Loblaw contract dispute sees more than 500 employees laid off in Calgary, union says

Mon, November 21, 2022 

A union that represents employees of a Loblaw distribution centre in Calgary says more than 500 workers have been served layoff notices amid contract negotiations.

 (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press - image credit)

More than 500 workers at a Loblaw distribution centre in Calgary will be out of a job this week. That's according to a union that represents the employees.

Amid negotiations for higher wages, Teamsters Local Union 987 said that 527 out of 534 at the location have been told they will be laid off effective Thursday.

The union has been in talks with the grocery and drugstore retailer since the last agreement expired June 6.

"A portion of the distribution centre workers who earn hourly wages are not only struggling with earning less than the acceptable living wage for Calgary of $22.40, but they are also now facing layoffs," said John Taylor, the business agent for Teamsters Local Union 987.

According to Taylor, Loblaw was offering a "straight money offer" that did not include any rules or regulations around working conditions. He said the company would not change anything the union had asked for that did not involve money.

Teamsters Local 987 rejected the employer's offer on Nov. 3, and again rejected the same offer on Nov. 15 — which was a labour board supervised proposal vote.

In a statement sent to CBC News, Catherine Thomas, the vice-president of communication at Loblaw, said her company was disappointed the offer was "narrowly rejected," and that many colleagues share the sentiment.

"The union's comments ignore that this was a strong offer with wage increases of up to 32 per cent for full-time and more than 40 per cent for part-time colleagues over a five-year term," Thomas said.

"These are some of the most competitive wages in the industry, some reaching more than $33 per hour. To be clear, today approximately two-thirds of full-time Freeport workers already make more than $22/hour, significantly above the minimum wage of $15."

But Taylor says it's not just about the money.

"The working conditions of the language that we had in our agreement six years ago that the company took away … it was removed from the agreement six years ago and we want the language back," he said.

"The offer they made was definitely, I mean, I'm not going to say it was terrible. It was a fair offer. But again, this company, given their success, could do better."

With the rejection of the offer, Thomas said the company is preparing for a work stoppage at the facility on Freeport Boulevard N.E.

She said the company has started to move inventory to other distribution centres to ensure stores can continue to serve customers without disruption.

UK

SIR Keir Starmer to warn businesses ‘days of low pay and cheap labour must end’

SAM BLEWETT, PA DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

21 November 2022,

Sir Keir Starmer will warn bosses the days of “low pay and cheap labour” must end as he tells them to train up UK workers to end Britain’s “immigration dependency”.

The Labour leader will signal in a speech on Tuesday that he would be willing to accept increased skilled immigration on the path to his vision of ending the “low pay model”.

Addressing the Confederation of British Industry conference, he is to set out plans to “start investing more in training up workers who are already here”.

Sir Keir will vow to be “pragmatic” about the shortage of workers and not to ignore the need for skilled individuals to come into the country if he forms a Labour government.

But he will stress that any changes to a points-based migration system “will come with new conditions for business”.

“We will expect you to bring forward a clear plan for higher skills and more training, for better pay and conditions, for investment in new technology,” he is expected to tell business leaders gathered in Birmingham.

“But our common goal must be to help the British economy off its immigration dependency. To start investing more in training up workers who are already here.

“Migration is part of our national story – always has been, always will be. And the Labour Party will never diminish the contribution it makes to the economy, to public services, to your businesses and our communities.

“But let me tell you – the days when low pay and cheap labour are part of the British way on growth must end.”

Sir Keir will set out Labour’s plans for reform, which include:

– Ensuring all employers able to sponsor visas are meeting decent standards of pay and conditions

– Speed up visa delays to avoid labour shortages damaging the economy

– Introduce training and plans for improving pay and conditions for roles that require international recruitment

– Reform the migration advisory committee that reports to the Government so it better projects future trends.

He will warn that businesses cannot be “more comfortable hiring people to work in low paid, insecure, sometimes exploitative contracts” rather than investing in new technology to boost productivity.

Sir Keir’s speech comes as Rishi Sunak moved to deny plans ministers could look to realign Britain with EU laws.

Some Tories have been angered by suggestions the Government was weighing up a Swiss-style relationship with Brussels.

But the Prime Minister told the CBI conference on Monday that the UK “will not pursue any relationship with Europe that relies on alignment with EU laws”.

Sir Keir is understood to be sticking to his opposition of rejoining the EU’s single market.

