Want to work in peace? On rummaging through some old files I found this screenshot from the UK jobs site:
Category Archives: Employment
All quiet on the Western Front
Military clichés are everywhere.
Six months and no posts. Been too busy, too confused.
Could have written about the incredible blatant racism I have witnessed in Milton Keynes.
Could have written about job searching.
Could have written about working for the NHS during lockdown and going in to work every day.
The paranoia of people seeing my NHS id. This misleading and terror created by the media.
Reflections on how easy it was to implement a global lockdown.
Reflections on what happens when the leadership does not follow its own instructions and gets away with it.
Reflections on the relevance of Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince as a guide book in 2020.
Could have written about getting work with the Cabinet Office.
Could have written about my reflections on my two degrees.
Could have written about the silence of the 75th anniversary of the Japan nuclear bombings and the celebration of war for VJ Day.
Could have written about how my plans have been on hold for six months.
Could have written about how some employers have been superb during lockdown and others have been utter and absolute spineless and evil bastards.
Could have written about the falsehoods around online activity being high CO2 consuming activities. I had promised the SGR I would.
Every day there has been something to write about, and my ToDo list does say, every day, “Post something on the blog”. But time, where does it all go?
It is hard to be an unemployed jobseeker and be positive and creative to wrote blog posts. Then, when doing a new job, one is tired and busy.
It is hard to change the world when changing one’s own. It is hard to write when busy doing. I shall try again, from today, now I feel a little more settled in my new role.
You know, bite the bullet.
Export Processing Zones and ‘economic wellbeing’
In Open University module DD301 Critical Criminology we learned about Export Processing Zones or EPZs. These are where a government sets aside a piece of land near an airport or other transfer terminal and designates it outside the normal employment legislation. This means manufacturers can set up in that region to process goods more cheaply than they otherwise would. It attracts business to the country and so is seen as a good thing. Governments charge lower tax rates and sometimes pay for the building of factories.
The downside is that the legislation that is set aside is health and safety, minimum wage, working hours, rights to union membership and strike and other protections of employment rights. Also, environmental legislation and tax collection can be set aside. The companies can operate more cheaply because they are not competing on a level playing field; they can treat the workers there differently.
What tends to happen is that companies play one government off another to get better and better conditions for themselves and so there results a ‘race to the bottom‘ as governments compete to give the most favourable terms. The flip side to this is that it results in the work going to those countries most willing to remove employment rights and environmental protection. And when something goes wrong, the parent companies are rarely held accountable. From my DD301 essay TMA02:
Collaborations occur between corporations and states for economic reasons that cause social harms, such as in the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) where developing countries are obliged to lower regulatory standards to compete for businesses to move there, resulting in people working there having fewer human rights than they would otherwise have had (Tombs and Whyte, 2010, p. 161) showing corporations have negotiating power over supranationally recognised human rights. In 2011 the International Labour Organisation described Nigeria’s eleven EPZs as “veritable theatres of abysmal disrespect for workers’ rights” (ACTRAV, 2012). One Chinese iron-foundry was found to be using slave labour but the company threatened to pull out if the information was disclosed. Slave labour was found in other EPZs and they received reports of violence by management against staff. They concluded the working practices were contrary to Nigerian Labour Law but Nigeria’s Decent Work Country Programme—set up to improve employment rights and counter human rights abuses such as human trafficking and child labour—disregards what happens in the Nigerian EPZs.
The International Labour Organisation points out EPZs often do not meet ILO required standards. The International Labour Rights Forum highlights many instances of human rights abuses in EPZs; . According to The Balance these include low wages, high work intensity, unsafe working conditions, suppression of labour rights, long hours, excessive noise and heat, unsafe manufacturing equipment, un-inspected buildings and no access to union representation.
When people die in large numbers in these environments, it is then seen it is high profile Western brands being produced in these conditions. People are working in the worst conditions to maximise profits for what can be premium brands.
As the UK is in in Europe, we are protected by legislation from these conditions. Or we were.
BBC News: “Treasury ‘to rewrite rules to favour the North’”
The Treasury is reportedly planning to rewrite rules governing public spending… It could help boost investment in infrastructure, business development projects and schemes like free ports.
A free port is a form of EPZ. and the government intends to convert ten UK ports to free ports. Note there are no free ports in the EU because they are legally not possible.
