SUNTRACS takes to the streets. Archive photo by Eric Jackson.
SUNTRACS and CAPAC settle on modest raises phased in over four years
breaking, by Eric Jackson
Against the backdrop of a difficult economy in the construction sector, the United Construction and Similar Workers Syndicate (SUNTRACS) and the Panamanian Chamber of Construction (CAPAC) have, after a month-long strike, settled on a new four-year master contract. There were 42 pay classifications under the old contract and this one will be more or less as complicated. But the general framework of the deal is raises in annual phases, over the length of the contract to add up to:
11 percent for work on mega-projects
14 percent for ordinary private construction
18 percent for public works projects
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Christina Aguilera, who is starting off on her Liberation Tour, her first touring in more than a decade. Photo from one of her YouTube videos. / Christina Aguilera, quien está comenzando su Liberation Tour, su primera gira en más de una década. Foto de uno de sus videos de YouTube.
Blue and maybe getting better Azul y quizás mejorando
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The bush dog — Speothos venaticus — is a New World canid which makes Panama the northern end of its range, which goes down to Argentina. Shy, often but not always nocturnal, generally a forest dweller, it has recently been found by scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to be more common in Panama than thought. The species, despite its wide range, is considered to be moderately endangered. Photo by Tamako The Jaguar.
Be nice to endangered species today!
Do not litter their habitat — throwing plastic stuff in a storm drain is a standard way to make the lives of endangered marine species miserable to impossible.
Do not destroy their habitat — “cleaning” the land for no good purpose, and especially by setting it on fire or spraying toxic chemicals on it, is downright mean.
Be mean to politicians who disregard the environment, whatever justification they may proffer — environmental destruction equals fewer votes is the equation they must learn.
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Jakarta’s traffic system is one of many facets of the city that could be improved by smart cities technologies, but at what cost? CC by Vasenka Photography / Flickr
Three scenarios: we must think carefully about ethics in designing smart cities
To improve cities, governments are increasingly promoting the use of technology and data-driven decision-making. They decide how technologies and Big Data are being used or deployed in creating smart cities, with the help of academics who collect and interpret data, design new city ideas and newer technologies for cities.
Data harnessed from networked objects that citizens wear or use daily can ease our lives. But it’s possible that the uses of Big Data jeopardize citizens, such as in the scenarios we present below.
1. Longer commute for low-class workers
Imagine this: A traffic system manages a city’s rush hour, handling thousands of traffic lights, public transport commutes and pedestrian signals. Meanwhile, an AI system uses real-time data drawn from hundreds of thousands of sensors on vehicles and buses. With help from infrastructure like light poles, the optimal flow of traffic is calculated based on the number of vehicles and people in the system.
Reducing commute times and improving productivity is the stated end goal of city governments. Who could argue with that?
But linking traffic data, geographic data and economic performance creates another scenario. If the system increases economic performance, is it any wonder it prioritizes higher-paying jobs linked to more expensive suburbs neighboring the city?
Low-paid commuters contribute less financially to a city’s economy, so a highly paid executive getting a quicker ride to work makes brutal sense. But the system introduces a bias: public transport suddenly takes a little longer for a clerical worker.
2. Park bench meter?
The humble park bench presents another ethical dilemma for city planners. We’ve been paying for car parking in cities for decades. Now that we can live-track people in fine detail, the possibility of micro-charging for public amenities creates an opportunity for new revenue streams.
Think about paying a few cents for time spent resting on a park bench — a parking meter for people. This obviously discourages the positive attributes of city living for avid park users.
In the future, will we have to pay to sit on a park bench? www.shutterstock.com
Yet, as an example of “data-driven” governance, it plausibly shines a light on the already feasible potential for economic disparity.
3. Health and the consent of citizens
Big Data can also be used to inform city design and planning to reduce health disparities. Public surveillance systems can connect geo-data with health services data to attend to populations that need urgent help.
But there are major ethical challenges that center on fears about the privacy of information that is provided. The perception that data will be paternally used in targeted community interventions is also an issue.
At the Indonesian-Australian Digital Forum in Jakarta in January, participants analyzed the sustainability of using citizen reports to collect data on malaria. This information sharing can potentially benefit communities by targeting public health services in areas of need.
