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Uber signage is posted at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Los Angeles, California, U.S. July 10, 2022. REUTERS/David SwansonRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSept 12 (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc (UBER.N) said on Monday it back-paid New Jersey $100 million in unemployment taxes over classifying drivers as contractors, but added that it did not agree with the state's view that drivers were "employees."Uber also said it only paid a fraction of what the state had originally demanded in its audit, which was over $1 billion. The ride-hailing company made a payment of $12.1 million, while its subsidiary Raiser paid about $88 million."Drivers in New Jersey and nationally are independent contractors who work when and where they want... We look forward to working with policymakers to deliver benefits while preserving the flexibility drivers want," an Uber spokesperson told Reuters.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comNew Jersey's Department of Labor and Workforce Development had fined Uber and Raiser in 2019 over unpaid unemployment taxes for the years 2014-2018 due to driver misclassification, which the company disputed.The state's labor department has now said its initial audit was an estimate made without Uber's cooperation, according to the New York Times, which had first reported the news.A subsequent audit, relying on worker payroll data supplied by Uber, assessed that Uber and its unit owed a combined $100 million in back taxes, penalties and interest, the report added.The department did not respond to Reuters' request for comment on the old and new audit estimates.New Jersey said that it saw the settlement as an indication that these workers in the state were "presumed to be employees," according to the NYT. Uber, however, has said that the payment was not part of "a settlement.""Our efforts to combat worker misclassification in New Jersey are continuing to move forward," the report said, quoting Robert Asaro-Angelo, the labor department's commissioner, as saying.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Lavanya Ahire, Shubhendu Deshmukh and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.VOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
On hot days, some over 100 degrees, workers spend hours harvesting fruits and vegetables for very little money -- produce that ends up on kitchen tables of people across the country.Tens of thousands of these workers have experienced heat-related injuries and hundreds more have died from heat, all while earning an average of $25,000 to $29,999 per year in one of the most hazardous jobs in the country, the Economic Policy Institute found.The workers, a majority of whom are Latino and undocumented, are in a constant battle for fair and safe labor practices.However, the labor rights movement transcends industries, though it may look quite different for others.And in local and federal government agencies, interns have been at the center of a debate about unpaid labor.It wasn't until recently that some government offices have begun paying their interns, which has created a new pathway for people from lower-income households to support themselves while gaining entry-level experience in policy and politics.Fresno farm worker Asuncionn Ponce marches with fellow United Farm Workers members along the Sacramento River from Walnut Grove, Calif. to Elk Grove, Calif., Aug. 24, 2022 on the 22nd day of marching to Sacramento to urge Governor Gavin Newsom to sign AB 2183, a bill that would let farm workers vote by mail in union elections.(Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, FILEPay Our Interns, created and spearheaded by two Latinos, fueled this change through their advocacy on Capitol HillLatinos have been a major force in the labor rights movement for decades, with icons such as Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, and Emma Tenayuca as the leaders of the fight.Farm workers harness collective organizing powerOn Aug. 3, farm workers began a 24-day, 335-mile "March for the Governor's Signature" to urge California Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a farm a farm workers rights bill.The bill would make it easier for workers to vote for a union,, without intimidation from supervisors, foreman and labor contractors. Farm workers say that voting, as it is now, discourages participation in union efforts."Currently, the only way that they do it is in person, at the premises of the employer, where the supervisors are looking over their shoulders, where they hire security, where, in many cases, immigration has been called and farm workers have been deported," said Teresa Romero, the president of the labor union United Farm Workers.However, Newsom has expressed concerns about the bill."We cannot support an untested mail-in election process that lacks critical provisions to protect the integrity of the election," Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon told CalMatters.Farmworkers face challenging workplace conditions, including low pay, unsafe conditions, and very few if any protections against abuse or misconduct.Romero, who leads the organization, says many undocumented workers pay taxes, but can't collect social security and can't retire. Some are left working long hours for years past the average retiring age."They work and feed us all," Romero said.She continued, "They move from crop to crop, moving their children from city to city to be able to support their family. And if we knew that, all of us would be willing to pay a little more for our food, just so these people have the respect, dignity, and the pay that they deserve."Without them, she says, we wouldn't have food on our tables.Romero urges people to be conscious of where they buy their food, how workers are represented and how they're protected. She said the fight for fair working practices shouldn't stop and end with farm workers themselves. She said their labor fight is a collective fight."This is not just manual labor," she said. "These are professionals who know exactly what to do when to do with different crops."Fighting for fair labor conditions in the office"Our society got too comfortable with unpaid labor," says Carlos Mark Vera, a co-founder of Pay Our Interns.He and Guillermo Creamer Jr. created the group to put an end to unpaid labor primarily in the public service space. Before 2017, Pay Our Interns found that only 10 percent of congressional interns were paid.Campaigns led by Pay Our Interns have led to the payment of thousands of interns working for the federal government.Pay Our InternsThe organization has since worked with Congress to allocate $48 million for lawmakers to pay their interns."Since then that fund has actually been growing each year, which is unheard of, you know, usually programs don't increase that quickly," said Vera. "Now that we have Congress invested in this, and they're very supportive of this, we've leveraged that for other ones. So this past year, we secured funding for White House interns, State Department interns for the first time in history."Unpaid internships push low-income or financially strained students out of the running to gain experience.Unpaid internships often force students to choose between finding a job that pays their bills or paying for an internship out of their own funds – since Vera says that internship expenses like traveling or supplies often come from the intern's wallet.This primarily affects Black and brown students, and makes it harder for some students to enter certain fields if only unpaid internships are available.Carlos Mark Vera and Guillermo Creamer Jr. created Pay Our Interns to advocate against unpaid labor on Capitol Hill.Pay Our Interns"How do you grow wealth in this country? A lot of times, it's just entering through professional pathways. But when there's a price to participating in these opportunities … We know that many Black and brown families cannot afford to do that," said Creamer. .Creamer says paid internships not only make the applicant pool more competitive, but they also diversify the career pipeline from intern to entry level jobs since it opens the doors to more students of all backgrounds."You cannot have a [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] agenda with an unpaid internship program," said Creamer. "If you have an unpaid internship program, you are not promoting equity. We just have to be blunt about it."Both Vera and Creamer had taken unpaid internships as students, but they had to juggle several other jobs to pay the bills or had to give up opportunities when making money to survive was more pressing.They say they were raised in a culture where people had to "pay their dues" through unpaid labor. However, they say the culture is shifting and people are learning that their work should be valued at all levels.Vera's own sister, a sophomore in college, was interviewing for an internship when she asked if it was paid – and the employer said it wasn't.She explained that her brother had an organization dedicated to eradicating unpaid labor, and declined the opportunity."They call the next day, and they're like, 'Okay, how about $18 an hour?'" Vera said, applauding his sister for advocating for herself. | Labor Activism |
Photo: Franz Waelischmiller / Sven Simo (AP)On Tuesday, the Biden administration said it would take steps to redefine how the federal government distinguishes “employees” from “independent contractors,” a proposal that could, potentially, allow millions of so-called gig workers to demand workplace rights like a minimum wage and overtime pay.OffEnglishThe Department of Labor has issued a notice of rulemaking that aims to reverse guidelines approved in January 2021 while the agency was still under Republican control. The department relies on certain guidelines to determine which workers it considers contractors by weighing two factors: how much control a worker has over when and how often they work, and how much they’re responsible for creating their own profits and investing in their own materials, labor, and equipment.The Labor Department, which tried and failed to stop the rules from enacting after Biden’s inauguration, said in a 184-page proposal on Tuesday that after “further consideration,” it believes those guidelines do not “fully comport” with the text and purpose of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Realigning the rules with labor laws and decades of legal precedence, the proposal says, requires equal consideration of other factors, such as whether the work being performed is “central or important to the employer’s business.” G/O Media may get a commissionGreat deals happening right nowSad that Prime Day is over? Don’t be! Best Buy is picking up the slack with a sales event of its own. From smart TVs to earbuds to laptops, there are plenty of opportunities to save.The changes could prove a blow to companies whose workforces are primarily comprised of gig workers — those not currently entitled to paid sick leave or unemployment insurance, among other benefits.The companies — Uber, Lyft, and Instacart, among others — have long opposed efforts to reclassify their contractors, collectively contributing hundreds of millions two years ago to help pass California’s Proposition 22, a ballot initiative exempting app-based delivery services from providing benefits to workers.“The ultimate inquiry is whether, as a matter of economic reality, the worker is either economically dependent on the employer for work (and is thus an employee) or is in business for themself (and is thus an independent contractor),” the department said. | Labor Activism |
Uber understood it was operating illegally when it launched in Australia and fiercely lobbied governments to legalise its lucrative Australian operations, documents leaked to the Guardian reveal.Taxis and hire cars are required by Australian state laws to obtain a licence prior to operating, but Uber set up shop in Australia in 2012 without the required permits.It is a tactic the company has used repeatedly in markets around the world: launch first, establish a loyal customer base, and then lobby aggressively for laws to be changed.Remarkable details of Uber’s Australian operations are detailed in the Uber files, an unprecedented leak of company data to the Guardian.By January 2015, business in Australia was booming: Sydney had become its seventh and Melbourne its eighth biggest “unprotected” market – one where the company’s operations were not yet lawful and revenue was at risk – according to a presentation given to executives.In April 2015, Corey Owens, head of public policy at Uber, urged his team to ramp up their lobbying efforts in Australia. Photograph: Marc-Steffen Unger/OECD/ITF 2014In April 2015, the company’s head of public policy, Corey Owens, urged his team to ramp up their lobbying efforts. “Ops has poured gasoline on the fire, so now it’s up to us to protect what they’ve built,” he said in an email to his team.In September 2015, in a presentation to managers in Las Vegas, another Uber executive acknowledged that the company was “still not regulated in any Australian state”.“Regulator very grumpy, yet modest levels of enforcement,” notes from the presentation read.The ACT made Uber legal in October 2015, but most of the states did not begin to legitimise the service until the following year.Uber’s ultimate success in Australia had a devastating effect on holders of taxi licences, and “presents a serious case study of regulatory failure”, according to Michael Donnelly, a principal lawyer at law firm Maurice Blackburn, who is running a class action lawsuit against Uber on behalf of licensed taxi operators.“In the future, state government regulators have to be far more resistant to large private companies entering the market and seeking to bully them in the way that Uber did.”Uber is defending the class action and has denied as part of the proceedings that it deliberately sought to flout state laws governing the licensing of commercial drivers and vehicles.Licensed taxi operators bore the brunt of Uber’s success in Australia. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAPFormer Labor staffer a key lobbyistThe trove of documents, which span 2014 to 2017, reveal details of Uber’s intense lobbying of state transport authorities.The company hired lobbyist John Richardson, a former senior Labor staffer, to petition the New South Wales government on its behalf, and claimed it was working with the NSW Labor opposition to write a bill that aimed to legalise Uber in that state.According to a 10 July 2014 email that Richardson sent to a colleague, the former adviser to the Hawke, Keating and Carr governments was to “provide public affairs support to Uber for state of New South Wales and advice regarding the rest of Australia”.He was to provide a “comprehensive stakeholder and influencer engagement program leading to regulatory approval/accommodation of Uber Ride Sharing platform and service”.He said he expected to be “very active for four months from July with NSW parliament in session till end of November and an election due in March”. “… de facto regularisation of status may be achieved in this time frame”, he wrote, but full legislation leading to regulatory approval of Uber was “unlikely before mid 2015”.Q&AWhat are the Uber files?ShowThe Uber files is a global investigation based on a trove of 124,000 documents that were leaked to the Guardian by Mark MacGann, Uber's former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The data consist of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the Silicon Valley giant's most senior executives, as well as memos, presentations, notebooks, briefing papers and invoices.The leaked records cover 40 countries and span 2013 to 2017, the period in which Uber was aggressively expanding across the world. They reveal how the company broke the law, duped police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments across the world.To facilitate a global investigation in the public interest, the Guardian shared the data with 180 journalists in 29 countries via the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The investigation was managed and led by the Guardian with the ICIJ.In a statement, Uber said: "We have not and will not make excuses for past behaviour that is clearly not in line with our present values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we’ve done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come."Richardson, who runs PR firm Richardson Coutts with former Liberal staffer Stephen Coutts, was registered as a lobbyist for Uber in NSW, and told Guardian Australia he was also registered at the time in South Australia and federally but those registers do not display dormant clients. “We were not registered in Victoria because we didn’t act for Uber in that jurisdiction,” he said.In the September 2015 presentation to managers in Las Vegas, Uber executives claimed to be working closely with the NSW Labor opposition to write legislation that would legalise Uber. “In Australia, the opposition always sees us as an opportunity,” the company said. “We are literally writing a bill for them to look smart.”When asked about the matter, Richardson told Guardian Australia his firm “provided input [into] the [NSW Labor] opposition’s policy on the gig economy”.Labor’s then-spokesperson for transport, Ryan Park, told Guardian Australia in a statement he met with stakeholders including Uber and it was “certainly not unusual to receive suggestions or proposals from stakeholders”, but denied the company wrote legislation for the party.“The only people who draft Labor party legislation that is debated in the parliament are those parliamentary members of the Labor party with the assistance of parliamentary counsel,” the statement said.In the same presentation, Uber executives noted that “the hyper-aggressive tactics [that were] successful in the US” were not working to force changes to the law elsewhere in the world.“We used to try and use scale to force discussion around reform. That worked throughout the US. Not the same impact in [Europe, the Middle East and Africa”],” it said.Jordan Condo, Uber’s head of policy for the Asia Pacific. Photograph: The West Australian/WestPixNo ‘secret deal’The documents also reveal claims made within the company that it had struck a secret deal with Victoria’s taxi authority.Emails show that in early September 2014, Uber’s policy head for the Asia Pacific, Jordan Condo, met with the chair of Victoria’s Taxi Services Commission, Graeme Samuel – a former chair of the Australian competition regulator who was described by Uber staff as “a staunch pro-competition advocate”.“An agreement was reached [with the TSC] that will create a process to accredit uberX drivers in the coming months with a plan to license ridesharing in early 2015,” Uber staff said in a weekly email roundup of lobbying activity around the globe.Samuels told Guardian Australia: “There was no secret deal done with Uber or anyone else associated with rideshare services.”“[Rideshare] drivers were always entitled to be licensed as drivers of commercial passenger vehicles simply by passing a medical and criminal check,” he said.Uber staff described Graeme Samuel, the former chair of Victoria’s Taxi Services Commission, as ‘a staunch pro-competition advocate’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPBut he said he did not have the remit in his position at the TSC to “license ridesharing” in Victoria.This was because two licences were required to run a taxi – one for the driver and one for the vehicle. At the time, there was no way for Uber drivers to license the cars they drove.Parliament needed to change the law to allow this “and obviously it was not within the remit or power of the TSC to indicate, let alone undertake, any timeline for such a law to be promulgated – or indeed whether government was of a mind to do so at any time in the foreseeable future,” Samuel said.In 2015, Samuel’s authority began criminal prosecutions of a number of the company’s drivers for operating without the correct licences.He said “Uber determined to simply flaunt the vehicle licensing requirements”, while rival Lyft decided not to operate in Australia until the law allowed it.“The delay in legalising rideshare afforded Uber the opportunity to establish itself as a virtual monopolist in rideshare and it has been almost impossible to topple it from that perch.”Taxi drivers walk out in protest of the illegal rideshare service UberX in September 2015 in Melbourne. Photograph: Robert Prezioso/Getty ImagesA ‘devastating effect’ on taxi driversTaxi licence holders have launched a class action lawsuit against Uber in the Victorian supreme court over the period in which the company operated without the required permits in Australia.Lawyer Michael Donnelly, who is leading the class action, told Guardian Australia: “We allege that the commencement of Uber in Australia, operating illegally, had a devastating effect on the holders of taxi licences in Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia.“Taxi licence holders were often from working-class backgrounds, and had invested enormous sums of money to acquire taxi licences in a full and regulated market. The practices of Uber that we allege were illegal, caused the value of those licences to be severely impacted.”In a preliminary ruling in the case, Associate Justice Patricia Matthews found there were reasonable grounds to suggest that Uber was operating illegally in Melbourne from 23 January 2014 and illegally in NSW, Queensland and WA from 14 April 2014.She said that “the attempts made by the defendants [Uber] to avoid enforcement were an aspect of building scale, garnering public support, and growing the business (including by attracting and retaining UberX partners) until they had managed to flip a city”.The company’s business model of “flipping” cities to Uber and building scale meant the company knew a regulatory fight was “inevitable” when it launched in Melbourne and Sydney, Matthews said in the ruling, which was handed down on 26 April.Matthews said the commission of offences as a result of Uber’s operations in Victoria, NSW and WA was “not a theoretical possibility”.People wait for their Uber to arrive at Sydney airport. Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images“It was, by virtue of the manner in which UberX was launched and operated in the relevant states, a certainty.“I accept the plaintiffs’ submission that ridesharing offences were being committed systemically and on a large scale,” she said. “Even if at trial it is found otherwise, there are reasonable grounds for making this finding as part of this application.”The ruling allowed taxi licence operators to use documents that Uber claimed didn’t have to be disclosed because they contained legal advice. But the judge found that some of the documents could be used in court because they contained advice on how to circumvent the law.Uber is appealing the ruling.A spokesperson for the company said in a statement to the Guardian that Uber started operating globally at a time when regulation of its services “did not exist anywhere in the world” and it had openly championed changing the law.“Of course, our initial approach was at times too brash, and we have admitted many mistakes and missteps,” the spokesperson said.“Today’s environment is very different, and Uber is now regulated at the federal, state, local, and often airport level, in more than 10,000 cities around the world.” | Labor Activism |
MoneyWatch September 2, 2022 / 2:09 PM / CBS/AP Unions rise again: Labor collectives vs. Amazon Unions rise again: Labor collectives vs. Amazon 04:58 Amazon's efforts to undo the results of a historic union win at a Staten Island warehouse have fallen short, as a hearing officer for a federal labor board on Thursday rebuffed Amazon's objections to the election.The decision is a victory for organizers in what could be a very long battle for recognition. Shortly after the spring vote, in which workers at the warehouse known as JFK decisively won a union election in April, creating the first unionized Amazon facility in the U.S., the company filed more than two dozen objections with the National Labor Relations Board. In those filings, the mega-retailer claimed the election was tainted by organizers and Region 29, the agency's regional office in Brooklyn that oversaw the election. The case was then transferred to another regional office, based in Phoenix, Arizona, at Amazon's request. The 24-day long hearing, which Amazon had unsuccessfully sought to close to the public, was marked by tense exchanges between attorneys for both sides on what documents could be submitted for evidence and which witnesses could testify. On Thursday, Lisa Dunn, the agency officer who handled the company's case, concluded that Amazon's objections should be entirely overruled and the union be certified as a bargaining representative for the warehouse, a spokesperson for the NLRB wrote in an email. "Employer has not met its burden of establishing that Region 29, the Petitioner, or any third parties have engaged in objectionable conduct affecting the results of the election," the spokesperson said, offering a summary of Dunn's recommendation. Thursday's win is a relief for the Amazon Labor Union, the grassroots group of former and current workers whose unexpected victory in April followed weeks of aggressive campaigning from both sides."The people have spoken and it's time for amazon to recognize the Amazon Labor Union and negotiate a contract," Derrick Palmer, a leader of the Amazon Labor Union, said on Twitter. Breaking news‼️‼️ We just officially WON our objection hearing with the NLRB against amazon‼️ The people have spoken and it’s time for amazon to recognize the Amazon Labor Union and negotiate a contract. #ALUFORTHEWIN #UnionStrong— Derrick Palmer (@DerrickPalmer_) September 1, 2022 Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said the company plans to file another appeal. "While we're still reviewing the decision, we strongly disagree with the conclusion and intend to appeal," Nantel said in a statement. "As we showed throughout the hearing with dozens of witnesses and hundreds of pages of documents, both the NLRB and the ALU improperly influenced the outcome of the election and we don't believe it represents what the majority of our team wants."Amazon, the union and the agency's office in Brooklyn have until September 16 to file any exceptions to the report, which would send the case to the regional director, who will issue an order to either certify the election results or order a rerun vote. The company could still appeal that order to the five-person labor board, whose Democratic majority is expected to be sympathetic to the union. Even when the agency upholds a union victory, experts say companies who don't want a unionized workforce often refuse to negotiate. That move can trigger protracted legal battles in federal court, which companies can use as a backdoor attempt to thwart labor victories.Union loses separate election, dampening spiritsIn May, the nascent union lost a separate election at a neighboring warehouse, which dampened enthusiasm elsewhere. At the same time, it was devoting more time and resources to defend its initial win from the e-commerce giant. Other campaigns have kicked off at Amazon warehouses in North Carolina, Kentucky and elsewhere, as workers attempt to gather enough signatures to qualify for a union election. The Amazon Labor Union recently filed for an election at an Amazon warehouse near Albany, New York.CBS News' Irina Ivanova contributed reporting. In: Staten Island Brooklyn Amazon labor union Elections New York City Union New York Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | Labor Activism |
Freight train workers are fed up. One conductor said he nearly missed his wife’s funeral because he couldn’t get time off. An engineer said he was put on a disciplinary path after having to stay home to fix a broken water heater. Other freight train workers blamed the industry’s on-call, 24/7 scheduling requirements for health problems and divorces — a lifestyle they said had turned one of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the country into one marred by misery and neglect.After years of cutbacks and service tumult, the country’s freight rail workers are pushing to strike, which could further clog supply chain networks and amp up political heat on a White House already under the microscope for economic woes. The Biden administration said Friday it will appoint a three-person commission to stave off what would be the first strike by freight rail workers in 30 years. Rail companies say that they are offering salary increases to help keep their workers among the highest paid and working on making their systems more consistent.NBC News talked to more than 10 current and former workers about the conditions on the rails. All of the current workers said they supported a stoppage.“The company keeps making working conditions worse,” said a conductor with Union Pacific in the Midwest, who asked that his name be withheld for fear of reprisal. “They’re making billions per quarter and they’re only paying those dividends out to shareholders, when it’s the workers who are moving freight and making sure this country keeps the supply chain moving.”The presidential commission will formally pause the bitter negotiations between workers, their unions and the companies and prevent workers from striking until September. The White House’s hand was forced after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union, which is leading a coalition of 10 rail unions in negotiations, voted last Tuesday by more than 99 percent, about 11,000 votes, to authorize a strike.The movement caps years of tensions on the freight rails that reached a peak during the pandemic. Workers, who support a system that moves some 20 billion tons of goods a year, roughly 40 percent of long distance goods transported in the U.S., complain that the rail companies are enhancing their profits by cutting labor costs to the bone, and raising prices, even as service has suffered.The yearslong implementation of a technological system called “precision scheduled railroading” has allowed railroads to run longer trains with less workers — helping drive handsome profits in recent years. “These are the employees that worked everyday during a pandemic and helped these folks make record profits,” said Dennis Pierce, the president of the engineers and trainmen union. “To go three years without a raise when inflation is running at 8 to 10 percent right now, and then force them to work more, because you can’t hire. The employees are angry. It’s a level of frustration amongst the workforce unlike any I have seen in the 45 years I’ve worked at the railroad.”Government data shows increased strain on the railroads. Fatalities per 100,000 miles grew 60% from 2017 to 2021, according to the Federal Railroad Administration, although industry experts caution that those numbers represent more about the public — people who ignore or miss signs to avoid crossing trains — than the rails. Accidents and incidents per 100,000 miles rose by 9.4% during that same time period.The Association of American Railroads, the industry group representing the companies, said safety has been improving on the railroads for years, saying that the employee injury rate has dropped 48 percent since 2000. Total train accidents declined 32 percent during that time period.A BNSF freight train in Livingston, Mont., last year as it travels from Seattle to points east.William Campbell / Getty Images fileMore with lessThe current and recent freight rail workers, who included conductors, engineers, yardmasters and dispatchers, said in interviews that challenging working conditions have deteriorated even further during the pandemic. They said that’s because companies like BNSF, one of the nation’s largest rail companies, instituted rigid scheduling requirements that leave workers on-call nearly 24/7 every day of the year, as labor shortages have challenged the industry. And their wages haven’t gone up for three years even as inflation has spiked, workers and union officials said. A spokesman for BNSF said the scheduling policy, known internally as “Hi-Viz,” was created to improve consistency, service and reliability for its crews and customers. It said that the company has been making some tweaks to the system to improve it, and that attendance-related discipline has been decreasing. “BNSF team members drive our success and we couldn’t deliver the nation’s goods without them,” the BNSF spokesman, Ben Wilemon, said in a statement. “We are committed to adapting together to meet today’s competitive freight environment.”But several workers interviewed say the conditions are taking a toll on their health. A locomotive engineer at BNSF in Nebraska said his doctor had warned him recently that his health problems from working a round-the-clock schedule were mounting. He advised the engineer to take medical leave, find a new job or expect his problems with drinking, weight gain and sleeplessness to get worse. In total, four workers described talking to their doctors about similar issues. One worker said the divorce he was in the middle of was due in part to stress from the industry’s scheduling. “They’re asking everybody to do more with less,” said the engineer in Nebraska, who asked that his name be withheld for fear of reprisal from his employer. The engineer said he was penalized on the company’s point system after missing work to deal with a busted water heater this year, pushing him further down the path to potential discipline. BNSF said in a statement that it was unable to comment on individual employees’ cases, but that it was “committed to working with employees in cases of extenuating circumstances.”Freight rail jobs are a vestige of the unionized middle class and historically have been one of the top industries by pay for workers without a college degree. A high percentage of the workforce is male, and it also draws heavily from former members of the military. The National Railway Labor Conference, the consortium of companies bargaining with workers, pointed to the industry’s wages, saying that the average annual compensation package for railroad employees, including wages and benefits, is about $130,000, and included generous health care and the potential for a pension after years of service. The mean salary for railroad conductors in the transportation industry is about $67,660, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For engineers, who staff the trains along with conductors, the mean salary is $73,490.Supply chain ‘devastation’The last major freight rail strike was in April 1991, which raised similar fears of an economic fallout. The strike lasted less than 24 hours, after Congress passed legislation forcing workers back on the job while mediators worked to end the dispute. But with inflation on the march after the pandemic, the U.S. economy is in an even more perilous place now.“It would be devastating,” Frank Wilner, a railroad economist and author who worked for more than 50 years in the industry, said of a strike. “Even a 24-hour shutdown could take a week or more for railroads to resume normal operations. You would have serious backlogs in the supply chain that’s already quite fragile. Ports would see more backups. Warehouses would suffer and national defense would be threatened.”Former rail worker Tom Sharkey said years of stress over the industry’s oppressive scheduling culminated with him almost missing his wife’s funeral in 2019. Tom Sharkey.Courtesy Tom SharkeySharkey worked in Texas for BNSF, while his wife lived in Washington state and suffered from mixed connective tissue disease, an autoimmune disorder. They struggled with the distance, and the stress of it all led to health problems for him like weight gain, nervous twitches, and depression and anxiety, Sharkey said, and he was denied family medical leave three times to take care of his wife, he said. He was later approved when he requested leave based on his anxiety instead. Sharkey now works as a technician in the cloud division of a major technology company. He makes about a third less than the approximately $100,000 a year he made on the rails, but he works fewer hours, is on a set schedule and says the trade-off is worth it as he tries to rebuild his career.“I’ve been in apartments since then, trying to get back on my feet,” he said. “It’s created a hole in my life that I can’t get over.”Longer trains, fewer workersSome workers say the attrition in the industry has been by design, because companies are pushing to run longer trains with smaller crews.“When I started 15 years ago, I thought a train was fairly sizable at 100 cars,” said a dispatcher with Norfolk Southern, who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisal. “And now they’re double that at 200 cars at a time, three miles worth of traffic in one train.” Connor Spielmaker, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, said of the nearly 370 trains it runs on an average day, the vast majority are below 12,000-feet long. (Three miles is 15,840 feet.) Workers and experts like Wilner said rail companies are hoping to go to one-man crews as they rely more on technology. Two workers, a conductor and an engineer, currently staff most freight rail runs. The Class 1 railroads, which include the top seven freight companies and Amtrak, have dropped roughly 45,000 workers in the last six years, about 29 percent of the workforce, according to the federal Surface Transportation Board.The pandemic further accelerated this trend: Nonadministrative and executive staff at the top seven freight rail companies dropped by more than 11 percent, from 109,800 to 98,500, from the beginning of the pandemic through May, according to federal data compiled by NBC News. Service has suffered, too. Several hearings on Capitol Hill in the last month have showcased loud frustrations from the industries that rely on freight rail for the movement of goods, like grain and feed manufacturers, and other goods producers.Pandemic windfallDespite the service issues, the country’s biggest rail companies reaped huge financial rewards during the pandemic.The two biggest freight rail companies had record profits during 2021; BNSF had a net income of nearly $6 billion, up 16 percent from 2020. Union Pacific’s net income was $6.5 billion, also up 16 percent from 2020. CSX Transportation achieved a record low operating ratio — a key measurement for the industry that gauges the share of revenue eaten by expenses, like labor — for the third quarter. Norfolk Southern Railway announced a record low operating ratio for the year.“It’s embarrassing, in all honesty, because for years the railroads have had record profits,” the engineer from Nebraska said. “And they tried to say that yeah, our employees are the reason that we’re seeing this success. But it’s never enough for them.”The Association of American Railroads, the industry group representing the companies, said in a statement that they were aggressively working to hire up amid the national labor shortage. New hires must go through a four to six month training, which also slows down the process. “Railroads know service is not at the level customers expect or deserve, which is why they are taking aggressive action to put the right plans, people and equipment in place to tackle these challenges,” a spokeswoman for the association, Jessica Kahanek, said in a statement. “Railroads are pulling many levers to restore service, but none is more important today than hiring and retaining employees.” | Labor Activism |
Qatar recently arrested at least 60 foreign workers who protested going months without pay and deported some of them, an advocacy group said, just three months before Doha hosts the 2022 FIFA World Cup.The move comes as Qatar faces intense international scrutiny over its labor practices ahead of the tournament. Like other Gulf Arab nations, Qatar heavily relies on foreign labor. The workers’ protest a week ago — and Qatar’s reaction to it — could further fuel the concern.The head of a labor consultancy investigating the incident said the detentions cast new doubt on Qatar’s pledges to improve the treatment of workers. “Is this really the reality coming out?” asked Mustafa Qadri, executive director of the group, Equidem Research.In a statement to The Associated Press on Sunday night, Qatar’s government acknowledged that “a number of protesters were detained for breaching public safety laws.” It declined to offer any information about the arrests or any deportations.Video footage posted online showed some 60 workers angry about their salaries protesting on Aug. 14 outside of the Doha offices of Al Bandary International Group, a conglomerate that includes construction, real estate, hotels, food service and other ventures. Some of those demonstrating hadn’t received their salaries for as many as seven months, Equidem said.The protesters blocked an intersection on Doha’s C Ring Road in front of the Al Shoumoukh Tower. The footage matched known details of the street, including it having several massive portraits of Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, looking down on passers-by.Al Bandary International Group, which is privately owned, did not respond to requests for comment and a telephone number registered in its name did not connect on multiple attempts to call it.The Qatari government acknowledged that the firm hadn’t paid salaries and that its Labor Ministry would pay “all delayed salaries and benefits” to those affected.“The company was already under investigation by the authorities for nonpayment of wages before the incident, and now further action is being taken after a deadline to settle outstanding salary payments was missed,” the government said.Qadri said police later arrested the protesters and held them in a detention center where some described being in a stifling heat without air conditioning. Doha’s temperature this week reached around 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit).Qadri described police telling those held that if they can strike in hot weather, they can sleep without air conditioning.One detained worker who called Equidem from the detention center described seeing as many as 300 of his colleagues there from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Nepal and the Philippines. He said some had been paid salaries after the protest while others hadn’t. His comments could not be corroborated.Qatar, like other Gulf Arab nations, has in the past deported demonstrating foreign workers, and tied residency visas to employment. The right to form unions remains tightly controlled and available only to Qataris, as is the country’s limited right to assembly, according to the Washington-based advocacy group Freedom House.Qatar, a small, energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula, is home to the state-funded Al Jazeera satellite news network. However, expression in the country remains tightly controlled. Last year, Qatar detained and later deported a Kenyan security guard who wrote and spoke publicly about the woes of the country’s migrant labor force.Since FIFA awarded the tournament to Qatar in 2010, the country has taken some steps to overhaul the country’s employment practices. That includes eliminating its so-called kafala employment system, which tied workers to their employers, who had say over whether they could leave their jobs or even the country.Qatar also has adopted a minimum monthly wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals ($275) for workers and required food and housing allowances for employees not receiving that directly from their employers.Activists like Qadri have called on Doha to do more, particularly when it comes to ensuring workers receive their salaries on time and are protected from abusive employers.“Have we all been duped by Qatar over the last several years?” Qadri asked, suggesting that recent reforms might have been “a cover” for authorities allowing prevailing labor practices to continue.The World Cup will start this November in Qatar. | Labor Activism |
Billions of dollars meant to help people cope with the pain of the pandemic disappeared in fraud schemes big and small, and the government is only now taking stock of how extensive the abuse became.The Justice Department charged 48 people this week with operating a massive fraud ring in Minnesota that drained $240 million from a pandemic hunger program intended to feed children.Dozens of people allegedly made up names and ages for children they claimed to have fed, then pocketed the money for those fake meals.While the scale of the scheme was unusual, the approach was not.So much money flowed to programs with so little oversight that people all over the world managed to siphon off piles of cash that the government is unlikely ever to recover.“Congress failed to implement any tracking, accountability, [or] oversight into any of the programs, any of the funding that they issued over the last three years,” Deborah Collier, vice president for policy and government affairs at Citizens Against Government Waste, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s just nonexistent.”
WATCHDOG IDENTIFIES $45 BILLION PAID IN FRAUDULENT COVID-19 UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS
The Labor Department’s inspector general estimated that the improper payment rate for pandemic unemployment programs exceeded 19%.In California, for example, officials estimated that fraud could account for as much as 27% of the pandemic jobless benefits it paid in 2020.In Maryland, officials detected a stunning 508,000 fraudulent claims over just one six-week window last summer.The enormous amount of money available and the speed at which the government pushed it out the door created abundant opportunities for fraud.“Obviously, any time you have a disaster, and this was a rather unprecedented disaster … there’s an urgency to getting the money out, and it’s expected that some level of oversight and some of the checks and balances may be reduced in order to speed up getting that money out,” Sean Moulton, senior policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a different balancing point that agencies try and strike in recognition of that urgent need.”“Unfortunately, I think we didn’t even try to strike a new balance,” he added. “We just got rid of the idea of oversight and accountability.”Some people applied for pandemic unemployment benefits in multiple states. One fraudster managed to rake in $222,000 in payments from 29 states using a single Social Security number.Others used the Social Security numbers of dead people or anonymous email accounts to snap up extra payments.And some of the fraud played out far from home.More sophisticated pandemic unemployment schemes involved conspirators who hired low-wage workers in China, Brazil, Bolivia, Mexico, and several West African countries to file jobless benefits claims in the United States on a massive scale, according to ProPublica
.Pandemic unemployment benefits went to prison, too, despite the program barring incarcerated people from collecting payments. The Department of Labor estimated that at least $98 million in pandemic jobless aid went to federal prisoners.Two inmates in a California prison faced criminal charges after they allegedly used the birth dates and Social Security numbers of fellow inmates to file a flurry of unemployment claims. The two men collected $1.4 million, according to court documents
.In all, pandemic unemployment programs may have lost as much as $163 billion to improper payments and fraud, with the Labor Department inspector general theorizing that the actual amount was “likely higher.”On Thursday, the Labor Department inspector general issued a memo saying her team had identified $45.6 billion in pandemic unemployment insurance fraud. That figure had increased significantly from the last time the watchdog gave an update on its fraud findings.The Paycheck Protection Program also sent billions of dollars to people who inflated — or, in many cases, invented — their small businesses. Lawmakers designed PPP to help businesses keep workers on the payroll during the height of lockdowns, and the program aimed to get money into company accounts as quickly as possible.More than a year after the program expired, prosecutors are still chasing down the stolen funds.A man in Washington, D.C., was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in prison for creating fake company documents to apply for more than two dozen PPP loans. He successfully stole more than $2.3 million and used the proceeds to purchase a Tesla, according to the Justice Department
.Justice Department officials seized four luxury cars and jewelry after investigating a PPP scheme in Georgia that allegedly netted one man $11.1 million from 14 fraudulent PPP loans that went to fake businesses.A woman in California apparently created a fake company to apply for nine PPP loans and, according to prosecutors
, “spent the bulk of the loan money on personal indulgences, including private jet travel, hotel stays, boat rentals, expensive automobiles, luxury goods purchased from Louis Vuitton and Neiman Marcus, and specialty items purchased from the Sunglass Hut and the San Francisco Giants Dugout Store.”Some people invented fake farms to collect pandemic aid.In South Dakota, one woman learned her home address had been listed as a potato farm only when a local news reporter contacted her for a story about fake farm schemes.A fraudster had pocketed $42,700 for the nonexistent potato farm. When the woman called the Small Business Administration to report the fraud that the news station had alerted her to, she then learned her house had also been listed as a tomato farm for a second loan.In Ohio, a single family allegedly created 72 fake farms, claiming to be growing everything from organic berries to garlic, to take out more than $7 million in pandemic loans.The three addresses used by the family members on their loan applications were apparently ordinary homes, not farms.But federal authorities did not uncover the scheme. In fact, reporters at Bloomberg News were the ones to discover it while reporting on how little the government enforced even the most basic requirements associated with the loan program, such as a ban on giving loans to companies that did not exist before Congress created PPP.Ineligible — but, unlike much of the PPP fraud, at least existent — businesses raked in pandemic loans as well.Two women in Massachusetts faced criminal charges after the Justice Department said they collected pandemic aid for their prostitution rings, for example.Researchers estimated last year that PPP fraud could have risen higher than $100 billion, according to an analysis in the Journal of Finance.That would be a significant chunk of the program, which ultimately doled out $793 billion in loans.The Biden administration has stepped up efforts to crack down on the fraud, which began during the Trump administration but continued apace under President Joe Biden.Last week, the Justice Department unveiled three Strike Force teams focused on going after pandemic program fraud.Attorney General Merrick Garland said federal officials had recovered $1.2 billion in stolen pandemic aid — just a fraction of the known fraud.Last month, Biden signed a bill that extended the statute of limitations for some kinds of PPP fraud from five years to 10, giving investigators more time to dig through the millions of loan applications filed during the pandemic.
