A Large PR Firm Pledged To Fight Climate Change. Then It Took Millions From A Notorious Fossil Fuel Trade Group.

Edelman, a PR firm that’s pledged to “work with an environmental conscience,” was paid $4 million to promote one of the most extreme fossil fuel trade groups in the country, new tax filings show.

Posted on March 12, 2021

BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

Edelman, one of the largest public relations firms in the world, has pledged never to work with climate deniers and proudly touts its work on environmental justice campaigns with brands like Tazo Tea.

But newly released tax filings obtained by Buz

"Edelman is basically misleading the public about its so-called green reputation,” Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Brown University who studies climate lobbying and advertising, told BuzzFeed News.

The global public relations powerhouse has roughly 6,000 employees working to “promote and protect” prominent brands like Ikea, KFC, and Dove. Selling its own socially conscious image, the company has repeatedly stressed its commitment to efforts to “reduce emissions,” “work with an environmental conscience,” and “lead in the transition to sustainable and socially responsible business models.” On its website, Edelman proudly declares it worked with cleantech companies “long before climate change became a buzzword.”

But in recent years, Edelman has faced a backlash, both publicly and internally, over its willingness to take on high-profile campaigns for clients that are big polluters.

After four high-level executives quit in 2015 citing this issue, the firm publicly pledged never to work with coal clients or climate deniers. The vague commitment left the door open to a broad range of work for fossil fuel businesses or companies that have fought against regulations cutting carbon pollution.

“Right now the only categorical exclusion we have is on climate denial and coal,” Michael Stewart, then a top Edelman executive, told the Guardian in 2015. “When you are trying in some way to obfuscate the truth or use misinformation and half-truths that is what we would consider getting into the work of greenwashing, and that is something we would never propose or work we would support our client doing.”

But AFPM, a trade group that pulled in more than $55 million in revenue in 2019 alone, has aggressively opposed climate action and provided funding to the Heartland Institute, a climate denial group. AFPM has paid Edelman at least $12 million for public relations work from 2017 to 2019, tax filings show.

AFPM has taken some of the most extreme positions among fossil fuel trade groups, including helping create Energy4Us, a group that ran Facebook ads supporting the Trump administration’s rollbacks of national fuel efficiency standards without initially disclosing its ties to the oil and gas industry. The trade group also helped fund a campaign opposing a carbon tax in Washington state.

The trade group’s hardline climate policies prompted Royal Dutch Shell to announce in the spring of 2019 that it would not be renewing its AFPM membership, followed by the French oil company Total and the UK giant BP. All three oil companies, which are among the world’s top climate polluters, cited the trade group’s opposition to a carbon tax and lack of support for the Paris climate agreement in their decisions to quit.


AFPM is “not technically denying climate change but they might as well be,” said Andrew Logan, senior director of the oil and gas industry program at the corporate sustainability group Ceres.

“The only way to understand their policy positioning,” Logan added, “is that they will support any policy that encourages more use of oil products and they will oppose any policy that would lead to less consumption of oil products.”

Edelman did not respond to multiple requests for comment about what PR work it did for AFPM or if the group is still one of its clients.

AFPM also did not respond to a list of detailed questions from BuzzFeed News. But in a statement, it said, “We advocate for public policies that enable our members to safely and sustainably provide the fuels and petrochemicals that the world’s growing populations and economies need to thrive.” The trade association added, “We unequivocally acknowledge that climate change is real and that we have a role to play in reducing global GHG emissions.”


Eric Gaillard / Reuters
Richard Edelman, president and CEO of the public relations company


The fossil fuel industry is a huge potential source of revenue for public relations firms. Research by the Brown sociologist Brulle found that five big oil companies combined have “spent nearly $3.6 billion in advertising purposes for corporation promotion” from 1986 to 2015.

In addition to Edelman, AFPM paid another public relations firm, Singer Associates, roughly $14.5 million from 2017 to 2019. Singer Associates, based in San Francisco, has worked closely with Chevron on an “aggressive” crisis campaign after it was accused of environmental damage in Ecuador. Singer Associates also led a public relations campaign aimed at improving perception of Chevron's Bay Area refinery, where a 2012 fire led roughly 15,000 local residents in a low-income community to seek medical treatment.

Singer Associates “is honored to work for AFPM and Chevron,” Sam Singer, the firm’s president, told BuzzFeed News in an email, adding: “Our agency supports the Paris Agreement and is committed to helping to address climate change. Our work for AFPM and Chevron reflects our philosophy and beliefs.”

“As a policy, we do not discuss the details of work we perform for our clients,” Singer continued. “With that said, we did not work on Energy4Us.”

Edelman also did not respond to questions about whether it was involved in the Energy4Us campaign.

Edelman recently became a target of a public pressure campaign dubbed “Clean Creatives,” which is trying to get public relations firms and ad agencies to commit to refusing future contracts with fossil fuel companies, trade associations, and front groups.

And sometime over the past year, the firm quietly changed the section of its website dedicated to its “Position on Climate” to a position on “Energy and the Environment.”

In recent blog posts, CEO Richard Edelman has heralded the business community for being “prepared to take the lead in fighting the twin evils of climate change and inequality” and urged companies to consider setting climate science–based targets.

Kendall TaggartBuzzFeed News Reporter

Zahra HirjiBuzzFeed News Reporter

NUTTER RIGHTWING POLITICIANS 

NOT JUST IN ALBERTA

NB MLA defends attending rally held in opposition to COVID-19 restrictions

WATCH HER BACKPEDAL

Jacques Poitras CBC

3/16/2021

© Jacques Poitras/CBC Miramichi MLA and People's Alliance member Michelle Conroy is defending her decision to attend a rally organized by a group that has promoted anti-mask and anti-vaccine views online.

A People's Alliance MLA is defending her decision to attend a weekend rally organized by a group that promotes anti-mask, anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown views.

