ProgressivA

🎙 New episode of our podcast while at the European parliament is being approved a directive on the Minimum Wage. To talk about minimum wage there were Katren Rogers, PhD in Politics at Lund University, Arturo Bjørklund Winters, Member of the SPD in Berlin and currently working at the European parliament, and Paco Martino Ruzzante, PhD in economic history at the University of Cambridge. We discussed the European situation and about minimum wage as an instrument for the different countries.

Topics:

✅ what is a minimum wage?

✅ What are the main critics of minimum wage as an instrument?

✅ What does the proposal approved in the European parliament entail?

✅ What is the next step.

✊ Arbury Road is a grassroots project which lives thanks to the work of its volunteers and to the donations of our readers. If you wish to support the project you can do it here!👇

Arbury Road is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

First of all, thanks for subscribing to our newsletter, and if you can help support us by becoming a paying subscriber or by inviting other people to subscribe to the newsletter that would be great. Arbury Road is a grassroots project that works thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, so a donation can really make a difference. Now let’s start with the article that we published this week:

💉 Panic before use

🏥 This week we have an interesting article on the efficacy of Covid vaccines. As countries throughout Europe and the world have gone through the process of vaccinating their populations this year, there has been a lot of fake news. In this article, which is the first piece authored by Mimmo Brombin for Arbury Road, we present a few statistics that show that Covid vaccines are not only not dangerous, but also very effective. Mimmo writes:

‘Data from the American CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) suggests that the lucky ones are certainly the "fearless" vaccinated: vaccinated people have a 17 times lower risk of being hospitalized due to COVID-19 than the unvaccinated’. 

A review of COP26

🌳 COP26 just ended. There were a lot of controversies and many protests, but some important results were also achieved.

👩‍💻 Check out our infographic in the link to find out what happened!

✊ Still, a lot needs to be done, and the time to act is now! Ultimately, the fight to avert planetary breakdown is intersectional! We invite you to follow Third World Network and futuros indigenas! And of course Arbury Road! ❤️

🅖🅡🅔🅐🅣 🅝🅔🅦🅢 🅕🅡🅞🅜 🅟🅞🅡🅣🅤🅖🅐🅛

🇵🇹 Portugal approved a new work law which is in line with the European Union guidelines for improving work-life balance ➡️ See the infographic in the link ⬇️

✊ Minimum Wage - Arbury Road Podcast

🎙🇪🇺 In this new episode of our podcast we talked about the minimum wage with Simone Fana, an Italian intellectual and journalist who has collaborated with magazines such as Left, L'Internazionale, and Jacobin.

📕 The discussion is based on the book NO MORE HUNGER WAGES that he wrote together with Marta Fana. ➡️ https://www.laterza.it/scheda-book/?isbn=9788858138878

➡️ Topics covered: ✅ what is the minimum wage? ✅ why a minimum wage is needed in Italy ✅ what are the main criticisms of the minimum wage and how do we respond? ✅ how does the minimum wage fit into a more general progressive vision of the future?

🇮🇹 The podcast is in Italian but with English subtitles on youtube. Next week we will also have another episode on the minimum wage in Europe in English.

❤️ That’s all for this week! Thank you for listening, and if you are interested in joining the Arbury Road team you can write us at:

🇪🇺 [email protected] and [email protected]

🇩🇪 [email protected]

🇮🇹 [email protected]

🎙🇮🇹 In questo nuovo episodio del nostro podcast abbiamo parlato di salario minimo con Simone Fana, intellettuale e giornalista italiano che ha collaborato con riviste come Left, l'Internazionale, Jacobin.

📕 La discussion è basata sul libro BASTA SALARI DA FAME che ha scritto assieme a Marta Fana. https://www.laterza.it/scheda-libro/?isbn=9788858138878

➡️ Temi trattati:

✅ che cos’è il salario minimo?

✅ perché è fondamentale l'approvazione nel caso italiano

✅ quali sono le critiche principali fatte al salario minimo e come rispondiamo.

✅ come si inserisce il salario minimo in una più generale visione progressista del futuro.