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Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Rob Portman introduced a bill in July that would help claw back money lost to fraud in pandemic unemployment programs.“The fraud associated with pandemic unemployment programs reached staggering levels,” Portman said in a statement at the time. “Billions of hard-working Americans’ taxpayer dollars that were meant to help out-of-work Americans instead went to criminals and cheats.”But Collier said tracking down and recovering stolen pandemic funds is an incredibly difficult task.“A lot of it is that you’ve got the agencies now having to investigate where the money went, and it’s really hard, especially with a lot of these fraud cases — they have to build cases surrounding the fraud,” she said. “And if the money’s already spent on gosh knows what … The money is gone, all they can do is prosecute the folks that abused the programs.” | Labor Activism |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden excoriated “MAGA Republicans" and the extreme right on Monday, pitching personal Labor Day appeals to swing-state union members who he hopes will turn out in force for his party in November.“The middle class built America,” Biden told a workers’ gathering at park grounds in Milwaukee. “Everybody knows that. But unions built the middle class.”Later Monday, he flew to West Mifflin, outside Pittsburgh — returning to Pennsylvania for the third time in less than a week and just two days after his predecessor, Donald Trump, staged his own rally in the state.The unofficial start of fall, Labor Day also traditionally starts a political busy season where campaigns scramble to excite voters for Election Day on Nov. 8. That’s when control of the House and Senate, as well some of the country’s top governorships, will be decided.Trump spoke Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre, near Scranton, where Biden was born. The president made his own Wilkes-Barre trip last week to discuss increasing funding for police, to decry GOP criticism of the FBI after the raid on Trump’s Florida estate and to argue that new, bipartisan gun measures can help reduce violent crime.Two days after that, Biden went to Independence Hall in Philadelphia for a prime-time address denouncing the “extremism” of Trump’s fiercest supporters.Trump has endorsed candidates in key races around the country and Biden is warning that some Republicans now believe so strongly in Trumpism that they are willing to undermine core American values to promote it. The president said Thursday that “blind loyalty to a single leader, and a willingness to engage in political violence, is fatal to democracy.”Trump responded during his Saturday rally that Biden is “an enemy of the state.” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel tweeted Monday that Biden “is the most anti-worker president in modern history,” noting that high inflation had taken a bite out of American wages, income and savings.During his address in Milwaukee, Biden said “Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican" but singled out those who have taken Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign cry to dangerous or hateful lengths. He highlighted episodes like last year’s mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.He said that many in the GOP are "full of anger, violence, hate, division.”“But together we can, and we must, choose a different path forward,” Biden said. “A future of unity and hope. we’re going to choose to build a better America.”The crowd jeered loudly as the president repeatedly chided Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin for voting against a Democratic-backed measure meant to lower prescription drug prices. The president also suggested Johnson and other congressional Republicans were willing to undermine Social Security.Unions endorsements helped Biden overcome disastrous early finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire to win the 2020 Democratic primary, and eventually the White House. He has since continued to praise the labor movement as president.Mary Kay Henry, president of the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, called Biden’s championing of unions heading into the midterm elections “critical” and said workers must “mobilize in battlegrounds across the country to ensure that working people turn out.”“We’re really excited about the president speaking directly to workers about, if he had the opportunity, he’d join a union,” Henry said. She added: “This president has signaled which side he’s on. And he’s on the side of working people. And that matters hugely.”In Pennsylvania, Biden addressed members of the United Steelworkers and noted that Trump is a “former, defeated president.”Referencing Trump's persistent, false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Biden said, “You can’t love the country and say how much you love it when you only accept one of two outcomes of an election: Either you won or you were cheated.”Both of the perennial presidential battleground states Biden visited Monday may provide key measures of Democrats’ strength before November. With inflation still raging and the president’s approval ratings slightly better but remaining low, how much Biden can help his party in top races — and how much candidates want him to try — remains to be seen.That was on display in Milwaukee, where Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is trying to unseat incumbent Johnson, but didn't appear with Biden.In the state’s other top race, Tim Michels, a construction executive endorsed by Trump, is attempting to deny Democratic Gov. Tony Evers a second term. Evers spoke at the labor event Biden addressed and briefly greeted the president backstage.“We have a president who understands the challenges facing working families,” Evers told the crowd. He said Biden “hasn’t forgotten that working families matter, not just on Labor Day, but every single day of the year.”Pennsylvania voters are choosing a new governor, with state Attorney General John Shapiro facing another Trump-endorsed Republican, Doug Mastriano, and a new senator. That race is between Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Trump-backed celebrity heart physician Mehmet Oz. Fetterman spoke with Biden before both gave speeches in West Mifflin.The Pennsylvania and Wisconsin races could decide which party controls the Senate next year, while the winner of each governorship may influence results in 2024′s presidential election. The stakes are particularly high given that some Trump-aligned candidates have spread his lies about widespread fraud that did not occur during the 2020 election. Judges, including ones appointed by Trump, dismissed dozens of lawsuits filed after that election, and Trump’s own attorney general called the claims bogus.Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to organized labor in at breakfast meeting with the Greater Boston Labor Council, declaring “When union wages go up, everybody’s wages go up.”“When union workplaces are safer everyone is safer,” Harris said. “When unions are strong, America is strong.”___Associated Press writer Wilson Ring contributed to this report. | Labor Activism |
Last Friday, five days after Alabama prisoners launched a statewide labor strike, Republican governor Kay Ivey stood on the steps of the governor’s mansion and assured reporters that the head of the state’s beleaguered corrections department had things “well under control”.But images and interviews from inside the state’s prisons show a system in disarray, with deteriorating conditions, pervasive violence, multiple deaths and little oversight from staff.The strike started on 26 September after thousands of prisoners refused to leave their dorms and cell blocks for work in mess halls, factories and trash crews. Prison administrators said they had to cut back food rations from three meals a day to two, which prisoners saw as retaliation, but officials blamed on the fact that meals are generally prepared by the incarcerated workers themselves. Guards stopped letting people out for visiting, recreation or school. Cell phone footage shared with the Marshall Project shows trash piling up in walkways and dorms in some prisons.embedThen on Saturday – less than 24 hours after the governor’s declaration on the mansion steps – prisoners recorded grainy cell phone footage of what appears to be a fatal stabbing in an Alabama lockup. The first of the two short clips, which prisoners said was filmed at Donaldson correctional facility in Bessemer, Alabama, shows one man apparently stabbing another in a common room as others watch from a few feet away. The second video shows a man sprawled out on the floor, struggling to lift his head up, while another prisoner leans over him as if to check whether he’s alive.The Alabama Department of Corrections did not dispute the authenticity of the videos, and confirmed that 30-year-old Denarieya Smith was killed Saturday at Donaldson in an “inmate-on-inmate assault involving a weapon”, which officials are investigating. The department cited security concerns and refused to answer questions about whether the unit is understaffed. In the most recent numbers made public, the department of corrections was authorized by the legislature to have 3,326 employees in 2018. This summer, it had a little more than half that many, according to a staffing report from June.“We’re not going outside except for chow,” said one man who spoke to the Marshall Project from a medium-security facility and asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from prison officials. “There’s no visitation. There’s no trade school. No laundry. No ice. The officers have been working 16 hours a day since this started, but I noticed there’s less and less of them whenever we go to chow.”The man said he’d seen videos of fights and violence, including images of Smith’s killing. The county’s medical examiner confirmed that a second prisoner at Donaldson – 29-year-old Joseph Agee – had also been stabbed to death since the strike began. The medical examiner said both deaths are being investigated as homicides.“What we saw in that video is outrageous – but it’s been outrageous in DOC for so long, and it just doesn’t let up,” said Carla Crowder, executive director of the advocacy nonprofit Alabama Appleseed. “It is not unusual to have multiple homicides or drug overdoses in a week, and videos circulating of sleeping guards and open-air drug use in the dorms. That is the new normal.”She added that the governor’s claims of control are “meaningless words, not grounded in reality,” she added.The Alabama prison system has been the target of a federal investigation for years, and in late 2020, the Department of Justice sued the state over concerns about overcrowding, violence and a high risk of death for incarcerated people. Despite the added scrutiny, prisoners and advocates said conditions have not improved. And as the case is not slated for trial until 2024, some hoped a collective action would spark legislative changes to sentencing and parole practices that could free people instead.Elmore correctional facility in Elmore, Alabama. The state prison system has been the target of a federal investigation for years. Photograph: Brynn Anderson/APSince the justice department’s suit began, “the death toll has risen significantly”, said Diyawn Caldwell, founder of the advocacy group Both Sides of the Wall. “They’re understaffed. The officers are bringing in the drugs that are killing people. The conditions are barbaric. You have people that are committing suicide. No one is making parole. What else do we do?”The corrections department did not respond to questions this week about the extent of the work stoppage, about violence and deaths in the prisons or about Caldwell’s allegations.After months of planning, prisoners and outside advocates publicly issued a list of policy-focused demands last week. The list included a streamlined review process for medical furloughs, clearer parole guidelines, retroactive repeal of the state’s habitual offender law, an end to life-without-parole sentences and the creation of a statewide conviction integrity unit. Prisoners who spoke to the Marshall Project acknowledged that most of the demands were outside the purview of the corrections department and would instead require the legislature to act.“Maybe they have to start listening. I think they know something is wrong, but did they know we’re really tired of it? By stopping work now, we are sending this system that’s already in crisis into another crisis,” said K Shaun Traywick, an incarcerated activist who goes by “Swift Justice.”Prison strikes are not uncommon, and at least twice in recent years prisoners in Alabama have been at the forefront in launching work stoppages that spread to prisons in several states, garnering nationwide attention.Yet almost as soon as the strike began last week, people in prison said officials started retaliating, cutting back food to two paltry bagged meals a day. Pictures sent from inside show one meal made up of two hot dogs, two pieces of bread and a grapefruit. Another consisted of an unappetizing spread of coleslaw, prunes, two pieces of bread and baloney.Alabama prisons have reduced the number of meals offered to the incarcerated during the work stoppage. One meal during the strike consisted of coleslaw, prunes, two pieces of bread and baloney.“Meals have included slices of bread topped with some sort of sludge, uncooked hot dogs and minuscule portions of canned fruit,” a lawyer representing the prisoners wrote on the fifth day of the strike. In a court filing last week, attorney Clifford Hardy accused the corrections department of trying to starve prisoners into submission, citing as proof a memo circulated at Donaldson Correctional Facility “detailing that meal reductions would continue until the labor strike ended”.Prison officials have not yet responded to the allegations in court, but said in a press release that because mess hall workers had refused to come to work, the restricted feeding schedule was “logistically necessary to ensure that other critical services are being provided”.The same day the prisoners’ lawyer complained to the court, the governor held her press conference in Montgomery, calling the demands “just unreasonable” and offering assurances to the public that new prison construction would improve conditions.“Everything’s still operational,” she said. “There’s no disruption in essential services. We’ve still got our two prisons being built, so we can better provide safety for the inmates as well as the workers.”Prisoners and their advocates disputed the notion that the demands were unreasonable and scoffed at the governor’s assessment of the current state of Alabama’s lockups.It’s not clear how many prisoners are participating in the strike or how long the work stoppage might last. On Monday, the department told AL.com that some people had returned to work, but five prisons remained entirely shut down by the strike. Prisoners who spoke to the Marshall Project disputed the department’s characterization that the protest was winding down.Regardless, the collective action is attracting attention from people imprisoned in other states. In group chat messages shared with the Marshall Project, dozens of men in prisons in other southern states have begun talking about whether they could replicate Alabama’s work stoppage.“I wanna see Georgia do this,” said the man who spoke to the Marshall Project from a medium-security prison in Alabama. “I wanna see the whole south do this.”This article was published in partnership with the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the US criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. | Labor Activism |
A contestant on the second season of Netflix’s “Love Is Blind” reality series is suing the streamer and the show’s producers, charging them with a string of labor-law violations, including fostering “inhumane working conditions” and paying cast members less than minimum wage.The lawsuit, filed by Jeremy Hartwell, alleges “Love Is Blind” producers plied the cast with alcohol and deprived them of food and water — while paying rates that were below Los Angeles County’s minimum wage. The suit, filed in California Superior Court in L.A., names as defendants Netflix, production company Kinetic Content and Kinetic’s casting company Delirium TV.Variety has reached out to Netflix and Kinetic Content for comment.Hartwell, who is director at a mortgage company in Chicago, claims he spent several days recovering from the effects of sleep deprivation, lack of access to food and water and copious amounts of alcohol that he was provided. “Love Is Blind” Season 2 premiered on Netflix in February 2022.According to the lawsuit, “Love Is Blind” contestants should have been classified under California state law as employees rather than independent contractors because producers dictated the timing, manner and means of their work. During the production, producers paid contestants a flat rate of $1,000 per week — despite forcing them to work up to 20 hours per day, seven days per week. That works out to as little as $7.14 per hour, well under the minimum wage in Los Angeles County of at least $15 per hour, according to the complaint.Producers of the show “intentionally underpaid the cast members, deprived them of food, water and sleep, plied them with booze and cut off their access to personal contacts and most of the outside world. This made cast members hungry for social connections and altered their emotions and decision-making,” said attorney Chantal Payton of Payton Employment Law, the L.A.-based firm that is representing Hartwell.Hartwell’s suit seeks class-action status on behalf of all participants in “Love Is Blind” and other non-scripted productions created by the defendants over the past four years. Payton Employment Law estimates the potential size of the plaintiff class to number more than 100 individuals.According to Hartwell’s suit, the show’s contracts required contestants to agree that if they left the show before shooting was completed, they would have to pay $50,000 in “liquidated damages.” The lawsuit alleges that reality show cast members “either have a genuine fear of retaliation and harm to their reputation for any resistance to the orders of those holding the purse strings or they aren’t aware of their rights.”Payton said in a statement provided by his attorneys, “Reality show production and casting companies exert a lot more control over the contestants than the law allows for a worker to truly be considered an independent contractor, especially in shows where cast members are supposedly searching for love.”Kinetic Content, in addition to “Love Is Blind,” also produces the reality shows “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On,” which debuted this year on Netflix, and “Married at First Sight,” which was created in 2014 and airs on Lifetime and streams on Netflix.In “Love Is Blind,” the contestants — 15 men and 15 women — meet their dates from separate “pods” and converse through speakers, unable to see each other. Two contestants must get engaged before they are allowed to meet face-to-face, which for some participants leads all the way to an on-screen marriage and for others a wedding-day breakup. “Love Is Blind” just picked up a 2022 Primetime Emmy Awards nomination for structured reality program (and earned Emmys two noms in 2020) and has spawned Brazilian and Japanese versions.Season 3 of “Love Is Blind,” shot in Dallas, is slated to hit Netflix later this year.“The combination of sleep deprivation, isolation, lack of food, and an excess of alcohol all either required, enabled or encouraged by defendants contributed to inhumane working conditions and altered mental state for the cast,” reads Hartwell’s complaint. “At times, defendants left members of the cast alone for hours at a time with no access to a phone, food, or any other type of contact with the outside world until they were required to return to working on the production.”Hartwell’s lawsuit seeks unpaid wages plus, financial compensation for missed meal breaks and rest periods, plus unspecified monetary damages for unfair business practices and civil penalties for labor code violations.The suit was filed June 29 in the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles. | Labor Activism |
Opposition finance spokesperson Jane Hume has accused the government of siding with unions ahead of a prospective pay rise for aged care workers.The Albanese Labor government will on Monday put forward an official submission to the Fair Work Commission (FWC).Aged Care Minister Anika Wells has not revealed a specific figure the government has in mind, but unions are backing a 25 per cent pay rise following the Royal Commission into aged care which recommended lifting wages to reflect the real value of their work.Stream more on politics with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022Ms Hume claimed the government takes the side of the union whenever there are industrial disputes, insisting the decision should be made by the FWC without interference.“The unions have put forward a 25 per cent pay claim – the government looks like it will support that claim as it seems to have done with all union requests,” she told Sky News Australia on Monday.“It does seem to be that Labor is taking the side of the union in any claim that is made.“The Coalition has always said this is a decision for the Fair Work Commission.”Ms Wells’ announcement last week comes after the government passed its first bill in the 47th Parliament, the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment, which was aimed at reforming the sector.Its passing will bring major improvements to the sector in line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which was published in October 2018.Speaking to Sky News Australia on Sunday Ms Wells said the government supported a "significant and meaningful" pay rise."The complexity of their work has increased significantly, not just through COVID in the past two years particularly, but in the last decade," she said.“The number one issue that everybody wants to talk to me about in aged care is work force shortages, we need to do something to value aged care workers better and that starts with a pay rise."Ms Hume however argued that any rise must be sustainable.“The question to answer is whether those wage rises will be passed on to residents, will they be passed on to ordinary Australians about to go into aged care,” Ms Hume said.“And will they make a difference to productivity?“We want to make sure – if they do get a pay rise – the system is sustainable.“That the aged care system can stand up under the weight of that increased costs to their businesses.”The government had a win early in its term when the FWC increased Australia's minimum wage by 5.2 per cent to "protect the real value of the wage of the lowest paid workers".The decision was well received by Prime Minister Albanese who repeatedly called for a hike in wages to fall in line with surging inflation during his final weeks of the Federal Election campaign.Unions had argued for a 5.5 per cent lift to prevent a further real wage cut for one quarter of workers amid the rising price of every day items such as fuel, power and groceries. | Labor Activism |
MoneyWatch October 15, 2022 / 8:48 PM / AP Workers at an Apple store in Oklahoma City voted to unionize, marking the second unionized Apple store in the U.S. in a matter of months, according to the federal labor board. The vote on Friday signaled another win for the labor movement, which has been gaining momentum since the pandemic. Fifty-six workers at the store, located at Oklahoma City's Penn Square Mall, voted to be represented by The Communications Workers of America, while 32 voted against it, according to a preliminary tally by National Labor Relations Board. The approximate number of eligible voters was 95, the board said. The labor board said Friday that both parties have five business days to file objections to the election. If no objections are filed, the results will be certified, and the employer must begin bargaining in good faith with the union. The union victory follows a vote to unionize an Apple store in Towson, Maryland, in June. That effort was spearheaded by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Maryland, which is preparing to begin formal negotiations. In a statement emailed to The Associated Press on Saturday, Apple said, "We believe the open, direct and collaborative relationship we have with our valued team members is the best way to provide an excellent experience for our customers, and for our teams." Apple also cited "strong compensation and exceptional benefits," and noted that since 2018, it has increased starting rates in the U.S. by 45% and made significant improvements in other benefits, including new educational and family support programs. The Communications Workers of America could not be immediately reached for comment. Worker discontent has invigorated the labor movements at several major companies in the U.S. in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered tensions over sick leave policies, scheduling, and other issues. In a surprise victory, Amazon workers at a Staten Island warehouse voted in favor of unionizing in April, though similar efforts at other warehouses so far have been unsuccessful. Voting for an Amazon facility near Albany, New York, began on Wednesday and is expected go through Monday. Well over 200 U.S. Starbucks stores have voted to unionize over the past year, according to the NLRB. In: Apple Union Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | Labor Activism |
The chaos afflicting American travel has continued as a shortage of pilots became the latest flashpoint for anger against the embattled airline industry.On Tuesday, more than 1,300 Southwest airline pilots picketed in Dallas, Texas, amid stalled contract negotiations. American Airlines, which flies to more than 350 destinations, also blamed pilot shortages for its decision to stop operations in three cities – Ithaca and Islip, both in New York, and Toledo in Ohio – after 7 September. The airline is the the only major one providing service out of Toledo.“In response to the regional pilot shortage affecting the airline industry, American Airlines has made the difficult decision to end service,” a spokeswoman, Andrea Koos, said in a statement.Following the cancellation or delay of approximately 14,000 flights in the US on Friday and Saturday, the pilot shortages are exacerbating the airlines’ existing struggle to cope with the vast number of daily travelers.Many airlines have blamed the shortage and general staffing issues on increased travel demands following the easing of pandemic restrictions and the busy summer holiday season.Airline workers, however, counter that low wages and poor conditions are to blame. Pilots say that near-daily flight reassignments have added stress to their jobs, exacerbating existing fatigue.The picketing in Dallas is over related issues, said Capt Casey A Murray, a pilot and the president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, who told NBC News that almost 30% of pilots at Southwest are reassigned daily, sometimes on longer flights that leave them feeling overwhelmed.“If you’re going to continue to misuse us, you’re going to continue to be short of staffing,” he said.The union, which represents 8,300 pilots, said that “pilot fatigue rates have reached an all-time high” amid ongoing scheduling issues, poor pay rates and other concerns.“The Pilots of Southwest have been in contract negotiations with the company for more two years with no meaningful movement toward a new contract,” said the union in a statement to NBC News.A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines commented on the picketing. “We’re aware that some off-duty pilots are participating in informational picketing today,” Christopher Perry told the Dallas Morning News.“Southwest Airlines respects the rights of our employees to express their opinions, and we do not anticipate any disruption in service as a result of this single demonstration.”Pilots at Delta Air Lines, represented by the Airline Pilots Association, wrote an open letter to Delta customers last Tuesday about ongoing flight cancellations and delays. It accused Delta management of scheduling more flights than available pilots. Aviators were working record amounts of overtime as a result, it said.Delta pilots had been protesting since May outside Delta hubs in several major cities over fatigue and poor scheduling.“Our pilots are tired and fatigued,” Capt Evan Baach told the Guardian in a previous interview. “Our pilots are working record amounts of overtime, we’re working longer days, we have shorter nights in between our duty periods. We want the company to match their words with action and make changes to the pilot schedules.”The number of airplane pilots and engineers decreased by almost 4% over two years, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. | Labor Activism |
TOWSON, Md. -- Apple store employees in a Baltimore suburb voted to unionize by a nearly 2-to-1 margin Saturday, a union said, joining a growing push across U.S. retail, service and tech industries to organize for greater workplace protections.The Apple retail workers in Towson, Maryland, voted 65-33 to seek entry into the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union's announcement said. The vote could not immediately be confirmed with the National Labor Relations Board, which would have to certify the outcome. An NLRB spokesperson referred initial queries about the vote to the board's regional office, which was closed late Saturday.Apple declined to comment on Saturday's development, company spokesperson Josh Lipton told The Associated Press by phone.Union organizing in a variety of fields has gained momentum recently after decades of decline in U.S. union membership. Organizers have worked to establish unions at companies including Amazon, Starbucks, Google parent company Alphabet and outdoors retailer REI.The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Apple employees who wanted to join said they sent Apple CEO Tim Cook notice last month that they were seeking to form a union. The statement said their driving motivation was to seek "rights we do not currently have." It added that the workers recently organized in the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, or CORE."I applaud the courage displayed by CORE members at the Apple store in Towson for achieving this historic victory," said IAM International President Robert Martinez Jr. in the statement. "They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election."Martinez called on Apple to respect the election results and to let the unionizing employees fast-track efforts to secure a contract at the Towson location.It remained unclear what steps would follow the vote in Towson. Labor experts say it's common for employers to drag out the bargaining process in an effort to take the momentum out of union campaigns.The IAM bills itself as one of the largest and most diverse industrial trade unions in North America, representing approximately 600,000 active and retired members in the aerospace, defense, airlines, railroad, transit, healthcare, automotive, and other industries.The Apple store unionization comes against a backdrop of other labor organizing nationwide - some of them rebuffed.Amazon workers at a warehouse in New York City voted to unionize in April, the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the retail giant's history. However, workers at another Amazon warehouse on Staten Island overwhelmingly rejected a union bid last month. Meanwhile, Starbucks workers at dozens of U.S. stores have voted to unionize in recent months, after two of the coffee chain's stores in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize late last year.Many unionization efforts have been led by young workers in their 20s and even in their teens. A group of Google engineers and other workers formed the Alphabet Workers Union last year, which represents around 800 Google employees and is run by five people who are under 35. Copyright © 2022 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. | Labor Activism |
Andrea Campbell, the former Boston city councilor and mayoral candidate now running in a tight Democratic primary for Massachusetts attorney general, picked up the endorsement of one of the state’s largest union bodies representing over 115,000 workers.The Campbell campaign on Wednesday announced the Service Employees International Union State Council’s formal support, marking one of the largest union endorsements so far in the race for attorney general, a seat freed up by outgoing Attorney General Maura Healey, who is running for governor.“As a champion of racial and economic justice, Andrea Campbell has centered her work in the values of our movement,” Peter MacKinnon, president of the Massachusetts State Council and SEIU 509, said in a press release.The SEIU State Council that endorsed Campbell comprises SEIU Locals 32BJ, 1199, 509, and 1957 CIR, and represents workers across a number of industries, including healthcare and building service workers.“This is just the beginning of our partnership,” Campbell said in a press release on the endorsement. “I look forward to working together leading up to the primary to mobilize voters across the state, and as your next attorney general to deliver greater opportunity and equity in the workplace.”Laborers’ Local 175, a construction union headquartered in Methuen, has already pledged its support for Campbell.Both Campbell and one of her primary opponents, labor attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, have committed extensive platforms to advancing labor rights and racked up the support of a number of unions around the Commonwealth.Several other SEIU affiliates — including the National Association of Government Employees based out of Quincy and SEIU Local 888 in Braintree — have endorsed Liss-Riordan. NAGE represents more than 22,000 public-sector employees in the state. Liss-Riordan has received dozens more union endorsements as well, including the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, the largest union in the state, representing 400,000 workers.Also running for attorney general is Quentin Palfrey, who served in the Biden administration and previously ran for lieutenant governor in 2018. Palfrey has also received the support of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2222, which represents telecommunications workers in Boston.Whoever wins the nomination will face off in November with Cape Cod lawyer Jay McMahon, the only Republican candidate running for the office, who previously sought it in 2018.Simon Levien can be reached at simon.levien@globe.com. Follow him on twiitter @simonjlevien. | Labor Activism |
A broadly smiling California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined about two dozen jubilant, cheering farmworkers camped outside the state Capitol Wednesday to sign one of the most contentious bills before him this year, reversing course on a measure to help farmworkers unionize after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris supported it.The White House support pinned Newsom in a difficult political position after his office announced before Democratic lawmakers sent him the bill that he would not sign it.But Newsom approved the bill only after he, the United Farm Workers and the California Labor Federation agreed on clarifying language to be considered during next year’s legislative session to address his concerns around implementation and voting integrity.JANUS, WHOSE CASE ENDED MANDATORY UNION FEES, WANTS SUPREME COURT'S HELP GETTING MONEY BACKThe new law gives California farmworkers, who harvest much of the nation’s fruit and vegetables, new ways to vote in union elections beyond physical polling places on farm property. Proponents say that would help protect workers from union busting and other intimidation, while owners say such a system lacks necessary safeguards to prevent fraud.The agreement includes a cap on the number of unionization petitions over the next five years and will allow state regulators to better protect worker confidentiality and safety, Newsom's office said. It would do away with an option for workers to unionize through mail-in voting that is contained in the current language, but keeps a "card check" election process. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a farmworker unionization law on Sept. 28, 2022. Pictured: Asunción Ponce, left, marches with members of the United Farm Workers in support of a bill that would allow farmworkers to vote by mail in union elections near Walnut Grove, California, on Aug. 24, 2022. (Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)"Sí, se puede," the farmworkers chanted as Newsom signed the bill, echoing the UFW's longtime slogan — roughly, "Yes, we can" in Spanish.The union led a weekslong summer march up the state to Sacramento, where farmworkers and their supporters rallied outside the Capitol, some camping outside through September in an effort to win Newsom's support."The vigil and the march were all worth it, because he came out and signed for us," farmworker Teresa Maldonado said through a translator.The march cost Xochilt Nunez her fruit-picking job, several toenails and left her with blistered feet. But she was on the verge of tears after Newsom signed the legislation, plus an extra copy for Nunez to keep."California’s farmworkers are the lifeblood of our state, and they have the fundamental right to unionize and advocate for themselves in the workplace," Newsom said in a statement after signing the bill.CDC TIGHTENED MASKING GUIDELINES AFTER THREATS FROM TEACHERS UNIONS, EMAILS SHOWNewsom vetoed similar legislation last year, as did his two most recent predecessors. One of his stated concerns centered on security concerns about mail-in elections, an option that would be eliminated in the clean up language agreed to by the union.The revised law would keep the card check option, which would still give farmworkers a chance to "vote from home or anywhere else they feel comfortable" and limit chances for employer intimidation, said Giev Kashkooli, legislative and political director for the United Farm Workers. Under such a system, a union is formed if more than half of workers sign the authorization card.The California Farm Bureau said it was "deeply disappointed" in Newsom's decision to sign the bill, though the group's statement focused primarily on the mail-in balloting system. The union did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the language to remove that option.Democratic Assemblyman Mark Stone added provisions to this year’s version that would let the law expire after five years unless it is renewed by lawmakers, and requiring the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to handle the ballots.Newsom has been positioning himself for months as a leading national Democratic voice calling out red state governors, fueling speculation that he has presidential ambitions despite his repeated denials.GAVIN NEWSOM SAYS PEOPLE LEFT CALIFORNIA BECAUSE OF TRUMP'S VISA POLICIESMike Madrid, a Republican strategist in California who specializes in Latino voting trends, read Biden’s Labor Day statement strongly supporting the legislation as an effort to take Newsom down a notch."I think it’s impossible to avoid the reality that there’s a little bit of tension between these two politicians because of Gavin’s posture in leaning into this presidential rumor mill," Madrid said. "It’s basically just a reminder of who the sheriff is."Biden has long supported the union. He keeps a bust of union co-founder Cesar Chavez in the Oval Office and Chavez’ granddaughter, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, is Biden’s director of intergovernmental affairs."In the state with the largest population of farmworkers, the least we owe them is an easier path to make a free and fair choice to organize a union," Biden said in his statement.Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, said Biden seemed to be reflecting his longstanding support for unions, while Newsom had the more delicate task of balancing labor relations against an agricultural industry that also is struggling.Adding to the pressure, the struggling UFW recently rejoined the umbrella California Labor Federation. The issue of farmworker unionization became more critical to labor in 2020 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that union organizers had no right to access farmers’ properties to talk to their workers.Newsom signed a different union-backed bill on Labor Day, creating a Fast Food Council empowered to set minimum standards for wages, hours and working conditions in California. The restaurant industry moved to block it a day later. | Labor Activism |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday a tentative railway labor agreement has been reached, averting a potentially devastating strike before the pivotal midterm elections.He said the tentative deal “will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruption of our economy.”The Democratic president believes unions built the middle class, but he also knew a rail worker strike could have badly damaged the nation’s economy. That left him in the awkward position of espousing the virtues of unionization in Detroit, a stalwart of the labor movement, while members of his administration went all-out to keep talks going in Washington between the railroads and unionized workers in hopes of averting a shutdown.But after a long night, the talks succeeded and Biden announced Thursday that the parties had reached a tentative agreement to avoid a shutdown that would go to union members for a vote. He hailed the deal in a statement for avoiding a shutdown and as a win for all sides.“These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned,” Biden said. “The agreement is also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come.America’s rail system is vital to our economy and country. We thank the labor unions and railroad companies for staying at the table and avoiding a destructive shutdown by reaching a deal that benefits all parties.— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) September 15, 2022 It looked far more tenuous for the president just a day earlier.United Auto Workers Local 598 member Ryan Buchalski introduced Biden at the Detroit auto show on Wednesday as “the most union- and labor-friendly president in American history” and someone who was “kickin’ ass for the working class.” Buchalski harked back to the pivotal sitdown strikes by autoworkers in the 1930s.In the speech that followed, Biden recognized that he wouldn’t be in the White House without the support of unions such as the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, saying autoworkers “brung me to the dance.”But back in Washington, officials in his administration at the Labor Department were in tense negotiations to prevent a strike — one of the most powerful sources of leverage that unions have to bring about change and improve working conditions.Without the deal that was reached among the 12 unions, a stoppage could have begun as early as Friday that could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.Far more was at stake than sick leave and salary bumps for 115,000 unionized railroad workers. The ramifications could extend to control of Congress and to the shipping network that keeps factories rolling, stocks the shelves of stores and stitches the U.S. together as an economic power.That’s why White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking aboard Air Force One as it jetted to Detroit on Wednesday, said a rail worker strike was “an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people.” The rail lines and their workers’ representatives “need to stay at the table, bargain in good faith to resolve outstanding issues, and come to an agreement,” she said.Biden faced the same kind of predicament faced by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 with coal and Harry Truman in 1952 with steel — how do you balance the needs of labor and business in doing what’s best for the nation? Railways were so important during World War I that Woodrow Wilson temporarily nationalized the industry to keep goods flowing and prevent strikes.Inside the White House, aides don’t see a contradiction between Biden’s devotion to unions and his desire to avoid a strike. Union activism has surged under Biden, as seen in a 56% increase in petitions for union representation with the National Labor Relations Board so far this fiscal year.One person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House deliberations on the matter, said Biden’s mindset in approaching the debate was that he’s the president of the entire country, not just for organized labor.With the economy still recovering from the supply chain disruptions of the pandemic, the president’s goal is to keep all parties so a deal could be finalized. The person said the White House saw a commitment to keep negotiating in good faith as the best way to avoid a shutdown while exercising the principles of collective bargaining that Biden holds dear.Moments ago, following more than 20 consecutive hours of negotiations at @USDOL, the rail companies and union negotiators came to a tentative agreement that balances the needs of workers, businesses, and our nation’s economy. (1/2)— Secretary Marty Walsh (@SecMartyWalsh) September 15, 2022 Biden also knew a stoppage could worsen the dynamics that have contributed to soaring inflation and created a political headache for the party in power.Eddie Vale, a Democratic political consultant and former AFL-CIO communications aide, said the White House pursued the correct approach at a perilous moment.“No one wants a railroad strike, not the companies, not the workers, not the White House,” he said. “No one wants it this close to the election.”Vale added that the sticking point in the talks was about “respect basically — sick leave and bereavement leave,” issues Biden has supported in speeches and with his policy proposals.Sensing political opportunity, Senate Republicans moved Wednesday to pass a law to impose contract terms on the unions and railroad companies to avoid a shutdown. Democrats, who control both chambers in Congress, blocked it.“If a strike occurs and paralyzes food, fertilizer and energy shipments nationwide, it will be because Democrats blocked this bill,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.The economic impact of a potential strike was not lost on members of the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based group that represents CEOs. It issued its quarterly outlook for the economy Wednesday.“We’ve been experiencing a lot of headwinds from supply chain problems since the pandemic started and those problems would be geometrically magnified,” Josh Bolten, the group’s CEO, told reporters. “There are manufacturing plants around the country that likely have to shut down. ... There are critical products to keep our water clean.”The roundtable also had a meeting of its board of directors Wednesday. But Bolten said Lance Fritz, chair of the board’s international committee and the CEO of Union Pacific railroad, would miss it “because he’s working hard trying to bring the strike to a resolution.”Back at the Labor Department, negotiators ordered Italian food as talks dragged into Wednesday night and the White House announced the agreement at 5:05 a.m. on Thursday. | Labor Activism |
The top labor negotiator in talks to avert a railroad strike accused BNSF and Union Pacific of holding up progress.Specifically, Dennis Pierce, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, or BLET, said the companies rejected the union's proposal for sick time policies."The primary resistance comes from Union Pacific and BNSF because of the attendance policies they have adopted which have treated workers so poorly," Pierce told CNBC. "We're just looking for time away from work to address our medical issues. Union Pacific and BNSF attendance policies are assessing (penalty) points to our members when they just want to take time off for their regular medical appointments."Attendance policies have been a point of contention for unions for years. The White House's Presidential Emergency Board, or PEB, recommended any attendance policy disputes are best resolved in the grievance and arbitration process.BNSF, which is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, flatly rejected Pierce's claim, calling it "categorically false.""Rail employees are provided with significant time off. Generally, train crew employees have over three to four weeks of paid vacation and over 10 personal leave days. Depending on craft and seniority, these numbers can extend to five weeks of vacation in addition to 14 paid holidays and/or paid leave days," BNSF told CNBC. "The number of Personal Leave Days was increased by 25% this year which makes it easier for employees to take time off."A BNSF train near Boulder, Co.David A. Grogan | CNBCUnion Pacific, meanwhile, said it "continues to push for a prompt resolution that provides historic wage increases to employees and allows the railroads to prevent further disruption to the struggling supply chain."Pierce said the unions withdrew their proposal for paid sick leave and substituted their request for unpaid sick time. PEB recommendations suggested the unions withdraw their paid sick leave proposal based on the existing paid time off benefits given to employees.Union negotiators offered the rail carriers a one-page, single-sided proposal to spare employees disciplinary points if they schedule routine medical visits in advance for days they would otherwise have to work, according to Pierce."You have to understand these workers are not on scheduled days. They have no scheduled days off. They work whenever they get called," he said. "We are just asking for our workers to be able to go get their medical appointment done and not have to be at work that day."The Association of American Railroads, in turn, provided CNBC with its employee time off policy sheet. "Ongoing negotiations are being collectively handled on a national, multi-employer basis," a spokesman for the group said.No backing downPierce praised some items in the PEB's recommendations, but said it didn't come through on quality of life issues."Life isn't planned medical events aren't planned. People need to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor instead of just having to be at work every day," he said. "So I think the key issue is this and there's no way we can back away from it."Pierce said he has been in touch with members of President Joe Biden's Cabinet. He told CNBC the unions do not intend to blink on the sick time argument."Strikes are a last resort. It does not help anyone because the employees lose money, and the companies lose money," he said. "We're not here to hurt the economy."Ripple effects from the labor strife are affecting other parts of the infrastructure. Starting Tuesday, Amtrak canceled some of its longer-distance rail services in anticipation of a service disruption.Routes between Chicago and the West Coast along Amtrak's Southwest Chief, California Zephyr, and Empire Builder are canceled. Portions of Amtrak's Texas Eagle route between Los Angeles and San Antonio are also suspended. Amtrak is calling the cancelations a "phased adjustment" warning the disruptions could "significantly impact intercity rail service." | Labor Activism |
MoneyWatch Updated on: October 11, 2022 / 12:27 PM / MoneyWatch The Biden administration is proposing a rule that could result in more "gig" workers being considered full-time employees, a potentially major shift in the nation's labor laws that could disrupt ride-sharing, delivery, construction and other companies that employ independent contractors.The draft rule, to be formally published on Thursday, is a test that the Department of Labor uses when it determines if employers broke wage and hour laws. It formally directs the agency to consider six factors when determining if a worker is an employee — and therefore entitled to minimum wage, overtime and the right to unionize — or an independent contractor, which is essentially a self-employed individual in business for themselves."We continue in our enforcement work to identify workers who are not properly classified, in construction, health care, even in restaurants, where we found that dishwashers were improperly classified as independent contractors to avoid paying them overtime," Jessica Looman, principal deputy wage and hour administrator with the Labor Department, told reporters on Tuesday. After the Labor Department proposal is published, the rule will remain open for public input for 45 days, officials said."This is a long-awaited determination that will empower essential workers to assert their basic wage and hour, health and safety, and compensation rights," Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told the Associated Press, adding, "All workers are entitled to these rights, but employers easily avoid them by making arbitrary decisions on independent contractor rules." Independent contractors are typically much cheaper to hire since they are responsible for their own payroll taxes and job expenses and don't qualify for overtime or minimum wage. The National Employment Law Project, a pro-worker think tank, has estimated that as many as 30% of workers may be wrongly categorized as as independent, costing states billions of dollars in tax revenue. The proposed rule replaces a Trump administration regulation that made it easier for companies to legally classify workers as independent contractors. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh maintains that thousands of workers, including gig workers who drive cars, deliver food and clean houses, are actually employees, because the companies that hire them set their hours and pay. Gig stocks sinkGig company stocks plummeted on the news. Uber and Lyft fell more than 12% while DoorDash was down about 9% in early trading. The stocks later recovered some of their losses.The proposal is "a clear blow to the gig economy and a near-term concern for the likes of Uber and Lyft," Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush, said in a note. "With ride-sharing and other gig economy players depending on the contractor business model, a classification to employees would essentially throw the business model upside down and cause some major structural changes if this holds," he wrote.Ride-hailing companies, which are not consistently profitable, have said they can't afford to pay drivers as employees, while spending hundreds of millions of dollars to win legislative carve-outs from state worker protection laws. However, Uber and Lyft said on Tuesday that the new rule would not damage their business model. In a statement echoing the Labor Department, Uber said the rule "takes a measured approach, essentially returning us to the Obama era, during which our industry grew exponentially." "This is just the first step in what is likely to be a longer process before any final rule or determination is made," Lyft said in a statement noting the company had been expecting the rule change. It added that most Lyft drivers work very few hours and said they prefer the current arrangement over being classified as employees. In: Lyft Uber Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | Labor Activism |
Something isn't loading properly. Please check back later. The first Apple Store voted to unionize. One worker has a message for her colleagues. 03:12 - Source: CNN Latest in tech 16 videos The first Apple Store voted to unionize. One worker has a message for her colleagues. 03:12 Now playing - Source: CNN Robot artist Ai-Da reset while speaking to UK politicians 01:19 Now playing - Source: CNN Video: Shallow foam pit injures at least three at Twitchcon gaming convention 01:16 Now playing - Source: CNN Watch: Meta's new VR headset tracks facial features in mixed reality 01:36 Now playing - Source: CNN A new vehicle system could stop you from driving above the speed limit 02:30 Now playing - Source: CNN The rise of #BookTok: How this social media trend helps to sell books 02:52 Now playing - Source: CNN Business See why this Florida town survived Ian unscathed 03:40 Now playing - Source: CNN Supreme Court to rule on how we use the internet 01:58 Now playing - Source: CNN New Google Pixel features help visually impaired take selfies 01:13 Now playing - Source: CNN Business Google Japan builds stick keyboard more than 5-feet long 01:12 Now playing - Source: CNN Business Software engineer built fake cloud as pet 01:28 Now playing - Source: CNN Business Video: Tesla debuts robot 'Optimus' that can dance and water plants 01:12 Now playing - Source: CNN Google is shutting down Stadia. CNN previewed the gaming platform in 2019 01:50 Now playing - Source: CNN This refrigerator wants to turn drab kitchen appliances into art 00:54 Now playing - Source: CNN Business Check out Amazon's new sleep tracker and Kindle you can write on 01:27 Now playing - Source: CNN Video: Half human-looking robot breaks speed record CNN Business — Apple workers in Oklahoma City have voted to form the second-ever labor union at one of the company’s US stores, in the latest sign that organizing efforts are gaining traction inside and outside the tech and retail industries. In a preliminary tally by the National Labor Relations Board on Friday evening, 56 workers, or 64% of those casting ballots at the Penn Square Mall Apple store, voted to be represented the Communication Workers of America, and 32 voted against it. Turnout was strong, with 88 of a potential 95 workers participating in the vote. The union victory comes four months after Apple store workers in Towson, Maryland, made history by voting to form Apple’s first US unionized location. In late June, the NLRB officially certified the union election win. Workers at both locations have said they’re looking to unionize in an effort to have more of a say in how their stores are run. Some also said they were inspired by union pushes this year at Amazon and Starbucks. Apple did not directly address the vote results when asked for comment Friday. “We believe the open, direct and collaborative relationship we have with our valued team members is the best way to provide an excellent experience for our customers, and for our teams,” said the company’s statement. “We’re proud to provide our team members with strong compensation and exceptional benefits. Since 2018, we’ve increased our starting rates in the US by 45% and we’ve made many significant enhancements to our industry-leading benefits.” The vote was roughly in line with what employees leading the organizing effort were expecting, according to Leigha Briscoe, one of the members of the organizing committee at the store. “We felt like we had the majority support, and as long a people got out and cast their vote, we would win,” Briscoe told CNN Business late Friday after the vote tally. Briscoe has been an employee at the store for six years. She said the employees who wanted to form a union approached CWA, rather than CWA trying to organize the store on its own. Briscoe, 28, is typical of many of the younger workers leading successful union organizing drives nationwide in the wake of the pandemic. Many of the successful efforts, such as at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York, and at more than 200 Starbucks stores nationwide, have been led by workers in their twenties or early thirties. Between January and July of this year there were 826 union elections, up 45% from the number held in the same period of 2021, according to a CNN analysis of data from the NLRB. And the 70% success rate by unions in those votes is far better than the 42% success rate in the first seven months of 2021. But only 41,000 potential union members were eligible to vote in the 2022 elections. Even if the unions had won all those votes — NLRB data don’t break down how many workers worked at each company holding a vote — it would be a small fraction of the more than 100 million workers at US businesses who don’t belong to a union, according to Labor Department statistics. The retail sector has a far lower rate of unionization than some other industries. Labor Department data show only 4.4% of retail workers nationwide are members of unions, compared to 6.1% of employees working at businesses overall. When including government employees, only 10.3% of workers nationwide are union members, roughly half the rate of union membership in 1983, the first year it was tracked by the Labor Department, when union membership made up 20.1% of the nation’s workers. Oklahoma is not particularly fertile ground for union efforts. The Labor Department data show only 5.6% of workers overall are union members, barely more than half of the 10.3% national rate. | Labor Activism |
The idea of “stakeholder capitalism”—with employees being one key stakeholder—might have more teeth if workers had a representative in the boardroom who could participate in discussions and decision-making. That’s a legal requirement for certain types of companies in European countries, including Germany, Norway, Sweden, and France. But the practice has been rare in the US, apart from a period in the 1980s and 1990s when financially troubled firms in industries including airlines and trucking offered board seats as a bargaining concession to workers. To understand what employee representation on boards achieves and whether it could get new momentum in the US, we spoke with Thomas Kochan, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and faculty member in the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research. Kochan formerly served as a representative of employees on the boards of Transcon and Smith Trucking. Here are excerpts from our conversation, edited for space and clarity: Why should companies have employees as members of their boards? There are several reasons for this. One is that employees can add value and expand the agenda that typical boards of directors discuss by bringing information from what the workforce is saying, feeling, and experiencing into the discussions. It helps bring new information to board decisions. Often, in my experience at least, it allows the member to suggest issues that might be discussed at future board meetings that typically haven’t been on the agenda. The second reason is American workers now want a seat on boards of directors. The evidence is growing. We did a survey that asked ‘What form of representation would you prefer?’ And representation on boards of directors came out positive as something that workers want. So there is a growing expectation that workers want a voice in the key decisions that shape the company, not in a necessarily adversarial way, but in a way that their voice is heard and that they can help hold the company accountable for adhering to its values. Does having a worker representative on a board correlate with any difference in company performance, worker engagement, or any other things that companies care about? There are two bodies of evidence. One is much more quantitative and well grounded, but it comes from Europe. Colleagues have carefully studied with an experimental design the effects of board representation in Germany, where there are requirements that companies have board representatives. In Germany, a colleague of ours, Simon Jäger, used a very creative research design when the law changed for companies with 500 employees having to have representatives on their board. Through careful econometric work, they found that companies with board representation invest more for the long run. They don’t necessarily have higher wages and benefits, but are more productive because of the longer-term investments. That’s the most careful study of this that I’ve ever seen. The second body of evidence comes from more qualitative, personal evidence from the 1980s and 1990s, when a number of US companies turned to board representation when they were in financial trouble as a wage concession. This happened frequently in the airline industry. United Airlines was the biggest example, but others followed suit. In the trucking industry also—industries after they got deregulated and ran into all kinds of difficulties. So you saw a number of people put on boards as representatives of the workforce and the union. I served on two of those trucking company boards. What we learned is that if it’s just looked at as a financial transaction where now we expect a role because we took a concession, and it stays adversarial and you have leaders or people on those boards who don’t really understand how boards work, it had no effect. But where you changed the culture of the organization to reflect the desire of employees to have a stronger voice and really brought it down to the workplace level, you had a better chance of success. What is the status of employee representatives on US boards today? I’ve struggled to find any examples of it in public companies. It’s not surprising you have a hard time finding data on it because there’s no database that tells us how many companies have employee board representatives. You find it where there are employee stock ownership programs (ESOPs) and there are a number of those. But they’re kind of under the radar. I think they’re going to grow as there are some new groups now that are committed to really promoting employee ownership. And I think as part of that we will see more experimentation with worker representatives of one form or another. It’s also a bit of a myth that labor law doesn’t allow you to put employees on boards of directors. It basically allows it, certainly if a union and a company agree to put a worker representative on the board. There’s no question that that’s legal. But even in non-union settings there’s really nothing in the law that clearly prohibits it. How does worker representation on corporate boards relate to unionization? It’s possible to have one without the other. I think it works best where workers have some formal representation, probably a union since that’s the model we have in the United States at the moment and have had historically. That allows you to aggregate worker interests and to have a structure for figuring out who should serve on the board, whether it’s an employee, or sometimes it’s an outsider, sometimes it’s an academic—like I’ve served. Sometimes it’s a former union leader. Having someone who is respected by the workforce and is not controlled—in the sense that that person has to consult and only reflect the workers’ views or the union’s views—is really important because that representative has to speak truth to power on both sides. Read a full transcript of our conversation, including more about best practices and resources for those who want to explore employee representation on boards. | Labor Activism |
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has sparked controversy over a proposed farmers tax on cow and sheep gases to reduce greenhouse emissions.New Zealand is set to introduce a world first scheme that will require farmers to pay for their agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, including gases naturally emitted by their livestock.The move by Jacinda Ardern’s Labor government is a step towards the country’s pledge to reduce methane emissions by 10 per cent by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2050.In New Zealand, agriculture drives a high portion of greenhouse gas emissions, with twice as many cattle as people and five times as many sheep.A cattle farm with 40 cattle produces an estimated 73 tonnes of methane per year, while a dairy farm with 440 cows produces 1,307 tonnes of emissions annually.Stream the latest World news live & on demand on Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022With about 6.3 million cows, the proposed plan announced by Ms Ardern on Tuesday would tax farmers methane output including that emitted by livestock through gas such as burping and farting as well fertiliser-rich urine.Local farmer and President of New Zealand Federated Farmers Andrew Hoggard told Sky News Australia that farmers were “upset” and would oppose the move.“A lot of farmers that are contacting me are feeling pretty upset, a mild understatement, kinda feeling very ropable,” Mr Hoggard said.“The message I am getting from farmers is that we must oppose this.”The proposal - developed in partnership with farming leaders, Maori and government - first emerged in 2019 following calls from the farming sector to price greenhouse gas emissions at a farm level rather than creating a separate emissions trading scheme for the sector.Ms Ardern praised New Zealand farmers for leading the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions during her press conference.“The key to us is that what we do is workable, it's pragmatic, it can be introduced in a timely way and will actually bring down our emissions,” Ms Ardern said.“No other country in the world has yet developed a system for pricing and reducing agricultural emissions, so our farmers are set to benefit from being first movers.”If passed, the plan would come into effect in 2025 and see farmers who meet the threshold for herd size and fertiliser use pay a government levy every one to three years.New Zealand Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said he was excited for the country to lead the world in reducing carbon footprints while feeding their nations.“As farmers and as food producers, show the world how we can reduce our carbon footprint and feed the world in the ways we can expect,” he said.The plan's success could end a long-running feud with farmers following the 2003 proposition of a tax for livestock methane emissions.The excise under then prime minister, Helen Clark, was vehemently opposed and eventually abandoned by the former Labor government.Ms Ardern’s proposal will be open to consultation until November 18, giving farmers a chance to put in their objections to the scheme.A similar policy has not been suggested in Australia, where agriculture contributes about 13 per cent of our annual greenhouse gas emissions. | Labor Activism |
In states such as Texas and Florida most prison cells don't have air conditioning. Photo via Getty Images. Summers in the U.S. have been getting hotter year over year—and more dangerous as a result. But very few Americans have to face the heat with next to no relief options like the country’s incarcerated population. Record-breaking temperatures can quickly become a health risk for the largely Black and Brown incarcerated population, particularly in the South. Little has been done by U.S. prisons in recent years to combat their readiness for heat waves. In Texas, where just 20 percent of prison units in the state have air conditioning, cells regularly reach temperatures as high as 110 degrees, with some cells getting as hot as 149 degrees, according to a study released by the Texas A&M University Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center earlier this month. In Florida, where just 24 percent of prison units have air conditioning, prison reform activists recently told the Orlando Sentinel that cell temperatures exceed 100 degrees. And in Arizona, where temperatures as high as 120 degrees can result in the cancellation of flights, inmates were left outside to bear the brunt of it. Texas, Arizona, and Florida are just three of 13 states that don’t have universal air conditioning in their prisons, according to the Prison Policy Initiative: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. Without air conditioning, which is mandatory in order to live comfortably in many of these states, inmates exposed to the heat for long periods of time can suffer from potentially fatal heat strokes, according to the Initiative, as well as adverse effects on their kidneys, liver, heart, and brains.The effects that the grueling conditions of these prisons can have are made worse by the mandatory labor many of its inhabitants are forced to take part in, Jamila Johnson, deputy director for the Promise of Justice Initiative in Louisiana told VICE News.“In the course of their day, there are people who are fully working in the fields, they're working in prison enterprises, working to make tags for license plates, doing other manufacturing work, working in kitchens,” Johnson said. “Those are our grueling jobs in the best of conditions.”Working through the heat has always been a risk for American laborers. Between 2011 and 2019, at least 344 American workers died of heat stress in the U.S, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, with the agency adding that the figure is likely underreported.But these figures don’t account for prison workers, who are subjected to similar kinds of work, but aren’t considered employed. In states like Louisiana, prisoners are working for wages as low as 4 cents an hour in the hot sun. But whereas unincarcerated workers are more free to take time off or alleviate themselves from the heat with cold water or breaks in the shade, incarcerated workers aren’t afforded the same basic rights. “They get a disciplinary write-up, which could stop them from being able to get parole or request their change of job that would get them out of the field or to a spot that might be safer,” Johnson said. “Not subjecting yourself to the brutal heat is a decision that comes with incredible consequences not seen in the outside world.” Johnson said what’s happening in Louisiana, which is projected to see one of the nation’s largest increases in annual heat waves, is representative of what’s happening in other state prisons facing the heat crisis. As is the case for most issues regarding prisons in the U.S., this issue disproportionately affects Black and brown Americans since they make up a majority of those serving long-term prison sentences.“If you want to know what climate racism looks like, the lack of care about installing air conditioning in prisons is a real example of that at its most concrete,” Johnson said. “People acknowledge that prisons are inherently unsafe places and therefore don't care as much about the ways that they could be made safer.” The heat can impact more than just a person’s physical health. A 2019 study on solitary confinement in Louisiana conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice found that self-harm incidents for those in restrictive prison housing spiked in June and don’t level off until September.There have been legal efforts by the incarcerated to push for proper air conditioning in U.S. prisons, nearly all of them arguing these harsh conditions go against their 8th Amendment rights to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. But despite solid cases, these prisoners faced severe legal pushback. In 2014, inmates at the Wallace Pack Unit prison, located 70 miles northwest of Houston, sued the Texas Department of Criminal Justice over the lack of air conditioning, saying in their lawsuit that nearly two dozen prisoners died of heat stroke in the last 20 years. It wasn’t until 2018, after the state nearly doubled the cost it would take to simply install ACs to fight the lawsuit, that a U.S. District Judge, ruled in the inmates’ favor. In Louisiana, inmates on death row at Angola State Penitentiary sued the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections for the conditions. Instead of paying the estimated $225,000 it would cost to install AC (before engineering and operating fees), the state spent over $1 million fighting the lawsuit for three years. The state eventually got the case dismissed in 2019, as the 5th Circuit Court ruled there were other remedies such as cool showers, ice machines, and access to cold water.Follow Trone Dowd on Twitter. Get the latest from VICE News in your inbox. Sign up right here.By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. | Labor Activism |
MoneyWatch September 1, 2022 / 10:53 AM / AP German carrier Lufthansa says it is canceling almost all passenger and cargo flights Friday from its two biggest hubs, Frankfurt and Munich, due to planned strike action by pilots.A union representing Lufthansa pilots said early Thursday that they will stage a walk-out after demands for a pay increase were rejected by management.Air travel is getting worse. Here are 6 tips to make it less of a headache.Airline staffing crisis raises concerns about pilot fatigueLufthansa said some 800 flights would be canceled, affecting many travelers returning at the end of the summer vacation. The airline's budget carrier Eurowings would not be affected, it said. The union Vereinigung Cockpit accused Lufthansa on Thursday of failing to improve on the company's previous offer, leaving pilots no choice but to go on strike to press their demands.According to Lufthansa, the company had offered a one-off increase of 900 euros ($900), amounting to a 5% increase for senior pilots and an 18% increase for those starting the profession. Travel Watch: Pilots fall asleep mid-flight, miss landing 05:06 The union had called for a 5.5% raise this year and an automatic above-inflation increase in 2023. In addition, pilots are seeking a new pay and holiday structure that the airline said would increase its staffing costs by about 40%, or some 900 million euros over two years. Airlines around the world are facing a shortage of pilots as many carriers offered early retirement to thousands of pilots in an effort to slash costs as COVID-19 was spreading in 2020 and 2021, when airline operations came to a near standstill. An aging workforce has also led significant numbers of older pilots to retire as scheduled, further reducing the number of available flyers. In: labor union Germany Airlines | Labor Activism |
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Eating in the United States represents one of the world’s great bargains. We consume the most calories per capita and don’t spend much cash to do so. Food’s claim on disposable income has fallen, from 17 percent in 1960 to less than 10 percent in 2019.
