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‘They were dying, and they’d not had their money’: Britain’s multibillion-pound equal pay scandal

The Guardian | Protest -

In 2005, Glasgow council offered to compensate women for historic pay inequality. But it sold them short again – and soon workers all over the UK started fighting for what they were owed

Just before Christmas 2005, Frances Stojilkovic was offered what sounded like free money. She was working as a carer, providing in-home assistance to elderly and disabled people. The letter she received, along with 11,000 other women working for Glasgow city council, told Stojilkovic she was entitled to compensation resulting from wage disparity between men and women. This was the first time most of the women had heard that they were being paid less than their male counterparts – but what drew the attention of Stojilkovic and her friends was the promise of a cash injection. “It was a carrot dangling before Christmas. Everyone wanted to have something for their kids,” she told me recently.

Stojilkovic is a no-nonsense woman, born and bred in Glasgow. When she got the letter, she was in her early 40s, and had been working as a home carer for about a year. She loved the job, and was conscious of its importance – sometimes she was the only person someone spoke to that day. But it did not pay well. Many of Stojilkovic’s colleagues, especially the single mothers, worked multiple jobs to make ends meet: night shifts cleaning or weekends in retail. She considered herself lucky because she and her husband both had jobs – he worked in restaurants – so they had two incomes. But she still worked a lot of overtime, and weeks would go by when she and her husband saw little of each other. Stojilkovic was excited at the prospect of a payout. Having done the job for a year, she was told, she was entitled to £2,800. “I just thought – £2,800! I’m rich!” she recalled.

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‘You singled us out’: women accuse Biden-Harris staff of Islamophobia for barring them from event

The Guardian | Protest -

Women claim they were profiled and disinvited because they were wearing hijabs but staff say they disrupted other event

Two women have accused Biden-Harris campaign staffers of Islamophobia, claiming they were profiled and disinvited from a campaign event because they were wearing hijabs.

Staff with the campaign have since countered that the women were barred after disrupting other events held by Democratic leaders.

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DPP appeals to supreme court in case of protesters who called MP ‘Tory scum’

The Guardian | Protest -

Exclusive: Move follows high court ruling that it was reasonable for them to have called Iain Duncan Smith the term

The director of public prosecutions is appealing to the supreme court in an ongoing and expensive battle to overturn the acquittal of two protesters found to have acted reasonably in calling Iain Duncan Smith “Tory scum”.

The unusual move will add to the cost to the public purse of a case that Lord Justice Popplewell, who heard the case at the high court, has said has already taken up “significant and substantial legal resources”.

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‘Hypocritical’ European politicians weaken climate policies amid farmer protests

The Guardian | Protest -

Under pressure from the far right in upcoming elections, environmental concessions being made across continent

Exhausted by an energy crisis, burdened by bureaucracy and angry at efforts to curb their pollution, Europe’s farmers say people are not listening to their plight.

“Over the last few years we’ve spoken out vigorously, but we haven’t been heard,” Europe’s biggest farming lobby, Copa Cogeca, said on Wednesday in an open letter to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. “The survival of European family farming as it is known today is in danger.”

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6 lessons for climate activists in turbulent times

Waging Nonviolence -

This article 6 lessons for climate activists in turbulent times was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Not many eras in modern U.S. history have been as turbulent for activists as the last 18 months. Grassroots organizers have had to contend with a lingering pandemic, increasingly unstable geopolitics and signs that Earth’s ecological systems are finally paying us back for decades of abuse. For the climate movement in particular, it’s been a confusing time with unprecedented wins juxtaposed against a backdrop of worsening planetary crises.

I had the chance to reflect deeply on these realities while preparing an updated edition of “Movement Makers: How Young Activists Upended the Politics of Climate Change” — a book that distills inspirational moments and lessons from more than two decades of youth-led climate organizing in the United States. The insights and wisdom shared by the more than 100 movement leaders I interviewed for the book remain as relevant today as in 2022, when the first edition was released. At the same time, much has happened since then in the youth climate movement and the social landscape in which it operates.

From developing new approaches to kicking fossil fuels off campus to responding to extreme weather, young climate activists and their allies have shown how dynamic and creative this movement still is. Drawing from a new chapter in “Movement Makers,” here are six important lessons from the last year and a half for anyone invested in the goals of the climate movement.