Michelle Conroy said she was at the Miramichi rally to support rotational workers who face what she considers onerous self-isolation requirements when they come home to New Brunswick.

"This was just a rally for rotational workers," said Conroy, who has raised the issue at the legislature.

"This was not anti-mask. They told me that as soon as I arrived, that it wasn't anti-mask, anti-lockdown. It was just rotational workers wanting to see their families and being able to do something that's going to help mentally through this time. …

"That's the only thing that this was about."

A Facebook user named Wendy Yehia, who is an administrator of a group called Miramichi Freedom Warriors, posted the photo of Conroy and said the MLA was there "to give us her support."

The Miramichi Freedom Warriors page includes posts questioning COVID-19 vaccines and claiming lockdowns, masking requirements and even hand sanitizers violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In a video posted from the rally, one man argued that "thousands of doctors and thousands of medical professionals" believe that pandemic lockdowns are "killing more people than they're saving."

Another woman talked at length about "experimental vaccines" and about the federal Emergencies Act, which has not been invoked during the pandemic.

New Brunswick's COVID-19 restrictions are authorized under the provincial Emergency Measures Act.

Education Minister Dominic Cardy said Conroy would have to answer for her presence at the rally.

"I would not go near those sort of rallies with a 10-foot pole," said Cardy, who clashed with anti-vaccination groups when trying to win passage of a bill on mandatory vaccinations for school children.

© Ed Hunter/CBC PC MLA and Education Minister Dominic Cardy has questions about Conroy's decision to attend the rally.

Cardy said the rallies are being organized by Vaccine Choice Canada, who fought his bill and who he called "one of the most dangerous organizations around, spreading misinformation around vaccines."

Yehia said in a post to the group promoting the rally ahead of time that it was "not an anti-mask, anti-vac 'let's all spread covid' type of rally."

Yehia said Monday she was unable to do an interview before the deadline for this story. Another administrator of the Facebook group did not respond to messages from CBC News seeking comment.

People who travel into and out of New Brunswick on rotating work shifts must self-isolate for 14 days when they return, including from their own families.

Public Health rules say that if the worker can't isolate from the rest of the family, then the entire family must self-isolate.

"Right now they can't even leave the house," Conroy said. "They can't go for a walk. They can't sit outside on their doorstep, check their mail, go for a drive."

On Friday the province announced that rotational workers will be eligible for a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine later this month. Officials said it was too early to say whether that would allow the relaxing of the isolation requirements.

"They were hoping to hear better news than they were given," Conroy said.

The second-term Alliance MLA said she has been told of cases of rotational workers bringing the virus back into New Brunswick and infecting others, though she wouldn't say who told her that.

But she said the province's refusal to confirm that it's happened is sowing doubts among the rotational workers themselves about the merits of the policy.

"That's why they want numbers. That's why we've asked for numbers," she said. "They won't tell them if there was any, and if there was any, how many that have brought the virus back."

A photo posted by Yehia shows Conroy, unmasked, talking to someone near the rally location. Masks are not required outdoors in the yellow phase of COVID-19 restrictions unless distancing can't be maintained.

Conroy said she was at the rally for "the better part of an hour" to show her support, and the plight of rotational workers "was the only issue."

Asked about signs saying "End the lockdown" in one of the rally videos, she speculated that it was referring to the restrictions on rotational workers rather than COVID-19 restrictions in general. "I didn't see that sign particularly," she said.

In one recent post to the Miramichi Freedom Warriors page, Miramichi resident Rory Lamkey said the page was the best way to reach "non maskers" and suggested, without any evidence, that recent COVID-19 cases were among people wearing masks.

Yehia agreed the situation was "fishy" and said, without any proof, that it was part of a plan to keep the public in fear to "push" vaccines.

PLAYERS NEED A UNION & CBA

How much are student-athletes worth?

March Madness returns, as does compensation debate.


Artur Davis and James Davis
Tue, March 16, 2021

On Thursday, March Madness returns — a small but real step toward making America normal again. This same month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could serve as a catalyst to reshape college sports.

The legal question in the court’s case sounds abstract: Did the superpower that runs college athletics, the NCAA, violate federal law by restricting benefits for college athletes?

But the two of us, an ex-Alabama politician who practices employment rights law and a public affairs consultant with Georgia roots, know the hardship of college athletes, especially in the South (where college sports dominate the pros in so many ways). Many students struggle to afford a plane ticket home while making plenty of money for their colleges and their coaches. They should be allowed to benefit financially from their association with sports and position themselves for future success.


The South that we know is the epicenter of big-time college sports in all its wealth and glory. It is also a landscape of shattered athletic dreams: men whose knees gave out, who never fully regained that lost step after rehab, or who lacked pro-level talent. Some of them ended up broke. Some can’t bear to watch the games they once loved.

March Madness begins March 18, 2021.

Former college athletes such as Shabazz Napier, a University of Connecticut standout who played for the Washington Wizards, and former Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace, who never made the cut in the NFL, have described another cruel feature of college sports: Student-athletes going to bed hungry unable to buy food.

Exploitation and arbitrary rules

College sports is partly built on exploitative and arbitrary NCAA rules that prevent college athletes from having an equity interest in Division I football and basketball — despite the risks and grueling demands of playing big-time sports. College sports is a $19 billion industry, but the revenue creators — the student-athletes — lose eligibility to play if they receive any financial benefit based on their status as an athlete, such as pay for endorsements or appearances.

Since 2015, the major regional college sports conferences have been allowed to offer student-athletes, in addition to scholarships, stipends for expenses such as food and travel up to $5,000 a year. This sounds generous if you don’t do the math and realize the sports locker room is a below-minimum-wage sweatshop. Five years into the 2015 reforms, nearly a quarter of Division I athletes reported struggling to buy food. Others reported homelessness.