❤️ Vi ricordiamo che Arbury Road è un grass-root project che vive grazie al tempo e alla passione dei suoi volontari. Iscrivetevi alla nostra newsletter sul sito per rimanere aggiornati e se volete donare potete farlo diventando un paying subscriber! ⬇️

🎙🇪🇺 In this new episode of our podcast we talked about the minimum wage with Simone Fana, an Italian intellectual and journalist who has collaborated with magazines such as Left, L'Internazionale, The Jacobin.

📕 The discussion is based on the book NO MORE HUNGER WAGES that he wrote together with Marta Fana. https://www.laterza.it/scheda-book/?isbn=9788858138878

➡️ Topics covered:

✅ what is the minimum wage?

✅ because approval is essential in the Italian case

✅ what are the main criticisms made of the minimum wage and how we respond.

✅ how the minimum wage fits into a more general progressive vision of the future.

❤️ We remind you that Arbury Road is a grass-roots project that lives thanks to the time and passion of its volunteers. Subscribe to our newsletter on the site to stay up to date and if you want to donate you can do so by becoming a paying subscriber! And you can get 50% with our Christmas offer! ⬇️

First of all, thanks for subscribing to our newsletter, and if you can help support us by becoming a paying subscriber or by inviting other people to subscribe to the newsletter that would be great. Arbury Road is a grassroots project that works thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, so a donation can really make the difference. Now let’s start with the article that we published this week:

✍️ One year of Arbury Road

Yesterday, we released this piece written by my co-Editor-In-Chief, Paco Martino Ruzzante, who reviewed the first year of Arbury Road. It was a tough year, in the middle of a pandemic, and there were a lot of challenges. But the project developed and we managed to grow both the team and our ambitions. Paco writes that ‘When together with a group of friends and colleagues we decided to start Arbury Road, it was probably the worst moment to begin such an undertaking’, but ‘sometimes the worst time is also the time when something is needed most’:

🇪🇺 In Europe this week:

🇵🇱 Protests in Poland

We saw Poles march against the abortion ban that was brought in last October, after thirty-year-old Izabela died from complications of an unviable pregnancy.

On 22nd October 2020, the Polish Constitutional Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for women to terminate their pregnancies even in cases of severe and irreversible foetal defects, leading to a near-total ban on abortion.

The European Parliament has declared the decision illegitimate, because it undermines the self-determination of Polish women by endangering their lives.

We are pleased that the the parliament has taken this stance, and we believe that the EU has a duty to defend the rights of women to decide what happens to their own bodies, not least - but also not only - in the case of medical need.

🇵🇱🇧🇾Humanitarian crisis at the Belarusian Border

At the border between Poland and Belarus, a new humanitarian crisis is developing.

After the European Union imposed sanctions on Minsk last June over serious human rights violations, the government of Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko has retaliated by pushing thousands of migrants into neighbouring EU member countries, who in response have sealed their borders.

This political tug of war has turned the eastern borders of the Union into a sometimes life-threatening place for thousands of asylum seekers.

We believe that the European Union must remain firm in its principles, refusing to abandon the rule of law, but also upholding the principle of acceptance towards those who flee from wars or humanitarian crises.

Equal Pay day

10th November was #equalpayday, the symbol of wage inequality between women and men in Europe. Within the EU, women are paid an hourly equivalent of 14.1% less than men on average. That’s almost two months of salary, so from now until the end of the year, women start working for free.

We recently published two podcasts on the topic, if you’d like to learn more:

1️⃣ With Alessandra Moretti, MEP for the S&D group and member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality.

2️⃣ On the Gender Pay Gap in Europe and the law on equal pay recently passed in Italy with Alessia Pittelli Giorgia Cazzola and Paco Martino Ruzzante.

🎙 Both podcasts are in Italian 🇮🇹 but with English subtitles on youtube.

🇩🇪 Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

This week also marked the 32nd anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which symbolised the road to the reunification of Germany. The country had been divided for over four decades after the end of the Second World War.

On this anniversary, we celebrate living in a Europe without borders, but we recognise that today the battle for freedom and equality on the continent is still raging, with close neighbours struggling to free themselves from authoritarian power. We support those who fight this battle for an even more united Europe that guarantees a fair and decent life for all who make this place their home.

