Celebrities, activists sign open letter supporting transgender women

March 31 (UPI) -- Hundreds of celebrities and activists are showing their support for transgender women and girls.

Singers Selena Gomez and Janelle Monáe, actresses Laverne Cox and Gabrielle Union, activist Gloria Steinem and over 460 others signed an open letter from GLAAD released Wednesday on Transgender Day of Visibility.

The letter declares "that transgender women are women and that transgender girls are girls" and denounces anti-transgender attacks, rhetoric and legislation.

"All of us deserve the same access, freedoms, and opportunities. We deserve equal access to education, employment, healthcare, housing, recreation, and public accommodations. And we must respect each person's right to bodily autonomy and self-determination," the statement reads.

The letter also calls out trans-exclusionary feminists for "promoting damaging and violent ideas about trans people for years."

"True feminists do not wish to limit any woman's identity or freedom to fully be herself," the letter reads.

The letter also addresses the "ongoing epidemic of murder and violence" specifically targeting Black and Latinx trans women. More than 44 trans people were killed in 2020, while at least nine deaths have been reported this year.

"We all must fight against the unnecessary and unethical barriers placed on trans women and girls by lawmakers and those who co-opt the feminist label in the name of division and hatred. Our feminist must be unapologetically expansive so that we can leave the door open for future generations," the letter concludes.

Other notable signatories include Regina King, Cynthia Erivo, Brie Larson, Wanda Sykes, Lena Waithe, Sarah Paulson, America Ferrera, Halle Berry, Melissa Etheridge and Lena Dunham.

Earlier this week, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem issued executive order banning transgender girls and women athletes from competing in female sports at public schools.

In addition, Arkansas passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

Though House has passed Equality Act, anti-LGBT efforts persist in U.S.

Activists hold rainbow flags during the People's March for Roxanne Moore in Times Square along New York City's Seventh Avenue on October 2, 2020. Moore, a 29-year-old Black transgender woman from Reading, Pa., was shot 16 times by police officers. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo


WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- While the House passed the Equality Act that would expand the federal Civil Rights Act to protect members of the LGBT community last month, Democrats' Senate majority means it's unlikely to reach President Joe Biden's desk.

Meanwhile, legislative proposals to limit lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights -- especially transgender rights -- are being debated in at least 30 states like Alabama, Texas and Montana. In Mississippi, a bill forbidding transgender athletes from joining women and girls' sports teams was signed by Gov. Tate Reeves last week.

"This is telling trans kids that they don't belong, that they're not welcome in our society, we don't want them to play sports, we don't want them to be a part of our community at all," said Jarvis Dortch, executive director for the Mississippi American Civil Liberties Union.

Such bills, he said, send a message of ostracization to transgender students.

RELATED House passes Equality Act in move to expand LGBTQ protections

Daye Pope, organizing director for Trans United, said Senate approval of the Equality Act is important because it would block passage of the state-level bills.

"It would say and enforce that you can't actually discriminate against trans youth in school. And in sports, you can't actually discriminate against queer and trans people in public restrooms and in restaurants," she said.

While laws such as Mississippi's sports ban bill also go directly against Biden's Jan. 20 executive order barring gender identity-based discrimination, it does not have the force of law that only Congress can enact.

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"What's really important for LGBT people is sex discrimination," said Luis Vasquez of the UCLA School of Law. "The problem is that the Civil Rights Act explicitly says sex, but it doesn't explicitly say sexual orientation or gender identity."

The Equality Act would include those categories.

With Biden's executive orders, however, federal agencies under the president's control are directed to read legislation that mentions "sex discrimination," such as the Civil Rights Act, to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

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"What the Equality Act is trying to do is take all of that guesswork out, take all of the inconsistencies out so that now whenever an LGBT person feels that they've been discriminated against in violation of those laws, they'll be able to make their case and point to language that will explicitly say, 'Title Seven says that you can't discriminate in employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,'" Vasquez said.

Gallup found recently that more than 5% of Americans identify as a member of the LGBT community, with most identifying as bisexual. Also, one in six Generation Z adults consider themselves LGBT.

As people grow more comfortable sharing their sexuality and gender identity, hate crimes against LGBT members are increasing.

Demonstrators protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court as justices hear oral arguments in three cases on LGBT discrimination protections, in Washington, D.C., on October 8, 2019. The cases involve accusations of discrimination based on sexual orientation and one on whether discrimination laws apply to transgender workers. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

The Human Rights Campaign, a leading rights group, reported that at least 44 transgender or gender non-conforming people were killed by violence in 2020, mostly Black and Latinx transgender women.

Pope says it's "a really scary time" because of so many state bills that target trans and non-binary youth.

"Being a kid and being a teen is hard enough," she said. "You're trying to find yourself, you're trying to make sense of school and peer groups and your home life, and trans youth are already more likely to attempt suicide or self-harm."

According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, transgender youth are twice as likely as their cisgender peers to "seriously consider suicide." This pattern follows into adulthood, where transgender adults are nearly four times as likely as to have a mental health condition than cisgender adults.

Gaining Senate approval of the House-passed Equality Act would provide legal protections against intolerance toward the LGBT community. But Senate Democrats need to keep all 50 of their voters on board and get 10 Republicans to join them in preventing a filibuster that would block consideration of the proposal.

