THIRD WORLD USA

A catastrophic year casts a pall of uncertainty across California’s agricultural valleys


Photograph: Matt Black/Magnum/The Guardian

In the state’s Central, Eastern Coachella and Imperial valleys, several challenges have compounded to create a tenor of uncertainty

Photographs and story by Matt Black

Mon 14 Dec 2020

Nowhere are the effects of the multiple crises that hit California this year more visible than in the state’s agricultural valleys.

The region faced a list of challenges almost too long to comprehend: record-breaking heat, smog and smoke from historic wildfires resulting in air quality too poor to be outside in. High rates of Covid-19 infections and the anxiety, isolation and job losses that go with it. Tensions around a divisive election. Fears and conflict over immigration policies.

In 2020, California’s Central, Eastern Coachella and Imperial valleys were no longer the outlying edges, but the center of the state’s troubles. A two-week reporting trip in October and November revealed that not knowing the outcome of so much, not knowing where things will go from here, has created a tenor of uncertainty that vibrated through the small towns and across the broad fields. 

Buttonwillow, California. More than 43% of Buttonwillow’s 1,583 residents live below the poverty line


Victorville, California. A burned and overturned car. Victorville is home to the Adelanto Ice Processing Center, where activists have regularly gathered to demand the release of detained immigrants with health conditions that make them vulnerable to Covid-19.



Firebaugh, California. Firebaugh has a poverty rate of 27.7%, and its farm worker residents must continue to work picking crops despite the pandemic. The wildfires in the state exacerbated already tough working conditions for valley farm workers.

Fresno, California. A fire at a homeless encampment downtown.
Fresno has a population of 961,820 and 24.1% live below the poverty level.

Taft, Kern county, California. Taft has a population of 7,294 and 24.5% of residents live below the poverty level. Like many other parts of the state, the city was under a “red-flag warning” for severe fire conditions in mid-October.

Mendota, Fresno county, California. Mendota has a population of 11,307 and has seen more than a 1,000 cases of Covid-19. Ninety per cent of California’s 381,000 farmworkers come from Mexico. Covid-19 has disproportionately affected Latino communities, accounting for 58% of all cases in the state as of August.


FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE GO HERE
A catastrophic year casts a pall of uncertainty across California’s agricultural valleys | US news | The Guardian

Wildfires take over from industry as major source of cancer-causing air toxins: study

Wildfires have taken over from industry as a major source of a group of cancer-causing chemical toxins in the air, Environment Canada says.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The first national assessment of polycyclic aromatic compounds in more than 25 years has found that air has improved around aluminum and steel plants. But wildfires and vehicles have stepped in to keep average concentrations at about the same level that they were in the 1990s, says federal researcher Elisabeth Galarneau.

"Those big industrial point sources have been reduced to a very small fraction of the total," she says. "The largest (remaining) source by far is the natural emissions from forest fires."

The levels are still high enough in many places across the country to exceed health guidelines, the assessment found.

Polycyclic aromatic compounds are created during burning of everything from oil to wood to cigarettes. Many are carcinogenic and are considered priority pollutants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

No federal guidelines for the chemicals exist. Alberta, Quebec and Ontario have set recommended levels, but Galarneau said only Ontario's are based on the effects on human health.

"(Ontario's) guideline is exceeded almost everywhere we looked in Canada," Galarneau said. "The exceedances in some areas are well over an order of magnitude."

The increasing size and severity of wildfires is a big reason why the levels haven't changed despite improved industrial emissions, she said.

"We would normally have called those natural, but now forest fires are seen to be increasing in frequency and severity because of climate change. There's now a (human-caused) component."

Research has found that climate change contributes to bigger, hotter fires by drying out forests and extending the fire season.

Other increased sources of the chemicals are increased vehicle emissions as well as residential wood-burning. The contributions of those sources vary widely from place to place.

Vehicles account for less than 10 per cent of emissions nationally, but in Toronto they can reach 50 per cent or even higher.

Galarneau warned that her research isn't the whole picture. Her team looked at only 16 different compounds, a list that dates back to the 1970s. Analytical chemistry has come a long way since then. Scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about other similar chemicals that aren't on the list, she said.