1. The climate crisis is escalating

From the passage of sweeping federal legislation to the halting of major fossil fuel projects, the climate movement — particularly its youth-led contingent — has won astonishing recent victories. These couldn’t come at a more important time, as the climate crisis only continues to worsen. Last year was far and away the warmest ever recorded, with temperature spikes that took even scientists by surprise. It was also exceptional when it came to extreme weather in the U.S. and around the world.

According to U.S. government data, an estimated 65 million people experienced extreme heat last year in the United States alone. The country endured 28 weather disasters costing a billion dollars or more—the highest number in history. The inflation-adjusted average annual number of such events over the past half-decade was 18, while during the longer period from 1980-2022 it was just over eight. Extreme weather in 2023 included massive floods in California, Kentucky and New York; extreme thunderstorms in Alaska; drought on the Great Plains; and the country’s most damaging wildfire in over a hundred years on the island of Maui.

“The flames may fade from the headlines, but the journey to rebuild will be long and challenging,” the youth-led Sunrise Movement said in an email to supporters shortly after the Maui disaster. While limiting carbon emissions to prevent climate catastrophes from getting even worse is still an overwhelmingly urgent goal, so is the need to respond with support and compassion for survivors of extreme weather tragedies. Striking this balance has become an increasingly urgent priority for Sunrise and other groups.

2. The clean economy is booming

As climate-related disasters worsen, other, more hopeful trends show the climate movement has given the world at least a fighting chance at averting the worst future scenarios. In the U.S., the last 18 months provided an opportunity to judge the effectiveness of the first major federal climate legislation in the country’s history. Climate components of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, signed into law by President Biden in July 2022 are far from perfect. However, within the context of the long struggle to pass any wide-reaching U.S. climate law, its importance can’t be overstated.

Previous Coverage
  • There’s a big pot of climate bill money waiting to be seized — activists can’t miss the opportunity
  • The IRA may have been crafted by senators making backroom deals on Capitol Hill — but there can be hardly any doubt the law never would have come into being without grassroots political pressure from the climate movement. And, excitingly, it now appears these activists’ work is having a bigger impact than even the IRA’s architects dared hope.

    Before the IRA’s passage, the Congressional Budget Office projected it would lead to $369 billion in federal spending on clean technologies. However, this was just an educated guess, and it remained to be seen how much companies and investors would really take advantage of the tax incentives at the core of the IRA’s climate provisions. A year and a half later, it seems clear the actual amount of funds channeled into clean energy will be far more than the CBO estimate.

    Within a year of the IRA’s passage, developers in the U.S. announced over 270 new clean energy projects and green technology manufacturing facilities, with potential to create 170,000 jobs. By April 2023, Goldman Sachs was estimating total federal investments under the law will reach $1.2 trillion by 2032, while triggering up to $3 trillion in additional private sector spending. The climate movement’s dream of a surge in clean energy that generates jobs and bolsters the middle class seems to be within reach.

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    Young climate activists found creative ways to campaign through the height of the pandemic, harnessing Zoom and social media to organize during lockdowns, school closures and restrictions on large gatherings. Still, by the time the country emerged from the worst of the public health emergency, it had taken a toll on efforts to mobilize huge numbers of people in visible ways that show the depth of public support for climate action. Fortunately, it appears the climate movement is recovering its ability to organize mass protests.

    In September, 75,000 people rallied in New York for the March to End Fossil Fuels, the largest post-COVID climate protest in the U.S. so far. It was impressive proof that the movement can still bring tens of thousands of people into the streets — and other large mobilizations are now in the works. Earlier this month, Bill McKibben, Sunrise Movement founder Varshini Prakash, youth climate strike leader Alexandria Villaseñor, and other prominent activists announced plans for a mass civil disobedience from Feb. 6-8 in Washington, D.C. to protest the CP2 liquefied natural gas export project proposed for construction in Louisiana.

    Just the prospect of such a widely publicized protest seems to have helped convince the Biden administration to pause its review of CP2 and other LNG terminals so their climate impacts can be considered. In the wake of this major victory, the sit-in has been called off, but the fact that the mere threat of large-scale nonviolent civil disobedience had such an impact shows the effectiveness of mass mobilizations.

