by BICN | Jul 31, 2013 | News
[July 26, 2013 – The Basic Income Canada Network / Reseau Canadien Pour Le Revenu Garanti]
BICN
The Basic Income Canada Network / Reseau Canadien Pour Le Revenu Garanti (BICN) has announced some of the keynote speakers for the Fifteenth Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). BIEN has held a Congress every second year since 1986.
The 2014 congress will take place at the McGill Faculty of Law in Montreal, Quebec from June 26th to June 29th, 2014. The theme of the 2014 BIEN Congress is “Re-democratizing the Economy”. The congress aims to engage BIEN’s affiliate networks and the public in a sustained discussion about the role of a basic income guarantee in re-democratizing the economy, nationally and globally.
The following speakers have so far agreed to join the discussion:
- Roberto Gargarella, Professor at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Argentina and Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at University College London, author of The Legal Foundation of Inequality: Constitutionalism in the Americas, 1776-1860 (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Latin American Constitutionalism,1810-2010: The Engine Room of the Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2013).
- Renana Jhabvala, President of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Bharat, India, and author of The Idea of Work (Indian Academy For Self Employed Women, 2012) and Social Income and Insecurity: A Study in Gujarat (Routledge, 2010)
- Linda McQuaig, Journalist, columnist, social critic, and best-selling author of, most recently, The Trouble with Billionaires (Viking Canada, 2010) and Billionaires’ Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality (Beacon Press, 2012)
BICN
- Guy Standing, Professor in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London andCo-President, Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), author of Work After Globalization: Building Occupational Citizenship (Edward Elgar, 2009) and The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Bloomsbury, 2011)
The Congress will also include the 2014 General Assembly meeting of BIEN. The call for papers will be announced early in the fall of 2013. Updates about the congress can be obtained from the Canadian network’s website at: https://biencanada.ca/BIEN2014_Congress.html.
See also BIEN’s website: https://basicincome.org
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 22, 2013 | Research
[Wolfgang Müller – BI News]
Allan Sheahen
In this article, Al Sheahen argues that the labor market has changed. Full employment is very unlikely in the future. Globalization and improvement of technology will eliminate more jobs. This development demands a break of “the link between work and income” in order to avoid poverty. We need to recognize that people do not need jobs but income. Sheahen concludes that one useful tool is a basic income guarantee, which would provide income security but also economic freedom and other advantages.
Al Sheahen is the author of The Basic Income Guarantee: Your Right to Economic Security.
Sheahan, Allan, “Jobs are not the answer,” The Gilmer Mirror, June, 2013
by Ian Orton | Jun 3, 2013 | Opinion
In 2011, the United Nations (UN), fronted by Michelle Bachelet, head of UN Women, launched the Social Protection Floor [SPF] initiative (1). This initiative aims to support the development of social protection worldwide. Arguably, this development represents an opportunity for more experimentation with basic income and possibly fully-fledged basic income programmes.
National SPFs aim to extend social security vertically (providing more comprehensive services and benefits) and horizontally (extending coverage to a greater number) to cover all groups. In particular, SPFs can assist the extension of coverage to the unprotected, the poor and the most vulnerable, including workers in the informal economy and their families. Countries should define their floors according to national needs and priorities and progressively build their floors in the most advanced yet achievable manner. The UN states that SPFs should comprise at least the following social security guarantees:
- Access to essential health care, including maternity care;
- Basic income security for children;
- Basic income security for persons in active age who are unable to earn sufficient income;
- Basic income security for older persons (1,2).
The UN’s use of ‘basic income security’ should not be understood in the same way as the Basic Income Earth Networks use of “basic Income.” Basic income security literally means a set of minimum income guarantee that could or could not be arranged as an unconditional, universal payment. These guarantees can be fulfilled in different ways through social insurance, social assistance or effective minimum wage or labour market measures.
