A recent inquiry carried out and signed by the British newspaper The Guardian caused an uproar in global public opinion. According to the article, published on February, 23, Qatar would be home of a silent massacre of foreign workers employed in the pharaonic construction sites set up in the context of the forthcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup.

This alleged massacre would start in 2010, that is when Doha won the right to host the world’s most followed sport event and begun to attract temporary workforce from Asia and Africa, mostly from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Philippines and Kenya. The Guardian argues and reports that work-related and natural reasons would cause about 6,500 deaths among the guest workers in the period comprised between 2010 and 2020; a figure – they assume –  that could be much higher if only the Government of Qatar were more transparent in the process of data collection.

In order to understand whether The Guardian’s inquiry is actually based on factual evidence or not, we have reached out a Doha-based expert whose in-depth knowledge of the country can help the international audience better discern and, more importantly, to get an idea of what Qatar is truly doing as regard to labor rights and occupational safety and health.

The expert who agreed to speak with InsideOver is Max Tuñón, the head of the project office of the International Labour Organization (ILO) for the State of Qatar. The reason for interviewing him stems from the fact that the ILO and the Government of Qatar entered into a technical cooperation programme in 2017, to provide support with the country’s ambitious labour reform agenda, and to ensure compliance with ratified international labour standards.

According to the Guardian’s inquiry about 6,500 guest workers died in Qatar between 2010 and 2020, for both work-related and non-work-related reasons, in the context of the works for the next World Cup. What is true and what is not in the above-mentioned report? Do you have other estimates, possibly more reliable?

We are not in a position to comment on the specifics of that article, however it is paramount to make a clear distinction between work-related fatalities and non-work-related fatalities. Data analysis should also take into account the size and composition of the population and several other factors. The official government figure on the number of work-related deaths for 2018 was 123 and for 2019 was 117. The ILO is currently collaborating with the Government of Qatar to enhance the collection and analysis of statistics on work-related injuries, disaggregated by nationality, age, cause of injury, etc. More broadly, the Government and the ILO are working to strengthen occupational safety and health at the policy and strategic level, as well as very practically enhancing the ability of the labour inspectorate to enforce regulations.

How Qatar is dealing with the topic of labor security? Can you explain to us the national labor policy in short? 

For the past three years, the ILO has been working with the Government to implement a comprehensive and ambitious labour reform agenda that is benefiting workers, employers and the economy as a whole. With the elimination of the most problematic aspects of the kafala (sponsorship) system, we’ve seen the introduction of labour market mobility – workers are now allowed to change employers –; a first for the Gulf region. This has redressed the level of control that employers had over workers. It will also reduce the costs and risks related with cross-border recruitment, and make Qatar a more attractive destination for global talent and investment.

What are the conditions of guest workers in Qatar?

A new minimum wage of QAR 1,000 plus food and accommodation will come into force on 20 March, and will directly benefit an estimated 20 per cent of the workforce. The non-discriminatory minimum wage applies to all workers regardless of their nationality and the sector in which they work, including domestic workers. Social dialogue between workers and employers is also expanding, including through the establishment of joint committees at the enterprise level. We recognize the achievements in Qatar’s very ambitious labour reform agenda, and both the Government and the ILO are fully aware that there is work still to be done.

What still needs to be done regarding the labour reforms?

The payment of due wages is the number one concern of low-wage workers in Qatar. The global pandemic affected many enterprises, and created a backlog for the Government in redressing wage-related grievances. The ILO is working with the Government to strengthen the enforcement by the Wage Protection System, which requires employers to pay workers into their bank accounts, and is digitally monitored by the labour ministry. We are also collaborating with the labour inspectorate to monitor wage payment practices, as well as occupational safety and health and accommodation standards.

L'articolo What is occurring in Qatar? proviene da InsideOver.