Since Biden took office, Pope said, a majority of the president's time has been spent "undoing the damage" of former President Donald Trump -- including repealing the transgender military ban, initiating legislation to stop housing discrimination and promising more to come.

"Under the new administration, we want to be bold, we want to be proactive and aggressive about ... equal rights for queer and trans people in this country," Pope said.

Pew Research Center: Hispanic, Black workers still underrepresented in STEM

April 1 (UPI) -- Hispanic and Black workers continue to be underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, workforce and education trends do not appear to show an increase, according to a Pew Research Center study released Thursday.

The study found that Hispanic workers make up just 8% of all STEM workers in the United States despite accounting for 17% of total workers in the country, while Black workers comprise 11% of all employed adults and 9% of STEM workers, including 5% in engineering and architecture.

The share of Hispanic workers in STEM has increased 1% since 2016, in line with their growth in the overall workforce, while there has been no change in the share of Black workers in STEM jobs since 2016.

Students from the two groups are also underrepresented among STEM graduates as Black students earn 7% of STEM bachelor's degrees, below the 10% of all bachelor's degrees, while Hispanic students represent 12% of STEM graduates versus 15% of all college graduates.
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Conversely, White and Asian workers are overrepresented in the field. The study found that White workers constitute 67% of workers in STEM jobs, surpassing their 63% share of total employment, while Asian workers hold 13% of STEM jobs compared to 6% of employment across all occupations.

Women represent 50% of people employed in STEM, compared to 47% of the overall workfoce but representation varies across employment clusters. Women make up 74% of those in health-related employment, 48% in life science, 47% in math and 40% in physical science but just 25% of computer occupations and 15% of engineering.

The study also found that pay disparities based on race and gender exist within the field as women in STEM earn an average of $66,200 compared to $90,000 earned by men.

Asian men are the top earners in the field with median earnings of $103,300, followed by White men and Asian women at about $90,000, Hispanic men at $73,000 as well as Black men and White women both above $60,000, while Black women and Hispanic women earn $57,000.

The report was conducted by analyzing federal data using gender, racial and ethnic diversity among those employed in and earning degrees in STEM fields.

Lebanon on brink of hunger crisis; 

meat is a 'luxury'

A customer walks past an sparsely stocked shelf in a supermarket in Beirut, 

Lebanon, on March 24. Photo by Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE


BEIRUT, Lebanon, April 1 (UPI) -- Lebanon's deteriorating economy, an expected reduction of subsidies and political inertia have left the population at risk of acute hunger within months, experts told UPI, warning of a potential humanitarian crisis requiring immediate international intervention.

Food insecurity has become a major source of concern in Lebanon, which has been added to a list of the world's 20 worst hunger hot spots in need of urgent assistance.

Last week, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program warned that acute hunger is due to rise steeply in most world regions, including the Middle Eastern countries of Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, which are seriously affected by a rapid currency depreciation and skyrocketing inflation.

"Lebanon is not as bad as Syria, Yemen or Sudan, but the main reason that Lebanon has been included was because of the rapid deterioration of its food security situation, rapid increase in poverty and unemployment, in addition to the devaluation of the Lebanese pound," Maurice Saade, FAO's representative in Lebanon, told UPI.

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With Lebanon importing 80 percent of its food and the devaluation of the national currency, food prices have increased accordingly, Saade said. "So we have rapid decline in purchase power and rapid increase in inflation."

But the most alarming factor is Lebanon's inability to maintain food subsidies for much longer due to the dwindling foreign currency reserves at the Central Bank, which dropped from $30 billion a year ago to $16 billion.

Caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni told Bloomberg earlier this month that only $1 billion to $1.5 billion can be still used to fund subsidies, enough for two to three months.

RELATED Lebanon's economic meltdown, fear of chaos push army to the edge

Saade warned that if food subsidies are removed, "that will cause deterioration in food security in the country."

Price of bread

The subsidized food basket that included 300 items -- meat, poultry, oil products, milk and vegetables, but also branded coffees, cashew, coffee creamer, frozen strawberries and saffron -- has been reduced to about 42 items. Many of the subsidized foods, medicines and fuel were smuggled abroad, ending up in Syria, Turkey, Kuwait, Egypt, Sweden, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.

RELATED 10 years into Syrian revolution, no peace in sight

Even with subsidies on wheat, medicine and fuel for electricity generation remaining for now, the price of a bundle of bread has increased three times in recent few months, reaching 3,000 LL last week.

"Bread is the food of the poor...If the government decides to remove completely the subsidy on bread, it could go up to 10,000 LL and very few poor people can afford that," Saade said.

Manar, a 36-year-old divorcee with three children ages 5 years to 17 months, has been living on donations since her ex-husband lost his job as a salesman at a clothing store.

Every month, she receives a food box from Nusaned, a non-governmental group. Her family and neighbors also help her buy some fruits and vegetables while the pharmacist in the Beirut neighborhood of Burj Abi Haidar where she lives helps secure her medications and treat her children when sick.

"I am able to feed my children, but they haven't drunk milk for five months," Manar, who asked not to disclose her family name, told UPI. "Meat and chicken have become luxuries...only the politicians can afford them."

Sabah Hazzouri is luckier. She and her five-member family occasionally eat meat, chicken or fish shared by a neighbor. With two of her sons jobless, the family cannot survive on the monthly salary of her third son, a police officer with a wife and 2-year-old son.