    4. We’re winning in court

    Last August, a judge in Montana issued perhaps the most important ruling yet in the ongoing effort to use litigation to hold U.S. policymakers accountable for failing to protect young people from climate change. In Held v. Montana, District Judge Kathy Seeley decided in favor of 16 young plaintiffs who argued the State of Montana violated their rights by passing a law essentially banning climate from being considered during the permitting of large energy projects.

    Previous Coverage
  • How suing the US government can empower the climate movement
  • A broad coalition of groups brought Montanans out to rally in support of the Held plaintiffs, demonstrating how courtroom battles can help galvanize a larger movement. Judge Seeley’s final verdict made headlines around the world — and the media attention it received is a powerful reminder that court rulings shape not only the enforcement of laws, but the public narrative about the moral stakes involved in an issue like climate policy.

    There are aspects of the Held case that make it somewhat unique. A clause in Montana’s state constitution guarantees residents the right to a “clean and healthful environment,” and these words provided the main rationale for Judge Seeley’s ruling. The U.S. Constitution has no similar provision, and the list of states with comparable constitutional clauses — including Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Hawaii and New York — is relatively short. However, a growing grassroots movement seeks to add “green amendments” to the constitutions of other states, and Held is likely to further energize these efforts. This means the case could have a real legal impact far beyond Montana.

    5. Fossil fuels are under siege on campus

    The history of climate organizing on U.S. college campuses can be roughly divided into three phases. From the early 2000s through about 2012, student activists tended to focus on greening campus operations. The architects of early campaigns like the Campus Climate Challenge knew these efforts could train a new generation of organizers, and wisely framed their work as part of a larger push to transform the economy. However, while sweeping change was the goal, in the short term most campus groups focused on smaller-scale energy efficiency or renewables projects. This began to change with the birth of the fossil fuel divestment movement at Swarthmore College.

    Divestment organizers reframed the climate fight as a confrontation with the fossil fuel industry itself, and universities led a wave of institutions that by the end of last year had divested over $40 trillion from coal, oil and gas companies. Still, like any successful social movement, youth climate activists had to keep finding new ways to push the political envelope forward. Groups like Sunrise Movement and Zero Hour effectively channeled students’ energy into national climate politics, swaying national elections and eventually securing passage of the IRA. Meanwhile, the campus-based wing of the movement broadened its focus, applying the original logic of fossil fuel divestment to other areas of life at higher education institutions.

    Previous Coverage
  • Divest, decarbonize and disassociate — inside the bold new push to get fossil fuels off campus
  • When the first edition of “Movement Makers” came out, this shift was just getting started — and it’s fascinating to reflect on how it has evolved since. Students are calling on academic research departments to refuse money from the fossil fuel industry, winning victories at schools like Princeton. At the University of Washington, student activists held a sit-in at the college career center to protest fossil fuel companies recruiting on campus. Meanwhile, efforts to decarbonize campus have graduated from small-scale projects to pushing universities to eliminate their use of gas or other fossil fuels for heat and electricity.

    “The divestment movement has accomplished really positive things,” said Phoebe Barr, a Harvard student who worked on the successful Divest Harvard campaign and more recently joined a Fossil Free Research sit-in at the Ivy League school. “Now that we’ve won on divestment and shown the kind of impact climate activism on campus has, I’m excited to move into this new realm.”

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    Donate 6. Hope encourages action

    Being a climate activist today means navigating the tension between two seemingly disparate realities. On one hand, a clean energy future feels nearer than ever; and yet, the climate crisis is still getting worse. As floods, droughts and wildfires overwhelm much of the world, it can be easy to lose hope. However, youth climate activists have proven grassroots organizing makes a real difference. It’s imperative we continue driving momentum forward at this time when real solutions are close to within reach.

    Last fall, I taught a course at Western Washington University called Hope and Agency in a Climate-Altered World. The students, mostly freshmen, were far more knowledgeable about climate change and its implications than I was at their age — but their sense of dread about what’s to come in a world of worsening disasters was palpable.

    As we discussed grassroots campaigns like Sunrise Movement, fossil fuel divestment, and other efforts to oppose the fossil fuel industry, I saw many students become newly hopeful that all may not be lost. This left me even more convinced of the importance of learning about the climate movement’s past. Once you understand how young people and their allies have upended politics before, it becomes clear we can do so again. That’s why I wrote “Movement Makers” in the first place, and why releasing the new edition feels timely.

