RIP

Last Canadian missing after Hamas attack, Judih Weinstein Haggai, declared dead

The Canadian Press
Thu, December 28, 2023 



OTTAWA — The family of the only Canadian citizen who was still missing after Hamas militants conducted a brutal assault on Israel has confirmed her death.

A relative says Judih Weinstein Haggai, 70, died on Oct. 7, the day of the attacks, which saw an estimated 1,200 people killed and about 240 more taken hostage.

Her body is being held in the Gaza Strip, the family says.

Weinstein Haggai was born in New York state but arrived in Toronto at the age of three, and moved to Israel 20 years later to live with her husband. She held Canadian, Israeli and American citizenships.

She lived in the Nir Oz kibbutz, which sits less than three kilometres from the Gaza Strip.

The Nir Oz kibbutz wrote in a statement Thursday that Weinstein Haggai was a mother of four, a grandmother to seven and that she "pursued many initiatives to advance peace in the region."

Weinstein Haggai was a volunteer who helped both Palestinians and Israelis. She made puppets to help teach students English, and often posted haikus and meditations on YouTube.

The kibbutz said she also taught mindfulness to children and teenagers who suffer anxiety related to rocket fire from Gaza.

In an interview earlier this month, Weinstein Haggai's relatives said she and her husband Gadi Haggai, 73, were out on an early-morning walk when Hamas started its Oct. 7 attack.

She told members of her community that a militant on a motorcycle had shot her husband, and that she was less severely wounded.

Her kibbutz, the term for a collective farming community, tried to dispatch an ambulance, but couldn't do so before Hamas militants arrived.

Israeli officials later told family members that Weinstein Haggai's cellphone signal was detected within Gaza, her family said.

Last week, officials confirmed the family's suspicions that Gadi Haggai had died on Oct. 7, though relatives still held onto hope that Weinstein Haggai would be released.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly learned of her death "with heavy heart," she said Thursday on social media.

"I have met with her family and they have described her as loving, kind and compassionate. Canada mourns her loss with her family and loved ones," Joly said.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said Jews across Canada are heartbroken, after praying that Weinstein Haggai would still be alive.

"Judih and her husband Gadi are among the 129 Israeli souls still being held by Hamas," wrote the head of the Canadian group, Shimon Koffler Fogel.

"Whether they are alive or not, they all must be immediately and unconditionally returned to their homes and their families in Israel."

Ali Weinstein, Judih's niece who lives in Toronto, said in a Dec. 4 interview that the family was on an emotional roller-coaster, feeling grief, joy for the hostages who had been released during a pause in fighting and dread each time her aunt wasn't among those released.

The family initially kept quiet because they feared raising Weinstein Haggai's profile with her presumed captors.

They said they were also unsure whether to voice their dismay at how Israel has responded to the attacks, with constant airstrikes and a siege on Gaza that the United Nations says violates international humanitarian law.

The war has already killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, according to local authorities, and driven about 85 per cent of the Gaza Strip's population of 2.3 million people from their homes.

Weinstein Haggai's family also said early this month that they were distressed by the rise in hateful speech toward both Jews and Muslims in Canada.

"We're inspired by my sister, who believed in peace and believed in harmony," said Larry Weinstein, Judih's brother, on Dec. 4.

"There can't be any kind of resolution when people are at each other's throats."

Global Affairs Canada previously confirmed the deaths of eight Canadians, including one in Lebanon, along with another person they said had close ties to Canada.

Vivian Silver, 74, died at the Be'eri kibbutz where she lived, which also sits near the border with Gaza. For weeks, officials believed the Winnipeg-born woman had been taken into Gaza, but her body was identified in mid-November.

Others were found dead immediately after the attack, including two men killed at a music festival that was raided by Hamas militants: Ben Mizrachi, 22, of Vancouver and Alexandre Look, 33, of Montreal.

Hamas also killed dual Israeli-Canadian nationals Netta Epstein, 21; Shir Georgy, 22; and Adi Vital-Kaploun, 33. Tiferet Lapidot, 22, an Israeli whose family was from Canada, was also at the music festival and found dead days later.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 28, 2023.

— With files from The Associated Press.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press

U$ 

Tax Cuts Don’t Pay For Themselves. A New Paper Says Medicaid Might.

A nonpartisan study says helping kids stay healthy has long-term fiscal benefits.

By Jonathan Nicholson

HUFFPOST
Dec 31, 2023,

Conservatives have long badgered Congress’ own numbers crunchers, with some success, to say tax cuts aren’t as expensive as they look.

But in a turnabout, liberals now have something to cheer for from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In a paper published last month, the CBO said Medicaid and other programs that provide a long-term boost for the recipients’ economic prospects may be far cheaper than their initial price tags, once those long-term effects are included in the calculus.

The study argues that those higher lifetime earnings would in turn boost economic growth, which would then result in more money sent to federal coffers in taxes in the decades ahead.

Gideon Lukens, director of research and data analysis with the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told HuffPost the CBO paper was significant because it took something on which there is broad scholarly agreement — programs like Medicaid can have a beneficial effect for enrollees far into the future — and then showed the budget impact.

“I haven’t really seen where other studies have done that, so I think it’s a really useful contribution,” Lukens said.

“The CBO analysis is another important contribution to the research literature about the long-term benefits of Medicaid coverage during childhood and pregnancy,” wrote Edwin Park, research professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, in a blog post.

