Former Wells Fargo senior executives under criminal investigation: Report
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Former senior executives of Wells Fargo & Co. are under federal criminal investigation over the bank's fake-accounts scandal, American Banker reported.

By Mark Calvey – Senior Reporter, San Francisco Business Times

Several former Wells Fargo & Co. senior executives are under criminal investigation resulting from the bank’s fake-accounts scandal, trade publication American Banker reported, citing unnamed sources.

According to the report, federal prosecutors are considering charges against individuals who were in the San Francisco bank’s upper management, sources familiar with the situation told American Banker, with possible indictments coming down as soon as this month. These sources cautioned that the situation remains fluid and could change.

American Banker said a federal criminal investigation has been conducted by the U.S. Justice Department in California and North Carolina, with help from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Asked to comment Monday on the American Banker report, a Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) spokesman said Monday: “We are declining comment on behalf of the bank.”

In February 2019, Wells said in a securities filing that it had started talks with federal regulators about a potential resolution to matters under investigation by the Justice Department and SEC. The bank said in a November 2019 filing that those talks were ongoing.

Wells Fargo has been embroiled in a series of scandals that began with an announcement in September 2016 that the bank had agreed to pay regulatory fines totaling $185 million over opening deposit and credit accounts without customer authorization.

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was ousted in October 2016. His successor, Tim Sloan, stepped down as CEO in June 2019. Former Visa CEO Charlie Scharf took the top job at Wells in October. The fake-accounts scandal also led to the firing of thousands of low-level employees.

RAPE IS RAPE MALE RAPE
Indonesian man described as UK's most prolific rapist gets life sentence

Prosecutors said the Indonesian student may have drugged and raped as many as 195 men. He subsequently filmed many of the rapes.


An Indonesian student described as "the most prolific rapist in British legal history'' has been sentenced to life in prison for drugging and raping at least 48 men.

Reynhard Sinaga, 36, was found guilty by a Manchester Crown Court of seeking drunken young men in bars and clubs, and then offering them a place to stay and more alcohol. Once at home, he drugged the victims with sedatives and raped them while they were unconscious. He filmed many of the assaults.

Read more: What is behind India's rape problem?

"You are an evil serial sexual predator who has preyed upon young men who came into the city center wanting nothing more than a good night out with their friends," Judge Suzanne Goddard said. "One of your victims described you as a monster. The scale and enormity of your offending confirms this as an accurate description."

Prosecutors said Sinaga may have raped as many as 195 men. Most of the men never knew they were raped and authorities have not been able to identify 70 of the victims whose attacks were recorded.

Sinaga was arrested in 2017 after one of his victims woke up during the assault, took Sinaga's phone and gave it to police.


Prosecutors said Sinaga's "unthreatening demeanor" allowed him to trick young men

'Twisted pleasure'

The Crown Prosecution Service said investigators found 3.29 terabytes of film of the sexual assaults, enough data for thousands of hours of video footage.

"Reynhard Sinaga is the most prolific rapist in British legal history," said deputy chief crown prosecutor for northwest England, Ian Rushton.

He "appears to have derived further twisted pleasure from re-watching his films in court and putting victims through the trauma of giving evidence," he said.

Sinaga claimed his mostly heterosexual victims were not unconscious, but rather were acting out his sexual fantasy and playing dead during intercourse. But prosecutors called that defense "preposterous," pointing out some of the men were snoring during the assault.

In four separate trials, Sinaga was convicted of 159 offences, including 136 rapes and eight attempted rapes, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

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The outcome of those trials could not be reported until Monday in order to avoid prejudicing juries in the later cases.

The judge recommended he serve at least 30 years in prison. He is already serving 88 consecutive life sentences from the earlier trials.

Sinaga arrived in Britain from Indonesia on a student visa in 2007. He received two degrees and was studying for his PhD in sociology at the University of Leeds.

His thesis was called: "Sexuality and everyday transnationalism: South Asian gay and bisexual men in Manchester."

Who is Reynhard Sinaga, the UK’s most prolific rapist?
The PhD student was given a sentence of a minimum of 30 years
Colin Drury @colin__drury


As an overseas geography student at Leeds University, Reynhard Sinaga cut an unremarkable figure.

The 36-year-old from Indonesia was older than most of his course mates but, with his boyish features, slight frame and neatly parted hair, he did not especially stand out.

His black-rimmed spectacles and the fact he had already achieved a degree in sociology gave him, if anything, a somewhat scholarly air.

He had few close friends but those who knew him were aware he was a regular church-goer in Manchester, where he had lived since moving to the UK around 12 years ago.

What they did not know, however, was that this seemingly devout and courteous student was hiding a horrific double life.


By night, Reynhard Sinaga was a serial rapist and sex attacker stalking the streets of Manchester.

Over a period of 10 years, he may have drugged, rendered unconscious and then brutalised more than 190 different men – many of them students aged just 18 and 19, police say.
Read more

Boss defends CPS as rape convictions plummet despite record reports

His depravity was such that it is now thought he is the most prolific rapist ever caught in the UK after being convicted of offences against 48 men. 

Now, the full extent of Sinaga’s crimes can be revealed after a judge lifted all reporting restrictions following four trials that saw him convicted of 159 sexual offences against 48 men between January 2015 and June 2017.

Among his victims were straight and gay men, students, professionals and one serving member of the RAF. They ranged in age from just 18 to 35. One was raped eight times in eight unconscious hours. Another was still in sixth form college when he was attacked.

But what all Sinaga’s victims had in common was that he targeted them after seeing they were alone, drunk and vulnerable during nights out in Manchester city centre.

He befriended them, enticed them back to his city centre apartment with the promise of free booze, an after party or, in many cases, the use of a phone charger. Then, police believe, he spiked their drinks with the date rape drug GHB.