SIR Keir Starmer will warn business chiefs to end 'cheap labour' as Rishi Sunak quashes calls to ease migration laws

22 November 2022,

Keir Starmer is set to tell business chiefs to end cheap labour as Rishi Sunak rebuffs CBI calls to ease stance on migration. Picture: LBC / Alamy

By Danielle DeWolfe

Keir Starmer will call for an end to Britain's economic dependence on immigration in today's speech to business leaders, hours after Rishi Sunak ruled out any trade relationship with the European Union that relied on Britain aligning with EU laws.

The Labour party's tougher stance on "low pay and cheap labour" will be set out during the opposition leader's speech to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

It comes in an attempt to quell rumours that Starmer's vision of a Labour government would take a looser stance on immigration, more closely aligned to those of former Labour leader Tony Blair.

It comes as Labour's plans come under increasing scrutiny after latest poll figures suggest they've opened up a 20-percentage-point lead over the Conservatives ahead of the next election.

It follows Mr Sunak's statement yesterday at the Confederation of Business Industry (CBI), following reports at the weekend that he was seeking a 'swiss-style' deal with the EU.

Rishi Sunak addressing the CBI. Picture: Alamy

Read more: Iran players fall silent during national anthem after months of anti-regime protests back home

Read more: Prince Andrew 'makes secret visit to Middle East via private jet' as he targets trade role

Starmer aims to convince voters he has reconciled with life outside the EU in a bid to win back red wall voters.

He will tell business leaders: “I want to be clear here: with my Labour government, any movement in our point-based migration system, whether via the skilled occupation route, or the shortage worker list, will come with new conditions for business.

“We will expect you to bring forward a clear plan for higher skills and more training, for better pay and conditions, for investment in new technology.

Asked yesterday about the UK's relationship with the EU, Mr Sunak said: "Let me be unequivocal about this: under my leadership, the United Kingdom will not pursue any relationship with Europe that relies on alignment with EU laws. 

"Now, I voted for Brexit. I believe in Brexit and I know that Brexit can deliver and is already delivering enormous benefits and opportunities for the country. 

"Migration being an immediate one where we have proper control of our borders."

Sir Keir Starmer will set out his vision of a Labour government to the CBI on Tuesday. Picture: Contributor: Colin Fisher / Alamy Stock Photo

Mr Starmer is set to tell business leaders: “Our common goal must be to help the British economy off its immigration dependency. To start investing more in training up workers who are already here.”

“Migration is part of our national story – always has been, always will be. And the Labour Party will never diminish the contribution it makes to the economy, to public services, to your businesses and our communities.

Adding: “But let me tell you, the days when low pay and cheap labour are part of the British way on growth must end.”

It comes as Mr Sunak pointed to having "proper control of our borders" during yesterday's speech.

On the subject of migration, the Prime Minister added: "We weren't able to do that inside the European Union, at least now we are in control of it."

But his remarks came shortly after the boss of the CBI, Tony Danker, called on the government to be "practical" on the issue of immigration and use it to solve worker shortages in the UK.

Rishi Sunak at the CBI. Picture: Alamy

Brexit stopped many foreign workers being able to easily work in the UK and companies are struggling to recruit - especially in industries such as hospitality which has relied heavily on European staff in recent years.

Mr Danker told the conference the UK's labour shortages were "vast", adding: "It's time to be honest - we don't have the people we need, nor do we have the productivity."

In his speech, Mr Sunak said leaving the bloc means "we can open up our country to the world's fastest-growing markets".

He also said the UK could now introduce "regulatory regimes that are fit for the future that ensure that this country can be leaders in those industries that are going to create the jobs and the growth of the future".

A recent poll from YouGov showed the public now think Britain was wrong to leave the EU by 56% to 32%, with one in five who voted for Brexit believing their decision was wrong.

NHS Scotland chiefs' ‘two-tier’ health service proposal is a nightmare that threatens the whole of Britain


THE “two-tier” health service proposed by NHS Scotland chiefs in which “wealthy” patients would be made to pay for treatment is a menace overshadowing the NHS across Britain.

Scottish politicians have rightly slammed the proposal as unacceptable. It would undermine the founding principle of the NHS — that treatment is free at the point of use — and any means-testing would be a slippery slope.

Free treatment would end up being the exception, grudgingly extended to the poorest, like free school meals, one whose recipients would be at risk of frequent political attack by the right as scroungers or freeloaders — as the Conservative governments of the past 12 years have depicted people reliant on social security payments.