"He earns 800,000 Lebanese pounds [$62 at the black market rate of 13,000 LL for 1 U.S. dollar], but he has to pay half of it every month for his house loan," Hazzouri told UPI. "It is getting very hard every day."

Securing sustainable support for the growing number of poor has prompted a local NGO to be more creative. "Cedars for Care" established the Habbat El Barak (black cumin) chicken farm in eastern Lebanon to provide families in need with healthy food through sustainable produce.

"We are distributing for free around 350 boxes, each containing 30 eggs, to needy families per month," Iffat Idriss of Cedars for Care told UPI. "We have to be creative and think long term."

As the subsidy program that was put in place last year proved to benefiting the rich more than those in need, the World Bank stepped in with a $246 million loan to provide emergency cash assistance for one year and access to social services to 786,000 poor and vulnerable Lebanese. Ration cards are being considered to prevent corruption, manipulation and mishandling.

"That program would help a lot...But the problem is it excludes the Syrian and Palestinian refugees," Saade said.

'All ages suffering'

Like most of the Lebanese, the estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 200,000 Palestinian refugees are getting poorer due to the country's worsening economy.

"Food needs are unfolding dramatically. People from all ages are suffering," said Bujar Hoxha, country director of CARE International in Lebanon, which supported 1 million people in the country last year.

With more than 60% of the Lebanese living below poverty line, the Lebanese pound losing 90% of its value and inflation soaring above 130 percent, "the state of Syrian and Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon is even worse," Hoxha told UPI.

He warned that Lebanon is in "no-war situation" but is facing a humanitarian crisis that requires immediate attention.

The country could reach acute hunger within three months.

"It is weeks for certain families...a matter of weeks for some communities and months for other communities. But they are all moving toward acute food problems," Hoxha said.

Anti-Union Amazon Workers Explain How Mandatory Anti-Union Meetings Turned Them Against RWDSU

OF COURSE IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THIS IS ILLEGAL UNDER LABOR/ LABOUR LAW

36-year old anti-union worker Daniel Tavaris displays anti-union flair that the company encourages workers to wear (Peter J. Callahan/Payday Report)

BY: MIKE ELK MARCH 29, 2021

(Note: None of these anti-union workers that we interviewed provided by Amazon, but were meet randomly in the parking lot of the warehouse, independent of the company anti-union PR efforts. You can watch all the interviews with anti-union workers here)

While captive audience meetings are often depicted as being hostile situations, Jeremiah Okai said he found the meetings were “cool.” 

“They were cool, they were just telling us what the union did,” said 19-year-old Okai. 

It was the presentation about union dues that helped persuade him to vote against the Amazon union in Alabama.

“[The union] is going to take money away from me,” Okai said. “I don’t want no money taken away from me.”

A COMMON MYTH UNION DUES ARE THE BEST TAX CREDIT A WORKER CAN GET IT A 100% TAX DEDUCTION

Ashley Beringer, 32, says she found the mandatory anti-union meetings to be a bad thing.

“It’s just them, I guess, just trying to protect their, you know, their businesses,” said Beringer. 

She said she was on the fence about the union, but the mandatory anti-union meetings helped persuade her to vote against the union. 

“I guess I’m more so against it because I don’t know much about [unions], I’ve never had to deal with unions until now,” she said. 

She said she found the captive audience meetings informative and ultimately decided to vote against the union as a result. 

“I don’t want someone coming in and changing everything, especially if certain things are, you know, are good in the situation,” said Beringer. “And if [the union] comes in, I don’t know how it’s gonna be.” 

Ken Worth, 59, said that the mandatory anti-union meetings helped him reflect on his own negative experiences with unions in the past. 

“I’ve been a member of unions in the past and was actually a member of this same union,” Worth said. “I don’t really feel like they represented us well. I think that, you know, unions could do a whole lot more.” 

(Watch interviews with 4 anti-union workers here)

Across workers, especially young workers who have never dealt with a union, many are finding little reason to suddenly shift things up and bring a union into what is a good paying job. 

Many of the workers that voted against the union like 36-year-old Daniel Tavaris said that he feared a union could change what is a good situation for them where they make roughly $16 an hour — nearly $10-an-hour above the minimum wage. 

Walking by with a lanyard covered with “Vote No” pins, Tavaris said that Amazon asked him to wear the pins at work to show their opposition to the union. 

“I got this from Amazon, they’ve been giving them out,” said Tavaris. “Everybody has been wearing them.” 

In the end, Tavaris sees little need for a union. 

“I don’t really have any problem,” he said of his decision against the union at Amazon. 

Echoing the sentiments of many Amazon workers who voted against the union, Okai said, “Amazon didn’t give me no reason to support a union, I can support myself.”

Payday Report – Covering Labor in News Deserts

Mike Elk

Mike Elk is a yinzer labor reporter who covered the drug war in Brasil and spent years covering union organizing in the South for The Guardian. In 2016, he used his $70,000 NLRB settlement from being fired in the union drive at Politico to start the crowd-funded Payday Report. The son of United Electrical Workers (UE) Director of Organization Gene Elk, he lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Email: Melk@PaydayReport.com

INEQUALITY
The US Labor Board Isn’t Strong Enough To Protect Workers From Amazon. Some Union Organizers Want To Go Around It.

Rob Dobi for BuzzFeed News

In the lead-up to the biggest union vote in Amazon’s history, the company has already shown it can break the rules and get away with it.