More than 60% of Division I athletes sustained a major injury and 50% developed a chronic condition, according to the Journal of Athletic Training. While the NCAA requires college athletes to have insurance, the coverage can be spotty and inadequate. Only the small number of athletes with high round draft potential can genuinely protect the value of a future wrecked by catastrophic injury.

No matter what the Supreme Court decides, federal lawmakers can set things right by passing bipartisan legislation to preserve the best of college sports while empowering college athletes.

Promising policy ideas are emerging. Several democrats in the House and the Senate have proposed, among other things, revenue sharing for college athletes. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., has offered a narrower reform focused on name, image and likeness compensation.

Neither approach has the votes to pass, and they both seem centered on the biggest brand name teams and players. Women’s sports and college programs outside the Power Five won’t fare well under either option.
Some nontraditional fixes

We think something more creative is needed to ensure athletes are included in the financial rewards of their billion dollar industry. While we agree with two-thirds of Americans who support letting college athletes earn product endorsement money, the biggest beneficiaries would be a small number of superstars.

A more inclusive reform would allow college athletes to begin building their economic future while they are in school the time-tested way, through jobs and connections with corporate America. For instance, college athletes deserve the chance to trade sponsorship and promotional ties with businesses for job training and apprenticeship opportunities.

While there are some student-athletes who could be popular enough to work with Nike to create (and make money off of) an entire shoe line, others might get a different deal — one in which Nike could use their likeness in exchange for job training in the manufacturer's marketing or research departments. Let students and corporations work out whatever deal works for them. The NCAA (and everyone else) should get out of the way.

Freeing athletes to be entrepreneurial turns the scales on defenders of the status quo who claim that banning outside income protects the interests of small schools that can’t compete with the cash cows in Athens, Clemson and Tuscaloosa.

The solution is broader than “salaries” and creates opportunities based on skill, a core American principle. Alabama State and Grambling can’t afford bidding wars with Southeastern Conference powers, but think of the potential of Apple and Citigroup engaging stars at smaller historically Black colleges and universities without today’s fuzzy rules on “impermissible benefits.”

Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the National College Players Association who is a crusader for student-athletes, has other transformative ideas, among them the establishment of trust funds that would be available to college athletes who have either completed their degree or are on their way to completion.

Student-athletes — all of them, not just the future first-round picks — need a path to security and wealth. The Cinderella teams during March Madness must share in a more equitable future.

The rules need to permit companies and communities to creatively invest in our student-athletes.

Artur Davis is an employment rights lawyer and a former Democratic congressman from Alabama. James Davis is a criminal justice activist and founder of Touchdown Strategies, a marketing and communications firm.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How much are student-athletes worth? March Madness returns, as does pay debate

Rubio endorsing Amazon workers’ union push signals a political shift in organized labor’s favor

NAW JUST POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM

AROUND CULTURE KAMPF 


Marco Rubio

Rey Mashayekhi
Mon, March 15, 2021

On Friday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) published an op-ed in USA Today expressing his support for recent unionization efforts by Amazon workers at the retail giant’s Bessemer, Ala., warehouse.

It was an unorthodox move for the Republican senator, whose party is more associated with pro-business policies that have contributed to organized labor’s waning influence in recent decades. But in his piece, Rubio criticized the retail giant for having “waged a war against working-class values” and claimed that “the days of conservatives being taken for granted by the business community are over.

“When the conflict is between working Americans and a company whose leadership has decided to wage culture war against working-class values, the choice is easy—I support the workers,” Rubio wrote. “And that’s why I stand with those at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse today.”

Rubio wasn’t unequivocal in his support for organized labor. He knocked Democrats’ proposed Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—which would strengthen workers’ ability to unionize—as legislation that would “mandate adversarial relations between labor and management.” He also characterized the right to form a union as “a requirement that business owners allow left-wing social organizers to take over their workplaces.” While the head of the union conducting the Amazon workers’ unionization drive welcomed Rubio’s support, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka accused the senator of “political pandering” given his opposition to the PRO Act.

And beyond labor concerns, Rubio’s essay also appeared exceptionally concerned with Amazon’s politics. He described the company as “enthusiastic culture warriors,” likely in reference to its recent decision to stop selling books that frame transgender sexual identity as a mental illness—a move that drew scrutiny from Rubio and other GOP senators.

Still, Rubio’s pro-worker stance—which echoed a similar article he wrote for The Atlantic in 2018—could signal a broader political shift in favor of organized labor. After years of declining union membership, recent polling indicates that public support for unions in the U.S. is on the rise. And President Biden has looked to live up to his campaign promise of being “the strongest labor President you have ever had” by broadly backing the Amazon workers’ right to unionize (albeit without naming the company or explicitly endorsing their unionization drive).

But while it’s not uncommon for Democratic lawmakers to offer such support to unions, the backing of a leading Senate Republican is far more surprising, and may hint at changing attitudes toward organized labor on the right. With the GOP increasingly looking to appeal to working-class voters, an embrace of pro-labor policies could prove to be in the party’s interest, given evidence showing that unions played a key role in reducing economic inequality in the 20th century.

Of course, that embrace would run counter to the decades of free-market orthodoxy that has guided the Republican Party’s economic principles and kept it cozy with business interests. But after a decade bookended by two recessions that left millions of working Americans struggling to cope, Rubio’s words may speak to a growing acceptance of what unions represent—on both sides of the aisle.

How Amazon Crushes Unions

In a secret settlement in Virginia, Amazon swore off threatening and intimidating workers. As the company confronts increased labor unrest, its tactics are under scrutiny.

