Class Disparities and Child Abuse in Ireland 2020

Kerron Ó Luain

The newly formed government of the Twenty-Six County state in Ireland has been in existence less than a month but is already mired in several controversies; the usual circuses thrown up by capitalist society with governments lurching from each to the next without any alteration to the status quo.

One of them is worth looking in some detail at as it highlights an important rift between socialism and liberalism on a particularly vexatious question as well elucidating some of the dynamics currently at play within the Irish far-right.

The scandal concerns the newly appointed Minister for Children, Roderick O’Gorman of the Green Party, and his association with LGBT activist Peter Tatchell, a man alleged by many to be a paedophile apologist.

O’Gorman uploaded a photo of himself and Tatchell at Dublin Pride in 2018 to Twitter and it from this that the controversy was initially sparked.

On Saturday last, Ireland’s rag-tag band of far-right freaks organised a protest which they claimed was to highlight O’Gorman’s association with Tatchell.

Fake Patriots

The far-right, in typical opportunist fashion, will latch onto any social or political issue to advance their agenda. There can be no doubt, on this occasion, that their agenda was homophobic, and hate filled. Some of their number were photographed at the rally holding posters with images of nooses.

One of the speakers was Justin Barret, a neo-Nazi who in 2017 stated publicly that the party he leads, the so-called National Party, is “only for straight Irish people” and denounced then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s “gayness”.

The rally was also hypocritical in the extreme, as demonstrated by the attendance of Hermann Kelly, leader of the far-right Irexit Party.

In 2007, Kelly published Kathy’s Real Story: A Culture of False Allegations Exposed which attempted to undermine the claims of those who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the state’s religious orders.

In the mid-2000s Kelly also had a hand in the editorship of The Irish Catholic, a newspaper which frequently downplayed the paedophile priest scandals constantly flowing from within the Catholic Church.

However, the unusual size of last Saturday’s demonstration where several hundred, rather than the usual handful or few dozen, begs the question of how the far-right have managed to convince an additional layer of people to unashamedly attend one of their rallies.

The answer lies in the promotion of their agenda by at least two personalities with large enough social media followings.

The first is John Connors, an actor and Traveler activist. It is a pity Connors has aligned himself with such elements, as he was doing good work for the Travelling community. Perhaps he will see sense, but more likely he is too far gone. Who knows?

The second, Ciara Kelly, is a right-wing shock jock who regularly attacks public sector workers, the Irish language, or whatever you’re having that day, at the behest of her masters in the corporatist Newstalk radio station.

But at the crux of this was the question of children and Tatchell. So, why is Tatchell so controversial?

Tatchell

In 1986, Tatchell contributed a chapter to The Betrayal of Youth, a book edited by pro-paedophile activist and Paedophile Information Exchange member Warrant Middleton. In 1998, Tatchell wrote an obituary for Ian Dunn, a founding member of the same group.

Today Tatchell claims he was oblivious to the involvement of both men in the group. But a letter written from his own hand to The Guardian in 1997 advocated the lowering of the age of consent in the UK.

The letter stated that “not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive or harmful” and that:

“several of my friends gay and straight, male and female had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy”

Tatchell has since attempted to deflect from the stance he took in the letter by claiming the newspaper edited it and that he “implied” most sex with children was abusive.

For many people, however, Tatchell’s “clarifications” amount to a semantic fudging of the issue at hand. While he does not directly advocate for sex between children and adults, he does so indirectly by quoting “young people” who apparently “enjoyed” these “experiences”.

Most rational people would surmise in talking to such children that they were not emotionally mature enough at the time to understand what they “enjoyed” or did not “enjoy”.

Consequently, their framing of early abusive experiences in later life would most likely have been as a result of a type of Stockholm syndrome in which they believed their abuser to have somehow been benevolent.

Ultimately, Tatchell’s “clarifications” do nothing for the vast majority who believe that all sex between a child and an adult is immoral and illegal.

The British Establishment

Tatchell’s comments cannot be separated from his role as an asset of British imperialism. The British media, by and large, have given Tatchell a pass on the disgraceful stance he took in the 1990s.

Today Tatchell functions as a useful tool for spreading dissent in places like Russia, a state that doubtless inflicts gross violations of human rights on its LGBT population.

Nevertheless, Tatchell’s activities in calling for Western intervention in countries like Iraq and Syria illustrate the UK foreign policy implications of his activism. The fact is, for these reasons, the media have never dwelled for any significant amount of time on Tatchell’s obfuscation of paedophilia.

Instead, they have lauded him as a key gay rights activist of the last few decades; The Guardian even going so far as to platform Tatchell by providing him the opportunity of hosting a video debate on lowering the age of consent and describing him as a “national treasure”.

Tatchell has successfully convinced the British establishment, especially its liberal wing, and a great many ordinary people, that the attacks against him are purely homophobic in nature and orchestrated by the likes of the British National Party.

While this is certainly true, in part, it should not detract from the content of his pronouncements and the real problem that they present for LGBT activists and the liberal “left” more widely.

Guilt by Association?

As if to compound the problem of Tatchell’s continued acceptance as a champion of gay rights, many Irish liberals have leapt to both his and Roderick O’Gorman’s defence.

On Twitter, the usual haunt of these sorts (many, like Tatchell himself, also Green Party members or supporters), there has been an attempt to obscure Tatchell’s views.

