Picket Lord Fraud In Manchester - 27th June

Reblogged from the void:


Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Fraud and Housing Minister Mark Prisk will both be speaking at the national exhibition and conference of the social housing industry, Housing 2013, in Manchester on 27th June.

Manchester Against The Bedroom Tax have called morning picket to greet the Tory filth outside Manchester Central Conference Centre from 9am.  Facebook event 

A protest has also been called earlier in the week on the 25th June to Lobby the Landlords, the social housing providers who will be present at the three day beano.  Facebook event

Those not in Manchester can join in on twitter, where the conference organisers will be tweeting from @CIH_Housing2013 using the hashtag #housing2013

Pope slams Primark factory as slave labour

[Pope Francis] said unemployment “is a burden on our conscience” because when society is organised in such a way that it cannot offer people an opportunity to work, “there is something wrong with that society: It is not right. It goes against God himself, who wanted our dignity to begin with (work).”

The Pope recalled a recent “tragedy” in Bangladesh, where more than 400 garment workers were killed when the building they were working in collapsed. The workers reportedly earned just $38 a month.

“This is what you call slave labour,” he said. “We can no longer say what St Paul said, ‘Who will not work, should not eat,’ but we have to say, ‘He who does not work has lost his dignity’ because he cannot find any opportunities for work.”

During his general audience the Pope also made a special appeal against slave labour and human trafficking.

“How many people worldwide are victims of this type of slavery, in which the person is at the service of his or her work,” he said. “Work should offer a service to people so they may have dignity.”

Read more...

The Tory Trussel Trust: Food Banks replacing benefits?

The Trussell Trust Food Bank founders, The people behind it:

The Trussel Trust, was introduced to dole offices specifically as an alternative to the ‘crisis fund’ previously run by the state

The Trussell Trust describes itself as “a Christian charity that does not affiliate itself with any political party”. It is controlled by Tory Party Councillor and Mayor of Worthing, Neil Atkins and director Chris Mould, who splits his time between the Trussell Trust and the Shaftesbury Partnership.

The Shaftesbury Partnership is a “practice of professionals committed to large scale 21st Century social reform.”

Co-founder was Nat Wei, who was appointed the Government’s Chief Adviser on Big Society in May 2010, now a life peer.

Other people in the Shaftesbury Partnership :

Dominic Llewellyn(Conservative party candidate in 2010 )who co-authored the government’s Big Society policies.

Shaftesbury’s recently departed head of operations Antony Hawkins states that he “developed conservative unemployment and welfare reform policy (“The Work Programme”). Planned the implementation of Conservative welfare policies in the Get Britain Working manifesto”.

The Shaftesbury Partnership’s aim is to “design our solutions so that they are both scalable and have sustainable business models, maximising the potential for social transformation”.

The Trussel Trust, was introduced to dole offices specifically as an alternative to the ‘crisis fund’ previously run by the state

If the Tories believe that their policies will reduce poverty, why are the instigators and creators of its ‘Big Society’ policies investing in, and directing food banks?

READ MORE

Yesterday's Labour Workfare Masssacre

Reblogged from Diary of a Benefit Scrounger

 

This morning, like the night after Agincourt, lefties like me scan the bloody, burnt out social media #workfare battlefield in the hope of finding twitching Labour corpses. There are none. Like the French 600 years before, a few generals at the top of the pile made the fateful decision to crush the weak and exhausted. Like the French, they were shown exactly why that's often not a very good idea at all. 

In the three years since Labour have been in opposition, nothing has described their fate better than the welfare debate. With minds stuck in an ideology forged around a gleaming new millennium, welfare was a comforting Blairite hawk to offset the freer doves of education, international aid and health. 

Tough on povety, tough on the causes of poverty. It suited Purnell, and Murphy and Cooper as they forged their credentials as "centrists" and who knows? Future leaders? 

So the argument goes : "It's a no brainer. The public think everyone on welfare is scrounging. (Except them) The tougher we are on welfare, the more people in the "Middle" and the "Shires" and the "City" breathe easy at night. (As long as it's not pensioners and it doesn't affect them.) Combining a little social justice elsewhere, with a good dose of judgement and steel in welfare = the chance of a majority. 75% of the public support workfare. Therefore, supporting the government on this is a chance to show we are still tough on poverty, tough on the causes of poverty. The Daily Mail fall gasping at our feet, they raise a glass in the gentleman's clubs, and no-one will listen to the screams of the anguished or weak, well, because they're anguished and weak."