But it also creates stigma and privacy concerns when individuals are known within their community as disease carriers. Is there any opportunity to consider a person’s consent?
Big Data certainly creates opportunities to reduce health disparities. But how many benevolent government interventions engage targeted citizens in the development process?
Focusing on the citizen
The examples we use above are very near-term realities. The possibilities and problems of Big Data mean designers require a new type of intelligence that exists between technology and the humanities.
As technologies become more sophisticated the designer holds a key role in customizing such concepts for mass use. Additionally, as the pendulum swings from technological solutions towards the citizen’s experiences, the variations in different countries’ political and cultural systems will become more pronounced. The old adage that “all politics is local” will be reinforced.
But in a Big Data environment, the tendency to average out all those local specificities is magnified by generic technology approaches to complex cultural and contextual problems.
Governments should think about and resolve ethical questions in the design of smart cities. City planners should ensure that the technologies deployed do not take away citizens’ privacy and that personal data are not used against them.
Juan Carlos Varela greeted by Reuven Rivlin. Photo by the Presidencia.
Varela goes to Jerusalem
by Eric Jackson
Is President Varela up to a peace making attempt in the Middle East? It may sound ridiculous, given Panama’s small stature in the world, Israeli triumphalism and Palestinian leadership that is so dysfunctional as to lack much legitimacy to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people. But look beyond that to the nuances coming from the Panamanian side. Notice the incapacity, alienation and exasperation of the usual great powers and the United Nations. Then consider Panama’s frequent role in the world as a neutral intermediary, notwithstanding things that contradict that with respect to Israel over the years. Yes, Noriega brought in a Mossad guy to organize his UESAT death squad. Yes, Martinelli is in a US jail fighting extradition and trial for his criminal activities using electronic spy equipment bought from Israel. A bland reference to “security” in Varela’s description of his agenda in Israel perhaps means more of that.
At his meeting with Israel’s mostly ceremonial President Reuven Rivlin, Varela had to hear “security talk,” Israeli-style, this coming from Rivlin on the heels of Israeli massacres of unarmed Palestinians across the Israel-Gaza border, with special Israeli Defense Forces attention to shoot Palestinian medical personnel and journalists:
“Every day, Israel faces the threat of terror against our people. What we have seen the last few days on our border with Gaza, reminds us again that Israel has the duty to defend our borders and our citizens. We are doing all we can to avoid casualties.”
So was Varela an eager prop for a screed in favor of war crimes, or was he just listening to one of the belligerents sound off as a person on a peace misson when nations have come to deadly blows often has to do?Some things that Varela said and did leading up to his visit to Israel suggest the latter:
After an earlier visit to Jordan, Varela said that Panama intends to open an office to serve Palestinians and Panamanians who live among the Palestinians.
Although Panama was listed as one of the countries attending the gala conversion of the US consulate in Jerusalem to the US embassy to Israel, Varela was in the United Kingdom that day. In the UK the Panamanian president met with British Prime Minister Theresa May, who also did not attend the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem.
Before heading out to Israel, Varela made some significant statements to AFP. First, he announced that Panama would keep its embassy in Tel Aviv because “we are among the countries looking for a grand consesus on the subject of a two-state solution.” He also referred to the previous day’s killings of some 60 Palestinians by Israeli troops as “a sad day.”
On his first day in Israel Varela did the usual ceremonial things — planting a tree, visiting the Holocaust memorial garden, touring some of the innovative projects that make Israel one of those small countries that lives largely by its wits that is so attractive for that reason to Panamanians. Both Varela and Rivlin made positive references to Panama’s Jewish community, which maintains active back-and-forth ties of many sorts with Israel.
The main business, however, was to come later in a meeting with Israel’s effective head of state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Varela’s office listed the subjects to be broached as “water, agriculture, technology and security.”