    If I’ve learned anything from studying more than two decades of climate movement history, it’s the power of grassroots organizing to transform the course of events — even in a fight against some of the most powerful industries on the planet. The youth climate movement is as capable and resilient as ever, and I can’t wait to see what it accomplishes next.

    This article 6 lessons for climate activists in turbulent times was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    Norway has made a vital climate leap. This is how Britain can do the same | Tessa Khan

    The Guardian | Protest -

    A historic legal victory in Oslo has boosted our campaign against the Rosebank field and other British drilling projects

    • Tessa Khan is executive director of climate action organisation Uplift

    There has been a dramatic change in how oil drilling rights are approved on one side of the invisible line that divides the North Sea between the UK and Norway.

    On the Norwegian side, after a groundbreaking decision by the Oslo district court on 18 January, the government must now take into account the emissions that come from the burning of oil and gas reserves in addition to the impact of getting the reserves out of the ground, before they approve a new field. The legal win, which applies for the first time the reasoning of a separate case in the Norwegian Supreme Court, was a result of Greenpeace Norway and Young Friends of the Earth Norway challenging the approval of three new oil and gas fields by the government. They argued the government had not been properly vetted for climate harm. The court agreed.

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    Belgian farmers throw eggs and dump manure in protest – video

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Farmers in Belgium continued to block roads including the main E19 motorway leading to Brussels.

    Farmers have been protesting across Europe over the prices they receive for food, blamed on cheap imports, and the impact of EU environmental policies

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    Belgian port blockaded as farmer protests spread across Europe

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Roads around Zeebrugge could be obstructed until midnight on Wednesday, hitting commercial trade

    The Belgian port of Zeebrugge was blockaded on Tuesday, causing gridlock on surrounding roads as a wave of farmer protests spread across Europe.

    Authorities at the North Sea port, one of the biggest in Europe, said all access roads were blocked by 5pm (1600 GMT) on Tuesday, in a demonstration that will hit commercial trade, including imports and exports of food to and from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.

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    ‘An attack on us all’: how threat from Germany’s far right is being felt

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Der Spiegel writer says AfD’s mass deportation rhetoric is ‘a kind of verbal violence’

    Initially it was the co-opting of the world “remigration” that struck Jurek Skrobala. The term, historically used in social sciences to describe a migrant’s voluntary return to their country of origin, had emerged as a key talking point of a meeting at which high-ranking members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) discussed mass deportation plans.

    Days later, as the party’s embrace of “remigration” continued to reverberate across Germany, Skrobala found himself gripped by fear.

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    ‘Everyone is affected’: Pressure grows on French government to strike deal with farmers

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Paris feels impact of continued blockade of capital over low food prices, red-tape and threats to rural life

    At the vast Rungis food market outside the French capital, wholesale fruit and vegetable companies were feeling the effect of French farmer protests, as tractors and hay-bales blocked motorways in what some demonstrators have called the “Siege of Paris”.

    “Merchandise hasn’t arrived, there’s definitely an impact,” said Célia, who works at a wholesale fruit and vegetable firm with 12 staff, supplying shops and restaurants in the city. “It’s carrots, potatoes, cabbages, all kinds of fruit and vegetables. Deliveries are very difficult because of the roadblocks. Around 40% of our vegetables haven’t been delivered today and it has been difficult since yesterday for both French and European produce. Everyone is affected and it will continue like that for the coming days.”

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    Pro-Israel ‘surveillance’ group turning attention to Australia, leaked posts show

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Members of Shirion Collective, which claims to ‘expose antisemites’ online, have discussed presenting lists of names to home affairs minister

    A pro-Israel “surveillance network” that has offered bounties for information on pro-Palestinian protesters is establishing a foothold in Australia and claims to have secured meetings with key federal politicians, leaked messages show.

    Shirion Collective, which has largely focused on the US and UK, boasts of its ability to scrape digital fingerprints to “aggressively track and expose antisemites”. It is one of a number of groups that have gained prominence on social media during the Israel-Gaza war, publicly naming individuals it accuses of being antisemitic.

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    French farmers drive 1,000 tractors towards Paris in blockade threat

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Farmers vow to ‘besiege’ capital in protest over regulation changes they say are destroying rural life

    French farmers are driving tractors towards Paris as they start to make good on a threat to blockade the French capital for an indefinite period in a row over working conditions.