“You are a serial rapist who has preyed upon young men who came into the city centre wanting nothing more than a good night out with their friends,” Judge Suzanne Goddard told him at his first trial at Manchester Crown Court. “Having lured them to your flat with the promise of more drink and socialising, you drugged each of your victims, waited for them to become unconscious, undressed them and then raped them in the most callous of ways in your apartment, repeatedly sexually assaulting most of them over a number of hours when they were unconscious.”
Judge Suzanne Goddard told Sinaga: ‘You are a serial rapist who has preyed upon young men who came into the city centre wanting nothing more than a good night out with their friends’ (Facebook/Sinaga)

In each case, Sinaga filmed the sickening attacks on one – and sometimes two – mobile phones.

Jurors were shown the footage in which victims snored as they were raped. Many vomit unconsciously. 

So, how did he get away with it for so long?

Quite simply because not one single victim realised or remembered what had been done to them. Some did not even recall meeting Sinaga. Others believed he had helped them by giving them a place to sleep or phone charger during an intoxicated hour of need. One told police his attacker had been “really nice and had looked after” him.

Many victims, indeed, were so embarrassed to have woken up at this small quiet man’s plush apartment, they apologised for being there. They felt they must have imposed themselves. One or two even briefly stayed in touch with Sinaga via text or Facebook – although all ended the interactions after they felt they had become creepy.

What, again, they all had in common was that they blamed their blackouts on over-indulgence on their own part.

Which meant, in the end, it was only sheer chance – and Sinaga’s own arrogance – that led to his downfall.

It was Thursday 1 June 2017 when the 18-year-old who would eventually help catch this serial rapist, who cannot be named, went into Manchester for a night out with friends.

The group were in good spirits, celebrating after taking exams, and they finished the evening in the city’s Factory nightclub.

Little known to them, this was one of Sinaga’s favoured haunts.

The Indonesian lived in an apartment a stone’s throw away in Princess Street. It was a well-heeled place for a student with no discernible means of income – especially one who had the cost of travelling to Leeds for his studies – but then Sinaga, who had first studied here at Manchester University, was from a well-heeled family. His dad is understood to work in finance back home in Indonesia.

From this apartment, the mature student would head out to nearby clubs such as Fifth Avenue, the Ritz or G-A-Y looking for victims. Often, he did not even go inside them. He simply waited on the streets looking for men split from friends.
Sinaga preyed on men leaving clubs who were by themselves (Facebook/Sinaga)

By this point he had grown increasingly bold. He had started to keep souvenirs from his victims including a watch, driving licence and a couple of mobile phones. Over one weekend in April 2015, he had raped two men on consecutive nights. He appeared to want to boast about what he was doing, telling a friend via text that he had turned a straight man gay with the help of a “little potion”.

On this night in June 2017, he saw the 18-year-old, who had become separated from his friends, sat on steps outside Factory at about 12.30am.

The pair engaged in conversation about university and music before Sinaga suggested they go back to his flat so the youngster could use a phone to contact his friends.

The teenager later told police he remembered going into the apartment but nothing after that until he woke up several hours later – with Sinaga naked, on top of him, carrying out a sexual assault.

“As he awoke, which is captured on film,” Iain Simkin, prosecuting, told Manchester Crown Court, “he was lying face down with his jeans and boxer shorts around his knees and, say the prosecution, the naked defendant was in the act of sexually attacking him.

“What followed next was a fight; the defendant repeatedly bit [the victim] and [the victim] struck the defendant several times. Ultimately, he managed to escape from the flat and, once outside, he contacted the police.”

Sinaga was brought from his own apartment on a stretcher and rushed to hospital. The youngster, it later emerged, called police in the first instance because he feared, in his attempts to escape the flat, he may have killed his attacker.

But after the 18-year-old was initially arrested, he was found to have an iPhone in his jeans pocket.

It remains unclear how this got there but it belonged to Sinaga.

And, on it, police discovered the video footage of countless similar sex attacks. A raid on the Indonesian’s apartment later found a second phone and a laptop with more videos.

Sinaga was arrested while still in hospital as police realised they were dealing with a rapist whose crimes were on a scale that was unprecedented.

Officers were set the unenviable task of identifying the more than 190 unwitting victims in the different films. So far, they have traced – and informed – around half of them.

“I am satisfied all were deeply traumatised understandably at the thought of what you had done to them while they were unconscious,” said Judge Goddard.

“None of your victims, when told by the police of the existence of the films, wished to view them or to know the detail of what happened to them,” she added.

Several, it was later revealed in court, had been deeply psychologically harmed as a result of finding out about the attacks. Two men, one aged just 21, had attempted suicide.
Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

“You have shown not a jot of remorse,” said Judge Goddard. “And, indeed, at times during the case seemed to actually be enjoying the trial process. You clearly have given no thought to the deep distress and lasting psychological damage you will have caused these young men.
Read more
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Sinaga’s own defence was that the victims had consented to sex. “To some,” he said at one point during the trial, “I may look like a ladyboy, which seems very popular among curious men who are looking for a gay experience.”

He said they were not actually unconscious in the films but merely playing at being dead to fulfil a fantasy. The claims were dismissed as “nonsense” by the judge.

“Rarely, if ever, have the courts seen such a campaign of rape as this, covering so many victims over a prolonged period,” the judge told him. But, with police still to identify many victims, the scale of Sinaga’s offending may never be known.


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Turkey’s Energy Agenda Puts The Entire Region At Risk

Vanand Meliksetian
Oilprice.com January 6, 2020

The East Mediterranean has become a highly contested region due to the discovery of major hydrocarbon reserves which has triggered a scramble for energy wealth. According to the United States Geological Survey, the Levant basin contains 3.6 trillion cubic meters and the Nile delta basin 6.3 trillion cubic meters of gas. While countries such as Israel, Cyprus, and Egypt have struck gold, has failed to discover significant deposits. Ankara, however, has set its eyes on a pipeline project to connect its mainland with occupied northern Cyprus which could potentially transform the geopolitical landscape.

The energy wealth of the Mediterranean has brought Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and Egypt closer to each other. Tel Aviv has already struck a deal with Cairo to export natural gas to the latter’s liquefaction plant at Idku for export purposes while Nicosia is discussing the same option. Next to this, Cyprus, Greece, and Israel signed a three-way agreement on January 2nd in Athens to build the subsea EastMed pipeline.

