 Unions are the largest non-profit healthcare company in the United States have launched a historic strike on Wednesday. What is the context and what are the consequences for healthcare in the world's largest economy if workers' demands continue to not be taken seriously? In Thailand, the opposition Move Forward Party has tabled a draft bill that seeks amnesty from prosecution for political protesters going back to the year 2006. What are the key aspects of the bill? Of course, and what are its prospects for being passed by Parliament? And finally, France ended a decade of absenteeism from the UN's sittings on decolonization in regards to French Polynesia, but the government stance does not seem to have changed. We will find out exactly why. Salams, you are watching Daily Debrief coming to you from a different setting again all over the world this time. As a consequence, of course, of the Delhi Police's little bit of a brutal crackdown on press freedom and the ceiling of the studio from which we normally operate, we of course issued this disclaimer yesterday as well. But please do forgive us for any glitches in our internet connections or inadvertent errors we might make, including a couple of goof-ups that I did yesterday. But this is also an invitation for you to support the work that our reporters and others at People's Dispatch do. You can head to our website, peoplesdispatch.org. And of course, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel as well. Right, first up, the coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which represents close to 85,000 employees of the company, which like I was saying earlier is the largest nonprofit in the healthcare sector in the United States. They launched on Wednesday a historic strike action, one of the largest of its kind in history, taking place across five United States, well, five states in the United States, as well as Washington, DC. Demands of course include bringing wages in line with currently current rates of inflation, better pay at entry level positions, staffing levels and other issues that have an impact not just on the quality of life of workers, but also how effective the care that they are able to provide is. It includes therefore safety of workers, safety of patients, and of course the quality of care. Given trends in the United States, some estimates indicate that the healthcare sector could be short-staffed by as many as a million people by 2030. We can of course gauge the kind of impact that would have if of course the current approach by management at these big companies towards workers' rights and their demands continue to not be taken and negotiations not being held in good faith. Anna Brashar of the People's Health Movement is a regular on daily degrees and she's with us today as well to talk more about this historic strike. Anna, good to see you. Good to see you. Very happy to be here. First off Anna, can you tell us what the situation is on the ground? Wednesday the strike was launched. It's a continuation of course of several processes underway in the United States and elsewhere in the world. So give us some context before we go any further. Right, so essentially what we're seeing in the US now is of course what you have said one of the biggest healthcare strikes that the US has seen. It's important because it's taking place in many of the states in over 39 hospitals that Kaiser owns there. And of course the number of workers who are taking place in the strike is enormous. So essentially what stands behind the strike is as many other workers in many other contexts have quoted is that management is not respecting their demands. It's not respecting their needs and is essentially looking away from the patient's interest, from the worker's interest and instead is looking to bump up profits. So this strike that we're seeing at Kaiser today is not only a demonstration for workers' rights. It's also a demonstration for quality care and for patient safety. And just to make a point of this, this has particular importance in the case of Kaiser because it usually talks about itself as a company which puts patients first, patients before profits, patients before the bottom line. And essentially what we have seen in practice is that while health workers working at Kaiser have seen their bonuses cut down, managers have not. So what essentially what's been happening is that the executive level still manages to earn enormous amounts of money while the health workers, the frontline staff is having difficulties making ends meet. And essentially because of that, what the unions have been demanding is at least the 25 US dollars hourly wage. This is something that's on the table right now, has been avoided by the management in the lead up to the strike. But what's interesting here is to note that, you know, some of the testimonies that we've seen on social media and Kaiser recruitment essentially reaching out to health workers offering them 70 US dollars or more to work in the period while the strike is going on. So essentially it's not about Kaiser not having the money to pay the workers, but it's essentially about them not making them a priority. So what the workers again are demanding is, of course, better wages, but they're also asking for better staffing. And that's, I think, very important to if we look at the broader context of the health workers shortages in the world, because it's healthcare shortages that caused the tremendous amount of overtime that workers are struggling with the enormous stress that they have been forced to handle during the COVID-19 pandemic. So this is all, you know, a picture of what we've been seeing in the world in the past years and months. At this point, I believe negotiations are not on. And of course, unions have issued