At last week’s BBC Question Time election special, Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn stated that if his government were to negotiate its own Brexit deal and offer voters a second referendum on it, he would maintain a neutral stance. One audience member called Liam Shrivastava, who has since been exposed as a Labour communications officer, defended Corbyn’s Brexit stance by claiming Harold Wilson was neutral during the 1975 referendum on the UK’s EEC membership, even though he campaigned to remain in the Common Market at the time.

When it comes to leaving the EU, Labour find themselves equally, if not more divided, than the Tories. They are a pro-EU party led by a man who has always believed Britain should leave the bloc. 61 per cent of Labour’s current MPs represent constituencies that voted to leave the EU, while 68 per cent of Labour voters opted to remain in the bloc. It is understandable why they have struggled to form a coherent policy over the issue for the last three and a half years.

Although Corbyn has failed to declare how he would campaign in a second referendum, his party has finally managed to adopt a clear stance on Brexit. They seek a deal that ensures Britain remains in the Customs Union, is aligned to the Single Market, and protects workers’ rights. On their website, they attack the Tories for threatening to ‘sell the NHS’ and the Liberal Democrats for wanting to overturn a democratic result. Once they have negotiated an agreement with Brussels, they want a second referendum so that it can be approved by the electorate. But their deal is similar to the Norway model – it equates to the UK remaining in the Single Market and the Customs Union without a say. It is a position designed to appease Labour Remain voters who cherish the EU’s institutions and Labour Leave electors who want to quit the EU.

Their strategy to appeal to their Remain and Leave voters worked in 2017 when they increased their number of MPs by 31 and denied the Conservatives a majority. This is what they are continuing to do now, only circumstances have changed since then. Labour’s vote is torn between the Brexit Party, the Conservatives who are so far leading in the opinion polls, and the resurgent Liberal Democrats who are promising to cancel Brexit altogether. From Labour’s perspective, they have made a terrible mistake adopting a neutral stance and considering 68 per cent of their voters opted to remain in the EU, they should have campaigned in this general election as a Remain party.

Jo Swinson formed a pact with the Greens and Plaid Cymru to contest a single Remain candidate in 60 constituencies, which means the Liberal Democrats have a chance of retaining seats like Brecon. The Brexit Party have also refused to fight 317 constituencies the Tories won last time, improving their chances of gaining a majority this time.

But if Labour could have united under a Remain banner and formed a pact with other pro-EU parties, they could have caused significant damage to the Conservatives in seats like Worcester, which is currently being contested by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, and in Broxtowe, where the Remain vote was split in 2017 but a single pro-EU candidate has every chance of winning the seat this time.

Corbyn’s neutral Brexit stance may cost him seats elsewhere. The Daily Telegraph reported that Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry is at risk of losing her Islington South and Finsbury constituency to the Liberal Democrats. If Labour formed a pact with other Remain parties under a pro-EU banner, this would be unlikely to happen.

A pro-EU stance from Labour has its risks of further alienating its core Leave voters, but under first-past-the-post, they have more to gain from being a Remain party. Corbyn wants a majority, but ironically he has adopted a Brexit position that could cost him one. Whatever the outcome of this general election, in years to come Labour will regret not being clearer on Brexit sooner.

L'articolo Have Labour Made a Mistake by Not Campaigning as a Pro-EU Party? proviene da InsideOver.

Almost five years after the industry development plan was announced, growth in GDP and development are needed both for China, and investors into this country. Will “Made in China 2025” will be able to create this boost?

The capabilities of “Made in China 2025” to create a GDP boost depend on the execution of the plan. The main parts of the plan are: digitalization of manufacturing, increase of efficiency, and innovation. The main goal of “Made in China 2025” is to push all Chinese manufacturing into one, producing more technical and higher-value products.

The plan will respond to increasing worries about China’s competitiveness beyond simple manufacturing, the growing labour costs, and the competition with cheaper labour countries.

Almost five years after the reveal of the plan, the execution of it has centred around the establishment of manufacturing innovation centres, initiatives for intelligent manufacturing and quality management.