"Everywhere you look, it seems people are coming to the same conclusion. There are other compounds beyond those 16 that make toxicity, and our measurements and models should probably expand to incorporate those."

The paper points out that concentrations of toxins in the air increase by factors of 1.4 to 6.2 when the number of compounds tested for is expanded.

The 16 compounds in this study became priorities because of their association with cancer. Galarneau said cancer isn't the only health danger from the chemicals on the expanded list. They are thought to have effects on the lung and liver as well.

"We know less than we do for the 16, but there's a body of evidence that is growing and identifying toxic effects associated with them," she said. "Some of these other (chemicals) are also implicated in non-cancer health outcomes."

The study is the fourth in a series of recent research publications on Canada's air quality. Two more are due and a final summary report is to be released in the coming months.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 14, 2020.

LONG READ

He may have found the key to the origins of life. 

So why have so few heard of him?

Michael Marshall 8 hrs ago

© Painting by László Gulyás An oil painting of Hungarian biologist Tibor Gánti.

When biologist Tibor Gánti died on April 15, 2009, at the age of 75, he was far from a household name. Much of his career had been spent behind the Iron Curtain that divided Europe for decades, hindering an exchange of ideas.

But if Gánti’s theories had been more widely known during the communist era, he might now be acclaimed as one of the most innovative biologists of the 20th century. That’s because he devised a model of the simplest possible living organism, which he called the chemoton, that points to an exciting explanation for how life on Earth began.

The origin of life is one of science’s most perplexing mysteries, partly because it is several mysteries in one. What was Earth like when it formed? What gases made up the air? Of the thousands of chemicals that living cells now use, which ones are essential—and when did those must-have substances arise?

Perhaps the hardest question is the simplest: What was the first organism?

For scientists attempting to re-create the spark of life, the chemoton offers an attractive target for experiments. If non-living chemicals can be made to self-assemble into a chemoton, that reveals a pathway by which life could have formed from scratch. Even now, some research groups are edging startlingly close to this model.

And for astrobiologists interested in life beyond our planet, the chemoton offers a universal definition of life, one not tied to specific chemicals like DNA, but instead to an overall organizational model.

“I think Gánti has thought deeper about the fundamentals of life than anybody else I know,” says biologist Eörs Szathmáry of the Centre for Ecological Research in Tihany, Hungary.
Life’s beginning

There is no agreed scientific definition of life, though not for want of trying: A 2012 paper identified 123 published definitions. It’s challenging to write one that encompasses all life but that excludes everything non-living with life-like attributes, such as fire and cars. Many definitions say that living things can reproduce. But a rabbit, or a human, or a whale on its own cannot reproduce.

In 1994 a NASA committee described life as “a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” The word “system” can mean an individual organism, a population, or an ecosystem. That gets around the reeproduction problem, but at a cost: vagueness.

What few people knew at the time was that Gánti had offered another way two decades earlier.

Tibor Gánti was born in 1933 in the small town of Vác, in central Hungary. His early life was colored by conflict. Hungary allied itself with Nazi Germany in World War II, but in 1945 its army was defeated by the Soviet Union. The totalitarian regime would dominate eastern Eurasia for decades, with Hungary becoming a satellite state, like most other eastern European countries.

Fascinated by the nature of living things, Gánti studied chemical engineering before becoming an industrial biochemist. In 1966 he published a book on molecular biology called Forradalom az Élet Kutatásában, or Revolution in Life Research, a dominant university textbook for years—partly because few others were available. The book asked whether science understood how life was organized, and concluded that it did not.

In 1971 Gánti tackled the problem head-on in a new book, Az Élet Princípiuma, or The Principles of Life. Published only in Hungarian, this book contained the first version of his chemoton model, which described what he saw as the fundamental unit of life. However, this early model of the organism was incomplete, and it would take him another three years to publish what is now regarded as the definitive version—again only in Hungarian, in a paper that is not available online.