Caroline O'DonovanBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on March 30, 2021

Amazon repeatedly violated the rights of employees who pushed for health and safety improvements during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the nation’s top labor regulator. But a year after the global health crisis began, the company has so far faced minimal consequences.

As COVID-19 spread in the spring of 2020, Amazon employees in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Arizona, Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey, and Michigan pressured the company to slow down production and ramp up precautions by organizing petitions, press conferences, and even walkouts. Some of those employees subsequently faced disciplinary action at work. A few were even fired, according to charges they later made with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency tasked with adjudicating complaints about unfair labor practices and defending workers who want to unionize.

In going up against their enormous and powerful employer, these Amazon workers turned to the NLRB for protection as they exercised their legal rights to discuss problems at work and act collectively to fix them. But despite serving as the government’s primary counterweight against powerful companies restricting their workers’ labor rights, the NLRB is notoriously toothless, and in its current form, has little power to penalize employers — especially those the size of Amazon, one of the nation’s largest private employers after hiring more than 400,000 people last year.


Even when the NLRB sides with workers, the consequences, or so-called remedies, it’s able to mete out — typically small monetary settlements, back pay, or posting a flyer — are so minor that they do little to deter employers from violating the rules again. If Amazon workers do persevere despite retaliation and termination and successfully form a union, it’s only one shop at a time out of hundreds.

“From Amazon’s point of view, the NLRB is not a problem,” UC Santa Barbara labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein told BuzzFeed News. “As a remedy for employer violations of the law, it’s very weak. It can have a public role as part of a larger campaign, you can get a judgment against the company, but it’s weak.”

This week, all eyes are on Bessemer, Alabama, where Amazon workers await the results of an NLRB-facilitated union election widely believed to be the most pivotal in the company’s history. Indeed, even a victory at a single facility could activate Amazon employees around the country to follow suit.


But recent events in Alabama suggest the consequences Amazon has faced so far have not discouraged the company from taking a hard line against unions, and under current labor law, the government has little power to intervene. That’s why, even if the union wins in Alabama and workers embark on the long and difficult journey to winning a contract, some labor leaders question whether the best path to attaining more benefits for workers even goes through the federal agency in charge of the matter.

Over the last few months, the NLRB has found merit with many of the high-profile charges brought by Amazon employees last spring, including Courtney Bowden’s claim that she was illegally terminated, Jonathan Bailey’s that he was illegally interrogated, Christian Smalls’ that he was illegally fired, and the claims by a group of workers in Chicago that they were illegally disciplined and intimidated following a series of walkouts.

Of those four cases, Amazon has so far paid one individual an undisclosed settlement and agreed to post a flyer in a Queens warehouse promising not to interfere with employees’ rights to discuss workplace conditions, take collective action, and organize a union. Workers in Chicago who were disciplined for going on strike are currently negotiating the terms of a nonfinancial settlement with Amazon; Smalls’ hearing regarding his termination by Amazon has been delayed until May. Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, the Seattle-based tech workers and former leaders of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice who were fired last April following their efforts to advocate on behalf of warehouse workers, are awaiting a response to their charge with the board, which they filed last October.


Al Seib / Getty Images
Union workers rally in support of unionizing Alabama Amazon workers on March 22 in downtown Los Angeles.

“Even when you win,” Lichtenstein said, “winning doesn’t mean that much.”

Bowden reached a private settlement with Amazon and withdrew her charge, meaning there are no official consequences for Amazon. “I felt like they did the best they could with everything,” she said of the NLRB in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “But I know it didn't hurt Amazon at all.”

Amazon declined to comment on pending litigation. Regarding its settlement with Bowden, a spokesperson said, “While we disagree with allegations made in the case, we are pleased to put this matter behind us. The health and safety of our employees is our top priority and we are proud to provide inclusive environments, where employees can excel without fear of retaliation, intimidation or harassment.”

The company denied allegations made about its anti-union behavior, saying, “Our employees know the truth—starting wages of $15 or more, health care from day one, and a safe and inclusive workplace.”


But Amazon’s campaign against the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union’s Bessemer organizing drive has been so aggressive that President Joe Biden made a statement defending the Amazon workers’ “free and fair choice to join a union,” a move by a sitting president “almost unprecedented in American history,” according to the Washington Post.

Newly appointed NLRB press secretary Kayla Blado, who has been tasked with improving the agency’s outreach, told BuzzFeed News, “Working people should understand their rights and be able to act collectively without any coercion or intimidation from any parties.”

But statistics reflect the extent of the challenge: The number of NLRB elections held in the US has steadily declined over the last five years, with the total number in 2020 — 827 — falling to a low not seen since the National Labor Relations Act was passed in the 1930s, according to pro-union researcher Eric Dirnbach.

"Even when you win, winning doesn’t mean that much."


The feeble state of US labor laws combined with the monolith of opposition presented by Amazon every step of the way has compelled some labor leaders to experiment with organizing strategies that don’t rely on the NLRB. Unsure whether the board is capable of protecting workers and ushering them toward a union, organizers everywhere from college campuses to Google’s campus have pursued alternatives such as minority unionism, where affiliation is declared by a small group of employees without a majority vote. Some Amazon employees say they don’t need a traditional affiliation at all to consider themselves a union.