Assessment of the success of “Made in China 2025”, will only be possible a few decades into the future and only when it will be finally realised (according to the same plan). Yet, the past five years of the execution of the plan, have made it possible to analyse some parts of the plan. Particularly, the establishment of new, high tech manufacturing zones.

These zones, each focused on manufacturing a different subset of high tech products are not a new idea. Industrial zones developed with the support of governments have been used by many governments to boost manufacturing. Yet, China’s innovation centres are approaching this idea a bit differently. Promotion of “[…] cooperation and profit-sharing between centres” should boost productivity. Nonetheless, the better know-how of older manufacturing countries, and patents numbers by companies in China still trailing behind, will outweigh this different approach for a long time.

The subsets of the manufacturing industry chosen to be developed in “Made in China 2025” show a move in the right direction. Additional investment into the medical devices subset, is a fitting response to both worldwide trends in health, and trends in the medical sector. As people all over the world are living longer, more health problems are bound to appear. With this, increases on all spending in medicine are due to follow.

Spending in the medical sector shows increases fuelled not only by the increasing life expectancy; increases in spending are also partly caused by spending on medical technology – good news for a country that is working to develop this subset of an industry.

For any industry to enter a stage of growth, an adequate number of workers with the right skills, or willingness to be trained, have to be present. China’s labour force has adapted to work in factories. Yet, the stringent tertiary education admissions could block the growth of an industry, which requires more technical skills.

To meet the demands of a new direction in manufacturing, either more students will have to be accepted into tertiary education institutions, or the number of places intended for non-technical subjects will have to be lowered. The repercussions of these decisions very likely could be the lower value of university diplomas, or a shortage of workers intended for non-technical roles.

China has chosen a bit of an unconventional path to transforming the education of its workforce. By supporting the transformation of universities into applied technology universities, promoting the activities of key businesses in education institutions, and encouraging the establishment of foreign research institutions in China, PRC will largely avoid the devaluation of tertiary education.

The main possible shortcoming of this plan is its more optimistic, than realistic, view of Chinese manufacturing landscape. Movement of both foreign, and domestic manufacturing businesses away from China, because of rising wages, shows that one of the selling points of Chinese manufacturing is its labour costs.

A decision to increase China’s production of more expensive and technical products would appear, at first glance, a good solution to combat this trend. However, this will only work if Chinese businesses will be able to repeat the success that low-cost manufacturing has brought. Will this happen? Time and the ability to attract and develop original ideas will tell.

>Even with perfect execution of the plan, changes in worldwide manufacturing can decrease the probability of this plan succeeding. Manufacturing businesses moving back to developed countries, and the movement of simpler manufacturing to emerging countries, will present a challenge to new high tech manufacturing in China. Both shortly, and a few decades later.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that only the increase of manufacturing firms can deliver sustained growth. If a new factory means more jobs and even higher incomes, then more factories should be the right choice for growth. However, Brandt and Zhu in Accounting for China’s growth have found out that an increase in efficiency, rather than growth in numbers, has delivered growth in China.

It’s impossible to deny that manufacturing, even its most basic operations, has lifted out many lowest-income countries out of poverty. Moving away from agriculture, and onto manufacturing-based economy, leads to production of higher added-value products and a lower dependence on volatile commodities prices.

Following this type of thinking, a development of Chinese manufacturing onto one specialising in the production of high tech products should lead to even higher development. After all, if manufacturing is the way out of poverty, a “higher” level out of manufacturing should bring even higher incomes. This is a very likely possibility, if the role of work culture, know-how, and innovation is forgotten. Without them, a highly advanced businesses simply will struggle to succeed.

Manufacturing is often dependent on natural resources and their extraction. A movement into high tech manufacturing of machines and equipment, still hinges on world commodities prices. Especially, the prices of metals. Since metals prices are volatile even in the context of commodities, China’s sustained growth could be threatened by this volatility.

Manufacturing of high tech goods in the industries that “Made in China 2025” aims to target, has only been a temporary fix for economic growth in developed countries. Instead, many countries, or trade and economics blocks, are moving towards an even greater opening of trade.