a statement saying that there is some sort of agreement on some issues, but nothing official yet. How are things likely to proceed a little bit on that, what to expect over the next few days? And then we can talk about maybe a little more detail on some of the sort of wider longer term impact of the situation. Yeah. So again, you're right. It's a bit difficult to predict what's going to happen. So what has been reported by the striking health workers on social media is that now that the strike is on, the conversations have opened up a bit. So there has been a complete block until now and now it's getting a bit better. There are some things which executive and management are now talking about this includes the 25 US dollars hourly wage. But still, it's difficult to predict how seriously this will be taken in the longer term. If we judge from other examples, what management have tried to do is essentially make this a one case issue. You resolve the issue, you overlook it, and then you just move on. You don't actually try to go and resolve the root causes of the problem. So that's, I think, something that we should be looking at. And it's especially interesting in the case of the US because, you know, a couple of months ago, not a couple of months ago, almost a year ago, we saw mass strikes by nurses in New York City. So this is something that's obviously going to keep up in the health sector in the United States. So is this sort of lack of getting to the root cause of the issues? Simply because there's an attitude in management that, you know, the impact will be felt by those who are, again, in the same sort of in the working class and the same people, many of whom perhaps might be working at some of these companies as well. And so that the rich will always be able to afford the kind of health care they need. So for the rest, let them keep struggling. Well, yes, I think that there's something to that, although it has to be said that the health worker shortage now has become is becoming a very big and hot topic worldwide. So, you know, we've seen countries, especially in the global north, spending years and years ignoring that there was a problem in the global south, but also in the global north. And this is now hitting home. So, you know, there are some estimates they differ, I have to say. So estimates differ in how many health workers will be missing in the United States alone in the next five or so years. But some of them actually put the estimated nursing shortage at one million by the end of the year. So one million nurses only in the United States by the end of this year. So, you know, it's a bit difficult to ignore what this will mean for the health system. And again, I think it's important to take into consideration that what the situation in the health workforce that we're seeing now is even worse compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. Because again, in the United States, there are now one percent fewer workers working in the health sector compared to pre-2020. And, you know, this is a sign of how deeply the pandemic has actually affected the sector, but it's also a symptom of how the government has reacted to the pandemic of the approach that it has taken. And then there's one final thing that I think it has to be said in the context of the US is that not everyone will be affected the same. And this is something that you already mentioned. So, you know, the rich, of course, will be less affected than the poor. And cities will be much less affected than rural areas. Already at the beginning of the year, some analysis have been published that that warned that around 600 rural hospitals in the US. That's around 30 percent, one third of all the rural hospitals in the state in the country could be closed because of health health workers shortages and because of lack of funding. So, you know, that's that's something that's that's going to add to the already existing burden of health deserts that we're seeing in the United States, particularly when it comes to specific aspects of care, like sexual and reproductive health rights, but also primary care. So the strike is also relevant because of that. It points at how deeply how deeply the health workers shortage has to be has to be addressed, addressed. Yeah, thanks very much for for that sort of primer once again on everything that's going on in this vital, vital sector and government as well as management and some of these private companies lack of a willingness to really address those issues and take it seriously and just paint it out to be again workers demanding more money. Thanks very much for your time today. Thanks. But our next story we're talking about Thailand where the leading opposition party, the move forward party, which of course won the elections in May this year, but was unable to form a government. The party has now filed a draft bill in parliament seeking amnesty for those who've been charged with crimes while engaged in democratic protest. These include political rallies and other kinds of demonstrations. And the bill looks to cover all of those who have been charged with crimes for being engaged in these kind of agitations over a nearly two decade period going back to 2006. Thailand has of course been the site of intermittent but consistent political volatility. There have been two coups, multiple prime ministers have been removed. There have been protests on the streets, some of which have of course turned violent. There has been repression of protesters as well. And many, many have been charged under the country's very harsh, very strict Lays Magistrate laws. And we have particular interest to see how the establishment approaches that aspect of the bill and how it considers protesters who are charged with Lays Magistrate