Miracle year

Globally, 1971 was something of a banner year for research into the origin of life. In addition to Gánti’s underdog work, science put forward two other important theoretical models.

The first came from American theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, who argued that living organisms must be able to copy themselves. In speculating about how this might have worked before cells formed, he focused on mixtures of chemicals.

Suppose, he argued, that chemical A drives the formation of chemical B, which then drives the formation of chemical C, and so on, until something in the chain makes a fresh version of chemical A. After one cycle, two copies of each set of chemicals will exist. Given sufficient raw materials, another cycle will yield four copies, and continue exponentially.

Kauffman called such a group an “autocatalytic set,” and he argued that such groups of chemicals could have been the foundation for the first life, with the sets becoming more intricate until they produced and used a range of complex molecules, such as DNA.

In the second idea, German chemist Manfred Eigen described what he called a “hypercycle,” in which several autocatalytic sets combine to form a single larger one. Eigen’s variant introduces a crucial distinction: In a hypercycle, some of the chemicals are genes and are therefore made of DNA or some other nucleic acid, while others are proteins that are made-to-order based on the information in the genes. This system could evolve based on changes—mutations—in the genes, a function that Kauffman’s model lacked.

Gánti had independently arrived at a similar notion, but he pushed it even further. He argued that two key processes must take place in every living organism. First, it has to build and maintain its body; that is, it needs a metabolism. Second, it has to have some sort of information storage system, such as a gene or genes, that could be copied and passed on to offspring.

Gánti’s first version of this model was essentially two autocatalytic sets with distinct functions that combined to form a larger autocatalytic set—not so different from Eigen’s hypercycle. However, the following year Gánti was questioned by a journalist who pointed out a key flaw. Gánti assumed the two systems were based on chemicals floating in water. But left to themselves, they would drift apart, and the chemoton would “die.”

The only solution was to add a third system: an outer barrier to contain them. In living cells, this barrier is a membrane made of fat-like chemicals called lipids. The chemoton had to have such a barrier to hold itself together, and Gánti concluded that it also had to be autocatalytic so that it could maintain itself and grow.

Here at last was the full chemoton, Gánti’s concept of the simplest possible living organism: genes, metabolism, and membrane, all linked. The metabolism produces building blocks for the genes and membrane, and the genes exert an influence over the membrane. Together they form a self-replicating unit: a cell so simple it could not only arise with relative ease on Earth, it could even account for alternate biochemistries on alien worlds.
Forgotten model

“Gánti captured life really well,” says synthetic biologist Nediljko Budisa of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. “It was a revelation to read.” However, Budisa discovered Gánti’s work only around 2005. Outside of Eastern Europe, it remained obscure for decades, with only a few English translations on the market.

The chemoton appeared in English in 1987, in a paperback with a rather rough translation, says James Griesemer of the University of California, Davis. Few noticed. Szathmáry later gave the chemoton pride of place in his 1995 book The Major Transitions in Evolution, co-written with John Maynard Smith. This led to a new English translation of Gánti’s 1971 book, with additional material, released in 2003. But still the chemoton remained niche, and six years later Gánti was dead.

To some extent, Gánti did not help his model find favor: he was known to be a difficult colleague. Szathmáry says Gánti was stubbornly wedded to his model, and paranoid to boot, making him “impossible to work with.”

But perhaps the biggest problem for the chemoton model was that in the last decades of the 20th century, the trend in research was to strip away the complexity of life in favor of ever more minimalist approaches.

For example, one of the most prominent hypotheses still in vogue today is that life began solely with RNA, a close cousin of DNA.

Like its more famous molecular relative, RNA can carry genes. But crucially, RNA can also act as an enzyme and accelerate chemical reactions, leading many experts to argue that the first life needed nothing but RNA to get started. However, this RNA World hypothesis has gotten pushback, particularly because science hasn’t found a type of RNA that can copy itself unaided—think of RNA-powered viruses like the coronavirus that need human cells to reproduce.

Other researchers have argued that life began with proteins and nothing else, or lipids and nothing else. Such ideas are a long way from Gánti’s integrated approach.
A real chemoton?