China’s free trade potential is limited, and its FTAs are geographically oriented towards Asia. The low western penetration makes trading less geographically and economically diverse – a challenge for growth.

As any other industry, advanced manufacturing can create sustained GDP growth, if constant innovation and competition is present. Competition in this sector is high both in China and in the world. As for constant innovation, it will be a challenge at least in the next few decades. Mainly because of China having to catch up to countries with more advanced high tech manufacturing industries.

The development of the manufacturing industry has been credited with helping China to become a more prosperous and globally competitive country. A new plan for the largest industry of PRC can deliver a similar success story. Nevertheless, the skills and knowledge gap, and a labour force which would have to change, could make this plan less successful.

L'articolo Will “Made in China 2025” Create a New Economic Boost? proviene da InsideOver.

Following Tuesday night’s defeat of the Third Reading of Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill, a general election seems inevitable. In the eyes of their opponents, the 2017 General Election eradicated the Tories’ mandate to take Britain out of the EU without a deal, if necessary. Theresa May’s failure to strike a deal with Brussels has left Brexit paralysed. Opposition parties have used this to their advantage to frustrate, or even to try and cancel, the UK’s EU exit. Boris’s only option now is to win a majority so that he has the numbers in the Commons to approve of his deal or no deal.

The upcoming election will be a battle between the Conservatives, who will be campaigning for their new deal whilst retaining the option of no deal if it is rejected. The Brexit Party will fight to take Britain out of the EU without a deal at all. Labour will be advocating a second referendum on Boris’s deal and the Liberal Democrats will campaign to stop Brexit altogether. The latter would trigger a democratic crisis worse than what this country is experiencing now. Leaving the EU must happen.

The next general election will more than likely be the last one where the Liberal Democrats position themselves as a pro-European party. If a Christmas vote ensures Boris gains the majority he needs for his deal or no deal, Brexit is guaranteed to happen. Once it does, the Liberal Democrats will have no core identity left that distinguishes them from the other parties. Their unique policy positions on the Iraq War, tuition fees and now the EU have been fundamental to their success since the 2005 General Election. Since 2016, their electoral gains demonstrate that the electorate has forgiven them for betraying their tuition fees promise and for forming a coalition with the Tories.

The Liberal Democrats’ current leader, Jo Swinson, will preside over a divided party once Brexit has been delivered. Aside from the EU, their raison d’etre has always been electoral reform. It is unlikely former Tories Dr Sarah Wollaston and Sam Gyimah will support a fresh bid for introducing proportional representation to future British elections considering they originate from a party that is united in its support for First-Past-The-Post. The 2011 AV Referendum proved there was no enthusiasm for electoral reform when voters overwhelmingly rejected the Alternative Vote. The only way they could achieve their long-term goal is by forming a coalition with Labour, but even they are divided on this issue and it is doubtful Swinson would want to prop up a Labour government under its current leadership.

Prior to 2005, the Liberal Democrats positioned themselves to the left of Labour during the Iraq War. This worked to their advantage as they secured 62 seats, the most they have had since 1923. When the Orange Book Liberals took over in 2007 under Nick Clegg, their strategy was to move the party to the right. This cost them five MPs. 

Post-Brexit, Swinson is likely to shift her party rightwards again. During the Coalition years, she scrapped bureaucratic regulations, opposed gender quotas and supported zero-hours contracts. But if a Johnson-led Tory Party monopolises these issues, there could be pressure on her to chase after Labour voters considering Corbyn has pushed his party so far to the left.

The Liberal Democrats are in an unenviable position. Whilst Brexit continues to dominate mainstream politics, they intend to assert themselves as the anti-Brexit party. But once that issue is gone, there is no rallying cry for them anymore. The Greens, the Tories and Labour between them dominate policies on the environment, the economy, health, education, immigration and crime. The Coalition years showed how difficult it is for them to radically reform the unwritten British constitution. After Brexit, who are the Liberal Democrats?