crimes. Anish covers the region for people's dispatch and is with us on the show as he often is. Anish, good to have you back today. First up, Anish, I guess one of the most important considerations probably how does move forward propose that parliament decide on who is eligible for amnesty and who is not? Well, the draft bill basically considers a very sweeping amnesty for political agitators and protesters since 2006. And the date of 2006 is basically saying before or after February 11th 2006 and until the time when the parliament passes the bill. And there was a massive legal repression at the time. And that actually created some people who were charged with multiple charges of, you know, disrupting public order and other kinds of charges as well. Somewhere even charged with seditions at the time. Nevertheless, the agitation led to a coup. And so the yellow shirts are pretty much the more conservative, you know, pro military groups who actually support where against the more populist taxes in our government. Later, we had multiple demonstrations of the same kind. And this includes the other group, which is the UDD or the United Front for democracy and against dictatorship, which were called the red shirts and the red shirts were the ones who came about in, you know, 2007, if I'm not wrong, 2008, 2010. Sorry, sorry, 2010 when, you know, another Shinawata controlled government actually faced a similar kind of yellow shirt demonstration. And they went against that. And this was primarily in response to the military coup that also happened at the time. So all of these factors definitely the people who were, you know, victims of, you know, violent repression at the time, who support different kinds of political formations and more most of them close to whom are, you know, part of the establishment and the ruling coalition right now are said to be considered along with the less immediate protesters and, you know, the pro-democracy and monarchy reform agitators that we saw very recently and we cover on the show as well. And so, you know, clubbing them all together, but excluding the ones who were in government, so including bureaucrats, law enforcement officials who were, you know, responsible for violent crackdowns or, you know, any kind of action that actually threatened life of the agitators and the protesters would not be considered. So it is pretty much, you know, giving amnesty to political protesters and the manner in which it is, you know, drafted is primarily to gain support from obviously the ruling coalition, which includes the conservative groups who were supported by the yellow shirts at one point and obviously Fuethai, who is leading the government right now, which were supported primarily by the red shirts during various hesitations. So in both of these cases, it is very, it will be very interesting to see if the government would go through with the bill and support the bill, because obviously Fuethai recently went through a sort of, you know, a crack on its credibility after aligning with pro-military and conservative groups to form a government. And obviously it might try to gain back some of that credibility by, it is an opportunity, obviously, whether or not it is considered as a different thing, but it is definitely an opportunity for it to gain back some of that credibility among people who have been, you know, advocating for democracy, for human rights, for various other issues who had supported Fuethai during the elections and even campaign for them. So it will be quite interesting to see how this thing pans out. Yeah, but Anish, I was asking procedurally also, how do things move forward? Can we expect this bill to be either passed or not passed in, you know, in the next few weeks, for example, or is it likely to be a long process that involves multiple rounds of discussion? How is it going to work? And what also seemed to be the initial, the starting point? Well, it is quite difficult to say, because, you know, when you're talking about a parliament democracy, you know, processes can be quite long. In this case, since the parliament is not an active session right now, it will be very difficult to say there can be any movement on the bill in the coming weeks. So it might be a long process and there will obviously be debate because apart from the House of Representatives, which is pretty much, you know, consisting of elected representatives entirely, you have the Senate, which is basically military appointees. Most of them, pretty much all of them are military appointees. Many of them are obviously said to go through election in, you know, coming years. But right now, as of now, they're basically military appointees who were appointed under the Ku government, the NCPO government at the time. And they are probably going to be a big roadblock. And even, you know, it might be very difficult for them to make them, you know, be on board with the bill. Because obviously, several of them were the ones who, you know, the Senate pretty much led the way to blocking, you know, move forward parties, you know, forming of the government. Exactly, prime ministership position and, you know, forming the government primarily because it advocated for reform in the Lester Majesty, reform. We're not even talking about abolishing. It's just basic reforms. And even that was not something that the Senate would consider. So considering that this bill is going to be a big demand for, you know, amnesty for the Lester Majesty protesters as well and people who advocated for reforms in monarchy, reforms in government, many of whom are, you know, charged with sedition, which will also be included in the bill, will be considered for the amnesty. The Senate is definitely going to be a big roadblock in that. And before that, even in the House