However, scientists in this century have turned the tide. Researchers now tend to emphasise the ways the chemicals of life work together, and how these cooperative networks might have emerged.

Since 2003, Jack Szostak of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues have built increasingly lifelike protocells: simple versions of cells containing a range of chemicals. These protocells can grow and divide, meaning they can self-replicate.

In 2013, Szostak and his then-student Kate Adamala persuaded RNA to copy itself within a protocell. What’s more, the genes and membrane can be coupled: as RNA builds up inside, it exerts pressure on the outer membrane, encouraging the protocell to grow larger.

Szostak’s research “is very Gánti-like,” says synthetic biologist Petra Schwille of the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany. She also highlights the work of Taro Toyota at the University of Tokyo in Japan, who has made lipids inside a protocell, so that the protocell can grow its own membrane.

One argument against the idea of a chemoton as first life has been that it requires so many chemical components, including nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids. Many experts found it unlikely that these chemicals would all arise from the same starting materials in the same place, hence the appeal of stripped-back ideas like the RNA World.

But biochemists have recently found evidence that all the key chemicals of life can form from the same simple starting materials. In a study published in September, researchers led by Sara Szymkuć, then at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, compiled a database using decades of experiments that sought to make life’s chemical building blocks. Starting with just six simple chemicals, like water and methane, Szymkuć found it was possible to make tens of thousands of key ingredients, including the basic components of proteins and RNA.

None of these experiments has yet built a working chemoton. That may simply be because it’s tricky, or it may be that Gánti’s exact formulation is not quite how the first life worked. Still, what the chemoton gives us is a way to think about how life’s components work together, which increasingly drives today’s approaches to understanding how life got started.

It is telling, adds Szathmáry, that citations of Gánti’s work are now accumulating rapidly. Even if the exact details differ, the current approaches to the origin of life are much closer to what he had in mind—an integrated approach that is not focused on just one of life’s key systems.

“Life is not proteins, life is not RNA, life is not lipid bilayers,” Griesemer says. “What is it? It’s all those things hooked together in the right organization.”

Michael Marshall is a science writer based in Devon, U.K. His book The Genesis Quest is about the origin of life on Earth and is out now. Follow Michael on Twitter.

Mexico's senior Catholic leader backs civil unions for gay couples


By David Alire Garcia


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican Catholic Church’s highest-ranking bishop agrees with recent comments by Pope Francis in support of legal protections offered by civil unions for gay couples, the prelate told Reuters, stressing that no family member should ever be rejected.




FILE PHOTO: Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes arrives to take part in the inauguration ceremony as Mexico's new Archbishop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Mexico February 5, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Romero/File Photo

Mexico is the second-biggest Catholic country after Brazil with around 80% of its nearly 130 million people affiliated with the church. It has historically been conservative-leaning on social issues.

Cardinal Carlos Aguiar, archbishop of Mexico City, said in an interview that he backs the pope’s comments from a documentary that premiered in October and used previously unseen footage from an interview he gave to Mexican broadcaster Televisa. The comments marked the first time a sitting pope had advocated any legal protections for gay couples.

“I completely agree,” said Aguiar, a long-time ally of Pope Francis, who spoke ahead of Saturday’s feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, one of the Mexican Church’s most important annual celebrations.

In the documentary, entitled “Francesco,” the pope says, “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family, they are children of god,” and “what we have to have is a civil union law, that way they are legally covered.”

The pope’s comments did not signal any change in church doctrine on homosexuality or support for same-sex marriage, which the Vatican emphasized after the remarks made headlines across the globe

But Francis’ more open and inclusive tone has marked a sharp contrast with his more conservative predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

“All of us are children of god, all are members of the family, and if we’re fighting so that families are united, regardless of their conduct, they don’t stop being our children. And that’s what Pope Francis said, everyone has the right to family,” said Aguiar.

The cardinal, who has lobbied against both abortion rights and same-sex marriage, argued that parents should never reject their openly gay children.

“Because if, as it happens unfortunately, a son in a family declares himself openly homosexual, then they don’t want to have anything to do with him. And that can’t be, it just can’t be,” he said, echoing Francis’ sentiments.