    Protesters rejected concessions made by the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, at the weekend and promised to “besiege” Paris by paralysing the seven main motorways into the city by early afternoon.

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    ‘In the face of great evil, you have to stand together’: new stage shows mark historic battle of Cable Street

    The Guardian | Protest -

    The East End battle of 1936, when the community united to force back Oswald Mosley’s fascist forces, has inspired two theatre productions

    On a Sunday afternoon in October 1936, Ubby Cowan, a 19-year-old Jewish tailor, put on his prized new Max Baer-style jacket that he had saved hard for and went to fight Oswald Mosley’s fascist forces in London’s East End.

    The battle of Cable Street ended in victory for the coalition of Jews, Irish dockers, trade unions, communists and other anti-racists who insisted that the British Union of Fascists, protected by thousands of police, “shall not pass”. Cowan ended the day covered in blood, with his precious jacket in shreds after he was kicked through a shop window by a police horse.

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    Moment protesters throw soup at Mona Lisa in Paris – video

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    Two environmental protesters hurled soup on to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, calling for 'healthy and sustainable food'. The painting, which was behind bulletproof glass, appeared to be undamaged. Gallery visitors looked on in shock as two women threw the yellow-coloured soup before climbing under the barrier in front of the work and flanking the splattered painting. One of the two activists removed her jacket to reveal a white T-shirt bearing the name of the activist group Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response)

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    Protesters throw soup at Mona Lisa in Paris

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Visitors at Louvre look on in shock as Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece attacked by environmental protesters

    Two environmental protesters hurled soup on to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, calling for “healthy and sustainable food”. The painting, which was behind bullet-proof glass, appeared to be undamaged.

    Gallery visitors looked on in shock as two women threw the yellow-coloured soup before climbing under the barrier in front of the work and flanking the splattered painting, their right hands held up in a salute-like gesture.

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    Thousands march against femicide in Kenya after rise in killings

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Reports of at least a dozen cases of femicide since start of year prompt protests across the country

    Protests against femicide have taken place across Kenya after a rise in killings this month.

    Reports of at least a dozen cases of femicide since the start of the year have prompted public outrage, debate and demonstrations across the country, including in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa.

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    Thousands across Austria to take part in protests against far right

    The Guardian | Protest -

    ‘Defend democracy’ events planned for Innsbruck, Salzburg and in front of parliament building in Vienna

    Thousands of Austrians were expected to take to the streets of the country’s three largest cities on Friday evening, in a spillover of protests over the rise of the far right in neighbouring Germany.

    Under the slogan “defend democracy”, gatherings organised by a broad alliance of civil society organisations, NGOs, political groups, church communities and trade unions were planned for Innsbruck, Salzburg, and in front of the parliament building in Vienna.

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    Geldof and Colman urge Home Office to reconsider climate activist’s deportation

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Exclusive: Actors and musicians condemn ‘harsh deportation’ of Dartford Crossing protester Marcus Decker

    Leading actors and musicians including Bob Geldof, Olivia Colman and Emma Thompson are calling on the Home Office to reconsider the “harsh deportation” of a climate activist who is serving one of the longest prison sentences in modern British history for peaceful protest.

    Along with the musicians Brian Eno and Jacob Collier, they are among about 600 artists who are urging James Cleverly to withdraw the deportation order issued to Marcus Decker.

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    ‘The world is changing too fast for us’: organic farmers on urgency of French protests

    The Guardian | Protest -

    France taken by surprise by scale and fury of grassroots demonstrations amid crisis in organic sector

    Pierre Bretagne woke at 4am to feed the cows on his organic farm near the coastal town of Pornic in western France, then did something he had never dared to before.

    He made a cardboard protest banner about the nightmare of French bureaucracy and went to cheer on a go-slow convoy of tractors warning that French farming and the rural way of life was facing collapse. Effigies of dead farmers dangled from nooses on tractor trailers as the convoy drove into the centre of the Brittany city of Rennes, beeping horns and waving banners. “Quality has a price,” read one.

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    Invasion Day protests around Australia – in pictures

    The Guardian | Protest -

    This year, 26 January was marked by dawn reflections, smoking ceremonies and thousands of people attending rallies that called for the abolition of Australia Day while expressing solidarity with Palestine. Artwork was projected on to the sails of the Opera House in Sydney, while the streets of major cities were filled with protesters

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