Some of these alternative methods make it difficult if not impossible for members to collectively bargain with management on behalf of all employees, preventing them from securing a contract that applies to everyone.

But in a country where corporate profits have far outpaced wage growth and government regulators have few tools to punish employers who violate labor laws, workers are starting to decide that they need to experiment with more aggressive tactics and not place their hopes on a federal agency seemingly overmatched in its duties.

Bowden said she felt validated that the NLRB found merit in her allegations against Amazon. But the final outcome of her case made one thing clear: “I don’t think they’re as strong as Amazon.”


Rachel Wisniewski for Buzzfeed News
Courtney Bowden at her home in Philadelphia


When Courtney Bowden applied to Amazon in 2018, she saw the job as a temporary step. She’d studied psychology at Penn State, but couldn’t go back to finish her degree until she paid off some student loans, a goal she hoped getting full-time work at Amazon could help her achieve. Though she was shocked by how difficult the job was and nearly quit after her first day, she soon found she was good at it — and she knew better-paying work would be hard to find.

As time went on, Bowden couldn’t help being critical of how Amazon treated its workers. One thing that bothered her was the fact that employees were required to park in a lot and take a 20-minute shuttle ride to the warehouse, but weren’t paid for that time. Bowden, who has never been in a union, started trying to convince her coworkers to help her pressure management to change that policy.

“I realized when I was going by myself I wasn’t getting nowhere fast. The fastest way was if more people went,” she said. “I felt like it was power in numbers, and the more people, the more things we could get as a collective.”


One morning in December 2019, she got a group of workers at her warehouse in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, to go to the supervisor’s office to complain — so many participated that they delayed the day’s deliveries by about an hour, Bowden said. Shortly thereafter, management started making retroactive travel pay deposits into employee accounts.

After that victory, Bowden set her sights on paid time off, aligning with Amazon workers in Chicago, Sacramento, New Jersey, and New York who, through an independent, loosely organized, worker-led network called Amazonians United, were fighting for the same thing.

By the time the coronavirus became a workplace issue, Bowden was already feeling targeted by management, according to the charge she filed with the NLRB last March. Bowden said an Amazon HR representative warned her she could get in trouble for what she was doing in February 2020, and that not long after, a different manager penalized her for how she was wearing her hair, even though Bowden said she’d seen plenty of other workers wearing their hair loose below their shoulders.

The final blow came in March, after Bowden had been agitating for Amazon to enforce social distancing by having fewer employees per shuttle. The company, which alleges that Bowden made verbal threats to another employee, suspended her and then terminated her employment. Bowden denies making any threats.


She filed her charge with the NLRB independently, hoping that she’d eventually get her job back and prove that Amazon “can’t do what they did and get away with it.”

But life post-Amazon proved difficult. When the state-subsidized childcare program Bowden relied on found out she was unemployed, it kicked her out. Eventually she got part-time work stocking shelves for a grocery store contractor in the early mornings, leaving her 4-year-old daughter with her mom, who was working from home.

In mid-November, Bowden learned the NLRB had determined that Amazon had “been interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed” in the National Labor Relations Act and was taking up her case, according to a board filing obtained by BuzzFeed News. But her preparation for her March hearing was derailed when her mom died unexpectedly of a heart attack at home on Dec. 13.


Rachel Wisniewski for Buzzfeed News
Bowden at home with her daughter


The sudden death of her mom, who was 62, left Bowden alone with her small daughter, without a job, dealing with expensive funeral preparations. When Amazon offered her a cash settlement (the amount of which she’s not permitted to share), Bowden felt she had no choice but to take it.

To her disappointment, the terms of the settlement mean the company doesn’t admit any wrongdoing, and she is banned from working at an Amazon facility again. But, she said, “I don't regret it because if it wasn’t for me, 800 people wouldn't have gotten their checks.”

Amazon declined to comment on the specifics of Bowden’s efforts in Pennsylvania.

At a warehouse in Queens, another Amazon employee, Jonathan Bailey, said he was “interrogated and threatened” by management following his efforts to shut down the facility in protest of dangerous working conditions during the pandemic. He filed a charge with the board in May.

When he got the news that the agency was siding with him and would require Amazon to post a flyer in the warehouse promising not to interrogate employees or interfere with organizing, he celebrated by posting the notice to Facebook, saying, “I’m proud to be a member of Amazonians New York City and fight with my coworkers for our rights!”

But Bailey found the NLRB process surprisingly slow, and, after four years of then-president Donald Trump, under-resourced, he told BuzzFeed News. Seven months after he filed the charge, the NLRB regional director reviewed his allegations and decided to take action.

When Bailey learned the terms of a settlement negotiated by the NLRB would result in the same outcome — Amazon hanging a flyer in the Queens warehouse about workers’ rights — as if he had gone to trial before an administrative law judge and won, he opted to settle the case. “[Amazon] hired this really big union-busting law firm and, you know, for them, it’s a tiny line item of their costs,” said Bailey, who is now running for public office. “They don’t really care.”

Without going through the legal process of voting to unionize, Amazonians United likely won’t be able to collectively bargain with Amazon. But Bailey feels what they’ve already been able to accomplish is just as effective as a contract. Last year, he and other workers associated with Amazonians United New York succeeded in getting Amazon to give them safe and sick leave and paid time off, benefits to which they are legally entitled.