Even Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum and a former CBO director, said the idea in general was plausible as federal programs can affect conventional and human capital, making them more effective.

“The question is how big, how fast and how you finance it, what you have to offset. So I find this sort of enterprise entirely plausible,” he told HuffPost.

To get at those questions, the CBO looked at the impact of a policy called continuous eligibility, which allows children to remain in Medicaid for a year once they qualify, even if a change in family income would make them ineligible.

The paper found the policy’s return on investment over 70 years could be as high as 197% (or bringing in to the government almost twice as much as first spent) to as low as -151% (or costing nearly one and half times more), depending on assumptions about whether it was deficit-financed and other factors.

While the paper is not an official statement of CBO policy and won’t change how proposals to boost or cut Medicaid eligibility will be scored, CBO Director Philip Swagel called it another example of how the agency is trying to improve its ability to forecast the impacts of bills beyond the usual 10 or 11-year score they get as lawmakers consider them.

“That capacity could be used to supplement the analysis in conventional cost estimates and provide additional information about effects that are more than 10 years in the future and that alter nominal [Gross Domestic Product],” he wrote in a post on the CBO’s blog.

While good news for Medicaid advocates, the paper has some caveats.

The wide range of estimates for how much money the government would recoup or lose reflects the importance of the assumptions used in the paper. One variable is whether the program expansion is paid for by redirecting other spending or by borrowing, and a second is how one assesses the value of money spent now versus in the future — the so-called discount factor.

Still, the paper gives ammo for liberals to demand at least some proposals be scored by the CBO on a “dynamic” basis. Led by former House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republicans have often wanted a similar feedback effect included in assessments of the upfront costs of tax cuts.

While CBO has said tax cuts, depending on how they are structured and paid for, can generate extra economic growth that trims the initial costs, they do not “pay for themselves,” as some conservatives and libertarians often argue.

Holtz-Eakin said the paper implicitly raises the question of how far CBO should go in taking a holistic approach to spending programs. Pentagon spending, for example, could look cheaper if the improved job skills and resulting higher wages of veterans were taken into account.

“Do we want to put the CBO in the position of finding the benefits as well as the costs of everything you debate?” he asked.

Lukens said he did not think dynamic scoring should be extended to social spending proposals, but the approach could be used so lawmakers have additional information about a spending proposal if they want it.

He said it also highlights the likely impact of states trimming Medicaid rolls now that early pandemic-era eligibility waivers have lapsed. Those cuts could save much less than estimated or even cost the government money over the long run if the paper is correct.

“Unfortunately, it is coming at a time when millions of children are losing Medicaid coverage, especially with many falling through the cracks for procedural reasons as opposed to being ineligible,” Lukens said.

Poll: Majority of Britons Say Brexit Has Completely Failed for UK


TEHRAN (FNA)- A clear majority of the British public now believes Brexit has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration, according to a poll by Opinium to mark the third anniversary of the UK leaving the EU single market and customs union.

The survey of more than 2,000 UK voters also finds strikingly low numbers of people who believe that Brexit has benefited them or the country, The Guardian reported.

Just one in 10 believe leaving the EU has helped their personal financial situation, against 35% who say it has been bad for their finances, while just 9% say it has been good for the NHS, against 47% who say it has had a negative effect.

Ominously for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who backed Brexit and claimed it would be economically beneficial, only 7% of people think it has helped keep down prices in UK shops, against 63% who think Brexit has been a factor in fuelling inflation and the cost of living crisis.

The poll suggests that seven and a half years on from the referendum the British public now regards Brexit as a failure. Just 22% of voters believe it has been good for the UK in general.

The Vote Leave campaign led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove had promised that Brexit would boost the economy and trade, as well as bring back £350m a week into the NHS and allow the government to take back control of the UK’s borders.

James Crouch, head of policy and public affairs at Opinium, said the perception of Brexit being handled badly and having had negative effects on various aspect of UK life appeared to be spreading.

“Public discontent at how Brexit has been handled by the government continues, with perceived failings even in areas previously seen as a potential benefit from leaving the EU," he said.

“More than half (53%) of leave voters now think that Brexit has been bad for the UK’s ability to control immigration, piling even more pressure on an issue the government is vulnerable on. Despite this, Brexit is likely to be a secondary issue at the next election compared to the state of the economy and the NHS, which are the clear priority for voters,” he added.

Robert Ford, professor of political science at Manchester University, stated that while there was now evidence that negative perceptions of Brexit, particularly on the economy, could have an effect on votes at a general election, Brexit was very unlikely to play such a direct role as it did at the last two general elections.

“Voters’ attention has shifted decisively elsewhere, with leave and remain voters alike focused on the domestic agenda of rising bills, struggling public services and weak economic growth," he continued, adding, “The appeal of ‘Get Brexit Done’ was not just about completing the long Brexit process but also about unblocking the political system and delivering on other long-neglected issues. Brexit got done, but this has not unblocked the political system, and troubles elsewhere have only deepened. Many of the voters who backed the Conservatives to deliver change now look convinced that achieving change requires ejecting the Conservatives.

“This shift in sentiment may be particularly stark among the ‘red wall’ voters who rallied most eagerly to Johnson’s banner four years ago, but have been most exposed to rising bills and collapsing public services since. The final act of Brexit may yet be the collapse of the Brexit electoral coalition,” he noted.