Some, apparently, believe his words need to be “contextualised”. But the arguments put forth are no better than Tatchell’s own sematic responses. What is to be “contextualised” about deflecting from the fact that sex between an adult and a child is wrong in all cases?

Clearly, Tatchell should be ostracised from any progressive movements for making comments that are tantamount to opening the door to paedophilia.

The assertion has been advanced too that Tatchell was merely in a solitary quick photo with O’Gorman, which was then uploaded in haste to Twitter. But this is disingenuous. There are other photos of Tatchell marching behind the Green’s main banner at Pride.

As any activist will know, who marches behind a banner is usually quite controlled. Non-members, and the non-aligned, cannot simply waltz up and take up a prominent position.

Tatchell also spoke on a platform during Pride 2018 with members of other political parties including the centre-right Fine Gael and centre-left Sinn Féin.

It seems bizarre that he was in Dublin attending these events, in more than a mere personal capacity, and that the issue of his past stance on paedophilia, if it was known, was not factored into the equation by those who extended him an invite.

If it was, then it needs to be asked what the rationale for dismissing that stance was?

Social Media Polarisation

Following the furore last week on social media, O’Gorman issued a statement saying the views expressed by Tatchell in the 90s were “abhorrent”.

If this is so, then why were O’Gorman’s defenders, in the days before he issued his statement, attempting to play down Tatchell’s views?

The simple answer is because Twitter, especially, polarizes arguments into simple “us” versus “them” scenarios. Either a person is with the homophobic far-right or stands with O’Gorman – and, by default, Tatchell.

There is no room to make the more complicated argument that while people on the Left should of course oppose the hate campaigns of the neo-fascist “cultural war”, there are also serious questions posed by the association of a Minister for Children with someone like Tatchell.

It is important to note here that the statement eventually issued by O’Gorman on the controversy appeared content to accept Tatchell’s “clarifications”.

In doing so O’Gorman has missed the point entirely; that Tatchell does not think all sex between adults and children constitutes abuse.

Working class experiences

In O’Gorman’s refusal to completely distance himself from Tatchell one can witness the disconnect between middle-class politicians, activists etcetera and the working class.

The working class are not the backward proxies of resistance to change that the media often portray them as. In the Twenty-Six Counties it was the working class who voted by the largest margins to endorse marriage equality in 2015 and bodily autonomy for women in 2018.

That said, they are conservative on the question of paedophilia and do not want middle class people, of whatever sexual orientation, alluding to its facilitation or using doublespeak in order to tinker with the age of consent.

It is mostly the working class and the marginalized who fall victim to paedophilia. This is not to say that it is not inflicted on middle class children, but many more of the working-class youth find themselves neglected.

Without the necessary supports it is more difficult to both fend off predators and, in the terrible instances where children become victimised, to come through and recover from the abuse. Many end up in addiction or committing suicide.

We need only look to the class background of the young women targeted by Jeffrey Epstein, most of whom were from the poorest areas of Miami.

Neither do we need to be reminded of the majority working-class children who populated the Industrial Schools in the Southern Irish state during the middle of the twentieth century and found themselves victims of the depravity of the religious orders within.

Ivory Towers

This reality lays bare a huge blind spot among the middle class, including among academics, politicians, and activists. Those seeking to promote, facilitate and obfuscate on the question of paedophilia, have consistently used academia as a way of promoting their ideas.

Usually, this is done through the lens of sociology or anthropology. Some look to what they label “pederasty” in primitive tribal cultures such as Polynesia, Papa New Guinea, and so forth, and extrapolate conclusions for modern Western societies.

Of course, anthropologists have often looked to places like Polynesia to study the origins of modern society. When Frederick Engels wrote The Origins of the Family he relied heavily on anthropological texts on that region; but this was to understand the development of the family unit, not as an excuse for incest or paedophilia

These practices ought to be understood very differently in primitive societies with low life expectancies, small populations organised around clan systems, and low levels of technological development.

Similarly, ancient Greece, Rome, Sparta, and so on, are held up as examples of a time when sex between men and boys was viewed as a respectable “coming of age” experience.

The middle-class academic defence of these false transpositions reared its head in Ireland in the late 2000s during the controversy surrounding Cathal Ó Searcaigh, an Irish language poet, and his dubious “relationships” with young Nepalese boys as revealed by the 2007 film Fairy-tale of Kathmandu.

Many, who apparently could not see the wood for the trees, jumped to defend Ó Searcaigh, in the process conflating criticism of apparent child sex abuse with homophobia.

This type of behaviour is an ongoing problem which, for the most part, working class people see through.

Lessons?

There is zero evidence that the Minister for Children, Roderick O’Gorman, in any way supports or condones paedophilia. But he is at fault for falling into the middle-class mindset that fails to see how some place themselves within the LGBT movement then utilize the language of “right” to deflect criticism of their agenda.

This, of course, does a great disservice to the vast vast majority within that movement, and within LGBT society more generally, who have no truck whatsoever with paedophilia.

As a result, some would argue O’Gorman’s position as Minister for Children should be untenable. Other ongoing scandals, and the already alluded to downplaying of these problems by establishment figures, has meant that what might have been a huge media frenzy has instead largely fizzled out.