On each of those subjects there is a potential for Varela to raise the Palestinian question. There is the systematic Israeli appropriation of water from the West Bank and there are frequent Israeli attacks on the Gaza water system. There is the matter not only of the destruction of Palestinian farms on the West Bank, but also whether as Europe does Panama will ban the selling of produce from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories if it bears the label “product of Israel.” Much of Israel’s tech sector is dedicated to military or repressive purposes, including things used against the Palestinians and exports that facilitated the systematic politically motivated spying on Panamanians under the previous administration here. But set aside the controversial politics and Panana has needs in those areas which Israel may be in a position to meet. In the agricultural sector, Panama’s ailing farm sector might find a few products that Israel does not produce and might like to import from us.
Then, what is “security?” Is it the SPI presidential guard training under guidance from veterans of the notorious Shin Bet, or “anti-terrorist” goons organized by the Mossad? Panama has seen those things. Or is it negotiating an end to this long-running property dispute between Jews and Arabs, which has long been one of the principal threats to world peace? An intermediary role is also something that Panama has played in other international disputes.
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Moving out to continue the strike: the SUNTRACS construction workers’ union takes to the street after a March 15 assembly in Parque Porras decided to reject arbitration and continue a national construction strike that had been ongoing for 27 days at the time of the assembly. Photo by Kermit Nourse
Construction companies want arbitration, workers vote to stay out on strike
by Eric Jackson
This is not a good year for construction workers to strike for higher pay and benefits, but it’s when the master contract between the United Construction and Similar Workers Syndicate (SUNTRACS) and the Panamanian Chamber of Construction (CAPAC) came due for renegotiation. Construction activity is down, as are most sectors of the national economy. It’s not mass starvation and food riots, but people are worried, inflation has eaten up most of the gains of years past and management in general sees opportunities. There is also labor unrest among the teachers, port workers, PanCanal tug crews and others.
But is it a good time for the construction barons to go to the mat? Many of them are caught up in the widespread Blue Apple bribery / kickback scandal, and if prosecutors and courts are so very considerate in declining to throw corrupt executives in jail, hefty fines are being ordered. President Varela also showed an understanding attitude with a veto of a law that would bar convicted construction companies and their principals from further public works jobs. Slow business and fines in the millions sort of even the playing field with organized labor.
CAPAC has been offering raises of four to five cents an hour to SUNTRACS, which union’s top leader, Saúl Méndez, angrily dismisses as “crumbs.” But the original SUNTRACS whiz-bang demand of 60 percent across the board went way down rather quickly. The last publicized union offer was in the ballpark of 15 percent.
SUNTRACS can get rough on the streets, and cops and company goons have been known to kill them over the years. But aside from brief street marches and briefer blockages or slowdowns for leafletting, the union has not tried to shut down the country this time around. The police riot squads have so far avoided provoking that sort of an escalation. But construction activity is shut down. There aren’t any scabs working, and if there were some protests by alleged SUNTRACS members demanding their strike pay, union leaders say that these are impostors hired by management.
After more than three weeks of no construction, CAPAC has softened its initial hard line stance and called for arbitration. The government likes the idea. However, the construction workers don’t and at their May 15 general assembly voted to reject arbitration and continue the strike. Stay tuned.
Testing the microphones before the SUNTRACS assembly gets underway. May 15 is the 115th anniversary of Liberal guerrilla General Victoriano Lorenzo and if one is to understand some of the fury in Panamanian construction workers’ attitudes, one must take into account rural dispossession that is in the union members’ personal memories or family lore. So many of these people are displaced farmers or fishers and they see little difference between those who drove their families off of farms or beaches and construction CEOs. In many cases it’s precisely the same families. Photo by SUNTRACS.
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Periodista palestino baleado en Gaza por un francotirador israelí mientras celebraron la apertura de la embajada de los Estados Unidos en Jerusalén a unos 85 kilómetros de distancia.
Por el derecho de Palestina a la existencia nacional
por el Comité Panameño de Solidaridad con Palestina
¿Cómo vamos a devolver los territorios ocupados? No hay nadie a quien devolvérselos. No hay tal cosa llamada palestinos.
Golda Meier
El viaje del presidente Juan Carlos Varela al Reino Unido, Israel y Palestina retrata con precisión las contradicciones de la política exterior panameña. En vez de servirse de nuestra propia historia para conducir su política exterior, el gobierno de turno se aleja cada vez más de ella y anda a cada paso de tumbo en tumbo.