One of the key claims of the Brexiters was that leaving the EU’s single market and customs union would usher in a new era of global trade for the UK based on trade deals with other parts of the world. Many voters now seem to have concluded that Brexit has in fact been bad for trade. Some 49% think it has been bad for the ability of UK firms to import goods from outside the EU, while 15% think it has helped.

Sinn Fein aims for government across Ireland in 2024


Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald (PA)

By Rebecca Black, PA

Today 

Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald said her party is aiming to be in government in Ireland, both north and south of the border, in 2024.

Irish voters are set to go to the polls in June for European and local government elections, but there is speculation the next Irish general election will be held towards the end of the year.

At the last general election in January 2020, Sinn Fein finished with 37 seats – but Fianna Fail (38 seats) and Fine Gael (35 seats) were able to combine with the Green Party to form a coalition to govern.


Tanaiste (PRES.)Micheal Martin, Taoiseach (PM) Leo Varadkar and Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan (Liam McBurney/PA)

In her new year’s message, Ms McDonald said her party will focus on electing enough Sinn Fein TDs to form a government without Fine Gael and Fianna Fail after the next general election to “deliver real change”.

“The election is fast approaching and if the people give us the opportunity to lead,” she said.

“Sinn Fein will make housing the number one priority of a new government – not only in words but in actions and in results. By reducing rents and delivering the largest social and affordable house building programme in the history of the state.

“That is the level of action needed to match the scale of the challenge people face.”

She also called for “step change in the north”, and urged the DUP to re-enter devolved government at Stormont.

Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill has been entitled, as the leader of the largest party at Stormont since the May 2022 Assembly election, to become the next first minister when the institutions are recalled.



Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill (PA)

“It’s decision time for the DUP. It’s time to move forward and form the Executive. It is time for positive leadership. It is time for delivery,” Ms McDonald said.

Ms McDonald said her party’s number one priority is housing, adding they want 2024 to be the year they “turn the tide on the housing crisis”, adding: “I believe that will only happen with Sinn Fein in government”.

“2024 needs to be the year when our young people have hope in the future – hope of an affordable home, hope of building a life in Ireland and hope of having a real opportunity to return home, if they want to do so.

“2024 needs to be the year when an Irish government begins to plan for Irish re-unification, beginning with the establishment of a Citizens Assembly so that the conversation can develop and preparations can begin.”

UK

Ten Times Workers Won in 2023

ByTaj Ali

TRIBUNE

31.12.2023

As 2023 draws to a close, Tribune looks back at ten landmark trade union victories — showing how organised workers are fighting back against greed and exploitation.

RMT UNION LEADER Mick Lynch joins the picket line outside Liverpool Lime Street station. 

(Photo by Peter Byrne / PA Images via Getty Images)


This time last year, Britain was in the midst of the largest wave of strikes in decades. Workers had experienced the longest period of wage stagnation since the Napoleonic wars, and with the cost of living crisis biting harder in the colder months, many were taking to the picket line for the first time. From railway workers to nurses, posties to paramedics, people in Britain were demanding their worth.

Many of those disputes were settled this year. Some breathed a sigh of relief; others were left bitterly disappointed. To paraphrase Marx, workers made history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing.

Other battles continue into the new year. Doctors and train drivers have called further action in their respective disputes. Nurses, teachers, and firefighters are calling on politicians of all stripes to address historic pay erosion and a lack of investment in public services. Some have indicated they could be prepared to take strike action in 2024 if these issues are not satisfactorily addressed.

CPI inflation stood at 3.9 percent in November. It’s a significant drop compared to 10.7 percent the year before, but that doesn’t mean the economic woes of large chunks of the country will simply disappear in the new year — and it does mean that workers are still becoming worse off. In the last two years, energy prices have shot up by 66 percent, while food prices have gone up by 27 percent. For many, the cumulative effect will be devastating, and Westminster is offering nothing but more of the same.

The message to carry into the new year is that workplace organising remains vital, even if the subject of strikes is shifting out of the news headlines. To encourage readers as we mark the passage of another twelve months, here are ten times workers won victories this year — for themselves, their colleagues and their loved ones, and their class.

1. Bus Workers Drive the Fight for Fair Pay

Bus workers across the country have won a number of double-digit pay rises this year through industrial action. At the start of 2023, 1,800 Abellio drivers in London, members of Unite the union, won an 18 percent pay rise following months of strike action. A few months later, more than 3,100 National Express West Midlands bus drivers won a 16.2 percent pay rise following all-out and indefinite strikes.

In Manchester, more than 1,000 Stagecoach drivers won a 16 percent pay rise following strike action, and in nearby Oldham, First Bus drivers won a pay deal worth 18 percent. Go North East drivers, engineers, and administrators won 11.2 percent while Arriva drivers and engineers in Newcastle and Northumberland won 12 percent.

Some struggles, including the one involving London’s lowest paid bus drivers at the Westbourne Park Garage, continue into the new year, with the workers involved drawing strength from the numerous successes of their colleagues.

2. Ticket Offices Are Saved

From the very start of their dispute, the RMT union warned that the pay offer for rail workers came with strings attached: accepting driver-only trains, redundancies, attacks on terms and conditions, and ticket office closures. In July, the government announced plans to make the last of these a reality, by closing 1000 offices.