Consider the wildly popular fast-food chicken sandwich. A typical one delivers 700 calories for about $4. But its once-abundant secret ingredient—the cheap labor that fuels our entire food system—is suddenly in short supply. Here’s why. • Median hourly wage: $14.13
In December, C.H. Guenther & Sons, a commercial baking giant that supplies McDonald’s, posted a help-wanted ad. Requirements include: “Carry/load up to 50 pound bags at least 5 feet” 75 times per hour; “climb ladders”; and “tolerate working environment with…excessive heat, cold and rain.” Kicker: “Hours range from 8-12 hours, 5-7 days/week.” In October, Baking Business reported that the industry is in a “perpetual struggle” to find and keep workers, and American Institute of Baking trustee Jeff Dearduff declared that “staffing issues are the number one plague in the space.” • Median hourly wage: $13.89
Workers harvesting crops like lettuce or tomatoes are paid by the pound. Under pressure to produce, they are almost 20 times more likely to die of heat stress than other US workers. More than half are immigrants, and President Trump’s border crackdown and Covid travel restrictions deepened a long-standing farmworker shortage. In a poll taken in June, 66 percent of farmers seeking workers reported having difficulty hiring enough of them, up from 30 percent the year before. • Median hourly wage: $14.51
Every minute, as many as 175 bird carcasses whiz along factory lines while workers risk repetitive stress injuries to butcher them. Twice in the past two decades—in 2004 and 2019—Human Rights Watch issued detailed reports condemning working conditions in US meatpacking plants. Then came the pandemic. According to a congressional study that cited the deaths of hundreds of slaughterhouse employees, under Covid, “meatpacking companies prioritized profits and production over worker safety.” No wonder online postings for job vacancies are up 66 percent since 2020. Once the domain of high school part-timers, today the fast-food industry is mostly staffed by adults. They often face injuries like burns and cuts, and sexual harassment of women is routine. A Los Angeles County Department of Public Health survey found that 69 percent of the region’s fast-food workers live in conditions particularly prone to spreading Covid. All of which explains why, on an October 27 call with investors, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski complained that “it’s just very challenging right now in the market to find the level of talent that you need.” We Recommend Latest | Labor Activism |
LUVERNE, Alabama, July 22 (Reuters) - A subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co has used child labor at a plant that supplies parts for the Korean carmaker's assembly line in nearby Montgomery, Alabama, according to area police, the family of three underage workers, and eight former and current employees of the factory.Underage workers, in some cases as young as 12, have recently worked at a metal stamping plant operated by SMART Alabama LLC, these people said. SMART, listed by Hyundai in corporate filings as a majority-owned unit, supplies parts for some of the most popular cars and SUVs built by the automaker in Montgomery, its flagship U.S. assembly plant.In a statement sent after Reuters first published its findings on Friday, Hyundai (005380.KS) said it "does not tolerate illegal employment practices at any Hyundai entity. We have policies and procedures in place that require compliance with all local, state and federal laws." It didn't answer detailed questions from Reuters about the findings.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSMART, in a separate statement, said it follows federal, state and local laws and "denies any allegation that it knowingly employed anyone who is ineligible for employment." The company said it relies on temporary work agencies to fill jobs and expects "these agencies to follow the law in recruiting, hiring, and placing workers on its premises."SMART didn't answer specific questions about the workers cited in this story or on-the-job scenes they and other people familiar with the factory described.Reuters learned of underage workers at the Hyundai-owned supplier following the brief disappearance in February of a Guatemalan migrant child from her family's home in Alabama.The girl, who turns 14 this month, and her two brothers, aged 12 and 15, all worked at the plant earlier this year and weren't going to school, according to people familiar with their employment. Their father, Pedro Tzi, confirmed these people's account in an interview with Reuters.Police in the Tzi family's adopted hometown of Enterprise also told Reuters that the girl and her siblings had worked at SMART. The police, who helped locate the missing girl, at the time of their search identified her by name in a public alert.Reuters is not using her name in this article because she is a minor.The police force in Enterprise, about 45 miles from the plant in Luverne, doesn't have jurisdiction to investigate possible labor-law violations at the factory. Instead, the force notified the state attorney general's office after the incident, James Sanders, an Enterprise police detective, told Reuters.Mike Lewis, a spokesperson at the Alabama attorney general's office, declined to comment. It's unclear whether the office or other investigators have contacted SMART or Hyundai about possible violations. On Friday, in response to Reuters' reporting, a spokesperon for the Alabama Department of Labor said it would be coordinating with the U.S. Department of labor and other agencies to investigate.Pedro Tzi's children, who have now enrolled for the upcoming school term, were among a larger cohort of underage workers who found jobs at the Hyundai-owned supplier over the past few years, according to interviews with a dozen former and current plant employees and labor recruiters.Several of these minors, they said, have foregone schooling in order to work long shifts at the plant, a sprawling facility with a documented history of health and safety violations, including amputation hazards.Most of the current and former employees who spoke with Reuters did so on the condition of anonymity. Reuters was unable to determine the precise number of children who may have worked at the SMART factory, what the minors were paid or other terms of their employment.The revelation of child labor in Hyundai's U.S. supply chain could spark consumer, regulatory and reputational backlash for one of the most powerful and profitable automakers in the world. In a "human rights policy" posted online, Hyundai says it forbids child labor throughout its workforce, including suppliers.The company recently said it will expand in the United States, planning over $5 billion in investments including a new electric vehicle factory near Savannah, Georgia."Consumers should be outraged," said David Michaels, the former U.S. assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, with whom Reuters shared the findings of its reporting."They should know that these cars are being built, at least in part, by workers who are children and need to be in school rather than risking life and limb because their families are desperate for income," he added.At a time of U.S. labor shortages and supply chain disruptions, labor experts told Reuters there are heightened risks that children, especially undocumented migrants, could end up in workplaces that are hazardous and illegal for minors.In Enterprise, home to a bustling poultry industry, Reuters earlier this year chronicled how a Guatemalan minor, who migrated to the United States alone, found work at a local chicken processing plant read more ."WAY TOO YOUNG"Alabama and federal laws limit minors under age 18 from working in metal stamping and pressing operations such as SMART, where proximity to dangerous machinery can put them at risk. Alabama law also requires children 17 and under to be enrolled in school.Michaels, who is now a professor at George Washington University, said safety at U.S.-based Hyundai suppliers was a recurrent concern at OSHA during his eight years leading the agency until he left in 2017. Michaels visited Korea in 2015, and said he warned Hyundai executives that its heavy demand for "just-in-time" parts was causing safety lapses.The SMART plant builds parts for the popular Elantra, Sonata, and Santa Fe models, vehicles that through June accounted for almost 37% of Hyundai's U.S. sales, according to the carmaker. The factory has received repeated OSHA penalties for health and safety violations, federal records show.A Reuters review of the records shows SMART has been assessed with at least $48,515 in OSHA penalties since 2013, and was most recently fined this year. OSHA inspections at SMART have documented violations including crush and amputation hazards at the factory.The plant, whose website says it has the capacity to supply parts for up to 400,000 vehicles each year, has also had difficulties retaining labor to keep up with Hyundai's demand.In late 2020, SMART wrote a letter to U.S. consular officials in Mexico seeking a visa for a Mexican worker. The letter, written by SMART General Manager Gary Sport and reviewed by Reuters, said the plant was "severely lacking in labor" and that Hyundai "will not tolerate such shortcomings."SMART didn't answer Reuters questions about the letter.Earlier this year, attorneys filed a class-action lawsuit against SMART and several staffing firms who help supply workers with U.S. visas. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on behalf of a group of about 40 Mexican workers, alleges some employees, hired as engineers, were ordered to work menial jobs instead.SMART in court documents called allegations in the suit "baseless" and "meritless."Many of the minors at the plant were hired through recruitment agencies, according to current and former SMART workers and local labor recruiters.Although staffing firms help fill industrial jobs nationwide, they have often been criticized by labor advocates because they enable large employers to outsource responsibility for checking the eligibility of employees to work.One former worker at SMART, an adult migrant who left for another auto industry job last year, said there were around 50 underage workers between the different plant shifts, adding that he knew some of them personally. Another former adult worker at SMART, a U.S. citizen who also left the plant last year, said she worked alongside about a dozen minors on her shift.Another former employee, Tabatha Moultry, 39, worked on SMART's assembly line for several years through 2019. Moultry said the plant had high turnover and increasingly relied on migrant workers to keep up with intense production demands. She said she remembered working with one migrant girl who "looked 11 or 12 years old."The girl would come to work with her mother, Moultry said. When Moultry asked her real age, the girl said she was 13. "She was way too young to be working in that plant, or any plant," Moultry said. Moultry didn't provide further details about the girl and Reuters couldn't independently confirm her account.Tzi, the father of the girl who went missing, contacted Enterprise police on Feb 3, after she didn't come home. Police issued an amber alert, a public advisory when law enforcement believes a child is in danger.They also launched a manhunt for Alvaro Cucul, 21, another Guatemalan migrant and SMART worker around that time with whom Tzi believed she might be. Using cell phone geolocation data, police located Cucul and the girl in a parking lot in Athens, Georgia.The girl told officers that Cucul was a friend and that they had traveled there to look for other work opportunities. Cucul was arrested and later deported, according to people familiar with his deportation. Cucul didn't respond to a Facebook message from Reuters seeking comment.After the disappearance generated local news coverage, SMART dismissed a number of underage workers, according to two former employees and other locals familiar with the plant. The sources said the police attention raised fears that authorities could soon crack down on other underage workers.Tzi, the father, also once worked at SMART and now does odd jobs in the construction and forestry industries. He told Reuters he regrets that his children had gone to work. The family needed any income it could get at the time, he added, but is now trying to move on."All that is over now," he said. "The kids aren't working and in fall they will be in school."Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comEditing by Paulo PradaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
Some 40,000 rail staff walked out for the first of three days of labor action this week in a battle over pay and conditions that comes amid a drastic rise in the cost of living.June 21, 2022, 1:35 PM UTCLONDON — Britain was hit by the biggest rail strike in a generation Tuesday, with major disruptions across the country as tens of thousands of workers joined what unions have warned could be the start of a so-called summer of labor discontent.Some 40,000 rail staff walked out for the first of three days of labor action this week, bringing chaos to the country's transit network. London’s Underground subway system was also at a near-standstill due to an unrelated strike, leaving millions of people stranded or stuck in increased road traffic.Commuting into London and other big British cities can be a busy and fraught experience at the best of times, even with passenger numbers reduced by the Covid pandemic. But on Tuesday, images from across Britain showed normally bustling platforms deserted and frantically busy coffee shops empty. At some stations, people were outnumbered by pigeons as just 20% of trains ran. The Glastonbury music festival starts this week in Somerset, southwest England, and now faces huge disruptions.The dispute centers on pay, working conditions and job security as Britain’s railways struggle to adapt to travel and commuting habits changed by the coronavirus pandemic. Holli Adams / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesThe strikes, also planned for Thursday and Saturday, are the biggest in 30 years and mark the climax of a long-running battle over pay, conditions and modernization of the rail network. They also come as Britain faces a near-unprecedented rise in the cost of living.“The British worker needs a pay rise,” Mick Lynch, secretary-general of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, or RMT, told Sky News.“They need job security, decent conditions and a square deal in general. If we can get that, we won’t have to have the disruption in the British economy that we’ve got now and which may develop across the summer.”The country appeared to weather the pandemic better than others economically, but soaring prices have left many workers squeezed — inflation reached 9% in April, its highest level in 40 years. The United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union six years ago has added further problems. Compounding all this is dissatisfaction with the ruling Conservative Party and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been beset by scandals and survived a vote to oust him earlier this month by an uncomfortably slim margin.Cleaners, signalers, maintenance workers and station staff were among those joining picket lines Tuesday.Ben Birchall / PA via Getty ImagesLast-minute talks Monday couldn't prevent the strikes, which union bosses say will be followed by more labor action on the railways and across other sectors.Network Rail, which runs the country's rail system alongside private train operators, is offering a 3% pay rise, with more promised if the unions agree to new working practices, including the use of drones to inspect broken rails.The Conservative government says it is not involved in the talks but has warned against big pay rises and blamed the union for refusing to modernize. Johnson was scathing in his reaction to the strikes, accusing the union of “driving away commuters who ultimately support the jobs of rail workers, whilst also impacting businesses and communities across the country.”The public appears divided over the issue. A survey from the polling company YouGov earlier this month showed around half of those questioned opposed the action, while just over a third supported it.Leo Rudolph, a 36-year-old lawyer who walked to work, said he would become more disgruntled the longer the dispute holds.“This isn’t going to be an isolated occurrence, right?” he told Reuters. “I will certainly be getting more frustrated every time this happens.”For some, the strikes are reminiscent of the 1970s, when the country was hit by strikes from public sector and private sector workers from across different industries. It culminated in what a tabloid dubbed the "winter of discontent" — a phrase borrowed from Shakespeare's "Richard III" — when strikes left trash piling up on the streets and bodies unburied.Lynch said Tuesday that his union's walkout could signal the start of a similar wave of action: Teachers, medics and waste disposal workers are considering strikes in the coming months. Criminal barristers, who still in court wear the wig and gowns of the 17th century, this week agreed to strike over cuts to government payments toward defendants’ legal costs. Strikes are not uncommon in Britain but union membership has roughly halved since the 1970s, while the labor movement's power has been heavily curbed by government reforms.Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.Reuters and Associated Press contributed. | Labor Activism |
WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden said Thursday that a tentative railway labor agreement has been reached, averting a potentially devastating strike before the pivotal midterm elections.Railroads and union representatives had been in negotiations for 20 hours at the Labor Department on Wednesday to hammer out a deal, as there was a risk of a strike starting on Friday that could have shut down rail lines across the country.Biden made a key phone call to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh at 9 p.m. as the talks were ongoing after Italian dinner had been brought in, according to a White House official insisting on anonymity. The president told the negotiators to consider the harm to families, farmers and businesses if a shutdown occurred.What resulted from the back and forth was a tentative agreement that will go to union members for a vote after a post-ratification cooling off period of several weeks."These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned," Biden said. "The agreement is also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come."The threat of a shutdown had put Biden in a delicate spot politically. The Democratic president believes unions built the middle class, but he also knew a rail worker strike could damage the economy ahead of the midtermsThat left him in the awkward position on Wednesday. He flew to Detroit, a stalwart of the labor movement, to espouse the virtues of unionization, while members of his administration went all-out to keep talks going in Washington between the railroads and unionized workers.As the administration was trying to forge peace, United Auto Workers Local 598 member Ryan Buchalski introduced Biden at the Detroit auto show on Wednesday as "the most union- and labor-friendly president in American history" and someone who was "kickin' ass for the working class." Buchalski harked back to the pivotal sitdown strikes by autoworkers in the 1930s.In the speech that followed, Biden recognized that he wouldn't be in the White House without the support of unions such as the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, saying autoworkers "brung me to the dance."But without a deal among the 12 unions in talks back in Washington, Biden also knew that a stoppage might have begun as early as Friday that could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.Far more was at stake than sick leave and salary bumps for 115,000 unionized railroad workers. The ramifications could have extended to control of Congress and to the shipping network that keeps factories rolling, stocks the shelves of stores and stitches the U.S. together as an economic power.That's why White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking aboard Air Force One as it jetted to Detroit on Wednesday, said a rail worker strike was "an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people." The rail lines and their workers' representatives "need to stay at the table, bargain in good faith to resolve outstanding issues, and come to an agreement," she said.Biden faced the same kind of predicament faced by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 with coal and Harry Truman in 1952 with steel - how do you balance the needs of labor and business in doing what's best for the nation? Railways were so important during World War I that Woodrow Wilson temporarily nationalized the industry to keep goods flowing and prevent strikes.Inside the White House, aides don't see a contradiction between Biden's devotion to unions and his desire to avoid a strike. Union activism has surged under Biden, as seen in a 56% increase in petitions for union representation with the National Labor Relations Board so far this fiscal year.One person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House deliberations on the matter, said Biden's mindset in approaching the debate was that he's the president of the entire country, not just for organized labor.With the economy still recovering from the supply chain disruptions of the pandemic, the president's goal is to keep all parties so a deal could be finalized. The person said the White House saw a commitment to keep negotiating in good faith as the best way to avoid a shutdown while exercising the principles of collective bargaining that Biden holds dear.Biden also knew a stoppage could worsen the dynamics that have contributed to soaring inflation and created a political headache for the party in power.Eddie Vale, a Democratic political consultant and former AFL-CIO communications aide, said the White House pursued the correct approach at a perilous moment."No one wants a railroad strike, not the companies, not the workers, not the White House," he said. "No one wants it this close to the election."Vale added that the sticking point in the talks was about "respect basically - sick leave and bereavement leave," issues Biden has supported in speeches and with his policy proposals.Sensing political opportunity, Senate Republicans moved Wednesday to pass a law to impose contract terms on the unions and railroad companies to avoid a shutdown. Democrats, who control both chambers in Congress, blocked it."If a strike occurs and paralyzes food, fertilizer and energy shipments nationwide, it will be because Democrats blocked this bill," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.The economic impact of a potential strike was not lost on members of the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based group that represents CEOs. It issued its quarterly outlook for the economy Wednesday."We've been experiencing a lot of headwinds from supply chain problems since the pandemic started and those problems would be geometrically magnified," Josh Bolten, the group's CEO, told reporters. "There are manufacturing plants around the country that likely have to shut down. ... There are critical products to keep our water clean."The roundtable also had a meeting of its board of directors Wednesday. But Bolten said Lance Fritz, chair of the board's international committee and the CEO of Union Pacific railroad, would miss it "because he's working hard trying to bring the strike to a resolution."By 5:05 a.m. Thursday, it was clear that the hard work across the government, unions and railway companied had paid off as Biden announced the deal, calling it "an important win for our economy and the American people."Copyright © 2022 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. | Labor Activism |
As prices rise, inflation threatens to exacerbate inequalities and widen the gap between billions of people struggling to cover their costs and those who are able to keep spending.“We are not all in this together,” said Matt Grainger, head of inequality policy at antipoverty organization Oxfam. “How many of the richest even know what a loaf of bread costs? They don't really, they just absorb the prices."Get Innovation BeatBoston Globe tech reporters tell the story of the region's technology and innovation industry, highlighting key players, trends, and why they matter.Oxfam is calling on the Group of 7 leading industrialized nations, which are holding their annual summit this weekend in Germany, to provide debt relief to developing economies and to tax corporations on excess profits.“This isn't just a standalone crisis. It's coming off the back of an appalling pandemic that fueled increased inequality worldwide,” Grainger said. “I think we will see more and more protests.”The demonstrations have caught the attention of governments, which have responded to soaring consumer prices with support measures like expanded subsidies for utility bills and cuts to fuel taxes. Often, that offers little relief because energy markets are volatile. Central banks are trying to ease inflation by raising interest rates.Meanwhile, striking workers have pressured employers to engage in talks on raising wages to keep up with rising prices.Eddie Dempsey, a senior official with Britain’s Rail, Maritime and Transport Union, which brought U.K. train services to a near standstill with strikes this week, said there are going to be more demands for pay increases across other sectors.“It’s about time Britain had a pay rise. Wages have been falling for 30 years and corporate profits have been going through the roof,” Dempsey said.Last week, thousands of truckers in South Korea ended an eight-day strike that caused shipment delays as they called for minimum wage guarantees amid soaring fuel prices. Months earlier, some 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away, truckers in Spain went on strike to protest fuel prices.Peru's government imposed a brief curfew after protests against fuel and food prices turned violent in April. Truckers and other transport workers also had gone on strike and blocked key highways.Protests over the cost of living ousted Sri Lanka's prime minister last month. Middle-class families say they're forced to skip meals because of the island nation's economic crisis, prompting them to contemplate leaving the country altogether.The situation is particularly dire for refugees and the poor in conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Myanmar and Haiti, where fighting has forced people to flee their homes and rely on aid organizations, themselves struggling to raise money.“How much for my kidney?” is the question most asked of one of Kenya’s largest hospitals. Kenyatta National Hospital reminded people on Facebook this week that selling human organs is illegal.For the middle class in Europe, it's become more expensive to commute to work and put food on the table.“Increase our salaries. Now!" chanted thousands of unionized workers in Brussels this week.“I came here to defend the purchasing power of citizens because demonstrating is the only way to make change," protester Genevieve Cordier said. “We cannot cope anymore. Even with two salaries ... both of us are working, and we cannot get our head above water.”In some countries, a combination of government corruption and mismanagement underpin the economic turmoil, particularly in politically gridlocked countries like Lebanon and Iraq.The protests reflect a sense of growing financial insecurity. Here's how that has played out in Africa:— Health care professionals in Zimbabwe went on strike this week after rejecting the government’s offer of a 100% pay rise. The nurses say the offer does not come close to skyrocketing inflation of 130%.— Kenyans have protested in the streets and online as the price of food jumped by 12% in the past year.— One of Tunisia's most powerful labor unions staged a nationwide public sector strike last week. The North African country faces a deteriorating economic crisis.— Hundreds of activists this month protested the rising cost of living in Burkina Faso. The U.N. World Food Program says the price of corn and millet has shot up more than 60% since last year, reaching as high as 122% in some provinces.“As far as this cost of living that keeps increasing is concerned, we realized that the authorities have betrayed the people," said Issaka Porgo, president of the civil society coalition behind the protest in the west African country.Protesters condemn the military junta, which ousted the democratically elected president in January, for giving themselves a pay raise while the population faces rising prices.The International Monetary Fund says inflation will average about 6% in advanced economies and nearly 9% in emerging and developing economies this year. Global economic growth is projected to slow by 40%, to 3.6%, this year and next. The IMF is calling on governments to focus support packages to those most in need to avoid triggering a recession.The slowdown comes as the COVID-19 pandemic is still gripping industries worldwide, from manufacturing to tourism. Climate change and drought are hitting agricultural production in some countries, prompting export bans that push up food prices even further.Rising food prices are particularly painful in low-income countries, where 42% of household incomes are spent on food, said Peter Ceretti, an analyst tracking food security at risk advisory firm Eurasia Group.“We will see more protests, probably broader and angrier, but I do not expect destabilizing or regime-changing protests,” he said, as producers adjust and governments approve subsidies. | Labor Activism |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! MLB will reportedly recognize minor league players' union with the MLB Players’ Association, commissioner Rob Manfred said.The timeline on this issue was already moving quickly. But now that Manfred said the league will voluntarily recognize it, ESPN says that timeline will move even faster. On Aug. 29, it was announced the MLBPA launched a campaign to unionize minor league players. Union authorization cards were sent out to minor leaguers to form a separate bargaining unit from the big league players after the union’s executive board unanimously approved the first-of-its-kind initiative. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, left, and Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark speak before Game 1 of baseball's World Series between the Houston Astros and the Atlanta Braves Oct. 26, 2021, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ron Blum, File)"Minor leaguers represent our game’s future and deserve wages and working conditions that befit elite athletes who entertain millions of baseball fans nationwide," MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark said in an official statement. "They’re an important part of our fraternity, and we want to help them achieve their goals both on and off the field."MLBPA REJECTS LEAGUE'S OFFER FOR INTERNATIONAL DRAFTThe authorization cards were sent out to between 5,000 and 6,000 minor league players, and the MLBPA received the percentage of support necessary to move forward with a petition to the National Labor Relations Board to ask for the new union. Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred speaks during a news conference after negotiations with the players' association toward a labor deal March 1, 2022, at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)"This generation of minor league players has demonstrated an unprecedented ability to address workplace issues with a collective voice," said Harry Marino, outgoing executive director of Advocates for Minor Leaguers "Joining with the most powerful union in professional sports assures that this voice is heard where it matters most — at the bargaining table."MLB PLAYERS ASSOCIATION SAYS 2023 RULE CHANGES IMPACT ‘THE INTEGRITY OF THE GAME ITSELF’The MLBPA has been negotiating terms for major league players and those with minor league options since 1981. Tony Clark, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, answers questions about the sign stealing scandal before a spring training workout Feb. 19, 2020, at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Fla. (Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThis comes as MLB announced three new rule changes for the 2023 season, including a ban on defensive shifts, a pitch clock and bigger bases. Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital. | Labor Activism |
WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Major U.S. railroads and unions secured a tentative deal on Thursday after 20 hours of intense talks brokered by President Joe Biden's administration to avert a rail shutdown that could have hit food and fuel supplies across the country and beyond.Biden called the deal a "big win for America" and for tens of thousands of rail workers. Thanking business and labor, the Democratic president promised more worker-company agreements in the future."I'm optimistic that we can do this in other fields as well," Biden said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com"Unions and management can work together for the benefit of everyone," Biden added.If they accept the deal that was announced at about 5 a.m. (0900 GMT), workers whose pay had been frozen will win double-digit increases and will be allowed to seek certain types of medical care without fear of being punished, union leaders said. The agreement includes an immediate 14.1% wage rise, the railroads said.Unions, whose members bitterly rejected prior proposals, will now vote on the agreement. Even if those votes fail, a rail strike that could have happened as soon as a minute past midnight on Friday has been averted for several weeks due to the standard language included in such a deal, a person familiar with the negotiations said.Biden's Labor Secretary Marty Walsh hosted contract talks in Washington that ran for 20 consecutive hours between unions representing 115,000 workers and railroads including Union Pacific (UNP.N), BNSF, CSX (CSX.O), Norfolk Southern (NSC.N) and Kansas City Southern .Officials are expected to host a news briefing later on Thursday.Failing to reach a deal before the deadline would have cleared the way for workers to legally strike.A rail shutdown could have frozen almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoked inflation, cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion per day and unleashed a cascade of transport woes affecting the U.S. energy, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors.Railroad shares pared initial pre-market gains after mixed economic data, with Union Pacific up 2.2% in mid-day trading and CSX down 2.0%. read more U.S. natural gas futures dropped about 9% after soaring 10% in the prior session; oil futures fell about 4% to a one-week low. Diesel and gasoline futures also fell. , read more Investors expected that a rail strike would have threatened coal supplies to power plants and boost demand for rival energy sources. read more U.S. President Joe Biden grabs onto Labor Secretary Marty Walsh as he greets negotiators who brokered the railway labor agreement after U.S. railroads and unions secured a tentative deal to avert a rail shutdown, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 15, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueAmtrak, which runs passenger rail, said it will resume normal service on Friday after cancelling long-distance trains in anticipation of a strike. read more The impact of a shutdown would have stretched beyond U.S. borders because trains link the United States to Canada and Mexico and provide vital connections to massive ships that ferry goods from around the globe.Negotiations between the companies and a dozen unions had stretched for more than two years, leading Biden to appoint an emergency board in July to help break the impasse. Biden personally called Walsh and negotiators on Wednesday evening to prod them toward a deal, telling them "once again to recognize the harm" that a shutdown would have on families, farmers and businesses, according to a person aware of the negotiations.National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Shay thanked Biden's administration for intervening, adding in a statement that his group is "relieved and cautiously optimistic." Emily Skor, CEO of the biofuel trade group Growth Energy, also praised the deal and noted that much of the country's ethanol moves by rail.Freight railroads had halted transportation of hazardous goods, including chlorine for water purification and ammonia for fertilizer, as well as shipments of refrigerated food and other goods that use rail and at least one other mode of transport. Their goal was to prevent cargo from being stranded in unsafe locations.JOB CUTSThe railroad industry slashed almost 30% of its workforce over the last six years, cutting pay and other costs as they increased profits, stock buybacks and dividends for investors. Profits at billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, (BRKa.N) which owns BNSF, rose 9.2% in the most recent quarter to $1.7 billion.The number of U.S. railway workers has dropped from over 600,000 in 1970 to about 150,000 in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, due technology and cost-cutting. The result is that many industry workers are on call at all hours, waiting to respond at short notice to work for days at a time.The latest deal follows some earlier recommendations of the president's emergency mediators. It includes a 24% percent wage increase over a five-year period from 2020 through 2024 as well$1,000 lump sum payments in each of five years.Biden, who has called himself the most union-friendly president in history and attacked companies for raking in "excessive" profits, praised a deal he said would give workers "better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs."The president is not yet out of the woods when it comes to supply-chain labor issues. Some 22,000 union workers at 29 West Coast ports that handle almost 40% of U.S. imports are also in high-stakes labor contract negotiations.Administration officials wanted the disputes resolved ahead of November's midterm elections that will determine whether Biden's fellow Democrats retain control of Congress.Senior congressional leaders had threatened to pass legislation imposing a resolution on the railroads and unions if the negotiations were not successful. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the tentative agreement and said that Congress was "ready to act" but that "thankfully this action may not be necessary."Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Steve Holland, David Shepardson and Susan Heavey in Washington, Stephanie Kelly in New York, Jahnavi Nidumolu, Aishwarya Nair, Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Kannaki Deka in Bengaluru; Editing by Heather Timmons and Catherine EvansOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
Labor will encourage women into construction jobs and men into aged care work by utilising fee-free Tafe places and targets in the skills guarantee, the federal skills and training minister has said.Brendan O’Connor made the pledge after last week’s announcement at the jobs and skills summit of $1.1bn in co-funding to bring forward 180,000 fee-free Tafe places to 2023.On Thursday, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will address the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (Ceda), describing equality for women as being “at the heart of our vision for a better future”.Albanese will note that the government’s $5bn childcare package will take effect from July 2023 and flag that a Productivity Commission review of “affordable, universal child care” could be adopted as government policy “in the great tradition of universal Medicare and universal superannuation”.Albanese believes the “substantial common ground” achieved on investment in skills and Tafe was one of the concrete outcomes of the summit.The 180,000 Tafe places were approved by national cabinet as part of an in-principle agreement to strike a new five-year skills funding agreement to begin in 2024, which O’Connor revealed on Sunday would involve $3.7bn of commonwealth spending.Asked if the government was considering a quota for women in the extra Tafe places, O’Connor replied: “We are … we’ll talk to state and territory governments about providing more opportunities for women to train in what have been traditional trades that have been predominantly male-dominated.”“We want to see more women – and so do employers and unions – in construction, in the traditional trades.“There are more opportunities for them: there’s such good pay, security of employment, they’re in demand. It makes for a much healthier workplace to have women and men – a workplace representing the community is far better.”O’Connor said the government would also like to see more men “encouraged to take up roles in aged care”.O’Connor said Labor’s skills guarantee, which states that one out of 10 jobs on federally-funded worksites must be apprentices or trainees, would include “specific sub-targets for women”.He flagged the government was considering further measures to help women hoping to change jobs mid-career and acquire skills not gained due to periods out of the labour market.In his Ceda speech, Albanese describes removing “the structural barriers that have denied women equal participation in the economy” as one of the “clearest threads” through last week’s jobs and skills summit.“Equality for women – in participation, in pay, in leadership opportunities, in financial security – is an essential precondition for Australia’s future economic growth,” he says in the speech seen in advance by Guardian Australia.Albanese describes closing the gender pay gap as “a key economic priority for our government”, citing its submission to lift pay in aged care, and new bargaining laws to allow multi-employer bargaining.O’Connor said employees who undertake training at work, such as a retail worker who undertakes a digital literacy course, “deserve to have accredited the skills they acquire in a workplace if they’re of sufficient standard”.“There has to be regulation around what employers are doing … you can’t have Mickey Mouse courses, there has to be a level of competency that can be measurable and accredited.”O’Connor also said the government needed to do more to boost the completion rate of apprenticeships, lagging at a “very low” 55%.“We’re talking about billions of dollars of investment. We need to understand what apprentices and trainees need to complete their qualifications. It’s … not value for money [if they don’t finish].”O’Connor signalled the new agreement would include greater funding of non-vocational support programs and should include an investment in state-of-the-art equipment to train on. | Labor Activism |
REI employees in Berkeley, California, have formed the outdoor retailer’s second union, extending a winning streak for organized labor at largely non-union companies.Workers at the Berkeley store voted 56 to 38 in favor of joining the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union in a mail-in election this month, according to a vote count held Thursday by the National Labor Relations Board. Employees at REI’s store in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City were the first to unionize earlier this year.The organizing success at REI follows other recent, notable labor victories at Amazon, Starbucks, Apple and Trader Joe’s, all of which have seen their workers unionize for the first time in recent months. Labor officials have reported a surge in election petitions this year as more workers try to come together to bargain collectively.Bloomberg Law reported new data earlier this week showing that unions won 639 elections between January and June of this year, labor’s best showing for the first half of the year in almost two decades. However, union membership is still hovering near a historic low, with a mere one in ten workers belonging to a union last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.REI, which is structured as a customer cooperative, has more than 170 stores around the country, many of them in liberal urban centers where union support would be high. Given the success of the first two campaigns, the company may well face organizing efforts at other stores in the near future.REI's SoHo store in New York City was the first to unionize.Spencer Platt via Getty ImagesThe workers in SoHo organized with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, an affiliate of the UFCW, which will represent the workers in Berkeley. Both unions have a long history of representing workers in the retail, grocery and meatpacking industries.Having won their elections, the SoHo and Berkeley workers now face the more daunting task of trying to bargain a first contract. It can take years for workers to secure a collective bargaining agreement after successfully unionizing, and some never manage to do so. Although they are separate unions, the two groups may coordinate their strategies and demands with the company at the bargaining table.Most companies have been fighting these new organizing efforts, and REI has been no different, despite its progressive reputation. The company produced a widely mocked podcast earlier this year aimed at discouraging employees from unionizing (the episode began with Indigenous land acknowledgments by the speakers). The Berkeley employees created a petition calling on the company to “stop the union-busting,” saying REI was using “textbook” tactics to “scare” them.“They’ve told us our relationship with management will have to change, our existing benefits and retirement will go away, and a union representative will be required to attend our reviews,” the petition read. “They even told someone that they would need the union’s approval to go on vacation.” | Labor Activism |
September 13, 2022 11:30 AM Three Amtrak routes went off-track Tuesday when the train company canceled the long-distance routes in anticipation of a railway strike later this week. The three canceled routes head westward, including the Southwest Chief route from Chicago to Los Angeles, the Empire Builder route from Chicago to Seattle, and the California Zephyr route from Chicago to San Francisco. A portion of a fourth route that saw cancellations heads eastward from Los Angeles to San Antonio in a portion of the Texas Eagle route. TIME RUNNING OUT TO AVOID RAIL STRIKE THREATENING 'SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC DAMAGE' "While we are hopeful that parties will reach a resolution, Amtrak has now begun phased adjustments to our service in preparation for a possible freight rail service interruption later this week," Amtrak said in a statement Monday. The move is designed to help prevent passengers from getting stranded because of the strike, the company said. No Amtrak employees or the company are taking part in the strike. However, the strike is expected to affect intercity passenger rail service, which could affect travel via Amtrak outside of the company's Northeast Corridor. Amtrak owns over 600 miles of track in its Northeast Corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston, but 70% of the remaining 21,000 miles of track used by Amtrak are owned by freight railroads, according to the Association of American Railroads. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Approximately 60,000 freight rail employees are expected to strike as early as Friday over higher pay, more generous paid leave, broader working conditions, and renegotiation of strict attendance policies. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and President Joe Biden have urged the employees and freight companies to reach a deal, with experts anticipating the shutdown could cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion a day. The Washington Examiner has reached out to Amtrak for comment. | Labor Activism |
The Albanese government could face decisions on whether to approve up to 27 coal mining developments, based on applications lodged under national environment laws.An analysis by the Sunrise Project, a climate activist group, found 13 greenfield coalmines and 14 extensions of existing mines had been referred to the federal government for assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.Not all proposals are likely to come across the desk of the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek – some are paused, others still require approval from state authorities – but the analysis of fossil fuel proposals suggests it could be a significant issue in this term of parliament.The Greens have called for a moratorium on new coal and gas mines, reflecting assessments by climate scientists and statements by the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, and the International Energy Agency that they are inconsistent with the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Several independent MPs have adopted a similar position.Former Pacific leaders last week called on Anthony Albanese to block new coal or gas projects as part of an amplified climate commitment at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji.Coalmine proposals on the federal referral list include billionaire Clive Palmer’s proposal to build an open-cut coalmine 10km from the coast near the Great Barrier Reef and an extension of the Narrabri coalmine, which was recently approved by New South Wales officials and has been described by activists as Australia’s “dirtiest thermal coal project”.The Sunrise Project calculated if all 27 went ahead it could lead to the release of nearly 17bn tonnes of carbon dioxide – more than 35 times Australia’s annual emissions. The bulk would be released after the coal was exported and burned overseas, and would not be counted against Labor’s target of a 43% cut in national emissions by 2030 compared with 2005.The new independent MP for Wentworth, Allegra Spender, told Guardian Australia the government must oppose all new greenfield coalmines and expansions of thermal coal projects used to fuel high-emitting power plants.“This is the absolute minimum we must do to point our economy towards the future and ensure temperatures warm less than 1.5C,” she said. “Australia is the country with the most to gain from a clean energy future, and the most to lose from a catastrophic rise in temperatures. Labor’s actions must reflect this.”The national coordinator with activist group Lock the Gate, Carmel Flint, said Plibersek had a “very powerful opportunity” to protect water resources and threatened species while acting on the climate crisis by blocking new coal developments.She said the minister would have to consider a number of coalmines that “obviously did not stack up environmentally”. “If they proceed, these coalmines will turbocharge the climate change-related weather extremes that are putting Australians at risk,” she said.“Local communities directly affected by climate change, including those dealing right now with devastating flooding on the east coast, and regional communities directly affected by the damage caused by coal mining, are all desperately calling for a new approach on this issue.”Albanese has previously said new fossil fuel export projects would be approved if they “stack up environmentally” and companies considered them commercially viable.Plibersek said she would “be carefully considering the impacts for any project that is referred to me”.“I take seriously my responsibilities to protect our natural environment, including threatened species and water resources,” she said. “The government is serious about our climate change commitments and will be moving legislation to enshrine our targets in the parliament.”The Sunrise analysis listed 16 coal mining projects in Queensland and 11 in NSW that had been referred for assessment under the EPBC Act. It based its estimate of the potential emissions from the developments on coal data included in environmental impact statements and planning documents.Its report said Plibersek would face other coal-related approval decisions, including whether to protect Indigenous cultural heritage sites and whether to allow a pipeline to transport river water to Adani’s Carmichael coalmine. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningAustralia’s stance on coal has put it at odds with efforts to more rapidly cut global emissions. The former Coalition government was heavily criticised after it approved three coalmine developments shortly before the Glasgow climate summit last November.It then resisted international pledges to phase out their use of coal-fired power, end investment in overseas fossil fuel developments and cut methane emissions 30% by 2030. Labor has said it was considering joining the methane deal, led by the US and EU.Plibersek will give her first major speech on her environment and water portfolio when she releases the delayed state of the environment report at the National Press Club next week. | Labor Activism |
Tesla is facing a new lawsuit alleging racial discrimination and harassment in the workplace. The lawsuit filed in California state court by 15 current and former Tesla employees, all of whom are black, accuses the company of subjecting the plaintiffs to racist behavior and comments from other employees, according to a report from Reuters. TESLA CELEBRATES 12TH IPO ANNIVERSARY AMID LAYOFFS AND NEW PROTOTYPES According to the lawsuit, the employees say they were subjected to terms including "plantation," "slavery," and "[N-word]," along with poor worker treatment based on race and being passed up concerning promotions due to their race. "Standard operating procedures include blatant, open and unmitigated race discrimination," the lawsuit alleges, according to the report. The Washington Examiner reached out to Tesla for comment. The lawsuit is the latest of several brought against the company in the last year. A California regulatory agency filed a discrimination lawsuit against the electric vehicle company in February. Tesla attempted to head off the suit, preemptively releasing a blog post denying the claims before the suit was filed. Last week, several former employees sued Tesla over layoffs the company has been conducting. Employees alleged the company violated labor laws when it failed to warn them layoffs were coming. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER It was recently reported that Tesla would be pausing hiring and would cut nearly 10% of its workforce amid economic uncertainty in the marketplace. Earlier this week, the company reportedly laid off nearly 200 workers in its Autopilot offices in California. | Labor Activism |
A Minneapolis school district is defending its agreement with a teachers union to lay off white teachers before minority educators, calling it necessary to address “past discrimination.” Some legal experts have called the agreement, which stipulates that Minneapolis Public Schools must lay off or reassign white teachers before “educators of color,” unconstitutional, with others predicting it will be struck down. However, the district defended its decision in a statement earlier this week, arguing it will help to support the recruitment of minority teachers. “To remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination, Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers mutually agreed to contract language that aims to support the recruitment and retention of teachers from underrepresented groups as compared to the labor market and to the community served by the school district,” the district official told the Washington Times. The agreement, made in late March between the district and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, said that if a school is seeking to reduce the staff or the number of available positions, the district “shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population.” Under the contract, nonwhite teachers “may be exempted from district-wide layoff[s] outside seniority order.” Additionally, the agreement allows teachers from “underrepresented populations” to be reinstated to their positions over white teachers, according to the agreement
. However, the announcement prompted widespread backlash, with many arguing the decision violates the Constitution and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. “When it comes to termination (as opposed to hiring or promotion under an affirmative-action plan), an employer can’t racially discriminate even against whites,” wrote Hans Bader, a former Education Department attorney, in an op-ed for Liberty Unyielding.
The agreement is set to take effect in the spring 2023 semester. | Labor Activism |
American Airlines jet parked at LaGuardia International Airport in New York. Adam Jeffery | CNBCAmerican Airlines' pilot union is taking steps toward seeking federal mediation in contract negotiations as talks with the country's largest carrier drag on, according to a note from the labor group.The Allied Pilots Association, which represents some 15,000 American Airlines aviators, said in a message to pilots last week that its board unanimously approved a motion for the union to prepare an application for National Mediation Board intervention in its talks with the company, though it had not filed as of Monday afternoon.The union's potential request that the National Mediation Board intervene comes more than three months after American CEO Robert Isom offered pilots 17% raises in a new contract proposal.Major pilot groups around the U.S., which also include those at Southwest, United, Delta and FedEx, have struggled to reach agreements as they seek pay increases amid high inflation and better schedules after a rollercoaster pandemic that saw flight hours slashed and then surge.Several groups have already turned to mediation. Pilots for those carriers have been picketing in recent months.Compensation and some working conditions are among issues still up in the air with American, APA spokesman Dennis Tajer said.Alaska Airlines said Monday that its pilots members ratified a new three-year contract, including wage increases of up to 23%, making the Seattle-based airline an outlier among major carriers in reaching an agreement.American didn't immediately comment. The carrier reports quarterly results and its demand outlook before the market opens on Thursday. | Labor Activism |
By Haleluya Hadero | Associated Press
Amazon is barring off-duty warehouse workers from the company’s facilities, a move organizers say can hamper union drives.
Under the policy shared with workers on Amazon’s internal app, employees are barred from accessing buildings or other working areas on their scheduled days off, and before or after their shifts.
An Amazon spokesperson said the policy does not prohibit off-duty employees from engaging their co-workers in “non-working areas” outside the company’s buildings. “There’s nothing more important than the safety of our employees and the physical security of our buildings,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said. “This policy regarding building access applies to building interiors and working areas. It does not limit employee access to non-working areas outside of our facilities.”
The notice of the new policy, dated Thursday, says the off-duty rule “will not be enforced discriminatorily” against employees seeking to unionize. But organizers say the policy itself will hinder their efforts to garner support from co-workers during campaigns.
“On our days off, we come to work and we engage our co-workers in the break rooms,” said Rev. Ryan Brown, an Amazon warehouse worker in Garner, North Carolina, who’s aiming to organize his workplace following the labor win on Staten Island, New York, where workers at an Amazon warehouse voted in April to unionize.
“This was a direct response to that, to try to stop organizing by any means necessary,” Brown said.