“If they decide as a matter of free choice to be with another person, to be in a union, that’s freedom,” he said.

Like the Argentine pontiff, the 70-year-old Aguiar touts landmark church reforms in the 1960s that pushed the church closer to the faithful and also embraced a social teaching aimed at alleviating human misery, while focusing less on what Aguiar called the “clerical mentality” that prioritizes the institution.

“The key point was to move away from a church that defended itself from the world,” he said.

Aguiar added that much work remains to address poverty and inequality in Mexico and the surrounding region.

“Latin America is the part of the world that’s most unequal,” he said, “and many of us here are Catholic!

“What kind of witness is that?”

Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Leslie Adler

Bolivia approves first same-sex union following legal battle

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivia’s civil registry authorized for the first time a same sex civil union following a two-year legal battle, a decision activists in the Andean nation hope will pave the way for an overhaul of the country’s marriage laws.

David Aruquipa, a 48-year-old businessman, and Guido Montaño, a 45-year-old lawyer, were initially denied the right to register their union in 2018 by authorities in Bolivia, who said the country’s laws did not allow same sex marriage.

The couple, together for more than 11 years, took their case to court. While the Bolivian Constitution still does not contemplate same sex unions, Montaño and Aruquipa argued successfully the prohibition violated international human rights standards and constituted discrimination under Bolivian law.

“It is an initial step, but what inspires us is (the goal) of transforming the law,” said Aruquipa, a well-known local activist for LGBT causes.

VIDEO

Despite considerable opposition from religious groups, gay marriage has become increasingly accepted in Latin America, with same sex couples now allowed to marry in Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay and parts of Mexico.

Reporting by Daniel Ramos and Reuters TV, Writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Bill Berkrot

NO ONE ASKED US

Moroccan Islamist groups reject normalizing ties with Israel

By Reuters Staff

RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco’s main Islamist groups on Saturday rejected Rabat’s plan to normalize ties with Israel following a deal brokered by the United States.

The religious branch of the co-ruling PJD party, the Unity and Reform Movement (MUR), said in a statement the move was “deplorable” and denounced “all attempts at normalisation and the Zionist infiltration.” The Islamist PJD party was more nuanced, endorsing King Mohammed VI’s actions support for the Palestinian cause while reiterating the party’s “firm position against the Zionist occupation.”

Unlike its government coalition partners who backed the deal, it took the PJD two days to react after disagreements emerged between the party’s senior leadership, according to a source close to the matter.

A core element of the deal brokered by President Donald Trump was U.S. recognition of Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over the Western Sahara. A decades-old territorial dispute has pitted Morocco against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks to establish an independent state.

“The United States made an important proclamation that stresses Morocco’s sovereignty over its southern provinces and opens new horizons for strengthening Morocco’s position in international circles. It also further isolates the adversaries of our territorial integrity,” the Islamist party said in a statement.

King Mohammed VI has the last say over major diplomatic decisions.On Friday, Morocco’s outlawed Adl Wal Ihssane, one of the largest opposition groups in the country, said normalisation deals a “stab from the back to the Palestinian cause.”

AMERIKA THE GUNRUNNER
Exclusive-Trump administration moves forward with $1 billion Moroccan arms deal
By Patricia Zengerle, Mike Stone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s administration moved forward with $1 billion in sales of drones and precision-guided weapons to Morocco on Friday, sending a notice to Congress about the potential deals, according to sources familiar with the notification.

The deal includes four MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones made by privately-held General Atomics, and Hellfire, Paveway and JDAM precision-guided munitions made by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing, the sources said.

Reuters was first to report on Thursday that Washington was negotiating the sale and would notify Congress shortly.

News of the deal came as the White House announced an agreement brokered with U.S. help for Morocco to normalize relations with Israel.

Earlier this year the U.S. offered stealthy F-35 jet fighters to the United Arab Emirates in a side deal to the U.S.-brokered agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel to normalize relations.