According to The Times:
The Treasury is planning to rip up decades-old public spending rules in an effort to boost economic wellbeing in the north and the Midlands. Under proposals being drawn up before the spring budget, ministers will reassess how officials calculate the value for money of government investments in transport infrastructure, business development and initiatives such as free ports.
‘Economic wellbeing‘ – what a charmingly contradictory oxymoron. They mean ‘profitability’. They offer ‘unnecessary checks and paperwork‘ (there go the H&S and employment checks) and ‘customs and tax benefits‘ (because we don’t have enough corporates not paying tax) and ‘liberalised planning laws‘ (such as intended to allow fracking to re-start). The example they give of a successful free port is Miami. How many other cities in the developed world need their own Human Rights Watch division to fight for the rights of workers in the city?
It hasn’t taken long for the government to shaft the North. Those in the North who voted for Boris can look forward to working 6 days a week of 12 hours a day in dangerous conditions that are detrimental to the environment and contrary to EU-upheld human rights and no right to complain.
TMA02 essay references:
ACTRAV (2012) The State of Trade Unionism and Industrial Relations practice in Nigeria’s Export Processing Zones [Online], Geneva, International Labour Organisation. Available at http://www.ilo.org/actrav/info/fs/WCMS_183546/lang–en/index.htm (Accessed 10 January 2018).
Tombs, S. and Whyte, D. (2010) ‘Chapter 5: Crime, harm and corporate power’, in Muncie, J., Talbot, D. and Walters, R. (eds) Crime: Local and Global, Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 137-72.
Just when I need motivation…
Thanks, BBC. I’m trying to get my dissertation finished by the end of the month and did not need to see a news story saying I’ve gone to the wrong university. It is no news that “job applications are filtered by university ranking“; we all know Oxford and Cambridge graduates will also get through job filtering before University of Southern Rutland graduates.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49728941
Being told that Russell group university graduates get jobs, despite appearing lower in the university table rankings, while those who went to Aberdeen, St Andrew’s and Lancaster won’t, despite their academic achievements, is not reassuring.
Being assured our levels of debt are the same, and the uni appearing higher in the rankings than the prestigious ones, but won’t get work afterwards, is a nice miserable message to put out at the end of one academic year and the start of the next.
Poor government support for careers
Does the government provide poor careers support because civil servants have jobs for life and politicians have no work experience?
When I started my career change it was early 2012. At that time the government careers service was NextStep. That was changed to the National Careers Service. So I created an account on there in April 2012 and used that instead.
Over time it became an excellent resource for hundreds of different jobs. It had all sorts of facilities for self assessment. I made a lot of use of it. It came with a Lifelong Learning Account. It allowed one to:
- update and store your CV, skills health check, action plans, and course searches to help you as you progress through your learning and working life
- access your qualification details from your Personal Learning Record and track what financial contributions have been made towards your learning
- manage the information you have gathered to help you make the right choices
- build a personal profile and receive information more tailored to your needs and situation
I made full use of the Skills Health Check Tools and Action Plans and uploaded CVs.
But it has all changed, presumably to fit into the gov.uk web sitre structure, which does not suit it at all. There used to be loads of job market analysis for the roles but that has gone.
It now seems no more useful than the useless ‘careers advice’ we got at school: “What do you want to do? Oh, we don’t have that on the list. How about train driver, policeman, typist or nurse? We have those.” And the information and advice they provide on searching for jobs and filling in forms could be put on a couple of sides of A4.
So it seems the Lifelong Learning Account and National Careers Service have survived for less time than it has been taking me to change career. I started my research before it opened, have done an undergrad degree and not yet completed my postgrad degree and the Account and Service have gone.
What a shame. And waste of taxpayers’ money them constructing it all in the first place for it to be switched off again before people have finished with it.
Fortunately, the Lancaster University Careers Service is superb and has provided me with huge amounts of advice, information and support so I’m OK. But that does not help the millions of people out there who must be coping with leaving education, being laid off, wanting career change or just being unemployed and wanting to explore their options.
The Lancaster Award; I’ve submitted my application
Lancaster University runs an award scheme that runs alongside, but separately from, the degree programmes. It is all about ensuring graduates have skills for the workplace and skills for finding work. According to the number of activities one does, one can apply for a Bronze, Silver or Gold award. I have submitted my application today, the day of the deadline.