All told, the socialist position would be to take a tough line on paedophilia, not to pander to it. It is unfortunate the far-right has driven the smear against O’Gorman, playing on long-established anti-Gay prejudices – but we know their modus operandi by now.

Surely, then, questions need to be asked about the wisdom of handing easy victories to the far-right?

The, mostly, imported “culture wars” and Petersonite crusades of North America pushed by the Irish far-right are irrelevant to the vast bulk of the Irish population whose focus remains their material well-being.

But that does not preclude the far-right capitalising on issues like this in the future in order to divide and distract the working class away from what should be their main focus; seizing democratic control of their workplaces and building of their own political institutions.

The lesson should be to disassociate swiftly, and fully, from anyone who has expressed paedophile enabling views. O’Gorman’s and the Green Party’s failure to do so is yet another demonstration of the disconnect between them and the bulk of the working class.

On the Separation of Church and State

Evaggelos Vallianatos

Once again, the Supreme Court showed its undemocratic and misogynist colors. It came down against women, encouraging employers not to pay for birth control services. The Supreme Court is obviously catering to the fashionable superstitions of religious preachers who resent the struggle of women for dignity and equality. The judges are also woefully ignorant the planet has too many people. Unchecked population growth has detrimental effects on human beings and life in the natural world.

The crime of the Catholic Church

In addition, the gigantic Catholic Church received 1.4 billion dollars from the government’s corona virus fund. Some of the money is going to dioceses that covered up the crimes of their clergy raping children.

I find this misuse of public money extremely inappropriate. Priests and bishops of the Catholic Church have been raping boys and girls, especially young boys, for decades. A crime of this magnitude nullifies any claims the Catholic Church puts forward for legitimacy or Christian faith. The crime is colossal. It pervades the institution from top to bottom. It cannot be forgiven, much less ignored.

With such a systemic violence possibly still going on in secrecy within the Catholic Church by unmarried male clergy, it is wrong for the government to pretend all is well. Perhaps, abolishing the priesthood might be a way out of the decline and fall of the Catholic Church. It’s clear to me, however, that as long as the Catholic Church forbids its clergy to marry, the crime will continue.

I don’t know what excuse brought the government and the Catholic Church together. But no matter the legal explanation for this arrangement, it smells of deep corruption. The Constitution forbids close relations between the secular government and those living in the non-secular norms of religious dogmas.

Clerical tyranny

This separation of church and state is the absolute minimum requirement for the safety and well-being of our society. The alternative is the dangerous merging of church and state. In such a case, like that of Saudi Arabia or Iran, the state constitutes a tyranny. In Islamic theocracies, Imams, not the law, decide how citizens behave. Freedom of speech is non-existent.

Turkey, a Moslem country that harmed Christian Greece for centuries, is returning to its deep suspicions and hostility towards Christians.

The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, just turned Hagia Sophia, a sixth century Greek Orthodox Cathedral, into a mosque. This is bound to intensify the bitter antagonism between Greece and Turkey, and, furthermore, make Turkey a pariah in Europe, Russia, possibly America, and among other Christians all over the world.

These examples of rising religious tension, and subtle efforts to weaken the secular state, as in America of president Trump, mirror older, even centuries older violent history. This is a history of religious wars, crusades, and oppression that clarify the necessity of keeping the state secular.

In its early history, the United States had many immigrants from Europe who were escaping Christian clerical tyranny at home. The Salem witch trials in 1692-1693, in Massachusetts is another reminder that religious fanaticism is never too far away. It is no better than a plague.

Religious hatred is a political phenomenon with roots in the dark ages. It is primarily a disease-like attitude afflicting primarily the faithful of monotheism.

We know nothing with certainty about the gods

In ancient Greece, for example, people expressed piety for a variety of gods. These anthropomorphic immortal beings were forces in the natural world and the cosmos. Stars were gods.

The Greeks of the island of Rhodes worshipped the Sun god Helios. The Colossus of Rhodes was a gigantic bronze statue of the Sun straddling his legs across the harbor of island.

Demeter, sister of the supreme god Zeus, was the goddess of the threshing floor. She was equivalent to the Earth. Dionysos, son of Zeus, joined Demeter in the Greeks’ national Eleusinian mysteries. He was the god of wine, and dramatic theater. The Athenians had two annual major festivals in his honor.

Zeus was the cloud gatherer, the god of lighting, thunder and rain.

Apollo, son of Zeus, was the god of prophesy, music, and light. His Delphi Oracle was a global house of wisdom and prophesy. His son, Aristaios, was benefiting primarily Greek peasants. His knowledge and influence covered healing, prophesy, cheesemaking, honeybee keeping, shepherding and olive-growing.

The Athenians trace their name to Athena, patron goddess and daughter of Zeus. They built the Parthenon to honor Athena Parthenos, the Virgin. This was a deity of olive trees, intelligence, and the arts of civilization.

The founders of the Olympics dedicated the athletic and cultural festival to Zeus. Additional Panhellenic  athletic competitions honored Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, and other gods.

With a few exceptions, the Greeks had no doubt those gods existed, but Plato, correctly, said humans know nothing with certainty about the gods.

Polytheist Greeks did not have a church and state divide. They had no sacred texts, religious dogmas, or priesthood. State festivals honoring the gods brought people together for a free dinner and fun. The state appointed civilians to serve certain divinities for a fixed time.