“We have not had a union election, but we have conducted actions and we have won changes — material changes,” he said. For Bailey, a union isn’t a legal designation but simply workers who “can take actions together to change the conditions in which you work.”

The idea that workers themselves, not the government, should have the power to declare themselves a union, while unconventional, is growing in popularity. Members of the Chicago branch of Amazonians United have repeatedly relied on the NLRB to adjudicate whether or not Amazon has violated their rights at work, most recently when employees were disciplined following a series of walkouts over COVID-19 safety measures. Earlier this month, the board ruled in the workers’ favor in five of their seven claims, and they are currently negotiating a possible settlement. In January, Amazon announced it would be closing the warehouse, DCH1, where the organizers worked and reassigning them to other locations in the region.


While Amazonians United Chicagoland says it has used “the NLRB and the National Labor Relations Act as tools to fight back against Amazon’s retaliation,” the group has no plans to pursue an NLRB election.

“We’re rooting for our coworkers in Alabama and we hope their and our fights inspire workers to stand up,” the group said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “But we’re simply building [a] strong worker organization without worrying about [union] elections.”


Patrick T. Fallon / Getty Images
The Amazon.com Inc. fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama on March 26, 2021


The outcome of the election at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse has been the subject of intense national attention over the last few months, just as the NLRB election process has been the focus of labor organizing for the past few decades. But some union leaders, tired of a legal playing field tilted so heavily toward employers and disappointed with the agency’s failure to protect workers, are pushing for experimentation with more radical strategies.


As the Teamster union’s national director for Amazon, Randy Korgan has the tough job of taking on perhaps labor’s most formidable foe in the United States. The Teamsters have organized workers in the freight, logistics, and warehousing industry for over a century, and Korgan said his main concern is finding the fastest route to what he believes is the only thing that will reverse the decline in wages Amazon has brought to that industry — a union contract. And he doesn’t necessarily see that route going through the NLRB. Rather, he said, “There are a lot of other ways to build worker power, as well as seek representation,” though he declined to elaborate on what the specifics of that pathway to a contract could look like.

This month, as the situation in Bessemer was heating up, the Des Moines Register reported that a Teamsters local in Iowa had started organizing Amazon workers there with the goal of helping both warehouse workers and drivers seek union recognition outside the NLRB. Organizing Amazon delivery drivers is a particular challenge because they aren’t employed directly by Amazon, but by small logistics firms called Delivery Service Partners or DSPs. Amazon can terminate a DSP’s contract for any reason, including if its employees join a union — as it did in Michigan in 2017.

That strategy makes it difficult for unions to make inroads. A group called the Amazon Delivery Drivers Coalition has held small rallies and, with help from the Teamsters, filed unfair labor practice charges against Amazon and DSPs on behalf of workers at a few delivery stations throughout the midwest.


There is currently a bill, the PRO Act, before the Senate aimed at strengthening the NLRB, both by increasing penalties for employers who violate the law and by prohibiting some of the anti-union tactics at their disposal. But even if this proposed legislation passes, which currently seems unlikely, or Biden appointees make other moves to strengthen labor law, some labor leaders still believe that there’s good reason to explore strategies for getting workers a union contract that don’t involve the NLRB.

"Some of the new people just don’t know about the struggle that we had to go through."


One alternative path, employed by the Communication Workers of America (CWA) union in campaigns for workers on college campuses and at Google, is minority unionism, sometimes called a members-only union, when a group of workers collectively decide to unionize without a majority vote. The main drawback is that a minority union can’t legally bargain on behalf of all employees, which means they can’t negotiate a contract, but a major benefit is the union can choose to represent workers like temps and contractors who Google doesn’t directly employ. In January, around 230 Google workers — out of more than 100,000 worldwide — formed the Alphabet Workers Union (Alphabet is Google’s parent company) under the umbrella of the CWA, and around 500 more signed on within days, according to the Verge.

Detractors called it “fake union,” and a very public snafu over a press release led some members to call for disaffiliation from CWA, underscoring the risks of moving forward publicly without a formal unionization vote.

But a spokesperson for AWU says it has no plans to part ways with CWA at this time, writing in an email statement: “We are here to work with all Alphabet workers who want to improve our workplace, whether they’re members of AWU or not.”

“Winning an NLRB election is really hard and really resource-intensive,” said Rebecca Givan, a Rutgers labor studies professor. “In some situations, workers are able to do that. But it’s not necessarily the quickest path to winning improvements on the job … I think we’ll continue to see a lot of different approaches.”

The results from Bessemer will be counted this week. Whether it’s a victory or a loss for the union, the road to a contract will be a long one.

Meanwhile, Bowden is trying to move on with her life; in a few weeks, she’s planning to start a new job at a food processing facility that pays slightly less than Amazon’s widely touted $15 an hour.

She hopes the process of taking her complaint to the NLRB raised awareness about the power of organizing within Amazon. But while the benefits and pay she worked for remain, with the high turnover, not many of the people she worked with are left to continue the fight.

“Some of the new people just don’t know about the struggle that we had to go through,” she said. “They’re getting the benefits that people like me had to fight for.” ●



Caroline O'Donovan is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

Environmental group sues U.S. for leaving 10 species in 'regulatory purgatory'



The gopher tortoise is one of 10 species the Center for Biological Diversity says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services has left in "regulatory purgatory." Photo courtesy of Randy Browning/USFWS

April 1 (UPI) -- The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday for failing to designate 10 species as endangered despite admitting they needed the governmental protective status.

