reflect a "huge, significant shift in power from workers to corporations and businesses." He says this is because the pandemic and ensuing recession created so much uncertainty for workers, while inequality increased and wages remain stagnant.

However, as inequality become more pronounced during the pandemic, stimulus measures also led to personal income hitting record highs. Also, wages have actually moved significantly upward for the first time in decades - something that unemployed Americans previously told Insider made them reconsider what they want or need from work.

In a tweet, IATSE Communications Director Jonas Loeb wrote that "#Striketober is a function of greedy bosses trying to recoup the un-recoupable. Workers across every sector in our economy are being pushed to the brink to make up for the lost time during the pandemic shutdown."

American billionaires added $1.8 trillion to their fortunes during the pandemic, according to a report from the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness. In 2020, CEOs got paid 351 times more than the typical worker, an analysis from EPI found.

Over the past 40 years, the rate of workers covered by unions has shrunk by half, according to a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

In 2020, 444,000 fewer workers were covered by a union than in 2019, EPI found. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics found there were just eight major work stoppages in 2020 that involved at least 1,000 workers and lasted at least one work shift during the week. Only two other years had fewer strikes, and it's far lower than the average of 16 a year over the past two decades.

Broadly, 27,000 workers were involved in work stoppages that started in 2020, per BLS.

The looming IATSE strike alone dwarfs that.

Mitchell said this will go down as a historic month of labor action. "You can see similar moments in the early 1900s, where there was a strong concentration of corporate power, really no real rules around the ability for workers to come together and speak up and have their voices be heard," he said, adding that the pandemic has brought up a lot of the same issues for workers.

The Biden administration has actively sought to strengthen union power and collective bargaining as a priority, dedicating a task force to it and backing the PRO Act, a major labor-rights bill. It's "the most pro-union administration in history," Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a Thursday press briefing.

"Our economy is shifting to a labor market where workers have more bargaining power," Psaki said. She added: "That means workers can push for higher wages and more dignity and respect in the workplace."

As for the actual experience of being on strike, Osborn said it's a "cocktail of emotions."

"It's been tough, but it's been exciting at the same time being part of something greater than yourself," he said. "This movement isn't just about the 1,400 workers at Kellogg's on strike. It's about workers across the nation."

A Russian spacecraft pushed the space station out of position and sent astronauts into emergency mode — again

Morgan McFall-Johnsen and Aylin Woodward
Oct 15, 2021

A Soyuz spaceship carrying a Russian film crew and a cosmonaut approaches the International Space Station, October 5, 2021. NASA

A Russian spaceship fired its thrusters and briefly pushed the International Space Station out of position on Friday morning.

NASA told its astronauts to follow emergency procedures, according to The New York Times.

A Russian film crew is on the ISS and scheduled to take the errant spaceship back to Earth on Sunday.

A Russian spacecraft pushed the International Space Station out of position on Friday morning, prompting astronauts to go into emergency mode. It's the second time Russian hardware has caused such an incident since July.

Cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky was conducting engine tests on the Soyuz spaceship, which is docked to the ISS, on Friday morning when its thrusters fired too aggressively. That moved the station out of its normal orientation, The New York Times reported.

The precise cause is not yet clear, but NASA mission control in Houston told its astronauts that the station had lost control of its orientation and instructed them to follow emergency procedures.

Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, later said in a statement that the ISS orientation was "temporarily changed" but "swiftly recovered," and that nobody on board was in danger.

Neither agency has revealed how much the space station moved, or for how long.

The International Space Station in orbit above Earth. NASA/Roscosmos

"As you can well imagine, when things start going off the rails like that, there's enough noise on the radar that the clarity of what actually happened is a bit of a mystery," NASA flight director Timothy Creamer told US astronauts after the Soyuz engines stopped firing, according to the Times.

"We think — and we haven't got confirmation — we think the thrusters stopped firing because they reached their prop limit," Creamer said, according to the Times ("prop" usually refers to propellant). "Moscow is checking into it and doing their data analysis."

In addition to astronauts and cosmonauts living on the orbiting laboratory, a Russian actress and director are currently onboard filming a movie. They launched on October 5 and are scheduled to return to Earth on Sunday, using the spaceship that caused the incident.

NASA mission control mentioned that the incident delayed a film shoot in the space station's cupola window, according to the Times. It's unclear if this incident will affect the Russian film crew's schedule for returning to Earth or the spaceship's ability to make the trip.

A different Russian spacecraft flipped the ISS upside down in July

A screenshot from NASA's livestream shows the Nauka module approaching its port on the International Space Station, July 29, 2021. 