 

Amazon’s warehouse in Chester, Va., where a union effort tried to organize about 30 facilities technicians in 2014 and 2015.Credit...Carlos Bernate for The New York Times

By David Streitfeld

NYT
March 16, 2021

RICHMOND, Va. — Five years ago, Amazon was compelled to post a “notice to employees” on the break-room walls of a warehouse in east-central Virginia.

The notice was printed simply, in just two colors, and crammed with words. But for any worker who bothered to look closely, it was a remarkable declaration. Amazon listed 22 forms of behavior it said it would disavow, each beginning in capital letters: “WE WILL NOT.”

“We will not threaten you with the loss of your job” if you are a union supporter, Amazon wrote, according to a photo of the notice reviewed by The New York Times. “We will not interrogate you” about the union or “engage in surveillance of you” while you participate in union activities. “We will not threaten you with unspecified reprisals” because you are a union supporter. We will not threaten to “get” union supporters.

Amazon posted the list after the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers accused it of doing those very things during a two-year-long push to unionize 30 facilities technicians at the warehouse in Chester, just south of Richmond. While Amazon did not admit to violations of labor laws, the company promised in a settlement with federal regulators to tell workers that it would rigorously obey the rules in the future.

The employee notice and failed union effort, which have not previously been reported, are suddenly relevant as Amazon confronts increasing labor unrest in the United States. Over two decades, as the internet retailer mushroomed from a virtual bookstore into a $1.5 trillion behemoth, it forcefully — and successfully — resisted employee efforts to organize. Some workers in recent years agitated for change in Staten Island, Chicago, Sacramento and Minnesota, but the impact was negligible.

Bill Hough Jr., a machinist at the Chester warehouse who led the union drive. Amazon fired him in 2016.Credit...Carlos Bernate for The New York Times

In an employee notice, Amazon listed behavior it said it would disavow.


The arrival of the coronavirus last year changed that. It turned Amazon into an essential resource for millions stuck at home and redefined the company’s relationship with its warehouse workers. Like many service industry employees, they were vulnerable to the virus. As society locked down, they were also less able to simply move on if they had issues with the job.

Now Amazon faces a union vote at a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. — the largest and most viable U.S. labor challenge in its history. Nearly 6,000 workers have until March 29 to decide whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. A labor victory could energize workers in other U.S. communities, where Amazon has more than 800 warehouses employing more than 500,000 people.

“This is happening in the toughest state, with the toughest company, at the toughest moment,” said Janice Fine, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. “If the union can prevail given those three facts, it will send a message that Amazon is organizable everywhere.”

Even if the union does not prevail, “the history of unions is always about failing forward,” she said. “Workers trying, workers losing, workers trying again.”

The effort in Chester, which The Times reconstructed with documents from regulators and the machinists’ union, as well as interviews with former facilities technicians at the warehouse and union officials, offers one of the fullest pictures of what encourages Amazon workers to open the door to a union — and what techniques the company uses to slam the door and nail it shut.

The employee notice was a hollow victory for workers. The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that negotiated the settlement with Amazon, has no power to impose monetary penalties. Its enforcement remedies are few and weak, which means its ability to restrain anti-union employers from breaking the law is limited. The settlement was not publicized, so there were not even any public relations benefits.

Amazon was the real winner. There have been no further attempts at a union in Chester.

The tactics that Amazon used in Chester are surfacing elsewhere. The retail workers union said Amazon was trying to surveil employees in Bessemer and even changed a traffic signal to prevent organizers from approaching warehouse workers as they left the site. Last month, the New York attorney general said in a lawsuit that Amazon had retaliated against employees who tried to protest its pandemic safety measures as inadequate.

Amazon declined to say whether it had complied with labor laws during the union drive in Chester in 2014 and 2015. In a statement, it said it was “compliant with the National Labor Relations Act in 2016” when it issued the employee notice, and “we continue to be compliant today.” It added in a different statement that it didn’t believe the union push in Alabama “represents the majority of our employees’ views.”

The labor board declined to comment.

The Chester settlement notice mentions one worker by name: Bill Hough Jr., a machinist who led the union drive. The notice said Amazon had issued a warning to Mr. Hough that he was on the verge of being fired. Amazon said it would rescind the warning.

Six months later, in August 2016, Amazon fired him anyway.

Mr. Hough (pronounced Huff) was in a hospital having knee surgery when Amazon called and said he had used up his medical leave. Since he couldn’t do his job, he said he was told, this was the end of the line.

“There was no mercy, even after what they had done to me,” Mr. Hough, now 56, said. “That’s Amazon. If you can’t give 110 percent, you’re done.”

Amazon declined to comment on Mr. Hough.

No Constraints

A truck at the warehouse in Chester. Amazon has been fending off attempts to unionize since at least 1999. Credit...Carlos Bernate for The New York Times

Amazon was founded on notions of speed, efficiency and hard work — lots of hard work. Placing his first help wanted ad in 1994, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, said he wanted engineers who could do their job “in about one-third the time that most competent people think possible.”

Amazon managers openly warned recruits that if they liked things comfortable, this would be a difficult, perhaps impossible, job. For customer service representatives, it was difficult to keep up, according to media accounts and labor organizers. Overtime was mandatory. Supervisors sent emails with subject headings like “YOU CAN SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE DEAD.”

In 1999, the reps, who numbered about 400, were targeted by a grass-roots group affiliated with the Communications Workers of America. Amazon mounted an all-out defense.

If workers became anything less than docile, managers were told, it was a sign there could be union activity. Tipoffs included “hushed conversations” and “small group huddles breaking up in silence on the approach of the supervisor,” as well as increased complaints, growing aggressiveness and dawdling in the bathroom.

Amazon was in sync with the larger culture. Unions were considered relics of the industrial past. Disruption was a virtue.

“Twenty years ago, if you asked whether the government or workers should be able to put any constraints on companies, the answer always was ‘No constraints,’” said Marcus Courtney, a labor organizer on the 1999 Amazon campaign. “If companies wanted to push people 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, hats off to them.”