L'articolo After Brexit What Do the Liberal Democrats Have Left to Stand For? proviene da InsideOver.

The Confederation of Business Interests (CBI) delivered a damning report of Jeremy Corbyn’s plans to renationalise water and energy utilities, the Royal Mail and train companies.

They argue that the Labour Party’s policy would cost an ‘eye-watering’ £196 billion and there could be a 10.7 per cent increase in debt as a result of their plans. This is equal to the amount of income tax British citizens pay in one year and Labour’s policy would cost as much as the annual budgets for health, social care and education combined.

Furthermore, the National Grid, the electricity transmission networks, the gas distribution networks throughout the UK and the rail rolling stock would all be nationalised.

There is certainly an argument to be made that Britain’s railways are failing passengers to a certain extent. The problems with British Rail date back to when it was ‘privatised’ in 1993. The then Conservative government chose to break the company into three components of track, rolling stock and train operators. The cost of operating the UK’s railways is 40 per cent higher than it is in the rest of Europe, according to Sir Roy McNulty’s 2011 government report. Trains may be leased by a private company, but they have a franchise which is owned by Network Rail and paid for by taxpayers. As McNulty told the Financial Times: ‘This complexity is expensive.’

Therefore, an element of Britain’s railways is already owned by the taxpayer, which is increasing prices for passengers every year. Labour’s plans to renationalise the UK’s trains would only cost the taxpayer more money via increasing fares. Yet that is not an excuse to shy away from reform or return to the failed British Rail model Clement Attlee’s Labour government introduced in 1948.

Despite flaws with the current system, privatisation has been a success in many ways. Railway journeys have doubled since 1994 to 1.65 billion annual trips. The volume of freight carried on the railways is up 80 per cent since privatisation. According to Sky News, these levels of growth exceed those witnessed in France, Germany and the Netherlands. Before the 1990s, passenger numbers fell by a third.

Two-thirds of delays are caused by National Rail, which has been state-owned since the 2000s

Private train operators’ profits are wafer-thin. At an average of just three per cent, this means that 97p from every pound from fares contributes towards running and improving services. Renationalising the railways would simply fail to generate enough money to make fares more reasonable than they currently are. Taxpayers should not have to subsidise those commuting by train every day in London.

The IEA proposed ensuring that state intervention is completely removed from this sector. This will allow the rail industry to evolve to market conditions. Separating companies may not increase profits and if integration truly worked, track owners could collaborate with train operators. Successive governments cause problems when they decide to impose a certain structure on the industry, preventing firms from merging or separating. When this happens, the only ones who pay for this model are the taxpayers.

This was the case with the West Coast Main Line, completed in 2008. Track owners and train operators were highly interdependent upon each other. The project’s costs increased and the confusing contracts behind it involved complex negotiations. In 2008, train operators demanded compensation for the West Coast Main Line’s £9 billion upgrade.

The CBI is right to warn against Labour’s plans; they are only a populist solution to a growing problem. Christian Wolmar argued in 2003 that the British should have learnt from the Japanese experience of privatisation. What they did differently to John Major’s government was that they did not privatise the railways into big companies, but smaller ones, and this improved efficiency and competition. Railway prices then reflected different regions in Japan. Maybe the current government could learn from the Japanese experience?

L'articolo Can Labour’s Plans to Renationalise Britain’s Railways Work? proviene da InsideOver.

Dogs wore saltire bandanas, while people carried placards calling out ‘Ruth Davidson’ (Leader of the Scottish Conservatives), questioning her comments about there being “No Appetite” for a second referendum on Scottish independence. ‘Look around’ one sign demanded, ‘We are here and we are hungry. #it is time’

It was May, in Glasgow and the latest march for Scottish independence had attracted an estimated 30-35,000 die hard separatists. The National, Scotland’s staunchly pro-independence newspaper, suggested that the number attending the May march might have been as high as 90,000 (but I am basing my number on, and sticking with, the official police estimate).