Although a diplomatic solution would be in the interest of all involv ed parties, Turkey’s hostile attitude towards virtually all littoral states in the Eastern Mediterranean rules out cooperation. Ankara has ordered exploration vessels in Cypriot waters’ and struck an agreement with Libya concerning the delimitation of the seabed without considering Crete. According to experts, these actions represent the Turkish desire to exert control in the region. Despite the counterproductive policies, Ankara’s intention for the construction of a pipeline of its own is intended to offer an alternative for regional cooperation on energy infrastructure.

Related: The Biggest Wild Card In 2020 Oil Markets

Turkey’s aspiration to become an energy hub is not a secret. The country already boasts that it is a conduit for natural gas from the north and east. It would like to add the “south” to its list of accomplishments. Unfortunately, the fraught relations with gas-rich countries in the Eastern Mediterranean rule out a deal. Ankara, therefore, has decided to go its way and constructing an alternative.

Even though exploration vessels haven't found natural gas resources in the internationally recognized waters of Turkey, Ankara wishes to connect the mainland with the North of Cyprus. The proposed pipeline’s length is 80 kilometers and it should start pumping gas by 2025. The project’s main goal is to lower the northern inhabitants’ energy bill by exporting gas from north to south, but the pipeline’s reverse-flow feature also allows the export of natural gas to the mainland.

Turkey maintains that the new-found energy wealth of the internationally recognized Cypriot republic should be shared with the Turkish inhabitants to the north. According to experts the gas fields of the island’s coast contain approximately 227 bcm which could be worth $44.8 billion or €40 billion.

Turkey’s dual-use pipeline could compete with the EastMed pipeline as it would connect the Eastern Mediterranean with customers in Europe. Its main advantage is the relatively low construction costs. EastMed’s price tag is approximately €6 to €7 billion and requires state of the art technology for activities to commence at 2,000 meters depth. Turkey’s pipeline, in contrast, is much shorter and could connect to largely existing infrastructure on the mainland.



Related: Iran's Retaliation Could Cause A Middle East Oil Shock

Despite the apparent advantages, Turkey’s plans have a low chance of success due to the ‘elephant in the room’ which is the country itself. Ankara’s adventurism and aggressive foreign policy have become a liability for investors who need to reckon with the risks before approving multi-billion dollar investments.

Although a land-based pipeline is significantly cheaper than a technically challenging subsea version, the latter has the advantage that it directly connects producers with consumers. This means that the risk of supply disruptions is significantly lower compared to a situation where a third party has control over a section of the pipeline.

The disagreements between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas exports have too often disrupted the flow of energy to European customers. Energy security is not only improved by diversifying suppliers but also increasing alternatives for transportation. Therefore, Turkey’s wish to become a conduit for Mediterranean gas seems unrealistic at the moment.

By Vanand Meliksetian for Oilprice.com

MANAGEMENT RX FOR XR
Extinction Rebellion is using holacracy to scale its international movement
B

REUTERS/JAVIER BARBANCHOAnother self-organized

 Extinction Rebellion protest for the environment.

By Aimee Groth December 29, 2019

One of the defining events of 2019 was Extinction Rebellion, the global protest movement bolstered by activists like Greta Thunberg to make the climate emergency a priority for governments around the world.

Since its founding in 2018, XR, as it’s known, has mobilized thousands of people in dozens of countries, brought sections of London, New York, and Sydney to a standstill, and spawned 3,000 arrests in the UK alone (purposeful arrests are a core part of its strategy).

While the movement has received its share of criticism as it has grown in size and power—namely around its lack of diversity—its sheer numbers and degree of international press coverage point to an enviable level of operational success.

A key to this success? Choosing an effective organizational model early on, informed by the latest management science. XR is a decentralized network designed to resemble a holacracy, an operating structure for self-organization tested by tech companies like Google, Zappos, and Medium. Anyone can join XR so long as they adhere to its 10 core principles and values, including a commitment to nonviolence.

While holacracy, too, has received its share of criticism as it, too, has gained traction, the system is credited for providing a basic framework for effective self-organization. At a holacracy training session at Zappos, the online shoe retailer, in 2013, HolacracyOne co-founder Brian Robertson, who invented the system, described his creation as providing “a rule system for anarchy.”

Extinction Rebellion’s embrace of holacracy makes it the largest-scale use case to date, eclipsing Amazon-owned Zappos’s high-profile trials with holacracy involving 1,500 employees. Like Zappos, which has quietly backed away from certain tenants of the system and has begun to experiment with its own, modified version of holacracy, XR is also taking a broader interpretation of holacracy.

“We’re not dogmatic about using holacracy; it’s an adaptive version,” says Ronan Harrington, a UK political strategist who was personally recruited by XR co-founder Roger Hallam to join the movement.

XR is not formally engaging HolacracyOne’s services. Instead, its leadership has trained itself using online videos and with guidance from advisors like Miki Kashtan, an international teacher of nonviolent communication and former McKinsey consultant Frederic Laloux, whose internationally bestselling book Reinventing Organizations profiles successful self-managed organizations, including HolacracyOne.
Circular logic

The defining feature of a holacracy is its circular hierarchical structure, which is quite different from the static pyramid hierarchies most organizations employ today. The flattened hierarchy, combined with a focus on granular roles over broader job titles, as well as distributed decision-making and clear frameworks for conflict resolution, makes holacracy a more dynamic and scalable option for self-organizing entities like XR.

Reflecting basic holacratic structure, XR has a number of core “circles” that focus on everything from finance and fundraising to legal, tech, and even the nature of self-organizing systems. The core circles send representatives to the main circle, led by XR co-founders Hallam and Gail Bradbrook. Feedback loops run quickly both down- and upstream. Those in core roles are empowered to make decisions as they see fit, so long as they consult with others who have expertise in order to make thoughtful decisions.