Congress is notified about major international weapons deals and given the opportunity to review them before they go through. Under U.S. weapons export law, members of Congress can attempt to block such sales by offering resolutions of disapproval, but sources said that was not expected in this case

A deal with Morocco would be among the first drone sales after the Trump administration moved ahead with a plan to sell more drones to more countries by reinterpreting an international arms control agreement called the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

This fall drone sales moved ahead to Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates. An effort to block the UAE sale failed in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.


Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Mike Stone; Editing by Chris Sanders and Daniel Wallis

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MOROCCO (plawiuk.blogspot.com)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY (plawiuk.blogspot.com)

#CAPPLETALI$M  #WILDCATSTRIKE

Apple Inc is investigating a Taiwan contractor, Wistron Corp, flouted guidelines at an iPhone manufacturing facility in India, after some workers ransacked the plant in a protest over unpaid wages.

© Reuters/STRINGER Men wearing protective face masks walk past broken windows of a facility run by Wistron Corp in Narsapura

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (Reuters) - Apple Inc said on Monday it is investigating whether a Taiwan contractor, Wistron Corp, flouted supplier guidelines at an iPhone manufacturing facility in India, after some workers ransacked the plant in a protest over unpaid wages.

Thousands of contract workers gathered on the grounds of the Wistron site on the outskirts of India's tech hub of Bengaluru on Saturday demanding unpaid wages and better working hours.

As police arrived, the crowd turned violent and video from the scene showed people armed with rods and sticks smashing equipment and vandalizing cars, causing what the company estimated at $60 million in damage.

"We have teams on the ground and have immediately launched a detailed investigation at Wistron's Narasapura facility," Apple said in an email, adding it was dedicated to ensuring everyone in its supply chain was treated with dignity and respect.

Apple said it was sending staff and auditors to the site and was cooperating with police in their investigation.

Wistron, one of Apple's top global suppliers, said in a regulatory filing in Taiwan it "always abides by the law, and fully supports and is cooperating with relevant authorities".

Wistron has been making iPhones in India for nearly four years and its operation has been seen as a success story for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government that is looking to boost manufacturing.

"The incident hurts the 'Make in India' label," said independent brand consultant Harish Bijoor, referring to the government promotion campaign slogan. "Such events are small scars left on India as a manufacturing facility."

Apple, under the leadership of Tim Cook, has been looking to not only step up its marketing and presence in India - one of the biggest smartphone markets in the world - but also expand its sourcing footprint in the South Asian nation.

A minister for the state of Karnataka, where the factory is located, said the government was talking to all parties and that the labour department was investigating any underpayment of wages and non-clearance of other dues.

The unrest comes as Modi's government is under pressure from protesting farmers opposed to reforms in the agricultural sector, which they say threaten their livelihoods.

MILLIONS IN DAMAGES

Videos taken by employees in the Wistron factory showed men, many wearing masks due to the coronavirus outbreak, destroying security cameras, windows and other equipment.

The crowd smashed four cars, two golf carts, stole laptops and smartphones and destroyed other office equipment, according to a police report filed by Wistron and reviewed by Reuters.

In the complaint, Wistron accused more than 5,000 contract workers and some 2,000 unknown people of destruction of property. It put the losses at 4.38 billion rupees ($60 million).

Police have arrested 149 people over the violence, a senior officer said, while a search was on to identify and arrest more perpetrators as the investigation continues.

Trade union leader M.D. Harigovind said the violence was a direct result of the "brutal exploitation of workers and sweatshop like conditions".

Wistron, whose workers are not unionized, did not respond to questions seeking comment on the allegations, but said in a statement earlier it was "deeply shocked" by the violence it blamed on "unknown persons ... with unclear intentions".

(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal in New Delhi, Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Writing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee; Editing by Euan Rocha, Arun Koyyur and Stephen Coates)

SABOTAGE IWW.ORG

Holiday retail workers seek "temporary lifeline" in warehouse jobs, if they can find one
By Victoria Waldersee, Melissa Fares and Nivedita Balu 

© Reuters FILE PHOTO: Worker operates a forklift at Europa Worldwide Group's warehouse in Dartford, Britain in this undated handout obtained by Reuters November 28, 2020.

