Nutritix

Tag: Politics

  • Britain hit by biggest day of strikes in a decade as pay disputes escalate

    Britain hit by biggest day of strikes in a decade as pay disputes escalate

    As many as half a million workers are striking across Britain on Wednesday, closing schools, canceling university lectures, and bringing most of the rail network to a standstill in what unions say is the biggest single day of walkouts in more than a decade.

    Teachers, university staff, train drivers, and civil servants — including staff checking passports at airports — are striking in large numbers over pay and working conditions as living standards continue to plunge after years of below-inflation raises.

    At the same time, the Trades Union Congress, which represents 48 unions, is holding over 75 rallies across the United Kingdom to protest a government bill that it argues is an “attack” on the right to strike. The bill would require basic service levels to be maintained in the fire, ambulance, and rail sectors in the event of walkouts.

    The escalating strike action comes just weeks after the government tried to resolve pay disputes to bring an end to the worst wave of industrial unrest the country has seen in decades. Many public sector workers have been offered raises of 4% or 5% for the current financial year, with the annual rate of inflation running at 10.5%

    Up to 300,000 teachers are expected to strike on Wednesday, marking the first of seven days of strike action through February and March by the National Education Union, the largest union in the sector. Strikes will affect around 23,400 schools, about 85%, in England and Wales, with many closed fully or partially.

    Wednesday also marks the beginning of strikes by 70,000 members of the University and College Union (UCU), which will hit 150 UK universities on 18 days in February and March, affecting 2.5 million students.

    Meanwhile, more than 100,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents civil servants, will strike over pay, pensions, and job security at 123 government departments and agencies. 

    And only around 30% of train services are expected to run on Wednesday, according to Britain’s railway company Rail Delivery Group, which warned in a statement on its website that the disruption could drag on into the rest of the week because many trains won’t be in the right depots.

  • Damien Lillard hits 42 points as Portland Trail Blazers beat Memphis Grizzlies

    Damien Lillard hits 42 points as Portland Trail Blazers beat Memphis Grizzlies

    Damian Lillard scored 42 points for the second game in a row as the Portland Trail Blazers defeated the Memphis Grizzlies 122-112.

    Lillard, who also had 10 assists and eight rebounds, now has 49 40-point career games.

    He is tied with Shaquille O’Neal in 19th place on the list of players with the most 40-point games in NBA history. 

    Elsewhere, the Boston Celtics beat the Brooklyn Nets who remain without the injured Kevin Durant.

    Jayson Tatum scored 31 points and Jaylen Brown added 26 as the Celtics overwhelmed their Eastern Conference rivals 139-96 – scoring 46 points in the first quarter alone – to remain top of the table.

    Kyrie Irving had 20 points, four rebounds, and four assists for the Nets, who have now lost their past 10 games against Boston.

    The Philadelphia 76ers earned swift revenge for Monday’s surprising defeat by the Orlando Magic, beating the Florida side 105-94 in Wednesday’s rematch.

    The Sixers had gone into Monday’s game on the back of seven straight wins but let a 21-point advantage slip as they lost 119-109.

    But Joel Embiid scored 28 points while James Harden added 26, including six three-pointers, and also had nine rebounds and 10 assists.

    The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Golden State Warriors 119-114 in overtime while there were also wins for Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings, Utah Jazz, and Atlanta Hawks but the Detroit Pistons home game against the Washington Wizards was postponed with the Pistons stuck in Dallas because of an ice storm.

  • King Charles will not appear on the new Australia $5 note

    King Charles will not appear on the new Australia $5 note

    King Charles III will not feature on Australia’s new five dollar note, the country’s central bank has announced.

    The new design will pay tribute to “the culture and history” of Indigenous Australians, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) says.

    A portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II appears on the current design of the five-dollar note.

    The Queen’s death last year reignited debates about Australia’s future as a constitutional monarchy.

    “This decision by the Reserve Bank Board follows consultation with the Australian government, which supports this change,” the bank said in a statement.