When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Amazon lost some of its glow. For a time, its very existence was in question.

This caused problems for the activists as well. The company reorganized and closed the customer service center, though Amazon said there was no connection with the union drive. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the Prewitt Organizing Fund, an independent group, made no inroads organizing Amazon’s 5,000 warehouse workers.

A decade later, in 2011, came a low point in Amazon’s labor history. The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pa., revealed that Amazon was hiring paramedics and ambulances during summer heat waves at a local warehouse. Workers who collapsed were removed with stretchers and wheelchairs and taken to hospitals.

Amazon installed air conditioning but otherwise was undaunted. After the Great Recession in 2008, there was no lack of demand for its jobs — and no united protest about working conditions. In Europe, where unions are stronger, there were sporadic strikes. In the United States, isolated warehouse walkouts drew no more than a handful of workers.

The Machinist

Mr. Hough said he had felt pressured to cut corners to keep conveyor belts running.Credit...Ruth Fremson for The New York Times


Mr. Hough worked as an industrial machinist at a Reynolds aluminum mill in Richmond for 24 years. He once saw a worker lose four fingers when a steel roller fell unexpectedly. Incidents like that made a deep impression on him: Never approach equipment casually.

Reynolds closed the plant in the Great Recession, when Mr. Hough was in his mid-40s. Being in the machinists guild cushioned the blow, but he needed another job. After a long spell of unemployment, he joined Amazon in 2013.

The Chester warehouse, the size of several aircraft carriers, had opened a year earlier, part of Amazon’s multibillion-dollar push to put fulfillment centers everywhere. Mr. Hough worked on the conveyor belts bringing in the goods.

At first, he received generally good marks. “He has a great attitude and does not participate in negative comments or situations,” Amazon said in a March 2014 performance review. “He gets along with all the other technicians.”

But Mr. Hough said he had felt pressured to cut corners to keep the belts running. Amazon prided itself on getting purchases to customers quickly, and when conveyor belts were down that mission was in jeopardy. He once protested restarting a belt while he was still working on it.

“Quit your bitching,” Mr. Hough said his manager, Bryon Frye, had told him, twice.

“That sent me down the wrong road,” Mr. Hough said.

Bryon Frye’s tweet about Amazon union campaigns.Credit...Twitter

Mr. Frye, who declined to comment, no longer works for Amazon. On Twitter last month, he responded to a news story that said Amazon was hiring former F.B.I. agents to deal with worker activism, counterfeiting and antitrust issues.

“This doesn’t shock me,” he wrote. “They do some wild things.”

The Union Drive


Members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union distributed literature outside the Alabama warehouse where Amazon workers are voting on whether to join the union.Credit...Bob Miller for The New York Times


In 2014, Mr. Hough and five other technicians approached the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. A unionization effort was already taking place with the technicians at an Amazon warehouse in Middletown, Del. If either succeeded, it would be the first for Amazon.

The elections for a union would be conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. The first step was to measure interest. At least 18 of the 30 technicians in Chester returned cards indicating their willingness to be represented by the union.

“It was not too difficult to sign people up,” said Russell Wade, a union organizer there. “But once the word leaked out to Amazon, they put the afterburners on, as employers do. Then the workers started losing interest. Amazon spent oodles of money to scare the hell out of employees.”

The board scheduled an election for March 4, 2015. A simple majority of votes cast would establish union representation.

Amazon brought in an Employee Resource Center team — basically, its human resources department — to reverse any momentum. A former technician at the warehouse, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, said the reps on the team followed workers around, pretending to be friendly but only seeking to know their position on the union drive.

If safety was the biggest issue for the technicians, there were also concerns over pay equity — machinists said they were paid different amounts for doing the same job — and about their lack of control over their fate. Part of Mr. Hough’s pitch was that a union would make management less arbitrary.

“One guy, all I remember is his name was Bob,” he said. “They paged Bob to the control room, and the next thing I saw was Bob coming down the steps. He had taken off his work vest. I said, ‘Bob, where are you going?’ He said, ‘They terminated me.’ I didn’t ask why. That’s the way it was.”

Several technicians said they recalled being told at a meeting, “You vote for a union, every one of you will be looking for a job tomorrow.” At another, the most outspoken union supporters were described as “a cancer and a disease to Amazon and the facility,” according to Mr. Hough and a union memo. (In a filing to the labor board, Amazon said it had investigated the incident and “concluded that it could not be substantiated.”)

Mr. Hough, a cancer survivor, said the reference had offended him. He declined to attend another meeting run by that manager. He said he had known in any case what she was going to say: that the union was canceling the election because it thought it would lose. Amazon had triumphed.

On March 30, 2015, Mr. Hough received a written warning from Mr. Frye, his manager.

“Your behavior has been called out by peers/leaders as having a negative impact,” it said. Included under “insubordination” was a refusal to attend the Amazon victory announcement. Another incident, Amazon said, could result in termination.

The machinists union filed a complaint with the labor board in July 2015 alleging unfair labor practices by Amazon, including surveilling, threatening and “informing employees that it would be futile to vote for union representation.” Mr. Hough spent eight hours that summer giving his testimony. While labor activists and unions generally consider the board to be heavily tilted in favor of employers, union officials said a formal protest would at least show Chester technicians that someone was fighting for them.

In early 2016, Amazon settled with the board. The main thrust of the two-page settlement was that Amazon would post an employee notice promising good behavior while admitting nothing.

Wilma Liebman, a member of the labor board from 1997 to 2011, examined the employee notice at the request of The Times. “What is unusual to my eye is how extensive Amazon’s pledges were, and how specific,” she said. “While the company did not have to admit guilt, this list offers a picture of what likely was going on.”

Amazon was required to post the notice “in all places where notices to employees are customarily posted” in Chester for 60 days, the labor board said.