The march, itself, had been organised by Scottish pro-independence movement ‘All Under One Banner’, formed on 12th October, 2014 by Neil McKay. McKay had formed the group in the slipstream of the support gathered to campaign for independence at the 2014 referendum.

Of those who voted in the Scottish independence referendum of Thursday, September 18, 2014 – and the turnout proved to be a credible 84.59 per cent – 55.3 per cent voted to stay in the union with 44.7 per cent wanting to leave. Ironically, at the time, Scots were warned that a vote to leave the United Kingdom would mean Scotland would be forced to leave the European Union. No one, of course, bargained on a UK Prime Minister going to the country two years later with yet another referendum, this time on leaving or staying in Europe.

David Cameron, some say bullied by his own party into holding the referendum, presided over a British electorate who, to many people’s astonishment – and especially that of the incumbent prime minister – voted to leave the European Union. Now, ‘Brexit’ (British exit), as it has come to be known, effectively threatens to take Scotland (as part of the United Kingdom) out of the European Union, even though the Scots voted by 62 per cent to 38 per cent to remain.

Prime Minister Theresa May has played European shuttle in a failing effort to secure her leaving deal. Three times she has attempted and failed to take her negotiated deal through parliament. May is now on her way out, making way for a multiple candidate battle for her job – there were, after all it seems, many knives ready to be plunged into her leadership.

Nostrils flaring, Scotland’s SNP (Scottish National Party) First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has smelled the scent of the possibility of independence wafting up again from the ashes of 2014. Helped, considerably, by the debacle that has followed in the wake of the European referendum vote and the British government’s inability to get a deal over the line, Sturgeon is picking up on what she believes is a change of mood in her own nation.

Meanwhile, Theresa May having agreed to stand aside, the scrum for her place is already underway with Boris Johnson the favourite to replace her. Johnson would not, however, be a popular choice in Scotland. One, formerly committed unionist and disenchanted Labour party supporter, who didn’t want to be named, told us he had resigned as a member of the party, dismayed by their handling of the Brexit situation. He also told that if Johnson became prime minister then even he ‘might’ vote for independence.

Now the SNP government in Scotland have published a second referendum bill as Sturgeon argues that another vote before 2021 would give the Scots a chance to stand alone as an independent nation or have Brexit imposed on it against its will. The framework published on Wednesday 29 May, follows in the wake of the SNP securing three MEP’s, from a possible six, elected to the European parliament while pulling in its highest ever European vote with 38 per cent of those who took part.

“The bill has just been introduced,” Michael Russell, the SNP government’s minister for constitutional relations told to InsideOver. “It will, I hope, be enacted at the turn of the year but we have made no decision as yet about the formal request for a Section 30 order. That process is the one in which the question would be set.” The section 30 request, of course, could be the biggest stumbling block to the Scots having another referendum on independence. It effectively means that the UK government would have to give the final nod to allow such a vote.

To hold a referendum without the agreement of the Westminster parliament would mean the devolved Scottish government in Edinburgh going it alone Catalonian-style, not something many commentators see happening. “The Scottish Government has made it clear that it intends to ensure full observance of the constitution in order to place beyond doubt the result of such a referendum,” Michael Russell is unequivocal. “That is also the best way to secure full international recognition of Scotland’s choice. It is untenable, for any UK Government to refuse the right of Scotland to choose its own future, and that point will be accepted by all democrats.” In truth it might be the ineptitude of the two main parties, Conservatives and Labour, in the face of Brexit that pushes the Scots into independence. Who could have predicted these vicissitudes of history? Will the Scots have the ‘appetite’ to say yes to self-determination at the second time of asking? It will depend on a number of factors. Who the new leader of the Conservative Party is and how they deal with Brexit. If a general election is held and what the result from that throws up. If a second European Union referendum is held and the result of that. These are strange times in the United Kingdom, and it just might be that the future of Scotland as an independent nation or, indeed, not, might rest with decisions to be made in the UK in the next six months.

L'articolo Scotland Revisits Independence in the Wake of the Brexit Quagmire proviene da InsideOver.