Some around the shadow cabinet now look uncomfortable, shift in their seats. This is at least progress. Some mention the change in the welfare narrative lately. Opinion polls shifting, disability becoming toxic for the Tories, the increased media interest and above all, that behemoth of opinion formers - social media. But the hawks give the doves a little slap about and logic prevails. 75% of everyone or about 1% of the active, gobby probably-gave-up-on-us-anyway-leftie-activist-Face-Tweeps??? 

As has happened so often before, but had been happening less lately, the hawks won the welfare Agincourt, and they took to the commons. 

We on Twitter and Facebook steeled ourselves. Defeat had been heavily trailed on the blogs and had met with the grim opposition of the archer who knows he may be amongst small and ragged numbers, but he has all the arrows and the mighty have none. 

And so it proved. If the Daily Mail or the BBC even noticed Labour's unprincipled stand yesterday, designed to get them picked for the election team, there is little evidence today on a quick dodge of budget fever. 

But on Social Media? 

Oh Agincourt,

"Those few, those happy few those band of brothers. 

For those yesterday who shed their blood may have been a brother. 

Be he ne'er so vile, election day may have gentled his condition and Englishmen abed may have held their front doors wide as any speaks, that canvassed late, upon election day!!!"

For the return of precisely zero centre ground, floating voting, Mail readers, Labour managed to enrage and alienate 10s of 1000s of active, passionate, left of centre, engaged, knowledgeable, informed, opinion formers who are read by journalists and opposition alike - not to mention their own families and friends. 

Life has changed since 2000. Politics has changed. The economy has changed beyond all recognition. Living standards have fallen. Corruption seems to stalk everywhere now that gossamer veneer of "success" has floated away. 

But most of all, "media" has changed. Numbers of papers sold are plummeting, news figures freefall by their side. 

And every day, social media takes over. Sure, not the majority, but the vanguard. And they are the ones who care and think and devise and solve and organise. Just like any world paradigm change, it is the few who lead you to safety not the many. 

Every time Labour remembers that, they are rewarded with just a little touch of Harry in the night - Murdoch and Leveson, Gas giants and Loan sharks their names in our mouths bitterly remembered. 

We appreciate their company, there in the breach. 

But every time they take what they know is the wrong decision on principle, the response is swift and horrific. 

I won't pain myself more by sifting through the "I'll never vote Labour again" tweets or sifting through the debris of torn up membership cards and broken hearts. 

But Labour squandered so much more yesterday on a battle they could never win, and all the while they go on frittering away principles and viable voters on the wind of a cruel popularity it cannot win, our cause be not just.

 

 

True Face of the Salvation Army – Workfare Protest Marred By False Arrest and Staff Aggression

There were shocking scenes at the South London offices of workfare exploiters the Salvation Army today as employees of the charity manhandled anti-workfare protesters, tried to seize personal property and then physically prevented them from leaving the building.

Astonishingly one person who managed to escape from the premises  before staff blockaded protesters inside was falsely accused of assault and then arrested.

The UK offices of the charity were visited by campaigners today as part of the National Week of Action Against Workfare.  Salvation Army are one of the largest charities left who use forced labour – under threat of benefit sanctions -  to staff their charity shops.  Most decent charities have pulled out in disgust at the exploitative nature of the scheme. The Salvation Army have no such principles and recently appeared to admit that they are even happy to use those on sickness or disability benefits as forced unpaid workers.
Today’s action began at the charity’s plush International Headquarters in the City of London.  A workfare army visited the charity holding a sermon extolling the benefits of forced labour in their reception area.  Meanwhile several people went downstairs to the cafe run by the charity and handed out leaflets.

Many people were shocked at the organisation’s open use of workfare, and thanked the protesters for making them aware of it.  The protest (pictured above) was good-natured and non-violent throughout and eventually a Major from the charity agreed to speak to those present.

The Major claimed that as the international headquarters for the charity, they were not responsible for the actions of the UK section of the Salvation Army.  When it was pointed out that protesters were there to show what was being done in the organisation’s name, he agreed that he was happy for the protest to remain in the building until they closed for the day.

He also suggested that campaigners should visit the UK Headquarters in Elephant & Castle who have the ultimate say of the charity’s use of workfare.  Not wanting to disobey an order from a Major that’s exactly what those present decided to do.

On arrival at the charity’s Elephant & Castle offices it was clear that a very different side of this supposedly Christian organisation would be on display.