But the NHS bosses pitching for the right to charge patients are prompted to do so by funding shortages.

They talk of a “billion-pound hole” in their budget and note there are 6,000 nursing and midwifery posts unfilled across Scotland.

The funding and staffing crises are identical to those facing the NHS in England and Wales, and we would be naive to imagine similarly damaging “solutions” are not being mooted south of the border.

They are the reason A&E waiting time targets keep being missed, and that the NHS waiting list is now seven million.

Those are prompting the emergence of an effective two-tier health service already. The Private Healthcare Information Network reported earlier this year a 39 per cent rise in people paying for private treatment over the past two years, generally to get operated on more quickly.

Private healthcare is parasitical on the NHS, and its growth compounds the latter’s problems. Doctors and nurses trained by the NHS can leave it to find higher paid work privately, while when individual medical practitioners do both NHS and private work a conflict of interest can arise, especially where the NHS refers people for treatment by for-profit providers paid a premium to deliver care that could be done in-house.

Aside from means-testing free treatment, the NHS Scotland execs discussed dropping free prescriptions, a right not enjoyed in England since the 1950s, the restoration of which is seen as a signature achievement of the devolved Scottish and Welsh governments.

BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle notes that “payments are always controversial, but in the 1950s when budgets were tight payments were brought in for dentistry, prescriptions and spectacles.”

But the fact that something has been done before does not make it acceptable. The crisis in British dental cover, with people living with chronic pain or attempting risky DIY dentistry because treatment is unaffordable, illustrates that.

We should not be looking to reduce the number of services the NHS offers free of charge — we need to restore free dental care. It is worth remembering too that prescription, dentistry and optometry charges were brought in to help fund the Korean war, given the likely impact Conservative, Labour and — unfortunately — TUC support for higher military spending will have on public service budgets.

NHS funding shortages are exacerbated by commissioning of expensive private-sector provision, a consequence of a failure to fill staffing vacancies. They are also linked to the extortionate prices charged for certain drugs by Big Pharma, a reason to support the production of generic medicines.

But we also need a serious rise in funding to tackle the Covid backlog, care properly for an ageing population and address the myriad physical and mental health problems associated with the poverty, alienation and loneliness spawned by our sick capitalist society.

A Labour Party that accepts the Tories’ dodgy claims of a £50 billion black hole in the public finances will, like the Labour Party a decade ago that accepted the logic of austerity, end up reinforcing an agenda of cuts that do irreversible damage.

We need a real opposition, even if it must be built up from the streets.

MORNINGSTAR

Are the protests in Iran fueled by a Western conspiracy?

The impact of Mahsa Amini's killing on a global scale, particularly among the Iranian diaspora in the West, is undoubtedly bigger and fiercer than the Bloody Aban protests of 2019.

Jaffer Abbas Mirza 

Published November 17, 2022

Over the last four years, Iran has been jolted by political tremors at increasing frequency.

Starting with what came to be known as the “Bloody Aban” insurrection, a nationwide civic rights protest in late November 2019, initially against rising fuel costs, but which later turned into anti-regime protests.

The protests were followed by the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in 2020 by American forces, which led the country to the brink of war with the US. But it was the more recent killing of Mahsa Amini that has triggered what have arguably been the most significant anti-regime protests witnessed in Iran in recent years.

Some may argue that the recent demonstrations are not as wide scale as the 2019 protests. However, the impact of Amini’s killing on a global scale, particularly among the Iranian diaspora in the West, is undoubtedly bigger and fiercer than the Bloody Aban protests.

Friction pours out of Iran

For one, Amini’s killing has seemingly exacerbated the polarisation between pro- and anti-regime Iranians, with the conflict between these two groups becoming even more visible among the diaspora in the West.

On September 25, 2022, anti-regime protesters turned violent and tried to attack the Iranian embassy in London. The riot police eventually dispersed the protesters and cleared the area. The dispersed mob then marched from the embassy to the location of the annual Arbaeen procession (an approximately 2km distance) and clashed with the procession’s attendees.



More tragically, the same mob later attacked the Islamic Centre of England, a Shi’a religious centre known for its close affiliation with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Similar incidents were also reported in other European countries such as Germany, where at least three people were injured in a clash during a vigil.