En noviembre de 2012, bajo la presidencia de Ricardo Martinelli y la cancillería del hoy presidente Varela, la Asamblea General de la Organización de Naciones Unidas decidió por 138 votos a favor, 41 abstenciones y 9 votos en contra, admitir a Palestina como Estado Observador, un rango menor que el de Estado miembro.
Los países que votaron en contra fueron, en orden de importancia: Estados Unidos, Israel, Canadá, República Checa, PANAMÁ, Palau, Micronesia, Nauru, y las Islas Marshall. Tal fue la decisión del gobierno restaurado al poder por la invasión.
Panamá, que logró la soberanía y el Canal y aún debe eliminar oprobiosas hipotecas a su territorio, fue el único país del CONTINENTE y el único hispanoparlante del MUNDO que votó en contra de Palestina. ¿Cómo explicar el actual trastrocamiento internacional?
El presidente Martinelli había dicho en 2010 que Panamá apoyaría siempre a Israel en “todos los foros internacionales” y que Israel era “Guardián de la Ciudad Santa de Jerusalén”, lo que exacerbó los ánimos a lo largo y ancho de la nación árabe y del mundo.
El presidente Juan Carlos Varela visitará Palestina como última escala de su periplo, lo que explica el silencio en los medios nacionales sobre los territorios ocupados por Israel.
La subestimación de Palestina contrasta con la obsequiosidad con que el presidente Varela trata a Israel, un Estado genocida y transgresor del Derecho Internacional que jamás ha apoyado a Panamá.
Israel siempre apoyó a Estados Unidos, su principal valedor. Pero tampoco apoyó a Panamá el Reino Unido, la “pérfida Albión”, que se abstuvo en la votación durante el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas en 1973 por la sencilla razón de que es aliada permanente de la superpotencia.
En cambio, Panamá y Palestina han sufrido despojo y usurpación de territorios, expulsión y ocupación de poblados, opresión, negación del derecho a la existencia nacional, invasiones, denegación de justicia, asesinatos, violación e imposición de tratados, por parte de Israel y Estados Unidos. Este dolor compartido nos debería unir más bien, y no distanciarnos.
El presidente Varela estará en Israel durante el 70º aniversario de su fundación, fecha (1948) que también conmemora la sagrada Nakba del pueblo palestino, expulsado de sus tierras por el sionismo que lo mantiene en inhumano cautiverio.
Consideramos como inadmisibles las matanzas indiscriminadas de Israel a los palestinos, que protestan pacíficamente por el Derecho al Retorno a sus tierras y viviendas, hoy ocupadas por asentamientos ilegales prohibidos por el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU. Exigimos que se ordene una investigación independiente, seria y autorizada de la represión genocida a la resistencia palestina por Israel desde el 30 de marzo de 2018.
Exigimos también que Panamá se distancie de todo conflicto militar; rechace las intervenciones extranjeras en los asuntos internos de los Estados; establezca firmes y plenas relaciones diplomáticas con Palestina; coadyuve a un tratado de paz entre Israel y Palestina; rechace el traslado de las embajadas de Estados Unidos y Guatemala a Jerusalén y colabore para que se enjuicie por genocidio a funcionarios responsables de Israel ante el Tribunal Penal Internacional.
La República de Panamá no es un rincón lúgubre del planeta. Nuestro pueblo mantendrá siempre encendida la antorcha de la paz, para que se haga la luz mediante el pleno respeto a los derechos ajenos, como lo advirtió proféticamente el presidente de México, el Benemérito Benito Juárez.
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Panamanian Mothers Day is on the Catholic Day of the Immaculate Conception, December 8. It’s a big day here. But the United States celebrates Mothers Day on the second Sunday in May. The geographical scattering of so many American families may make it appear to be not as big an event as Panama’s version is on the isthmus, but the telecom companies do an especial big business on US Mothers Day. And we dual citizens tend to celebrate twice.
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Just 46 days afterrevelationsthat Cambridge Analytica harvested millions of Facebook profiles to predict and influence voters in the US election and Brexit referendum, the data analytics company has announced it will close. So too will its parent company, SCL Elections.
Some may see this as a victory in the fight against covert or unacceptable means of data collection. But there is little to celebrate.