From the machinists union’s point of view, it wasn’t much of a punishment.

“This posting was basically a slap on the wrist for the violations that Amazon committed, which included lies, coercion, threats and intimidation,” said Vinny Addeo, the union’s director of organizing.

Another reason for filing an unfair labor practices claim was that the union hoped to restart its efforts with a potentially chastened company. But most of the employees who supported the Chester drive quit.

“They were intimidated,” Mr. Wade, the union organizer, said.

Mr. Hough was beset by ill health during his years at Amazon. Radiation treatment for his cancer prompted several strokes. His wife, Susan, had health problems, too. Mr. Hough said he wondered how much the unionization struggle contributed to their problems. He added that he didn’t know whom to trust.

After leaving Amazon, Mr. Hough began driving trucks, at first long haul and later a dump truck. It paid less, but he said he was at peace.
Maximum Green Times

Nearly 6,000 workers in Bessemer have until March 29 to decide whether to join the union.Credit...Wes Frazer for The New York Times

When Amazon vanquished the 2014 union drive in Delaware, the retailer said it was a victory for “open lines of direct communication between managers and associates.”

One place Amazon developed that direct communication was in its warehouse bathrooms under what it called its “inSTALLments” program. The inSTALLments were informational sheets that offered, for instance, factoids about Mr. Bezos, the timing of meetings and random warnings, such as this one about unpaid time off: “If you go negative, your employment status will be reviewed for termination.”

Amazon’s “inSTALLments” program used postings in warehouse bathrooms to communicate with workers.Credit...The New York Times

As the union drive heated up in Bessemer, the direct communication naturally was about that. “Where will your dues go?” Amazon asked in one stall posting, which circulated on social media. Another proclaimed: “Unions can’t. We can.”

Amazon also set up a website to tell workers that they would have to skip dinner and school supplies to pay their union dues.

In December, a pro-union group discovered, Amazon asked county officials to increase “maximum green times” on the warehouse stoplight to clear the parking lot faster. This made it difficult for union canvassers to approach potential voters as they left work. Amazon declined to comment.

Last month, President Biden weighed in.

“There should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda,” he said in a video that never mentioned Amazon but referred to “workers in Alabama” deciding whether to organize a union. “You know, every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees that choice.”

Workers in Alabama – and all across America – are voting on whether to organize a union in their workplace. It’s a vitally important choice – one that should be made without intimidation or threats by employers.

Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union. pic.twitter.com/2lzbyyii1g— President Biden (@POTUS) March 1, 2021

Owning 25 Hats

Mr. Hough, in an interview before the pandemic, said part of him wanted to forget what had happened at Amazon. Why dwell on defeat? He threw away all the papers from the union drive. He never saw the employee notice because he was recovering from a stroke.

But he has not forgiven the retailer.

“You’re only going to step on me one time,” he said, sitting in his home in the outskirts of Richmond.

Amazon’s customers just don’t know how miserable a job there can be, he suggested.

“I guarantee you, if their child had to work there, they’d think twice before purchasing things,” he said.

Ms. Hough, sitting next to him, had a bleaker view.

“The customers don’t care about unions. They don’t care about the workers. They just want their packages,” she said.

As if on cue, their son, Brody, came in. He was 20, an appliance technician. His mother told him there was a package for him on his bed. It was from Amazon, a fishing hat. It cost $25, Brody said, half the price on the manufacturer’s website.

“I order from Amazon anything I can find that is cheaper,” Brody said. That adds up to a lot of hats, about 25. “I’ve never worked for Amazon. I can’t hate them,” he said.

Ms. Hough looked at her husband. “If your own son doesn’t care,” she asked, not unkindly, “how are you going to get the American public to care?”

The pandemic helped change that, bringing safety issues at Amazon to the forefront. In a Feb. 16 suit against Amazon, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, said the company continued last year to track and discipline employees based on their productivity rates. That meant workers had limited time to protect themselves from the virus. The suit said Amazon retaliated against those who complained, sending a “chilling message” to all its workers. Amazon has denied the allegations.

Last week, regional Canadian authorities also ordered thousands of workers at an Amazon warehouse near Toronto to quarantine themselves, effectively closing the facility. Some 240 workers recently tested positive for the virus there, a government spokeswoman said, even as the rate of infection in the area fell. Amazon said it was appealing the decision.

Alabama is now the big test. Mr. Hough worries the union supporters will be crushed.

“They will fall to threats or think, ‘I won’t have a job, Amazon will replace me,’” he said by phone this month. “When a company can do things to you in secret, it’s real hard to withstand.”

Still, he added, “I’m hoping for the best. More power to them.”

Amazon and Workers

Amazon Workers’ Union Drive Reaches Far Beyond Alabama

March 2, 2021

Amazon’s Great Labor Awakening

Feb. 18, 2021

Amazon Union Drive Takes Hold in Unlikely Place

Jan. 25, 2021

Pushed by Pandemic, Amazon Goes on a Hiring Spree Without Equal

Nov. 27, 2020

David Streitfeld has written about technology and its effects for twenty years. In 2013, he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.   

The Battle To Unionize Amazon's Alabama Warehouse Started Right Here

Dave Jamieson
·Labor Reporter, HuffPost
Tue, March 16, 2021

Union organizers from the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union rally support as workers change shifts outside Amazon's fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, in March. (Photo: Bob Miller for HuffPost)

BESSEMER, Ala. ― The most closely watched union campaign in years began at the entrances to an Amazon warehouse here last October. Five months later, workers and organizers are still standing at the same posts day and night, determined not to let up until the ballots are counted at the end of March.

If the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union wins this fight to create the first union within Amazon’s U.S. workforce, the victory will have been seeded right here.

“Every gate is really important. It’s how you start organizing,” said José Aguilar, a union representative stationed at an entrance one day last week.