At first several staff – who may have been security but never identified themselves as such – refused to allow protesters into the building.  In what appeared to be a change of heart they then relented and opened the doors to allow people inside.

Once inside another workfare sermon began and then some of those present began to sing hymns.  This seemed to particularly annoy the charity’s staff who called the police.  The mood quickly turned ugly as the Salvation Army’s bully boys began shouting at protesters that they were blocking fire exists and would be arrested – a claim which was clearly nonsense as there was easy access in and out of the building.

Despite not only having been told to visit by the organisation’s International Headquarters, and allowed onto the premises, they then began accusing people of trespass and demanding that people should give them their mobile phones and cameras.

Shocked at the aggresive response to a completely peaceful and non threatening action, a decision was made by the protesters to leave.  Sadly only one person made it out of the building as the Salvation Army thugs blocked the door and attempted to grab hold of people to physically prevent anyone from leaving.
As this took place the police arrived and one Salvation Army staff member began insisting the person who had escaped from the building had assaulted him, leading to the individual being arrested.  A stand off ensued as those inside were finally freed – the charity presumably deciding that kidnapping people in full view of the police was a step too far even for their shady operation.

Police were heard discussing amongst themselves that they had witnessed people being trapped inside by Salvation Army employees.  After tense negotiations it appeared even the police didn’t believe the charity’s wild claims and the individual accused of assault was de-arrested and allowed to leave.

After the good-natured protest earlier in the day this shocking sequence of events showed the true nature of this charity’s response to criticism.  Physical force, false allegations and abuse replaced the fake cheery PR front that the charity have attempted to portray when criticised for using workfare.

It seems that the Salvation Army are determined to silence any criticism of their dirty little workfare exploitation.  A day of online action in response to these events has now been called by Boycott Workfare tomorrow (Tues 18th March).

The Salvation Army are on twitter @salvationarmyuk
They can be found on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/salvationarmyuk

Spread the word and let’s tell the Salvation Army exactly what the public thinks of their workfare exploitation and attempted use of force and false allegations to silence criticism.

(watch this space for more contact info)

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

The Void

Iain Duncan Smith Bashes the Bishop [the void]

As if we didn’t already know that Iain Duncan Smith is a wanker, the bungling Work and Pensions Secretary has resorted to bashing the bishops in yet another rant defending his vicious social security slashing regime.

His latest outburst comes after 43 Bishops wrote to him warning that

“As a civilised society, we have a duty to support those among us who are vulnerable and in need. When times are hard, that duty should be felt more than ever, not disappear or diminish.

‘It is essential that we have a welfare system that responds to need and recognises the rising costs of food, fuel and housing.”

  This led to yet another tantrum from the Work and Pensions Secretary who claimed: “There is nothing moral or fair about a system that I inherited that trapped people in welfare dependency. Some one in every five households has no work – that’s not the way to end child poverty”.

And the thing is, for once in his life he’s right.  There is nothing moral about a system that condemns millions to lives of unemployment and poverty whilst people like Iain Duncan Smith live in luxury (in his case scrounging off his wife’s inheritance).  There is nothing moral about a society that excludes disabled people or those with mental health conditions from fully participating.  There is nothing moral about the shocking fact that people who often do some of the hardest physical work are not even paid enough to keep them fed, housed and warm.  There is nothing moral about capitalism at all.

Yet Iain Duncan Smith’s answer is not full employment and neither is it greater workplace access for disabled people – which has fallen by over a third since this Government weren’t elected.  His answer is not to demand a living wage or rent caps or more council housing – nothing must trouble the landlord class after all.  His answer is not even quality training and free education to at least provide an illusion of social mobility.
His answer is certainly not to question the system under which an arms dealer or loan shark becomes rich beyond belief whilst being a parent or carer is no longer even judged to be legitimate work because it doesn’t make a profit for the rich.  Jesus Christ would weep if only he weren’t a largely fictional character from an archaic Middle Eastern soap opera.

Iain Duncan Smith’s answer is to punish the poor for their own predicament.  His idea of a moral society is one where those with least are forced to claw each other’s eyes out in the scramble for the few scraps the rich toss down from above.  And for those who don’t make it into insecure low paid work, let them die in the gutter.  Let their children starve.  Let them lose their homes and be forcibly relocated hundreds of miles away from school, family and friends. Force them to work without pay or let them beg in the street as a lesson to the rest of us.