The plans were met with vocal opposition from railway workers, passengers, and equalities campaigners alike, who warned that the proposals would make the railways less safe and less accessible. Their quickly-formed campaign attracted support from across the country and across the political spectrum. Over 750,000 people eventually responded to the government’s consultation on the closures: the biggest response to such a consultation in British history.

The scale of opposition defied the government’s expectations, forcing them into an embarrassing U-turn. The campaign was described by Mick Lynch as a ‘victory for passengers, community groups and rail workers alike.’

3. Healthcare Assistants Win Backpay And Re-banding

Tens of thousands of healthcare assistants across the UK are expected to take on clinical responsibilities above their pay band without getting paid for it. Workers classed as Band 2, for example, are required only to undertake personal care responsibilities — but a decade of understaffing means that many also take and monitor blood, carry out ECG tests, attend to complex dressings, record patient observations and more. NHS guidance states these staff should be on salary Band 3, a difference worth nearly £2,000 a year more.

In the face of this injustice, Unison has been campaigning not just for re-banding for future duties, but for healthcare assistants to be compensated for all the years they’ve undertaken these additional duties. In August this year, Unison members at hospitals in the Wirral became the first in the country to take strike action over the issue. 13 days into the strike, they won what seemed to be a breakthrough — but their trust continues to obscure who qualifies for five years of backpay, meaning an additional three weeks of action have taken place throughout December with further action scheduled in January.

Elsewhere, however, the full victory has been won. In September, over 300 staff at Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust voted for industrial action, and following nine days of strike action, the Trust was forced to meet workers’ demands with an offer of retrospective regrading and back-pay to April 2018. Eight other health trusts in the North West, including East Cheshire and Mid Cheshire Trusts, have also moved their staff up to salary band 3 and provided the same back pay.

4. Airport Staff Win Bumper Pay Awards

This June, on the heels of numerous waves of strike action, with eighteen days taken between Easter and summer, thousands of security officers at Heathrow airport and members of Unite won pay rises worth between 15.5-17.5 percent.

Similar events were in action at Gatwick the following month, where ground handling staff employed by Menzies and also members of Unite secured a 13 percent pay rise including 17 percent for the lowest paid staff, as well as enhancements to annual leave and sick pay. DHL workers at Gatwick, too, won a pay deal worth 15 percent.

The biggest victory, however, was won by Menzies staff at Luton airport all the way back in January, when Unite announced its members had won a pay rise worth an incredible 28 percent.

5. University Staff Win Back Their Pensions

In 2020, university employers undertook to spuriously degrade the value of university staff’s pensions, using a rigged assessment to impose a massive 35 percent cut to the guaranteed retirement income of average members in the USS pension scheme. In 2022, the UCU held a national aggregated strike ballot, which meant all 67 universities in the pension dispute could be hit with strike action at the same time.

The dispute over pensions for university workers went back further than 2020, too, ultimately lasting as long as five years and garnering a massive 69 days of strikes during that time. This year, UCU members voted by 99 percent to accept an offer which reversed the 35 percent cut, meaning an extra £16-£18 billion will now go to university staff in their retirement. Writing in Tribune, Jo Grady pointed out the importance of pension wins for workers everywhere: ‘Pensions aren’t a luxury. They aren’t a gift from the bosses. They are deferred wages. They belong to us.’

6. Outsourced Cleaners and Caterers Win Big

In July, cleaners and catering staff employed by outsourcing giant ISS at four South London hospitals announced they had won a massive 17 percent pay rise. The victory came after the workers had already taken thirteen days of strike action, and in the face of another eight more due to take place that week — another piece of proof that striking works.

The win was rightly hailed by the workers and their union, the GMB, as a major one for the staff who keep our hospitals running, and are too often sidelined. As their regional officer Helen O’Connor has argued in the pages of Tribune, however, the only real way to achieve justice for these workers going forward is to bring them in-house, along with all other outsourced workers, and take the profit motive out of our health service entirely.

7. Merseyside Fire Control Staff Strike for Justice

In August, control room workers and members of the Fire Brigades Union at Merseyside Fire Control voted in overwhelming numbers — 100 percent on a 92 percent turnout — for strike action over a plan to reduce night-time staffing numbers in fire control and other attacks on terms and conditions.

The workers called eight days of strike action this month, but the strike was called off at the very last minute following negotiations. On 22 December members announced they had won a deal that would improve their work-life balance alongside a new duty shift system with a pay uplift of £6880 per year.

General secretary Matt Wrack pointed out that the initial plans represented a threat to public safety, as do all degradations to fire and safety services. Smaller-scale victories in local fire services build hope that the devastating cuts the fire service has suffered under Tory austerity for the last thirteen years can eventually be reversed in full.

8. Kingsmill Bakers Win More Dough

After years of pitiful pay, Allied Bakeries workers in Bootle went on strike this year to demand their worth. The workers, members of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU), were classed as essential workers during the height of the pandemic. They had abandoned their strike during this time to assist with the national effort, donating over 25,000 packets of pancakes to food banks, hospitals, and nursing homes across the city. ‘We fed the nation, now we’re struggling to feed ourselves,’ said one worker.

A new report has found that nearly one in five workers in the industry are forced to rely on foodbanks – a ten percent increase in just three years. It is a damning indictment of the industry: workers increasingly unable to afford the food that they themselves produce.

The dispute with allied bakeries took place amid increased profits for the company. Allied Bakeries results for the first half of the financial year included a 17 percent increase in sales of its overall food business for the 24 weeks ended 4 March 2023, up to £5.3 billion.