More complex decisions involve “integrative decision making,” a process where all proposals need to pass with no objection. When necessary, a rapid-response team makes faster decisions on strategy and other issues.

The movement has learned from the mistakes of Occupy Wall Street, which was weighed down by crowded general assemblies that made decisions by consensus, which quickly became a hindrance to progress. By contrast, holacracy is designed to protect against that kind of gridlock by empowering individuals to act with full sovereignty within the scope of their roles, while retaining a democratic bent through its governance and integrated decision-making processes.

Harrington notes that the average XR protester probably would not even know that they are operating within a holacracy (though the group does hold training sessions on holacracy in various local chapters). “People know [holacracy] by the processes we have,” he explains. “For most people it’s their first experience in a self-organizing system.”
A different approach than Occupy Wall Street

Daniel Thorson, who has explored the concept of societal and ecological collapse through his podcast Emerge: Making Sense of What’s Next, participated in the UK protests this past autumn. While he wasn’t initially aware of XR’s holacratic design, he observed that anyone was empowered to act as they desired, so long as it was in accordance with the movement’s principles. He kept up-to-date on the campaign’s UK strategy through a widely broadcast channel on Telegram, the encrypted messaging service. Transparent information flow is a core tenet of holacracy because it fosters trust, the lynchpin of all effective self-organized systems.

Thorson, who also participated in Occupy Wall Street, was struck by the way XR participants were noticeably more in control of their emotions than the Occupiers were, evidenced by a more cool-headed approach to protesting.

In London’s Trafalgar Square, “you’d come across a sign for therapeutic yoga and sound healing, right next to a table for the scientists of XR, and the Buddhists of XR,” he said, referring to the mixture of the spiritual and the sacred within the context of the protest movement. “At Occupy there would have been antipathy for that.”

On Thorson’s podcast following his visit to the UK, he interviewed Harrington, who pointed out that many XR protesters have done their “shadow” work, that is, healed traumas within themselves so they don’t project dysfunctional conditioning onto others, namely law enforcement.

“They have done inner work on antagonism, so they are projecting less onto the public,” explained Harrington, noting the clear link between self-development and systems transformation. “[When] an activist hasn’t actually processed the rage and the anger that comes from issues with their mothers and fathers, they project that onto the system. And people feel that.”

Thorson adds that the inherent discomfort associated with protesting can easily trigger unhealed emotional wounds. “You can tell where trauma is if you get irritated,” he says. “There are so many opportunities for people to freak out. People were more angry and rageful at Occupy, whereas at XR people are pretty peaceful. It’s more of a festival atmosphere.”

The XR movement itself has its roots in the spiritual. In 2016, Bradbrook attended an ayahuasca ceremony in Costa Rica for activists with the intention of discerning the “codes for social change.” (Ayahuasca is a plant-based medicine thought to have a mind-opening effect.)

Not long after, Bradbrook, a former biophysicist, met Hallam, a former organic farmer who is pursuing a PhD at King’s College London centered on how to create social change; and together they began laying the groundwork for XR. The activists studied notable protest movements in modern history and determined that nonviolence, promoted by the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., has by far been the most effective strategy. Their message was bolstered by the work of Jem Bendell, a professor of sustainability leadership at the University of Cumbria, who published a viral academic paper in July 2018 “discussing the need for deep adaptation in the face of impending ecological collapse.”

Using holacracy as an operating system, they scaled XR globally in relatively fast order, starting with the group’s official founding in October 2018 and accelerating with mass protests in April and October of this year. The campaign has brought attention to the climate emergency, but it is still far from persuading political leaders to meet its demands, which include a commitment by the British government to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Based on their academic research, XR’s leaders predict it will take 3.5% of the population getting involved to affect systemic change.

As XR strategizes for its next phase in 2020, it is also integrating lessons Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, which is leaderless out of necessity. “We admire their Bruce Lee, be-like-water approach,” says Harrington, though he is quick to note a core difference between the two is XR’s commitment to non-violence. Either way, he says, “Hong Kong shows us the value of keeping something in the news long enough.”

Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

Around 2,300 contracted workers who serve meals to Google employees in the San Francisco Bay Area have unionized, saying they’re overworked and underpaid.

By Shirin Ghaffary Dec 31, 2019, 10:00am EST

A Google cafeteria in Kirkland, Washington. Cafeteria 

workers at San Francisco-area Google campuses are

 unionizing. Stephen Brashear/Getty Images


Around 2,300 cafeteria workers who work at dozens of Google campuses in the Bay Area, including the search giant’s main headquarters in Mountain View, have unionized.

The workers — who include dishwashers and food preparers who serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner for Google employees — voted last month to form a union after a campaign that’s been two years in the making, according to a source involved in the campaign.

Their organizing has gone largely under the radar even amid other high-profile worker activism at Google in the past year, which has included employee protests about sexual harassment, the company’s work with US immigration agencies, and allegations that the company retaliates against employees for reporting HR issues. But the cafeteria workers’ unionization is some of the most significant union activity tech industry workers have accomplished — particularly for service workers who operate as part of Google’s vast “shadow workforce” of contractors who largely receive lower pay and fewer benefits compared to the company’s full-time employees.

The workers who voted to unionize earn wages that start at around $35,000 a year, according to a source familiar with the matter. And they say they don’t receive all the same benefits such as retirement plans that are standard for full-time Google employees. Their move to organize represents a symbolic pushback against the status quo of growing economic inequality in Silicon Valley, where all but the top 10 percent of income earners have seen their wages decline from 1997 to 2017.

The cafeteria workers are organizing with a local chapter of the union Unite Here, which represents some 300,000 workers in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries nationally in North America, according to its website.

An arbitrator officially recognized that a majority of the workers at cafeterias across Silicon Valley voted “yes” to union representation on November 20 of this year, according to a union flyer that Recode reviewed. Since Google contracts these on-site food service workers via a third party, they are technically employed by the multinational food service firm Compass Group, which staffs many of Google’s cafeterias through its subsidiary, Bon Appétit Management Company. Compass Group and the union are now in the process of negotiating a contract, according to sources.