Seattle-based Amazon had previously barred employee access to non-working areas beyond 15 minutes before or after their shifts. The company rescinded that policy in December, when it entered a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to allow workers to organize more freely. Amazon also agreed to give workers a heads up in the event it chose to “reinstate a lawful rule regarding off-duty employee access” to its facilities. A spokesperson with the NLRB declined to comment on the company’s new policy. In the notice sent to employees, Amazon said it strived to create a safe environment for employees. “One part of this is knowing who is in our buildings at any given time, so we can quickly find and account for everyone in the event of an emergency,” the notice said. | Labor Activism |
The logo of Amazon is seen at the company logistics center in Bretigny-sur-Orge, near Paris, France, December 7, 2021. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSept 14 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Wednesday said employees at its "ALB1" warehouse in upstate New York will start voting on Oct. 12 on whether to unionize, with the ballot count expected to commence on Oct. 18.It will be the third time this year staff at a company facility cast ballots on whether to join the Amazon Labor Union, a group led by former employee Christian Smalls that won the first-ever union election inside the online retailer in the United States. Amazon has contested that result.The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the October election dates.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting By Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Calif.; Editing by Howard GollerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
Members of Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers display picket signs while on strike at a Lehigh Hanson site in McCook.Provided Union members on strike against three construction material producers voted against a new contract Sunday that could have ended a lengthy disruption in Chicago-area road projects that has lasted for more than six weeks.About 300 members of Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers first walked out on June 7 against three companies that collectively operate 35 quarries. Those companies — Lehigh Hanson, Vulcan Materials and Lafarge Holcim — produce sand, gravel and crushed stone that is needed for asphalt, concrete and other construction materials.The companies didn’t respond to requests for comment Sunday afternoon.The union voted against a contract that would have increased salaries by 14% over three years, according to a news release Sunday from the Chicago Area Aggregate Producers Association. It also included 100% coverage of employee health care premiums, plus funding for a benefit pension plan, retirement funds and retiree medical savings plans, a statement from CAAPA said.Ed Maher, communications director for Local 150, has said the strike has never been about pay but is over unilateral changes the company made on other issues, such as time off and procedures for exposure to COVID-19. The union has also already filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging unfair labor practices by the companies.“We look forward to some meaningful dialogue this week,” Maher said Sunday.A strike update on Local 150’s website says the union voted “overwhelmingly” to reject the contract offer.The companies, who have been negotiating as members of the CAAPA, said they presented a generous offer and have been willing to negotiate with the union. “We’ve been at the bargaining table 17 times, in addition to many other calls and private meetings,” a statement from the association reads. “We remain committed to servicing our customers and limiting disruptions to infrastructure projects to the best of our ability.”The strike forced extended delays to many road resurfacing projects around Chicago and other projects, including the Interstate 55 and Weber Road interchange and the Interstate 80 bridge in Joliet. The work stoppage also potentially suspended new contracts that had already been approved.Maher said the six-week strike was the fault of the employers and could have ended weeks ago if they cared to negotiate in good faith. Instead, those bargaining would walk out of meetings abruptly and wouldn’t make themselves available to speak for days if not weeks, he said.“Before making this final offer today, they emailed a final offer last week but it was so full of language errors — which we had already agreed to — that we had to spend an additional week just cleaning it up,” Maher said.“So when you look back at it, we spend a week fixing their offer, they would disappear from the table and they just kept playing games. It’s simple arrogance and completely inappropriate.” | Labor Activism |
Workers at a Chipotle in Maine have accused the company of union-busting after it abruptly closed the location amid an effort to unionize. Last month, several Chipotle employees at a store in Augusta signed union cards indicating their intent to join what they dubbed Chipotle United and filed a petition to unionize. Those workers are now planning to protest on Tuesday after the chain announced that the store would permanently close ahead of the next step in the unionization process. Brandi McNease, one of the store’s employees and a member of Chipotle United, told the Bangor Daily News that the closure was announced right before the National Labor Relations Board could carry out a hearing to determine how a union election would be carried out. “They waited until the morning of the hearing to close the store and then claimed we couldn’t elect to form a union because we’re permanently closed,” said McNease. “This is union busting 101 and there is nothing that motivates us to fight harder than this underhanded attempt to shut down the labor movement within their stores.” NEW UNIONIZATION WAVE RIPPLES ACROSS US Employees are reportedly planning a Tuesday afternoon rally outside the store, which would have been the first Chipotle to unionize, in protest of the move. When contacted by the Washington Examiner, Chipotle provided a statement from Laurie Schalow, the company’s chief corporate affairs officer. Schalow said the decision to close the store came as a result of staffing challenges. She said that despite Chipotle’s best efforts, the company was unable to staff the location, which had been “plagued with excessive call-outs and lack of availability from existing staff.” “The employees at our Augusta restaurant will receive severance pay and outplacement assistance,” Schalow said. “Closing the Chipotle restaurant in Augusta, Maine has nothing to do with union activity. Our operational management reviewed this situation as it would any other restaurant with these unique staffing challenges. Chipotle respects our employees’ rights to organize under the National Labor Relations Act.” McNease said that, in response to the closure, Chipotle United has lodged an unfair labor practice complaint with the NLRB. Workers at the now-shuttered location will reportedly receive pay for the rest of this week and then be entitled to a month of severance based upon how much time they worked in the previous two weeks. Staffing problems were one of the reasons employees at the Augusta store wanted to unionize in the first place. Employees at the location had said that the understaffing was so bad they had to falsify food temperature logs because they didn't have enough time to check them as scheduled, according to the Kennebec Journal. “I care about these people more than anybody else,” said Laramie Rohr, another employee at the location. “I hope to improve working conditions, not have to have five people working 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, to have the ability to close when you need to for safety reasons." The store’s efforts are part of a larger unionization wave around the country. Late last year, the first Starbucks store in the United States voted to unionize. That set off efforts at stores across the country, and in just months, more than 70 stores in 25 states voted to be represented by a union. Earlier this year, an Amazon warehouse in New York became the first to vote to unionize, as did an REI store in New York, and later, a Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts became the first to file for a union election. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Dan Bowling, a senior lecturing fellow at Duke University School of Law, told the Washington Examiner last month that the rekindled unionization efforts sparking across the country are coming in part because of a more highly educated and younger workforce. “There is a rise in attention. Unions are now on the radar screens of younger workers to an extent they haven’t been in my career,” Bowling said. | Labor Activism |
The flags of the United States and China fly from a lamppost in the Chinatown neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., November 1, 2021. REUTERS/Brian SnyderRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, July 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's team is still looking at options on whether to cut tariffs on Chinese imports to ease inflation, the White House said on Tuesday as industry requests to maintain the duties mounted.More than 400 requests to keep tariffs in place on Chinese goods had been submitted to the U.S. Trade Representative's office as of late Tuesday, complicating Biden's decision-making.Among these are a committee of 24 labor unions from the AFL-CIO to the Air Line Pilots Association, which has requested that all of the "Section 301" tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump continue, covering some $370 billion in Chinese imports.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comIf he substantially removes the tariffs, Biden would have to turn his back on a key constituency. He has described himself as the most pro-labor president ever, heavily relying on unions to power his Democratic Party primary and general election wins in 2020.After weeks of deliberations within the administration over cutting tariffs as a way to ease high inflation, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden's team was still weighing various strategies."There are a lot of different elements to this, especially since the previous administration imposed these tariffs in such a haphazard way, in a non-strategic way," Jean-Pierre said. "So we want to make sure that we have the right approach. And again, his team is talking, is figuring it out, and they're talking through this."Jean-Pierre declined to provide a timeline for Biden's decision when asked whether it would wait until he speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping - a planned call that is yet to be scheduled.People familiar with the tariff deliberations have told Reuters that Biden also is weighing whether to pair a removal of some tariffs with a new Section 301 investigation into China's industrial subsidies and efforts to dominate key sectors, such as semiconductors.A probe would take up to a year to conduct and could lead to a new round of tariffs, but the sources said that Biden can claim that any such duties would be more strategically focused than many of the current tariffs on consumer goods such as cotton sweaters and home internet routers.The deliberations come as USTR is conducting a four-year statutory review of the tariffs, with one deadline for submitting requests to keep tariffs in place expiring late on Tuesday and another lasting until Aug. 22.The tariff issue was raised during a call between U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Vice Premier Liu He on Monday night, but a Treasury statement did not mention the duties and focused on broader economic challenges and Russian sanctions. read more Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by David Lawder and Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and Chris Gallagher; Editing by Leslie Adler and Christopher CushingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
Australia plans to hold a referendum to legally enshrine indigenous voices in politics. Campaigners argue it will help address deep-seated inequality, but not everyone is convinced.
Australia’s recently-elected Labor government wants to change the constitution to recognize First Nations people. It also plans to mandate consultation with them on decisions that affect their lives by adding a so-called Indigenous Voice to parliament.
The Australian constitution can only be altered by referendum, or a national popular vote.
Labor has enlisted high-profile international support for its proposed reforms to help indigenous people.
Former U.S. basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, known for his social justice campaigning in the United States, was in Canberra last weekend, and has agreed to appear in videos promoting Labor’s plan.
No date for the referendum has been set.
Eddie Synot, an Aboriginal community leader, said it is time the country’s original inhabitants were officially recognized.
“What we are dealing with now is the kind of first principle’s idea that, you know, there is the symbolic part of recognition and the rightful place of First Nations. But also, this fundamental, simple idea that indigenous peoples, you know, have particular issues, have rights as indigenous peoples. You know, our voice should be heard on the decisions that affect us,” said Synot.
The plan, however, does not have universal support. Some indigenous leaders, including Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, a federal lawmaker, has said it was a “waste of money,” saying the funds used to hold the referendum could be better spent in Aboriginal communities.
Critics have argued an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is not the answer to the crises facing First Nations communities.
David Littleproud, the leader of the opposition Nationals Party, also has concerns about the plan’s lack of detail.
“We have not got any detail to vote on and I think all Australians are starting from scratch and this policy area is littered with good intentions, but little in terms of shifting the dial of closing the gap,” he said.
There remains a large gap in the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people and other Australians. Their life expectancy is shorter by up to ten years, and they suffer disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment and imprisonment. Community leaders have also argued the criminal justice and law enforcement systems are systemically racist. An inquest began Monday into the death of an Aboriginal teenager shot dead by the police in Central Australia. The officer was found not guilty in March of murder, but campaigners are asking the coroner to investigate alleged use of excessive force by the police in remote indigenous settlements.
Australia’s constitution, which came into effect in 1901, does not refer to the country’s Indigenous people, who lived there for 65,000 years by some accounts. | Labor Activism |
Anthony Albanese has suggested Labor could accelerate industrial relations reforms, adding to its election policies to “get wages moving” without “[waiting] for everyone to agree on everything”.The prime minister made the remarks at the National Press Club, as Labor opened the door to multi-employer pay deals to shrink the gender pay gap and further bargaining changes ahead of the jobs and skills summit on Wednesday.On Monday, the unions’ call for pay deals to cover two or more employers in the same sector gathered momentum with in-principle agreement from the Council of Small Business Organisations (Cosboa) and endorsement from the workplace relations minister, Tony Burke.Albanese said the government will introduce an industrial relations bill to enact election promises such as criminalising wage theft in the next sitting, and could “potentially take further action from what we’ve foreshadowed”.“We’re hopeful that, if this week, near consensus emerges from the discussions on Thursday and Friday, then we would look at change in an expedient fashion,” he said.Albanese said enterprise bargaining was not working for business or employees. “If we can work through ways to improve that with as much support as possible, then great,” he said. “But we also are prepared to lead on issues as well … [If] you wait for everyone to agree on everything, not much will happen.” Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning On migration, Albanese blamed the Morrison government, for providing “no income support” to temporary visa-holders, “which means many of them have left, with ill feeling towards Australia”.The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Business Council of Australia (BCA) have agreed that full employment, wages growth and increased migration should be aims of the summit, but unions have also pushed multi-employer pay deals as their top industrial relations demand.The idea is still controversial, with the Business Council of Australia chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, saying on Monday she is “concerned” about “unintended consequences” of the plan.The Cosboa acting chief executive, Alexi Boyd, said it must be “opt-in”, with no industry-wide requirement to take part.Earlier, Burke told Radio National the deal between the ACTU and Cosboa was “exactly the sort of cooperation we’ve been hoping to achieve”.The minister said he was “very interested” in multi-employer bargaining, because small businesses were locked out of “the simplicity, the efficiencies” of having a collective pay deal with their workforce because they don’t have an HR department to negotiate one, while employees miss out on pay rises.Burke said sectors such as childcare, aged care and smaller retail “workplaces where the majority of people working there are women [are] the ones that have tended to miss out on bargaining”.“There’s a direct link between this conversation and some of the things we need to do to close the gender pay gap,” he said.Cosboa, which represents industry associations with more than 800,000 small business members, is now at odds with other employer groups, which forcefully rejected multi-employer bargaining last week as a “throwback”.Boyd said multi-employer pay deals “can be customised to our circumstances”, helping small businesses that “do not have resources that are available to big business with lawyers and HR departments” to bargain together. “The one size fits all approach doesn’t work,” he said.The ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, said workers in feminised industries including childcare were taking “unprotected industrial action … so strictly under our laws that’s unlawful, with no ability to reach [multi-employer] agreements at the end”.Multi-employer bargaining would help feminised industries have more of a “voice” like workers at “a big oil rig, a construction site or a bank”, she said.Behind the scenes, Burke has been consulting the ACTU, the BCA, the Australian Industry Group (AiGroup) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Acci) on changes to the better off overall test.Before the Fair Work Commission can approve a workplace pay deal, it must first be satisfied employees are better off than they would be under award minimums.The test has become unworkable, with even unions conceding that hypothetical shift patterns should not be used to knock back a pay deal.AiGroup and Acci are pushing for broader changes, including quicker approval of deals and easing rules around which casuals have to be consulted in workplace votes. Unions have said the test should not be watered down.Burke said he was “very careful and wary of changes to the better off overall test” but recognised the test had become “very legalistic” and spoiled some pay deals that enjoyed 90% worker support.“I’m not ruling out that we might be able to find compromises that make the whole system work more effectively both for workers and for employers,” he said.“If there’s creative ways that people can come up with that allow something more flexible but still see wages get moving, then I’m interested.”Westacott said the test should be “retained, simplified, and be made less litigious, and able to be applied across all employers”, with “primacy” given to the intention of the parties which negotiated it.She said workers should be better off “overall” – not each and every employee individually – and this was a “key principle” to be “restored” to the operation of the test.The ACTU president, Michele O’Neil, said its position was that “nobody should be worse off” but there was “room to look at making sure the test is simple, easily applied … [and] fair”. | Labor Activism |
September 27, 2022 02:19 PM Top Biden administration officials said authorities are weighing whether to lift a union-backed century-old shipping rule to speed the transport of fuel to Puerto Rico, where devastation from Hurricane Fiona has led to major power outages. President Joe Biden faces pressure to waive the Jones Act to allow a ship loaded with diesel fuel to access a port on the island, with his emergency administrator telling reporters Tuesday that officials “are actively working on that consideration or approval process right now.” But there are obstacles, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said, including “a legal obligation to ensure that each waiver request meets the legal requirements of Congress.” BIDEN ‘LASER-FOCUSED’ ON PROVIDING HURRICANE RELIEF TO PUERTO RICO Asked whether the president backs the measure, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre demurred. “This is a legal authority that we are following,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that the administration is “closely evaluating any waivers requests that come in.” Puerto Rico’s governor and lawmakers have urged Biden to waive the rule to help bring fuel to the power-starved island, but the president has yet to move. The split has drawn attention to Biden’s efforts to appeal to constituencies with competing demands, in this case, the labor unions that favor shipping rule protections, and the pressing humanitarian needs facing Puerto Rico’s residents. The island is still recovering from the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria in 2017. The Biden administration has lifted the Jones Act before, last year waiving the rule temporarily during a petroleum shortage. On Tuesday, Biden’s officials stressed that Biden does not hold the legal authority to suspend the rule. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER A final decision would rest with Biden’s Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, Jean-Pierre and Criswell said. “That is going to be made by the Homeland Security [secretary], and so we'll leave that to up to them,” Criswell said. | Labor Activism |
An empty Lyft pick-up area is shown as rideshare drivers hold a rally as part of a statewide day of action to demand that ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft follow California law and grant drivers "basic employee rights'', in Los Angeles, California, U.S., August 20, 2020. REUTERS/Mike BlakeOct 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Labor on Tuesday unveiled a proposal that would make it harder for companies to treat workers as independent contractors, potentially upending the gig economy and other industries that rely heavily on contract labor.The line between when a worker is considered a company's employee, who is entitled to various legal protections, or an independent contractor has shifted over the last decade, as businesses have faced an increasing number of lawsuits by workers who claim they were misclassified.WHY IS WORKER CLASSIFICATION IMPORTANT?Most federal and state labor laws, such as those requiring a minimum wage and overtime pay, prohibiting discrimination or protecting the right to unionize, only apply to a company's employees. This makes employees much more expensive for companies to use than independent contractors - up to 30% more, according to some studies.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWorker advocates have said that millions of workers are misclassified as independent contractors and deprived of fair wages, benefits, and basic protections against discrimination and retaliation. Business groups have maintained that independent contracting helps to create jobs and gives workers more flexibility and opportunities to operate their own businesses.WHAT IS THE CURRENT LAW?In the final days of the Trump administration last year, the Department of Labor adopted a rule favored by business groups that makes it easier to classify workers as independent contractors under federal wage law. The rule says workers who own their own businesses or have the ability to work for competing companies, such as a driver who works for Uber and Lyft, can be treated as contractors.The Biden administration withdrew the rule, but a federal judge in Texas ruled in March that it had not followed the proper procedure for doing so and reinstated the prior standard.WHAT WOULD THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PROPOSAL DO?The proposal unveiled on Tuesday would require a company to treat workers as employees when they are "economically dependent" on the company for work. The Labor Department said it will consider whether workers have an opportunity for profit or loss, the permanency of their jobs, and the degree of control a company exercises over a worker, among other factors. The proposal is similar to legal guidance issued during the Obama administration that was withdrawn by the Labor Department under former President Donald Trump, a Republican.The agency must now collect and review public comments, so the rule will likely not be finalized until well into next year.WHICH INDUSTRIES WILL BE AFFECTED MOST?Any change in policy is expected to have a negative impact on an array of industries including retail and manufacturing, but the effect on the explosive growth of the "gig economy," which heavily relies on independent contractors, has received the most attention. Last year, U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Reuters that many gig workers should be classified as employees.Limiting independent contracting would also have an outsized impact on trucking companies that rely on contractors who own their trucks to meet fluctuations in demand and avoid the costs of maintaining fleets of trucks. Trucking firms raising prices or limiting services could, in turn, place further strain on supply chains that have already been hobbled by the COVID-19 pandemic.HOW WOULD THE RULE AFFECT WORKERS?The proposed changes would be a boon to many workers by guaranteeing them the minimum wage, overtime pay and reimbursements for mileage and some other work-related expenses. Many gig and delivery workers currently work long hours for low pay and lack safety nets, such as paid - or even unpaid - time off, according to worker advocates.At the same time, limiting independent contracting could lead some companies to slash the number of workers they hire, eliminating some jobs altogether. Companies would have greater control over workers who are considered employees and have more say over when and where work is performed.WILL THERE BE LEGAL CHALLENGES TO THE RULE?Almost certainly, given the significant impact it will have. Lawsuits targeting the final rule could claim that the new definition of "employee" is broader than federal wage law allows or that the Department of Labor did not follow the proper administrative procedures in adopting the rule.Trade groups and individual companies and workers could also bring claims under the U.S. Constitution or argue that the rule conflicts with existing regulations on specific industries.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New YorkOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.Daniel WiessnerThomson ReutersDan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and employment and immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at daniel.wiessner@thomsonreuters.com. | Labor Activism |
As many as 15,000 Minnesota nurses went on strike Monday, citing short staffing and low wage increases. The thousands-strong strike may be the largest private-sector nurses’ strike in the nation’s history, according to a release from the Minnesota Nurses’ Association (MNA). Nurses at 16 hospitals in Minnesota’s Twin Cities and elsewhere in the state rallied Sunday night and began the three-day strike Monday morning after months of contract negotiations with hospital executives, the union said. The Minnesota nurses are demanding safer working conditions, better nurse retention and safer staffing systems, according to National Nurses United. “Corporate healthcare policies in our hospitals have left nurses understaffed and overworked, while patients are overcharged, local hospitals and services are closed, and executives take home million-dollar paychecks,” said MNA’s First Vice President Chris Rubesch in a statement from the union. The union says hospital executives have seen huge raises to their own salaries, but have offered nurses a 4 percent average annual increase, “well below the current rate of inflation and climbing cost of living.” According to Minnesota’s Star Tribune, the nurses asked for nearly 30 percent pay raises over three years, and hospitals offered around 10 percent. Research shows patient care is adversely impacted by health care worker strikes — and the affected hospitals began planning to train temp nurses to deal with the fallout of the 15,000 strikers leaving bedsides to protest, according to the Star Tribune. A National Nurses United poll earlier this year found nurses, two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, concerned about staffing issues and an uptick in workplace violence. Nearly 70 percent of nurses said staffing shortages have worsened since earlier in the pandemic, and over a quarter of nurses said they had been assigned to work with a skillset they did not possess. As nurses leave the front lines, a new analysis indicates the U.S. could experience a labor gap of as many as 450,000 nurses by 2025. A McKinsey & Company report released in February found 32 percent of surveyed U.S. registered nurses said they may leave direct patient care, citing staffing and pay issues. President Biden has long acknowledged the impact of the pandemic on those in the health care profession, and nurses have asked the White House to take action on the ongoing pandemic. In recent remarks at a Labor Day event in Pennsylvania, Biden touted his administration’s work on the American Rescue Plan as it relates to health care workers. “Here in the state of Pennsylvania, and almost every state, didn’t have enough money to keep teachers on the payroll, to keep firefighters on the job, to keep police on the job, to keep people, nurses and docs on the job,” Biden said. “And so what’d we do? We, in fact, gave them the money to make sure they did it.” | Labor Activism |
Earlier this year, Meta and its largest content moderation partner in Africa, Sama, were accused of union busting, forced labor, and human trafficking. The lawsuit claims that “misleading job ads” lured potential employees from across Africa who, once realizing the true nature of the work, often had no means to get home. And when content moderator Daniel Motaung attempted to organize his colleagues for better working conditions and pay, Sama fired him.A win for Motaung, who filed the lawsuit, could force social media companies to invest in their content moderation workers, even if they’re not direct employees. (In response to the lawsuit, Meta claims they never employed Motaung and are therefore “not liable for or privy to” any of the allegations. However, Motaung argues the moderators are Meta employees in a material and legal sense: they use Meta’s internal systems and guidelines, work closely with Meta staff and on a schedule of work set by Meta.) What hasn’t received as much attention, though, is what the lawsuit means for enterprises claiming to improve the developing world. Sama is a so-called social enterprise founded specifically to offer “decent work” to low-income people globally. Definitions of “social enterprise” vary, but most academics and entrepreneurs agree that they aim to maximize revenues and profits while contributing to a social or environmental goal—usually, by supporting a specific marginalized group. In Sama’s case, this is their employees, who often have little to no prior experience in the formal economy. A self-proclaimed “ethical AI” company, Sama has been lauded by Fast Company, B Corp, and Forbes, among others. The fact that Sama is now accused of abusing the very workers it tried to empower reveals the fundamental brokenness of the social enterprise model.Legal context first: The lawsuit was lodged in Kenya, which has relatively weak labor protections that the government has often failed to enforce. Government workplace inspections remain rare, courts face significant backlogs, penalties tend to be incommensurate with the offense, and employers often fail to comply with court orders. For these reasons, it’s rare for employees to file complaints at all. Even if Motaung wins his lawsuit, prompting a new set of standards for content moderation work, there’s no telling if these standards will actually be implemented in Kenya.Seen in that light, setting up a regional content moderation hub in a place with such weak labor protection seems almost strategic, or at least convenient, for Meta. Payroll savings aside, no Ministry of Labor official monitored what staff were actually moderating: usually highly disturbing content including beheadings and child sexual abuse, according to Motaung. Meta’s name didn’t even have to be on the door. As a contractor hired to moderate Meta’s content in Africa, it was Sama who recruited and technically employed the workers–approximately 240 in their Nairobi office. The company specializes in data annotation and digital microwork that can be performed by low-income people in the developing world. On top of content moderation, the company also offers image, video, and other product annotation services for clients including Google, Walmart and Getty Images.Maybe Sama’s current problems began with a fundamental change in mission: Initially founded as the non-profit “SamaSource” in 2008, the company converted to a for-profit social enterprise structure in 2019. Making money became just as much, if not more, of a priority as providing decent work. Evidence of this internal mindshift can be seen in Sama’s documents: early SamaSource reports are filled with references to giving people “dignified” work and measuring impact in terms of changes in workers’ lives and communities. But fast forward to its transformation to a for-profit and its subsequent rebranding to “Sama,” and this focus on worker impact seems to have, if not disappeared, at least receded.The company has always claimed to pay workers a “living wage,” which usually exceeds the minimum wage and ensures a decent standard of living for employees in a given country. During the early to mid 2010s, Sama workers in Kenya earned $8 a day, roughly in line with estimates of living wages for that time period. And a randomized control study found that Sama’s training and job referral program did have long-term benefits on workers’ employment and earnings, even after they left Sama. However, a recent TIME investigation found Sama’s lowest paid workers in Nairobi earned only $1.50 an hour–barely above Kenya’s current $1.15 minimum wage for cleaners, and well below the $2.61 an hour that cashiers must be paid. Finding “a workplace culture characterized by mental trauma, intimidation, and alleged suppression of the right to unionize,” with Sama workers numbering among the lowest-paid employees for Meta anywhere in the world, TIME’s investigation also calls the RCT findings into question.It’s likely, too, that Sama’s current problems were encoded in the organization’s DNA from the start. For any company, opening its doors in places where it has few personal, professional or cultural ties is risky. Headquartered in the Bay Area, Sama now has operations in Uganda, Kenya and India. Though the parents of founder Leila Janah are Indian immigrants, Janah herself has said that for most of her life, her “only exposure to the developing world was my parents telling me to eat all the food on my plate because there were starving children back home.” Nonetheless, she and other Sama executives were confident the enterprise could impact this world they didn’t know. “The best way to end poverty is to simply give people work,” Janah said.This sort of confidence—bordering on hubris—is not unusual for social enterprises: in fact, it’s at the core of most foreign-owned social enterprises operating in the developing world. What else could explain founding a company in a place you don’t know and whose language you don’t speak, with the belief that you could not only solve that society’s social and economic ills, but also turn a profit while doing so?This kind of hubris can have dangerous results, as Sama’s story shows. But it’s not only employees who are at risk: consumers also stand to be harmed.Tala, another social enterprise headquartered in California, has been celebrated by Forbes, CNBC, and Wired itself for offering digital loans to people without a formal credit history. Active in Kenya, Mexico, Philippines, and India, Tala has now made over $1 billion in microloans, all using its app. But in 2020, a Bloomberg investigation found that Tala was trapping clients in ballooning cycles of debt, charging its African borrowers—most of whom live below the poverty line—interest rates equivalent to 180% annualized, 10 times what Americans pay on their credit cards. At the same time, Tala staff deployed intense shaming tactics to pressure borrowers into repaying, including threats to show up at their offices to shame them in front of colleagues, or to come to their homes and seize their possessions.Despite claiming to work with “traditionally underserved” clients, the case for Tala’s services, especially in Kenya, is weak. The market for digital credit in Kenya is incredibly robust, with more than 50 loan apps in existence. This is great for consumer choice but not necessarily for consumer protection: many people borrow from one app to repay a loan from another app, creating a vicious debt cycle that is hard to escape. What, then, is the added value of Tala in an already-saturated market?Legislation in the developing world is starting to catch up to these threats. Late last year, the Central Bank of Kenya started requiring digital lenders to apply for digital credit provider licenses. (Previously, they only had to register to set up operations in the country.) The new legislation also mandates lenders to keep customer data confidential and allows the Central Bank to set pricing parameters for digital credit, putting an end to exorbitant interest rates.This is good news for consumers. Yet, in the bigger picture, the standards for establishing and operating a social enterprise remain low. A few documents and approximately $90 are all that’s needed to register a business in Kenya. Once established, the more successful the enterprise becomes, revenue-wise, and the more it manages to attract investor funding, the more likely it is to face difficult trade-offs between its social mission and its newly-relevant profit mandate. And while investors are likely to pay close attention to the company’s financials, most social benefits created by the enterprise—whether that’s women employed, trees planted, or communities with access to drinking water—are purely self-reported. What about the harms the enterprise might be causing or contributing to along the way? Who is monitoring those? In most cases, the answer is no one.These enterprises continue to raise capital and grow, with relatively little scrutiny because not only are they social enterprises, but they’re female-owned and foreign social enterprises. Tala’s founder, Shivani Siroya, has become a star in both women’s empowerment and tech-for-good circles, speaking at Women Deliver and TechCrunch Disrupt among others. Both Siroya and Sama’s founder have given TED talks, and been named to countless “Women changing the world” and “Innovative start-ups to watch” lists. That kind of profile is hardly the typical target for watchdogs. It’s little wonder, then, that they’ve largely escaped scrutiny from activists and regulators.The fact that they’re foreign-owned also makes them powerful: both Tala and Sama have raised venture capital funding from American investors, including PayPal, Google, and Salesforce. Money and influence, especially in a corruption-prone nation like Kenya, can keep even major infractions from reaching the media. On top of that, the power dynamics between Western executives and local employees strongly skew in the executives’ favor: In the summer of 2019, when Sama’s Nairobi-based content moderators threatened to strike unless they were given better pay and working conditions, Sama flew two highly-paid executives from San Francisco to deal with the uprising. Motaung, the attempted strike’s leader, was fired, and others were told that they, too, were expendable. It didn’t take long for workers to stand down. And after all that, there still was no pay increase.The fact is that many of Africa’s most famous social enterprises are foreign-founded and largely foreign-led: OneAcre Fund, Water for People, Solar Sister, and so on. Even as American capital pours into foreign-owned businesses in Africa, Black Africans struggle to find funding for their start-ups. This disparity in who gets the capital to test out their ideas and who doesn’t means two things: First, solutions that are both innovative and contextually-appropriate may never see the light of day, and second, the enterprises that do get funded may end up harming the very people they claim to help.Of course, this danger exists with locally-owned businesses, and businesses that make no claim of having a second, social purpose. But such businesses are likely to receive more scrutiny and less leeway from investors and regulators alike. Meanwhile, Western-owned social enterprises can hide behind the gloss of their “triple bottom lines,” “profit with a purpose” and “improving lives globally” missions. But these missions have rarely been realized.What does that mean for Americans investors and regulators? For one, they could recognize the fundamental meaninglessness of “social enterprise” and approach any start-up claiming to seamlessly blend “doing good” and earning profits with abundant skepticism. For another, they can stop supporting and perhaps even allowing American “social enterprises” to operate in countries with weak (or weakly enforced) labor and consumer protection law. Instead, investors could give their money to the local Africans, Asians and South Americans who know the places they’re working in, the problems they’re trying to solve, and most of all, the people they claim to be helping.Updated 7/21/2022 9 am ET: This story has been updated to clarify that social enterprises like OneAcre Fund, Water for People, and Solar Sister are largely foreign-led. | Labor Activism |
The unprecedented expansion of the archaic Davis-Bacon Act (an inflationary and anti-small business regulation requiring contractors to pay inaccurate, bloated government-determined wages and benefits on taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects) into privately developed clean energy construction projects receiving federal tax incentives is raising serious concerns among developers, small businesses in the construction industry, climate change activists, and taxpayers. Buried in the partisan, $740 billion reconciliation bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is language forcing private developers of electric vehicle charging stations and solar, wind, hydrogen, carbon sequestration, and other clean energy projects to pay workers Davis-Bacon wages and hire apprentices from government-registered apprenticeship programs or lose critical tax incentives that help grow America’s clean energy marketplace. Although not an explicit mandate to use unionized firms and labor, in practice, this new policy is a massive giveaway to construction trade unions because it leverages federal tax policy to boost union membership while penalizing the 87.4% of U.S. construction workers who have chosen to work for a nonunion contractor and not to join a union. Since Davis-Bacon's passage in 1931, special interests such as construction trade unions and their allies in the federal government have fiercely defended it (and successfully lobbied to expand its reach to federally assisted construction projects procured by state and local government) via 71 related acts. That’s despite complaints by government watchdogs, taxpayers, and small business advocates that Davis-Bacon regulations and prevailing wage requirements needlessly raise taxpayer-funded construction costs, stifle job creation, undermine productivity, unfairly steer contracts to unionized firms, and discourage competition from small businesses by imposing onerous paperwork burdens and compliance risks on contractors and governments building projects funded by federal dollars. At the heart of the Davis-Bacon policy debate are two key facts. The first is that the Department of Labor, tasked with determining wage rates and enforcing the Davis-Bacon Act, has failed to provide clarity to the contracting community with respect to the various bureaucratic interpretations of Davis-Bacon regulations and the accompanying red tape. This exposes contractors to added compliance costs, fines, and litigation and ultimately undermines government programs seeking to award more contracts to small, minority, and disadvantaged businesses. The second is that lawmakers and regulators, collaborating with the construction trade union lobby, have rigged the government’s regulatory and enforcement bureaucracy to ensure that, as much as possible, the DOL requires that contractors pay inflated, nonmarket rates to construction workers consistent with union collective bargaining agreements. Less than 13% of the construction industry is unionized, so it is statistically impossible for union rates to be adopted as “prevailing” as much as they actually are by the DOL. Likewise, for decades, the Government Accountability Office and the DOL Office of Inspector General have called for reforms to the DOL’s unscientific and fundamentally flawed wage determination process, yet the DOL has done little to improve it. In short, Davis-Bacon helps unionized contractors win more government contracts and create more jobs for unionized labor by needlessly raising costs for competitors. This is a key reason why President Joe Biden supports it. He has said, after all, “I intend to be the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history.” Furthermore, critics of the Biden administration’s controversial March 18 DOL proposed rule (which purports to “update and modernize” existing Davis-Bacon Act regulations on federal and federally assisted construction projects), including taxpayer watchdogs, state and local governments, and infrastructure stakeholders, call the DOL proposal more pork for special interests at the expense of efforts to reduce the runaway costs of infrastructure construction. This proposal rescinds modest reforms enacted by the Reagan administration in the early 1980s, overturns decades of legal decisions unfavorable to unions, expands the scope of the DBA to new types of construction-related activity and new industries such as manufacturing, trucking, and surveyors, and fails to fix the DOL’s broken and convoluted wage determination process. With the Inflation Reduction Act's recent expansion of Davis-Bacon into privately developed clean energy projects jockeying for full tax credits, the law's damaging impact is no longer contained to government construction contracts. Climate change activists are concerned these provisions will slow down the construction of American clean energy projects and undermine Biden’s climate goals by increasing costs, exacerbating the construction industry’s skilled workforce shortage and eliminating quality contractors already in the marketplace or eager to enter it by making green energy tax credits less valuable or completely useless. This means less investment in clean energy projects, fewer jobs, and more carbon emissions for America. Married with the expansion of the Davis-Bacon Act into private green energy projects via the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law Aug. 16, the Biden administration’s new DOL proposal is a big win for special interests but a loss for cost-effective taxpayer investment in clean energy and infrastructure that is needed to power America’s resilient 21st-century economy. Ben Brubeck is the vice president of regulatory, labor, and state affairs of Associated Builders and Contractors. | Labor Activism |
The new GM logo is seen on the facade of the General Motors headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., March 16, 2021. Picture taken March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Rebecca CookRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comTOLEDO, Ohio/WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers will seek a speedier recognition from GM (GM.N) that does not require a vote to represent hourly workers in the automaker's growing stable of U.S. joint-venture battery plants, the union said on Friday.UAW President Ray Curry, speaking at an event in Toledo, Ohio, where GM announced it will invest $760 million, said the union will seek "card check" authorization that bypasses a secret ballot vote.Under that process, a majority of plant hourly workers could simply sign cards supporting the union, and once certified an election would not be necessary. read more Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comLast month, the first General Motors and LG Energy Solution (373220.KS) joint venture Ultium battery plant began production in Lordstown, Ohio.Curry said 90% of workers at the plant have signed cards supporting the union. "Ultium has not agreed" to recognize the UAW without a vote, Curry said.Ultium on Friday did not endorse the UAW proposal, but said it "respects workers’ right to unionize and the efforts of the UAW or any other union to organize battery-cell manufacturing workers at our manufacturing sites."The joint venture said it would comply with a federal labor law that "protects our employees’ right to decide the issue of union representation through a voluntary democratic election."The 2.8 million square foot Ultium Cells LLC plant in Lordstown is the first of at least four U.S. plants planned to supply GM electric vehicles. The plant has more than 800 employees and is preparing to ramp up production.GM previously expressed support for efforts by the UAW to organize Ultium's battery plants, but did not endorse "card check.In May, President Joe Biden, in a trip to South Korea, expressed support for workers seeking to unionize joint venture battery plants. Detroit's Big Three automakers all have battery plants in the works with Korean partners."For every joint venture that manufactures electric vehicle batteries would be made stronger by collective bargaining relationships with America unions," Biden said.Last month, GM and LG Energy said they were considering a site in New Carlisle, Indiana, for a fourth U.S. battery plant.They are already building a $2.6 billion battery cell plant in Lansing, Michigan, set to open in late 2024, and a $2.3 billion Tennessee plant to be completed in 2023.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Joseph White and David Shepardson in Washington; writing by Ben Klayman; editing by Chris Reese, Leslie Adler and Diane CraftOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Labor proposed a rule on Tuesday that would make it more difficult for companies to treat workers as independent contractors, a change that is expected to shake up the business models of the ridesharing, delivery and other industries that rely on gig workers.The proposal would require that workers be considered a company's employees, who are entitled to more benefits and legal protections than contractors, when they are "economically dependent" on the company.The Labor Department said it will consider workers' opportunity for profit or loss, the permanency of their jobs, and the degree of control a company exercises over a worker, among other factors.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by David Shepardson and Nandita Bose in Washington, Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Chizu NomiyamaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
Cristina Velazquez says she never played outside as a kid because it was too hot and the parks were too dangerous. Velazquez, 24, grew up in Westlake, a densely populated area in Central Los Angeles that like many inner-city areas had little trees or green space. The community is mostly Latino and more than 20 percent of its residents live in poverty. When she took bus rides to the other side of the city, she remembers seeing children playing together under the shade of trees.“When you watch TV and you see a program that has little kids playing on the streets, that is not something that I had ever experienced,” said Velazquez, who was part of Los Angeles’ Tree Ambassador Program, which recruits people directly from communities that need more trees to do environmental outreach within their own neighborhoods. “It is a massive difference. Like you can really tell just how different even like a few trees can make in terms of your childhood.”Many major American cities, including Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix, Chicago and Boston are working to bridge the equity gap in major tree canopy coverage through volunteer tree-planting events, community partnerships and green job programs.But those efforts face challenges, including several physical, social and financial barriers that stand in the way of making tree canopy coverage equitable.Physical barriers tend to be the trickiest and priciest obstacle. City planners and urban foresters have to navigate the built infrastructure to make room for trees. Sometimes this involves cutting into pavement, which is more expensive than planting trees where there is readily available green space.Generally, it can cost around $300 to pull up enough concrete for a single tree, according to Ian Leahy, vice president of urban forestry at American Forests, a nonprofit group dedicated to conserving forests in the United States.“It’s great to plant trees in a big open field, but a lot of times where the trees are needed most, it’s like a building, a sidewalk, a road, like there’s just not a lot of space,” he said.Extreme heat in cities is a major issue around the world, and underserved urban communities like Westlake can be at particular risk because of urban heat island effect, which is when an area traps more heat due to the lack of green space and a higher density of pavement and buildings. It’s a growing problem in a warming world — extreme heat is already the deadliest weather-related hazard in the U.S. This has brought renewed scrutiny to the lack of green space in many poor urban areas. Research shows that historically redlined communities, which are Black and brown communities that recieved little investment due to discriminatory practices, face more extreme heat threats largely due to the lack of tree canopy. One solution may seem simple: plant more trees. Juan Sosof helps to plant a gumbo limbo tree at Pinecrest Gardens on October 27, 2021 in Miami.Joe Raedle / Getty Images fileTree canopy coverage can significantly decrease temperatures, sometimes by almost 10 degrees Fahrenheit, which can help in Westlake where the average temperature is close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the summertime. A recent study from the International Journal of Biometeorology found that 1 in 4 lives in Los Angeles could be saved during extreme heat events when there is more tree canopy, as well as other cooling methods in place.But planting trees in cities is not as easy as it seems.Urban foresters have to get creative with the space available, but urban forestry is an underresourced industry, many times with one or two people working on intricate plans in city governments, and major labor shortages occurring at the tree maintenance level. In some smaller cities, like Jackson, Mississippi, nonprofit groups have to fill in the gaps. Overall, it’s difficult for cities to maintain already existing trees, let alone add more.“One of our biggest hurdles, people just don’t know our field exists,” Leahy said.There are efforts in place across the nation to recruit more diverse workers into the field. Denver will pilot a pre-apprenticeship program this summer to train formerly incarcerated people in urban forestry jobs. This spring, Los Angeles graduated the first class of its Tree Ambassador Program that recruits people directly from the communities that need more trees.Velazquez is one of the new graduates. During the program, she went door to door in her neighborhood asking residents if they would water a newly planted tree in the area, many of whom answered no. This is not an uncommon response, especially in historically disadvantaged communities. She said that in her neighborhood, some residents believe it would be too much of an expense, others simply don’t have the time between work and taking care of their households. But many have a distrust of the city’s ability to take care of the trees properly as they grow. She said many of the older trees that are in the neighborhood are not maintained.“It’s a very old neighborhood. Basically, all the trees that we have have been there for decades,” Velazquez said. “But it’s also an underresourced neighborhood, so the city has basically not taken care of them. So, we have a lot of massive trees that interfere with power lines, trees that are dying or are already dead, trees with limbs that are nearly touching apartment buildings or overhanging on the streets.”Taking care of the already existing trees is on Los Angeles City Forester Rachel Malarich’s agenda. While tree planting has slowed down since the beginning of the pandemic, she’s looking for sustainable solutions to the city’s tree canopy inequities.“The important thing to note when we’re thinking about tree canopy equity also is that it cannot just be tree planting,” she said. “I have continued to remind folks that without good tree preservation policies and good maintenance practices, we will lose canopy while we’re trying to add it through tree planting.”On the opposite coast, New York City’s borough presidents are looking to increase tree canopy coverage with a “Million More Trees” campaign. Between the Bloomberg and the de Blasio administrations, the city planted 1 million trees — a goal borough presidents want to repeat. Mayor Eric Adams has not yet responded to the proposed project.The Nature Conservancy, a global environmental nonprofit group, released a report in November that found that despite prior planting efforts, the tree canopy coverage remained inequitable in New York City.Arif Ullah, executive director of South Bronx Unite, a community advocacy group, said he wants more trees to help ease major health inequities in the Bronx. The borough has the highest rates of child asthma and asthma morbidity in the country.“The air that we breathe is killing us,” he said.Heat-related illnesses and deaths are also a concern in New York City’s communities of color, as well as in cities across the country. Each year, heat puts 450 New Yorkers in the emergency room. From 2010 to 2019, overmore than 100 New Yorkers have suffered heat-exacerbated deaths, of which 43 percent were Black people.In Los Angeles, there are overmore than 3,000 heat-related deaths in the same time frame, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation. Malarich said she works to shift the focus from trees in cities being a luxury to trees being necessary for a healthy life.“Trees are seen as a beautification, an amenity, that an affluent community might have. ‘Oh, ‘it’s nice to have.’” Malarich said. “Trees are not a ‘nice to have.’ They’re a need to have.” | Labor Activism |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Education Secretary Miguel Cardona argued Sunday that the nationwide teacher shortage is the symptom of an overall lack of respect for public school teachers that started during the COVID-19 lockdowns."Let's face it, this teacher shortage is a symptom of something that's been going on for longer than the pandemic and that's a teacher respect issue," he said on CBS News’ "Face the Nation." "Unless we're serious about providing competitive salaries for our educators, better working conditions so that they can continue to grow.""Is it really just about salaries?" CBS News host Margaret Brennan asked Cardona."It's definitely not just about salaries," Cardona replied. "But let's think back the last couple years, you know, our educators have bent over backwards. We went from totally in-person learning to remote learning overnight, yet the pandemic really pushed many of these educators out of the profession because in many cases, you know, educators were not being respected when schools had to close. It created some tensions in our schools."SCHOOL DISTRICTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY UNDER THE WIRE TO HIRE HUNDREDS OF TEACHERS BEFORE SCHOOL YEAR STARTS Miguel Cardona speaks after then-President-elect Joe Biden announced his nomination for education secretary at The Queen theater on Dec. 23, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. (Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)"We need to make sure we're supporting our educators, giving them the working conditions where they feel connected to the community and feel supported in the work that they're doing," he added. Protesters hold signs during the Occupy City Hall Protest and Car Caravan hosted by the Chicago Teachers Union in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 3, 2020. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)School districts across the country have been struggling with an exodus of teachers since the pandemic. A survey conducted earlier this year by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 44% of public schools report having full-time or part-time teacher vacancies. Middle school teacher Brittany Myers, center, stands in protest in front of the Hillsborough County school district office on July 16, 2020, in Tampa, Florida. (Octavio Jones/Getty Images)CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPAbout 300,000 public school teachers and staff have left the field between February 2020 and May 2022, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey from the National Education Association in February found that 55% of teachers reported that they were thinking about leaving the profession, and 79% of teachers reported dissatisfaction with their careers, according to a July American Federation of Teachers survey.Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report. Jessica Chasmar is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Jessica.Chasmar@fox.com and on Twitter: @JessicaChasmar. | Labor Activism |
Amazon workers arrive with paperwork to unionize at the NLRB office in Brooklyn, New York, October 25, 2021.Brendan Mcdermid | ReutersEmployees at an Amazon warehouse near Albany overwhelmingly rejected a unionization effort on Tuesday, delivering a blow to an upstart labor union seeking to organize workers at the retail giant.The tally was 206 votes in favor of the union and 406 votes opposed. Officials said 949 workers at the ALB1 warehouse were eligible to vote on whether they should become part of the Amazon Labor Union. Four ballots were voided. The results of the election still need to be certified by the National Labor Relations Board.The results mark the latest setback for the Amazon Labor Union, a grassroots organization of current and former Amazon employees, which had a historic win in April at the JFK8 warehouse on New York's Staten Island. The group also lost a vote in May at a nearby warehouse on Staten Island.Chris Smalls, president of ALU, said in a statement that the voting process "wasn't free and fair," suggesting the union may seek to challenge the election results. Lawyers for the ALU have already filed 27 unfair labor practice charges against the company with the National Labor Relations Board. "It was a sham election where workers were subjected to intimidation and retaliation on a daily basis and even the workers who volunteered to be election observers were faced with threats of termination," Smalls said.Representatives from Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.Workers at ALB1 hoped the union would help employees obtain higher wages. Amazon last month bumped up the starting wage at the facility to $17 an hour, up from $15.70 an hour, alongside pay increases for front-line workers across the country.ALB1 organizers have also raised concerns about working conditions, saying the rapid pace of work has led to high injury rates, and caused employee burnout. ALU's victory at JFK8 was a watershed moment for the labor movement, establishing the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the U.S. But the union has yet to bargain a contract at JFK8, as it remains locked in a legal battle with Amazon, which has argued the results should be thrown out. An NLRB official recently recommended the company's objections should be rejected. Amazon said it would appeal.Amazon faces an upswing of labor organizing across the country. Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Southern California last week filed a union petition with the hopes of joining the ALU. Amazon workers at facilities in California, Illinois and Georgia recently held walkouts, in time for Amazon's fall Prime Day discount event, to urge the company to respond to employee concerns around working conditions. | Labor Activism |
SummaryCompaniesAir sector disputes show unrest potential in pandemic eraBut industrial action in long-term decline in major economiesUnions getting greater visibility, see new ways of organisingJuly 26 (Reuters) - It should surprise no one that the first big pandemic-era display of worker power was in air travel, according to Sharan Burrow, head of the International Trade Union Confederation."The aviation sector globally is a prime example of bad employment policy," Burrow said of an industry whose high-volume, low-cost model has long been criticised for poor working conditions and eroding labour rights."People are voting with their feet," she told Reuters of the reluctance of many aviation workers to return after dismissals or furloughs, a trend which - alongside strikes over pay - caused havoc at European airports last month.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThe bigger question now is whether other workers will follow suit and reverse a decades-old decline in industrial action that has seen employers gain the upper hand in labour relations.Conditions appear ripe for unrest.COVID-19 exacerbated economic inequalities, with a World Bank study last year showing incomes were worst-hit among the poorest fifth of people globally.Workers in transport, retail and healthcare - while lauded by governments for their bravery - did low-paid jobs in often unsafe conditions as millions of white-collar workers worked from home.Compounding the impact of a decade of weak wage growth in rich countries after the 2008/09 recession, inflation now edging into double-digits is worsening the plight of the working poor.Yet while such grievances are real, trade unions have lost much of the clout they had before the 1980s push for economic liberalisation.THE FISSURED WORKPLACETrade union density - the number of union members as a proportion of employees - has more than halved across developed economies from 33.9% in 1970 to just 15.8% in 2019, figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development show.U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show a corresponding decline over the same period both in the number of serious U.S. work stoppages and total number of days lost to industrial action.Reuters GraphicsReuters GraphicsSince its 1990s "lost decade", Japan has rarely seen industrial strife as union leaders prioritise job security above wage hikes. Other Western economies such as Australia have passed laws to make strikes harder.In Europe, unions can still wield power despite falling membership. But data compiled by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) show a similar dip in labour-related disruption as trends from outsourcing to the gig economy emerged."There might be grievances in society and on the work floor but this social injustice needs to be organised and channelled," said Kurt Vandaele, senior ETUI researcher."Fissured workplaces might make it harder to set up industrial action because in the same place you have different categories of workers, different companies. This is increasing the coordination costs for unions."A 2021 report by the International Labour Organisation warned trade unions they risked being marginalised unless they served those in precarious or informal employment - notably young workers, for whom secure contracts are rare.SOCIAL MEDIA HEROES?There is some evidence that unions are taking that on board.Digital organisation is growing - from using Zoom calls to discuss worker grievances, right up to piggy-backing an employer's intranet site to spread union messages.Some labour leaders, such as Christian Smalls, whose activism led in March to Amazon's (AMZN.O) first labour-organised warehouse at Staten Island, or UK transport union boss Mick Lynch, have even emerged as social media stars.Encouraged by the union-friendly Biden administration, U.S. petitions for a vote to see whether employees want to unionise rose 58% from a year earlier to 1,892 in the nine months to June 30, the National Labor Relations Board said this month.Among them are workers at Starbucks and Chipotle, while tech employees are becoming more vocal about pay and conditions. Yet current U.S. law still gives employers scope to avoid offering contracts with legally binding terms, labour experts say."In this country, to get from not having a union all the way to having a union contract is an incredibly difficult journey," said Lane Windham, associate director of Georgetown University's labor center.Germany's biggest union IG Metall is pushing this year for an 8% pay rise, a marked shift from its recent focus on job security. In Britain, where airport staff, lawyers, teachers, medics, postal, telecom and rail workers are eyeing action, the Trades Union Congress cites a surge in traffic to its "find a union" web page. read more What such trends amount to remains to be seen. But governments are taking notice.South Korea this month condemned as "illegal" a strike at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering 042660.KS (DSME) and warned of intervention to break the bid by some 100 subcontractors to secure a 30% pay rise. read more In contrast, Germany's centre-left coalition, fearing a looming energy crisis will trigger social unrest, has opened consultations with employers and trade unions over ways to shield households from rising inflation."The goal is to pull in as many stakeholders as possible so they can tell people they are doing all they can," political analyst Gero Neugebauer said.ETUI's Vandaele said he was watching for a potential "demonstration effect" where recent transport strikes inspire industrial action by public sector or healthcare workers.Some governments and central banks are urging wage moderation, warning that overly generous wage rounds could trigger a wage-price spiral pushing inflation even higher.But with wage gains lagging headline inflation rate driven by food and energy prices, that argument has little traction with labour leaders."The risk is not inflationary wage pressures," said the ITUC's Burrow. "The fact that working people cannot participate in the economy to extent they want, even for basics like energy and food in some cases, is fuelling a slump in the economy."Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWriting by Mark John; Additional reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo and Dan Burns in Washington; Leika Kihara in Tokyo, Wayne Cole in Sydney, Joe Bavier in Johannesburg and Andreas Rinke in Berlin; Editing by Catherine EvansOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
Home Secretary Suella Braverman might be in for a tough battle with Prime Minister Truss and Defra after saying she would clamp down on the UK’s reliance on seasonal workers. Ms Braverman’s comments came as part of her first address as Home Secretary to Conservative Party members at last week’s Tory conference. They were a marked contrast to those of PM Truss who, while campaigning for the party leadership this summer, pledged to enlarge the scheme.