Aguilar, 48, was working the evening shift as the sun set and the temperature hung near 70 degrees ― the most pleasant weather he could ask for while standing on a sidewalk for a few hours. He held a union sign and waved as a worker leaving the parking lot pulled up to the traffic light, headed home. Aguilar’s colleagues stood at two other spots down the road.

He tried to explain why he’s stood at the entrances since the fall, sometimes for 10 consecutive days.

“If [workers] stop and have questions, we answer the questions,” Aguilar said. “If they come and we left, and they don’t see nobody, they’re gonna say, ‘They don’t care.’”

Union representative José Aguilar has stood at the warehouse entrances to talk to workers about the union since the fall, sometimes for 10 consecutive days. (Photo: Bob Miller for HuffPost)

Posting workers and organizers at the facility gates is a standard feature of industrial organizing campaigns, since unions don’t have access to worksites and don’t receive workers’ contact information until an election is scheduled. That means having to approach workers on public property right outside to make the case for why they should organize.

The entrance is where organizers amassed many of the 3,000 union cards workers signed. Signing a card indicates you authorize the union to represent you, but in reality it just means you’re game for a secret-ballot election. Once a union gathers cards from 30% of the expected bargaining unit, it can trigger an election through the National Labor Relations Board, though unions typically try to gather a greater share, to be more confident they have majority support.

The entrance is also where union organizers built trust and relationships with workers coming and going from the warehouse. And it’s where they endured frigid temperatures, the occasional cussing, and a lot of boredom between warehouse shift changes.

The RWDSU’s work at the gates has been unusually important for this campaign, given the size of the potential bargaining unit. With 5,800 workers, it appears to be the biggest union election under the National Labor Relations Board in two decades. Their conversations have also been a crucial source of intelligence on Amazon’s anti-union campaign unfolding inside the facility.

Mona Darby, 63, said she has spent so much time interacting with workers at the entrances that she knows which ones would make good union reps if the RWDSU wins. She said some workers will specifically ask to see “Ms. Mona” on their way out.

“You remember the cars. You remember the faces,” said Darby, who works as an inspector at a poultry plant a few hours away and serves as the president of her union local. “Certain ones stop by all the time to talk to you. If the light changes [green], they’ll keep going and holler at you.”

Mona Darby, who works as an inspector at a poultry plant a few hours away and serves as the president of her union local, said she has spent so much time interacting with workers at the Amazon warehouse entrances that she knows which ones would make good reps if the employees unionize. (Photo: Bob Miller for HuffPost)

Working the entrances takes backbone. Darby said one particular man leaving the facility ― “the white guy in the truck” ― often heckles them. There have been times when someone would pull up in a car, post up across the street at night and watch the organizers in silence. Early on in the campaign, she said, a white man told her he didn’t want her “Black ass” around the warehouse.

Joshua Brewer, the RWDSU’s lead organizer for the Amazon campaign, said the union made a strategic decision early on to never leave their spots ― except for Christmas Day. At first, union members and organizers held the posts around the clock, so that no worker left the facility without passing them.

Several of the union members who are organizing work in poultry plants, and they wore industrial freezer gear to battle temperatures that dropped into the teens. Warehouse workers could see them jumping around to stay warm. Eventually, the union pulled back on the midshift hours, when they were unlikely to encounter much traffic.

Brewer, who spent many days at the entrances himself, said there is a fine line between showing dedication and looking a little sad.

“We didn’t want the workers worrying about us,” he said with a laugh.

In Brewer’s office in downtown Birmingham, about 25 minutes from the warehouse, there is a laminated poster showing a blown-up satellite image of the warehouse, with symbols at each spot where workers enter or leave, along with organizers’ names in dry-erase marker denoting their schedules there.

Brewer said he and other organizers were stunned at how rapidly Amazon workers signed union cards in the fall. Some of those cards were signed online due to the pandemic, but the union says a majority of them were paper cards with signatures. That legwork is essential to any organizing effort.

The red light at the main entrance offers organizers only a short window of time to talk to workers. As the news organization More Perfect Union reported, the light sequence was changed in the middle of the union campaign, allowing less time. Amazon had asked the county to alter the sequence late last year, and the county said it changed it because of traffic backups.

Some union organizers anticipate still being at the warehouse gates even after the union organizing ballots are counted. Either Amazon or the union may challenge ballots that are cast, and it could be several days or weeks before it’s clear whether the union won. (Photo: Bob Miller for HuffPost)

Tray Ragland, a poultry worker who has been at the entrances for several weeks, said he often ends up swapping numbers with employees so an organizer can speak to them later.

“I’m trying to get everything out as fast as I can at the red light,” Ragland said.

Darby said her most productive shift led to a dozen cards in a three-hour span. Some workers hopped out of their cars at the red light and signed them right against a streetlight pole; some signed them in a nearby bus shelter. Others were understandably afraid of managers seeing them talking to organizers near the property, so the union set up a tent with RWDSU signage a little less than a mile away, outside a Circle K. Organizers at the entrances would steer workers to the tent.

Randy Hadley, president of the RWDSU’s Mid-South Council, recalled that the day after they erected the tent he noticed the car dealership across the street had run an Amazon flag up one of the flagpoles. He took it as a sign of disapproval of the union.

But the cards kept coming. Brewer would stash them in piles on top of a bookshelf in his office. One day when he encountered some Amazon managers at the warehouse entrance, he held up a stack of signed cards. He suggested Amazon voluntarily recognize the union, eliminating the need for an election, and then “everyone can go home.” They declined Brewer’s offer.

The union stopped gathering cards once an election was scheduled to begin in February. Since then, the effort on the ground has mostly been about building rapport. Ragland said most of those who will vote seem to have made up their minds already, with less than two weeks left in voting. In recent days he has spoken to a few workers who already voted against the union but regret it.

