Ben Wray

Sánchez in June: "If we had accepted 5%, Spain would have to spend by 2035 an extra 300 billion euros on defence. Where would it come from? From cuts in health & education.”

That's what Trump and Merz were demanding today in the White House: that Spain sacrifices it's public services for bombs.

Merz nodding along while Trump promises a trade embargo on Spain shows trans-atlantic unity is prioritised over European unity. Keep that in mind the next time someone advocates deeper European defence integration.

This should be an inflection point. Think about what Trump is saying: 'we cut off all trade if you don't let us use your territory to illegally bomb other countries'.

Spain must shutdown the US bases now and tell Trump 'do your worst'.

No pasaran!

bsky.app/profile/atru...

Today has been a clear demonstration of the dangers of having US military bases on your territory. Europe is filled with such bases. It's time to start getting rid of them. Spain could make the first step by closing the Rota naval station and Morón air base.

Not seen one Western leader say a word about Israel blowing up a school in Iran full of students. If it happened in Israel or in Ukraine you wouldn't hear about anything else. When you're killed by a Western ally, you are a non-person, barely considered human by our politicians.

It's surreal that the US has launched a regime change war, very explicitly aiming to overthrow the Iranian govt, and the response of European politicians is to call on IRAN to de-escalate. It's like they are participating in a cartoon version of politics, adjacent to reality.

We need a global movement against US imperialism. The world faces no bigger threat.

A European Union Commissioner is going to sit on Trump's 'Board of Peace', a colonial instrument to rule over the ruins of Gaza.

Don't let anyone ever tell you again that the EU defends democracy, international law and human rights.

The study also looks at psycho-social hazards (which are serious), regulatory solutions, and how to take standard union approaches to health & safety issues and adapt them to the specific requirements of platform work.

Hopefully it's helpful for unions and workers: something has to change!
ENDS

Even for genuinely self-employed platform workers, there should be collective health & safety coverage for the time they spend working on the platforms. They missed a trick not including that in the Platform Work Directive, but member-states could include it when transposing PWD.

It’s not just that the job is a danger to workers, it’s a danger to the general public as well: they are working in public space. Tackling bogus self-employment is a public health issue.

Even if you don’t have a bad injury or a fatality, riders end-up suffering musculoskeletal disorders from carrying heavy weights on their back. If you get sick, you don’t get paid. You have to work through storms, on black ice, in heatwaves...

The job is dangerous regardless of your employment status, but the available evidence shows it’s twice as dangerous if you are ‘self-employed’ rather than an employee.

This diagram from a study by academics Nicola Christie and Heather Ward shows all the ways that bogus self-employed riders are in danger: they have the legal responsibility for their own health & safety but without the means to guarantee it.

Piece rates means you have an incentive to go fast. You have to work long hours, so you get tired. There’s next to no training/safety checks. You pay for your own equipment so it’s often poor. You have an app beeping at you all the time on the road. The job is a death trap.

People get into the gig economy thinking that it's quick cash until they can move on to something better. But far too many, especially in food delivery, never come out the other side. In Europe today, there’s few jobs that are more hazardous than being a food delivery courier.

“He wanted to work in graphic design,” Sebastian’s girlfriend, Valentina, said. “And he wanted to start a family with me and have two dogs.”

Glovo’s algorithm had registered that Galassi had not delivered the food to its destination and ‘robo-fired’ him as a consequence, but it knew nothing about why Galassi had failed to deliver the food. No phone call, no communication, no concern - just disconnect the app and move on.

Almost 24 hours after the fatality, his phone received a message from Glovo: “We are sorry to have to inform you that your account has been deactivated for non-compliance with the Terms and Conditions”.

Sebastian Galassi died on the evening of 1 October 2022 whilst delivering for Glovo in Florence, Italy, after a crash with a Land Rover. He was just 26.

First, here’s the report, includes an executive summary if you want the short version!
etuc.org/sites/defaul...

I’ve written a manual for @etuc-ces.bsky.social on platform work and health & safety.

There’s nothing more important than life, and the way platform work is typically organised is systematically putting platform workers’ lives at risk. The story of Sebastian Galassi summed this up for me🧵

This is what European elites in Munich gave a standing ovation for? Because he didn't say really mean words about Europe, unlike Vance and Trump? Pathetic.

This isn't going to magically reverse course. AI has put rocket-boosters on the rise of plutocratic rule.

The Class War on White-Collar Workers Is Just More Capitalism Thanks to AI, white-collar workers are discovering what blue-collar workers learned a half-century ago: they’re disposable.

"thanks to a wobbly economy and AI, professionals are being proletarianized. Their skills are being deskilled by algorithms, and their specialized knowledge is being commodified into a training set for the next iteration of ChatGPT."
jacobin.com/2026/02/clas...

How wealth is becoming concentrated in Spain Recent economic growth has come with a widening wealth gap. The rich have greater clout than ever before

Good read here: english.elpais.com/economy-and-...

Wealth inequality has continued to grow in Spain since 2008, as while the wealthiest keep getting richer, the poorest can no longer access home ownership, & have actually lost wealth. Spain's now one of the most unequal countries in Europe by wealth, despite 7 years of left govt.

We can move beyond the capitalist model and save the climate – here are the first three steps | Jason Hickel and Yanis Varoufakis Capitalism cares about our species’ prospects as much as a wolf cares about a lamb’s. But democratise our economy and a better world is within our grasp, say Jason Hickel and Yanis Varoufakis

“Our existing economic system, capitalism, is incapable of addressing the social and ecological crises we face in the 21st century.”
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Now that Britain's wealthiest tax exile is on the back foot, can we start talking about cutting the UK's billionaire class down to size?

Cutting out the middle men GEP Newsletter

The 'middle men' in the platform economy are little more than scammers, taking advantage of the lack of power migrant workers have to get a cut of their wage.

They could be got rid of in one fall swoop by identifying the real employer: the platforms.
eomail5.com/web-version?...