Ms Braverman insisted that UK residents should be trained as fruit pickers in order to end the sector’s reliance on foreign labor. She stated that the UK’s ‘newfound’ freedom from the EU meant that the government should only allow migration that ‘grows our economy’.
She said: “The truth is parts of our system are not delivering. We need to end the abuse of the rules and cut down on those numbers that are not meeting the needs of our economy. And we must not forget how to do things for ourselves. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot train up enough of our own HGV drivers, butchers, or fruit-pickers.
“The way we will build a high-skilled and high-wage economy is by encouraging business to invest in capital and domestic labor . Not relying wholly on low skilled foreign workers,” she continued.
A recent survey by the NFU found that labor shortages have seen £22 million worth of fruit and vegetables wasted in the first half of 2022, with worst-case estimates putting the figure at around £60m.
Source: fpcfreshtalkdaily.co.uk | Labor Activism |
FILE PHOTO - An aerial view of shipping containers and freight railway trains ahead of a possible strike if there is no deal with the rail worker unions, at the BNSF Los Angeles Intermodal Facility rail yard in Los Angeles, California, U.S., September 15, 2022. REUTERS/Bing GuanRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comLOS ANGELES/NEW YORK, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Union railworkers in the United States scored a potential key victory in their fight for improved pay and working conditions on Thursday in what could be a model for other unions.Major U.S. railroads and unions representing tens of thousands of workers reached a tentative deal after 20 hours of talks brokered by U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, averting a railway strike. read more While not directly applicable to ongoing negotiations at U.S. West Coast ports and upcoming talks at United Parcel Service (UPS.N), the rail workers' potential win could embolden other workers who have toiled through the COVID-19 pandemic while watching employers reap record profits, labor experts said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comPlaying in the favor of unions and their members is a tight labor market, as well as a new generation of workers who demand safer working conditions."The pandemic didn't simply cause stress, but really highlighted deep discontent that many workers have had, including in rail, but had been putting up with," said Harley Shaiken, labor professor emeritus at University of California Berkeley. "We're at a critical moment."President Joe Biden, in announcing the deal on Thursday with such companies as Union Pacific Railroad (UNP.N) and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF Railway (BRKa.N), praised it as a model for other company-union agreements. read more The rail deals - hammered out between the companies and a dozen unions - must still be ratified, but they include large wage increases, monthly health contribution freezes, a framework for assigned days off and time off for sick days, doctor visits and medical care.Workers with similar demands likely "would take this as a win or an opportunity to feel like they have some leverage," Stifel analyst Benjamin Nolan said.That could especially apply in industries where workers kept the economy moving while many sheltered at home, and without whom vital transportation systems, delivery services and healthcare would have suffered, experts said.The issues resonate across all sectors, whether it is railworkers, West Coast dockworkers, UPS delivery drivers, intensive care unit nurses, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) warehouse workers or Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) baristas, some of whom are pushing to organize unions, said Peter Rachleff, a professor and U.S. labor researcher at Macalester College in Minnesota.Employees have more power as many businesses are short-staffed, some because of years of cost cutting or pandemic-fueled attrition, he said, and those employees are pushing back against longer hours.'INTOLERABLE CONDITIONS'The negotiations in the rail industry certainly drew the attention of others, including the head of the union representing some 22,000 West Coast port workers now in labor talks."No weekends, no holidays, getting fired for getting sick or attending funerals, three worker fatalities in 10 days - No one should be forced to accept intolerable working conditions," International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) President Willie Adams said in a statement on Wednesday before the rail deal was announced. His members work for global ocean shipping lines like A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO).Even Teamster-represented UPS workers, including drivers who complain about the scorching temperatures in the cabs of their trucks, are threatening to strike when their contract expires next year.While union membership has declined over the decades, support for unions is making a comeback, partly driven by unrest by workers over their treatment, experts said. They are finding more support from a sympathetic public.More than two-thirds of Americans polled by Gallup in August approved of labor unions, the highest reading in more than five decades. Meanwhile, requests to hold elections to determine if employees wish to unionize increased 58% year-over-year during the nine months ended June 30, according to the National Labor Relations Board."The pandemic gave workers a different view on what they should have to put up with at work. It's just not OK to go back to the way things were," Harvard Law School Professor Sharon Block said.Indeed, railworkers received support from several industry groups representing hundreds of customers, who in letters to lawmakers complained rail service suffered from layoffs and other cutbacks while prices increased. Railroads inflamed that ire by cutting rail services before this week's deadline for a deal, worsening train delays and cargo backups.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; Additional reporting by Aishwarya Nair and Nathan Gomes in Bengaluru
Editing by Ben Klayman and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
CBS Evening News August 10, 2022 / 7:06 PM / CBS News U.S. schools short more than 280,000 teachers U.S. schools face shortage of more than 280,000 teachers 01:57 Kindergarten teacher Natalie Tran is excited to be back in her Oakland, California, classroom with her 25 4-year-olds. But she's not surprised that many other teachers across the country didn't return for the upcoming school year. "We need higher pay," she told CBS News. "We need more respect for the teaching profession because it's extremely difficult, and we really need to have manageable class sizes."Nationwide, there are at least 280,000 fewer public school teachers than there were before the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Florida is scrambling to fill 8,000 openings. In Illinois, 88% of school districts surveyed are battling a shortage. Arizona is approaching the new school year with more than 2,200 teacher vacancies. Laura Francisco, associate superintendent of human resources for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, is busy trying to hire 373 teachers before school starts at the end of the month. "It's a huge responsibility," she said. To meet that goal, the district is offering extra cash to teachers. "Particularly in our special needs area and secondary math and science," Francisco said. "And that's a sign on incentive as well as additional monthly pay for as long as they remain in that position."They aren't the only ones sweetening the deal. Dallas, Texas, is offering as much as $3,500 to recruit and retain teachers. In California, a school district is providing below market-rate apartments to teachers. Still, three out of four educators surveyed would not recommend the job to others, according to the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second largest education union. "Teachers are twice as much, have twice as much stress as other workers in the workplace," Randi Weingarten, president of the union, told CBS News. "So, yeah, teachers are burnt out."But the data shows schools have been struggling to hang onto teachers for decades, with under-resourced areas impacted the most. When asked which schools suffer the most, Dan Goldhaber, vice president of American Institutes for Research, said it's "typically schools serving high poverty students and schools that are rural and relatively far away from teacher education programs." In: Education Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | Labor Activism |
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Hear what two pollsters say CNN — A tentative agreement that appears to have averted a national freight railroad strike not only avoids a disaster for the US economy but also heads off what would have been a political nightmare for the Biden administration. Trumpeting a “win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic,” President Joe Biden announced the agreement early Thursday morning after an all-night bargaining session hosted by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh between the unions’ leadership and the railroads’ labor negotiators. The threat of a strike has not gone away entirely – the deal needs to be ratified by union members – but the tentative agreement provides immense political relief during the midterm election season. An extended halt of the vast freight trains that snake across the prairies and north to Canada and south to Mexico would have caused a full-blown economic, social and political crisis at a time when the nation is still clawing its way back from a fragile and redefined sense of normality after the Covid-19 pandemic and facing the worst spikes in food prices since 1979. A quarter of the way into the 21st century, it’s a little shocking that a rail network that most Americans probably don’t spare a thought for still forms an economic backbone of the nation. But the latest showdown is far from the only occasion in history when labor disputes in this critical industry have threatened nationwide disruption, and have turned into high-stakes political dramas as a result. Without freight rail, the country can’t properly function. The dispute may be focused on the railroads, but it is also emblematic of a wider trend in industrial relations in modern America, as workers squeezed in ventures pared back aggressively for maximum profit potential, from retail to health care to transportation, demand livable working conditions and turn to unions for help. The repercussions of a rail strike would have been dramatic. Roughly 30% of America’s freight moves by rail. If vast trains, some with 240 wagons, don’t move, the country would need to find an impractical 80,000 truck drivers to make up the shortfall. It might seem counterintuitive, but a strike on the railways would send gasoline prices for cars soaring again. That’s because refineries would struggle to get sufficient crude oil from their rail deliveries. Recently harvested crops would be stuck, unable to reach processing plants and could spoil. Farm groups warned of the threat to fertilizer stocks that are transported by rail and needed for the next planting season. There would have been shortages of food and other items in stores – and prices could have risen again, adding to the current plague of inflation. New and used cars would be more expensive, if factories can’t get the parts they need for their assembly lines. And the ports that became clogged during the pandemic could have again filled up, in a huge problem for the US economy that would quickly send shockwaves around the world. A strike lasting weeks could have underscored, yet again, the tenuousness of the supply chain networks that are the foundation of modern life and how it doesn’t take long to incur serious damage. These painful consequences, which could touch every American, explain why the talks in Washington brokered by Walsh were so important and urgently pursued. Negotiations to avert the strike went on for 20 hours, with a deal reached around 5 a.m. ET Thursday, a source familiar with the matter told CNN’s Jeremy Diamond and Phil Mattingly. Biden “made a crucial call” to Walsh and negotiators Wednesday night, the source added, pushing both sides to realize the harm that families, businesses and communities would feel if there was a shutdown of the rail system. A rail shutdown was not just a threat to the day-to-day lives of millions of Americans. The prospect was a huge problem for Biden and Democrats, first because they know that their brightening chances of staving off a Republican wave in the midterms could be dashed by another devastating shock to the economy that sends prices even higher and shatters the sense of normality that Biden pledged to restore. Another surge in inflation caused by a rail strike could also force the Federal Reserve to prolong its aggressive interest rate strategy, which is expected to go up another notch next week, and so raise the chances of an overcorrection that sends the economy into a recession. The President, boosted by the passage of key congressional items, has been aggressively selling a story that America is back on the move again and that its economy is ready to roar. A rail strike would quickly tarnish his credibility in selling that narrative. In a broader sense, the rail dispute pulled Biden between two competing strands of his political identity. He is the most-pro union president in decades. He needs the support of the movement to drive turnout in November and has no desire to be seen pressuring workers to accept a bad deal. On the other hand, the success of his entire presidency rests on getting inflation down and preventing Republicans from amassing Capitol Hill majorities that could make him a domestic lame duck. Republicans, seeking to wrest the midterm debate back from the controversy over the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights, already spotted an opening in the rail dispute. The GOP tried and failed to pass a bill in the Senate that would enshrine deals most railway unions have made with companies and avert a strike. “President Biden should have already resolved this himself. Democrats must let this pass,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted. But some Democrats are unwilling to put pressure on unions. The GOP measure was in the end blocked by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s twice run for the Democratic presidential nod. The Vermont independent blasted rail companies for making billions in profits and awarding their CEOs millions in compensation while imposing inhumane working conditions. “The key issue in the current negotiations are not about salaries. They are about the working conditions in the industry which are absolutely unacceptable and almost beyond belief,” Sanders said, criticizing the lack of sick leave offered to some employees and a system that requires many to be on call for dispatch to work on trains 24 hours a day a day and seven days a week. Arthur Wheaton, director of Labor Studies at the ILR Worker Institute of Cornell University, said that years of cost cutting and consolidation in the rail industry predated the pandemic and have led to the current impasse. “The railways tried very hard to reduce headcount and actively reduce the number of people that they had working for them as a way to increase their profits or to have a higher return on investment so they could get more investment from Wall Street,” Wheaton said. But that paring down of manpower had caused a deterioration in the conditions for workers, who already faced long hours, and could raise safety concerns given the hazardous cargos some trains carry. The “on call” system mentioned by Sanders is at the center of the current dispute. “That’s not sustainable for a family or sustainable for your health long term. You’d like to be able to go to bed knowing you don’t have to work for the next 12 hours, instead of saying, ‘Oh, I gotta wait and see if the phone rings,” Wheaton said. The threatened railroad shutdown would have been the first major strike in the industry since 1992, when Congress moved with unusual speed to end a labor stoppage after only two days amid severe economic consequences – including layoffs at mines that could no longer ship out their coal. The strike had shut down almost all goods and passenger rail in the country and, as with the current drama, threatened to become a political storm in an election year. One question with this new dispute is whether an ever-more polarized Congress could agree on terms for ending industrial action or whether such an erupting economic crisis would have left rival lawmakers with no choice. Throughout America’s industrial history in the 20th and 19th centuries, railroad strikes often broke out over poor wages or salary cuts or difficult and dangerous conditions. Often they were crushed by the government or industry barons, sometimes amid scenes of violence. But they are also written in the lore of the labor movement. And they also established leverage that played out in the negotiations between unions and company bosses in Washington. Then and now, the threat of closing down railroads for a sustained period conjures such dire economic repercussions that the dispute ends up becoming a major political issue that the nation’s leaders are ultimately called on to help solve – for their own good and everyone else’s. | Labor Activism |
Sept 29 (Reuters) - Major U.S. railroads and unions representing 115,000 workers reached a tentative deal last week and averted a potential strike that could have stalled almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoked inflation and cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion per day.Although a strike was avoided with intervention from the Biden administration, uncertainty still looms over the industry as most unions are yet to ratify the deal. read more Find below the status of the tentative deal involving the 12 unions, some of whom have already ratified or rejected it, with others still to vote over the next few weeks.Source: National Railway Labor ConferenceNote: Dates are subject to change.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Priyamvada C and Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini GanguliOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
“This agreement is validation of what I’ve always believed, unions and management can work together — can work together — for the benefit of everyone,” Biden declared.Biden made a key phone call to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh at 9 p.m. Wednesday as the talks were ongoing after Italian dinner had been brought in, according to White House officials who insisted on anonymity to discuss the conversations. On speakerphone, the president told the negotiators to get a deal done and to consider the harm to families, farmers and businesses if a shutdown occurred, the officials said.What resulted from the back and forth was a tentative agreement that will go to union members for a vote after a post-ratification cooling off period of several weeks. One union had to wake up its board to move forward on the agreement, which involved 50 calls from White House officials to organized labor officials.In the Oval Office, a beaming Biden joked that he was surprised everyone was “still standing” after the late night and that they should be “home in bed.”The strike would also have disrupted passenger traffic as well as freight rail lines, because Amtrak and many commuter railroads operate on tracks owned by the freight railroads. Amtrak had already canceled a number of its long-distance trains this week, and said the rest of its long-distance trains would stop Thursday ahead of the strike deadline.Following the tentative agreement, Amtrak said it was “working to quickly restore canceled trains and reaching out to impacted customers to accommodate on first available departures.”The five-year deal, retroactive to 2020, includes the 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses that a Presidential Emergency Board recommended this summer. But railroads also agreed to ease their strict attendance policies to address some of the unions’ concerns about working conditions.Railroad workers will now be able to take unpaid days off for doctor’s appointments without being penalized under railroad attendance rules. Previously, workers would lose points under the attendance systems that the BNSF and Union Pacific railways had adopted, and they could be disciplined if they lost all their points.The unions that represent the conductors and engineers who drive the trains had pressed hard for changes in the attendance rules, and they said this deal sets a precedent that they will be able to negotiate over those kinds of rules in the future. But workers will still have to vote whether those changes are enough to approve the deal.The threat of a shutdown had put Biden in a delicate spot politically. The Democratic president believes unions built the middle class, but he also knew a rail worker strike could damage the economy ahead of the midterms, when majorities in both chambers of Congress, key governorships and scores of important state offices will be up for grabs.That left him in the awkward position on Wednesday. He flew to Detroit, a stalwart of the labor movement, to espouse the virtues of unionization, while members of his administration went all-out to keep talks going in Washington between the railroads and unionized workers.As the administration was trying to forge peace, United Auto Workers Local 598 member Ryan Buchalski introduced Biden at the Detroit auto show as “the most union- and labor-friendly president in American history” and someone who was “kickin’ ass for the working class.” Buchalski harked back to the pivotal sit-down strikes by autoworkers in the 1930s.In the speech that followed, Biden recognized that he wouldn’t be in the White House without the support of unions such as the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, saying autoworkers “brung me to the dance.”But without a deal among the 12 unions in talks back in Washington, Biden also knew that a stoppage could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.Far more was at stake than sick leave and salary bumps for 115,000 unionized railroad workers. The ramifications could have extended to control of Congress and to the shipping network that keeps factories rolling, stocks the shelves of stores and stitches the U.S. together as an economic power.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking aboard Air Force One as it jetted to Detroit, said a rail worker strike was “an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people.”Biden faced the same kind of predicament faced by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 with coal and Harry Truman in 1952 with steel — how do you balance the needs of labor and business in doing what’s best for the nation? Railways were so important during World War I that Woodrow Wilson temporarily nationalized the industry to keep goods flowing and prevent strikes.Union activism has surged under Biden, as seen in a 56% increase in petitions for union representation with the National Labor Relations Board so far this fiscal year.With the economy still recovering from the supply chain disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic, the president’s goal was to keep all parties so a deal could be reached. Biden also knew a stoppage could worsen the dynamics that have contributed to soaring inflation and created a political headache for the party in power.Eddie Vale, a Democratic political consultant and former AFL-CIO communications aide, said the White House pursued the correct approach at a perilous moment.“No one wants a railroad strike, not the companies, not the workers, not the White House,” he said. “No one wants it this close to the election.”Sensing political opportunity, Senate Republicans moved Wednesday to pass a law to impose contract terms on the unions and railroad companies to avoid a shutdown. Democrats, who control both chambers in Congress, blocked it.The economic impact of a potential strike was not lost on members of the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based group that represents CEOs. It issued its quarterly outlook for the economy Wednesday.“We’ve been experiencing a lot of headwinds from supply chain problems since the pandemic started and those problems would be geometrically magnified,” Josh Bolten, the group’s CEO, told reporters. “There are manufacturing plants around the country that likely have to shut down. ... There are critical products to keep our water clean.”By 5:05 a.m. Thursday, it was clear that the hard work across the government, unions and railway companied had paid off as Biden announced the deal, calling it “an important win for our economy and the American people.”___AP writer Josh Funk contributed. | Labor Activism |
Key players in the Uluru Statement from the Heart campaign have welcomed the PM’s commitment to a referendum question on an Indigenous voice to parliament and a form of words in the constitution, saying the proposal is almost identical to the wording they had put forward in 2018.The From the Heart campaign director, Dean Parkin, said the announcement is a very promising step forward in a long campaign for change.“It’s great that this level of clarity is with us now, with the PM backing up an election commitment with a clear and simple set of words,” Parkin said, following the PM’s landmark speech to the Garma festival in Arnhem Land.“It’s really encouraging to see those words and questions are familiar to people. They reflect a lot of very rigorous work that’s gone on by constitutional experts across the board. It’s showing the government has been listening, they recognise the work that’s gone before, they know they are on a strong foundation that can launch the next phase of the process that leads up to to a vote.”On Saturday, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese told the Garma festival that the Australian people should be asked a “simple and clear” yes or no referendum question regarding whether an Indigenous voice to parliament should be enshrined in the constitution.“We should consider asking our fellow Australians something as simple as: ‘Do you support an alteration to the constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice?’,” Albanese said.Anthony Albanese at the Garma festival. Photograph: Carly Earl/The GuardianAlbanese said he was putting forward the question as a “basis for dialogue”. It was not a final form of words but rather “something to give the conversation shape and direction”.Indigenous law academic and Uluru Dialogue member Eddie Synot said the campaign already knew that the nation is ready for a debate, “but in terms of the detail, it may come as a surprise to some to see a government deliver on a promise”.We welcome today’s announcement as an important step toward finally giving Australians their opportunity to vote “Yes” at a referendum, and to robustly test the Government’s proposed question & amendment. It’s time! History is Calling! #UluruStatement #auspol pic.twitter.com/VksjhJ3wl9— ulurustatement (@ulurustatement) July 29, 2022
In 2018, Co-Chairs of the Uluru Dialogue Pat Anderson AO & Professor Megan Davis along with a team of legal experts first proposed a draft amendment & question in their submission to the then Joint Select Committee for a First Nations Voice to Parliament. #UluruStatement #auspol pic.twitter.com/pR0WXRC9Ga— ulurustatement (@ulurustatement) July 29, 2022
Parkin and Synot agreed that the next steps would be to hold the government to account to deliver on their promise.“The job is always to make sure the government, regardless of who they are, follows through on their promise,” Parkin said. “This is a step towards meeting that commitment but we still have to have a referendum, we need a date set, we need the detail of the wording in place before, so people understand what they are voting on and then we need to let that run its course.“So it’s an encouraging step and we welcome it, but the work is yet to come.”Ceremonial dancers at the Garma festival. Photograph: Carly Earl/The GuardianThey said criticism that the voice represents “empty symbolism” ignores the reality that both are important for the future wellbeing of First Nations people.“You can do two things at one, and this reform more than anything shows that,” Synot said.“If you look at [Liberal] Senator [Jacinta] Price’s maiden speech and [Labor MP Marion] Scrymgour’s speech, they are talking about the exact same issues in their communities and it’s beyond party politics. The power of the voice will have an impact on that.”Parkin said there was agreement that more of the same “wasn’t going to work”.“What’s happening to women and families in those communities lies with those people who are actually affected by it. The solutions are not in Canberra, they are on the ground where these challenges are being faced and that’s what the voice is simply all about,” Parkin said.Albanese is accompanied by a bipartisan delegation from Canberra, including the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, Labor’s NT senator Malarndirri McCarthy, new NT MP Scrymgour and the Coalition’s spokesman on Indigenous affairs, Julian Leeser. The show of bipartisanship is being interpreted by some as a sign there may be support across the aisle for the referendum, but the Coalition is yet to formally respond to the speech. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningThe Uluru statement has been discussed at Garma for a long time but never with such high hopes. The last prime minister to visit was Malcolm Turnbull in 2017, the same year he declared he could not support the voice as a “third chamber to parliament”.About 2,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people have gathered at Gulkula, a site of great significance to Yolngu as the place where the ancestor Ganbulabula brought to life the yidaki (didgeridu).Late on Friday afternoon, a large crowd assembled on the dance ground to hear Yolngu leadership officially open the ceremonies, in a powerful expression of manikay (music), bunggul (dance) and rom (law). | Labor Activism |
Photo: Franz Waelischmiller / Sven Simo (AP)On Tuesday, the Biden administration said it would take steps to redefine how the federal government distinguishes “employees” from “independent contractors,” a proposal that could, potentially, allow millions of so-called gig workers to demand workplace rights like a minimum wage and overtime pay.OffEnglishThe Department of Labor has issued a notice of rulemaking that aims to reverse guidelines approved in January 2021 while the agency was still under Republican control. The department relies on certain guidelines to determine which workers it considers contractors by weighing two factors: how much control a worker has over when and how often they work, and how much they’re responsible for creating their own profits and investing in their own materials, labor, and equipment.The Labor Department, which tried and failed to stop the rules from enacting after Biden’s inauguration, said in a 184-page proposal on Tuesday that after “further consideration,” it believes those guidelines do not “fully comport” with the text and purpose of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Realigning the rules with labor laws and decades of legal precedence, the proposal says, requires equal consideration of other factors, such as whether the work being performed is “central or important to the employer’s business.” The changes could prove a blow to companies whose workforces are primarily comprised of gig workers — those not currently entitled to paid sick leave or unemployment insurance, among other benefits.The companies — Uber, Lyft, and Instacart, among others — have long opposed efforts to reclassify their contractors, collectively contributing hundreds of millions two years ago to help pass California’s Proposition 22, a ballot initiative exempting app-based delivery services from providing benefits to workers.“The ultimate inquiry is whether, as a matter of economic reality, the worker is either economically dependent on the employer for work (and is thus an employee) or is in business for themself (and is thus an independent contractor),” the department said. | Labor Activism |
Thousands of people incarcerated in Alabama went on strike last week, protesting inhumane living conditions and a broken parole system that rarely provides the second chance it purports to offer. Conditions in Alabama violate Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, according to the Department of Justice, which took the rare step in 2020 of suing the state for failing to protect the people in its custody. People incarcerated in Alabama face excessive force from correctional officers, a high risk of death, physical violence and sexual abuse from other prisoners and are forced to live in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, DOJ wrote in its complaint. These problems are only getting worse, said Diyawn Caldwell, a strike organizer and the wife of Cordarius Caldwell, a strike participant incarcerated in Ventress Correctional Facility. At least 14 people have been killed in Alabama prisons this year, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, including two people in recent weeks. A spokeswoman for Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) called the strikers’ demands “unreasonable,” and said that plans to build two “mega prisons” using COVID relief funds will improve safety conditions. Because of an exception to the 13th Amendment, which prohibited slavery, people in prison are paid almost nothing for their labor. Alabama is one of several states that does not pay incarcerated workers anything for most prison jobs. Yet, incarcerated labor is fundamental to a functioning prison, where the incarcerated prepare meals, do laundry, do general facility maintenance and even build office furniture the state can sell for $1,800 apiece. Any act of resistance is uniquely dangerous in prison, where staffers have sweeping control over prisoners’ health and safety. Noncompliance in prison, even when peaceful, is often punished with write-ups that can delay release dates, violence and solitary confinement, a recognized form of torture. The strike participants are well aware of the risks. “The people that I deal with, we don’t care about retaliation,” Caldwell said. “I mean, there’s always going to be casualties in war. And right now, they’re at war for their life and their freedom.”In response to a detailed list of questions, an Alabama Department of Corrections spokesperson, who refused to provide their name, claimed all of the prisons are “operational.”“However, these work stoppages have affected food services given that inmate workers make up a large part of the facility support workforce. Facilities have been on a holiday meal schedule since Monday. This schedule allows for two meals instead of three. This is not a retaliatory measure but logistically necessary to ensure that other critical services are being provided,” the spokesperson continued. HuffPost spoke with Caldwell this week about what prompted the strike and the unique challenges of organizing a prison strike. This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. What is your connection to the incarcerated people who are on strike in Alabama prisons? I am the founder of Both Sides of the Wall, which is a grassroots organization that advocates for incarcerated people and their families. I also have a husband that has been incarcerated for almost 17 years in Alabama.And is your husband involved in the strike? Yes, he is. Have the conditions of confinement changed much during the 17 years that your husband has been incarcerated? They have gotten worse. They get progressively worse, as the time goes on. The treatment, the food, the hygiene resources, it’s a multitude of things. Do you know when people first started talking about going on strike?We first started organizing this around the middle of June.Was there any specific event that really got that conversation going? We had a couple of incidents that involved some inmate wives, where their husbands were stabbed and nothing was done about it. Also, following the DOJ report in 2019 and the lawsuit — things have just gotten progressively worse. The deaths have significantly risen. No one is making parole. We have more people coming out in body bags than on parole. Unless you have a EOS date — which means “end of sentence” — you have a living death sentence. There’s no way out. That was one thing I wanted to talk with you about. I think when people hear about a prison strike, they might assume it’s primarily about poor conditions in prisons, which sounds like a part of what people are fighting against here. But I was really struck by how much the strike seems to be about people just wanting a reason to have hope and an opportunity to show that they have grown and changed and deserve a second chance. Right. They’ve taken all the exit and second chance options away from these men and women in Alabama. There’s no hope for parole because the parole board is practically denying everyone and sending them off [with] five [more] years with no explanation, even though these men and women meet the set criteria that has been established. They practically have a living death sentence, if they don’t have an EOS date, so all the hope is gone. They have nothing to strive for there, they feel like they’re not worthy of a second chance, they’re not given a second chance. And no one has any type of trust or hope in them to come out and reintegrate into society and be a stand-up citizen.People incarcerated in Alabama face excessive force from correctional officers, a high risk of death, physical violence and sexual abuse from other prisoners and are forced to live in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, according to the DOJ.courtesy of Diyawn CaldwellHas your husband ever gone before the parole board?Yes, we went up in January and he was set off five years, which will ultimately complete his entire sentence of 23 years.When was he first eligible for parole?He was eligible back in 2019. However, they passed a new parole bill, which was H.B. 380, that constituted that you do either 15 years or 85% of your time. So that pushed him back until 2021. And at that particular time, the parole board was backed up. So he just went up in January of 2022.So he already had to wait three years past when he thought he would be eligible for parole, just to be told he had to complete his whole sentence.Yeah.What kinds of things did he do to prepare for his parole hearing? I imagine it’s a lot of work and hoops to jump through. They don’t allow them to represent themselves at their parole hearing. They don’t have any type of electronic or telephonic hearing process where the men and women can stand up and represent themselves. So basically, outside of them filling out — I think it’s about four or five pages for the institutional parole coordinator to evaluate them and place them on the risk assessment, us as family members have to do the remaining part, which is create the parole packet to present to the three-panel board.What goes into the parole packet?Letters of recommendation, officer recommendations, work reports, there are there certificates for rehabilitative training processes that they have been through, support letters from family members, friends and members of the community, reentry programs that they have been accepted into, job offers that they have gotten, character statements — just to show their progress from when they came in to where they are now and how they have been rehabilitated. Going back to June, when you started talking about the strike — how did those conversations take place? How do you move from a place where some people are talking about it to it becoming a reality happening across the state? Particularly in an environment where people who are incarcerated cannot speak to people who are in different facilities and even within the same facilities, there’s probably a fear of retaliation if word gets around to the wrong people. We used social media as a platform to get the message out. We had conferences and Zooms and chats with family members of the incarcerated. You know, I’ve been doing this for quite some time, so I have resources and contacts with different organizations. I pretty much took what I know and learn about organizing and put it to use. If you know how to organize, you can organize anything. When we came to the point that we were going to get the guys involved to do a strike, you know, we have our ways of contacting each other. We set up conference calls to start the organization of that process and brought it all together to make sure that we were on the same page on the inside and the outside and just continue to push it through the people that we know and the public platforms that we have. The people that I deal with, we don’t care about retaliation, I mean, there’s always going to be casualties in war. And right now, they’re at war for their life and their freedom. So the people that we speak to, they are going to put the word out, regardless of the consequences. We have one of our freedom fighters that has been placed in segregation … The special forces team that comes in and quote-unquote “regulates” things when they feel like the facility can’t handle it — he was not doing anything and they came and did a body cavity search on him, said that the captain wanted to speak with him. He refused to go because he had not done anything and they have beaten him before and he is partially blind in his left eye and has brain damage. So he did not want to go anywhere off-camera with them. They then handcuffed him, put him on a cart, beat him and placed him in segregation. He’s still in segregation. He’s currently on hunger strike, protesting his First and Eighth Amendment rights because he contacted media off of the wall phone and they blocked every contact off of his contact list so he can no longer contact anyone. His name is Robert Earl Council, but he goes by Kinetik. And he had been doing strike work organization? Yes. Even with my husband, we already discussed — this is not his first prison strike — we discussed what the consequences would be. At some point, you have to stand up for your rights, or you’re going to continue to receive the same treatment. So he understood what we were going into and we’re fully aware of anything that may come with it. Can you tell me a little bit about the strikes he’s been involved with in the past?I think it was 2016, the prison strike at Holman, he was involved with that, where they were essentially fighting for the same things. They did make some minor adjustments to some of the demands they were seeking; however, it has kind of fallen back into the same cycle of inhumane treatment, abuse, violence, understaffing — which poses high-risk security issues. I have some videos now where they have no one in their cube manning their dorm. I have videos that show the retaliation that they administer. They have a culture of bullying and retaliation to gain control over the inmate population.I have videos of rats in some of the bagged lunches they are serving during the strike. I have pictures of the food — I want to stress this — there is a federal ruling saying they’re supposed to get three meals a day, two of those being hot. And they’re serving them two bagged lunches or two tray lunches that are not hot. One of the meals served to Alabama prisoners during the strike.courtesy of Diyawn CaldwellCould you talk about the specific power of incarcerated people withholding their labor? How integral is unpaid incarcerated labor to keeping prisons operating? Basically, the inmate population is who keeps the prison running and functioning. [License plate] tags in the state of Alabama are made through a factory of prison workers. They have a furniture plant, where they build high-end furniture and the state profits off that. They have a sewing plant, where they make all of the clothing that the Department of Corrections’ incarcerated citizens wear. They do all the cooking, the laundry, the yard maintenance, road work. They work out in hotels, restaurants and government buildings. Without them, you know, they’re struggling to even feed the inmate population properly. They put out a press release saying that the reason why they’re not being fed properly is because the inmates refuse to work. But that is not the burden of the inmates. It is the burden of the state and the commissioner and the Department of Corrections.Do you have any sense of the impact the strike is having so far? You already mentioned the inability to properly feed people, but have you heard of any other consequences? They have not been able to provide laundry services. So their laundry has not been done in over 11 days. They have not been able to provide proper medical treatment because they are already short-staffed and they’re not able to escort the inmates back and forth to medical or sick call. They’re just not able to function to the capacity that they’re supposed to be functioning without the inmate population. Even the trash, there’s trash everywhere. They have not passed out hygiene as they should. Pretty much everything has been impacted. Is there anything I did not ask you about the strike that you think I should be asking?Well, I would like to say, the governor[’s office] put out a press release out saying that our demands are unreasonable. And they only can be met by legislative changes. Our demands are not unreasonable. And yes, some of them have to go through legislation. However, the governor has the ability to call a special session. Actually, some of these were on the board in the regular session and she just completely overlooked them. Legislators did not get to them. And she did not call a special session to try to attack some of these issues — like the habitual offender law. How can she say that our demands are unreasonable when she has not sat down with the people, the citizens, to allow us the opportunity to explain the demands that we’re proposing? Instead she just calls them unreasonable off the top. She’s never given us the opportunity to sit down and explain what it is we’re asking for. | Labor Activism |
Labor leader Chris Minns says the ongoing industrial action should be called off as New South Wales commuters brace themselves for another round of train strikes on Wednesday. A 24-hour strike is set to take place on Wednesday with two thirds of Sydney's rail fleet out of action.Mr Minns said the dispute between the NSW government and Rail, Tram and Bus Union should be “paused” and planned strikes should not go ahead anymore. “The best course of action is for both sides to head back to the negotiating table and literally get the trains back on the tracks,” he said during an interview in Kogarah. "Because at the moment the traveling public are the meat in the sandwich."Mr Minns said the government should "take a leaf" out of former premier Gladys Berejiklian actions in relation to prior disputes. "There's a managed way through this, Gladys Berejiklian managed to pull off from the past 10 years," he said. "This is causing major disruption to the commuters of NSW, those that rely on public transport services."Further industrial action it not going to drive a NSW Government to a conclusion."Premier of NSW made it clear as of last week that any agreement that, for example, David Elliott negotiates with rail unions or worker representatives, effectively won't be honoured by the NSW Government."The Rail Union rejected a government offer on Sunday, on the condition future industrial action is called off. RTBU NSW Secretary Alex Claassens described the offer as "just another stunt from the government"."They're just still playing games, they had the whole weekend to put a deed together and send us a deed where we could ran through the processes over the weekend," he said. "It's just rubbish, there's nothing on the table at this point, we haven't seen a revised deed."The latest offer pledged to fix the foreign operated New Intercity Fleet but withdrew a previous condition linked to a pay dispute currently being negotiated by the union. Train services will run at a 30-minute frequency on Wednesday.No services will operate on the T5 Cumberland line and T7 Olympic Park line. | Labor Activism |
MoneyWatch July 13, 2022 / 12:33 PM / CBS/AP Bringing equity into the home The unseen labor of women and moms in the home 07:18 A cost-of-living crisis sparked in part by higher fuel and food prices is expected to hit women the hardest, the World Economic Forum reported Wednesday, pointing to a widening gender gap in the global labor force.The Geneva-based think tank and event organizer, best known for hosting an annual gathering of elites in the Swiss Alpine town of Davos, says a hoped-for recovery from a ballooning gender gap hasn't materialized as expected as the COVID-19 crisis has eased.The pandemic's economic toll on women has been especially severe. More than a million women left the workforce between February 2020 and January 2022, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, a reflection of persistent pay inequality, undervalued work and antiquated notions of caregiving. Many others have had to choose between showing up at front-line jobs or caring for their children who, with daycare centers closed and school underway remotely, would otherwise be left without supervision.The forum estimates that it will now take 132 years — down from 136 — for the world to reach gender parity, which the organization defines around four main factors: salaries and economic opportunity, education, health, and political empowerment. Tennis star Venus Williams on closing the gender pay gap, "King Richard" Oscar nomination 07:26 A breakdown by country gave top marks to Iceland, followed by several Nordic countries and New Zealand, as well as Rwanda, Nicaragua and Namibia. Germany, Europe's biggest economy, came in 10th place in the report of 146 countries. Further down the list were the world's biggest economies: the U.S. was at No. 27, China at No. 102 and Japan at No. 116. Saadia Zahidi, managing director at the forum, say women have been disproportionately affected by the cost-of-living crisis following labor market losses during the pandemic and insufficient "care infrastructure" — such as for the elderly or children."In face of a weak recovery, government and business must make two sets of efforts: targeted policies to support women's return to the workforce and women's talent development in the industries of the future," she said. "Otherwise, we risk eroding the gains of the last decades permanently and losing out on the future economic returns of diversity."The report, now in its 16th year, aims to track shocks to the labor market that can impact the gender gap. In: World Economic Forum Economy Gas Prices Switzerland Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | Labor Activism |