After nearly 12 months of pay negotiations and little in the way of progress, workers felt they had no choice but to strike. Spirits were uplifted by solidarity on the picket line. Following strike action, workers in Bootle gained wage boosts of 8.7 percent this year, with an additional 8.6 per cent next year.

9. Outsourced Government Workers Win Back Cash

Following 34 days’ of strike action over the course of the year, cleaners, security guards, and support staff at three major government departments announced this month that they were calling off action after securing pay rises of up to 8 percent, which put them above the Real Living Wage.

The workers, members of the PCS union, are employed by outsourcing firm ISS at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The pay deal was accompanied by further gains on full pay sickness leave and other terms and conditions, closing the gap between them and directly employed civil servants.

Like the GMB, PCS’s outgoing general secretary Mark Serwotka noted this victory as one step towards ‘ending the scourge of outsourcing that has seen a race to the bottom to maximise profits at the expense of our hard-working members.’

10. Government Defeated At High Court

The strike wave that rocked Britain last year saw a sharp legislative response from the government, including not only the widely criticised Minimum Service Levels Bill, but also a plan to force agency staff to replace striking workers. This year, 11 trade unions, coordinated by the Trades Union Congress and represented by Thompsons Solicitors, brought legal proceedings to challenge the change and to protect the right to strike.

In July, the case went to the High Court, and the government suffered a major defeat as judges ruled the strikebreaking regulations unlawful. The court ruled that then-Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng failed to consult unions as required by the Employment Agencies Act 1973, quashing the 2022 changes and decreeing that employers can no longer use agency staff to fill in for striking workers during industrial action. According to the court, the government had acted unfairly, unlawfully, and irrationally.

But this is only a temporary win as the government is still determined to bring its union-busting laws into effect. The Minimum Service Levels Act threatens striking frontline workers with the sack and trade unions that fail to comply with being sued into bankruptcy.

The laws have faced a barrage of criticism from civil liberties organisations, NHS employers, race equality groups, employment lawyers and, of course, the trade union movement. Mass protests have been held, and legal action is on the cards. But unions like the RMT and FBU are pushing for the trade union movement to go further: a mass campaign of defiance to defeat anti-union laws.

This year, a motion put forward by the unions at Trade Union Congress was passed, committing the TUC to build mass opposition to the Minimum Service Levels Act, up to and including a strategy of non-compliance and non-cooperation to make the anti-strike laws unworkable, including industrial action.

While seeing a vicious anti-worker government defeated in the High Court is a source of joy, it’s clear that legal action is simply not enough. As Mick Lynch told Tribune earlier this year, ‘When you go to court, it doesn’t mean the law is withdrawn. It means that governments learn how to comply with the law. If this law makes it so that people can’t go on strike, this movement will die. We can’t start from the basis that we’re just going to accept it.’

Defeating the government’s latest anti-strike law will be a key battle in 2024 and it matters for the very future of the trade union movement.

About the Author
Taj Ali is the editor of Tribune.

UK

#CeasefireNow – a New Year’s Message from John McDonnell Labour MP



“After witnessing last night the pictures on our TVs of more Palestinian children being killed in Gaza, I don’t believe any politician’s New Year message is relevant unless it calls for an end to the massacre of these innocent children & calls for an immediate ceasefire.”John McDonnell MP

Please find below the video and text of a message from John McDonnell, which he posted on his social media accounts on 31 December, emphasising support for the international calls for a #Ceasefire now, and peace and justice for Palestine.

“It’s a long standing tradition for political and religious leaders to put out a New Year’s message setting out their plans and hopes for the new year.

This is accompanied by wishing people a Happy New Year.

After witnessing last night the pictures on our television screens of more Palestinian children being killed in Gaza, I don’t believe any politician’s or religious leader’s New Year message is relevant unless it calls for an end to the massacre of these innocent children and calls for an immediate ceasefire.

And of course, that includes the release of the Israeli hostages.

Without a demand from the international community for a ceasefire the world leaders are in effect tacitly giving permission for what many legal experts consider war crimes to continue.

So yes, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year but above all else I want to wish for peace, an end to the bombing and killing whether it be in Gaza, Israel or Ukraine.

Let’s try and make 2024 the year we learn to make peace again not war.”

If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.

Featured image: John McDonnell speaks at the Britain is Broken rally at London’s Trafalgar Square on Saturday 12th January 2018. Photo credit: Garry Knight under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication


PUBLISHED BY LABOUR OUTLOOK
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UK Trade union history: Unions to march with sacked GCHQ workers in January, here’s why

Hannah Davenport 

Today


Commemorating the 40-year anniversary when workers faced the sack for being in a union

In January, hundreds of trade unionists are expected to march at a rally in Cheltenham marking the 40th anniversary of the GCHQ trade union ban.

Organised jointly by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, the march will commemorate a significant event in the movement’s struggle against a hostile, anti-union political climate – whilst drawing parallels to the current struggle for workers’ rights.

In 1984 Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government banned trade unions at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), citing security concerns. Staff were forced to quit their union, however fourteen refused and, as a result, were sacked.

The Civil and Public Services Association (CPAS), which pre-dating the PCS union, entered a relentless campaign to reinstate them, with speakers attending more than 350 events and organising annual marches through the town centre for 13 years so the issue was kept in the public consciousness.