of Representatives, we have already have considered the pro-military block, not being very keen on giving any kind of amnesty to these sections of protesters, even though they might be open to, you know, allowing for, you know, red shirts and yellow shirts being given to the ministry. So it is a different thing. We need to see how things move forward and what kind of, you know, alliances and coalition the move forward might go forward to get this bill passed. But definitely it's a significant step towards addressing a certain part of civil liberties that have been, you know, that have been underdressed for very long in high politics. All right. Anish, we'll leave it there for this story. But of course, we also want to talk to you about French Polynesia. I'll be back with you in a second. It's our final story on the show today. France, which has been in the news over the past weeks and months and on this show as well about its colonial past and in some ways present in Africa is now in back on the show in the context of French Polynesia. France has ended its nearly decade-long absence by turning up to the French Polynesia sittings of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. France's ambassador to the UN attended the sitting, but the message delivered by him was probably not the one that France, that French Polynesia, sorry, French Polynesia's new president and pro-independence leader, Muay Thai Brotherson and his compatriots would have wanted to hear. French Polynesia was put back on the list of non-self-governing territories by the UN in 2013, but the French ambassador and therefore the French government said that the 100-plus islands that make up the collectivity have no place belonging to the list of non-autonomous countries and territories. Anish hopefully is still with us if the internet guards are permitting. Anish, so we've heard some sort of assurances from Emmanuel Macron's government that the pro-independence desires of the people of French Polynesia will be taken more seriously. How does this fit in with what happened at the meeting of the Special Committee on Decolonization? Well, I think before that we need to give a quick small little context about why France suddenly decided to sit for these Q&A colonization sittings on French Polynesia and that primarily has to do with the fact that the recently elected new government of French Polynesia under Muay Thai Brotherson basically acquired a promise from the French government at the time in a parlay for various concessions that they will be attending these sessions from now on. And this has been the first one since the government was formed in May. This year they actually attended but they just continued their official stand that has been there for a very long time on their islands and their claim over those islands and even repeated the same kind of strategy which is to walk out whenever French Polynesia is discussed and they pretty much gave the statement and walked out of the session as well. So this pretty much doesn't change much at this current scenario. The status quo exists but definitely this is not a good time for France considering that it is also facing sort of setbacks in its colonies. Other colonies we saw, we have talked about New Caledonia recently, they have lost, in September last month actually, they lost senate seat. The senator being a minister in the macro government, she lost the seat to a pro-independence candidate and that clearly shows that there is a certain tendency within these two pacific island colonies to actually assert their demand for independence or at least the very least their demand for a more autonomous constitution. Alright, Anish, apart from discussions that might be happening at various sort of UN forums, what is the kind of bilateral relationship between the two governments and do we see sort of this as something that can be resolved without the intervention of the participation of any kind of multilateral organization? It is very difficult to say because under the current government obviously there is no chance of any resolution or any consideration of their right to self-determination without foreign interference. We have to remember that even in the past whatever referendums have happened, be it in Caledonia or in other parts of other French colonies that they call departments or the OSES, collectivities departments which is whatever it be, these have happened only because there were considerable international pressures and especially interventions on multiple levels by the United Nations and obviously the non-aligned movement who also supports the current French citizenship independence movement and even the concentration of them being in the list of non-self-dominating territories in the UN list. So this, we have to see how the pressures are going to be but that's the fact that this is probably the first time that a very pro-independence government is in power in French citizenship and I think it's going to be quite interesting to say the least in the coming years for in the Pacific especially for France's multiple collectivities and departments and regions and territories in the region as well. Alright, thanks very much Anish and I think that's pretty much all we have time for on this episode of Daily DB from Manish myself and the entire team at least those of us who are still able to do some work. Thank you very much for watching. We'll be back hopefully tomorrow same time, same place with another episode of Daily DB. Until then I'll take this final opportunity to ask you once again of course to subscribe to our YouTube channel but also head to our website peoplesdispatch.org where you can get a sense or get details on all of the work we do. Stay safe until tomorrow. Thanks for watching again. Goodbye.