In spite of a possible divergence with BIEN’s conception of a basic income, it is likely that these policies would represent a significant step toward basic income by legitimising the idea of basic income security as an essential ingredient for human development. Arguably, these would create a social policy culture more conducive or receptive to BIEN-type notions of basic income. In fact, many of the income security programmes championed by the SPF are those often touted by the BIEN community as precursors to fully-fledged basic incomes, such as the Bolsa Familia in Brazil. Clearly, there is some convergence.
In June 2012, this initiative was bolstered further when the International Labour Conference of the International Labour Organization voted on an historic Recommendation for a SPF, which supports the extension of social protection coverage and the progressive building of national social security systems. The adoption of this new international labour standard, the Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection (No. 202) (3), marks a major milestone for social security, as it reaffirms the human right to social security and renews national commitments to extend coverage.
The current momentum gathering behind the SPF and the actual proliferation and strengthening of existing SPFs throughout middle- and low-income countries already provides the basic income with an entry point as well legitimising basic income discourse in general. In fact many social pensions and family benefits (as advanced by the SPF) are essentially a basic income for the elderly and for children. Moreover, they have proven their impressive positive economic and social impacts (4) However, extending a rights-based discourse to basic income (in the BIEN sense of the world) still remains plagued by an array of difficulties where active population (i.e. the working population) groups are concerned. In other words, the SPF has a more ‘workfare’ view of income guarantees for the working poor, and that this group should not get unconditional income guarantees. Rather they should have to participate in some kind of public works’ programme.
Perhaps even more interesting still, is the emergence of a new hot topic within development discourse of the SPF: the idea of a specific ‘global fund’ to finance SPFs globally (5). If new financing sources do become available this may open up new financing sources for basic income-type programmes to be introduced for specific population groups. Thus, all those interested in the basic income would be well advised to keep an eye on the emergence of a global fund.
Naturally, many have well founded reservations about a yet another vertical fund earmarked for a specific use. It may add to an already confounded and highly fragmented international development assistance architecture, and result in top down prescriptions of how countries should develop their SPFs. Nonetheless, in spite of these concerns there is a discernable groundswell of political support for the idea of global fund for SPFs. It is perhaps conceivable that the idea of basic income will find ripe opportunities here. Watch this space.
For more information on this issues see:
1. ILO. 2011. The Bachelet report: Social Protection Floor for a fair globalization, Report of the Advisory Group chaired by Michelle Bachelet Convened by the ILO with the collaboration of the WHO (Geneva).
www.ilo.org/global/publications/ilo-bookstore/order-online/books/WCMS_165750/lang–en/index.htm
2. Ian Orton. 2012. The ILO Recommendation on Social Protection Floors: A milestone in the extension of social security coverage. ISSA, Geneva.
www.issa.int/News-Events/News2/The-ILO-Recommendation-on-Social-Protection-Floors-A-milestone-in-the-extension-of-social-security-coverage
3. ILO. 2012. Social security for all: The ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation (Briefing note). Geneva, International Labour Office.
www.social-protection.org/gimi/gess/RessFileDownload.do?ressourceId=31089
4. Ian Orton. June 2010. Reasons to be cheerful: How ILO analysis of social transfers worldwide augurs well for a basic income (with some caveats). Submitted for the 13th International Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network, Sao Paulo, Brazil, basic income as an instrument for justice and peace.
www.bien2010brasil.com
5. Magdalena Sepúlveda & Oliver de Schutter, 2012. Underwriting the Poor: A Global Fund for Social Protection. Briefing Note 7. United Nations SpecialRapporteur on the Right to Food.
www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/otherdocuments/20121009_gfsp_en.pdf
Disclaimer:
The responsibility for opinions expressed in this article rests solely with the author and dissemination does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Organization of the opinions expressed in it.
by Yannick Vanderborght | May 27, 2013 | Opinion
The 1st of May is a traditional day in many European countries where members and supporters of trade unions demonstrate for better working conditions. I participated with some friends of mine and had a discussion about basic income with one of them. He is a member of a German trade union and skeptical about basic income as many other members (Gewerkschafterdialog Grundeinkommen 2013). His main argument against basic income is that it would further weaken the position of trade unions and thus impair working conditions.