Workers at the Trader Joe’s Wine Shop in Manhattan spent the last four months laying the groundwork to unionize their store. A small organizing committee met regularly to discuss strategy around building support to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and they planned to go public with their effort the week of Aug. 15. But in the early morning hours of Aug. 11, Trader Joe’s abruptly informed them it was closing the popular wine shop, its only one in New York City.Robert “Rab” Bradlea, a worker at the store and member of the committee, was blindsided when he woke up to texts about the closure last Thursday. Like three other workers from the store interviewed by HuffPost, Bradlea said he sees only one logical reason for it.“They’re hoping this dissuades other workers from doing the same thing we’ve done,” the 5-year Trader Joe’s veteran said.Bradlea said conversations with coworkers had led the committee to believe there were at least 22 “yes” votes among the 30 or so workers they expected would be eligible to unionize. They planned to have supporters sign union cards this week and quickly submit them to the National Labor Relations Board by Friday to petition for an election. Trader Joe’s did not respond to inquiries from HuffPost on Wednesday regarding the closure. In a notice posted through its internal human-resources portal at 12:01 a.m. last Thursday, the company said it was “time for us to explore another location” where it could use its one license to sell wine in New York State. The company said the newly closed space would be “used to improve the overall operations” of its adjacent grocery store. Last week, Gothamist reported that the wine shop’s sudden closure had caught its loyal clientele by surprise.“They’re hoping this dissuades other workers from doing the same thing we’ve done.”- Robert "Rab" Bradlea, employee at the Trader Joe's Wine ShopJonathan Reuning, another worker active in the union effort who has been with Trader Joe’s for five years, described the store’s hasty demise as “completely out of character” for the company. “It’s totally to stop the union effort before it can begin,” said Reuning, 63. “My regulars are pissed. It makes us look really bad. It makes [the company] look bad to put their employees out of work like that with no notice.”The UFCW told HuffPost it was “ready to pursue all legal action,” including filing unfair labor practice charges against the company for its “shameless union busting.”“If the company retaliates further against workers involved in organizing efforts, UFCW will aggressively pursue all legal recourse available, and if Trader Joe’s fails to meet their commitments to these workers, UFCW will make every effort to assist workers in getting jobs in union stores,” the union said in a statement.Trader Joe's is now dealing with union campaigns in multiple states.San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images via Getty ImagesThe company’s notice to “crew members” ― that’s Trader Joe’s-speak for workers ― said they would be paid through Aug. 28, and management would be in touch regarding “the opportunity to transfer” to other stores. But workers from the store said they expect more than that. They are demanding Trader Joe’s reopen the store. On a petition they’ve created, the workers say the store was heading into what they describe as the busiest stretch ― the return of students and staff to the store’s landlord, New York University, followed by the holidays.“The company’s decision to rent an empty space during their most profitable months simply does not add up,” the workers wrote.“I assume they got wind of what we were doing,” said Anthony Small, another worker and union supporter. “I think they knew a lot more about what we were doing than we thought they did. The abruptness of it, it doesn’t make good business sense.”Small said he enjoyed his nearly eight years at the wine shop and was deeply disappointed by the way the closure was carried out, with some workers finding out as they arrived for work.“They try to foster this family atmosphere, but it’s really not there when it comes down to it,” he said.Maura McHugh has worked at the wine shop for three years, preceded by a separate 3-year stint at another Trader Joe’s location in New York. In an interview with HuffPost about the closure, McHugh said she was “done with the crying stage” ― but her voice started to crack as she discussed the shock of what happened. “Let’s talk about transparency and best practices for closing a store, and the number one value: integrity,” McHugh said, citing a company line. “I just don’t understand it. Even if it isn’t about union-busting, someone made a very, very bad decision with this.”McHugh, 53, said organizers first approached her about the union campaign only a few weeks ago: They had rightly assumed she was loyal to Trader Joe’s and had “drank the Kool-Aid.” But she surprised them by saying she would vote “yes” for the union. She said the closure has only reinforced that intention. “If we had been in a union, this would have never happened,” McHugh said. While a company can shut down its entire business to avoid a union, it can’t legally close one workplace or division because of union activity there. But it can be extremely difficult to prove that anti-union animus was a motivating factor behind the decision, if indeed it was. Such a case might take years to wind its way through the legal process, with workers moving on to other jobs in the meantime.“If we had been in a union, this would have never happened.”- Maura McHugh, employee at the Trader Joe's Wine ShopMeanwhile, a workplace closure can be enough to make workers elsewhere tepid on unionizing if they believe it was a factor in the company’s decision. Workers United, the union that’s been organizing Starbucks locations around the country, has accused the coffee chain of shuttering stores on both a temporary and permanent basis to cool workers on unions. Starbucks has denied the allegations, but labor board officials have found merit in some cases and filed complaints against the company over them.Like other retailers, Trader Joe’s is facing a burst of union organizing this year. Stores in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Minneapolis recently voted decisively to join Trader Joe’s United, a new union unaffiliated with an established labor group, creating the chain’s first organized stores. The UFCW, which represents hundreds of thousands of grocery workers around the country, recently submitted a petition for an election at a Trader Joe’s location in Boulder, Colorado.Trader Joe’s has not closed those stores despite active union campaigns there. Asked why the Union Square spot would be any different, Bradlea said he believes it would be less disruptive to the company’s business to close a wine store as opposed to one of its grocery stores. He also surmised that the company would fear a wave of organizing in the greater New York area, one of its strongest markets. “It would make sense they have a specific vested interest in this region not beginning to unionize, and they were afraid of a chain reaction of other stores feeling empowered,” he said. The closure has left many workers from the store uncertain of their futures with the company. Bradlea said he dropped his hours to part-time when he started organizing back in the spring and would survive without his Trader Joe’s job. Both Reuning and McHugh had full-time positions and hope to find transfers to other stores.Reuning is optimistic his manager will help him land elsewhere. He said the closure has only reaffirmed his desire to form a union at the company.“The fix is really having to listen to people at the bottom,” he said. “Trader Joe’s loves to be run by the top alone. I think they lose sight of the humanity of the people that are working there and the effects their small decisions make on a family, on health, on a paycheck… these things that are miniscule in the boardroom.” | Labor Activism |
MoneyWatch August 17, 2022 / 3:39 PM / MoneyWatch A Wingstop franchise business owned by rapper Rick Ross and his family has paid $114,427 for labor violations at five locations in Mississippi, with the Miami artist vowing on Wednesday that the missteps wouldn't happen again. Decked out in a Balmain sweater and diamond-laden necklace, Ross acknowledged the violations on Instagram, where he goes by the handle "richforever." "When you're running a business, there will be mistakes but as the biggest boss, you never make the same mistake twice," the musician said. "Taking accountability is big when you're the biggest." Ross' mea culpa comes five days after the U.S. Department of Labor announced that Boss Wings Enterprises in Southaven, Mississippi, had illegally made workers pay for their uniforms, safety training, background checks and shortages at the cash register. Rick Ross attends the 2022 BET Awards at Microsoft Theater on June 26, 2022, in Los Angeles, California. Paras Griffin The paycheck deductions meant some employees earned less than the $7.25 federal minimum wage, according to the agency. Investigators also found that Boss Wings let a 15-year-old employee work past 10 p.m. multiple times last year, violating child labor work limits. The Labor Department's probe led to the recovery of $51,674 in back wages and damages for 244 workers, as well as $62,753 in civil money penalties, it said."Restaurant industry employees work hard, often for low wages, and many depend on every dollar earned to make ends meet," Audrey Hall, the agency's wage and hour division district director in Jackson, Mississippi, said in a statement. "The law prevents Boss Wing Enterprises LLC from shifting operating costs to workers by deducting the costs of uniforms, cash register shortages or training expenses, or to allow a worker's pay to fall below the minimum wage rate."Ross owns nearly 30 Wingstop franchises across the U.S., according to CBS46.com. Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | Labor Activism |
Credits Adrienne Williams and Milagros Miceli are researchers at the Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute. Timnit Gebru is the institute’s founder and executive director. She was previously co-lead of the Ethical AI research team at Google. The public’s understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) is largely shaped by pop culture — by blockbuster movies like “The Terminator” and their doomsday scenarios of machines going rogue and destroying humanity. This kind of AI narrative is also what grabs the attention of news outlets: a Google engineer claiming that its chatbot was sentient was among the most discussed AI-related news in recent months, even reaching Stephen Colbert’s millions of viewers. But the idea of superintelligent machines with their own agency and decision-making power is not only far from reality — it distracts us from the real risks to human lives surrounding the development and deployment of AI systems. While the public is distracted by the specter of nonexistent sentient machines, an army of precarized workers stands behind the supposed accomplishments of artificial intelligence systems today. Many of these systems are developed by multinational corporations located in Silicon Valley, which have been consolidating power at a scale that, journalist Gideon Lewis-Kraus notes, is likely unprecedented in human history. They are striving to create autonomous systems that can one day perform all of the tasks that people can do and more, without the required salaries, benefits or other costs associated with employing humans. While this corporate executives’ utopia is far from reality, the march to attempt its realization has created a global underclass, performing what anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computational social scientist Siddharth Suri call ghost work: the downplayed human labor driving “AI”. Tech companies that have branded themselves “AI first” depend on heavily surveilled gig workers like data labelers, delivery drivers and content moderators. Startups are even hiring people to impersonate AI systems like chatbots, due to the pressure by venture capitalists to incorporate so-called AI into their products. In fact, London-based venture capital firm MMC Ventures surveyed 2,830 AI startups in the EU and found that 40% of them didn’t use AI in a meaningful way. Far from the sophisticated, sentient machines portrayed in media and pop culture, so-called AI systems are fueled by millions of underpaid workers around the world, performing repetitive tasks under precarious labor conditions. And unlike the “AI researchers” paid six-figure salaries in Silicon Valley corporations, these exploited workers are often recruited out of impoverished populations and paid as little as $1.46/hour after tax. Yet despite this, labor exploitation is not central to the discourse surrounding the ethical development and deployment of AI systems. In this article, we give examples of the labor exploitation driving so-called AI systems and argue that supporting transnational worker organizing efforts should be a priority in discussions pertaining to AI ethics. We write this as people intimately connected to AI-related work. Adrienne is a former Amazon delivery driver and organizer who has experienced the harms of surveillance and unrealistic quotas established by automated systems. Milagros is a researcher who has worked closely with data workers, especially data annotators in Syria, Bulgaria and Argentina. And Timnit is a researcher who has faced retaliation for uncovering and communicating the harms of AI systems. Treating Workers Like Machines Much of what is currently described as AI is a system based on statistical machine learning, and more specifically, deep learning via artificial neural networks, a methodology that requires enormous amounts of data to “learn” from. But around 15 years ago, before the proliferation of gig work, deep learning systems were considered merely an academic curiosity, confined to a few interested researchers. In 2009, however, Jia Deng and his collaborators released the ImageNet dataset, the largest labeled image dataset at the time, consisting of images scraped from the internet and labeled through Amazon’s newly introduced Mechanical Turk platform. Amazon Mechanical Turk, with the motto “artificial artificial intelligence,” popularized the phenomenon of “crowd work”: large volumes of time-consuming work broken down into smaller tasks that can quickly be completed by millions of people around the world. With the introduction of Mechanical Turk, intractable tasks were suddenly made feasible; for example, hand-labeling one million images could be automatically executed by a thousand anonymous people working in parallel, each labeling only a thousand images. What’s more, it was at a price even a university could afford: crowdworkers were paid per task completed, which could amount to merely a few cents. “So-called AI systems are fueled by millions of underpaid workers around the world, performing repetitive tasks under precarious labor conditions.” The ImageNet dataset was followed by the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge, where researchers used the dataset to train and test models performing a variety of tasks like image recognition: annotating an image with the type of object in the image, such as a tree or a cat. While non-deep-learning-based models performed these tasks with the highest accuracy at the time, in 2012, a deep-learning-based architecture informally dubbed AlexNet scored higher than all other models by a wide margin. This catapulted deep-learning-based models into the mainstream, and brought us to today, where models requiring lots of data, labeled by low-wage gig workers around the world, are proliferated by multinational corporations. In addition to labeling data scraped from the internet, some jobs have gig workers supply the data itself, requiring them to upload selfies, pictures of friends and family or images of the objects around them. Unlike in 2009, when the main crowdworking platform was Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, there is currently an explosion of data labeling companies. These companies are raising tens to hundreds of millions in venture capital funding while the data labelers have been estimated to make an average of $1.77 per task. Data labeling interfaces have evolved to treat crowdworkers like machines, often prescribing them highly repetitive tasks, surveilling their movements and punishing deviation through automated tools. Today, far from an academic challenge, large corporations claiming to be “AI first” are fueled by this army of underpaid gig workers, such as data laborers, content moderators, warehouse workers and delivery drivers. Content moderators, for example, are responsible for finding and flagging content deemed inappropriate for a given platform. Not only are they essential workers, without whom social media platforms would be completely unusable, their work flagging different types of content is also used to train automated systems aiming to flag texts and imagery containing hate speech, fake news, violence or other types of content that violates platforms’ policies. In spite of the crucial role that content moderators play in both keeping online communities safe and training AI systems, they are often paid miserable wages while working for tech giants and forced to perform traumatic tasks while being closely surveilled. Every murder, suicide, sexual assault or child abuse video that does not make it onto a platform has been viewed and flagged by a content moderator or an automated system trained by data most likely supplied by a content moderator. Employees performing these tasks suffer from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder due to constant exposure to this horrific content. Besides experiencing a traumatic work environment with nonexistent or insufficient mental health support, these workers are monitored and punished if they deviate from their prescribed repetitive tasks. For instance, Sama content moderators contracted by Meta in Kenya are monitored through surveillance software to ensure that they make decisions about violence in videos within 50 seconds, regardless of the length of the video or how disturbing it is. Some content moderators fear that failure to do so could result in termination after a few violations. “Through its prioritization of speed and efficiency above all else,” Time Magazine reported, “this policy might explain why videos containing hate speech and incitement to violence have remained on Facebook’s platform in Ethiopia.” Similar to social media platforms which would not function without content moderators, e-commerce conglomerates like Amazon are run by armies of warehouse workers and delivery drivers, among others. Like content moderators, these workers both keep the platforms functional and supply data for AI systems that Amazon may one day use to replace them: robots that stock packages in warehouses and self-driving cars that deliver these packages to customers. In the meantime, these workers must perform repetitive tasks under the pressure of constant surveillance — tasks that, at times, put their lives at risk and often result in serious musculoskeletal injuries. “Data labeling interfaces have evolved to treat crowdworkers like machines, often prescribing them highly repetitive tasks, surveilling their movements and punishing deviation through automated tools.” Amazon warehouse employees are tracked via cameras and their inventory scanners, and their performance is measured against the times managers determine every task should take, based on aggregate data from everyone working at the same facility. Time away from their assigned tasks is tracked and used to discipline workers. Like warehouse workers, Amazon delivery drivers are also monitored through automated surveillance systems: an app called Mentor tallies scores based on so-called violations. Amazon’s unrealistic delivery time expectations push many drivers to take risky measures to ensure that they deliver the number of packages assigned to them for the day. For instance, the time it takes someone to fasten and unfasten their seatbelt some 90-300 times a day is enough to put them behind schedule on their route. Adrienne and many of her colleagues buckled their seat belts behind their backs, so that the surveillance systems registered that they were driving with a belt on, without getting slowed down by actually driving with a belt on. In 2020, Amazon drivers in the U.S. were injured at a nearly 50% higher rate than their United Parcel Service counterparts. In 2021, Amazon drivers were injured at a rate of 18.3 per 100 drivers, up nearly 40% from the previous year. These conditions aren’t only dangerous for delivery drivers — pedestrians and car passengers have been killed and injured in accidents involving Amazon delivery drivers. Some drivers in Japan recently quit in protest because they say Amazon’s software sent them on “impossible routes,” leading to “unreasonable demands and long hours.” In spite of these clear harms, however, Amazon continues to treat its workers like machines. In addition to tracking its workers through scanners and cameras, last year, the company required delivery drivers in the U.S. to sign a “biometric consent” form, granting Amazon permission to use AI-powered cameras to monitor drivers’ movements — supposedly to cut down on distracted driving or speeding and ensure seatbelt usage. It’s only reasonable for workers to fear that facial recognition and other biometric data could be used to perfect worker-surveillance tools or further train AI — which could one day replace them. The vague wording in the consent forms leaves the precise purpose open for interpretation, and workers have suspected unwanted uses of their data before (though Amazon denied it). The “AI” industry runs on the backs of these low-wage workers, who are kept in precarious positions, making it hard, in the absence of unionization, to push back on unethical practices or demand better working conditions for fear of losing jobs they can’t afford to lose. Companies make sure to hire people from poor and underserved communities, such as refugees, incarcerated people and others with few job options, often hiring them through third party firms as contractors rather than as full time employees. While more employers should hire from vulnerable groups like these, it is unacceptable to do it in a predatory manner, with no protections. “AI ethics researchers should analyze harmful AI systems as both causes and consequences of unjust labor conditions in the industry.” Data labeling jobs are often performed far from the Silicon Valley headquarters of “AI first” multinational corporations — from Venezuela, where workers label data for the image recognition systems in self-driving vehicles, to Bulgaria, where Syrian refugees fuel facial recognition systems with selfies labeled according to race, gender, and age categories. These tasks are often outsourced to precarious workers in countries like India, Kenya, the Philippines or Mexico. Workers often do not speak English but are provided instructions in English, and face termination or banning from crowdwork platforms if they do not fully understand the rules. These corporations know that increased worker power would slow down their march toward proliferating “AI” systems requiring vast amounts of data, deployed without adequately studying and mitigating their harms. Talk of sentient machines only distracts us from holding them accountable for the exploitative labor practices that power the “AI” industry. An Urgent Priority For AI Ethics While researchers in ethical AI, AI for social good, or human-centered AI have mostly focused on “debiasing” data and fostering transparency and model fairness, here we argue that stopping the exploitation of labor in the AI industry should be at the heart of such initiatives. If corporations are not allowed to exploit labor from Kenya to the U.S., for example, they will not be able to proliferate harmful technologies as quickly — their market calculations would simply dissuade them from doing so. Thus, we advocate for funding of research and public initiatives that aim to uncover issues at the intersection of labor and AI systems. AI ethics researchers should analyze harmful AI systems as both causes and consequences of unjust labor conditions in the industry. Researchers and practitioners in AI should reflect on their use of crowdworkers to advance their own careers, while the crowdworkers remain in precarious conditions. Instead, the AI ethics community should work on initiatives that shift power into the hands of workers. Examples include co-creating research agendas with workers based on their needs, supporting cross-geographical labor organizing efforts and ensuring that research findings are easily accessed by workers rather than confined to academic publications. The Turkopticon platform created by Lilly Irani and M. Six Silberman, “an activist system that allows workers to publicize and evaluate their relationships with employers,” is a great example of this. Journalists, artists, and scientists can help by drawing clear the connection between labor exploitation and harmful AI products in our everyday lives, fostering solidarity with and support for gig workers and other vulnerable worker populations. Journalists and commentators can show the general public why they should care about the data annotator in Syria or the hypersurveilled Amazon delivery driver in the U.S. Shame does work in certain circumstances and, for corporations, the public’s sentiment of “shame on you” can sometimes equal a loss in revenue and help move the needle toward accountability. Supporting transnational worker organizing should be at the center of the fight for “ethical AI.” While each workplace and geographical context has its own idiosyncrasies, knowing how workers in other locations circumvented similar issues can serve as inspiration for local organizing and unionizing efforts. For example, data labelers in Argentina could learn from the recent unionizing efforts of content moderators in Kenya, or Amazon Mechanical Turk workers organizing in the U.S., and vice versa. Furthermore, unionized workers in one geographic location can advocate for their more precarious counterparts in another, as in the case of the Alphabet Workers Union, which includes both high paid employees in Silicon Valley and outsourced low wage contractors in more rural areas. “This type of solidarity between highly-paid tech workers and their lower-paid counterparts — who vastly outnumber them — is a tech CEO’s nightmare.” This type of solidarity between highly-paid tech workers and their lower-paid counterparts — who vastly outnumber them — is a tech CEO’s nightmare. While corporations often treat their low-income workers as disposable, they’re more hesitant to lose their high-income employees who can quickly snap up jobs with competitors. Thus, the high-paid employees are allowed a far longer leash when organizing, unionizing, and voicing their disappointment with company culture and policies. They can use this increased security to advocate with their lower-paid counterparts working at warehouses, delivering packages or labeling data. As a result, corporations seem to use every tool at their disposal to isolate these groups from each other. Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa created the type of cross-worker solidarity that scares tech CEOs. Both women worked as user experience designers at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters cumulatively for 21 years. Along with other Amazon corporate workers, they co-founded the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ). In 2019, over 8,700 Amazon workers publicly signed their names to an open letter addressed to Jeff Bezos and the company’s board of directors demanding climate leadership and concrete steps the company needed to implement to be aligned with climate science and protect workers. Later that year, AECJ organized the first walkout of corporate workers in Amazon’s history. The group says over 3,000 Amazon workers walked out across the world in solidarity with a youth-led Global Climate Strike. Amazon responded by announcing its Climate Pledge, a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040 — 10 years ahead of the Paris Climate Agreement. Cunningham and Costa say they were both disciplined and threatened with termination after the climate strike — but it wasn’t until AECJ organized actions to foster solidarity with low-wage workers that they were actually fired. Hours after another AECJ member sent out a calendar invite inviting corporate workers to listen to a panel of warehouse workers discussing the dire working conditions they were facing at the beginning of the pandemic, Amazon fired Costa and Cunningham. The National Labor Relations Board found their firings were illegal, and the company later settled with both women for undisclosed amounts. This case illustrates where executives’ fears lie: the unflinching solidarity of high-income employees who see low-income employees as their comrades. In this light, we urge researchers and journalists to also center low-income workers’ contributions in running the engine of “AI” and to stop misleading the public with narratives of fully autonomous machines with human-like agency. These machines are built by armies of underpaid laborers around the world. With a clear understanding of the labor exploitation behind the current proliferation of harmful AI systems, the public can advocate for stronger labor protections and real consequences for entities who break them. | Labor Activism |
Railroads and workers' unions reached a tentative labor agreement early Thursday to avert a national rail strike that threatened to shut a major segment of the U.S. transportation network.The last-minute deal avoids massive disruptions to the flow of key goods and commodities around the country. About 40% of the nation's long-distance trade is moved by rail. If the unions had gone on strike, more than 7,000 trains would have been idled, costing up to an estimated $2 billion per day.The deadline for an agreement was midnight Friday morning. The parties spent 20 consecutive hours negotiating before reaching a deal."The tentative agreement reached tonight is an important win for our economy and the American people," President Joe Biden said in a statement announcing the deal. "It is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic to ensure that America's families and communities got deliveries of what have kept us going during these difficult years."The White House had been in talks with railroad workers' unions and companies for several months, but negotiations were hung up over unpaid sick time.Tentative agreements have been reached with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers – Transportation Division, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, which collectively represent approximately 60,000 employees, the Association of American Railroads said in a press release.The new agreement would improve rail workers' pay and working conditions and give them "peace of mind around their health care costs," Biden said. He thanked railroad unions and companies for negotiating "in good faith."The new contracts provide rail employees with a 24% wage increase during the five-year period from 2020 through 2024, including immediate average payouts of $11,000 upon ratification, according to the Association of American Railroads.A spokesman for the labor unions told CNBC the groups also negotiated an extra paid day off for workers and that the deal paves the way to revisit attendance policies in the future.The spokesman called it a historic win, but cautioned that all tentative agreements are subject to ratification by the unions' membership, a process that could take at least a week."I thank the unions and rail companies for negotiating in good faith and reaching a tentative agreement that will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruption of our economy," Biden said in a statement.Negotiators from railroad carriers and unions had met in Labor Secretary Marty Walsh's office Wednesday as the sides tried to negotiate a deal ahead of Friday's strike deadline.Norfolk Southern and other railroads had been ramping down operations to prioritize critical shipments. On Wednesday, Amtrak announced it would cancel all long-distance trains starting Thursday since many of its railways are maintained by freighters. Thursday morning, Amtrak said it was working to restore the canceled trains and reaching out to impacted customers to accommodate them.— CNBC's Melodie Warner contributed to this report. | Labor Activism |
A man cannot serve two masters — Equifax used its own worker surveillance product to spy on workers fired. Hundreds of thousands of Americans juggled two full-time jobs in September, and nearly 4 million more mixed full-time with part-time work, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. This “overemployment” trend has become so popular through the pandemic that Wired reported that some workers described holding down two jobs as the cure to burnout experienced from having just one job. For remote workers, in particular, the ability to generate extra income by doing two jobs at once became so normalized, The Washington Post reported last week, that some remote workers considered it “fair” to hide a second job from their primary employers.
Some remote workers learned the hard way that not all employers consider it fair, though. This week it was reported that the credit-reporting service Equifax proved unwilling to sit idly by as its employees attempted to keep second jobs on the sly. According to Business Insider, Equifax “used one of its own products, The Work Number, to help it suss out who was holding down multiple jobs simultaneously” and then fired 24 out of 25 remote workers that its investigation uncovered. Some Equifax remote workers were juggling as many as three jobs.
For its investigation, Business Insider reviewed company emails, spoke to current and fired Equifax employees, and reviewed internal Equifax documents. Insider found that Equifax used The Work Number to comb through “work histories and activity records for more than 1,000 employees and contractors" and see any overlapping payment periods reported by other companies. This information, Insider reported, is usually only provided to individuals seeking their own reports, while third parties would typically receive a different version that doesn't provide such granular information. In addition to dozens of workers Equifax then fired, the company reportedly flagged 283 contractors also suspected to be dually employed, but Business Insider was unable to verify if those contractors were also fired.
“Equifax recently conducted an investigation into a number of employees suspected of holding dual, full-time employment that conflicted with their roles at our company,” Equifax spokesperson Kate Walker told Ars in a statement. “As a result, several employees who violated our company code of conduct and outside employment policy, which were in effect at the time of the investigation, were recently terminated.” Equifax used other employee surveillance methods to determine which workers were violating its employee code of conduct—which Walker told Insider specifies that employees "always need to disclose and discuss outside employment with your supervisor." Some workers were suspected of calling into interviews with Equifax from their other job sites, and Equifax began noting any employee clocking "abnormally low VPN usage,” below 13 hours weekly, as a red flag.
Equifax employees were informed of terminations in a company-wide email that unsettled some. One fired worker who spoke to Insider said he wasn’t aware of Equifax’s code of conduct when he took his second job. A current employee told Insider that Equifax shouldn’t be using the data it collects for The Work Number to "spy" on its own employees.
The Work Number collects employment records from 2.5 million companies, Insider reported, and when two Insider reporters ran their own reports on the service, payment periods for “almost every job both had ever held was listed in the report.”
Although Equifax’s investigation, which it at one point dubbed “Project Home Alone,” targeted employees with two or more jobs, the company said that this violation wasn’t the only reason that 24 employees were terminated.
“Equifax followed all applicable laws in its handling of this situation,” Walker told Ars. “These employees were terminated because of multiple factors, including in many cases their own admission that they had a secondary full-time position, which prevented them from fulfilling their full-time obligations to Equifax.”
In its story on overemployment, Wired reported that people drawn to the trend found support on Reddit, Discord, and a website called Overemployed.com. In forums, the dual-employed and those aspiring to take on multiple jobs discuss strategies to do it all unnoticed. It seems implied across all forums that employees will need to hide their other jobs from each employer, but Overemployed.com assures visitors that “it’s legal to work multiple remote jobs.” The website compiled a guide that breaks down labor laws in different states.
However, on the very same page, Overemployed.com also foretold of the Equifax terminations by warning any website visitors that employers still seemingly retain all the power: "The truth is, you can get fired at any time whether you work just one or multiple remote jobs.” | Labor Activism |
Workers at Trader Joe’s successfully won union elections this year at stores in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, but workers now have numerous filed unfair labor practice charges against the specialty US supermarket chain, alleging the company has violated labor laws in trying to prevent further stores from unionizing.The move comes as a wave of unionizing efforts sweeps through sections of the US economy, including at household names like Starbucks and Amazon. The situation at Trader Joe’s is especially notable as the firm has cultivated a liberal brand ethos and anti-union moves are likely to dent that public image.In Boulder, Colorado, workers at a Trader Joe’s had filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election in July to join United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7.The same month, Trader Joe’s announced company-wide increases to compensation and benefits, including an increase to discounts for employees from 10 to 20%, a $10 an hour premium pay for Sundays, an increase to paid time off and market rate pay adjustments over complaints about pay disparities between longer term employees and new hires.“We believe that was in response to union activity not only in this store, but the other stores around the country,” said Jim Hammons, organizing director at UFCW Local 7. “That in itself is illegal, they can’t do that.”The union pulled the election petition recently and filed unfair labor practice charges over the announcement of new pay and benefits during their unionization campaign and have alleged several other instances of retaliation. They include the use of company property used by some workers at the store to create anti-union buttons and retaliating against a union supporting worker by removing them from their regular Sunday shift and replacing them with an anti-union worker.Trader Joe’s also retained Littler Mendelson, a union avoidance law firm that Starbucks has also retained as dozens of stores around the US have unionized over the past year.Aspen McKinzie, a Trader Joe’s worker at the Boulder store, explained the union organizing campaign started earlier this year over complaints from workers about pay increases and benefits that were enacted at the company during the pandemic being taken away without any input from workers.“It’s very much a shallow attempt to discourage people from unionizing by trying to make them feel like their employer is actually taking care of them. But none of this is secured and they can take it away whenever they want,” said McKinzie. “If they really care that much about us, they’d be paying us a lot more rather than paying a bunch of union busting lawyers to feed lines to our management.”In the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Trader Joe’s chief executive Dan Bane issued a company-wide memo calling union organizing efforts a “distraction” amid calls for hazard pay and safety protections.That memo was cited by workers who launched the first union campaign at Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts earlier this year, claiming that retirement benefits for workers were unilaterally cut in half by the company and pay bumps provided during the pandemic were rescinded despite high inflation concerns.Keenan Dailey, who has worked at Trader Joe’s for 14 years in Boulder, also cited those cuts as inspiring the union organizing campaign, as workers were disgruntled over those sudden cuts.“They were worried that without that extra money they weren’t sure how they were going to pay their bills. Some of them had re-signed up on leases with their apartment, expecting to have that extra $2 an hour,” said Dailey. “And then to add insult to injury, we found out that the new hires were making $2 more per hour.”He noted that the pay and benefits announcement in July severely disrupted the union campaign, but emphasized that those benefits can be taken away at the whim of the employer without a contract.“When you’re union busting, you can do it through the carrot or the stick, so to speak, and Trader Joe’s was trying to use the carrot,” said Dailey. “We need a contract to keep this. And we might be able to get more stuff too, but if we don’t have a contract, we’re probably losing this in the next year or two, at least some of it.”In New York City, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) have filed charges alleging that Trader Joe’s abruptly closed a wine shop in New York City just days before workers had planned to file for a union election. UFCW has launched a petition to demand Trader Joe’s reopen the store and signaled intent to pursue legal action.Trader Joe’s denied the store closure was linked to the unionization efforts, and said the store was closed due to underperformance. But employees were given no prior notice to the store closure and the location had several years left on its lease.Trader Joe’s did not reply to multiple requests for comment on this story in response to the allegations made by workers in Boulder. In previous comments on unionization efforts, a spokesperson for Trader Joe’s said: “Trader Joe’s respects our crew’s right to support a union – or not.” | Labor Activism |
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The deadline for President Joe Biden to intervene and keep 115,000 railroad workers from going on strike and disrupting deliveries of cars, crops, containers of imported goods and countless other products and raw materials is looming.Biden is widely expected to name a board of arbitrators to review the contract dispute and make recommendations on how to settle it before Monday’s deadline. Once he does that, any strike or lockout will be delayed 60 days under the federal law that governs railroad contract talks.A White House official said the Biden administration is going through the standard process to decide whether to appoint this special board to intervene in the contract talks.A BNSF rail terminal worker monitors the departure of a freight train, on June 15, 2021, in Galesburg, Ill. President Joe Biden is widely expected to name a board of arbitrators to intervene in a freight railroad contract dispute before a Monday, July 18, 2022, deadline, and that will prevent 115,000 workers from going on strike for at least 60 days. (Shafkat Anowar/AP)Businesses that rely on railroads have urged Biden to appoint that Presidential Emergency Board to try to bring the freight railroads and workers together to reach a deal. Groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major trade groups of railroad shippers all wrote to Biden over the past month since the talks deadlocked and mediation officially ended to say a rail strike could cause catastrophic disruptions in the economy.“Any strike is bad,” said Rob Benedict with the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers group that represents refineries and other chemical companies. “We want to avoid that at all costs especially when we are in a precarious situation like our nation is now in kind of our current supply chain crisis.”Adding to the supply chain worries is a separate labor dispute involving 22,000 West Coast dockworkers at ports that handle roughly 40% of U.S. imports. Both sides in those negotiations have said they plan to keep cargo moving until a new agreement is reached even though their contract expired at the beginning of July. The ports rely on railroads to deliver many of the goods they handle.The presidential board can only make nonbinding recommendations on the railroad contracts, but those will serve as the basis for a new round of negotiations that could yield a contract that has eluded the railroads since talks began more than two years ago.Even if those efforts fail, Congress would likely intervene to prevent a strike. Lawmakers could impose terms on the railroads and their 12 unions at that point or take other action to keep the trains moving.The National Carriers’ Conference Committee that represents Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern and other railroads said it believes the wage increases railroads are offering are fair based on other recent major labor agreements, but the unions say none of the offers so far do enough to offset inflation or reflect the current worker shortages. Plus, the railroads want workers to pay more of their health insurance costs, which the unions say would eat up most, if not all, of the proposed raises.NCCC Chairman Brendan Branon said the railroads are disappointed a deal hasn’t been reached yet, but they’re hopeful the presidential board will help.“It remains in the best interests of all parties – and the public – for the railroads and rail labor organizations to settle this bargaining round by entering mutually acceptable agreements that provide prompt pay increases to the nation’s hard working rail employees and prevent rail service disruptions,” Branon said in a statement.The unions say a better contract would likely help ease the railroads’ struggles to hire more workers to reduce delays in deliveries and improve service in response to complaints from shippers and regulators. The railroads have been having significant problems keeping up with demand this year as the economy improves — forcing some businesses to slow production while waiting for trains — and they say hiring hundreds more workers is key to improving service.Many of the companies who ship goods on the rails, labor groups and regulators blame the railroads’ current shipping problems on those deep worker cuts while the railroads say the nationwide worker shortages and difficult hiring environment has kept them from hiring enough workers to handle all the shipments as the economy recovers.In the contract talks, the unions also adamantly oppose railroad proposals to cut train crews down from two people to one.Union officials say they don’t want to strike but they appear ready to act if it does come to that. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen said this week that more then 99% of its members voted to authorize the union to go on strike if a deal can’t be reached.“In the end, the question of whether or not any of the rail industry’s union-represented employees want to legally strike is secondary to what they truly want,” BLET President Dennis Pierce said. “They want a contract with meaningful wage increases and good benefits. They want jobs that give them the ability to have a life outside of work. To be clear, there would be no need for a strike vote if any of that had happened in these negotiations.”The workers who kept the railroads running throughout the pandemic are frustrated they haven’t had a raise since 2019, and they’re fed up with the working conditions and schedules they have to endure after the major freight railroads cut nearly one-third of their jobs over the past six years as they overhauled operations.“With a stale contract that has been in effect since prior to inflation taking hold, the workers have nothing to show for their blood, sweat and tears, as well as the sacrifices they and their families have made,” said Jeremy Ferguson, president of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers — Transportation Division union that represents conductors. | Labor Activism |
A coalition of labor groups is launching an effort to pressure U.S. Senate candidates in battleground states to support the pro-union Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.
This week, the Worker Power Coalition will begin calling, protesting and visiting the offices of senators up for reelection this fall, pressuring them into supporting the PRO Act or publicly shaming them if they don’t, according to Politico. Organizers will target lawmakers in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida.
The coalition, made up of over 40 labor, progressive and climate groups and led by several major labor unions, including Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and United Auto Workers (UAW), says it aims to make it clear to voters whether or not candidates are pro-worker.
One way to do this, they say, is to force the PRO Act to come to a vote so that every senator’s vote is on the record, which International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) President Jimmy Williams Jr. told Politico would show voters “who the real pro-worker members of the U.S. Senate are.”
The PRO Act is a sweeping labor bill that would massively expand workers’ rights to collectively bargain and form unions, setting much harsher legal penalties on employers for violating labor laws, outlawing common union-busting tactics and ending “right-to-work” laws, among many other provisions. Labor advocates say that, if the bill passes Congress, it will be the most consequential and vital labor legislation of this generation.
The Worker Power Coalition has been working for over a year to bring attention to the PRO Act in Congress. In March, the bill passed the House with only one Democratic dissenter, Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas), but it has yet to come to a vote in the Senate. It’s unclear how much support it currently has in that chamber, though reporting from last year suggests that all Republicans are against the bill, as well as three Democrats — Senators Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona), Mark Kelly (Arizona) and Mark Warner (Virginia).
“We have an opportunity in November to elect somebody different who we know supports the PRO Act,” Florida coalition campaign leader Curtis Hierro told Politico. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, for instance, could be unseated by Democratic challenger Rep. Val Demings, who voted for the PRO Act in the House last year. Rubio, on the other hand, introduced a bill earlier this year that would provide an “alternative to unions,” per Politico.
“We’re going to make sure that every single voter in Florida understands clearly where Marco Rubio stands on that issue when they go to cast their vote this November,” Hierro said. “One of the great labor songs that still has relevancy is, ‘What side are you on?’ And we definitely want to make it plain for the working people of Florida — who is a great majority — what side Marco Rubio is on.”