(Reuters) - This time of year, hundreds of thousands of seasonal retail workers across North America and Europe would usually be wrapping gifts, stirring hot chocolates, tidying Christmas displays or assisting the flurry of last-minute shoppers.

But the balance of available holiday jobs this year has radically shifted from storefront to warehouse and delivery amid record purchases online. And with millions of retail workers in the United States and Europe already laid-off, competition for what remaining jobs are left is fierce, economists say.

The supply of available holiday jobs in U.S. customer-facing retail fell by a third to 302,100 this year from around 466,400 jobs last November, data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics gathered by consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed.

Macy's Inc cut seasonal hires to 25,000 this year from 80,000 in 2019. JC Penney Company Inc, narrowly rescued from bankruptcy in early November, is hiring just 1,700 people in contrast to 37,000 last year. For a graphic, click here 'Tis the season: Fewer retail jobs up for grabs.

Meanwhile, applications for U.S. storefront retail positions have jumped by around 34% year-on-year, according to November data from jobs site Glassdoor.

Kayla Frederick, 31, was laid off from her position as leasing assistant for a tour bus company in Florence, Alabama in April as venues closed and tours were cancelled because of the pandemic. In November, she started her first ever seasonal job in a local clothing boutique's warehouse, pulling online orders, folding inventory and tagging intake items.

"I never expected to be laid off this long," Frederick said. "I'm thankful this gave me a job."

In Europe, data from jobs sites like Indeed, Adzuna, Student Jobs and CV Library paints a similar picture of lower vacancies and rising applications. The number of available seasonal jobs in the UK was down by a third year-on-year in November to 13,600, according to Adzuna data.

CV Library reported a 60% drop in the number of customer-facing retail jobs listed in the UK compared to last year – but clicks per job have doubled. In Germany and the UK, sales associates at jobs site Student Jobs reported increased contact from frustrated students not hearing back from companies inundated in applications.

Data from Indeed in the UK showed a jump of around a third in clicks per posting on seasonal jobs this year compared to last, according to a report by Indeed's UK in-house economist Jack Kennedy.

"Jobseekers may be looking at Christmas jobs as a potential temporary lifeline as job losses mount," Kennedy wrote.

'NEW WORLD OF RETAIL'

UK postal service Royal Mail increased its seasonal hires to 33,000 this year from 20,000 in 2019, while FedEx Corp in the U.S. hired a quarter more seasonal workers, taking total hires to 70,000 from 55,000, labour statistics bureau data showed.

"This is likely a window into the new world of retail," Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, said. "What was done out of necessity during a pandemic is likely to become an annual online shopping tradition for future holidays."

Glassdoor saw a 120% year-on-year increase in applications for e-commerce roles like delivery drivers, warehouse workers and order pickers in the United States and a 45% jump in the UK.

Oscar Jiminez, a twenty-two year old college senior in Southern California, is among the lucky ones. He landed seasonal employment in October in a gig he believed would have him working as a customer service agent on an "essential" retailers' sales floor. But he found himself in a warehouse at the back of the store instead.

"This wasn't exactly in my job description." Jiminez said. "So far I've been picking orders, going around the store, finding things people purchased online and getting them ready for curbside pickup, ship-to-home... I'm constantly on the move."

Some supermarkets are also pushing up hiring. In the UK, British supermarket Tesco posted 2,000 more seasonal vacancies than last year. It posted its seasonal vacancies on student jobs site E4S a month later than usual because of lockdown uncertainty, but still received over twice as many applications, according to website data.

German supermarket giant Lidl took on 2,400 apprentices this year in Germany, 40% higher than last year's intake. Lidl and Amazon.com Inc were already boosting their staff by a significant amount throughout the year to deal with the surge in demand, reducing the need for temporary seasonal hires, the companies said.

Amazon hired just 100,000 seasonal staff this year in the United States, half last year's total of 200,000, because it had already boosted operational hires by 275,000 throughout the year, it said in September.