Eventually, once a Labour government came in, their persistence and defiance paid off when the ban was lifted in 1997 and they were able to return to work.

This marked an important victory in the movement, the fourteen GCHQ workers had stood up for their basic human right to collectively organise, putting their jobs on the line for their principles in a remarkable act of resistance. However today, workers are once again facing union attacks that threaten their jobs.

The Cheltenham rally was confirmed following a major meeting of trade unions against the Tories Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Bill, the first special congress called by the TUC in over 40 years, with the last in 1982 over Margaret Thatcher’s anti-union legislation.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said the march will represent union “defiance” against historic and current attacks on workers’ rights.

“We will once again show a Conservative government that the full force of the union movement stands behind any worker sacked for trade union activity,” rallied Nowak.

“On Saturday 27 January, 40 years on, unions will march through Cheltenham to commemorate the GCHQ victory and to demonstrate continued defiance against minimum service level regulations and attacks on the right to strike.”

Mark Serwotka echoed his call that the message today “is the same as it was in 1984 – we shall fight this injustice for however long it takes.”

Serwotka said: “Margaret Thatcher’s decision to ban trade unions at GCHQ was part of her attack on unions in general but these workers weren’t prepared to accept it.

“Their principled decision not to give up their trade union membership saw them pay a massive price.

“Now, forty years on, as we celebrate their courage and determination, a different Conservative government is attacking trade union rights – this time they’re introducing Minimum Service Levels in a naked attack on our right to strike.”

The rally will take place in Montpellier Gardens, Cheltenham at 12pm, 27 January. Among the confirmed speakers are Mark Serworka, Paul Nowak and UNISON new general secretary Christina McAnea, with more expected. Four of the surviving members of the original campaign and their families will also be attending as guests of honour.

(Image credit: University of Salford)

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward, focusing on trade unions and environmental issues

More than 50,000 Americans died by suicide in 2023 — more than any year on record

NBC News

Dec 31, 2023  #Health #MentalHealth #MTP

The U.S. surgeon general calls mental health the “defining health crisis of our time.” On a special edition of Meet the Press, Kristen Welker dives into the growing crisis and how to solve it. 

Homelessness at a record high in US as people struggle to prove they exist

ByPetula Dvorak
December 31, 2023 — 

Washington: He traced the letters of his name with his finger in the night air: “I -B-A-N-E-Z.”

Rafael Ibanez, 54, has been repeating his name, spelling it out, for government bureaucrats for at least two months, since the backpack containing all his identification papers was stolen.

He’s on his makeshift front porch, a scavenged folding chair next to his shelter, garbage bags hung on crisscrossing ropes. Across the street, little girls in glittery, blue dresses were giddy at the Kennedy Centre’s Opera House for opening night of the Disney musical, Frozen.

One of the men living in an encampment near Washington’s Kennedy Center is Rafael Ibanez, 54, whose identification papers were stolen with his backpack several months ago. 

CREDIT:PETULA DVORAK/THE WASHINGTON POST

One city, two worlds in the nation’s capital.

Ibanez is part of one of the fastest-growing populations in America - the homeless.

Last week, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development released its Annual Homeless Assessment Report showing that 12 per cent more people were experiencing homelessness this year compared to last. And the number – about 650,000 – is the highest ever since they’ve been keeping count.

“Homelessness is solvable and should not exist in the United States,” said HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge.

Indeed. And yet here we are, an entirely man-made calamity.

Ibanez worked as a landscaper and construction worker in Arizona for decades, he said, then work dried up and he followed a family member north, where he hoped jobs would be easier and more abundant.

His backpack and identity were stolen when he was in Manhattan. So he came to DC, as many do, in the belief that proximity to the federal government would ensure they get assistance and benefits quicker.

A decent number of the folks in DC’s tent villages are like him. Veterans who want their benefits, immigrants who want to become citizens and folks whose Social Security benefits were messed up believe their answers lie in the nation’s capital.

The numbers in Washington are also rising, with an 11.6 per cent increase this year over last, according to the DC government. There are about 5000 people without a home in the nation’s capital.

This was the case with one unforgettable woman I met in 2016, Wanda Witter.

After battling Social Security for years, hauling three suitcases stuffed with paperwork to prove her case, the then 80-year-old woman who was homeless until the week we met got one of the biggest I-told-you-so’s that a person can hope for.

The government admitted the mistake and deposited $US99,999 ($145,000) into her bank account. She got a cute apartment.

One of the encampments near Foggy Bottom in Washington is notable for the giant, American flag one man uses to protect his belongings.

CREDIT:PETULA DVORAK/THE WASHINGTON POST

Ibanez has been living outside the Kennedy Centre for two months now. He said it was the first time he’s lived rough, and it’s getting colder. He believes that if he could just get someone in the federal government to believe who he is, he can come inside, too. But the visits to offices haven’t helped.

There are facts of his story I’m missing and I’m sure many are hard.

But there he was this week, among a small tent city of the forgotten, trying to stay warm, eat and get someone to acknowledge his existence so he can file for food stamps and housing benefits.

This is getting more difficult in America – and notably in DC – because the nonprofits that step in to help people, which have long been underfunded and understaffed, are running up against a deepening challenge: a nationwide decline in volunteers.