Honest capitalists will admit that unemployment is vital for the system to function.  That otherwise workers, not bosses, might have the power.  No capitalist country anywhere in the world has achieved real full employment and almost all, including the UK, have given up trying.  There are hundreds of people chasing every vacancy in some parts of the country.

Iain Duncan Smith is either all too aware that unemployment is here to stay and doesn’t care what happens to those unable to find work.  Or he is arrogant enough to believe his tinkering with social security contains the magic button that will somehow fix the problems created by capitalism.  Problems that no-one else, anywhere in the world, has come close to solving.  And his cure is forced unpaid work, benefit cuts and homelessness.

In other words he is either stupid or a genuinely nasty human being whose true agenda is merely to brutalise the very poorest.  Every crisis needs a scapegoat, and Iain Duncan Smith has chosen low income families, disabled and unemployed people as the human sacrifice to atone for the sins of the rich.
Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

the void

What was the real purpose of David Cameron's visit to India?

With little mention from the British media, Cameron is negotiating trade agreements that will open the UK jobs market to considerable inflows of Indian labour.

 
Vince Cable & David Cameron - Image: Prime Ministers Office

When David Cameron made a recent trip to India[i], with a huge business and media entourage, the main purpose of the trip remained hidden from the UK public despite the media presence.

The core purpose of the trip was to boost completion of the bilateral EU/India Free Trade Agreement by assuring India that its government’s sole demand in this agreement, for Indian companies to be able to supply cheap temporary labour into the EU but primarily into the UK, will be met. This is what UK media, including BBC staff, failed to report.

In statements he made while there, Cameron said there would be no limits on numbers of ‘students’, ‘workers’  - later changed to ‘graduates’ - and ‘businesspeople’ who would be welcome in the UK.
While the statement foregrounded ‘students’ coming to the UK and those who then stay and work in graduate jobs[ii], the clue to the trade agreement being the purpose of the visit is the reference to ‘workers'[iii].

Two pieces of information about the EU/India Free Trade Agreement are of enormous importance to the present and future resident UK workforce. The first is that, although this agreement has been negotiated for the last 5 years by the EU Trade Commission as an EU deal, it is, according to key Trade Commission staff, essentially a UK/India deal, in which the UK ‘can expect 85% of the gain and 85% of the pain’[iv].

The second is that the single demand India is making in this deal is for any Indian company to be able to supply temporary skilled labour into the EU[v] – but, with reference to the first point, primarily into the UK[vi].

In ‘tradespeak’, this part of ‘trade’ that is about bringing or sending workers across borders is called ‘Mode 4’. Mode 4 openings are effectively permanent commitments to open up and stay open to cross border labour supply.

Despite its generally secretive way of operating, Trade Commission negotiators have admitted throughout the negotiating period that there will be no EU/India Free Trade Agreement without Mode 4 concessions[vii], underscoring the fact that Mode 4 concessions are the single demand from the Indian side.

Thus an effectively irreversible international trade agreement is resting on the UK opening its borders to an unlimited supply of temporary, cheap, skilled labour - just what David Cameron offered to India on this trip.
UK jobs are being traded primarily for the liberalised access to Indian financial services such as banking and insurance[viii] that London-based transnational financial corporations are seeking. Cameron repeatedly emphasised the need for India to make these reciprocal liberalisations on his trip.

These concessions would be the ‘gains’ - 85 % to the UK, although actually to transnational financial services based in the City of London.

The ‘pain’ – 85% to the UK – will be the Mode 4 opening in response to Indian demands which must inevitably mean broad scale job displacements and the driving down of hard-won working conditions in the UK. Although financial service investment opportunities overseas may involve UK pension funds, they will not produce UK jobs.

Because trade agreement commitments are effectively permanent - to provide ‘investor security’ - these labour effects will be continuing, affecting future generations of UK resident workers too.

Apart from effects on individuals and the work force overall, broad scale temporary labour immigration can also have negative effects on the national economy, on economic recovery and the economic future.
As temporary migrant workers displace UK resident workers, the unemployment bill increases here while wages are repatriated overseas. Thus the earn/spend cycle needed for economic recovery is undermined. No tax or National Insurance is collected.

The skills base is eroded for the future so that ‘skills shortage’ becomes self-fulfilling, as is happening now in the vital and cross-cutting computing sector[ix].  Individuals are deterred from investing in their own skills development when it means being in competition with unlimited cheap labour, not just from work being sent overseas but also through the importation of workers prepared to work for low wages.