The Greeks never fought religious wars. They respected the gods of the Persians, Egyptians, and Babylonians. The Egyptians claimed that the Greek hero and god Herakles was also a very ancient Egyptian god.

The atrocities of monotheism

All that changed with the decline of the Roman Empire and the triumph of monotheism. Jews, Christians and Moslems – followers of sibling Semitic religions — claimed they were the chosen people of the one god. They denounced each other and started centuries of wars, crusades, and mayhem that threw humanity into millennial dark ages.

The most atrocious crime of monotheism was the destruction of Hellenic culture: the smashing of statues and temples, the shutting down of universities and the torching of libraries, like the gigantic Library of Alexandria, and the termination of the Olympics.

After centuries of warfare against polytheistic Greeks , Christian church and state converted the surviving Hellenes to their Christian faith: genocide, brutal and lasting.

The Moslems commited similar atrocities. They either slaughtered the conquered people, converted them to Islam, or enslaved them.

Christians and Moslems turned on each other in the bloody crusades – for centuries. Christians slaughtered each other for trivial dogmatic and heretical differences.

Renaissance and Enlightenment

The Renaissance of the fifteenth century resurrected some of the written work of the polytheistic Greeks. Those books of science, epic poetry, and literature refreshed the mind of scholars and men of culture who were sick and tired of the legacy of dark ages, including religious controversy and wars.

Out of the Renaissance’s embrace of the Greeks and Romans, there emerged a more tolerant, civilized and secular culture of the Enlightenment.

The fathers of the American republic were students of the Enlightenment, incorporating into the American Constitution the separation of church and state, the rule of law, and limited democracy.

Reform the Supreme Court

This story highlights the precarious balance between church and state. Any interference on either side could be destabilizing. Which is to say, the interventions of the Supreme Court in refashioning America are illegal and outrageous.

I count on Joe  Biden becoming president during the November election. A Biden administration, including a Democrat Senate, should expand the membership of the Supreme Court and limit the tenure of the judges to no more than ten years. The same tenure limit should apply for federal judges.

In addition, the Biden administration should reexamine the qualifications of some two-hundred judges the undemocratic Trump administration put in federal courts.

But next to the life-and-death policies of combating climate change, the Biden administration should end any state support for religion of any kind.

The East-Bound Wind Causes a Storm in the West: Iran-China Sign Long-Term Trade Agreement

Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi

A few months after the publication of his remarkable book, Adam Smith in Beijing, I had an illuminating conversation with Giovanni Arrighi about the significance of China in world history. The late sociologist was interested in knowing more about the subject of my scholarship–modern Iran and the Iranian revolution. When he saw my puzzled face, he told me that he believes that all this apprehension in the west about Iran, is actually rooted in apprehension about China. Arrighi thought that if there were any “mainstream” of world history, it ought to be located in the story of China, the only civilization that has shaped the world as a hegemon over many millennia with the exception of the last 250 years. The rise of the West, according to him is an aberration and China will define the future of the world history. For China to play that role, it needs sources of energy to feed its expanding economy and a firm foothold in the world trade network. And there is Iran with its vast sources of oil and natural gas, located in a key strategic position guarding the flow of oil from the strait of Hormuz and offering open access to the Indian Ocean trade routes. I do not subscribe to the view that the U.S. position on Iran can be reduced to a reflection of the American political establishment’s attitude toward China. But there indeed are signs that Iran’s east-bound realignment toward China is making possible a major transformation in the world political and economic order.

The fear in the West of a rising China became more acute this week with the announcement of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Iran and China of a 25-year trade agreement. Although the text of the agreement has not been released, news outlets around the world were quick to sound the alarm of a pending major transformation of the balance of power in the Middle East and beyond. Many observers have seen the move as a direct consequence of the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal. The Trump administration miscalculated the vulnerability of the Iranian government to his regime of maximum pressure. Trump and his perpetually hawkish advisers believed that withdrawing from the nuclear deal, and re-imposing draconian sanctions against Iran, would compel the Islamic Republic either to surrender to the demands of its international foes, or to face the wrath of its own sullen citizens whose livelihood the sanctions has directly threatened. The latter did materialize last November, but it was met with a swift and brutal reaction by the Iranian security forces. The protests spread in many towns and cities around the country, but failed to sustain itself in the face of the state’s violent clampdown that left hundreds of protesters dead (according to the government’s own estimate 230 people were killed) and thousands arrested. In addition to the state repressive apparatus that contained the protests, Iranians also remain deeply inimical toward an American policy that invests in inflicting suffering on people in order to encourage them to rise up against their own government. Iranians are well-versed in this ploy, which offers a painful reminder of Saddam Hussein’s justification of bombing Iranian cities. In order to stop the bombings, Saddam shamelessly declared, Iranians need to topple their regime.

The U.S. pulled out of the JOCPA hoping that the American withdrawal will render the agreement practically null and void. The Trump administration reinstituted crippling sanctions against Iran and exerted pressure on the EU and the UK to follow suit. Although the Europeans voiced their displeasure with the U.S. policy, they could not deliver their share of the agreement under the mounting American pressures. This was a sobering moment for the Europeans as they witnessed the United States’ ability to impose its political will onto the European banks and corporations. By threatening to levy sanctions against European banks and corporation that invest in the Iranian economy, in effect, the U.S. undermined the sovereignty of the EU members over their own financial and economic affairs.