The number of Americans who raised their hands to volunteer in the United States dropped about 7 percentage points between September 2020 and September 2021, to the lowest it’s been since do-gooders work has been tracked in the early 2000s, according to a January report released by the Census Bureau and AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism.

“There have always been organisations that have struggled to find volunteers, but it’s now it’s a huge problem,” Nathan Dietz, research director at the Do Good Institute in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, who co-wrote a study released last month exploring factors influencing volunteering and charitable giving in the United States and told my colleague, Joe Heim.

Plus, these remaining folks who help the homeless are being flooded because of this sad fact in the yearly count - the steep increase in homeless Americans is largely made up of folks who are unhoused for the first time in their lives.

It’s a domino effect - it’s hard to buy a house, so the renter market is flooded and rents are growing.

“Millions of households are now priced out of homeownership, grappling with housing cost burdens, or lacking shelter altogether, including a disproportionate share of people of colour,” according to a report by the Joint Centre for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

These aren’t just the folks battling mental illness or addictions, as former president and current candidate Donald Trump would like you to believe as he tromps through America with dictatorial declarations of mass roundups and arrests of the homeless and immigrants.

Between fiscal years 2021 and 2022, the number of people who became newly homeless increased by 25 per cent, according to HUD data.

“This rise in first-time homelessness is likely attributable to a combination of factors, including but not limited to, the recent changes in the rental housing market and the winding down of pandemic protections and programs focused on preventing evictions and housing loss,” the HUD announcement said.

These are folks thrown to the curb because the rent is simply too darn high.

The eviction protections that helped renters during the pandemic are gone. And the people already on the edge before covid paralysed the nation are falling off, according to the Harvard report.

Ibanez wishes he could pay rent again.

For now, he gets takeout boxes that diners leaving Georgetown restaurants give him. Some of the folks who rack their rental bikes next to his encampment give him their coats or blankets. He’s seeing more of this now, close to the holidays.

“People are good to me,” he said. “They try.”

Not hard enough.

The Washington Post

Oil, Chemical Firms Pay Millions to Fix Portland Harbor

December 31, 2023on Oil, Chemical Firms Pay Millions to Fix Portland Harbor

PORTLAND, Oregon, December 31, 2023 (ENS) – People who eat fish that live year-round in Oregon’s Lower Willamette River are taking a big risk, as these fish contain levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls high enough to harm health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been warning for decades.

In November, the Justice Department added two settlements in federal court reflecting agreements among Tribal, state and federal natural resource trustees and over 20 potentially responsible parties, PRPs, to clean up what is now the Portland Harbor Superfund Site, designated in the year 2000. Past settlement agreements are online here.

The Portland Harbor Superfund site reached a key milestone on January 6, 2017 when the Environmental Protection Agency released its Record of Decision, the final plan for cleanup.

The Portland Harbor Superfund site is a 10-mile stretch of the lower Willamette River between the Broadway Bridge and the southern tip of Sauvie Island.

Approximately 150 parties are considered potentially responsible for the contamination, including some of the largest corporations in the United States, even one – Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc. now doing business as Radius Recycling – that has been recognized for its environmental and climate action work.

One of the 150 potentially responsible parties is Schnitzer Steel Industries, which this year rebranded as Radius Recycling, in the business of buying and selling recycled metals around the world. In November, TIME magazine named the company to the inaugural TIME100 Climate List, which aims to recognize 100 innovative leaders working to expedite climate action. Earlier this year, Radius was named the Most Sustainable Company in the World by Corporate Knights and included on TIME’s List of the 100 Most Influential Companies of 2023.

Other polluters named in the Portland Harbor Superfund site cleanup agreements already filed in court are:

• – Daimler Trucks North America;
• – Vigor Industrial, the largest ship repair and modernization operation in the region;
• – Cascade General, which owns and operates Portland Shipyard;
• – NW Natural, a natural gas distributor;
• – Arkema Inc., a chemical manufacturer based near Paris, France;
• – Bayer Crop Science Inc., a German multinational corporation which produces herbicides, and insecticides that the 2020 EPA Administrative Settlement court documents linked to “cancer risks and noncancer health hazards from exposures to a set of chemicals in sediments, surface water, groundwater seeps, and fish tissue from samples collected at the Site.”
• – General Electric Company, a New York company that has polluted surface water, groundwater, sediment, and fish tissue with 64 contaminants of concern, including PCBs, PAHs, dioxins and furans, as well as DDT and its metabolites DDD and DDE (collectively, DDX);
• – oil companies Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Kinder Morgan Liquids Terminals LLC, McCall Oil and Chemical Corporation, Phillips 66 Company, and Shell Oil Company, Company, BP Products North America Inc., and ExxonMobil Corporation;
• – towboating and barging company Brix Maritime
• – Union Pacific Railroad Company
• – FMC Corporation, an American herbicide and fungicide manufacturer based in Pennsylvania

The settlement agreements, with an estimated restoration value of $33.2 million, require the potentially responsible parties to pay cash damages or purchase credits in projects to restore salmon and other natural resources that were lost due to contamination released from their facilities into the Willamette River.

This settlement includes more than $600,000 in damages for the public’s lost recreational use of the river, and restoration and monitoring of culturally significant plants and animals.

Portland Harbor Superfund Site, River Mile 11 East (Photo courtesy EPA Region 10)

The settlement includes additional funds to cover costs paid by the Portland Harbor Natural Resource Trustee Council for assessing the harm to the injured natural resources.