While one understands that the aggression on display at some of these protests is rooted in decades of political suffocation and subjugation, there should be no defence for thuggery and violence against ordinary people such as clashing with attendees at an Arbaeen procession that is attended by Shia Muslims from various nationalities, many of whom may have no political association with Iran.

The foreign conspiracy narrative

On the other hand, a group within the pro-regime supporters in the diaspora also echoes the regime’s narrative regarding the protests as being planned by “America and the Zionist regime”.

The Iranian interior minister has yet again alleged that some of the rioters were funded by foreign states.

To be fair, Iran’s paranoia about foreign-backed movements does have historic roots, much of it courtesy of the US. The CIA has admitted its role in the 1953 coup against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddeq. Similarly, the Carter administration reportedly influenced and helped Ayatollah Khomeini return to Iran.

Thus, US involvement or obsession with Iran’s internal politics has always been a concern and the regime’s ontological insecurity vis-à-vis the West is used as a pretext to counter anti-regime or civic rights movements in the country.

This fear of foreign involvement in Iran’s politics is also at play in the ongoing protests. Several pro-regime observers have criticised some of the protesters’ actions, claiming that they were being encouraged by the West.

For example, videos circulating on social media show unidentified people assaulting Shia clerics and knocking off their turbans in the streets in what has become a new form of protest against the regime. Reacting to the footage, one cleric termed it a ‘conspiracy of the devils’. Similarly, the women-led protests were seen as a Western conspiracy and its involvement behind them.

However, when one reads the writings of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the country’s first supreme leader, and situates them in the context of the ongoing protests against the regime, one may connect and trace back — the act of stripping off turbans and women’s participation against the regime in response to the state’s enforcement — in the founding leader’s writings.

The purpose of writing this piece is not to create a whataboutery here; it is merely an attempt to situate the protesters’ action in the Iranian political tradition and highlight the duality in response to the protests from the pro-regime observers.

‘Take off their turbans!’

In Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1981), translated and annotated by Hamid Algar, the author quotes Khomeini as writing that he was disappointed with those clerics who were quiet and stayed indifferent during the Shah’s rule, terming them ‘pseudo-saints’.

“Our youths must strip them of their turbans. The turbans of these akhunds [Islamic scholars], who cause corruption in Muslim society while claiming to be fuqaha and ’ulama, must be removed,” Khomeini wrote, according to Algar.

“I do not know if our young people in Iran have died; where are they? Why do they not strip these people of their turbans? I am not saying they should be killed; they do not deserve to be killed. But take off their turbans! Our people in Iran, particularly the zealous youths, have a duty not to permit these akhunds, these reciters of “Greater be his glory!” to appear in society and move among the people wearing turbans. They do not need to be beaten much; just take off their turbans, and do not permit them to appear in public wearing turbans. The turban is a noble garment; not everyone is fit to wear it.”

In his writings, Khomeini was particularly targeting those clerics who had supported the regime and referred to them as “evil ’ulema”.

“Any faqih [an Islamic jurist] who joins the state apparatus of the oppressers and becomes a hanger-on of the court is not a trustee and cannot exercise God’s trust. God knows what misfortunes Islam has suffered from its inception down to the present at the hands of these evil ulema,” he wrote.

The act of knocking off a cleric’s turban is considered disrespectful in the Islamic tradition. Ayatollah Khomeini didn’t want to kill the clerics. He wanted to give them a message that people were fed up with the regime and their support for the Shah’s oppressive rule.

Ulema in post-revolution Iran have become a symbol of the state. Ayatollah Khomeini’s writings, particularly on the vilayat al-faqih (guardianship of the Islamic jurist), elevated the ulema’s status, particularly their political standing. “I do not defend the religious scholars because I am a member of that class myself, but because I am convinced that it is they who can save the nation, and it is they whom the people are demanding,” he said.

Therefore, anger against ulema is not because the protesters are ‘anti-Islam’; they are now fed up with that system which, unfortunately, the ulema in Iran are part of and are in fact benefiting from.

I agree that the act itself is disrespectful and condemnable. However, the question is: if knocking off the turbans of ulema is a disrespectful gesture within the (Islamic) cultural context, then how should Ayatollah Khomeini’s call to youth be translated? If it’s condemnable today, was it equally condemnable back then in the 1970s? And is it only the ulema’s prerogative to call other ulema evil?