Whereas the Europeans saw in the U.S. regime of maximum pressure against Iran the limits of their autonomy, China saw an opportunity for the realization of its global development strategy, known as Belt and Road Initiative. The initiative that was adopted in 2013 envisions a massive expansion of trade networks by investing in infrastructures of land and sea transport that will eventually establish a seamless web of production, distribution, and consumption of goods: a silk road for twenty-first century, as the Chinese promote the idea. Iran figures in this strategy mightily, both in terms of the extension of the belt, i.e. roads and railway, and road, i.e. the sea routes, as well as the source of energy that the Chinese expansionist machine requires. Today China imports 10-million barrels of oil per day to fuel its economy. Theoretically, Iran can provide half of that need for the next two decades. If China’s plans to replace fossil fuel with the renewable energy do not pan out, Iran will remain a major source to calm the Communist Party’s anxieties about the future of the silk road for twenty-first century.

The details of the trade agreement have not been released and both China and Iran still need to ratify it. The early reports indicate that China has agreed to a $400-billion investment over the next 25 years in the Iranian oil, gas, and transportation infrastructure. The investment will be frontloaded for the first five years and will also include cooperation in military and intelligence and a strategic alliance between the two countries over the security of the Persian Gulf trade routes. The agreement was first conceived during the Chinese premier’s visit to Iran in 2016. In all likelihood, it is going to end the Trump administration’s gambit to cajole the Iranian side to capitulate and entertain a new nuclear treaty with the United States and its Western allies.

The Iran-China agreement, if signed and ratified, will leave the Iranian exilic opposition, those who banked on the American maximum pressures on the Islamic Republic to gain political points, in an untenable position. These critics, who were also joined by the U.S. State Department, have compared the proposed bilateral pact to the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay between Persia and tsarist Russia, under which the Persians ceded control of the vast territories in the South Caucasus that included today’s Armenia, Azerbaijan, Abkhazia, and Georgia. Ever since mid-nineteenth century, in the Iranian political lexicon, “Turkmenchay” has remained a point of reference to the vilest encroachments on the Iranian sovereignty. In the past two centuries, these encroachments have always been mounted by the same Western powers who forewarn Iranians today of the colonial consequences of surrendering the country’s vast resources to the Chinese. No one knows whether this bilateral treaty would one-sidedly satisfy the Chinese imperial ambitions, a scenario that has played out in China’s appropriation of African port cities and mining towns. But one thing is clear that the objections of the U.S. and their Iranian supporters, whatever those objections might be, do not stem from their concerns for the protection of the Iranian sovereignty and Iranian peoples’ interests.

The plight of Milk Producers in Odisha need urgent attention of Government

Manas Jena

During this COVID-19 pandemic one of the worst among sufferers are about 11 Lakh Milk producers family of Odisha who have been facing with crisis of milk sale since March 2020 and continued uncertainty. Even in normal time also, diary sector in the state have been struggling with the crisis of distress sale with continued problem in supply side arrangement in spite of demand for animal protein by vegetarian population in emerging urban areas. This ongoing pandemic has been an additional burden over continued crisis of small milk producers in rural areas. About 75 percent of these producers are family based traditional milk farmers for generations having small size dairy farm .They are mostly having marginal land holding while solely dependent on production and marketing of milk and milk products as main sources of livelihood. Though these families are being identified as one of the major   socially and educationally backward classes of the state to get benefits of reservation but they have not much representation in higher education, organized sector jobs, business ,trade ,services  and other areas of socio-political and socio-economic activities. This has been increasingly difficult for them to maintain the cattle population with increasing price of animal feeds, sinking space of grazing land, and other related regular expenses. The continuous outbreak of natural calamities, cyclone, FANI, have been damaged cattle sheds in many places of the coastal areas. Very shocking reports are being appeared in vernacular media on their distress plight and in few places such farmers have closed their dairy farm to avoid further difficulties in the absence of compensatory help either by Govt. or private marketing companies and state owned cooperatives.

It is reported that India being self –sufficient in milk production with large presence of small producers, about 46 percent of the milk produced is being mostly consumed by producer and rest is being sold out to organized and unorganized market. But this consumption ratio by producer in state of Odisha is lower and the ratio of sale in unorganized market is higher and dependable in the absence of Govt. owned institutions and milk producer cooperatives and large private companies. Out of more than 60 lakh liters produced per day only 1/6th of the production are being procured by the organized sector companies in the state that includes both Govt. and private.   Along with OMFED there are number of private companies such as milk-moo, Sudha diary, Heritage diary, Pragati ,Milk Mantra, and Odisha diary and more than  50 no of  companies dealing with dairy products  in different parts of the state  are in the business but these organized sector have very less market share though this sector has paid a relatively better price than unorganized sector and also having  limited risk of adulteration where as a major chunk of the milk sale has been in unorganized sector open market which involves the local producers mostly traditional milkman. The marketing of both the sectors have been seriously affected due to COVID-19 lockdown and shut down and the close down of market areas ,street sale , specially  tea stalls ,hotels , and eateries serving sweets and other milk products such as cheese, curd, white butter. Along with this these are also thousands of homemade business which are almost closed.