That’s our summary of this week on Arbury Road. If you’d like to see more from us, you can follow us on facebook, twitter, and instagram for updates throughout the week, and subscribe to us on youtube, spotify, or your favourite podcast platform. If you enjoy our content, please take a moment to like and share our posts, and invite your friends to subscribe to this newsletter on our website. As a grassroots organisation, this really helps us. We are driven by volunteers and even if you’re not able to make a donation sharing our work is a great contribution!

We keep fighting next week for a fairer Europe, a stronger EU and a more sustainable world.

First of all thanks for subscribing to our newsletter, and if you can help us by becoming a paying subscriber or by inviting other people to subscribe to our newsletter that would be great. Arbury Road is a grassroots project which works thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, so a donation can really make the difference. Now, to the news. A lot happened in Europe this week!

🌳 COP26 🌍

Let’s start with the COP26. The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference started on the 30th of October and the situation is really alarming.

⚠️ The State of the Global Climate 2021 report presented by the WMO stated that the past seven years have been the hottest on record since scientific measurements of the Earth's temperature began, and rising ocean levels have also reached record levels. 🥵🌊

🌡 Scientists found that the average temperature in 2021, between January and September, was about 1.09 degrees above the 1850-1900 average - that is, above the temperatures of the pre-industrial period.

🌊 The report also shows that the increase in ocean levels has undergone a further surge since 2013. While between 1993 and 2002 there was a 2.1 mm rise per year, from 2013 to today that has increased to 4.4 mm per year.

😡 There is also huge controversy around a series of hypocritical moves by COP26 participants.

👎 First, #JeffBezos, the founder of Amazon, led a parade of 400 private jets to the conference in Glasgow. Among these were dozens of royalty and so-called "green" CEOs, which created an extraordinary traffic jam. On Sunday at least 52 private jets landed in Glasgow. Conservative forecasts suggest that the incoming private jet fleet for COP26 will generate 13,000 tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of the amount produced by more than 1,600 Britons in a year.

👎 Greta Thunberg, together with other activists from Greenpeace and the Indigenous Environmental Network, interrupted a panel on carbon offsets to protest about “greenwashing” and the dangers of relying on the credits to compensate for emissions. We support Greta’s position. There is no more time for excuses, we need immediate action!

🎙🏳️‍🌈 PODCAST ON THE DDL ZAN ⚧ 🏳️‍⚧️

This week we were lucky to be able to interview Alessandro Ceccarelli, Cambridge researcher, activist for LGBTQI + rights and member of the steering committee for "Fast Track Cities". In the podcast, Alessandro discussed with Giorgia the recent stoppage of the Zan Bill which would finally have given Italy a law against homotransphobia. The discussion was really interesting, and I learned a lot so I invite you to listen to it and to let us know what you think!

🇪🇺🇵🇱 Izabela killed by the Abortion Ban in Poland

🆘 In 2021 one would hope that death due to abortion would have almost disappeared. Instead, deaths due to illegal abortion are still a sad reality in the world and in Europe.

🇪🇺 But it is even more concerning when a death happens in the middle of Europe. And not because of legal practices, but because of a law that basically bans abortion. Izabella, a woman from Pszczyna (Poland) died at a Polish hospital in September after suffering septic shock — but her family only made the case public last week. According to her family lawyer, the doctors, legally unable to perform a termination, instead had to wait for the foetus to die, causing Izabella's death in the process.

✊🇵🇱 We support all the people in Poland who are protesting against this inhumane law. We also want to suggest two contributions published on Arbury Road that talk about this question:

🎙 The first is an interview we made with Iwona Reichardt

🗣 Iwona is deputy Editor-in-Chief of an English language magazine "New Eastern Europe" and co-founder of "FemGlobal", a new association in Poland that gathers female professionals employed in foreign policy, and is co-author of the book "Will women save the world? Feminist foreign policy" (2020). Here she talks about the situation in Poland in recent months. While the situation is dramatic, in the conclusion she stresses that she hopes this will bring about change in the future, and a re-affirmation of European values. ❤️

📝 The second is an article written by Josephine Neil

🗣 Josephine is a UK based researcher in art, religion and the history of ideas. In her article, she uses art to reflect on the situation in Poland and, in general, on abortion as a right.

🇪🇺 Review of the week and we want to close with something positive

I promised myself to always close with a piece of good news, as it helps to keep up morale in this difficult period, given all the problems that we are facing. And the good news is that the President of the European Commission, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, has announced that an agreement will be reached on a Minimum Global Tax.