This is the description of the Award for using on CVs and cover letters:
The Lancaster Award is a non-compulsory, assessed employability award that recognizes individual achievements and endorses the development of key employability skills developed through extracurricular activities. It is evidence of motivation and commitment to personal development.
The level of Lancaster Award granted goes on ones degree transcript. The idea is that it helps with employability.
Terribly excited – first relevant job application
I am terribly excited. I have been able to apply for my first paid peace sector role. It is as an Operations Manager for the Peace Pledge Union. It uses my training, is in exactly the sort of organisation I want to work for and totally conforms to what I want to do.
My ambition in 2012 when I started was to work in war prevention. Supporting those who are campaigning to promote the idea that war is not the answer, that there are alternatives, matches my experience and skills.
Now I just need to hope I get an interview…
Part-time job applied for
I’ve applied for a part-time role in the university where I want to study, working in the college where I will be a student. It is the same role as I did in my last job, I have all the ‘essentials’ and the only desirable I don’t have is ‘worked in Higher Eduction before’.
I hope to get short-listed for interview. If I do, it will be a novelty. Once upon a time if I submitted an application for a role, I got an interview. Now I submit dozens and hear nothing. This is particularly worrying when one has all the essentials, desirables and relevant experience. I must be doing something wrong.
When I was doing recruitment I had the chance to see the current trends in applications, the current jargon to use and the fashion for answers. I see none of that now.
Is a PhD a possibility for me?
So I am preparing for my Master’s in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies at Lancaster University and reviewing my plan. My intention was to get a Peace Studies MA then a job in conflict prevention somehow such that I could do my bit to stop the UK starting any new wars by providing evidence-based arguments that there are better alternatives.
A few people have – in jest? – asked if I am intending to do a PhD or suggested I do one. Having looked again at the university I have chosen – a “triple top ten university” with a joint top best research library and one of the top 3 research universities in the UK – and it seems I have chosen well. One that prides itself on the quality of its research. I wonder if that applies to the social sciences too, specifically the politics and international relations? If so, I would be in the right place.
I had an idea the other day regarding modelling of the kind done in IT, physics and maths: are there models for conflict resolution? If not, fame and fortune awaits if I invent the first. If so, there is the opportunity to learn about them and apply them in the workplace. But an academic view might be to review them, compare them, evaluate them – that could be what I do with this MA.
But there is a further opportunity. I am a practitioner by nature, not an academic. I have been seeking ‘the learned journal for peace’, the professional body for peacemakers, the text books, the methodologies, the best practice for the people working in the field. Do these things exist? If not, they need creating and there is the scope for a PhD.
If I could create or document a framework for peacemongery such that practitioners could take it off the shelf and use it, that would be a heck of a legacy. If I could form a ‘professional body’ or a methodology, that would also be a great contribution. Even creating something so that when someone says “There is no alternative to war”, I can say “Yes there is, I wrote the book!” would be an immense move forward.
I shall keep pondering on this idea…
“We need to maintain defence spending to protect jobs”
“We need to maintain defence spending to protect jobs”
Protecting jobs does not seem to matter in any other sector. Why should defence be different from other sectors such as health, social services or education?
The defence sector comprises private industry, other government spending is mostly public sector. Why should private industry jobs be protected by the government when public sector jobs are being cut?
“We need to maintain defence spending to protect jobs”
It is illegal under European law to prop up a filing industry to make it competitive. This has been applied a number of times, for example to stop the French government propping up French airlines. Counter argument: Why is the defence industry being propped up with government money?
“We need to maintain defence spending to protect jobs”
The UK defence industry is hailed as a great success as it is our biggest exporter. If it is so successful and bringing in so much money, Why does the defence industry need propping up?
“We need to maintain defence spending to protect jobs”
If the purpose of defence spending is to protect jobs, why not give them jobs in another useful sector, working in a constructive way, such as civil engineering, major environmental projects, improved land management, improved water management, pollution control or research? Why should they continue to work in the arms industry and not something else?
“We need to maintain defence spending to protect jobs”
It’s not really jobs that matter to maintain votes, it is standard of living. If the purpose of defence spending is to keep these people in a manner to which they are accustomed, pension them all off. Sell off their places of work, stop buying raw materials, stop using energy making stuff for the sake of it and stop producing unnecessary products that will require careful storage and subsequent disposal. Why not save money by paying those people to stay at home?
Claiming “we need to maintain defence spending to protect jobs” does not stand up.
What do you think?