“We’re fed up and want change because at one of the richest companies in the world, we’re being overworked and underpaid,” the source involved in the campaign told Recode. “The disrespect from management is just adding insult to injury,” they added, alleging that in organizing meetings, some workers shared stories of being bullied, sometimes subject to “casual racism,” and pressured to work overtime without pay by Compass management.

A representative for Unite Here declined to comment on the union organizing.

“As an organization, Compass Group firmly believes each of our associates has the right to make an informed decision about whether they want to be represented by a third party such as a labor organization,” a spokesperson from Compass Group told Recode in an email. “If they do, Compass Group will meet with the union and engage in good faith bargaining with the goal of achieving a mutually satisfactory agreement as we have done at Google Mountain View.”

With regard to the allegations that management has mistreated employees, a spokesperson wrote that the company is “committed to creating a positive, fair and rewarding work environment, and one in which every Compass Group associate feels empowered to discuss any and all workplace issues.”

A spokesperson from Google shared the following statement: “We have worked with Compass for many years and they’ve done an excellent job operating many of Google’s cafes. We work with lots of partners, many of which have unionized workforces and many of which don’t. We’ll continue to partner with Compass.”

The Google spokesperson also said food service workers employed by Compass at Google’s New York and Seattle area offices have unionized in the last two years with Unite Here.

Service workers in the tech industry, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, have long seen stagnating wages that haven’t kept up with skyrocketing housing prices. In Silicon Valley, where Google’s campuses are located, the cost of living is currently the highest in the entire US, around $2,911 a month for an apartment, according to a recent estimate from the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies.

The situation has become so dire that an ad hoc RV camp formed outside Google’s headquarters, where some tech employees including Google’s own contractors are living. In June, Google announced it would invest $1 billion in land and building homes to help ease the crisis. Facebook and Apple have also made commitments of around $1 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively, to address California’s housing crisis that many say has been driven in large part by the growth of major tech companies.

But it could take years before residents see any meaningful results from these efforts, and in the meantime, service and retail workers, along with teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers, and other non-tech employees, are finding it increasingly difficult to afford to live in their communities.

Previous tech unionization efforts

In recent years, Google and other major tech companies have faced scrutiny for the vast differences in the labor conditions for full-time employees versus contracted workers. At Google, contractors make up around half of the company’s total workforce and are called “TVCs” — temps, vendors, and contractors.

The complaints TVCs have aren’t just about pay, but also working conditions. Many TVCs say they’re bound by forced arbitration agreements, meaning they can’t take their employer to court over workplace issues like sexual harassment. While Google eliminated forced arbitration in its own employment contracts following employee protests, contractors can still be subject to such agreements with the third-party companies that hire them to work at Google.


Some tech contractors have successfully unionized in the past. Back in 2017, around 500 food service workers organized at Facebook’s Menlo Park offices with Unite Here Local 19, the same group currently organizing workers at Google. That union negotiated a five-year contract that included $4.75 per hour in raises, as well as health care coverage and a benefit pension plan.

And thousands of security officers working at hundreds of offices in Silicon Valley, including major tech companies like Facebook, Cisco, and Genentech, unionized with SEIU in 2017. Shuttle drivers who help transport employees of companies like Facebook and Apple have been organizing with the Teamsters in the past several years. And in August, a group of around 80 Google contractors in Pittsburgh voted to unionize, drawing attention to the divide between these workers and their full-time counterparts.

But now, these roughly 2,300 cafeteria workers unionizing at Google’s Silicon Valley campuses represent one of the largest bargaining units of workers at a single major tech company — and a serious demonstration of the strength of a growing labor movement in tech.

Their organizing also comes at a time when Google’s white-collar workforce is increasingly participating in union organizing efforts, despite Google leadership’s attempts to crack down on employee dissent. In October, Google workers held a talk about unionization in Switzerland despite management’s attempts to cancel the meeting, as Recode first reported.

Around a month later, Google employees discovered that the company was meeting with an anti-union consulting firm. And shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday, Google fired four employees who say they were retaliated against for their union organizing. The Communication Workers of America union filed a complaint on behalf of these four in December with the National Labor Relations Board, which has since launched an investigation.

Earlier this month, another former Google employee came forward to say she was fired for her internal organizing efforts. Google denied that it has fired employees for organizing, and said that it terminated the employees for breaching the company’s data security policies.

Some white-collar tech worker activists say unions aren’t necessary to achieve some of the untraditional demands, such as canceling what they view as unethical projects to build technology for warfare and to support US immigrant detention camps. And in the face of apparent recent white-collar organizing suppression by Google’s management, some have doubted the viability of forming a well-organized union.

“I think this is a very symbolic and important push,” said Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Hastings who studies labor organizing in the tech industry. “The fact that this union was able to organize these very precarious workers, in a large tech company that’s already getting heat for their labor practices with their own employees — it’s such a big deal that it could really push the conversation about tech and labor practices more broadly.”

A year of protest, as seen through street art

From Argentina to Lebanon, images that defined a year of unrest.

By Hannah Brown hannah.brown@voxmedia.com Dec 31, 2019

2019 will go down as a year of worldwide unrest. In the last few months, protests have raged from Haiti and Venezuela to Iraq and Lebanon, from Russia to Canada.


Around the world, citizens are frustrated about inaction on climate change or angry about government corruption. Some protests have made international news; others have come and gone with less attention. But one thing many of them have in common is the presence of protest art.

The quality and wit of signs, murals, and costumes are striking, prompting viewers around the world to think about the movements in new ways.

The appeal of a nonverbal, approachable commentary in the world of social media is not lost on activists. In Lebanon, anti-government protestors portrayed politicians as the Joker. In Santiago, Chile, women unfurled a banner to protest gender-based violence.