The coalition’s push comes amid surging union popularity and activity in the U.S. Over just the past year, labor organizers have launched and won a number of major campaigns at corporations like Starbucks and Amazon, as well as at lesser known organizations. It’s likely that these victories are also fueling an uptick in the public’s opinion of unions; according to a Gallup poll released late last month, union approval is at 71 percent, its highest point since 1965. This represents a 23 percent increase since 2009. The same poll also found that 42 percent of working respondents are interested in joining a union, with 11 percent saying that they’re “extremely interested” in union membership. | Labor Activism |
A showdown between freight rail carriers and their workers’ unions could shut down the U.S. rail system if the two sides can’t reach an agreement by Friday, which would create a disruption with vast economic and political repercussions.A dozen unions representing more than 100,000 workers have been trying to negotiate new contracts with the major rail carriers, including Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and CSX. While most have reached a tentative deal with the industry, two major unions still have not come to an agreement, and another union said Wednesday that its membership had voted to reject theirs.The deadline to reach an accord is midnight Friday morning. Failing that, there are several possible outcomes.The workers could go on strike, shutting down the freight rail system; the rail companies could lock the workers out of their jobs, achieving the same practical effect; Congress could impose contract terms on both sides whether they like it or not; or the deadline could be extended.The impact of a shutdown could be so severe that President Joe Biden has been urging the carriers and the unions to reach a compromise as soon as possible, and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh was meeting with both sides on Wednesday morning in hopes of averting a work stoppage.“A shutdown of our freight rail system is an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people, and all parties must work to avoid just that,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.What’s the dispute about?A collective bargaining agreement has many moving parts to it during negotiations: wages, health care coverage, retirement benefits, paid leave, work rules and more. Those pieces can all be in flux with one another until the moment a deal is reached, but the unions say the disagreement at this point is primarily over leave and scheduling policies.The unions say workers can end up on call for up to 14 days at a time and face draconian attendance requirements — including losing their jobs for going to the doctor or tending to sick children. “Our members are being terminated for getting sick or for attending routine medical visits.”- The unions SMART and BLETIn a joint statement, two of the unions at the center of the fight, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), said the rail carriers’ policies amounted to “harassment.” “Penalizing engineers and conductors for getting sick or going to a doctor’s visit with termination must be stopped as part of this contract settlement,” they said. “Let us repeat that: our members are being terminated for getting sick or for attending routine medical visits as we crawl our way out of worldwide pandemic.”The unions insist workers have been pushed to the brink and would reject any deal that didn’t make improvements on this front. They point to staffing reductions in the industry as evidence that the employers are squeezing too much out of the workforce. According to the federal Surface Transportation Board, major carriers have slashed staffing by 29% over six years, leading the board’s director to say that in many cases “the railroads simply do not have a sufficient number of employees.”How did we get this close to a rail shutdown?Because of the impact a work stoppage would have on transportation and commerce, railway workers are covered by a different labor law than most other private-sector workers. Both sides must go through several steps before workers can legally go on strike or be locked out from their jobs. It’s likely a testament to workers’ frustration that the dispute has gotten this far.After failing to reach an agreement, the union coalitions and the rail industry group, the National Railway Labor Conference, went through months of mediation with federal officials. That didn’t end in a deal, either, and the two sides began a legally required month-long “cooling off” period. After that, Biden called together an emergency board to try to bring an end to the dispute. The board conducted hearings and in August made its recommendations, including a 24% wage increase over the course of five years, which the rail group said would be “the most substantial wage increase in decades.” But the unions that have held out said the board erred on the leave and attendance issue, leaving the unions unwilling to accept the package.Once another legally required cooling-off period ends on Friday morning, a work stoppage will be on the table. BLET union members told the publication Labor Notes that they plan to start a picket line at 12:01 a.m. Friday morning if they don’t have a contract. But it’s also possible that the rail carriers themselves initiate the work stoppage by locking the workers out of their jobs to gain leverage in the negotiations.What would the effects of a shutdown be?We are already seeing some of the effects. Amtrak announced Wednesday that it was canceling long-distance passenger trains starting Thursday, primarily outside the busy Northeast Corridor. Passenger trains would be affected because they often use tracks run by freight companies. Other transit agencies have warned that they could be hurt by a shutdown as well.Several of the freight companies started limiting service earlier this week, putting embargoes on certain types of shipments several days before the deadline. The companies said the idea was to make sure hazardous materials don’t end up abandoned in the event of a work stoppage, but the unions criticized the move as a ploy to put political pressure on the workers.“The railroads are using shippers, consumers, and the supply chain of our nation as pawns in an effort to get our [unions] to cave into their contract demands knowing that our members would never accept them,” SMART and BLET said in a statement.“It’s possible that the rail carriers themselves initiate the work stoppage by locking the workers out of their jobs to gain leverage.”The White House has been laying plans to keep critical goods moving in the event the two sides can’t reach a deal. The standoff has left the Biden administration in a tough political spot: the administration doesn’t want a work stoppage that could hurt the economy and spur more inflation, but union allies would be furious if Biden, the self-declared “most pro-union president” ever, helped push them into an unsatisfactory deal.Both sides might agree to extend the deadline beyond Friday morning to buy more time to negotiate. It’s also theoretically possible that Congress intervenes and compels the carriers and the unions to adopt the presidential board’s contract recommendations, an outcome that carriers like BNSF would appear to be pleased with.Republicans in the Senate maneuvered Wednesday to accomplish that through a resolution, but they were blocked by the chamber’s best-known union supporter, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Speaking on the Senate floor, Sanders hammered the rail carriers for having what he called a “reactionary policy” of “denying workers sick leave.”“What that means is if you as a worker get sick, if your child gets sick, if your spouse gets sick and you need to take time off of work, not only will you not get paid, you actually could get fired,” Sanders said. “How crazy is that?” | Labor Activism |
Workplace relations minister, Tony Burke, has hinted Labor may remove “red tape” that discourages multi-employer collective bargaining as part of industrial relations reforms designed to lift wages.On Monday, Burke all but confirmed the Albanese government will drastically restrict employers’ ability to terminate pay deals early in a speech to the Australian Industry Group.The comments about red tape suggest that although Labor has not agreed to union demands for industry-level bargaining, it may look to encourage broader collective bargaining beyond separate pay deals for each employer, as the rules generally require.Burke is leading the workplace relations reform group of the government’s jobs and skills summit in early September. Increases to productivity and workers’ wages, languishing behind runaway inflation are at the top of the agenda.In his speech, Burke said the government wants the “Fair Work Commission to facilitate bargaining and help parties make agreements”.“We want bargaining to happen in good faith – and we particularly want to make sure the bargaining system works for small business and for women,” he said.Asked how Labor aims to accomplish this, Burke told reporters in Canberra he is looking to slash “red tape”.“Sometimes you can get a situation where the employer and the workers agree and the red tape in the system blows the whole thing up,” he said.Burke nominated time periods for pay deal bargaining processes and a restriction on joint bargaining across different employersas examples.“I’ve had [instances] where employers have to come and seek my personal permission as to whether they’re allowed to bargain together,” he said.“Ultimately if an employer and their workforce agree, and the union agrees, and people are going forwards in their wages, then why would we want to stand in the way of that?”The comments are an apparent reference to the section of the Fair Work Act that requires the minister to agree that employers may bargain together for a proposed pay deal. An alternative process allowing the commission to agree to multiple employers being covered by the same pay deal would be a step in the direction of pattern bargaining, in which unions make identical pay demands of employers in the same industry.Labor’s 2021 platform promised to “improve access to collective bargaining, including where appropriate through multi-employer collective bargaining”, but it did not agree to unions’ demands for industry-level bargaining. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningEarlier in August, Steven Amendola, a senior industrial relations practitioner told a seminar organised by his law firm Kingston Reid that the “only way” enterprise bargaining could lift wages is if it is “broad-based industry or sector bargaining”, suggesting Labor may be forced to revisit the idea.Amendola cited deals struck in the construction sector, where the CFMEU negotiates for “pattern agreements”, that have “strong” terms and conditions for employees.The head of workplace relations at Australian Industry Group, Stephen Smith, said it had fought “tooth and nail” against industry level bargaining and would do so again if Labor were “foolish” enough to attempt it.Earlier, in the speech, Burke said he was “increasingly concerned about … the ability of employers to make cuts to workers’ pay and conditions by unilaterally terminating” workplace pay deals, which pushes employees back on to the award minimum.Burke said the issue would be discussed at the summit but his “starting point” is “on face value, I cannot see how this tactic can possibly be justified”.Burke said a “narrow exception” could be made for “exceptional business distress, where termination” could help workers’ keep their jobs.The Australian Council of Trade Unions welcomed the pledge to end that practice, which secretary Sally McManus said should be done “as soon as possible”.McManus confirmed the ACTU is in “discussions with government and employers” about multi-employer bargaining, but was not ready to declare its position.McManus said it would propose a “comprehensive” package to get wages moving, including to raise the national minimum wage, award minimums and improve the better off overall test. | Labor Activism |
The growing congestion at ports in Germany and the Netherlands, which could delay car and furniture shipments to the U.S. for weeks, shows no signs of clearing up as the latest round of labor negotiations between the Central Association of German Seaport Companies (ZDS) and ver.di, the German labor union, ended with no agreement. A major sticking point is linking dock worker pay to inflation.Germany, Europe's largest economy, is facing skyrocketing inflation, with food and energy inflation made worse as a result of Russia's war on Ukraine. This inflation is at the heart of the negotiation impasse. The union is calling for a yearly automatic inflation adjustment built into a renewed collective agreement for their workers at the 58 ports and terminals. ZDS says its offer is above the inflation rate, but the union has rejected the offer."Rising prices for essential living expenses such as energy and food have become an unsustainable burden on German workers, especially for those lower paid workers," the head of ver.di's maritime section, Maya Schwiegershausen-Güth, said in a statement to the press. She added that the employers, represented by the Central Association of German Seaport Companies (ZDS), have so far rejected the principle of inflation protection in talks with the union."These port companies plan to leave their staff alone to deal with the consequences of rising prices. They are willing to see dockers' wages go backward, eaten away by inflation. We cannot accept this, especially after all that dock workers have done for the employers and the common good," she said.On the ZDS website, ZDS negotiator Ulrike Riedel stated, "We have repeatedly improved our offers and responded to ver.di's demands. There was no willingness to compromise from ver.di. Now an offer of up to 12.5% is on the table. This also includes a permanent wage increase of up to 8% retroactively to Jan. 6. With this offer, we are above the very high inflation rate and far above what ver.di and other unions are demanding and concluding in other current negotiations."Over the course of June during negotiations, the union has had warning strikes of a shift and strikes for 24 hours which have shuttered the flow of trade at some of the German ports. This slowdown created a congestion contagion to ports in the Netherlands bogging down containers destined to the United States and countries around the world.Andreas Rentz | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesAccording to Germany's trade office, motor vehicles and auto parts are the country's top export (15.4 percent). Ranking second and third: Machinery (14.2 percent) and chemical products (10.0 percent).In addition to those main exports, Ikea furniture and other household goods are also moved out of those ports. Other products include lithium batteries for autos and chassis. Mercedes, BMW, and Ford were also listed in recent Bills of Lading.Andreas Braun, Europe, Middle East, and Africa ocean product director of Crane Worldwide Logistics, recently told CNBC, "U.S. importers need to look four to five weeks in advance to see if there is a vessel available. This is not normal. Also, if you are lucky to book a slot on a vessel you then have to locate an empty container which can be in the (German or Netherland) hinterland."Sources tell CNBC no strikes have been announced or expected this week but there are concerns future strikes could be announced. There has been no announcement of new negotiations. The ZDS negotiator stated of its last offer to the union, "We cannot afford more than that without endangering the survival of companies. A further escalation is completely disproportionate in view of this offer and harms not only us, but Germany as a whole. We urgently need a conciliation procedure."If the impasse continues, arbitration could be called. This is a common dispute resolution procedure in Germany. If that happens, strikes would then be ruled out. The CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map data providers are artificial intelligence and predictive analytics company Everstream Analytics; global freight booking platform Freightos, creator of the Freightos Baltic Dry Index; logistics provider OL USA; supply chain intelligence platform FreightWaves; supply chain platform Blume Global; third-party logistics provider Orient Star Group; marine analytics firm MarineTraffic; maritime visibility data company Project44; maritime transport data company MDS Transmodal UK; ocean and air freight benchmarking analytics firm Xeneta; leading provider of research and analysis Sea-Intelligence ApS; Crane Worldwide Logistics; and air, DHL Global Forwarding, and freight logistics provider Seko Logistics. | Labor Activism |
A Union Pacific rail car is parked at the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP Rail) Toronto Yard in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada March 20, 2022. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Major U.S. railroads and unions secured a tentative deal after 20 hours of intense talks brokered by the Biden administration to avert a rail shutdown that could have hit food and fuel supplies nationwide.U.S. President Joe Biden announced the deal in a statement early Thursday morning, calling it "a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic to ensure that America's families and communities got deliveries of what have kept us going during these difficult years."The tentative deal now goes to the unions to be voted on, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comEven if those votes fail, a rail shutdown that could have happened as soon as midnight Friday has been averted for several weeks due to the standard language included in such a deal, this person said.A rail shutdown could freeze almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoke inflation, cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion per day and unleash a cascade of transport woes affecting the U.S. energy, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors.Biden administration officials hosted labor contract talks into the night on Wednesday aiming to secure an agreement between unions which represent 115,000 workers and railroads including Union Pacific (UNP.N), BNSF, CSX (CSX.O), Norfolk Southern (NSC.N) and Kansas City Southern .Shares of U.S. railroad operators rose between 2.4% and 2.9% in pre-market trade.Negotiations between the companies and a dozen unions had stretched for more than two years, leading Biden to appoint an emergency board to help break the impasse.Biden himself called U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and negotiators around 9 p.m. on Wednesday to advance talks, according to a person aware of the negotiations, which lasted 20 hours.Failing to reach a deal before the deadline of one minute after midnight on Friday would have cleared the way for workers to legally strike.The railroad companies involved have cut jobs and trimmed pay and other costs in recent years as they increased profits, stock buybacks and dividends for investors. Profits at billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, (BRKa.N) which owns BNSF, rose 9.2% in the most recent quarter to $1.7 billion.The number of U.S. railway workers has dropped from over 600,000 in 1970 to about 150,000 in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, due both to technology and cost-cutting.Biden, who has called himself the most union-friendly president in history and pilloried companies for raking in "excessive" profits, praised a deal that he said would give workers "better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs."Administration officials have been eager to resolve the dispute that threatened fresh goods shortages and added consumer price inflation ahead of November's midterm elections for control of Congress.Senior congressional leaders had threatened to pass legislation imposing a resolution on the railroads and unions if the negotiations were not successful.U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the tentative agreement and said that Congress was "ready to act" but that "thankfully this action may not be necessary."Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington, Jahnavi Nidumolu, Aishwarya Nair and Kannaki Deka in Bengaluru; Editing by Jason Neely, Devika Syamnath, Shounak Dasgupta, Heather Timmons and Catherine EvansOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Labor Activism |
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Maybe Rep. Mo Brooks was onto something when he urged grassroots Republicans to move past their disappointment with former President Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020 and “look forward” to the midterm elections. It sure worked for Katie Britt. Britt brought Brooks’s political career to an ignominious end Tuesday, soundly defeating the congressman in a primary runoff contest to win the Republican nomination for Senate in Alabama. Britt, the 40-year-old former chief of staff to retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), beat Brooks, 68, by executing a future-oriented campaign focused on key voter priorities such as inflation, illegal immigration, and China. By a wide margin, Alabama Republicans found her message preferable to Brooks’s near-singular fixation on Trump, who endorsed and then unendorsed the congressman, and especially Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Brooks blames McConnell and his deep-pocketed allies, who spent millions to defeat the congressman, for his loss after his Senate campaign began last June with so much promise. “Mo has always been his own worst enemy. He still runs every campaign like it’s 1982 and he’s running for the state House for the first time. Politics changed and Mo never did,” said Alex Schriver, a Republican operative in Washington who previously served as chief of staff to an Alabama congressman who has since retired. “Campaigns and candidates matter,” Schriver added. “Katie Britt ran an excellent race tactically, organizationally, and strategically.” Britt spent election night with supporters in Montgomery, the state capital. Brooks held an election night party at a gun range in Huntsville, the anchor of the 5th Congressional District he has represented since 2011, hoping for an upset in an extremely low turnout runoff. BIDEN DIGS AT DESANTIS WHILE TOUTING COVID-19 VACCINES FOR YOUNG CHILDREN Alabama is a ruby-red state. Grassroots Republicans here are particularly fond of Trump and generally hostile toward McConnell. And so, Brooks’s campaign message was dominated by the promotion of his early endorsement from Trump and his tacit support for ousting McConnell as the top Senate Republican, an effort driven by the former president. Only once, while delivering a speech during a Trump rally in Alabama, did Brooks suggest Republicans look beyond 2020 and concentrate on winning congressional majorities in 2022 and recapturing the White House in 2024. Amid a smattering of boos, Brooks backtracked. “All right, well, look back at it, but go forward and take advantage of it,” he said sheepishly last August. Brooks, who appeared with Trump at a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, and led the charge to oppose certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, went back to respecting the former president’s preoccupation with his unsupported claims that the 2020 election was stolen. The Britt campaign calculated early on that it was futile to chase Republican voters who prioritized whether a candidate was endorsed by Trump or vowed to answer the former president’s call to oust McConnell as the top Senate Republican. They were virtually guaranteed to vote for Brooks, a conservative insurgent who has hugged Trump tight since the populist 45th president was elected in 2016. Instead, Britt put a premium on winning over the rest of the Republican electorate. This broader pool of voters values support for Trump and his “America first” agenda but is attracted to future-oriented candidates who talk about getting things done in Washington to improve their quality of life. It worked. By the time Trump yanked his support for Brooks in March, amid his precipitous slide, Britt had climbed from 4% in public opinion polling at the outset of her campaign and surpassed the congressman on her way to earning 45% and a first-place finish in the May 24 primary. By the opening of the polls Tuesday morning in the runoff, Britt was headed for a comfortable victory. “So, what we did is, we went and talked about the issues people wanted to talk about, the things that they are dealing with,” Britt told reporters in Montgomery, taking a veiled shot at Brooks just before casting her ballot. “Too often, career politicians come down and lecture us instead of actually listen, and we built this campaign off of listening to people.” Britt’s nomination to succeed Shelby amounts to quite a fall for Brooks, who gave up his safe, northern Alabama House seat to run for Senate in what first appeared to be a sure thing. Despite backing from her old boss and GOP insiders in Washington and across Alabama, few Republicans gave Britt a chance to come from behind and beat Brooks after he received Trump’s endorsement. Even many Britt supporters were doubtful. But Republicans who followed this race, and Brooks’s nearly 12-year career on Capitol Hill, are not necessarily surprised and say the congressman only has himself to blame. “I think people saw Mo for what he is,” said Donnie Chesteen, a state senator who represents a southeastern Alabama district in the legislature and backed Britt. “Mo has been there forever, and he’s had a, what — post office renamed? That’s not effective leadership to me.” Brooks founded the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative insurgents and Trump loyalists in Congress who often pushed their GOP colleagues to embrace more uncompromising legislation. In that capacity, the congressman was at the forefront of many national issues to come before the House. But the often-cantankerous Brooks seemed to view the nuts and bolts of politics with contempt. He did not establish many relationships, did not seem to enjoy interacting with voters, and accumulated few resources. By the conclusion of the campaign, Britt had visited all 67 Alabama counties. Brooks had not. Meanwhile, he appeared to have a lot more to say about Trump, positive, negative, then positive again, then negative again, than he did about his solution for reducing skyrocketing inflation. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER “The guy has an unhealthy relationship with Trump,” said a Republican strategist who opposed Brooks’s candidacy. “He trashes him, begs for forgiveness, gets back in his good graces, manages to fall back out of favor, then trashes him again.” “He did not run a campaign,” added a veteran Republican consultant. “He did not raise money. He did not advertise. He just believed that Trump’s endorsement by itself would be all he needs. He’s just a complete goofball.” | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The Democratic campaign committee that works to elect pro-choice Democrats to state legislatures around the country has spoken out against the Supreme Court's decision to overturn federal protections for abortion, saying it will work alongside state-elected Democrats who will be "turning out voters in droves" for the midterm elections.In a statement shared with Fox News Digital, Gabrielle Chew, vice president of communications for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), insisted Americans are "alarmed" over the court's ruling and state-level Republican politicians who are "declaring open season on our fundamental rights.""The court’s antiquated, politically-transparent decision strips women of the right to control their own bodies and will lead to unnecessary death," Chew said. "This decision caters to a hyper-vocal, fringe minority and not the eight in 10 Americans who support the legal right to abortion, while opening the door to attacks on the right to contraception and marriage equality. "Americans across the political spectrum are alarmed at the Supreme Court and Republicans in state legislatures declaring open season on our fundamental rights. State Democrats will respond to this attack on our freedom to decide if and when to have a family by turning out voters in droves come this November."SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS ROE V. WADE IN LANDMARK OPINION Pro-choice demonstrators hold signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., June 24, 2022. (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)The court's decision to overturn the protections, which were granted in the 1973 landmark decision Roe v. Wade, now provides the states the opportunity to determine whether to legalize the procedure within their respective borders. The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization came more than a month after a leaked draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito suggested the court would overturn federal protections for abortion.Other national campaign committees, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), are also warning of the ruling's effects on the midterm elections. Abortion-rights demonstrators protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Friday, June 24, 2022. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)"Today’s decision dramatically escalates the stakes of the 2022 elections, and we’re making sure Americans have the tools they need to channel their anger into action," said Christie Roberts, executive director for the DSCC. "This on-the-ground organizing work will help elect Democrats who will fight to protect women’s right to make their own health care decisions and ensure the GOP’s cruel agenda to making abortion illegal and punish women is front and center for voters across the Senate battlegrounds."DEMOCRATS TO MAKE ABORTION RULING CENTRAL TO 2022 MIDTERMS, REPUBLICANS INSIST VOTERS MORE FOCUSED ON ECONOMYTim Persico, executive director for the DCCC, said the stakes for the November elections "couldn't be higher.""MAGA Republicans are fixated on controlling people’s lives, forcing their backwards ideology onto everyone and throwing folks in jail who don’t agree with them," Persico said. "This organizing campaign will give outraged voters a way to help elect the pro-choice Democrats who are the last line of defense against Republicans' plan to ban abortion nationwide."In remarks following the Supreme Court's ruling, President Biden said voters must elect more Democratic politicians to enshrine abortion protections in federal law. "This fall, Roe is on the ballot," he said. Crowds outside the court reacting to the Dobbs ruling. (Joshua Comins/Fox News)CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe DLCC's counterpart, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's inquiry about the ruling. Kyle Morris covers politics for Fox News. On Twitter: @RealKyleMorris. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Politics June 16, 2022 / 5:12 AM / AP Juneau, Alaska — Republican former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican Nick Begich and independent Al Gross have advanced to the August special election for the state's only U.S. House seat.Palin, Begich and Gross, an orthopedic surgeon, were among 48 candidates in last Saturday's special primary for the seat, which was left vacant following the death in March of Republican Rep. Don Young. Young had held the seat for 49 years. The top four vote-getters in the special primary advance to a special election, set for Aug. 16, in which ranked choice voting will be used. The winner of that race will serve the remainder of Young's term, which ends in January. State elections officials were releasing vote counts on Wednesday, the first day since the special primary in which counts were held. Counts also are planned for Friday and Tuesday. With 132,730 votes counted, Palin had 28.3%, followed by Begich with 19.3% and Gross with 12.8%. Democrat Mary Peltola had 8.7% and Republican Tara Sweeney, 5.5%. The election was unusual in that it was conducted primarily by mail. It also was the first election under a system approved by voters in 2020 that ends party primaries and institutes ranked voting for general elections. The election went on as scheduled following a legal fight over ballot access issues, with the state defending itself against accusations that the manner in which the election was held discriminated against voters with visual impairments. Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, held significant name recognition in a field that also included current and former state legislators and a North Pole city council member whose name is Santa Claus. Many of the candidates were relative unknowns. Begich comes from a family of prominent Democrats, including uncles Mark Begich and Tom Begich, who have both held elected office. Gross unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2020 with the endorsement of state Democrats. Alaska Democratic party leaders in this race urged voters to pick a Democrat. Peltola, who was one of six Democrats on the ballot, is a former state lawmaker. Sweeney was an assistant secretary of Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of Interior during the Trump administration. Palin told The Associated Press on Wednesday she felt good about the campaign she's run but wanted to see the final numbers. In a statement on election night, Palin said she was looking forward to the August special election. Palin said Wednesday she would be looking forward to it whether she had qualified for the race or not. She said she would remain positive and would "never play ... the politics of personal destruction because I've been on the receiving end of that, and I wouldn't want that to happen to my worst enemy." The campaigns of Begich and Gross have reminded voters Palin resigned as governor and questioned her motives in running for the House. Palin "quit on Alaska," Gross said. "She had a chance to stay in the fight for Alaska, but she chose to chase cheap fame," Begich's campaign said in a fundraising appeal. Palin, making her first bid for elected office since resigning as governor partway through her term in 2009, attributed her resignation to an onslaught of records requests and ethics complaints she said were frivolous and had become distractions. Palin took issue with those who have questioned her ties or commitment to the state. "I'm so Alaskan I hit a moose the other night," she said, adding that her vehicle got totaled but that she was fine. During this race, Palin touted endorsements from a number of national figures, including former President Donald Trump. Palin was an early supporter of Trump during his 2016 presidential bid, and he participated in a telerally for her. An August primary and November general election will decide who serves a two-year House term beginning in January. Palin, Begich and Gross are running in that race. Peltola and Sweeney also are candidates. Sweeney in a statement said she would meet with her campaign team and supporters in the coming days to determine "next steps" after she said it appeared that she would "fall just short" of advancing to the special election. Begich wasn't immediately available for comment Wednesday. An email seeking comment was sent to Gross' campaign. Begich's grandfather, Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, had the House seat before Young. In 1972, the elder Begich was running against Young when Begich's plane disappeared on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. Begich was nonetheless reelected. He was later declared dead and Young in 1973 won a special election for the seat. Young held the seat until his death at age 88. The younger Begich had ties to Young, too. He was a co-chair of Young's reelection campaign in 2020. He began running for the House seat last fall and cast himself as someone who could bring new energy to the role. He has been endorsed by a number of conservatives and by the Alaska Republican Party. Begich, during a campaign forum with three other Republican candidates last month, acknowledged people might be surprised that a Begich is a Republican. He said he was raised "conservative" by grandparents in Florida. Begich said he wants to make a "business case" for the state, including the need to develop Alaska's vast natural resources. Gross got crosswise with some Democrats following an interview in which he did not commit to caucusing with Democrats if elected. He later said he would. Gross' campaign has said that Gross does not plan to seek out endorsements from either the Democratic or Republican parties. Gross on Saturday noted that the largest bloc of registered voters in Alaska identify as independents and said Alaska needs a "new leader who represents all of Alaskans, not just a part of Alaska. And I believe I'm that guy." During his 2020 run, Gross sought to play up his Alaska ties, notably with an ad that said he "killed a grizzly bear in self defense after it snuck up on him." His campaign also ran a cutesy ad referring to Gross as the "bear doctor." This time, Gross is playing it differently. He has a campaign leadership team that includes Republicans, independents and Democrats, including former Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat. In: Sarah Palin | US Campaigns & Elections |
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Tudor Dixon has won Michigan's Republican nomination for governor, NBC News projects, emerging from one of the year's most turbulent primaries in a state where the general election will have major implications for the next presidential race.The former conservative media personality, who secured an endorsement last week from former President Donald Trump, will face Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was renominated without opposition Tuesday.Early results placed Dixon ahead of four rivals, including chiropractor Garrett Soldano; Kevin Rinke, a former Detroit-area car dealer who loaned $10 million to his campaign; and Ryan Kelley, a real estate broker and right-wing activist who was briefly a front-runner after his arrest on misdemeanor charges of being involved in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Dixon's win is in part a testament to the power of the DeVos family, kingmakers in Michigan politics who endorsed her and helped bankroll an aligned super PAC. And her victory gives Trump another ally within striking distance of a governorship and the authority to certify election results. Trump continues to falsely claim that a second term was stolen from him in 2020 and is teasing another run in 2024. At debates, Dixon answered affirmatively when asked if she believed Trump won Michigan, which went narrowly to President Joe Biden. She also has embraced disproven theories that fraud and untoward efforts by Democratic officeholders tipped the election to Biden. But Dixon's rhetoric has been less consistent and less forceful than claims echoed by other Trump allies in Michigan and across the country. In the closing days of the race, her opponents questioned her loyalty to the former president, seizing on a "Fox News Sunday" interview in which Dixon dodged when asked if she believed the 2020 election was stolen. After casting her ballot Tuesday morning near her home in western Michigan, Dixon similarly sidestepped a reporter's request to clarify her position."You know what? Today I think that's not an appropriate question," Dixon replied, adding that she was focused on her own election. "We've answered that quite a few times." In a year when messy GOP primaries have hardly been unusual, Michigan's offered more chaos than most — a crowded field of election-deniers, wealthy businesspeople throwing their money around, a scandal over petition signatures, a candidate arrested on Jan. 6 charges (Kelley has pleaded not guilty), a seven-figure advertising effort by national Democrats to slow Dixon's momentum and a late Trump endorsement that split the party.From left, Michigan Republican candidates for governor Ryan Kelley, Garrett Soldano, Tudor Dixon and Kevin Rinke at a debate on July 6.Michael Buck / WOOD TV8 via AP fileDixon appeared to be on track to clinch the nomination even before Trump weighed in. After entering the race as an unknown political quantity with low poll numbers and little cash, she capitalized on the missteps of better-positioned rivals.Her opponents — even before, but especially after, her evasive Fox News interview — had argued that the DeVos endorsement would make Dixon beholden to the establishment and, in the case of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, to a Trump turncoat who resigned from his Cabinet after blaming him for the deadly violence on Jan. 6. The DeVos-funded super PAC gave Dixon air cover, spending more than $2.5 million on ads, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Dixon spent only $118,000.Rinke put more than $1 million behind advertising that tied Dixon to DeVos and other GOP figures portrayed as RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only. Soldano, who built a devoted grassroots following by protesting Whitmer's Covid policies, routinely attacked Dixon's establishment patrons at debates.The GOP infighting and nastiness could fester into the fall. Soldano, in an interview Sunday with NBC News after a campaign event in Warren, said he would support Dixon if she won the primary but would do little to activate his fervent supporters for anyone other than himself."It's definitely fractured right now," Soldano said of the party.Despite efforts to frame her as an insufficiently conservative instrument of the establishment, Dixon projects a hard-line stance against abortion that Democrats have seized on to paint her as an extremist. (Dixon favors exceptions only when the mother's life is at risk.) She favors phasing out the state’s personal income tax and talks frequently about "parents' rights" in education — a front of the culture wars embraced by GOP candidates nationwide amid battles over the propriety of teaching students about racism and sexual orientation. She also has attacked the use of gender-neutral language as part of a "war on women."Dixon, Trump told listeners of a brief telephone "rally" he hosted for her Monday night, has "been on the front lines of the battle against left-wing indoctrination of our children."Few would have predicted Dixon’s rise. Before getting into conservative media she had worked as an actor on several low-budget films and for her family's steel company. Whitmer, a rising national star and frequent object of Trump's ire, figured to draw a marquee opponent. Prospects with far more familiar names, including two-time Senate candidate John James and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, were floated as possibilities but stayed out of the race. The GOP establishment, seeing no breakout star among Dixon and the other declared candidates, responded with enthusiasm when James Craig retired as Detroit's police chief to launch a run last year.Dixon had a few things going for her, though. She had hosted programs on Real America’s Voice, the network that also carries former Trump-adviser Steve Bannon’s right-wing talk show, and made friends within the former president's orbit. But it wasn't until other campaigns imploded that her fortunes began to improve. Craig and another top candidate, self-funding businessman Perry Johnson, were disqualified for submitting allegedly fraudulent petition signatures. Around that time, the DeVoses made known their preference for Dixon. Eventually, the ads placed by the super PAC they sponsored soon began to take root, springing Dixon into the lead in polls. | US Campaigns & Elections |
More than 1 million voters across 43 states have switched party affiliations to become Republicans over the last year, reversing Democratic gains that helped the Left overcome former President Donald Trump and gain control of Congress in 2020. Roughly 1.7 million voters have changed their voter affiliation since President Joe Biden took office, with about two-thirds of those crossing over to the Republican Party. Overall, 1 million switched to the GOP compared to just 630,000 who registered as Democrats, according to voter registration data analyzed by the Associated Press. The shift occurred in almost every region of the country, but it was most common in the suburbs as several well-educated swing voters who voted against Trump in 2020 appear to be warming up to the GOP once again. This could spell trouble for Democrats, who relied on gains from party-switching during the Trump administration to gain control of the House in 2018 and then the Senate and White House in 2020. Party-switching is not entirely uncommon, and it’s likely that several of the newly declared Republicans are Democratic voters who crossed party lines to vote in GOP primaries and are poised to switch back before the November election. However, it shows a sharp increase from party-switching numbers in previous election cycles where Democrats enjoyed slight edges over Republicans. The upswing in GOP voters does not ensure success for the party in the midterm elections when Republicans hope to seize control of Congress. However, it does give the party a slight advantage as it continues to fire at Democrats for their perceived failures at addressing inflation, rising gas prices, and the baby formula shortage. However, Democrats hope to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade to gain momentum with voters ahead of the November elections. The court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on Friday reversed the landmark case that legalized abortion nationwide and handed the decision back to the states.
The Associated Press analyzed data provided by L2, a political data firm, which suggested almost 1.7 million voters switched party affiliations in 42 states over the last 12 months. L2 gathered this data by combining state voter records and statistical modeling. | US Campaigns & Elections |
As midterm elections heat up, political campaigns are beginning to think differently and trying some unorthodox methods to win.Recently, there have been efforts by Democratic PACs to steer Republican voters to specific candidates in primaries.In Maryland, one Democratic PAC, DGA Action, ran ads promoting Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump.A voter casts their ballot at a polling place at the Baltimore War Memorial Building during the midterm primary election on July 19, 2022 in Baltimore, Maryland.Nathan Howard/Getty ImagesOther races are taking similar approaches.ABC News Political Director Rick Klein spoke with "START HERE" Wednesday about this strategy and its effectiveness.START HERE: Rick, why would Democrats try to help a Trump Republican win a primary?KLEIN: Because they think that Trump Republican would be easier to beat. You know, in some ways, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book. You try to choose your own opponent because you think you can beat the other person.And you do it in this case with the kind of false praise of saying, Oh, this person is 100% MAGA or 100% pro-life. Of course, that's a badge of honor inside a Republican primary and the Democrats that are spending millions of dollars to boost those far-right opponents, they know that.But what makes this different is we're talking about individuals who are flat-out election deniers. In the case of Cox, the person that Democrats are boosting in the state of Maryland, this is someone who bused supporters into the Capitol on January 6, although he says he didn't enter himself. And as the riot was ongoing, he tweeted and later deleted that [then-Vice President] Mike Pence is a traitor.There's a lot of history of screwing around and the other side's primary, but the stakes this time could be different.START HERE: Rick, what if it doesn't work? Because I'm trying to think of the last really Trumpy candidate that was seen as a walkover. Oh, that's right. His name was Donald Trump. A lot of people said Hillary Clinton got what she wished for. She still lost. So why should Democrats think that will not happen again?KLEIN: Yeah, it's a huge risk. And forget Maryland, because Maryland's probably not a battleground state in 2024. But guess what is: Pennsylvania.That's where Democrats spent money to try to boost Doug Mastriano, a state senator who again was at the Capitol on January 6 and is one of the staunchest Trump supporters in the nation. He'd be in a position, if he's governor, to name the next secretary of state to oversee the next election. That's a dangerous place to have an election denier.You also saw Democrats try to do this and succeed in Illinois. They failed in Colorado, another battleground state. But the other consequences of this misfiring are vast. And it's why even some Democrats are saying, 'wait a second, this is not a time to be playing politics as usual.' You have to be careful about this. Already with the data that ABC has compiled, along with FiveThirtyEight, we're talking about more than 120 Republican candidates on the ballot this fall for major offices like secretary of state or governor or for Congress who deny the legitimacy of the last election. That's just different than we've seen in the past and underscores how risky this strategy really is.The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. is seen on July 13, 2022.Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto via APSTART HERE: And there's no reason to think that if another election came along featuring Donald Trump or not, that that wasn't seen as favorable to Republicans, that these same people would not say no, that you should throw those results out. Rick, in the meantime, I'm trying to figure out what even this midterm election landscape looks like compared to a couple of months ago, because a lot of people figured Republicans were kind of a lock to take back the House and the Senate. President Biden's approval hasn't been so hot, but all that, of course, was before Roe v. Wade was overturned. Is there a different sense now of where each party stands?KLEIN: Yeah, there's an interesting trend that's starting to emerge, Brad, where the president's numbers are still pretty bad historically; about as bad as any president at this point in his term. And the numbers in the House kind of reflect that. The Democrats are almost certainly going to lose control of the House. But something different is happening in Senate races.You're seeing Democrats begin to do a little bit better on what we call the generic ballot. Do you support a Democrat or a Republican? And abortion rights and gun violence and all the other issues they may be adding into that. Despite the drag that inflation has. But the other thing that's happening is that Republicans are putting up a lot of flawed candidates, some of whom, as we've been discussing, put up there because of Democrats meddling in primaries, other cases, just because Trump has been such a loud voice.In places like Georgia [and] Ohio, [and] like Pennsylvania's governor's race and Senate race with Dr. Oz. You have a situation where the Republicans may not have their best choice on the playing field and it might boost Democrats' chances. And it has a lot of Democrats thinking, 'you know what, we've got a shot at keeping the Senate despite all of the headwinds we're facing this year.'[] | US Campaigns & Elections |
A voter marks a ballot during the primary election and abortion referendum at a Wyandotte County polling station in Kansas City, Kansas, U.S. August 2, 2022. REUTERS/Eric CoxRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - The fight over abortion rights and former President Donald Trump's influence loomed large as voters in several states went to the polls on Tuesday. Here are some takeaways from the latest 2022 midterm election primaries:ABORTION BATTLE LINES DRAWN IN MICHIGANIn the Michigan governor's race, there will be no middle ground when it comes to abortion rights.Tudor Dixon, a relative political unknown who received a last-minute endorsement from former President Donald Trump, emerged from the Republican pack on Tuesday to take on Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer in November’s general election.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWhitmer has made the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of constitutional protection for abortion a centerpiece in her re-election campaign. Dixon supports a near-total ban on abortion, including for child victims of rape and incest, with the only exception for cases when the life of the mother is at risk.A legal battle is being waged in the state over enforcement of a 1931 abortion ban. At the same time, supporters of abortion rights are seeking to place a measure on the November ballot that would legalize abortion in the state.With just three months until the election, longtime Republican pollster Steve Mitchell said Dixon has enough time to mount a competitive challenge to Whitmer and should see a strong flow of campaign funds from outside the state.Dixon is a former businesswoman in the steel industry who has billed herself as a “conservative mom” of four who opposed COVID-19 lockdowns at schools. Mitchell said she could appeal to like-minded parents and make a strong foil to Whitmer, who often talks about her own role as a mother of daughters and also faced criticism for her coronavirus lockdown orders.“It’s going to be a fascinating race,” Mitchell said. “In my opinion, none of the men (in the Republican field) could have beaten Whitmer.”KANSAS SENDS SIGNALWith preserving abortion rights a rallying cry for Democratic candidates across the country, Republicans may have gotten a jarring wake-up call in Kansas about the issue’s potency.Voters soundly defeated a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have declared that there is no right to abortion. While the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, the Kansas Supreme Court had found the state constitution independently protected abortion rights.While Kansas is conservative-leaning state that consistently votes Republican in presidential elections, it does have a Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, and a large suburban voting population in the Kansas City area.Since Roe was overturned, Democrats have hoped that the issue would galvanize voters nationwide, particularly in states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where the legislatures are controlled by anti-abortion Republicans. Polls have consistently shown that a substantial majority of Americans support the right to abortion – at least during the first trimester of pregnancy.Republican pollster Sarah Longwell, who regularly conducts focus groups on the issue, said on Twitter that the Kansas results should worry Republican candidates who support abortion bans without exception.“This has gotta send a chill up the spine of the many GOP candidates running campaigns saying there should be no exceptions for rape, incest, or life of the mother,” Longwell posted.ERIC VS. ERICOne Eric won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Missouri and another Eric lost. As far as national Republicans are concerned, the right Eric prevailed.Eric Schmitt, the state attorney general, defeated former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, whose campaign was marred by allegations of abuse by his ex-wife.Polls ahead of the primary showed that if Greitens were to win the nomination, he could struggle in a November matchup against the Democratic candidate and perhaps jeopardize a Senate seat that Republicans cannot afford to lose if they want to seize control of the chamber. A Republican-affiliated group launched a TV campaign to derail Greitens’ chances.None of that dissuaded Trump from taking the unusual tack on Monday of endorsing “ERIC” without specifying which one, leading both candidates to claim Trump’s support and giving Greitens a lifeline. read more Schmitt is now expected to win the seat handily this fall, sparing the party from having to divert resources to Missouri that it had earmarked for other Senate races.Republicans need a net gain of one seat to take control of the chamber.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia OstermanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | US Campaigns & Elections |
A multi-candidate Democratic primary in Manhattan has tightened considerably in recent weeks due to gains made by challenger Suraj Patel, according to a poll commissioned by Patel’s campaign.The survey of Democratic primary voters in New York’s 12th Congressional District found that Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler each enjoy 31% support ahead of Patel with 25% support.Patel, an attorney and business ethics lecturer, is highlighting his improved standing since early June when an internal poll showed him with 19% support. “We’ve tapped into both a moment and an argument for change here against two incumbents who are running campaigns that are very, very much backwards-looking at a time when people are looking for hope and light at the end of the tunnel,” Patel told HuffPost.Patel’s advance in his internal polling follows a month of television advertising. He beat Maloney and Nadler to the airwaves with his first ad in late June.The campaign’s poll, conducted by Whitman Insight Strategies, used live phone and text-to-web questions among 300 likely Democratic primary voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 5.65 percentage points.Primaries are often difficult to accurately poll. A race in late August decoupled from statewide intraparty contests could be especially tough to survey. (A federal judge required New York to postpone congressional primaries for about two months so candidates would have enough time to campaign in the new districts.)In New York’s 12th, polling has been accordingly sparse. Maloney led Nadler by 10 points and Patel had just 4% support in a May survey conducted by Emerson College for PIX11.Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, both approaching three decades in Congress, have not gone easy on each other in their primary battle.Patrick Semansky/J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressThe primary in New York’s 12th has been dominated by very public sniping between Nadler and Maloney, both of whom are approaching 30 years in Congress. Nadler has argued that he is more progressive than Maloney, noting his support for the Iran nuclear agreement and opposition to the Iraq War. Maloney has drawn on her career as a trailblazing female elected official to argue that she is best-equipped to confront the country’s challenges following the Supreme Court decision overturning a federal right to abortion. She concludes her first TV ad with the words, “You cannot send a man to do a woman’s job.”Patel, an East Village resident who identifies as a “pragmatic progressive,” has proposed a suite of policies designed to combat inflation that he calls ”the abundant society.” He also espouses a non-interventionist foreign policy that is closer to Nadler’s than Maloney’s in orientation, and has attacked Maloney for previously amplifying skepticism of childhood vaccination regimens.Patel’s main focus, however, has been in appealing to voters interested in a new generation of leadership, especially people living in parts of Manhattan that neither Maloney nor Nadler currently represent. The election will be a “referendum on their effectiveness contrasted with a message for the future,” Patel predicted.This is Patel’s third consecutive campaign to unseat Maloney, who lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The contest fundamentally changed in April, however, when New York’s top court struck down New York Democrats’ redistricting lines and ordered the drawing of nonpartisan congressional and state Senate boundaries. The new, court-ordered maps that emerged in May placed Patel, Maloney and Nadler, a resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, in the same district. Rana Abdelhamid, a left-wing Google employee from Astoria, Queens, subsequently withdrew from the race, leaving the newcomer lane to Patel and Ashmi Sheth, a former bank regulator at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.Maloney, Nadler and Patel are due to compete in a televised debate at 7 p.m. Tuesday on NY1.Early voting begins in New York’s congressional primary elections on Aug. 13. Election Day is Aug. 23. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Prominent elected Democrats are meeting with political donors, courting national attention by attacking leading Republicans and positioning themselves for a run for the White House if President Joe Biden steps aside. Most visible has been California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has taken a match to his party, accusing Democrats of inaction in the lead-up to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. “Where the hell is my party?” Newsom asked in May after a leaked draft opinion indicated that the Supreme Court was preparing to overturn the 1973 precedent finding a constitutional right to abortion. The blue state governor later said the charge was “not an individual gripe with anybody,” but Democrats had failed “to capture the narrative, to capture the imagination of the American people.” “What is going on in the Democratic Party nationwide? I cannot answer that question,” the governor said during an interview with Fox LA in June. Newsom was again scoring national attention when, weeks later, he was on air in Florida asking Fox News viewers to consider “what’s going on in America.” The state is led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is up for reelection this fall and is considered a Republican presidential possibility in 2024. BIDEN GOING 'BACK TO THE FUTURE' WITH 'ZOMBIE DEVOTION TO ARAB DICTATORSHIPS' “Freedom is under attack in your state,” Newsom said in the Independence Day advertisement, urging voters in a state thousands of miles from where he is on the gubernatorial ballot this year “to join the fight — or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom: Freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate, and the freedom to love.” Newsom has called “nonsensical” the notion that his pitch has anything to do with a future run for the White House, an interest he has previously registered at “subzero.” “It’s a nonstarter,” he told the Sacramento Bee during a visit to Washington last week while Biden traveled to the Middle East. Instead, the California governor said he was motivated by an “emotional response” to DeSantis threatening the Special Olympics with penalties if it imposed a vaccine mandate on its Orlando 2022 Games. Newsom’s stops at the White House and Capitol Hill did little to quiet speculation, though he insisted otherwise and said his state was ready to support the Biden administration however needed. During lunch with Vice President Kamala Harris, a fellow California Democrat, Newsom stressed his “unwavering support” for the administration, a readout from his office said. Throughout, the governor touted California’s work to mitigate climate change, beat back abortion restrictions, reduce gun violence, and stifle inflation — homing in on just a few of Democratic voters’ major frustrations with Washington. Speculation over who could lead a Democratic ticket comes as voters say they are eager for new leadership. A recent poll showed that just 26% of Democrats want Biden at the top of the ticket in 2024. Among younger voters, the number was still starker, with just 5% of those under 30 stating that the party should renominate the current president. Like Newsom, Harris has said she expects Biden to run for reelection, stating in June that if he does, she will be at his side. And like Biden, Harris is saddled with low approval numbers. If Biden steps aside, Harris would likely face challengers to the nomination, perhaps more than a dozen. Earlier this month, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) predicted “a 20-person field” during an interview with reporter Tara Palmeri. “It will be a very contested election,” Khanna said. Khanna, another potential Democratic prospect, brushed off the speculation. Strategists are eyeing the future field, with Newsom’s moves attracting particular notice. “We got to see a glimpse of the future of the Democratic Party versus the future of the Republican Party; Newsom versus DeSantis,” said Sasha Tirador, a Florida Democratic consultant, referring to Newsom’s July pitch to Florida voters. California strategists last year credited Newsom’s political advisers with a coup that kept other Democrats off of a recall ballot that could have booted him from office. They also predicted Newsom and Harris facing off one day for the White House. Despite his plummeting approval numbers, Biden has signaled that he would welcome a rematch against former President Donald Trump, telling Israeli television that he “would not be disappointed” to face the former president. But Tirador said the speculation was misplaced, calling the back-and-forth over a potential rematch between the 2020 nominees “a waste of time.” “The 2024 presidential election will be between the governor of California and the governor of Florida,” she said. Despite Biden's assurances, it is Newsom who appears to have captured the Democratic zeitgeist. “Democratic activists seem to be yearning for someone who is going to take up the fight more aggressively, and more confrontationally,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Pepperdine University, and the University of Southern California and veteran of gubernatorial and presidential campaigns. “That's exactly what Newsom is giving them right now.” Schnur continued: “There are other Democrats who do that, but most of them — Bernie Sanders, or AOC — come from the far left. Newsom hits hard from the center left.” Tirador said the California governor was filling a void left empty by the top of the party. “I finally heard a Democratic elected official ask the same question I’ve been asking for some time, ‘Where is the Democratic Party?’” she continued. “[Newsom] understands that we need to take the fight to another level if we want to have a fighting chance.” Newsom, Harris, and other Democrats have lately been in touch with donors, leading to speculation that they are preparing the foundations of a future campaign. A finance executive and fundraiser for Biden’s 2020 campaign told CNBC that Harris and Newsom had both reached out to him in recent weeks. According to the outlet, Harris has also been in contact with early political allies and supporters, including billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and Vanessa Getty, whose husband is an heir to the billionaire Getty family. The 2024 race did not come up in meetings at the vice president’s residences, sources told CNBC, but the moves suggest Harris is preparing to tap her donor base for a future run alongside Biden or not. Harris has also taken on a stepped-up role in the wake of the Supreme Court's abortion decision, meeting with advocates and speaking at events across the country to warn how the ruling could extend to other constitutional privacy decisions. The issue has animated Democratic voters and could provide a boost to Harris. “Any politician who wanted to gain a national platform, that message is really resonating with where our voters are,” Sean McElwee, a Democratic pollster, recently told the Atlantic. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER For a vice president whose portfolio in office includes the tasks of stemming migration to the southern border and a stalled voting rights effort, tapping this vein of Democratic outrage to reach voters may help propel her toward another shot at the presidency in 2024, or four years later in 2028. “They all want to be ready just in case [Biden] doesn’t run,” Schnur said. “Every single one of them remembers that Barack Obama made his first mark on the national political landscape during John Kerry’s campaign.” | US Campaigns & Elections |
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images After a busy May and June, July is a lonely month for primaries. Maryland is the only state holding a primary election for Congress or a major statewide office this month, after its primary was delayed from June 28 due to redistricting litigation. And a few races in the Old Line State follow some of the same storylines we’ve seen so far this year, including continued Democratic battles over race and ideology, the impact of outside spending in Democratic primaries and Trump’s continued influence in Republican intraparty contests. Here’s a look at the three contests we’re watching closely today, with interesting primaries in two U.S. House seats and competitive races in both parties’ primaries for governor. Races to watch: 4th and 6th congressional districts; governor Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is term-limited, so the open-seat race for governor in this usually solid-blue state has attracted a total of nine Democratic contenders,1 as there’s a good chance the party will be favored in November. A range of candidates are running, too, with six notable Democrats in the mix — three of whom look poised to win the nomination. Of those three, Marylanders are probably the most familiar with four-term state Comptroller Peter Franchot. The political veteran has a reputation as a populist with a knack for garnering attention, and since Hogan entered office, Franchot has become close to the governor despite their party differences because of their shared goal of reducing state spending and cutting taxes. Still, the 74-year-old Franchot, who is white, might face a tough sell in convincing Black Marylanders, who could make up 40 percent or more of the primary electorate, that he’ll build an economy with a “level playing field.” His running mate, former Prince George’s County Councilor Monique Anderson-Walker, is Black and has been prominently featured in his ad focused on helping people build wealth. Also in serious contention is Wes Moore, an author and former nonprofit CEO who has an impressive biography. Moore, who is Black, lost his father as a child and was sent off to military school, which he points to as a catalyst for becoming an Army captain, a Rhodes Scholar and, later, the CEO of an anti-poverty nonprofit. Moore also wrote a bestselling memoir and went on to host a show on the Oprah Winfrey Network (notably, Winfrey has cut an ad for Moore). But it’s possible that certain elements of Moore’s profile are exaggerated, in particular his connection to Baltimore; he didn’t actually grow up there despite coverage that suggests he did. Moore has also been accused of failing to correct past interviewers who said he had earned a Bronze Star during his Army service. This hasn’t dissuaded notable Democrats from supporting him, however. In Moore’s camp is Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who represents Baltimore, as well as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and the two Democratic leaders in the state legislature. Finally, the other top-tier contender is Tom Perez, former chair of the Democratic National Committee and a secretary of labor under President Barack Obama. Perez has built a national profile in the past decade, but he’s also been involved in Maryland politics, having served as a council president in Montgomery County in the early 2000s and then as Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s labor secretary. The son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Perez is running on the message that he’ll “get stuff done,” and notably, he’s attracted primary endorsements from the state’s two main newspapers, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun, which could provide a small boost in a highly competitive primary with a large number of undecided voters. Three other candidates merit a mention, though. First, there’s former Secretary of Education John King, who served in Obama’s Cabinet and has mounted a progressive campaign that has gained the backing of the Sierra Club, Our Revolution and Pro-Choice Maryland. Then there’s former Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, who is running as a tough-on-crime moderate who also wants to protect the environment. But Gansler may be held back by scandals that upended his 2014 gubernatorial campaign, such as directing state troopers to speed with their lights and sirens on so he could get to routine appointments and attending a party where underage drinking appeared to be happening. Lastly, nonprofit executive Jon Baron is in the mix, having self-funded his campaign, which pledges to take a more evidence-based approach to developing policy solutions. Polls generally put Franchot, Moore and Perez in a three-way battle for first, although King’s polling suggests he’s also a contender. The most recent independent poll from Goucher College/The Baltimore Banner/WYPR found in mid-June that Franchot was leading with 16 percent and Moore and Perez were tied for second with 14 percent. Meanwhile, the rest of the field was in the low-to-mid single digits. Two late June surveys sponsored by campaigns also showed a close race. A Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group poll for Moore’s campaign found Franchot and Moore running neck and neck at around 20 percent, with Perez at 16 percent, while a 20/20 Insight survey on behalf of King’s campaign found Perez leading with 22 percent and Moore, King and Franchot in a close fight for second in the mid-to-high teens. With the race so tight, campaign spending could make the difference. And it’s Moore who has led on this front: In tandem with his running mate, former Del. Aruna Miller, his campaign has attracted $7.9 million and had the most money for the final weeks of the campaign (about $810,000 as of July 3). Franchot and Anderson-Walker meanwhile have raised around $4.5 million. Although Franchot started the cycle with $977,000 in the bank from previous campaigns, he had about $630,000 left as of July 3. Close behind were Perez and his running mate, former Baltimore City Councilor Shannon Sneed, who brought in $4.4 million and had $645,000 remaining. King’s campaign has also raised a fair bit ($3.6 million), but only had about $208,000 left over. As for the other two candidates, they’ve largely self-funded, with Baron loaning his campaign $1.7 million out of $2.3 million raised, and Gansler loaning his campaign $800,000 of $1.3 million; as of July 3, Baron had $337,000 in the bank while Gansler had about $550,000. Meanwhile on the Republican side, the gubernatorial primary is a clash between a Hogan-backed candidate and a Trump endorsee. On Team Hogan is former Maryland Secretary of Commerce Kelly Schulz. Schulz served under Hogan and is now portraying herself as his natural successor, which could be smart as Hogan, who has endorsed Schulz, has proven to be a popular GOP governor in a blue state. On Team Trump, meanwhile, is state Del. Dan Cox, who is running as a vocal Trump supporter and has the former president’s endorsement. But considering Maryland’s strong Democratic lean, a Cox victory might preclude a competitive race in the fall. Schulz’s challenge, however, has been how to balance appealing to conservative primary voters while not repelling parts of the state’s Democratic-leaning electorate that she needs in the general. To that end, she has focused on parental rights in education, a topic that Republicans believe boosted them in 2021, as well as opposing increased spending and higher taxes, issues that helped Hogan achieve an upset win in 2014. Her campaign has also hit Cox on his early stances on COVID-19 preventive measures and ethics. And more recently, the Schulz campaign has attacked Cox, who is an attorney, for defending an alleged child rapist. For his part, Cox has played to the GOP base by opposing vaccine and mask mandates and abortion rights. Cox has also promoted the false claim that Trump won the 2020 election, and even chartered buses for Trump supporters to attend Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, which later turned into a violent attack on the Capitol, during which Cox tweeted “Pence is a traitor” over then-Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. More recently, Cox sponsored legislation to impeach Hogan, although it ultimately went nowhere. But this, in addition to Cox’s other hard-right positions and dalliances with QAnon conspiracists, has led Schulz’s campaign to call him “unfit for office.” Schulz has had the financial upper hand throughout the campaign, as she’s raised about $2.6 million to Cox’s $662,000. She also entered the final weeks with more in the bank, $734,000 versus Cox’s $189,000. However, in a replay of what we’ve seen throughout this primary season, Democrats have sought to boost Cox with outside spending: The Democratic Governors Association has reserved at least $1.2 million in ads calling Cox “too conservative for Maryland,” which doubles as an attack ad (should Cox win) but also as a means to influence Republicans to support him. The little polling we have suggests that the DGA’s investment could pay off, though. The most recent survey, that mid-June poll from Goucher College/The Baltimore Banner/WYPR, found Cox running just ahead of Schulz, 25 percent to 22 percent. But with 44 percent undecided, a lot of voters still remain on the fence. Notably, however, that same poll found that Schulz is far more likely to make November competitive than Cox. The survey asked Democrats if they’d consider voting for either Republican, and while only 9 percent said they’d consider Cox, 34 percent said they’d potentially consider Schulz. Turning to Maryland’s two congressional primaries of note, Democrats have a highly contested race in the majority-Black 4th District, a deep-blue seat mostly centered on Prince George’s County, outside of Washington, D.C. Democratic Rep. Anthony Brown is running for attorney general, so the open-seat race has attracted a bevy of Democrats, but two contenders seem to have risen above the rest of the primary field: former Rep. Donna Edwards, who represented this seat from 2008 to 2017, and former Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey (both candidates are Black). Outside spending, driven largely by groups focused on Israel, is the main story here, though. The United Democracy Project, a super PAC partly funded by the bipartisan American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has invested heavily to defeat Edwards, whom AIPAC views as anti-Israel. In total, UDP has spent $4.2 million opposing her and $1.7 million supporting Ivey, running ads dinging Edwards for a poor record of constituent services and promoting Ivey’s record on combating crime and police misconduct. The Democratic Majority for Israel has also backed Ivey with $426,000. Meanwhile, J Street, a more progressive Israel-focused group, has spent $728,000 supporting Edwards or opposing Ivey. Overall, though, the nearly $8 million in spending by outside groups dwarfs the $940,000 and $737,000 spent by the Ivey and Edwards campaigns, respectively. Polling has been scarce, but the most recent survey found Ivey just ahead of Edwards, 33 percent to 28 percent. However, that survey, which was conducted by Change Research on behalf of the pro-Edwards League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, is from early June, before much of the spending by pro-Ivey groups took place. So, if there’s a favorite, it’s probably Ivey, although Edwards does have backing from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, labor groups and EMILY’s List. Finally, the 6th District in western Maryland has a competitive GOP primary, with the winner set to face Democratic Rep. David Trone. The new congressional map made the 6th District much more competitive, too, turning it into a seat that is 1 point more Republican than the country as a whole,2 as opposed to the old D+16 boundaries. Six Republicans are running, but the two main contenders are state Del. Neil Parrott and Matthew Foldi, a former writer for the conservative Washington Free Beacon. We haven’t seen any polling, so it’s hard to say who might come out on top. Only 25 years old, Foldi entered the race just before the April filing deadline but has endorsements from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Hogan. Foldi also raised about $223,000 in just one fundraising quarter of activity — a decent haul considering Parrott has brought in $328,000 over a much longer period of time. Foldi’s first ad highlighted his background as a reporter and his exposés about Democratic offices, including Trone’s, closing due to COVID-19 concerns. Still, Parrott isn’t to be discounted, as he may have a stronger base of local support and name recognition from his work as a member of the state legislature and his losing campaign against Trone in 2020 under the old lines. He also has backing from the Family Research Council and Rep. Andy Harris, currently the only Republican U.S. House member from Maryland. Considering the potentially Republican-leaning environment and the purple nature of this seat, either Republican could give Trone trouble. But Trone will likely have more campaign cash at his disposal thanks to his personal wealth from his ownership of a wine store chain; he’s already given his campaign almost $12.6 million. Well, that’s the July primary picture for you. We won’t be live-blogging the Maryland primary, but if you’re monitoring the results (we will be), remember that state law prohibits the counting of mail ballots before the Thursday after the election, meaning a sizable number of votes (particularly Democratic ones) will probably still need to be counted after Tuesday night. Footnotes After Rushern Baker dropped out of the race in June.