The Trustee Council is made up of representatives from the Five Tribes: the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, and the Nez Perce Tribe, along with representatives of the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the State of Oregon.

“This settlement represents years of hard work by the Portland Harbor natural resource trustees and responsible parties who cooperated to restore the harm caused by those parties’ contamination. The resulting restoration projects funded by these agreements will provide permanent ecological benefits to help restore the biodiversity of the Willamette River system,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

The Five Tribes “wholly support this settlement” the Tribes said in a statement. “Contamination has uniquely affected tribal members because of their cultural use of and relationship with affected natural resources in and around the Portland Harbor Superfund Site. The Five Tribes believe the collaborative process of this settlement represents the best path forward for restoring Portland Harbor natural resources for the benefit of both current and future generations.”

Curt Melcher heads the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. 2016 (Photo courtesy OregonLive)

“The trustees are very pleased that the responsible parties in this settlement have advanced restoration over litigation. The large-scale restoration projects facilitated by this settlement will help address the most important habitat needs of fish and wildlife injured by contamination in Portland Harbor,” said Director Curt Melcher of Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We will continue our settlement discussions with the remaining responsible parties who are participating in the early settlement initiative so we can achieve additional permanent restoration of natural resources,” Melcher said. “Partnering with restoration project developers has already produced on-the-ground restoration even prior to today’s settlement.”

Restoration Credits, a Novelty With Benefits

The use of restoration credits in four natural resource projects created in partnership with private developers is a novel and critical feature of the settlement, the Justice Department said.

Restoration credits are like ecological “shares” in a restoration project, and the natural resource trustees decide how many “shares” each project is worth. Defendants in the settlement can purchase restoration credits from the restoration project developers instead of paying cash to resolve the ecological injury portion of their liability.

Using this approach at Portland Harbor has produced on-the-ground restoration sooner and at less cost than traditional cash-only settlements.

The four restoration projects selling restoration credits – Alder Creek, Harborton, Linnton Mill and Rinearson Natural Area – provide habitat for juvenile Chinook salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act, and they are of cultural significance to the Five Tribes.

The projects will restore habitat for other fish and wildlife injured by contamination in Portland Harbor, species such as bald eagles, mink and lamprey, as well as tribally significant native plants like camas, wapato and sweetgrass.

“Cleaning up and restoring the Portland Harbor is important for all Oregonians, but it will also be one small step towards righting the many injustices done to the Nez Perce Tribe,” said Courtney Johnson, executive director and staff attorney with the Portland-based Crag Law Center.

Bald eagle prepares for landing in Portland, Oregon, August 14, 2020 (Photo by Mick Thompson / Portland Audobon)

Construction is complete and habitat development is underway at all four projects, which are expected to provide ecological benefits in perpetuity, will be permanently protected from development and will receive long-term stewardship.

Collectively, the restoration value in these projects is the largest natural resource credit bank at any Superfund Site in the country, the EPA explains.

The agreements result from an early settlement collaboration between the natural resource trustees at the Portland Harbor Superfund Site and a group of PRPs who participated in that effort.

Negotiations are continuing with other PRPs that also are participating in the trustees’ early settlement initiative. If the trustees reach agreements in those ongoing negotiations, they could include additional cash settlements or restoration credit purchases in the four restoration projects.

On behalf of the trustees on the Trustee Council, the U.S. Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Enforcement Section filed the complaint and lodged the proposed consent decrees in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

The proposed decrees resolve the natural resource damages allegations of the United States, Oregon and the Five Tribes for releases of contamination from the PRPs’ identified facilities. Alleged violations are of Section 107 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act; the Oil Pollution Act and the Clean Water Act.

The Superfund site is located along the lower reach of the Willamette River in Portland, and extends from river mile 1.9 to 11.8. While the site is industrialized, it is within a region where commercial, residential, recreational, and agricultural uses exist. The site includes marine terminals, manufacturing, other commercial operations, public facilities, parks, and open spaces.

This lower reach was once a shallow, meandering portion of the Willamette River but has been redirected and channelized with filling and dredging. A federally maintained navigation channel, extending nearly bank-to-bank in some areas, doubles the natural depth of the river and allows transit of large ships into the harbor. Along the river bank are overwater piers and berths, port terminals and slips, and other engineered features.

Invertebrates, fishes, birds, amphibians, and mammals, including some protected by the Endangered Species Act, use habitats within and along the river. The river is also an important rearing site and pathway for migration of salmon and lamprey. Recreational fisheries for salmon, bass, sturgeon, crayfish, among others, are still active within the lower Willamette River.

The greatest risk to humans is connected to eating the fish that live there year-round, like bass and carp. Salmon and fish that pass through the river to the ocean are safe to eat, the EPA advises

Seawalls are used to control periodic flooding as most of the original wetlands bordering the Willamette in the Portland Harbor area have been filled. Some river bank areas and adjacent parcels have been abandoned and allowed to revegetate, and beaches have formed along some modified shorelines due to natural processes.

The settlement is subject to a 45-day public comment period and final court approval. It is available for viewing here. Please refer to the upcoming Federal Register notice for instructions on submitting any public comments on the settlement. More information is available on the Portland Harbor Natural Resource Trustee Council website.

Featured image: A view of the Portland Harbor Superfund site with Mount Hood, Oregon’s tallest mountain at 11,249 feet, in the background. (Photo courtesy U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

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