I have to admit I share his position that trade unions are an important support for employees in order to achieve their rights and fair wages. First, it is hardly possible for an individual to know all necessary information for a successful wage negotiation. Information available is mind blowing and time required to process information is rare. Second, it is difficult to keep track with amendments in the law and developments on the labor market for a person who is only confronted with this topic once a year. Third, one person has rarely the same impact in negotiations as a group of people. Fourth, a person might not have required negotiation skills compared to a trade union with professional negotiators who have training in negotiation. The lack of information, time and skills, thus, make trade unions important for employees.
There has been the argument a basic income would not only provide people with necessary recourses for a life in dignity but also with time for education and training (Howard 2005; Pasma 2010; Standing 2002, 2009). It would be easier to gather information or acquire necessary skills. Both would improve the position of an individual in wage negotiation.
This does not mean that the situation would become perfect and trade unions would be redundant. They would be still important for educating and uniting people. Sometimes, however, I experience members of trade unions terrified exactly from this idea of a situation where they are redundant and have to start recovering from redundancy. I experience them like doctors who fear a world without diseases because they would not have to heal anyone any longer.
In my point of view, this is a contradiction. Should it not be the aim of trade unions to create an environment where employees have equal powers compared to employers? Should it not be the goal of trade unions to empower employees so they can choose the support of trade unions but do not have to rely on them?
If the answer is yes, I hardly understand the rejection of basic income by trade unions. Basic income would allow employees to say no. They would be able to refuse working conditions they dislike. They would be closer to be on a par with employers as they are nowadays.
It, therefore, is time for trade unions to learn basic income is a helpful instrument to achieve their aims and to drop the fear of independent and empowered employees.
Resources:
Howard, M. W. (2005) Basic Income, Liberal Neutrality, Socialism and Work. In: Widerquist, K., Lewis, M. A. & Pressman, S. (eds.) The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee. Ashgate, Aldershot.
Gewerkschafterdialog Grundeinkommen (2013) Stimmen. https://www.gewerkschafterdialog-grundeinkommen.de/stimmen Accessed 05/05/2013.
Pasma, C. (2010) Working Through the Work Disincentive. Basic Income Studies 5 (2), 1–20.
Standing, G. (2002) Beyond the New Paternalism. Verso.
Standing, G. (2009) Work after Globalization: Building Occupational Citizenship. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, the UK ;, Northampton, MA.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jan 19, 2013 | News
Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge was founded on October 12, 2012 to promote basic income in Norway. The organization’s main purpose is to inform the Norwegian population on universal, unconditional basic income guarantee (BIG) in hopes of getting BIG on the political agenda. The organization will promote BIG for all Norwegian citizens and one that is large enough to cover all necessary living expenses.
- Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge has already made news or organized events in Norway:
- October 19: The news magazine, NY TID, ran a story about the startup of the organization.
- November 2: Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge organized a lecture on BIG at a Globalization Conference.
- November 12: Network for Social Entrepreneurship invited Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge to a dialogue in Parliament.
- November 24: Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge organized a lecture at the Romsas volunteer center for “Free Philosophical Forum” on BIG in a green perspective.
- December 5: Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge gave a brief introduction to BIG at a “Green Drinks” at Lillehammer.
- December 9: Organizers of Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge were interviewed in NA24. According to the editor, it was read 63,370 times within a few days.
- December 13. Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge had a lecture at “Litteraturhuset”. The title of the lecture was “BIG – In a green perspective.”
In the coming year Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge hopes to get BIG on the agenda for the Norwegian parliamentary elections scheduled for September 9th, 2013. Otherwise Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge will continue to organized lectures and workshops on BIG.
The board of Borgerlonn-BIEN Norge, from left: Ole A. Seifert, Ali Reza Nouri, Lexander Wist, Sjur C. Papazian, Espen X. Leinaes, Anja Askeland (Chair) and Grete Antona Nilsen (Vice Chair).