In the liberalization phase already there has been an attempt of rapid privatization of agriculture marketing and especially in the diary sector the multinational companies such as Nestle, Lactalis, Donone, and Fonterra diary have entered the market which will change the diary market of India and impacting over the small producers. On the other side the Govt. has been encouraging small producers with subsidized loan for establishment of small diary, vermin compost with cattle unit, to purchase milking machine , dairy processing equipment , diary product transportation facilities , cold storage facility for milk and milk products , and establishing private veterinary clinic  and diary marketing outlets and parlors. Many states such as Gujarat and Maharashtra have strong cooperative movement of the diary sector and backward states such as Odisha have been lag behind in many respect without any sign of improvement.

In the ongoing situation considering the ground reality of dairy farmers ,it is being argued that any attempt to improve the economic condition of the milk farmers will increase the income and generate meaningful productive employment in rural areas . Though Odisha has one of the lowest milk price in comparison to other states, the state Govt. has not taken much initiative to improve the condition of milk farmers similar to the steps taken by other states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP and Bihar in terms of increasing the production, better marketing facilities and social securities for people engaged in production along with a fair price for milk. These states have also developed processing units to convert milk into milk powder and butter to manage the surplus milk but such facilities are not available in Odisha.  Even many of advisories issues by Department of animal husbandry, Govt of India are not being followed by the state to increase the sale of milk by encouraging procurement for Govt. run schemes and programme as protection to milk farmers as well as to improve the quality of diets served to women and children of poor communities. It has been directed to states to include milk in the Anganwadi and Mid-day meal schemes in schools and also in public distribution system to boost the nutritional needs of the poor children and women in rural areas as Odisha continues with malnutrition issues of women and children and other rural poor. The state Govt. of Bihar and Rajasthan has issues order to supply milk powder in Agwanwadi centers under ICDS. Department of commerce has provided incentive of 10 percent over export of all milk and milk products and the Govt. of Gujarat and Maharashtra also have introduced subside over skim milk powder while no such initiative have not been taken by Govt. of Odisha .

Rabi Behera , Chairman, Odisha Milk Farmers Association, one of the leading voice of milk framers of the state who have been fought  street protest with emptied  milk containers on road and arranged  delegations to concern departments on number of accusations  for their rights ,  told that  there has been no increase in milk price during last five years and it has only very marginally increased last year which is also very less,  and  while other farmers are enjoying MSP but the milk farmers have been not being treated as farmers to avail similar benefits. In order to overcome the ongoing crisis the state Govt. must declared compensation to all milk producers along with supply of subsidize cattle feed and make arrangements for regular sale of milk  produced by  the distress milk producer families. It is also desirable that the organized sector must increase its procurement specially the state cooperative like its counterpart in Maharashtra and Gujarat by following COVID-19 guide line from supply chain to consumer end, milk collection process to home delivery, with all sanitary measures required under the guideline, to change the distress condition of the milk farmers.

Canada’s largest lingerie and swimwear retailer scraps worker bonuses

Alexandra Greene

Canada’s largest lingerie and swimwear retailer, la Vie en Rose, has told workers its bonus program will be scrapped despite the dangerous working conditions they confront amid a raging pandemic. The company, which operates some 360 outlets in over 15 countries, including about 270 stores in Canada, owes its success in recent years to a low-paid workforce with virtually no job security.

La Vie en Rose pays the vast majority of its store-level employees the minimum wage. Hiring contracts only require employees to work a minimum of eight hours weekly to maintain their positions, and even then, that rule is often broken. Workers can go weeks without shifts despite pleading for work hours.

In spite of this, staff are expected to be fully available to work on all weekends and holidays and at least three weekdays, leading many to struggle immensely while trying to make ends meet by juggling multiple jobs.

La Vie en Rose storefront (Credit: shopavalonmall.com)

Workers have relied heavily on the bonuses, to provide them with a little extra over and above their appallingly insufficient wages. These bonuses were only paid out when productivity goals and difficult financial targets were achieved, with the company acting as a master tempting a dog with a treat. Now workers say they have been informed by management that the bonuses have been cancelled with no given date of reinstatement.

When the boutique closed its Canadian stores on March 17 due to the pandemic, it issued temporary lay-off notices to the vast majority of its employees without warning. The retail workers were left to claim the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), which pays out a mere C$2,000 per month to each recipient.

In a statement to employees issued on March 17, CEO François Roberge cynically claimed that the company was acting to protect the health of its employees. “This new challenge will help us grow stronger together,” he wrote.

The only thing that has grown “stronger” since then is company profits. The company’s e-commerce operations continued during the lockdown. According to several sources from within the company, online sales have boomed.

La Vie en Rose achieves more than C$400 million in annual sales, and is aiming to surpass C$500 million per year by 2022. The earnings of CEO Francois Roberge are unknown, but a 2017 profile in the Quebec City-based daily Le Soleil reported that he had removed a whopping C$14 million from his stock portfolio the year prior.

As the reckless back-to-work campaign greenlighted by the Trudeau Liberal government and enforced by its provincial counterparts gathered pace, La Vie en Rose moved swiftly to reopen its stores in May. Initially, only key staff were brought back to run the stores.

“It’s as busy as it usually is around Christmas,” sales associate Becky,* who has worked for the company for several years, told the World Socialist Web Site. “I guess people are just really excited to come and shop again.”