Here’s a look at some of the works from around the world.
South and Latin America
Argentina

Members of leftist parties and Bolivian citizens watch a burning dummy depicting President Trump during a demonstration in support of Bolivia’s overthrown president Evo Morales in front of the US embassy in Buenos Aires, on November 22, 2019. Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images

Chile

Women protest against gender violence and the government in Santiago, Chile, on November 29, 2019. Javier Torres/AFP/Getty Images

Colombia

Colombian indigenous people and students protest on the eighth consecutive day against the government of Colombian President Ivan Duque in Bogota on November 29, 2019. S Juan Carlos Torres/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Venezuela

A mother and daughter walk by anti-Nicolas Maduro graffiti, who is rendered as “Salt Bae” in Caracas, Venezuela, on February 12, 2019. Roman Camacho/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Middle East
Iran

An Iranian man walks past a mural painted on the walls of the former US embassy in Tehran on November 2, 2019. Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images


Iraq

An Iraqi protester paints on a concrete barrier on al-Rasheed street in the capital Baghdad, during a lull in the anti-government demonstrations on December 5, 2019. Ahmad Al Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images


Lebanon

Anti-government protesters sit under graffiti depicting Lebanese politicians as Joker in downtown Beirut on November 12, 2019. Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images


Palestine

A Palestinian woman in Gaza City walks past a wall with graffiti showing President Trump with a footprint on his face on June 23, 2019. The Arabic text below reads, in Arabic: “For al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the right of return we resist.” Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images


Sudan

Sudanese protesters sit in front of a recently painted mural during a demonstration near the army headquarters in the capital Khartoum on April 24, 2019. With the fall of veteran leader Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s long-stifled graffiti artists have been able to express their art. Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images

Europe and Asia
Hong Kong

Lok Yi, a 27-year-old art student, folds paper cranes in the Times Square shopping area of Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, on September 29, 2019, as part of ongoing anti-government protests. Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images


Russia

A protester holds a banner demanding the release of actor Pavel Ustinov in Moscow, Russia, on September 19, 2019. Ustinov was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail for participating in anti-government protests. Celestino Arce/NurPhoto via Getty Images


Ukraine

Activists hold a banner depicting Ukrainian anti-corruption campaigner Kateryna Gandzyuk in Kiev, Ukraine, on February 9, 2019. Gandzyuk died from injuries from an acid attack in July 2018. STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images


North America
Canada

High school students lie on the ground as they protest climate change in front of the Canadian prime minister’s campaign office in Montreal on October 18, 2019. Louis Baudoin/AFP/Getty Images OTTAWA IS THE CAPITOL OF CANADA 

United States

Parents and their children held a rally outside Governor Andrew Cuomo’s offices in Manhattan on December 5, 2019, protesting against the controversial bills being proposed that would allow children to be vaccinated with STD vaccines without parental knowledge or consent. Erik McGre

The sad truth about our boldest climate target

Limiting global warming to 1.5˚C is almost certainly not going to happen. Admitting that need not end hope.
By David Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com Jan 3, 2020, 10:30am EST


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Activists in Berlin stood with signs calling for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius at a rally that criticized Germany’s insufficient climate policy on May 29, 2019. Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Image


In the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the countries participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed to a common target: to hold the rise in global average temperature “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.” The lower end of that range, 1.5˚C, has become a cause célèbre among climate activists.

Can that target still be met? Take a look at this animation from Carbon Brief:



UNEP: 1.5C climate target ‘slipping out of reach’ | @hausfath @robbie_andrew https://t.co/dGUfgnegzf pic.twitter.com/feXQTVyuNM— Carbon Brief (@CarbonBrief) December 30, 2019

No graphic I’ve ever seen better captures humanity’s climate situation. If we had peaked and begun steadily reducing emissions 20 years ago, the necessary pace of reductions would have been around 3 percent a year, which is ... well, “realistic” is too strong — it still would have required rapid, coordinated action of a kind never seen before in human history — but it was at least possible to envision.

We didn’t, though. We knew about climate change, there were scientists yelling themselves blue in the face, but we didn’t turn the wheel. Global emissions have only risen since then. Humanity has put more CO2 in the atmosphere since 1988, when climate scientist James Hansen first testified to Congress about the danger of climate change, than it did in all of history prior.

Now, to hit 1.5˚C, emissions would need to fall off a cliff, falling by 15 percent a year every year, starting in 2020, until they hit net zero.


That’s probably not going to happen. Temperature is almost certainly going to rise more than 1.5˚C.

A lot of climate activists are extremely averse to saying so. In fact, many of them will be angry with me for saying so, because they believe that admitting to this looming probability carries with it all sorts of dire consequences and implications. Lots of people in the climate world — not just activists and politicians, but scientists, journalists, and everyday concerned citizens — have talked themselves into a kind of forced public-facing optimism, despite the fears that dog their private thoughts. They believe that without that public optimism, the fragile effort to battle climate change will collapse completely.

I don’t think that’s true, but I can’t claim to know it’s not true. Nobody really knows what might work to get the public worked up about climate change the way the problem deserves. Maybe advocates really do need to maintain a happy-warrior spirit; maybe a bunch of dour doomsaying really will turn off the public.

But it is not the job of those of us in the business of observation and analysis to make the public feel or do things. That’s what activists do. We owe the public our best judgment of the situation, even if it might make them sad, and from where I’m sitting, it looks like the 1.5˚C goal is utterly forlorn. It looks like we have already locked in levels of climate change that scientists predict will be devastating. I don’t like it, I don’t “accept” it, but I see it, and I reject the notion that I should be silent about it for PR purposes.

In this post, I’ll quickly review how 1.5˚C came to be the new activist target and some reasons to believe it might already be out of reach. Then I’ll ponder what it means to admit that, what follows from it, and what it means for the fight ahead.
How 1.5˚C became the “last chance”

The new target adopted in Paris reflected a growing conviction among scientists and activists that 2˚C, the target that had served as a kind of default for years, was in no way “safe.” Climate change at that level would in fact be extremely dangerous. Thus the addition of “efforts” to hit 1.5˚C.

But it wasn’t until last year that the world really got a clear sense of how much worse 2˚C (3.6˚F) would be than 1.5˚C (2.7˚F), after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a special report on the subject. Its findings were grim. Even 1.5˚C is likely to entail “high multiple interrelated climate risks” for “some vulnerable regions, including small islands and Least Developed Countries.”