Partisan lean is the average margin difference between how a state or district votes and how the country votes overall. This version of partisan lean, meant to be used for congressional and gubernatorial elections, is calculated as 50 percent the state or district’s lean relative to the nation in the most recent presidential election, 25 percent its relative lean in the second-most-recent presidential election and 25 percent a custom state-legislative lean. Geoffrey Skelley is an elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight. @geoffreyvs | US Campaigns & Elections |
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman wants to get more Democrats elected to Congress this fall, but first, he has to defeat some Democrats this summer.The billionaire is spending millions on campaigns against what his advisors see as radical, far-left Democrats in hopes of getting more moderate Democrats to November's general elections where the party will have a better chance of beating Republicans and maintaining control of Congress.Hoffman has already donated over $4 million to the 2022 midterm election cycle, including almost $2 million to the Mainstream Democrats PAC and the House Majority PAC, combined. The political action committees have either taken aim at what Hoffman's political strategist called "extremist" candidates or backed their opponents running in House races."Our political philanthropy is focused on weakening the political power of the anti-American Trump-MAGA movement," said Dmitri Mehlhorn, Hoffman's chief political advisor. "Far left groups, such as the Justice Democrats, help the MAGA movement by attacking centrist Democrats who can win general elections."Hoffman is backing PACs that oppose candidates who have links to the Justice Democrats, a political action committee that's supports members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The caucus is a group of some of the most liberal and outspoken Democrats in the House, including Rep. Maxine Waters of California and New York Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jerrold Nadler."Given the damage the Justice Democrats and their allies have done to the Democrats brand, we had to put some modest capital into fighting back," Mehlhorn said, declining further comment about Hoffman's next round of donations.In a recent meeting with some of the nation's wealthiest financiers, Hoffman warned that if Republican candidates with deep loyalties to former President Donald Trump win in the 2022 midterm elections, they could "install Trump in 2024 regardless of the vote," according to Puck News and the Washington Post. He called the GOP candidates "MAGA leaders."Hoffman has been a major political donor for years, including during the 2020 election when he actively raised money for President Joe Biden's campaign and donated over $2 million toward super PACs backing his candidacy for the White House. Super PACs, like the Mainstream Democrats, can spend and raise an unlimited amount of money to take on their opponents. Hoffman and the Mainstream Democrats PAC did not return requests for comment.He hosted a virtual fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee last year, with tickets going as high as $875,000. Biden thanked Hoffman for his "generous support" during the event, according to a White House transcript of the president's remarks.Federal Election Commission records show Hoffman has already contributed $500,000 this election cycle to the Mainstream Democrats PAC, which is campaigning against liberal Democrats running against moderates in their primary election fights. The donation, which was sent to the PAC in February, is one of the top contributions to the outside group so far. It's raised just over $2.6 million in the 2022 election cycle and spent almost the same amount in Democratic primaries, according to FEC records.House Majority PAC Executive Director Abby Curran Horrell praised Hoffman and said they look forward to working with him again."House Majority PAC is grateful to Reid Hoffman for his support of our shared goals to win competitive House races, secure a House Democratic Majority, and protect our democracy – and we look forward to continuing our work together," Horrell said in a statement to CNBC. The House Majority PAC is a so-called hybrid PAC, which can contribute to campaigns and act as a super PAC at the same time.Hoffman is part of a growing group of Democratic tech executives who favor more moderate candidates, according to one Democratic political strategist, who asked not to be named to speak freely of private conversations with clients. Those donors believe more liberal Democrats can't win in a general election in toss up districts and will just undercut the party's chances of controlling Congress, said the strategist, who isn't advising Hoffman but has other big donors as clients in the tech field."People like Reid are having the reaction of 'these Democrats are useless. They are killing these moderates off. What's the alternative? You can't go to the Republicans because they have these people who are completely off the wall," this advisor said.David Tamasi, a veteran lobbyist and Republican fundraiser, said in an interview that the money Hoffman's putting toward taking on Trump aligned Republicans may not be enough to stop them from getting elected in November, with many using the fledgling economy as part of their campaign message."You have to be very strategic and have a real good understanding of the race dynamics so that the money you're putting in can be additive and not cancelled out because five dollar a gallon gas relentlessly communicated through earned media is going to overwhelm whatever you put in," Tamasi said.Justice Democrats was formed after the 2016 election by alumni and allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign for president. It's sole purpose is to back progressive Democratic candidates. The group has backed members of the so-called "Squad," including Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush.All of these lawmakers are part of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The Hoffman funded Mainstream Democrats PAC has taken on Jessica Cisneros and Nina Turner, a Sanders ally, who lost in primary for an Ohio House seat. Both candidates were backed by the Justice Democrats. Records show the Mainstream Democrats PAC spent over $150,000 against Turner.Mehlhorn, Hoffman's advisor, said the Mainstream Democrats PAC is among several groups he sees as a counterweight to Democrats and Republicans he labeled as "extremists.""The Mainstream Democrats Project is one of several initiatives designed to help Democrats capture the center and win elections against Democratic extremists in primaries and Republican extremists in the general elections," he said. The Mainstream Democrats PAC is tied to Defending Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel advocacy group that runs a political action committee which spent over $1 million opposing Sanders during the 2020 election, records show.Still, according to people familiar with the matter, Hoffman's six figure donation to Mainstream Democrats PAC and his other contributions so far are just the beginning for the longtime political donor this cycle, with more money set to go toward such groups in the coming months. These people declined to be named in order to speak freely about private deliberations.The outside groups backed by Hoffman have, so far, seen mixed results.Data from OpenSecrets shows the Mainstream Democrats PAC spent over $750,000 backing Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas in the buildup up to his primary runoff against Cisneros. Cuellar has said he is a "pro-life" Democrat and was the only lawmaker in his party who voted against a House bill last year that would codify abortion rights protections.Cisneros conceded to Cuellar last week after calling for a recount. The race was decided by less than 300 votes, according to NBC News.Fellow House moderate Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., saw over $580,000 from the PAC backing him while his opponent, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, saw just under $200,000 spent against her in the primary fight. Schrader, who was endorsed by Biden, recently conceded to McLeod-Skinner.The House Majority PAC spent almost $1 million backing Carrick Flynn in an Oregon House primary. Flynn conceded in his race to Oregon state Rep. Andrea Salinas, who was backed by progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.The Cook Political Report says the races for Cuellar's Texas district and Oregon's 5th district where McLeod-Skinner won are both toss ups. Salinas' targeted Oregon district is marked by Cook Political Report as "likely Democrat" and is not expected to be competitive.In a statement to CNBC, Justice Democrats spokesman Waleed Shahid, ripped Hoffman for financing the group opposing Cisneros, and explained that their progressive PAC is working to "align the party with its working-class base.""Billionaire Reid Hoffman financing an extreme pro-NRA, anti-union, and anti-choice Democrat in Henry Cuellar's candidacy in the name of 'Mainstream Democrats' is disgraceful," Shahid said in an email. "If the Democratic Party was backing principals like Jamaal Bowman, nurses like Cori Bush, bartenders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or human rights attorneys like Jessica Cisneros, then Justice Democrats wouldn't have to exist."Separately, Hoffman has had preliminary conversations with data and tech specialists as they've pitched to him the concept of funding another data startup, with the idea that the type of a venture could help Democrats with voter registration and overall analytics in the upcoming elections, according to people familiar with the matter.Hoffman has yet to agree to the pitch, these people explained, after he invested almost $20 million into a data based nonprofit called Alloy during the 2020 election cycle, which later shutdown after the Democratic National Committee decided against working with them.The DNC announced in July that they were investing $25 million into new tools to help register voters for the midterms, with some of those funds going to what the committee describes as "largest tech team in the history of the DNC."A spokesman for the DNC did not return a request for comment. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin raised only a fraction of his campaign funds from voters in his home state, according to a Fox News Digital analysis, while out-of-state contributions and corporate donations make up the bulk of his fundraising.Manchin, who shocked Washington last week after announcing an agreement to advance a green energy and pharmaceutical spending bill called the Inflation Reduction Act, received approximately $6.1 million from individual donors who gave more than $200 in aggregate to his campaign between January 2021 and June 30, 2022, according to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings. Of that total, only about $65,000 donations came from individuals residing in West Virginia, while over $6 million came from individuals in other states. Manchin also received around $176,000 in small dollar donations, but it's unclear how much of that came from individuals in West Virginia since campaigns are not required to report donor information on contributions under $200. Manchin is not up for re-election until 2024 — and he has not announced whether he will seek another term in the Senate. Manchin's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.SCHUMER-MANCHIN SOCIAL SPENDING AND TAX BILL FACES MAJOR HURDLES AS DEMS SEEK QUICK PASSAGE Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., left, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (F. Carter Smith/Kent Nishimura)The Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin announced as an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., last week, includes $433 billion in new spending on green energy programs and expanded Affordable Care Act benefits. The new spending would be paid for through raising $739 billion in revenue through a corporate tax increase and stricter IRS enforcement. The balance of the additional revenue would offset the deficit, leading Democrats to insist that the bill will reduce inflation in the future. The bill faces numerous hurdles to pass in the Senate before the August recess, including ensuring that all 50 Democrats are able to be in Washington to vote. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., has also not announced whether she would vote for the bill. Sinema and Manchin were major factors in tanking the massive Build Back Better spending proposals in President Biden's first year in office.GREEN NEW DEAL DEMOCRATS CHANGE TUNE ON JOE MANCHIN AFTER $433 BILLION CLIMATE, INFLATION BILLManchin's support for the bill, which includes large payments for green energy grants and programs, is in part due to other provisions in the bill that could benefit West Virginia energy production.The bill includes provisions to streamline pipeline production for natural gas, for instance. Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., however, criticized the bill as "raising taxes on West Virginia’s coal mining industry and providing subsides to liberals in deep blue states to drive electric vehicles" in a local newspaper column last week. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks to reporters in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Aug. 1, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told Politico that Manchin would have trouble convincing his voters that the bill is good for West Virginia."It’s not good for the state, and I think it’s difficult to sell in the state," Capito said.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPSince the Inflation Reduction Act was announced, Republicans have criticized Manchin for caving to Biden's political agenda after holding the line against the Build Back Better proposals. And some suggest that he would face a challenging path to re-election if he runs again.Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Manchin's seat would be a target of the GOP in 2024, Politico reported. Thomas Phippen is an Editor at Fox News. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin, left, at a news conference in May; Citadel Founder and CEO Ken Griffin, right, at an event in the Hyde Park neighborhood in May.Anthony Vazquez; Pat Nabong/Sun-Times file A big chunk of money from the state’s richest man could not buy much Republican primary love for conservative businessman Ken Griffin’s slate of candidates in Tuesday’s election for Illinois governor and other statewide offices.Days after announcing his family and business would leave the state for Florida, Griffin reaped a weak return on his $50 million investment in the formerly obscure mayor of Aurora, Richard Irvin.Instead, the winner in the proxy battle of right-wing billionaires was Dick Uihlein, the Lake Forest packaging magnate who was the primary source of funds for the successful campaign of state Sen. Darren Bailey in the GOP race for governor.After spending nearly $54 million to defeat an income-tax hike on the richest people in the state in 2020, Griffin promised he would do as much as he could to prevent that proposal’s chief backer, the first-term Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, from winning four more years in 2022.And Griffin put his money where his mouth was, bankrolling the Irvin campaign almost single-handedly.“Except for wealthy politicians who bankroll their own campaign, this is the largest amount ever given by a single donor to a U.S. candidate at any level,” according to a report from the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group based in Madison, Wis.But Griffin’s efforts to influence the governor’s race faced major competition from not only Uihlein but also Pritzker — who spent heavily from his own personal fortune to ensure he would face Bailey, instead of Irvin, in the November general election. Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association spent tens of millions of dollars in the GOP primary, according to Republican and Democratic sources. GOP megadonor Dick Uihlein, Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren BaileySun-Times file; Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file In a statement after Irvin conceded the race Tuesday evening, Griffin did not mention Uihlein or Bailey, blaming Irvin’s defeat entirely on Pritzker and the Democrats.“I believe Richard Irvin would have been a terrific Governor, and I am proud to have supported his campaign,” Griffin said. “The unprecedented tens of millions of dollars spent by Pritzker and national Democrats in the Republican Primary to avoid facing Richard in the General Election demonstrated he was the right candidate.”Griffin also took this parting shot at the governor: “The people of Illinois deserve so much better than four more years of the out-of-control crime, high taxes, and continued corruption that have defined J.B. Pritzker’s time in office.”It’s unclear if Griffin will continue his heavy spending in Illinois politics after he and his Citadel hedge fund have packed up and left for Miami. But what was obvious was that his latest big bet on elections in this state was a big failure, up and down the ballot.The Griffin-supported candidate for secretary of state, John Milhiser, and his pick for attorney general, Steve Kim, also lost Tuesday.The $50 million from Griffin accounted for nearly 95% of what Irvin took into his campaign account, records show.Griffin also gave $6,000 each to other candidates he endorsed in statewide races: Milhiser, Kim, Shannon Teresi (running unopposed for the GOP nomination for comptroller) and Tom Demmer (unopposed for the Republican nod for state treasurer). Top row, left to right, attorney general candidate Steve Kim, hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin; Bottom row, left to right, secretary of state candidate John Milhiser, comptroller candidate Shannon Teresi and treasurer candidate Tom Demmer.kimforag.com; Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times; Patrick Kunzer/Daily Herald; johnmilhiser.com; https://shannonteresi.com; John O’Connor/AP But Irvin funneled some of the huge amounts he got from Griffin to the down-ballot candidates on the slate. Records show Irvin passed on more than $700,000 to Milhiser, more than $500,000 to Kim and $50,000 to Teresi.Uihlein spent far less than Griffin in this election cycle. He gave $9 million to Bailey and more than $8 million to the People Who Play By The Rules PAC, which ran ads against Irvin.The contributions from Uihlein represented nearly 77% of all the money raised in the campaign by Bailey, a farmer from the small town of Louisville, Ill., which is about 240 miles south of Chicago.Griffin and Uihlein also clashed in the 15th Illinois Congressional District’s Republican primary between two incumbent U.S. representatives, Mary Miller and Rodney Davis. Miller defeated Davis on Tuesday.While Griffin gave $1.5 million to a group opposing Miller — who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump — Uihlein gave $3 million to a political fund that helped Miller and attacked Davis, according to federal campaign-disclosure reports. U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., left; U.S Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., right.J. Scott Applewhite-AP file; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images-file In state and local races alone, Griffin has contributed a total of about $179 million in Illinois in the past couple decades, including:$53.7 million to defeat the graduated income tax amendment two years ago.$36 million to Bruce Rauner’s winning bid for governor in 2014 and his losing re-election bid four years later.$10.75 million to give the Illinois Supreme Court a more conservative bent.And Illinois is not the only place where Griffin has spent heavily in this year’s elections.He has “become the largest GOP mega-donor in the country for combined federal and state campaigns this election cycle,” according to Center for Media and Democracy researcher Don Wiener.Even as he spent more in Illinois than in any other state this year, Griffin also contributed roughly $42 million to Republican candidates at the federal level — more than anybody in U.S. politics except Democrat supporter George Soros, Wiener found.Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter on WBEZ’s Government & Politics Team. Follow him @dmihalopoulos. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Americans are already looking forward to 2024, and the majority of voters revealed they do not want either President Biden or former President Donald Trump to run for president.A recent Suffolk University/USA Today survey suggests many Americans — Republican and Democrat — want new candidates running in the 2024 presidential election. Roughly 68% of voters said they do not want Biden to run again. Additionally, 65% said they do not want to see Trump make another run for the White House.When asked who in the Democratic Party voters would rather see run for president in 2024 besides Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., tied for first place, with nearly 18% support for each. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg received 16%.TRUMP AND 20 OTHER POTENTIAL GOP 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDERS ON CPAC TEXAS STRAW POLL BALLOT Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks as President Biden signs an executive order on project labor agreements. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)Among the other rumored 2024 contenders, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., received 11%; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., clocked in at 10%; and California Gov. Gavin Newsom garnered just 8% support.MANCHIN WON'T COMMIT TO SUPPORTING BIDEN IN 2024: ‘JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE’Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also received 8%, amid whispers she is preparing another run after losing the 2016 election. Ron DeSantis appears to be former President Donald Trump's toughest competition in 2024. (Getty Images)On the Republican side, Trump received the most support with 43% choosing him as their 2024 pick. The former president recently teased a possible run at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, saying he won in 2016 and "may just have to do it again" in 2024.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, arguably Trump's toughest potential rival in 2024, came in second place with 34% support. While 8% still remain undecided, 7% said former Vice President Mike Pence would be their choice. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who is a member of the Jan. 6 Committee, former Ambassador Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all received under 3% of the vote. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, on Aug. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)Despite concerns about Biden's age — he'll turn 82 in 2024 — and several recent polls showing that a majority of Democrats do not want him as the 2024 Democratic nominee, the president recently told a reporter "they want me to run" and to "read the polls, Jack."Biden has not officially announced a re-election bid. However, in a press briefing Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a reporter he will run for re-election.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPU.S. voters will next select a new president in November 2024, but politicians are expected to begin announcing their campaigns shortly after the midterm elections this fall.The Suffolk poll was conducted from July 22-25, 2022, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Aubrie Spady is a college associate for Fox News Digital. | US Campaigns & Elections |
| July 02, 2022 11:09 AM | Updated Jul 02, 2022, 01:16 PM Former President Donald Trump is apparently eyeing an early 2024 announcement in an attempt to win back the White House — and it could come in the next few days. Behind the scenes, Trump is mulling an early entry into the 2024 fray to capitalize on lackluster polling for President Joe Biden and deter any stiff GOP primary competition, prompting concerns from Republicans that he could overshadow their midterm efforts, CNN reported. The announcement could come as soon as July. SEVEN IN 10 VOTERS DO NOT THINK BIDEN SHOULD RUN FOR REELECTION: POLL "Every day is different. We get told he's going to announce imminently, and by the afternoon, that has changed," one source told the outlet. Fueling Trump's reported ambitions are the House select Jan. 6 committee's public hearings that have focused on his behavior during his waning White House days and his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. An early announcement could stem the political bloodletting from the scathing hearings by giving him a stronger bully pulpit to rival them, he reportedly believes. His close advisers have been purportedly informing his allies that a campaign launch may come soon. "He's sounding a lot more committed lately," another source told the outlet. Earlier this week, controversial Infowars host Alex Jones, who has been known to peddle conspiracy theories but has connections in Trumpworld, claimed a source told him that Trump could announce Monday on the Fourth of July. Some in his orbit fear that he does not yet have the necessary campaign infrastructure to mount a third bid for the White House just yet. At one point, his advisers considered a July event in Michigan to launch the campaign, but the plans were canned, per CNN. Trump has consistently trampled his top hypothetical GOP primary competition in polling, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis routinely surfacing as his top threat. If he were to make an early announcement, Trump wants to make sure the campaign launch is not a "dud." However, some Republicans have been fretting that an early Trump entry could suck the oxygen away from important midterm races as they face a tough battle to reclaim the Senate. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has encouraged him to wait until after the midterm elections, the New York Times reported. If Trump were to announce, he would no longer be able to tap into his $100 million political action committee war chest to assist in the presidential run due to campaign finance laws. This has apparently been one sticking point against an early run, per the outlet. Political candidates are prohibited from directing super PAC money on behalf of their campaigns while vying for office. RNC officials have stressed that the party will cut off its funding of his legal bills pertaining to a New York attorney general inquiry, but McDaniel has recently concluded he will make an early entry anyways, according to the outlet. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Some polling has shown that Trump's sway among Republican voters has decayed since he departed the White House. A number of Republicans, such as Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, have argued that Trump should not get the party nod in 2024 and are considering mounting a challenge should he run. John Bolton, a national security adviser under Trump, recently told CBS that he does not believe Trump will run in 2024. "I do not think he will run in 2024. I think he knows he lost in 2020. He'll never admit it because he's got such a good con game going against his supporters. He fears losing in 2024. He hates being known as a loser. He'll talk about it insistently. He may even announce he's running, but when it comes right down to it, he won't run," he told the outlet. Some polling now has Trump topping Biden. The former president has never acknowledged that his electoral loss to Biden in 2020 was legitimate. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Ivanka Trump waves as she arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for US President Donald Trump's departure on January 20, 2021. (ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images)Ivanka Trump said that her father should “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted” to challenge his election loss—even though she’d already admitted she knew the claims underpinning those challenges were utter bullshit.Trump made the comments to documentarian Alex Holder, whose video was recently subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, on Dec. 10, 2020. The video was shown to the New York Times.Attorney General Bill Barr testified to the committee that he had told then-President Donald Trump that his claims were “bullshit” and “crazy stuff” in a series of meetings, and Ivanka Trump said in a videotaped deposition that she’d accepted Barr’s statements as fact.“It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr so I accepted what he was saying,” she said in a deposition recorded in April that was released during the committee’s June 9 hearing.Barr testified that he’d told Trump his claims were bunk in a series of meetings: Nov. 23, Dec. 1 and Dec. 14. It’s unclear which meeting Ivanka Trump was present for—but the comments came more than a week after Barr publicly declared on Dec. 1 that there was no widespread election fraud.Ivanka Trump, a senior White House adviser, justified her support of her dad’s attempt to reject his election loss because, as she reportedly said to the filmmaker, people were questioning “the sanctity of our elections.” “I think that, as the president has said, every single vote needs to be counted and needs to be heard, and he campaigned for the voiceless,” Ivanka Trump said. “And I think a lot of Americans feel very, very disenfranchised right now, and really, question the sanctity of our elections, and that’s not right, it’s not acceptable.”“And he has to take on this fight. Look, you fight for what you love the most and he loves this country and he loves this country’s people, and he wants to make sure that their voice is, is heard and not muted,” she continued.But the reason people were questioning the election was because Ivanka’s dad and his allies had spent months pushing a mountain of lies and conspiracy theories about the results, leading his followers to believe something had genuinely gone wrong with the 2020 election.And as then-President Trump pushed these lies, his daughter and senior adviser seemingly decided it was easier to go along than say anything to refute her dad.Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.Get the latest from VICE News in your inbox. Sign up right here.By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. | US Campaigns & Elections |
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — State Rep. Krystle Matthews on Tuesday won the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Matthews, the second-place finisher in a June 14 primary, defeated author and preservationist Catherine Fleming Bruce in the runoff.
FOLLOW LIVE: 2022 South Carolina Primary Election Runoff
Matthews — who has said she wants to change a toxic culture she says leads senators and others in power to strip away the rights of minorities and those who are in the most need of protection — wins the nomination under the cloud of a possible ethics probe.
Over the weekend, conservative activist group Project Veritas published leaked audio purportedly of Matthews speaking to an inmate about funding her campaign with “dope boy money” and having Democrats run as Republicans, saying “secret sleepers” represent “the only way you’re gonna change the dynamics in South Carolina.”
On Tuesday, Matthews confirmed to The Associated Press that it was her voice on the tape but said the edited audio of a “tongue-in-cheek” exchange didn’t reflect the full picture.
“That’s the problem, when you have a private conversation, where people don’t have any context,” she said. “I am not advocating for any illegal activity in campaigns.”
Officials with the state House Ethics Committee said Tuesday they could launch a probe based off the audio leak, about which Matthews said she was “not worried.”
READ MORE: 2022 South Carolina Primary Election Results
“People of South Carolina want somebody authentic and real,” Matthews told AP. “They are tired of people posing to be caring, posing to be intelligent, posing to be kind, and then finding out later on down the road that these people don’t even show up for them.”
Matthews also will run in November for a third state House term if she loses the U.S. Senate race.
Scott, who has been one of South Carolina’s more popular politicians, had no primary opposition and has raised $44 million for his pursuit of a second full six-year term.
The Senate’s sole Black Republican has said this will be his last term if he is reelected. He won a 2014 special election and his 2016 regular term by more than 60% of the vote.
Bruce and Matthews have raised a combined $131,000, according to federal fundraising data.
Scott, who has been one of the GOP’s go-to standouts particularly on race and policing issues, has faced a Black opponent in each of his three campaigns.
He was a congressman when then-Gov. Nikki Haley appointed him to the Senate seat left open when Jim DeMint resigned in 2012.
Scott is also being touted by some as a potential 2024 presidential candidate, although he has not mentioned it himself.
Scott touts his conservative credentials and got a primetime speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention. But he has also noted his work with Democrats on police reform legislation. | US Campaigns & Elections |
California has not elected a nonincumbent Republican to statewide office since 2006. Lanhee Chen, the GOP nominee for state controller, is betting he can make some history. (Courtesy Chen campaign) “Our campaign is really about competence and about defending the taxpayers — it’s not about ideology,” Chen said Thursday in a telephone interview with the Washington Examiner. “I don’t think there’s a Right way, or a Left way, to be a good controller.” Chen might be right. The job, as designed, is largely apolitical. The controller is supposed to monitor California finances and spending, like a watchdog or inspector general, ferreting out waste, fraud, and malfeasance to ensure taxpayers get the most bang for their buck and are not stuck with expensive bills for government incompetence. For instance, that scandal involving the mishandling of $20 billion in state money designated for unemployment insurance? That’s an issue ripe for oversight by the controller. And as Chen indicated, Democrats and Republicans alike (and independents) support good government. But whenever candidates for office declare ideology irrelevant to their campaign, it’s usually because partisanship is working against them. And in deep-blue California, where President Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump 63.5% to 34.3%, Chen has quite the uphill climb, as Republican insiders in the state conceded in interviews. “People are unhappy with the direction of the country, and while Newsom is cruising to reelection, there may be a desire to put some kind of check on total Democrat control,” said a veteran Republican operative in California, requesting anonymity so as not to undermine Chen’s bid. “That said, I wouldn’t’ bet more than a buck.” Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, is considered a shoo-in for a second term despite being forced into a recall election last September, a Republican-backed effort that fell flat. 'FAMILY FRIENDLY' SUPER PAC TO SPEND $23 MILLION ON DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATES Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant in California who served in former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration, also is suspect of Chen’s prospects. But Stutzman was a bit more charitable in his overall assessment of Chen’s bid versus Democrat Malia Cohen, a black woman who is a member of the California Board of Equalization, a panel that adjudicates tax disputes. “The statewide math in California is impossible for Republicans. Defying the numerical disadvantage would require an overwhelming financial advantage and a deeply flawed opponent,” Stutzman said. “Having said that, to the extent California voters actually do get exposed to Lanhee, I think they’ll find him a refreshing kind of GOP candidate that they haven’t seen the likes of in a long time.” Newsom and Democrats running for statewide office in California are largely expected to cruise to election and reelection this fall, despite the red electoral wave building across the country as Biden’s job approval ratings sink. Chen, however, has caught the attention of Republicans inside and outside the state as a candidate who might defy the odds. The 44-year-old son of Taiwanese immigrants grew up in the southeast Los Angeles County community of Rowland Heights and went on to earn four Harvard degrees. Chen was policy director of Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) 2012 presidential campaign before moving back to California to teach at Stanford University. He has relationships across the party, including with the old network of Romney donors. Those connections are poised to net Chen the outside help he needs to pull an upset on Nov. 8. Republicans involved in national politics are forming a super PAC to bolster his campaign, with details likely to emerge in August. “A major independent effort is coming together for Lanhee Chen,” a GOP operative involved confirmed. “Does Lanhee have a chance to win with the national environment? Yes. But he’s also a great candidate.” Unclear as yet is whether this new super PAC will be set up as a California political organization, subject to state campaign finance laws, or a federal political action committee. Meanwhile, a California general purpose independent committee that functions like a federal super PAC already exists and is expected to support Chen’s campaign. The group, Californians Supporting Lanhee Chen for Controller 2022, currently shows minimal resources but could beef up its efforts after Labor Day. California election law is similar to the federal statute in that it forbids groups like this from coordinating with candidates’ campaigns. Californians Supporting Lanhee Chen for Controller 2022 did not respond to a request for comment. When candidates for state office in California file their next fundraising disclosure, Chen estimates he will report $2.2 million to $2.4 million in cash on hand. That’s chump change in a state that is geographically vast and has multiple expensive media markets. But Chen is aggressively raising money while husbanding resources for the post-Labor Day home stretch. And although he exudes optimism, Chen, through his comments on politically charged issues, has proven he understands the challenges he faces running as a Republican in California. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Chen issued a statement affirming his support for abortion rights, which are enshrined in the California Constitution. A few days later, Chen revealed he did not vote for Trump in the 2016 or 2020 general elections, nor would he support him in 2024. “There are a lot of people who I believe would be better for the job than the former president,” he told Cal Matters in an interview. So, why is Chen optimistic? The Republican’s internal polling suggests his message has legs and that Cohen is vulnerable. Although it’s impossible to separate politics and partisanship from a political campaign, Chen believes the duties of the office of state controller are unique, offering him an opportunity to overcome the high hurdles Republicans face when running for statewide office in a state that is among the most Democratic in the nation. To prove his point, Chen emphasized the endorsement he received from the Los Angeles Times’s liberal editorial board and Andrew Yang, an independent who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER “The way we assemble a coalition of Republicans, Democrats, and independents is talking about what, as controller, I can do to bring accountability to state spending,” Chen said. “The idea that Californians want a typical politician to be controller is going to be proven incorrect.” The Cohen campaign did not respond to a written request for comment made through the Democrat’s website. But Andrew Acosta, a Democratic operative in California, predicted Chen’s bid would fail. “I'm sure he is well qualified,” Acosta granted. “His problem is simple: wrong team. I don't see a path unless he rolls $25 million, and even then, it would be hard.” | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEW YORK (AP) — Seven states are set to host primary elections Tuesday as the nation comes to terms with last week’s stunning Supreme Court ruling eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.This week’s nominating contests could offer the first clues as to whether the political landscape has shifted. Abortion is particularly relevant in Colorado, where GOP voters are deciding whether to nominate a rare abortion-rights-supporting Republican for U.S. Senate. And in Illinois, a Donald Trump-backed congresswoman ignited a political firestorm over the weekend by celebrating the overturning of Roe v. Wade as “a victory for white life,” phrasing that her spokesman later called a “stumble” and was meant to be “right to life.”The primaries will also offer new insight about the state of the Republican Party, with the central issue in virtually every GOP contest being fealty to Trump and his baseless conspiracy theories. Those Republicans who have pushed back at all, including a senator in Oklahoma and a congressman in Mississippi, are facing fierce challenges. Democrats have their own challenges. Illinois voters will decide a rare incumbent-on-incumbent primary for a House seat, while in South Carolina, Democrats are picking which candidate will take on South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott this fall. In all, primary elections are playing out across Colorado, Illinois, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah on Tuesday. Nebraska is holding a special election.What to watch:COLORADOGOP businessman Joe O’Dea, who has spoken publicly about his support for abortion rights, is running for the nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet this fall. O’Dea’s top rival is state Rep. Ron Hanks, who opposes abortion in all circumstances and attended the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.O’Dea said he backs a ban on late-term abortions and government funding of abortions, but the decision to terminate a pregnancy in the initial months is “between a person and their God.”While Colorado has trended Democratic over the past decade, Tuesday’s top Republican primary contests will show whether far-right candidates are making progress in their quest to take on uncontested Democrats like Bennet, Gov. Jared Polis and Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who’s led the national fight against 2020 election deniers.One of them is Republican Tina Peters, a conspiracy-theorist county elections clerk who’s been indicted for tampering with voting equipment and posting data online. Peters wants to unseat Griswold as Colorado’s top elections official despite calls from the state GOP for Peters to suspend her campaign. She’s running against Republican Pam Anderson, a former head of the state’s clerks association and defender of Colorado’s mail-in elections system.Colorado’s congressional primaries will measure the staying power of first-term GOP firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert in a sprawling western Colorado district that leans more Republican after redistricting. She’s up against state Sen. Don Coram, a hemp farmer and GOP moderate.In the Republican race to take on Polis, a former suburban Denver mayor, Greg Lopez, is facing Heidi Ganahl, the lone statewide-elected Republican as a University of Colorado regent.ILLINOISAs he is in most GOP contests, Trump is a central issue in Illinois’ Republican primary for governor.Darren Bailey, a conservative farmer who earned Trump’s endorsement over the weekend and often reads from the Bible in campaign videos, is part of a six-candidate Republican field. His rivals include Richard Irvin, the first Black mayor of Aurora, Illinois’ second-largest city, who had $50 million in support from billionaire Ken Griffin but was heavily targeted by Democrats who see Bailey as an easier matchup for Pritzker.While Trump endorsed Bailey, he also campaigned alongside first-term Rep. Mary Miller, who is challenging five-term Rep. Rodney Davis in one of the state’s two incumbent-on-incumbent primaries. But at Saturday’s rally, Miller described the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade as “a victory for white life.” A spokesperson later said she had intended to say the decision was a victory for a “right to life.”But the Illinois congresswoman is no stranger to provocative statements. Soon after joining the House, Miller quoted Adolf Hitler, saying he was right to say that “whoever has the youth has the future.”Davis is a powerful, more moderate lawmaker who is the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, which deals with election legislation and the Capitol complex. Meanwhile, two Democratic incumbents — Reps. Sean Casten and Marie Newman — are facing off for a Chicago-area seat. Also on the Democratic side, about two dozen candidates are fighting to succeed Rep. Bobby Rush, the only lawmaker to ever defeat Barack Obama. They include John Jackson, son of civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Karin Norington-Reaves, who has Rush’s endorsement.NEW YORKGov. Kathy Hochul, who was vaulted into office last fall when Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, is trying to hold on to her job.Hochul, a Democrat from western New York, is facing challenges from New York City’s elected public advocate, Jumaane Williams, and Rep. Tom Suozzi, a moderate congressman from Long Island. Tuesday’s elections cover New York’s statewide offices and state assembly races, but primary elections for U.S. House seats and the state Senate will be held Aug. 23. Those elections were delayed because of a redistricting lawsuit that led a court to throw out new political maps.Hochul, who was Cuomo’s lieutenant governor for six years, promised to restore New Yorkers’ faith in its government after stepping into the office last summer, but she hit a major stumbling block in April, when her handpicked lieutenant governor was arrested in a federal corruption probe. Williams, a progressive running to Hochul’s left, said Hochul is either “consistently shamefully out of the loop, or shamefully enabling through her inaction.” Suozzi, running to Hochul’s right, says she’s not being tough enough on crime, suggesting she should have gone further to harden the state’s bail law.On the Republican side, Rep. Lee Zeldin is considered the front-runner in a crowded field that features Andrew Giuliani, the son of New York City’s former mayor Rudy Giuliani; Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino; and businessman Harry Wilson. Former Vice President Mike Pence has endorsed Zeldin, who also enjoys the backing of the state GOP and Conservative Party, but Trump has stayed out of the race.UTAHThe Republican primary for U.S. Senate pits one of Trump’s closest allies, GOP incumbent Sen. Mike Lee, against two challengers who have spent months questioning if Lee’s loyalty to the former president will hurt Utah residents.Former state lawmaker Becky Edwards and political operative Ally Isom have attacked Lee as a divisive politician who cares less about governing than about television appearances and winning Trump’s favor. Unlike Lee, neither voted for Trump in 2020. Both Republican challengers have highlighted the post-election text messages Lee sent to Trump’s chief of staff, which show his early involvement in efforts to overturn the election. Edwards has also stood out by saying she disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to revisit Roe v. Wade.The Senate primary is testing whether Trump’s brand of divisive politics and conspiracy theories resonates with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who make up a majority of Utah’s population. In November, the winner will take on independent Evan McMullin, a former Republican who won backing from the state Democratic Party in April.MISSISSIPPICongressional primary runoffs are rare in Mississippi, but on Tuesday, two of the state’s Republican incumbents are fighting to keep their jobs in runoffs against challengers from their own party.Rep. Steven Palazzo is seeking a seventh term and was considered vulnerable after being accused in a 2021 congressional ethics report of abusing his office by misspending campaign funds. Rep. Michael Guest is seeking a third term. He voted to create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and was forced into a runoff amid criticism that he was disloyal to Trump.Both Palazzo and Guest failed to cross the 50% threshold to win outright in their June 7 primaries. Palazzo is facing Mike Ezell, the sheriff of a coastal county, while Guest is going up against Michael Cassidy, a former Navy fighter pilot who has highlighted his allegiance to Trump.OKLAHOMARepublicans are picking two U.S. Senate nominees on Tuesday.A crowd of high-profile GOP contenders is vying to replace retiring Sen. Jim Inhofe, including Trump’s former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, who resigned from his Washington post under a cloud of ethics scandals. Other candidates include Rep. Markwayne Mullin; T.W. Shannon, the state legislature’s first Black House speaker; and Luke Holland, Inhofe’s longtime chief of staff.Republican Sen. James Lankford is facing a primary test of his own that centers on Trump. Lankford, among the Senate’s most conservative members, has faced backlash from Trump loyalists for not embracing the former president’s lies about election fraud. Lankford is facing Tulsa evangelical pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, a political newcomer endorsed by Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.NEBRASKAA judge on Tuesday will sentence longtime Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry on campaign contribution charges on the same day voters will decide who should serve out the Republican’s term. Fortenberry resigned in March.Republican Mike Flood will be favored to win the election in the Republican-leaning district over Democrat Patty Pansing Brooks. Both are state legislators.Regardless of who wins the special election, Flood and Pansing Brooks will face off again in the November general election. The eastern Nebraska district includes Lincoln and parts of suburban Omaha as well as rural area.___Associated Press writers Michelle Price in New York; Sara Burnett in Chicago; Sam Metz in Salt Lake City; Jim Anderson in Denver; Grant Schulte in Omaha, Neb.; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.___This story has been corrected to show that Irvin represents Illinois’ second-largest city, not Illinois’ second-largest suburb. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Herschel Walker, the Heisman Trophy winner and a U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia, at a rally in Athens, Ga., on May 23. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)Herschel Walker has given his opponent, Raphael Warnock, a lead in Georgia’s Senate contest, and whether he can come from behind depends on whether the former football star can execute at a higher level than he has done so far.Walker does have political winds at his back. November is likely to be a national wave election for Republicans around the country, with President Biden’s unpopularity and rising inflation making it hard for Democrats to win any competitive race. And Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is polling ahead of Democrat Stacey Abrams in his reelection bid, which should help other GOP candidates on the ballot.But several Georgia Republicans told Yahoo News that Walker is currently on a path to defeat if he does not make a sustained course correction, as he is trying to do this week.This analysis is based on more than just polls and negative media stories. It’s grounded in hard data. Kemp got 85,000 more votes than Walker, his fellow Republican, in the May primary.Walker now desperately needs to win over those Kemp supporters, voters who have shown themselves willing to support the Republican governor but not Walker himself.“We have this little sliver of our electorate that is willing to choose by individual rather than party,” Brian Robinson, a Republican consultant active in Georgia politics, said. This voter bloc was “decisive” in the 2021 Senate runoffs that handed control of the U.S. Senate to Democrats, he said.“Herschel has to make inroads with that group,” Robinson said.A point that should concern Walker’s campaign is this: That gap between Kemp and Walker was recorded two months ago. And since then, Walker’s competence and character have taken big hits.Walker speaks to the media after a campaign rally in Macon, Ga., on May 18. (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)In June, the Daily Beast reported that Walker — who divorced his wife in 2002 — has a 10-year-old child that he had not previously disclosed. The same publication then reported that Walker had originally lied to his own campaign advisers about the child, and that he had two other children whom he had never publicly acknowledged. The article revealed that some of Walker’s own campaign staff did not trust him to tell them the truth.In addition, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in June that Walker has demonstrated a habit of falsely claiming that he worked in law enforcement. Over the course of years, he told people he “worked for law enforcement,” was an “agent” at FBI headquarters in Quantico, had “been in criminal justice all my life” and made other untrue statements.And while Walker has largely avoided talking to reporters, he put his foot in his mouth when he did make public comments. In May, after a shooter massacred 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, school, Walker appeared on Fox News and called for "a department that can look at young men, that's looking at women, that's looking at social media."Then, earlier this month, he gave an incomprehensible explanation of climate change and air pollutants. “Our good air decided to float over to China's bad air, so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got to clean that back up,” he said.Walker’s integrity and competence were already a big question mark before the May 24 primary. Reports emerged last summer that he had repeatedly threatened the life of his ex-wife, including by holding a pistol to her head and a razor blade to her throat; that he had demonstrated unpredictable behavior with business colleagues; and that he had embellished his biography.Walker, then a New Jersey Generals running back, with his wife, Cindy, after announcing he would play for the Dallas Cowboys in 1986. (Marty Lederhandler/AP)In April, CNN revealed that Walker has more than once claimed he graduated in the top 1% of his class at the University of Georgia. In fact, he never even graduated at all.Walker’s fumbling performance as a candidate since the primary has only heightened the focus on the question of whether he is qualified for the job of U.S. senator. His ties to a group that defrauded military veterans also continue to raise questions.Mike Hassinger, another Georgia Republican consultant, said he thinks there are between 125,000 and 150,000 voters “who value integrity and competence” over partisanship or Trump support.That number is potentially decisive. Warnock won his runoff matchup last year against Republican Kelly Loeffler by just over 93,000 votes.While Walker has been stumbling on the campaign trail, Warnock has been disciplined, promoting his efforts to reduce the price of insulin, to provide housing for veterans and to stop banks from charging overdraft fees.Sen. Raphael Warnock after casting his ballot in the state's primary election in Atlanta on May 6. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)The Republican Party has begun an attempted reboot of Walker’s campaign. National Republican consultants were brought in to augment the Georgia-based operation, headed by Scott Paradise.Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is from Georgia, has spoken with Walker a few times to stress the importance of a disciplined, policy-heavy stump speech, Robinson told Yahoo News. Gingrich did not respond to a request for comment.The Walker reset attempt began in earnest on Tuesday during a campaign event in southeast Georgia, where the candidate stayed on message and avoided making the kind of exaggerations about his business dealings that he’s made in the past.On Wednesday, Walker campaigned in Athens, Ga., and then did something he hasn’t done much of previously: field questions from reporters. A press aide interjected only once.Walker was relentless in turning almost every question back to attacks on Warnock, the incumbent Democrat, for failing to improve the economy, rising inflation, food prices and public safety.“People are saying they want something different,” Walker told reporters.He avoided questions about whether he would vote against a bill to enshrine same-sex marriage in law, and about his recent comments indicating support for a total ban on abortion without exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.Herschel Walker poses with a supporter, Valerie Compton, after a campaign event in in Athens, Ga., on July 20, 2022. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)Walker also continued to give credence to baseless claims by former President Donald Trump that the 2020 election was stolen. When asked if President Biden won Georgia in 2020, Walker said, “I don't know. Did he? That's a good question. You need to ask my opponent that: Did he win fair and square? I have no clue.”Big picture, a more disciplined approach is the only way Walker can regain ground, multiple Republicans told Yahoo News.“It's abundantly clear that just running on a bio, and on fame and personality, is just not going to work,” said one Georgia Republican who has worked on statewide campaigns in the past few years. “The national mood bodes well for Walker, but if he can't hang that albatross around the neck of the Democrats then he can't win.”For their part, Georgia Democratic leaders don’t believe Walker can stay on message enough to alter the public perception that he is simply unprepared for the job. “A reset constitutes a change,” says one Democratic party leader. “He’s established a clear pattern of lying. Walker has not told Georgians his plans or solutions to change.”Voters have “lost confidence” in Walker, the Republican operative told Yahoo News, and he needs to produce more policy-heavy proposals and show Georgians a level of seriousness about what he plans to do. And he has to get closer to Kemp, the governor.Gov. Brian Kemp at his primary election watch party in Atlanta after winning the Republican primary, on May 24, 2022. (Dustin Chambers/Reuters)The reversal of fortunes between Kemp and Walker has been jarring. A few months ago, most political observers assumed Walker was the one with a head of steam, and Kemp was endangered because Trump was furiously attacking him as a Republican in name only.Trump made Kemp one of his top targets for defeat in the 2022 primaries because he refused to go along with the former president’s attempt in 2020 to overturn election results. Trump even recruited former Sen. David Perdue to take Kemp on.Meanwhile, Walker is a household name in Georgia, where he became a football icon as a Heisman Trophy-winning University of Georgia running backBut Kemp, who rarely responded to Trump’s attacks and instead touted his policy accomplishments, trounced Perdue by a huge margin, 78% to 22%. Kemp now leads the Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, by an average of around 5 points in the RealClearPolitics polling tracker.Walker won his primary in convincing fashion as well, but with 68% of the vote, and with 85,000 fewer votes than Kemp received, in a field of six candidates. Walker now trails Warnock in polling by an average of just under 3 points.“Herschel was always supposed to win in a landslide. It was Kemp who was supposed to be in trouble, because Trump was against him and actively bashing him,” Robinson said.Walker would benefit now from joint appearances with Kemp, but that relationship may be on ice.During the primary, Walker appeared at a Trump rally in Georgia, where the former president said it was “OK with me” if Abrams beat Kemp in the upcoming election and called Kemp a “disastrous” governor.Herschel Walker with Donald Trump at a Save America rally in Perry, Ga., in September last year. (Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)And Walker’s top Georgia campaign advisers both worked for Kemp’s Republican opponent in 2018.When Walker was asked Wednesday if he’ll campaign with statewide candidates like Kemp, Walker made a vague comment about it and then returned to launching attacks on Warnock.The Warnock campaign continues to hammer Walker’s reluctance to agree to even one debate. “To be clear, Herschel Walker still isn’t committing to debates,” Quentin Fulks, Warnock’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “Rev. Warnock believes that debates are a critical opportunity for Georgians to see the clear choice they have between him and Walker in this important election.”Walker was asked about debates on Wednesday and said he’d be “ready to go” when an agreement was reached between the campaigns. But there is no deal as of now, and on Thursday, his campaign released a statement saying that “any debate we agree to must have a fair and equitable format and unbiased moderator.”Walker may have a new group of advisers working to shore him up, but he will probably have to perform in public, in front of skeptical audiences and possibly in debates with Warnock, to win back Georgia voters who have come to see him as a liability.“Current polling shows Warnock with a slight lead,” Robinson said. “But if Herschel goes into election day within the margin of error and throughout the early voting period, the environmental forces could be enough to get him over the top.”“He has a good team around him. At some juncture, the candidate must go out and execute,” he said. “An athlete like Herschel Walker knows that.” | US Campaigns & Elections |