NASA via Youtube

This is the second time this year that a Russian spacecraft has pushed the ISS out of position. Roscosmos launched a new module, called Nauka, to the ISS in July. Shortly after it docked to the station, Nauka began unexpectedly firing its thrusters, trying to pull itself away from the football-field-sized station. A tug of war ensued between the errant module and the four gyroscopes that typically keep the ISS steady.

Nauka's thrusters wound up spinning the ISS around 540 degrees and flipping it upside down before flight controllers regained control an hour later.

The crew was never in danger during that incident, according to NASA. They didn't even feel the station move or shake.

That said, Zebulon Scoville, who was in charge of NASA mission control that day, told the Times that it was the first time he'd had to declare a "spacecraft emergency" in his seven years as a flight director.

NASA defines such an emergency as "an anomalous state" that would result in the loss of the entire space station if it were to continue.

"We knew we had a limited amount of time," Scoville said.

Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.

THE CAPITALIST VERSION OF AUTOGESTION

Mental health and wellbeing is boosted by employee voice

ARTICLE BY: Ann-Marie Conway, 

Associate Director Employee Ownership - Seetec

 | Published: 17 OCTOBER 2021

MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES INCLUDING ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY DURING THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS, WITH THE UK CHARITY THE HEALTH FOUNDATION EARLIER THIS YEAR REPORTING THAT DEPRESSION RATES HAD DOUBLED SINCE THE PANDEMIC BEGAN. THOSE IN PRECARIOUS ECONOMIC POSITIONS AND GROUPS INCLUDING THE YOUNG, DISABLED AND WOMEN WERE DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTED.

Many of these disadvantaged groups are supported by employee-owned Seetec Group, which operates across the UK and Ireland and helps individuals and communities to fulfil their potential through employment, skills, and rehabilitation services.

During the pandemic employees faced new – and more isolated – ways of working which, presented the group with the challenge of how to maintain the wellbeing of its colleagues, so they could continue to support service users.

It has always been an organisation with strong values, but our employee ownership structure made sure that employee voice was at the centre of our response to the challenges that our service users and our colleagues faced.

The pandemic had an impact on the personal lives of many colleagues, from family members being unwell to not being able to visit and support extended family, members of their households being furloughed creating financial difficulties, to the challenges of home schooling. However, Seetec has benefited from having an established Health and Wellbeing Strategy, and its employee voice has helped to contribute to and implement this.

We have a dedicated employee ownership network of colleagues. They formed a Health and Wellbeing working group to respond to the needs of frontline colleagues, which brought real benefits to our people.

Support included loaning laptops to families to reduce digital exclusion, providing Covid grants for employees with an immediate financial crisis and setting up a safe online space to provide discreet information to anyone facing domestic abuse, mental health or drug and alcohol issues.

This has built upon other successful initiatives such as activity groups, ranging from online yoga and zumba classes to a Strava virtual walking group and mindfulness sessions, plus a vital home school support group helping families with remote learning.

These came from the voice of our people. Our employee ownership structure means that rather than going through a complex approval process, employees had the confidence and authority to put support in place quickly.

When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the first priority was how it could continue to deliver services to those most in need. The expertise and influence of the employee voice empowered the organisation to act quickly and deliver support that works, reaching the most vulnerable and helping to bring communities together.

Employee ownership really sits with our values and beliefs. We work with people in the community, helping them to take ownership of their futures and their lives.

There’s a perfect synergy between that and giving ownership to our colleagues and giving them a say in the future of the organisation.

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted how the diversity and wisdom of our people improved decision-making in the business and improved outcomes for not just ourselves but our service users.

Despite the pandemic, annual employee engagement survey highlighted a 12% improvement in health and wellbeing scores.

Response to the welfare needs of colleagues during the pandemic has just been highly commended in the ‘Best Health and Wellbeing Initiative – private sector’ category at this year’s CIPD People Management Awards.

Group HR Director Sasha Ashton says: “Our commitment to ensuring that employee owners have a stake and say in Seetec’s destiny means we work in the best interests of service users, while looking after our own people.

“During the pandemic, working together with employee owners has enabled us to deliver support where it is needed the most, leading to improved wellbeing and mental health for all.”

 BUILDING THE NEW SOCIETY WITHIN THE SHELL OF THE OLD

Preamble to the IWW Constitution

The Preamble is the founding document and statement of principles and visions for the IWW. It has not changed considerably since the union’s founding conference in Chicago, 1905. It is a powerful statement of intent which pulls no punches and refuses the compromises and ‘partnership’ attitudes of most contemporary unions. In the context of intensifying employer and government crackdowns on our hard-won pay and conditions, the Preamble resonates as strongly in the contemporary period as it did when it was first written.