All of those impacts become much worse at 2˚C. (The World Resources Institute has a handy chart; see also this graphic from Carbon Brief.) Severe heat events will become 2.6 times worse, plant and vertebrate species loss 2 times worse, insect species loss 3 times worse, and decline in marine fisheries 2 times worse. Rather than 70 to 90 percent of coral reefs dying, 99 percent will die. Many vulnerable and low-lying areas will become uninhabitable and refugee flows will radically increase. And so on. At 2˚C, climate change will be devastating for large swathes of the globe.

In short, there is no “safe” level of global warming. Climate change is not something bad that might happen, it’s something bad that’s happening. Global average temperatures have risen about 1.3˚C from pre-industrial levels and California and Australia are already burning.

Still, each additional increment of heat, each fraction of a degree, will make things worse. Specifically, 2˚C will be much worse than 1.5˚C. And 2.5˚C will be much worse than 2˚C. And so on as it gets hotter.

The aforementioned IPCC report is the source of the much quoted notion that “we only have 11 years” to avoid catastrophic climate change (which I suppose now is “only 10 years”). That slogan is derived from the report’s conclusion that, to have any chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5˚C, global emissions must fall at least 50 percent by 2030.

That goal, a 10-year mobilization to cut global emissions in half, has become the rallying cry of the global climate movement and the organizing principle of the Green New Deal.Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and others at a rally. Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images
Being honest about 1.5˚C

Climate hawks, along with numerous recent scientific and economic reports (including the IPCC’s), emphasize that limiting global warming to 1.5˚C is still possible — physically and economically possible, with technology and resources we now possess.

And it’s true. As the IPCC showed, with sufficient torturing of climate-economic models, it is still possible to construct a pathway whereby emissions decline at the needed rate. Such scenarios generally involve everything going just right: every policy is passed in every sector, every technology pans out, we take no wrong turns and encounter no culs de sac, and climate sensitivity (the amount temperature changes in response to greenhouse gases) turns out to be on the lower end of scientific estimates. If we roll straight sixes for long enough, we can still win this.


The slogan meant to summarize this state of affairs has been around, with variations, for decades: “We have all the tools we need, all we lack is the political will.”

But political will (whatever that is) is not some final item on the grocery list to be checked off once everything else is in the cart. It is everything. None of the rest of it, none of the available policies and technologies, mean anything without it. It can’t be avoided, short-circuited, or wished away.

After all, it is possible to end global poverty in a decade, or even less. We have the technology to do so; it’s called money. The people who have more could give enough to those with less so that everyone had a decent life. Similarly, it’s possible to end global homelessness, habitat destruction, hunger, and war. The resources exist. All we lack is the political will.

But we haven’t ended those things. There are lots and lots of ways to reduce suffering that are possible, and have been possible for a long time, and we still don’t do them. We don’t even do a fraction of what we could to reduce immediate, visible suffering, much less the suffering of future generations and far-off populations. It turns out to be extraordinarily difficult to generate and effectively deploy the political power needed to secure beneficial policies (and hold them in place over time).

It’s not that progress hasn’t been made against a lot of large-scale problems. Global poverty and hunger have been declining. In the US, politics have radically shifted on issues like LGBTQ marriage and drug policy in recent years. Things can change quickly.

But global hunger is starting to edge up again, in no small part thanks to climate change. And climate change is different from those other large scale problems, for two reasons.

The trajectory to 1.5˚C, in red. Oil Change International

First, it’s not that progress is swinging around too slow, it’s that there’s very little progress at all. For all the frenzy around renewable energy in recent years, the best we’ve been able to do is slightly slow the rise in global emissions. We’re still traveling headlong in the wrong direction, with centuries of momentum at our backs.

Secondly and consequently, the level of action and coordination necessary to limit global warming to 1.5˚C utterly dwarfs anything that has ever happened on any other large-scale problem that humanity has ever faced. The only analogy that has ever come close to capturing what’s necessary is “wartime mobilization,” but it requires imagining the kind of mobilization that the US achieved for less than a decade during WWII happening in every large economy at once, and sustaining itself for the remainder of the century.


Emissions have never fallen at 15 percent annually anywhere, much less everywhere. And what earthly reason do we have to believe that emissions will start plunging this year? Look around! The democratic world is in the grips of a populist authoritarian backlash that shows no sign of resolving itself any time soon. Oil and gas infrastructure is being built at a furious pace; hundreds of new coal power plants are in the works. No country has implemented anything close to the policies necessary to establish an emissions trajectory toward 1.5˚C; many, including the US and Brazil, are hurtling in the other direction.

Just focusing on the US, there’s a more than 50/50 chance that President Donald Trump will be reelected in 2020, in which case we are all, and I can’t stress this enough, doomed. Even if Dems take the presidency and both houses of Congress, serious federal action will have to contend with the filibuster, then the midterm backlash, then the next election, and more broadly, the increasingly conservative federal courts and Supreme Court, the electoral college, the flood of money in politics, and the overrepresentation of rural states in the Senate.

The US, like many other countries, is balanced on a knife’s edge of partisanship, its growing demographics frustrated by structural barriers, its direction uncertain, and its policies and institutions increasingly unstable. Does a sudden and thorough about-face in social, economic, and political practice feel like something that’s in the offing this year? It doesn’t feel like that to me.

The difficulty of envisioning such a thing has led climate hawks like Al Gore to place their hopes on unpredictable social “tipping points,” invisible thresholds that, once breached, will allegedly yield radical change. (Back in 2012, Gore told me, “we’re not at the tipping point, but we’re much closer than we have been.”)

For as long as I can remember, people have been pointing out signs that such a tipping point is in the offing — counting the number of street protests, or the number of times TV news anchors saying the word “climate,” or the number of city officials endorsing 2030 goals — but global emissions just continue rising.