One may argue that Ayatollah Khomeini changed some of his political positions after the revolution, therefore, this act should be seen in a similar trajectory. I am also aware that some attempted to differentiate between Khomeini’s call and the protesters’ actions, for example, by seeing it through the Manichean lens as a fight between light (Ayatollah Khomeini) and darkness (the Shah dynasty).

Therefore, Ayatollah Khomeini’s call, as the argument goes, was the righteous one. Or some may say that his statements were given in different political contexts. These are different debates and require a separate write-up. Nevertheless, the assertion that the knocking off of turbans and pitting Iranian people against the ulema is a Western plot ignores the country’s political methods of resistance employed by the very founder of the regime.

‘The women of Iran have risen’

One of the major points of contention between the anti- and pro-regime protesters is that the latter view the protests as a challenge to women’s modesty and hijab, and that the Western groups — the media and feminists — are exploiting the situation. Meanwhile, the the former claim that women are challenging the imposition of rules, particularly on the hijab.

However, what remains unsaid is that women’s mobilisation in Iran is not an anomaly in the country’s politics. Women, on both spectrums of politics, have confronted the regime throughout history.

Ayatollah Khomeini himself not only encouraged, but also acknowledged the resistance shown by the women against the Shah regime. He wrote:


“The women of Iran have risen up against the Shah themselves and given a punch in the mouth to him with the cry, ‘We don’t want to be forced into immorality! We want to be free!’ His [Shah] answer is, ’But you are free! The only thing is that you cannot go to school wearing a chador or headcovering!”

The text above shows Ayatollah Khomeini’s commitment against the imposition of ‘immorality’ by the regime.

What I find interesting and see a correlation in is that women challenged the imposition in both epochs. One opposed the enforcement of the idea of ‘immorality’ and the other challenged the imposition of hyper-morality.

No matter what the state calls these protestors, at the end of the day, they are Iranian women who have a history of political mobilisation and challenging the regime.

There is, therefore, a need to see the political expression(s) against the regime within the Iranian political context and tradition instead of brushing it off as ‘foreign encouraged’ practices. Any attempt to dismiss them on account of the latter only takes away the agency of the protesters risking their lives against a state that has felt no qualms about using force against its own citizens.


The author is a researcher, focuses on religion and politics in South Asia with a particular interest in Shi’i studies. He is currently serving as Senior Research Coordinator at the Department of Anthropology, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex. He tweets @jafferamirza.

What could a world without Twitter look like

AFP Published November 21, 2022  

   

After another chaotic week of mass staff departures and policy reversals, Twitter’s future seems highly uncertain, with users — and everybody else — increasingly asking one question: What would a world without the so-called bird app even look like?

With about 237 million daily visitors at the last count in late June, Twitter’s user base is still smaller than Facebook’s nearly two billion, TikTok’s one billion plus and even Snapchat’s 363m.

But in Twitter’s 15 years of existence, the platform has become the predominant communication channel for political and government leaders, businesses, brands celebrities and news media.

Some, like New York entrepreneur Steve Cohn, are convinced the Twitterverse is only an artificial microcosm of the real world, with limited actual importance.

Twitter is “not ‘essential’ in any way”, Cohn declared — from his own Twitter account. “The world works just fine without Twitter.”

Few people actually tweet, he went on. “Almost all tweets come from (the) 1%. Most normals never log into Twitter.”

But for others, including Karen North, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the site is indispensable for bringing light to little-known conversations.

“Most of the time, people without prominence are not heard,” she said. But on Twitter, “there’s the opportunity to announce things.”

In situations of conflict, social movements or crackdowns, “Twitter, I think, has become the central platform for being able to disseminate the truth and the ground reality,” senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, Charles Lister, told AFP.

Read: Chaotic times of the bird

Like most other social networks, Twitter is also used to spread propaganda and misinformation, and the company has developed moderation tools to try to limit the worst of it.

But their ability to keep up with the demands of such a task has been thrown into question after more than two-thirds of those teams have left since Elon Musk’s controversial takeover.

A 2018 study found that false information circulates faster than posts that have been fact-checked.

“That’s an unrealistic expectation to imagine a platform where misinformation and disinformation are impossible,” Lister cautioned.

But “to see information, good and bad, vanish”, with the potential disappearance of Twitter, “is by definition a bad thing”, Lister said.

“Autocrats and anyone who doesn’t want information widely shared, would potentially benefit from Twitter being gone,” added Mark Hass, a professor at Arizona State University (ASU).