The non-profit environmental organization said the former Trump administration kept these 10 species in "regulatory purgatory" by saying they needed endangered species designated protection but denying them it over a lack of funds and higher priorities.

"The past four years were a dark period for endangered wildlife and the environment overall," Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at CBD, said in a statement. "We're bringing this lawsuit to ensure these 10 species that so desperately need help are prioritized by the Biden administration, which has its work cut out for it to undo the incredible harm done under [President Donald] Trump."

Following a lengthy review process, the government classified the 10 species -- the northern spotted owl, monarch butterfly, Penasco least chipmunk, gopher tortoise, longfin smelt, magnificent ramshorn snail, bracted twistflower and three Texas mussels -- as "warranted but precluded" due to other higher priorities, the lawsuit states.

The CBD said in the filing that there is no legal justification for the FWS' "foot-dragging and bureaucratic delays" from granting the species the protection, stating its failure to do so violates the Endangered Species Act as it must make "expeditious progress" to add their names to the species-saving list.

The non-profit organization argues that the government's claim of making expeditious progress is baseless as the Trump administration on average listed the fewest number of species as endangered or threatened than any other administration.

According to the CBD, only 25 species were protected as either threatened or endangered during the Trump administration despite the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service developing a plan in 2016 to list some of the 500 species awaiting protection.

The lawsuit was filed after the CBD sued the Trump administration last February for failing to decide on whether 241 plant and animal species should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, which currently awaits decisions.

"The center hopes to work out a schedule with the Biden administration and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to ensure these species don't go extinct," the non-profit said.

According to the lawsuit, at least 47 species have gone extinct while awaiting protection under the Endangered Species Act.

LAST FOOL STANDING

 SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for april fools 

TODAY'S FOOL

DOJ investigation into Matt Gaetz looking at allegations he paid women, who were recruited online, for sex, NYT reports

Kelsey Vlamis and Azmi Haroun

Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz 

Ngan-Pool/Getty Images

A DOJ inquiry into Matt Gaetz is looking into direct payments he made to women, The New York Times reported.

Sources told The Times Gaetz and a political ally connected with the women online.

Gaetz is currently being investigated over possible sex trafficking.

A Justice Department investigation into GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida is looking into money he and a political ally paid directly to women via apps, The New York Times reported Thursday. According to the report, which cited several unnamed sources familiar with the case, the women said they were paid for sex.

Sources told The Times that Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector in Seminole County, Florida, who has been indicted on multiple counts including those related to sex trafficking, connected with women online.

Gaetz has denied ever paying for sex.

"Matt Gaetz has never paid for sex," his office said in a statement to The Times. "Matt Gaetz refutes all the disgusting allegations completely. Matt Gaetz has never ever been on any such websites whatsoever. Matt Gaetz cherishes the relationships in his past and looks forward to marrying the love of his life."

Read more: Republicans are unloading on Rep. Matt Gaetz in gossipy texts and snide asides amid reports of a DOJ sex investigation: 'He's the meanest person in politics'

On Thursday, The Times, citing four people familiar with the investigation, reported that Gaetz and Greenberg are both being investigated for potentially having illegal sexual relationships with the same 17-year-old woman, as well as with other women who they allegedly paid to have sex.

The report claims that Greenberg introduced Gaetz to several women via websites like SeekingArrangements.com, where wealthy people and members can seek "sugar daddy" relationships, oftentimes sex and intimacy in exchange for gifts.

According to The Times report, Gaetz and Greenberg met various women at hotels in Florida and paid for sexual encounters.

Gaetz offered MDMA to at least one woman and used the drug himself during one sexual encounter, according to people familiar with the meetups and with the Justice Department interviews, The Times reported.

The Times reviewed Cash App transactions between Greenberg, Gaetz, and several women mentioned in the interviews.

In August 2020, Greenberg was indicted on fourteen counts, including sex trafficking charges related to a minor between the age of 14 and 17. According to the Orlando Sentinel, prosecutors allege that Greenberg used his access as an elected official to seek information on women via the Florida Driver and Vehicle Information Database and engage relationships with them.

On Tuesday, an explosive report from The New York Times revealed that Gaetz is under federal investigation for potentially violating federal sex trafficking laws. The Times reported that the investigation into Gaetz stemmed from the federal investigation into Greenberg.


The Times wrote that the Department of Justice is looking into "whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him," possibly violating federal sex-trafficking laws. The investigation was opened by the Department of Justice in the final months of former President Donald Trump's administration, according to The Times.

Since news of the sex-trafficking probe broke, the story has taken many turns.

Gaetz immediately denied the allegations and claimed that he and his family are victims of an extortion scheme. Hours after Tuesday's story in The Times, Gaetz appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, vehemently denying the allegations and repeating the extortion claims.

Gaetz said the extortion scheme started weeks ago, but the sex-trafficking investigation started last year.

On Thursday, separate from the investigation, CNN also reported that Gaetz showed House colleagues nude photos of women he had slept with, and bragged openly about his sex life.

Insider reached out to Gaetz's office for additional comment.

‘Proclivity for younger women’: Matt Gaetz’s colleagues say he has a ‘love of alcohol and illegal drugs’: report

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

April 01, 2021

www.rawstory.com

The Daily Beast has published a profile of U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) who is reportedly under investigation by the DOJ for possibly having a sexual relationship with a 17-year old girl and for possible child sex-trafficking.