The closure follows a massive backlash against the company’s data collection activities. Announcing that it would commence insolvency proceedings, Cambridge Analyticasaid:
Despite Cambridge Analytica’s unwavering confidence that its employees have acted ethically and lawfully — the siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the company’s customers and suppliers.
If anything, the furor surrounding Cambridge Analytica has only served to strengthen the distinction between the idea of covert data collection versus data collection that is seen as legitimate and acceptable. The routine gathering and monetization of vast amounts of personal data — currently undertaken on a daily basis by various actors and digital platforms especially — has been normalized.
Legitimate means of data collection hinge upon the idea that users are seen to have explicitly allowed it by accepting the terms and conditions of service. But how many users understand what they sign up for when they tick the terms and conditions box? These agreements are characterized by their extreme complexity and vast length (it takes about nine hours toreadthe 73,198 words of Amazon Kindle’s.)
Then there’s the fact that some entities legally gather data even on non-users — people who have not signed the terms of service. As Mark Zuckerberg recentlyadmitted to Congress: Facebook routinely gathers data on non-members and, remarkably, the only way for non-members to remove the data gathered on them is to join Facebook.
There is also a whole range of other questionable means that are used to collect our data, but which are not seen as problematic. For instance, we often have to opt out of having our data collected, instead of getting to opt into it. And there’s the practice of our data being collected even after we log out of services.
So what are the conditions that render “legitimate” data collection possible, and what are its broader societal consequences?
We live in a world marked by the rise of data as a commodity, which is capitalized on by platforms that generate revenue from it. And they generate a lot of revenue. Facebook made $40 billion in revenuesin 2017. Google (which also makes its money through selling user data to advertisers) made $109 billionin 2017.
The outcry against Cambridge Analytica has not attempted to sanction, nor even to question, the existence of digital platforms and other actors which depend on the ever more extensive acquisition and monetization of personal data. If anything, the Cambridge Analytica story has unintentionally contributed to the further normalization of surveillance and the lack of privacy that comes with being an internet user nowadays.
Even the web pages of the sites that broke the story (The Observer and New York Times) allow dozens of third-party sites to obtain data from the browser of the user accessing the articles. It was 75 and 61 sites, respectively, the last time I checked usingFirefox’s Lightbeam extension.
Platform capital is the problem
Many commentators have pointed to this new era of “surveillance capitalism” as the problem. But these arguments imply that capitalism without surveillance is not only possible, but that it existed before the advent of new technology.
Yet surveillance has been absolutely fundamental to the functioning of capitalism from the start. Producers have always needed to gather some information about the nature of their markets, their suppliers of inputs, and about the economy in general. Surveillance has also been central to the wage-labor relationship. Employees are closely supervised and monitored to ensure the time they work matches up to the time for which they are paid.
Surveillance plays a much bigger role today. But the real issue now is the rise of platform capital — its growing importance in some sectors, outright dominance in others (particularly in social media and internet search) and the fact that this requires constant collection of personal data.
There are those who do see overt data collection as a problem (most notably civil society organisations such as Privacy International, Electronic Foundation FrontierorTactical Technology Collective) and are campaigning for measures to protect people against these constant invasions of privacy. Plus, there are attempts by policymakers to introduce more stringent privacy rules, such as the EU’sGDPR.
But this remains a herculean task. Those that would like to stop or curtail the way personal data is collected are up against multi-billion dollar businesses whose profits directly depend on it. Hence, when Zuckerberg was asked about extending the GDPR’s privacy rules outside of Europe, hegave the vague responsethat Facebook is “still nailing down details on this, but it should directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing.”
The growing share of platform capital in various economies means that erecting any major obstacles to its operation will be bad for their income and for the economies concerned. Recent evidencesuggests that the EU data privacy regime is already having a notable negative economic impact. So we run the risk that digital platforms are becoming too big to fail in the eyes of regulators.
If citizens wish to regain (at least some) control over the data that concerns their private lives, they need to challenge platform capital as a whole — and not just individual actors such as Cambridge Analytica. The struggle to do so, however, will only get more difficult, as the dominance of platform capital keeps growing.
Jakarta’s traffic system is one of many facets of the city that could be improved by smart cities technologies, but at what cost? CC by 