‘Public square’

A Twitter fail could have devastating effects on journalism, experts say.

“Twitter… is really not a social network,” North explained. “It’s a network of news and information.

“It’s the place, the core hub of where journalists go to get a heads up, or a story idea or a headline or a source or a quote,” she said.

With the reduction of the workforces and budgets in newsrooms, the resources just aren’t there, even at the most well-funded news operations, “to go find sources out in the world”, North lamented.

Twitter, she said, is where much of that work can be done.

Another knock-on effect of a potential collapse of the platform, according to North, is that without Twitter, the world’s rich and powerful stars and politicians will still be able to command the media’s attention, while those less in the spotlight will struggle for attention.

“With Twitter, anybody can announce a story,” she said.

The site functions as a way to share information in real-time.

“Twitter has been a vital source of information, networking, guidance, real-time updates, community mutual aid, & more during hurricanes, wildfires, wars, outbreaks, terrorist attacks, mass shootings … etc,” tweeted University of Maryland researcher Caroline Orr.

“It’s not something that can be replaced by any existing platforms.”

For now, the solution for a potential Twitter alternative is not obvious.

“Facebook is valuable, but I think it’s almost a bit old-fashioned,” Lister said.

Read: How Twitter frenzy threw Mastodon into spotlight

Smaller Twitter competitors are likely to syphon off users, including Mastodon, which has grown in popularity since Musk purchased Twitter.

“But these will likely remain niche, with none of them becoming the public square that Twitter tries to create,” ASU’s Hass said.

He and North both listed Reddit as a possible substitute, though North said the forum-based network is limited by its fragmented and cluttered design that cannot replicate Twitter’s ease of use.

Could a replacement emerge? “Of course,” Lister added, but he noted such ingenuity takes enormous resources and significant time. “You can’t just do it overnight.”

Now you can follow Dawn Business on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook for insights on business, finance and tech from Pakistan and across the world.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr wins hearts at Sindh Moorat March for saying Sindh belongs to the people, not his family

PUBLISHED Nov 20,2022
IMAGES STAFF
DESK REPORT


The artist and rights activist asked people to chant long live the people, instead of long live Bhutto.

Photo: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto /Instagram

The Sindh Moorat March, which was held at Karachi’s Frere Hall on Sunday as part of a global march being observed by transpersons, was attended by politicians, lawyers and human rights activists, including artist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr, who won hearts for telling people not to cheer for his family.

The event saw hundreds of people carrying placards and chanting slogans calling for the rights of the transgender community. Shehzadi Rai, a protest march organiser, told Dawn.com that the main aim of the march was the implementation of the trans rights law. “This year, we have adopted the slogan of ‘Zan, Zindagi and Azad’ (woman, life and free) to show solidarity with women in Iran,” she added.

There were also several speeches on stage. When someone began chanting “Jeay Bhutto”, Zulfikar made his way to the front of the stage and countered, “Jeay Bhutto choro, jeay awaam, sada jeay awaam, jeay khwajasira, jeay aurat [forget ‘long live Bhutto’, long live the people, long live the transgender community and love live women].”

Zulfikar, the only son of the late Murtaza Bhutto and the only grandson of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who carries the Bhutto name, said that Sindh belongs to the people. “Sindh is yours. It does belong to my family, it belongs to you,” he told the crowd. “You’re the heirs of Sindh, khwajasira are the heirs of Sindh. I’m the only heir of my grandfather but you all are the heirs of Sindh,” he said.

One Twitter user called him “a genuine human being” and a “pure soul”.

Another admired his resolve and how he encouraged people to “realise their worth.”

Respect and love was also sent his way.

This user was glad to find that Zulfikar “doesn’t consider himself to be a ruler”.

He found some fans online.

He also won some hearts.

For some, Zulfikar gives off “positive and genuine vibes”.

Zulfikar has never really shown an interest in politics. This year, he and his sister, author Fatima Bhutto, set up multi-event series called The Indus Relief 2022 with Menaal Munshey to raise funds for flood affectees in Sindh. It auctioned experiences to raise money for flood victims in Pakistan.

Among the many experiences auctioned was a private screening of Jemima Khan’s new film What’s Love Got To Do With It and an hour in the studio with British musician and producer Nitin Sawhney.

Photographs of Zulfikar walking in floodwater in Sindh went viral online in August and was instantly compared to the way mainstream politicians were handling the floods and meeting flood victims.