Big business gains not only from the trade agreement trade-off, but also from the very profitable supply and use of cross-border labour, capitalising on the wage differential between lower and higher wage countries, and from the overall reduction in labour costs from the resulting downward pressure on wages in general.
Wages levels and other labour standards, as well as any balance between capital and labour, are achieved and maintained through the interrelated factors of limits to labour supply and the establishment of industrial agreements.

With EU Mode 4 trade concessions, Member States set their own limiting or delimiting regulatory framework. EU Mode 4 concessions for skilled worker entry potentially delimit labour supply and the UK government appears to be choosing to go all the way with this. At the same time, the pro-business European Court of Justice has established that only nationally-legislated industrial standards have legal standing[x] thus only the minimum wage counts. This puts UK skilled workers potentially in competition for the minimum wage with unlimited imported labour.

The Mode 4 categories that India is requesting in this trade deal are Contractual Service Suppliers (CSS), workers supplied by any Indian firm that is not transnationally established, and Independent Professionals (IPs) -  thus the skilled workers  or ‘graduates’ to which Cameron referred.

The UK has existing commitments for another Mode 4 category[xi], Intra-corporate Transferees’ (ICTs). These are workers brought across borders by transnationally-established companies.

As an indication for future Mode 4 commitments, it is informative to consider how this existing commitment is being regulated by the UK government and utilised by transnational corporations. Although the UK’s actual ‘Intra-corporate Transferees’ commitment is only for senior managers and specialists, the government is allowing trans-national companies (TNCs) to bring in a much broader band of workers.

The Tier 2 ICT category of the UK Points Based System (PBS) has no numerical limits and is now the biggest labour migration category in the Points Based System[xii].

Although the Coalition government has an ‘immigration cap’[xiii], the government has excluded temporary workers from the cap. This exemption is contradictory as effects on the resident workforce were a rationale for having a cap, and temporary workers, unable to organise, potentially have a significant negative effect.
The government is allowing ICTs who come for less than a year, which is the majority of them, to be paid just the minimum wage[xiv], made up to a low industry norm with tax-free expenses. The higher wage requirement which Vince Cable, Secretary of State for the department of business[xv], tends to emphasise is for the smaller number of workers that come for more than a year.

‘Temporary’ is not defined in trade rules. According to the TUC, the government stipulates that this can now be 9-10 years[xvi]  in the UK.

In fact the majority of the ‘ICTs’ brought in by transnational corporations are actually being supplied into other firms on a day rate. This allows transnational corporations to cream off profits from their ability to utilise the UK’s Mode 4 ICT (labour transfer) commitment while client firms are able to offload employer responsibilities. ‘Intra-corporate Transferees’ workers are reliant on the transnational company for their visa: UK workers are displaced or not hired.

The UK Points Based System was recently specifically prepared for Contractual Service Suppliers[xvii] within the ‘international agreements’ category in Tier 5, before the EU/India deal is finalised and shortly before David Cameron’s visit. Like the Tier 2 ICT category, this category has no numerical limit. Unlike the ICT category, which has a minimum salary requirement, albeit low, there is no salary floor for Contractual Service Suppliers. The other Tier 5 categories are sportspersons and religious workers and Tier 5 receives little attention.

There is now an intense barrage of propaganda and ‘news’ items promoting India in the UK, as well as on-going propaganda about the need for migrant workers. TheCityUK, the lobbying and propaganda organisation for the City of London Corporation and the transnational businesses that comprise the City, is well resourced to produce propaganda from the bequests made over centuries for the City to administer to the poor.

When David Cameron’s spin team changed ‘workers’ to ‘graduates’ during the India trip, it created ambiguity as to whether this meant those who come to study and then work in graduate jobs in the UK or those from Indian educational institutions who come as workers. The media posse, it seems, accepted the former meaning, but, as the Prime Minister was talking about entry, this clearly meant the entry of skilled workers who have graduated overseas[xviii].

The existing commitments for Intracorporate Transferees and Business Visitors combined with currently negotiated openings for Contractual Service Suppliers and Independent Professionals means that the UK will be open to skilled workers brought in under any employment circumstances, without numerical limits.
In response to enquiries, Number 10 and the Home Office will only make reference to existing trade commitments, current rules and Tier 2 ICT provision and not to the Free Trade Agreement trade-off covertly promised in the Prime Minister’s statements.

But we need to know the implications of commitments that are being made on our behalf before they become irreversible.