“They say, ‘Dang, I wish I voted yes now,’” he said.

Darby and Aguilar anticipate still being at the gates even after the ballots are counted. Either Amazon or the union may challenge ballots that are cast, and it could be several days or weeks before it’s clear whether the union won. In the meantime, Darby said it’s important that workers still see her face.

“We didn’t want them to think we got these cards and then abandoned them,” she said.

Related...

Why Amazon Insisted On An In-Person Union Election During A Raging Pandemic

Amazon Workers' Fight To Unionize Draws Help From Around The World

The Amazon Union Election Is Unusual. Amazon's Robust Anti-Union Campaign Isn't.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Democrats saved union pensions after Teamsters Hoffa's long campaign

Jonathan Allen
Tue, March 16, 2021

WASHINGTON — No one knows better that elections have consequences than labor union leaders, who secured an $83 billion pension-fund bailout in President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan Act.

"Without Joe Biden winning, and we won the two Senate seats in Georgia and we were able to do reconciliation, none of this would’ve happened," James P. Hoffa, the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said in a telephone interview with NBC News. "The Republicans weren’t going to do it.

The Teamsters' Central States pension fund, covering nearly 400,000 workers and retirees, is the marquee beneficiary of pension provisions attached to the larger relief bill. But labor leaders say as many as 200 plans will be shored up, providing direct benefit to as many as 1.5 million people in the short term, and many more overall.

"That means the difference between eating and not eating, and having a good retirement and one where you’re basically out there working trying to survive," Hoffa said. "The No. 1 priority, we've solved it."

This account of the Teamsters' drive to save retirement plans for millions of pensioners is drawn from interviews with several of the union's officials, congressional sources and the public record. It begins with one Hoffa, the late Teamsters chief James R. Hoffa, and the Central States pension fund he started. And it ends with a years long campaign by his son, James P. Hoffa, to work the levers of influence in Washington to salvage the retirement money of union members.

Every Republican voted against the Covid-19 relief measure, and many of them specifically targeted the pension legislation for derision because they said it was an expensive gift from Democratic leaders to labor allies that would be funded by taxpayers.

"Americans know this bill will benefit states and unions that have been poorly mismanaged," Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said on the House floor.

Over time, union rolls have dwindled, meaning there have not been enough active workers contributing to pension funds to meet the obligations owed to retirees. Officials with the Teamsters union point to Washington's deregulation of transportation industries in the 1970s and '80s as a driver of the problem. The markets played a role, too, with busts taking an enormous toll on the Central States fund and similar multiemployer union pensions.

The Central States fund was due to go broke by 2025 without assistance, and many of its beneficiaries had already suffered cuts in their checks as a result of a 2014 law that allowed pension trustees to approve reductions in an effort to remain solvent.

That law, part of a broader budget measure signed by President Barack Obama, kicked the Teamsters into overdrive because it paved the way for pension plans to slash benefits for retirees to stay afloat. Worse yet, the unfunded liabilities were massive enough to push the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation into oblivion.

Democrats stepped in this month with the proposal to pump money into the troubled pensions.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said during House consideration of the American Rescue Plan Act that he doesn't think of the pension provisions as a bailout.

"It's a backstop," said Neal, who sponsored the pension measure before it was folded into the American Rescue Plan Act. "If we didn't come to the support of these pensions, it would take down the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures pensions for Americans in the private sector."

Republicans, of course, saw things differently.

"They will continue to be chronically underfunded," Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina, said. "This problem needs to be fixed, but this plan does nothing to fix the problem."

Teamsters labour union James P. Hoffa speaks at a news conference regarding truck drivers striking against what they say are misclassification of workers at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles in Long Beach (Bob Riha Jr / Reuters file)

About seven years ago, Hoffa tapped John Murphy, a senior vice president for the Teamsters, to build a lobbying campaign that combined a dedicated team in the union's Washington office and grassroots pressure from union-retiree constituents calling and visiting lawmakers.

The Teamsters and other labor leaders brought Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to a town hall meeting in Detroit in July 2018 to talk to several hundred union members. At the time, they were pushing Washington to help with a less-generous loan program backed by Treasury bonds.

"We have a defined challenge to our country that we should not be facing, because it's just not fair and it's just not right," Pelosi told the crowd, according to The Detroit News. Every time she saw Hoffa in recent years, she would greet him with the word "pensions" before he could get it out. When Democrats took control of the House in 2019, Pelosi moved the loan-program bill through the House. But it was dead on arrival in the Senate, where then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opposed the costly fix.

Then, when Democrats won power in the Senate in January on the strength of a pair of run-off election victories in Georgia, the dynamics of the pension issue changed dramatically. Instead of asking unions to address their pension liabilities through a loan program, Democrats saw an opportunity to inject tens of billions of dollars of relief into the multiemployer pensions to keep them solvent for the next few decades.

Biden, who framed much of his campaign around rebuilding unions as a path to strengthening the middle class, was on board. Hoffa spoke to him repeatedly about the issue during the 2020 election cycle.

"He said 'I'll be there,'" Hoffa said. "He was very well aware of it."

But Democrats hold very thin margins in the House and Senate. Any defection could have scrapped the provision or the whole bill.

Murphy was so glued to his television screen during overnight Senate votes on March 5 and 6 that his wife told him he needed to "get a hobby" that didn't involve tracking procedural maneuvers in the wee hours.

He grew more nervous when Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., voted with Republicans on an unrelated amendment that would have shortened the relief bill's bonus unemployment benefits from September to July. But when Manchin later gave Democrats a 50-49 majority on an amendment changing the horizon to Sept. 6, Murphy's spirits lifted.

"It wasn’t until he came back home on that unemployment that I really felt good that we were going to do it," Murphy said. "It was razor-thin."