As I’ve written before, such tipping points are certainly possible. By their nature, they cannot be ruled out. Insofar as we have any hopes for rapid action, they rest there.

But hoping for a radical, unprecedented break in human history is very different from having a reasonable expectation that such a thing will take place. Lightning striking the same spot 100 times is possible. A roomful of monkeys with typewriters producing a Shakespeare play is possible. Human beings shifting the course of their global civilization on a dime is possible. But it probably won’t happen.

We’ve waited too long. Practically speaking, we are heading past 1.5˚C as we speak and probably past 2˚C as well. This is not a “fact” in the same way climate science deals in facts — collective human behavior is not nearly so easy to predict as biophysical cycles — but nothing we know about human history, sociology, or politics suggests that vast, screeching changes in collective direction are likely.
Coping with the tragic story of climate change

What bothers me about the forced optimism that has become de rigueur in climate circles is that it excludes the tragic dimension of climate change and thus robs it of some of the gravity it deserves.

That’s the thing: The story of climate change is already a tragedy. It’s sad. Really sad. People are suffering, species are dying off, entire ecosystems are being lost, and it’s inevitably going to get worse. We are in the midst of making the earth a simpler, cruder, less hospitable place, not only for ourselves but for all the kaleidoscopic varieties of life that evolved here in a relatively stable climate. The most complex and most idiosyncratic forms of life are most at risk; the mosquitoes and jellyfish will prosper.

That is simply the background condition of our existence as a species now, even if we rally to avoid the worst outcomes.Yeah, it’s a bummer.

Tragedy isn’t the only story, of course, and it’s not necessarily the one that needs to be foregrounded. There’s can-do innovation and technology, there’s equity and green jobs, there’s national security, there’s reduced air and water pollution — there are lots of positive stories to tell about the fight against climate change.

But it would be shallow, and less than fully human, to deny the unfolding tragedy that provides the context for all our decisions now.


I know from conversations over the years that many people see that tragedy, and feel it, but given the perpetually heightened partisan tensions around climate change, they are leery to give it voice. They worry that it will lend fuel to the forces of denial and delay, that they are morally obliged to provide cheer.

I just don’t think that’s healthy. To really grapple with climate change, we have to understand it, and more than that, take it on board emotionally. That can be an uncomfortable, even brutal process, because the truth is that we have screwed around, and are screwing around, and with each passing day we lock in more irreversible changes and more suffering. The consequences are difficult to reckon with and the moral responsibility is terrible to bear, but we will never work through all those emotions and reactions if we can’t talk about it, if we’re only allowed chipper talk about what’s still possible in climate models.
Hope in the face of tragedy

Saying that we are likely to miss the 1.5˚C target is an unpopular move in the climate community. It solicits accusations of “defeatism” and being — a term I have heard too many times to count — “unhelpful.”

Such accusations are premised on the notion that a cold assessment of our chances will destroy motivation, that it will leave audiences overwhelmed, hopeless, and disengaged.

But the idea that hope lives or dies on the chances of hitting 1.5˚C is poisonous in the long-term. Framing the choice as “a miracle or extinction” just sets everyone up for massive disappointment, since neither is likely to unfold any time soon.

As climate scientist Kate Marvel put it, “Climate change isn’t a cliff we fall off, but a slope we slide down.” Every bit makes it worse. No matter how far down the slope we go, there’s never reason to give up fighting. We can always hope to arrest our slide.

Exceeding 1.5˚C, which is likely to happen in our lifetimes, doesn’t mean anyone should feel apathetic or paralyzed. What sense would that make? There’s no magic switch that flips at 1.5˚C, or 1.7, or 2.3, or 2.8, or 3.4. These are all, in the end, arbitrary thresholds. Exceeding one does not in any way reduce the moral and political imperative to stay beneath the next. If anything, the need to mobilize against climate change only becomes greater with every new increment of heat, because the potential stakes grow larger.

Given the scale of the challenge and the compressed time to act, there is effectively no practical danger of anyone, at any level, doing too much or acting too quickly. The moral imperative for the remainder of the lives of everyone now living is to decarbonize as fast as possible; that is true no matter the temperature.

No one ever gets to stop or give up, no matter how bad it gets. (If you need a kick in the pants on this subject, read this essay by Mary Heglar.)



This can no longer be news among other news, an "important topic" among other topics, a "political issue" among other political issues or a crisis among other crises.
This is not party politics or opinions. This is an existential emergency. And we must start treating it as such. https://t.co/beRUwiJM1Y— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 29, 2019
Preparing for the world to come

As a final, practical point, speaking frankly about the extreme unlikelihood of stopping at 1.5˚C (and the increasing unlikelihood of stopping at 2˚C) could affect how we approach climate policy.

To be clear, it shouldn’t have any effect at all on our mitigation policies. In that domain, “as fast as possible” is the only rule that matters.

But it should mean getting serious about adaptation, i.e., preparing communities for, and helping them through, the changes that are now inevitable. As the old cliché in climate policy goes, we should be planning for 4˚C and aiming for 2˚C instead of what we’re doing, which is basically the reverse, drifting toward 4˚C while telling ourselves stories about a 2˚C (and now, 1.5˚C) world.

Here in the US, we need to think about how to help Californians dealing with wildfires, Midwestern farmers dealing with floods, and coastal homeowners dealing with a looming insurance crisis.

All those problems are going to get worse. We need to grapple with that squarely, because the real threat is that these escalating impacts overwhelm our ability, not just to mitigate GHGs, but to even care or react to disasters when they happen elsewhere. Right now, much of Australia is on fire — half a billion animals have likely died since September — and it is barely breaking the news cycle in the US. As author David Wallace-Wells wrote in a recent piece, the world already seems to be heading toward a “system of disinterest defined instead by ever smaller circles of empathy.”

That shrinking of empathy is arguably the greatest danger facing the human species, the biggest barrier to the collective action necessary to save ourselves. I can’t help but think that the first step in defending and expanding that empathy is reckoning squarely with how much damage we’ve already done and are likely to do, working through the guilt and grief, and resolving to minimize the suffering to come.