Rising exploitation: The meek will always wake up
Any review of that calming, compensatory assurance must conclude that it is very much a work in progress. Exploitation and abandonment seem the growing, reconquering forces of our age. The great, uplifting ideas of social protection, built at great cost after two world wars, changed our world in a way that seemed a permanent advance for humanity. Not so. In a little over three decades, the greed and nastiness made possible by neo-conservative politicians in thrall to, and too often in the pay of, the market have pulled that safety net from under millions of people. Globalisation, and the rise of what seems a new kind of oligarchy, unfettered even by the questionable paternalism of another time, drives the shift away from a kind of universal American Dream.
Today we report on one example of exploitation that could not even be considered unless the victim was regarded as sub-human, as a chattel to be abused without consequences. Sultana Anwar, a Pakistani domestic worker, took a case before the Employment Appeals Tribunal arguing that her employers, Irish-based Pakistani doctors Mr and Mrs Tahir Nazir, had so misused her. The EAT ordered the doctors to pay her €66,794 following her unfair dismissal action. Disturbing as this case may be, it is even more disturbing that it is probably just the tip of a very dark and toxic iceberg.