 

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organise as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organisation formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.”

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organised, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organising industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

‘Failed’ former UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock loses UN Africa job just hours after celebrating the appointment online 

16 Oct, 2021 15:35

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Former Britain's Health Secretary Matt Hancock © Reuters / Matt Dunham 

NOT TIM THE TOOL MAN TAYLOR

   

Former UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock won’t become the special envoy for a United Nations commission working on Africa’s recovery from Covid-19, after the UN suddenly decided not to take his appointment forward.

The job of UN envoy for financial innovation and climate change for the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) was seen as a chance for Hancock to revive his career after his scandalous resignation from the UK government this June.

The 43-year-old was forced to quit his job as health secretary after being photographed kissing a female aide at his office in violation of the coronavirus social distancing rules.

He celebrated the United Nations appointment on Twitter earlier this week, saying that he was honoured to be appointed as a special representative and work “to help African economic recovery from the pandemic and promote sustainable development.”

The former health secretary attached screenshots of a letter from the UN’s under-secretary general, Vera Songwe, to his tweet, in which she praised his “success” in overseeing the Covid-19 response in Britain, as well as his “fiscal and monetary experience.” He also received congratulations on the new job from some of his Conservative Party colleagues. 

However, it turned out on Saturday that the UN gig won’t be happening after all for Hancock, an MP for West Suffolk.

“Hancock’s appointment by the UN Economic Commission for Africa is not being taken forward. ECA has advised him of the matter,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, as cited by media site PassBlue.

The press release on the British politician’s new role in the commission has also apparently been removed from the ECA’s website.

The BBC reported on Saturday that it “understands the organisation has decided not to go ahead with the appointment” of Hancock, who is yet to comment on the matter.

The announcement by Hancock that he was joining the ECA sparked controversy as it coincided with the release of a parliamentary committee report slamming the British government’s response to the pandemic. Among other things, its authors labeled the lockdowns and social distancing rules during the early weeks “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced.”

UK opposition parties and human rights groups expressed serious doubts surrounding Hancock’s appointment, with Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden saying, “The last thing the African continent needs is a failed British politician. This isn’t the 19th century.” 

Amnesty International noted that while he was health secretary, Hancock “opposed calls to lift intellectual property rights that would allow Covid-19 vaccines to be produced worldwide and ensure access to life-saving vaccines for billions of people.”

It’s unclear if the UN’s decision not to appoint Hancock was motivated by the backlash or other reasons.

Volunteers in the sky watch over migrant rescues by sea


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Migrants navigate on an overcrowded wooden boat in the Central Mediterranean Sea between North Africa and the Italian island of Lampedusa, Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021, as seen from aboard the humanitarian aircraft Seabird. At least 23,000 people have died or disappeared trying to reach Europe since 2014, according to the United Nations' migration agency. Despite the risks, many migrants say they'd rather die trying to reach Europe than be returned to Libya. (AP Photo/Renata Brito)

ABOARD THE SEABIRD (AP) — As dozens of African migrants traversed the Mediterranean Sea on a flimsy white rubber boat, a small aircraft circling 1,000 feet above closely monitored their attempt to reach Europe.

The twin-engine Seabird, owned by the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch, is tasked with documenting human rights violations committed against migrants at sea and relaying distress cases to nearby ships and authorities who have increasingly ignored their pleas.

On this cloudy October afternoon, an approaching thunderstorm heightened the dangers for the overcrowded boat. Nearly 23,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe since 2014, according to the United Nations’ migration agency.

“Nour 2, Nour 2, this is aircraft Seabird, aircraft Seabird,” the aircraft’s tactical coordinator, Eike Bretschneider, communicated via radio with the only vessel nearby. The captain of the Nour 2, agreed to change course and check up on the flimsy boat. But after seeing the boat had a Libyan flag, the people refused its assistance, the captain reported back on the crackling radio

“They say they only have 20 liters of fuel left,” the captain, who did not identify himself by name, told the Seabird. “They want to continue on their journey.”

German volunteers Leona Blankenstein, left, and David Lohmueller search from aboard the Seabird, a humanitarian monitoring aircraft, for migrant boats in distress as they fly over the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021. The plane, owned by the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch, is tasked with documenting human rights violations committed against migrants at sea and relaying distress cases to nearby ships and authorities who have increasingly ignored their pleas. (AP Photo/Renata Brito)

The small boat’s destination was the Italian island of Lampedusa, where tourists sitting in outdoor cafés sipped on Aperol Spritz, oblivious to what was unfolding some 60 nautical miles (111 km/68 miles) south of them on the Mediterranean Sea.