According to workers who spoke to the WSWS, smaller locations that normally struggle to meet quarterly sales goals are suddenly on track to make over a million dollars in annual revenue, in spite of the lost sales during the pandemic closures.

Workers’ safety is being sacrificed to ensure maximum productivity. No professional cleaning service has been brought in to sanitize the stores. Prior to the pandemic, employees would complete a “paid-out” transaction, taking money from the cash register and purchasing whatever cleaning supplies they deemed necessary for store maintenance. They were and continue to be responsible for cleaning the store themselves.

As the dangers of the COVID-19 outbreak grew in February and March, employees began to bring in their own hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies to share with one another. The company sent some Lysol wipes to stores for employees to wipe down surfaces and door handles with, as well as hand sanitizer for staff and customers.

Upon reopening its doors, the company supplied a totally inadequate number of single-use disposable masks to store employees—25 to a store with 10 employees, in one instance. When employees had used those masks, they had to bring in their own from home for themselves and for co-workers. The company has since supplied a batch of washable masks, which workers have been told to wash at home.

Workers also told the WSWS that since stores reopened, they have experienced pressure from their superiors to show up for work when sick. Workplace rules regarding sick leave and shift coverage vary from province to province, with individual managers usually given discretion to decide.

In practice, management enforces rules that have no legal basis. For example, sick employees must contact their co-workers in their own time if unwell in order to find someone to cover their shift—no easy task when understaffed workplaces are filled with minimum wage employees with commitments to other jobs. Sick employees are additionally required to supply eight hours’ notice if they can’t attend a shift, regardless of what state their health may be in.

“All I can say is management as a whole cares a lot more about sales than employees, especially when it comes to safety or comfort. Even though we are the ones who have to make those sales,” says Tanya,* a worker who has never received more than minimum wage in her position, just C$12.65 an hour, since being hired in 2019. She was recently criticized by her boss for taking time off for being sick. Her symptoms were so strong that she was tested for COVID-19, and the result came back negative.

In early March, the company issued a statement in response to growing employee concern that the packages of incoming products that they were handling—often having come straight from China, the global epicentre of the pandemic at the time—might be contaminated with the novel coronavirus.

La Vie en Rose’s e-mailed statement to its workers falsely assured them that the virus cannot live outside of a biological host. This dangerous misinformation was clearly disseminated in an attempt to keep employees working as productively as usual, with little regard for their safety and well-being.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, conducted by researchers from UCLA, the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Princeton University, discovered that the virus is detectable for up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic. Cardboard and plastic are the primary materials used in all of the company’s stock packaging.

“This virus is quite transmissible through relatively casual contact, making this pathogen very hard to contain,” said James Lloyd-Smith, a co-author of the study and a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “If you’re touching items that someone else has recently handled, be aware they could be contaminated and wash your hands.”

The contempt and disregard for workers’ lives shown by the company is in keeping with its business model, which is to pressure low-paid, precariously employed workers to bring in bumper profits. La Vie en Rose outsources its product manufacturing to countries—usually Bangladesh and China—that notoriously place workers in horrific and often fatal working conditions.

Aurélie Daoust-Lalande, vice-president of strategy and development at La Vie en Rose, stated in a 2019 interview, “We have the ambitious goal of doubling the size and profitability of the company by 2022, and our expansion outside of Canada will definitely play a major role in achieving this objective.”

Apparently, the only way to continue on a path to meet these targets is to continuously exploit overseas garment workers and further cut the already meagre earnings of its working-class staff in Canada.

The fate of La Vie en Rose employees is common to workers across the retail sector. Grocery store workers, many of whom also earn the minimum wage, were given a C$2 per hour bonus by the major grocery store chains at the beginning of the pandemic. While this was presented in the media as a kind employer gesture, it was in reality motivated by management fears that if they didn’t provide a temporary pay increase, workers might conclude they would be better off staying home and claiming the meagre CERB than risking their lives for a minimum wage job. Having seen their profits jump during the pandemic as sales increased, the grocery store chains scrapped the C$2 bonus once the Liberal-led back-to-work campaign gathered pace.

* Workers’ names have been changed to protect them from company reprisals.

UK Royal household workers threatened with job losses

Charles Hixson

Hundreds of employees of the Royal Collection Trust (RCT) have been offered a voluntary redundancy scheme, ahead of what is expected to be a severe cut in the workforce of royal employees.

The July 7 announcement, impacting on 650 workers, followed reports of the crisis facing the royal budget.

On May 18, the Sun broke the story of an email sent by the Lord Chamberlain Earl Peel to staff, warning of a £17.8 million shortfall—about one-third of annual royal revenues. Citing the effects of the coronavirus on the activities of the Royal Household and the closure of royal palaces and collections, he warned, “There are undoubtedly difficult times ahead and we realise many of you will be concerned … The Royal Household, like many organisations, is not immune to the impact of the pandemic on our financial position. Many projects have been halted and all but essential expenditure has been suspended. A recruitment freeze has been implemented and no new posts will be appointed unless a very clear business case exists. This year’s annual pay review has also been paused.”

One source observed, “Many staff are loyal and will do what they do for a pay cut. But the email went down like a lead balloon.”