    “The Bank will consult with First Australians in designing the $5 banknote. The new banknote will take a number of years to be designed and printed. In the meantime, the current $5 banknote will continue to be issued. It will be able to be used even after the new banknote is issued,” it added.

    The A$5 banknote is the only Australian banknote to carry the image of a British monarch. The late Queen appears on the country’s coins as well, although Australia is transitioning to using an effigy of King Charles III.

    The RBA told the BBC it has not yet set a date for when it will reveal the new five-dollar note design.

    The decision was welcomed by Aboriginal politicians and community leaders.

    “This is a massive win for the grassroots, First Nations people who have been fighting to decolonize this country,” said Lidia Thorpe, a Greens senator and DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman.

    First Nations people lived in Australia for at least 65,000 years before British colonization, according to recent estimates.

    The King became the British monarch after his mother’s death in September.

    As the British monarch, he is also the head of state of Australia, New Zealand, and 12 other Commonwealth realms outside the United Kingdom. The role is largely ceremonial.

    The British monarch’s portrait has appeared on at least one design in every series of Australian banknotes.

    However, in September Australia said the image of the new monarch would not automatically replace the Queen on its five-dollar notes, and that she might be replaced by Australian figures.

  • How worker surveillance is backfiring on employers

    How worker surveillance is backfiring on employers

    Before the pandemic, Mark had a lot of autonomy in his job in the IT department of a US industrial firm. He and his teammates were able to get their work done, he says, “without our manager doing much, you know, managing”. 

    That changed abruptly when the company transitioned to working from home. “The monitoring started on day one,” says Mark, whose surname is being withheld for career concerns. The company began using software that enabled remote control of employees’ systems, and Mark says his team had to give their manager the password “so he could connect without us having to accept. If the password changed, he requested it by email first thing in the morning”.

    The surveillance, explained Mark’s manager, was aimed at making sure everyone stayed productive and had the same kind of open communication they’d had in the office. In reality, it made Mark anxious, and contributed to him quickly feeling overworked and burnt out. “It was just stressful, feeling that I had to be actively using the computer at all times for fear of him thinking something like a phone call or bathroom break was me slacking off,” he says.

    With the rise in remote work has come a surge in workplace monitoring – some 2022 estimates posit the number of large firms monitoring workers has doubled since the beginning of the pandemic. Some monitoring programs record keystrokes or track computer activity by taking periodic screenshots. Other software records calls or meetings, even accessing employees’ webcams. Or, like in Mark’s case, some programmes enable full remote access to workers’ systems. 

    Regardless of how they choose to monitor workers, many firms are embracing monitoring because they believe it ensures the productivity of remote employees, says Karen Levy, associate professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University, US, and author of the book Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance.

    But amid the uptick in monitoring, there’s mounting evidence that electronic surveillance can, in some cases, do more harm than good. Workers chafe against it, and surveillance can lead to stress, cause employees to quit and even make workers do their job worse – on purpose.

    More workers being watched 

    A 2021 study from internet-security tool ExpressVPN of 2,000 employers and 2,000 employees working remotely or on a hybrid schedule showed that close to 80% of bosses use monitoring software.

    “Managers are increasingly interested in using software to monitor employees’ keystrokes, activities and attention in new ways,” says Levy. She adds some are even doing “more fine-grained data collection about workers’ communications – since so much more of that happens on digital channels rather than face-to-face – and bodies, through wearable technologies and biometrics”. Some companies, for instance, have installed time-clocks that scan an employee’s fingerprint to clock them in and out. Some use webcams to collect data on eye movement, which is used to track an employee’s attention.

    Still, says Levy, other companies aren’t just watching what employees are doing in a given moment, but also using that information to anticipate what they might do, through “predictive analytics about whether a worker is likely to, for example, ask for a raise or leave for another job”. Software that monitors employee search history – and even social media – can reveal they’re on the job hunt, and trackers that capture things like tone of voice can indicate a worker’s level of engagement.

    Not every firm keeping tabs on employees is implementing surveillance software due to suspicion; some are required to, says Levy, “for security reasons, or in order to comply with laws or regulations in some industries”.

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