This is potentially a historical leap forward for the battle towards global equality. The agreement should mean the application of minimum taxation of 15% for multinationals everywhere in the world. And multinationals would also have to pay taxes in the country where they make their income, and not only where they have their fiscal residency. Now, of course, this is not enough, and many progressives have affirmed that 15% is very little. After all, an average European worker pays around 20-25% of their income in taxes, why shouldn’t multinational firms pay more? I agree with that. Nonetheless, if it becomes reality it is a fundamental first step in the direction of a fairer society.

❤️ Thanks to all of you who read, and once again if you can help to spread Arbury Road’s message we would really appreciate it!

🇮🇹🎙Nuovo episodio di EU&ME sul DDL Zan ed i diritti LGBTQI+ in Europa. Giorgia Cazzola, Avvocata e Co-founder di Arbury Road ne discute con Alessandro Ceccarelli, Ricercatore di Cambridge, attivista per i diritti LGBTQI+ e membro del comitato direttivo di "Fast Track Cities". Versione sottotitolata su youtube (link sottostante).

✊ Argomenti trattati: ✅ Cos’è il DDL Zan e perché l'Italia ha così bisogno di una legge contro i crimini d'odio di matrice omotransfobica? ✅ Una risposta alle infondate critiche al contenuto del DDL Zan ✅ Qual è la situazione nel resto d'Europa per ciò che concerne la tutela dei diritti LGBTQI+? ✅ I prossimi step che l'Italia e l'Unione Europea devono compiere.

🇪🇺🎙New episode of EU&ME on DDL Zan and LGBTQI + rights in Europe. Giorgia Cazzola, Lawyer and Co-founder of Arbury Road discusses it with Alessandro Ceccarelli, Cambridge researcher, activist for LGBTQI + rights and member of the steering committee of "Fast Track Cities". Subs on the youtube version below!

✊ Topics covered: ✅ What is the Zan Bill and why does Italy so need a law against homotransphobic hate crimes? ✅ A response to unfounded criticisms of the content of the Zan bill ✅ What is the situation in the rest of Europe as regards the protection of LGBTQI + rights? ✅ The next steps that Italy and the European Union must take.

🎙Podcast on the Gender Pay Gap during the European Gender Equality Week! We focused on the Italian Equal Pay Draft Bill. To discuss the GPG we had Giorgia Cazzola, Lawyer and Co-founder of Arbury Road and Alessia Pittelli, Lawyer and previously National Head of the Young Democrats. The podcast is in Italian but you find the subtitles in English and other languages on youtube! As always the podcast is available also on Spotify ➡️ (links below). Topics addressed:

✅ What is the gender pay gap

✅ How it negatively affects the economy and people's lives

✅ Law on Equal pay in Italy - does it resolve the gender pay gap or could more be done?

✅ SPOILER ALLERT: the law doesn't fix the situation and more needs to be done!

✅ What can we do better?

✅ Examples of initiatives in other virtuous countries in Europe and in the world.

✅ The cultural (and communicative) change we need!

www. arburyroad.eu

🇪🇺🇩🇪 Nach zähen, langen und emotionalen Verhandlungen scheint eine Einigung für die Gestaltung der Zukunft der Gemeinsamen Agrarpolitik in der EU erreicht worden zu sein. Ist es uns grün, nachhaltig und sozial genug? Was wird demnächst in unseren Supermäkten landen? Und wie wird sich unsere Landschaft verändern? Dieses Themengebiet haben wir im Gespräch mit Maria Noichl als Agrarexpertin im Europäischen Parlament durchleuchtet.

🇪🇺 ENG: After long and complicated negotiations, an agreement for the future of common agricultural policy (CAP) in the EU seems to have been achieved. Is the result ambitious? Will it achieve green, sustainable and social goals? What will we find in our supermarket? And how will our landscape change? Arturo Winters co-founder of Arbury Road, talked about all of this with Maria Noichl, German MEP and expert on agriculture in the European Parliament. The podcast is in German but with subtitles in different languages.

🎙Join the Arbury Road team for Episode 1 of our new podcast series. 

👤Today we discuss all things welfare with PhD student at Lund University, Katren Rogers. 

Our podcast is available also on Spotify and Youtube! Follow us!