Buckingham Palace

The Royal household is very much not like “most organisations.” Its funding stems from the institution of the Sovereign Grant in 2011. Prior to this, funding for the senior royals came from line items on the Chancellor’s annual budget. The grant is a complicated mix of public and private sources of income, partially dependent on tourist revenues to fund staffing and other costs of the royals in the course of their duties.

Its size is also dependent on how much money is brought in by earnings from the Crown Estate, a huge real estate portfolio. The Sunday Times annual Rich List shows the Queen lost £20 million since last year, owing to upkeep expenses on properties and the decline of her British blue-chip holdings on the falling stock market.

Monies brought in by tourism are expected to fall drastically due to the pandemic. Last year, the royals brought in £70 million from ticket and souvenir sales. These included Buckingham Palace (£12 million), Windsor Castle (£25 million), Holyrood Palace (£5.6 million), the Royal Mews (£1.6 million), the Queen’s Gallery (£1.6 million), the Queen’s Gallery at Holyrood (£400,000) and Clarence House (£132,000).

There is growing speculation that Buckingham Palace may never be occupied by a reigning monarch again. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Queen and Prince Phillip left for Windsor Castle, where they are expected to remain before they leave for their annual summer stay at Balmoral. They have announced that when they return from Scotland they will continue to reside at Windsor.

A royal source observed, “The future is so uncertain ... Buckingham Palace is so large, with so many people, there is no saying when it will ever be safe for her and the Duke of Edinburgh again.” Princess Anne, Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex have been living at their country estates in Gloucestershire and Surrey during lockdown.

Prince Charles has made it clear that he has no intention of living at the Palace if he becomes king. When French President Macron visited in June, Charles welcomed him at Clarence House, his residence on The Mall. Sources claim he planned to retain Buckingham Palace for use as offices and as a state building for royal and national events. One observed, “It is fantastically expensive to run as a home, not just for a sovereign, but for their children and then, of course, all the staff who live there too.”

Whatever the outcome of the crisis, it will not be paid by the parasitic royals but by their employees. It seems inevitable that the slimmed-down monarchy envisaged by Charles will nevertheless become reality.

Official accounts place royal expenditures in Buckingham Palace alone near £27 million. A spokesman commented in exasperated tones, “That’s just the salaries, expenses and pensions. On top of that are contributions to grace and favour, homes for the staff and household, taking care of their health, feeding them ... it never ends.”

Far more massive expenditures concern building renovation. The Palace is currently undergoing the first stages of a £369 million repair—paid for by working people through their taxes. Photographs show the complete restructuring of plumbing, heating and electric systems, stemming from the 1950s. Asbestos will be removed and lifts installed. No expense is being spared. Handmade 19th century wallpaper in the “Yellow Dining Room” is being carefully removed piece by piece in case it is damaged by the work’s vibrations.

Frogmore Cottage, the residence near Windsor Palace that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moved into when they were married, cost the public £2.4 million to refurbish. After the two moved to the United States upon their departure as “working Royals,” Harry is understood to have agreed, according to the Mirror, a “rental-plus” deal, “above market rate, to keep Frogmore as their official UK base.”

More jobs are threatened at other royal residences. On July 23, Windsor Castle and Holyrood Palace will reopen, along with the London and Edinburgh Queen’s Galleries and the Royal Mews. However, an email sent to staff by Vice Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt, master of the household, warned that “visitor numbers are expected to be significantly below” their usual levels. “While we have taken out a £22 million loan to enable us to continue to operate in the near future, we need to do so with a lower cost base to recover our financial position. Inevitably this must include a reduction in staff costs, which is our greatest single expense.”

Workers from the Royal Collections Trust (RCT), along with their counterparts in Tate Enterprise and Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), face significant job losses. Tate employees have been left with statutory redundancy of little more than a month’s pay, and there are reports that HRP workers are seriously considering voluntary redundancy, fearing that a compulsory scheme would be worse.

A Palace insider confided, “These redundancies are just the beginning. We expect when the full financial fallout is revealed later this year there will be mass redundancies and a scaling down of operations.”

According to the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), “the Royal Households announced that in the Royal Collections Trust they want to reduce the wage bill by 20 percent and cut employer’s pensions contributions from 15 percent to eight percent. This will mean significant job cuts, as well as reduced pensions for PCS members.”

The British Monarchy is a feudal relic, but also a slick 21st century capitalist operation. Over the last decade, the working class has suffered a massive destruction in living standards. In contrast, the enormous wealth held by the royals remains staggering. The Monarchy is said to be worth £72.5 billion, with the Queen’s personal fortune at £350 million. Her stamp collection alone is valued at £100 million. The Royal Collection, managed by the Royal Collection Trust, is priceless and believed to be the largest private art collection in the world.

Other estimates place Prince Phillip at $30 million, Prince Charles anything from $100 million to $400 million, Princess Anne at $30 million, Prince Andrew at $45 million, Prince William at $40 million and Prince Harry at $25 million. Yet their drain on the public purse is never ending.

The employees of the royals, like millions of other workers, are being made to suffer the consequences of a crisis that is the responsibility of the capitalist class. On Tuesday, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that 4 million people could be on the dole queue by next year.

Many royal household staff are PCS members. Yet again the union has done nothing. It wrote June 30 urging that “The Royal Family and Government intervene to make sure this group of workers do not pay the price for the pandemic.”