Bretschneider, a 30-year-old social worker, made some quick calculations and concluded the migrants must have departed Libya approximately 20 hours ago and still had some 15 hours ahead of them before they reached Lampedusa. That was if their boat did not fall apart or capsize along the way.

Despite the risks, many migrants and refugees say they’d rather die trying to cross to Europe than be returned to Libya where, upon disembarkation, they are placed in detention centers and often subjected to relentless abuse.

Bretschneider sent the rubber boat’s coordinates to the air liaison officer sitting in Berlin, who then relayed the position (inside the Maltese Search and Rescue zone) to both Malta and Italy. Unsurprisingly to them, they received no response.

Running low on fuel, the Seabird had to leave the scene.

“We can only hope the people will reach the shore at some moment or will get rescued by a European coast guard vessel,” Bretschneider told AP as they made their way back.

The activists have grown used to having their distress calls go unanswered.

For years human rights groups and international law experts have denounced that European countries are increasingly ignoring their international obligations to rescue migrants at sea. Instead, they’ve outsourced rescues to the Libyan Coast Guard, which has a track record of reckless interceptions as well as ties to human traffickers and militias.

“I’m sorry, we don’t speak with NGOs,” a man answering the phone of the Maltese Rescue and Coordination Center told a member of Sea-Watch inquiring about a boat in distress this past June. In a separate call to the Rescue and Coordination Center in Rome, another Sea-Watch member was told: “We have no information to report to you.”

Maltese and Italian authorities did not respond to questions sent by AP.

Trying to get in touch with the Libyan rescue and coordination center is an even greater challenge. On the rare occasion that someone does pick up, the person on the other side of the line often doesn’t speak English.

More than 49,000 migrants have reached Italian shores so far this year according to the Italian Ministry of Interior, nearly double the number of people who crossed in the same time period last year.

Although it is illegal for European vessels to take rescued migrants back to Libya themselves, information shared by the EU’s surveillance drones and planes have allowed the Libyan Coast Guard to considerably increase its ability to stop migrants from reaching Europe. So far this year, it has intercepted roughly half of those who have attempted to leave, returning more than 26,000 men, women and children to Libya.

Sea-Watch has relied on millions of euros from individual donations over several years to expand its air monitoring capabilities as well. It now has two small aircraft that, with a birds-eye view, can find boats in distress much faster than ships can.

Taking off from Lampedusa, which is closer to North Africa than Italy, the planes can reach a distress case relatively quickly if its position is known. But when there are no exact coordinates, they must fly a search pattern, sometimes for hours, and scan the sea with the help of binoculars.

Even when flying low, finding a tiny boat in the vast Mediterranean can strain the most experienced eyes. The three- to four-person crew of volunteers reports every little dot on the horizon that could potentially be people in distress.

“Target at 10 o’clock,” the Seabird’s photographer sitting in the back alerted on a recent flight.

The pilot veered left to inspect it.

“Fishing boat, disregard,” Bretschneider, the tactical coordinator, replied.

In rough seas, breaking waves can play tricks and for brief moments resemble wobbly boats in the distance. Frequently, the “targets” turn out to be nothing at all, and the Seabird returns to land hours later without any new information.

But finding boats in distress is only the first challenge. Getting them rescued is just as difficult, if not harder.

With the absence of state rescue vessels and NGO ships getting increasingly blocked from leaving port, Sea-Watch often relies on the good will of merchant vessels navigating the area. But many are also reluctant to get involved after several commercial ships found themselves stuck at sea for days as they waited for Italy’s or Malta’s permission to disembark rescued migrants. Others have taken them back to Libya in violation of maritime and refugee conventions.

This week, a court in Naples convicted the captain of an Italian commercial ship for returning 101 migrants to Libya in 2018.

Without any state authority, the Seabird can only remind captains of their duty to rescue persons in distress. In this way, Bretschneider recently got an Italian supply vessel to save 65 people from a drifting migrant boat, just moments before the Libyan Coast Guard arrived.

On another mission a few days later, the Seabird returned from its flight without knowing what would happen to the people they had seen on the white rubber boat.

Bretschneider checked his phone at dinner that night, hoping for good news. On the other side of the Mediterranean, 17 bodies had washed up in Western Libya, apparently from a different boat.

The next day the Seabird took off to look for the white rubber boat again, in vain. On their way back, they got a message from land.

The white rubber boat had reached waters near Lampedusa and was picked up by the Italian Coast Guard. The people had made it.