No 10 does now admit that Cameron discussed the Free Trade Agreement with the Indian Prime Minister during his trip, though it seems not to have been reported at the time.

Ultimately, Number 10 can hide behind the EU Trade Commission’s insistence that its trade negotiations are secret until they are completed. Yet as negotiators and business lobbyists[xix] on both sides of the negotiating able know what is on offer, it is only the public - which will bear the brunt of the commitments - that is kept in the dark by this ‘confidentiality’.

David Cameron made a prior trade trip to India in 2010, directly after the election, with Vince Cable. They then failed to mention the EU/India Free Trade Agreement, the central role of the UK in that agreement, the pivotal importance of India’s Mode 4 demands or what they will mean for people in the UK.

On this trip, while again keeping it all effectively secret from the UK public, David Cameron promised everything the Indian government has been demanding in the Free Trade Agreement. It all begs the questions of why top UK politicians are so underhand with the people they supposedly work for, and on whose behalf are they working? The British public are being kept in the dark about trade agreements that could have significant impact on their livelihoods.


Notes

[i] Dates of visit 18-20th February 2013
[ii] In his speech at Unilever, the PM said that for Indian students coming to the UK to study ‘there’s no real limit on the length of time you can stay and work in the United Kingdom’ http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/david-camerons-speech-at-unilever-offices-in-mumbai/ while the Home office has indicated that those who come and graduate here and stay and work will only have to be paid in the 10th percentile of the industry norm wage http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/immigration/soi-cop-skilled-workers?view=Binary p5 
[iii] Joint statement on the India-United Kingdom summit 2013 at Hyderabad House, Delhi 19 February. http://ukinindia.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=PressR&id=858563882
 Point 8 affirms the joint commitment to completion of the EU/India Free Trade Agreement. Point 48 ‘welcomes all legitimate ...qualified workers’
[iv] Personal interview with the EU Trade Commission’s Mode 4 specialist
[v] Email response from the EU Trade Commission’s senior trade lawyer
[vi] An EU document leaked by the union organisation of another Member State showed the UK prepared to take the lion’s share of the EU’s commitment on the entry temporary migrant labour supplied by Indian firms. In fact the purpose of this document, shared by other Member State governments with their union organisations, was to reassure them that their commitments would be very small and thus secure their support for the agreement. The figures for the UK, even at a much higher level, cannot be taken as an upper limit. The UK government did not share the document.
[vii] A chief EU Trade Commission negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero has stated this in several of the Trade Commission’s Civil Society Dialogue sessions
[viii] Other ‘EU’ demands are for profit-sharing for ‘Big Pharma’[1][viii]  in India’s generic medicines industry[1][viii], access for mixed retail giants such as Tesco and Carrefour[1][viii] and for subsidised EU dairy products into India. The EU also wants reduced tariffs on goods imported into India, especially cars. These corporate-demand liberalisations, including of financial services, have been protested in India because of the anticipated negative effects there.
[ix] http://www.cphc.ac.uk/docs/cphc-computinggraduates-june08.pdf http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/inside-outsourcing/2013/01/restrict-it-offshoring-and-prevent-immanent-skills-shortage.html
[x] Notably the Viking, Laval and Ruffert cases.
[xi] These 1995 commitments from the Uruguay Round of trade talks from which the World Trade Organisation was set up, and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) initiated. Mode 4 is part of services and the EU made GATS Mode 4 ICT commitments at that time.
[xii] http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/28/companies-bypassing-immigration-cap
[xiii] The Migration advisory Committee previously recommended capping ICT numbers, but the UK government did not cap this category.
[xiv] Previously ICTs could be paid less than the Minimum Wage until the illegality of this was raised in parliamentary questions
[xv] The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
[xvi] Owen Tudor, head of the TUC’s international Department in BBC radio 4 Today Program discussion November 2012
[xvii] Contractual Service Suppliers are within ‘international agreements’ in Tier 5 of the PBS. See the UK Border Agency’s November 2012 document showing changes to accommodate this Mode 4 CSS category in Tier 5 of the UK Points Based System (pp75-76, points 7.27-7.29) at this webpage http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/statementsofchanges/
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wms/?id=2012-11-22a.40WS.0
[xviii] Graduates or graduate equivalent’ is the trade stipulation that the EU makes for Mode 4 entry
[xix] Non-Government Organisation Corporate European Observatory is currently pursuing legal action against the EU Trade Commission in regard to the access that business has been given to negotiating positions on the EU/India Free Trade Agreement which has been denied to civil society.

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