The profile was less-than-flattering, with The Beast reporting Gaetz's "less-than-sterling reputation among his colleagues has many Republicans questioning the wisdom of jumping to his defense" – although none have jumped to condemn him either.

"Republicans on and off Capitol Hill on Wednesday largely kept their mouths shut," The Beast reports, while offering up a disturbing revelation about the Florida GOP Congressman.

"Gaetz—the Trump-loving, Fox News-grinning, 38-year-old Florida Republican—has a less-than-sterling reputation among his congressional colleagues," The Beast says, with those colleagues indicting him over alcohol, drugs, and women.

"More than a half-dozen lawmakers have spoken to these reporters about his love of alcohol and illegal drugs, as well as his proclivity for younger women," The Beast reports. "It's well-known among Republican lawmakers that Gaetz was dating a college student—one over the age of consent—in 2018. She came to Washington as an intern."

Then, there's a "cartoonishly scandalous perception of Gaetz [which] is so commonplace that sometimes it's visible, literally, in the halls of Congress. A Hill source sent The Daily Beast a photo of a trash bin outside Gaetz's office as lawmakers cleared out their offices at the end of a recent session. At the top of the heap was an empty Costco-size box of 'Bareskin' Trojan condoms

A Third of U.S. Men Use Condoms, but Not Every Time

REPORT: Matt Gaetz Showed Other Lawmakers Photos Of Nude Women On House Floor, Talked About Having Sex With Them

HOW OLD IS THIS GUY? RHETORICAL Q?

Alex Wong/Getty Images

JORDAN LANCASTER

REPORTER

April 01, 2021

Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz reportedly showed other lawmakers, including while on the House floor, photos and videos of nude women and talked about having sex with them, according to CNN.

The report cites multiple anonymous sources, including two people who claim to have been shown the photos directly. The sources alleged that Gaetz talked about having sex with the women whose photos he displayed on his phone. One source claimed that a video showed a naked woman with a hula-hoop.

One of the sources said “it was a point of pride” for the representative, CNN reported. (RELATED: Wednesday Morning Dispatch: The Latest On The Matt Gaetz Sex Trafficking Accusations)

Gaetz said Tuesday he is the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation that reportedly involves a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. The congressman denied any allegation of wrongdoing and said he is a victim of a $25 million extortion plot.

There is no evidence to suggest the photos are connected to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into the sex trafficking allegations, CNN reported.

The DOJ opened the investigation into Gaetz at the end of the Trump administration, The New York Times reported, citing three people familiar with the matter.

“Over the past several weeks, my family and I have been victims of an organized criminal extortion involving a former DOJ official seeking $25 million while threatening to smear my name,” Gaetz said in a press release. “We have been cooperating with federal authorities in this matter and my father has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals.”

Gaetz alleged that a former federal prosecutor named David McGee who was “a top official in the leadership in the northern district of Florida as a prosecutor” was trying to extort him Tuesday night on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“The planted leak to the New York Times tonight was intended to thwart that investigation,” the press release continued. “No part of the allegations against me are true, and the people pushing these lies are targets of the ongoing extortion investigation. I demand the DOJ immediately release the tapes, made at their direction, which implicate their former colleague in crimes against me based on false allegations.”

Gaetz’s office did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller’s request for comment.

Microsoft hit by April Fool’s day cloud outage, with Azure, Teams and Office 365 all taken offline

BY MIKE WHEATLEY
UPDATED 19:30 EDT / APRIL 01 2021

Microsoft Corp. was hit by a massive cloud outage today that took most of its internet services offline.

Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, as well as Teams, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Xbox Live and Bing were all inaccessible due to the outage. Even the Azure Status page was reportedly taken offline.

The first reports of the outage emerged from users on Twitter, and were confirmed by the website DownDetector which showed that reports began flooding in at around 5 p.m. ET. It says it received thousands of notices from Xbox Live, Teams and Office users.

Microsoft’s Azure Support account on Twitter posted the following message, redirecting users to an alternative Azure status page:

The cause of the outage was said to be a Domain Name System error. The Microsoft 365 Twitter status account stated that there is a “DNS issue affecting multiple Microsoft 365 and Azure services” shortly after the first reports of the outage appeared. The account then tweeted that the company was investigating a “potential DNS issue” at 5.56 p.m. ET

At 6 p.m. ET, the Microsoft 365 Status account posted another tweet, saying Microsoft is “evaluating our mitigation options”.

By 6.30 p.m. it looked as if Microsoft was regaining control of the situation. The Azure status page was back online and showed that the outage was a worldwide problem with “network infrastructure” down across every region. A status message said that a subset of users may experience “intermittent issues” with the company’s services.

At the time of writing, Microsoft appeared to be recovering from the outage. Microsoft 365’s Twitter status account posted another update at 6.35 p.m. ET saying that traffic was being rerouted to resilient DNS capabilities and that it was already “seeing an improvement in service availability.”

It appears Microsoft has dealt with the issue rapidly, but the outage is nonetheless a big embarrassment for the company, coming just two weeks after a similar incident. On March 15, Microsoft Azure was also hit with an outage, resulting in Office 365, Teams and Xbox Live all being taken offline for around four hours.

Microsoft blamed that issue on “a recent change to an authentication system”.
Image: geralt/pixabay