Lidl took an opportunistic approach to finding candidates this season in Germany, where a partial lockdown is likely to be toughened in coming days. "Bar work is so yesterday," read a November 30 recruitment ad. "Look forward to a secure job for €12.50 an hour - switch industries and get into retail."

Lidl pulled the ad within a day after backlash from the gastronomy sector on social media, it told Reuters, apologizing for the distress the message caused. It declined to say how many new positions it had on offer.

(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee in Lisbon, Melissa Fares in New York, Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Vanessa O'Connell and Edward Tobin)

ABOUT TIME
The Cleveland Indians are changing their name after 105 years.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Citing three people familiar with the decision, The New York Times reported Sunday night that the team is moving away from a name considered racist for decades. The Indians have been internally discussing a potential name change for months.

A team spokesman told The Associated Press the franchise has no immediate comment on the report.

The Times said the team could make a formal announcement later this week. It's not known when the name change will take effect or if the team has settled on a new moniker.

Cleveland's move away from Indians follows a similar decision earlier this year by the NFL's Washington Football Team, which was previously known as the Redskins.

For years, Native American groups and others have protested against Cleveland's use of Indians as its name as well as other imagery used by the American League charter franchise founded in 1901. Last year, the team removed the contentious Chief Wahoo logo from its caps and jerseys, but the smiling, cartoonish mascot has remained popular and merchandise is still sold bearing its image.

The Indians have dealt with a backlash from fans upset over Chief Wahoo's removal and the club is certain to hear more with the decision to change its name.

“Oh no! What is going on?" President Donald Trump tweeted. "This is not good news, even for ”Indians". Cancel culture at work!"

In July, just hours after Washington's plans became known after being pressured by several sponsors, including FedEx which holds naming rights to the football's team's stadium, Cleveland owner Paul Dolan released a statement saying the team would review “the best path forward with our team name.”

In the months since, the team has consulted players, front office members, coaching staff, community leaders, share holders and Native American groups.

A few days after Dolan's statement, Indians manager Terry Francona said it was time to "move forward” with the name change.

"I've been thinking about it and been thinking about it before we put out that statement,” said Francona, who has been with the club since 2013. “I know in the past, when I’ve been asked about, whether it’s our name or the Chief Wahoo, I think I would usually answer and say I know that we’re never trying to be disrespectful.

“And I still feel that way. But I don’t think that’s a good enough answer today. I think it’s time to move forward. It’s a very difficult subject. It’s also delicate.”

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME CHEESE WITH THAT WHINE

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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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Tom Withers, The Associated Press

#GOVEGETARIAN

Industry group seeks to shorten two-week shutdown of Nova Scotia poultry plant

THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THE HEALTH & SAFETY OF THE WORKERS


KENTVILLE, N.S. — The provincial government needs to speed up COVID-19 testing and look for options to shorten the planned two-week shutdown of a poultry processing plant in Berwick, the Chicken Farmers of Nova Scotia said on the weekend.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The head of the organization, Thom Oulton, said the closure of the only federal chicken-processing plant in the province was a concern for both farmers and consumers.

HEY DON'T ASSUME TO SPEAK FOR ME

"It's hard for us to agree that a 14-day shutdown is necessary when we don't know how widespread the problem is," Oulton said in a statement.

The province closed Eden valley Poultry last week following an outbreak of COVID-19 cases among employees.

"We have no evidence of community spread at this point, but we have to act fast, " Premier Stephen McNeil said Friday.

As of Saturday, six employees had tested positive and were self isolating.

Public health authorities urged residents living between New Minas and Middleton were advised to be tested as a precaution.

While protecting everyone's health had to be top priority, Oulton said, the security of the food supply was also important and the shutdown needed to be as short as possible.

"Consumers are counting on farmers to supply them with a steady, safe supply of quality local chicken," he said. "Every day the plant is down has the potential to put our local food supply at risk."

The plant has about 450 employees.

Oulton said the industry was looking to processing plants in New Brunswick and Quebec for help during the shutdown.

"We want the government working with the plant to look at all available options," he said.

— By Kevin Bissett in Fredericton.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 13, 2020.

The Canadian Press