Shrunken head artifact used as prop in John Huston film revealed to be human

Tom Metcalfe

A grim artifact that had been on display for decades in a Georgia university has been authenticated as a human head taken from a slain enemy by an Amazonian warrior almost a century ago — and it is now on its way back to where it came from.

© Provided by NBC News

Researchers at Mercer University in Macon say their tests show that the shrunken head — called a tsantsa in Amazonian languages — is a genuine shrunken head made in a laborious ceremony of removing its skull and flesh, stitching shut its eyes and mouth, boiling it and then filling it with hot sand and stones.

In 2019, Mercer University repatriated the verified tsantsa to the Ecuadorian Consulate in Atlanta. It's not clear whether it has yet been returned to Ecuador, but the researchers said they hope it will ultimately be part of a collection, perhaps at a museum, where it will be treated properly.

"We wanted it to be viewed by people who could appreciate it in an appropriate context," said Mercer University chemist Adam Kiefer, a co-author of a study of the shrunken head published Monday in the journal Heritage Science.

© Adam Kiefer Mercer University biologist and anthropologist Craig Byron examines the tsantsa to verify its authenticity before it was repatriated to Ecuador. (Adam Kiefer)

"This is not an oddity — this is somebody's body, this is somebody's culture, and it's not ours," he said. "So from our perspective, repatriation was essential, and we were very lucky that our university supported this endeavor."

Shrunken heads were popular curios and keepsakes in some parts of the Western world in the 19th century, and many fakes were made to meet the demand — some of which were illicitly created from bodies taken from cemeteries and morgues. That led to justifiable concerns that the tsantsa at Mercer University may have also been fake.

Kiefer and his colleagues at Mercer, biologist Craig Byron and biomedical engineer Joanna Thomas, were tasked with verifying that the shrunken head was genuine after academics decided it could be of cultural importance and Ecuador's government asked whether it could be authenticated.

  

© Byron et al. After several scientific tests, researchers established that the object was a human head, probably from a slain enemy. (Byron et al. / Heritage Science)

The researchers studied it using a variety of techniques, including computerized tomography, or CT, scans, which allowed them to reconstruct a three-dimensional model of the tsantsa both with and without its long hair. Thomas said the CT scans verified that the head underneath the hair had been cut open to remove the skull and then stitched up again as part of the ceremonial process that created it. The CT scans were also used to create a three-dimensional model to take its place in the university's collection.

Their tests showed that the shrunken head met 30 of the 32 criteria scientifically accepted for verifying authentic tsantsas, including the tiny hairs visible on its skin and in its nostrils, as well as its distinctive three-tiered hairstyle, which was characteristic of the peoples who then lived in the Ecuadorian Amazon region where it was from, Kiefer said.

The tsantsa at Mercer became part of the university's collection after the death in 2016 of a member of the faculty, biologist Jim Harrison, who acquired it during a trip into Ecuador's remote Amazon region in 1942 while serving in the military during World War II

Adam Kiefer Image: The tsantsa was stuffed with a local newspaper to protect it during its transport from Ecuador to the United States in 1942. 

Harrison wrote in a memoir that he had traded with local people for the tsantsa. "It was Indiana Jones," Kiefer said. "When this was collected, science was different, everything was new ... but almost 80 years later, we recognize its cultural importance, along with the science."

It's thought the ceremonial process of making tsantsas may have originated as a way to overcome a tradition of blood feuds among some peoples of the Amazon jungle; it seems to have been intended to trap the spirit of the slain warrior within the shrunken head so its supernatural power could be transferred to the community of the victor.

Curiously, Harrison's tsantsa also appeared as a movie prop in the 1979 John Huston film "Wise Blood," a version of a novel by the writer Flannery O'Connor, who had lived near Macon. It was glued onto a prop body for the movie, and the damage that was caused could be seen by the researchers.

Universities and museums now often try to repatriate many of the human remains that were once on display in archaeological and anthropological collections.

In the U.S., the Smithsonian Institution has been repatriating human remains and other culturally important objects since the 1980s, particularly to Native American communities. It has repatriated more than 6,000 objects, including several tsantsas that were sent in 1999 to representatives of the indigenous Shuar people in Ecuador and Peru.

Last year, the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom removed a display of tsantsas that had been morbidly popular for decades.

"Visitors often referred to them as gruesome or disgusting or a freak show or gory," said Laura Van Broekhoven, the museum's director. "People were not understanding the more cultural meaning of the tsantsas ... so we were not doing a very good job of how we were curating the display."

The museum has been negotiating for four years with South American universities and indigenous groups to repatriate the tsantsas; any human remains and cultural objects acquired in the future will be dealt with under strict regulations the university has adopted, she said.

"We have to take things case by case," she said. "It's often a long process."

Schools spending millions on air purifiers often sold using overblown claims
By Lauren Weber and Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News 

Last summer, Global Plasma Solutions wanted to test whether the company's air-purifying devices could kill Covid-19 virus particles, but could find only a lab using a chamber the size of a shoebox for its trials. 

In the company-funded study, the virus was blasted with 27,000 ions per cubic centimeter. The company said it found a 99% reduction of virus.

© George Frey/Getty Images PROVO, UT - FEBRUARY 10: A teacher prepares her classroom before students arrive for school at Freedom Preparatory Academy on February 10, 2021 in Provo, Utah. Freedom Academy has done in person instruction since the middle of August of 2020 with only four days of school canceled due to COVID-19 outbreak. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

The report doesn't say how this reduction was measured, and in September, the company's founder incidentally mentioned that the devices being offered for sale would actually deliver a lot less ion power -- 13 times less -- into a full-sized room.

The company nonetheless used the shoebox results in marketing its device heavily to schools as something that could combat Covid in classrooms far, far larger than a shoebox.



School officials desperate to calm worried parents bought these devices and others with a flood of federal funds, installing them in more than 2,000 schools across 44 states, a KHN investigation found. They use the same technology — ionization, plasma and dry hydrogen peroxide — that the Lancet COVID-19 Commission recently deemed "often unproven" and potential sources of pollution themselves.

In the frenzy, schools are buying technology that academic air-quality experts warn can lull them into a false sense of security or even potentially harm kids. And schools often overlook the fact that their trusted contractors — typically engineering, HVAC or consulting firms — stand to earn big money from the deals, KHN found.

Academic experts are encouraging schools to pump in more fresh air and use tried-and-true filters, like HEPA, to capture the virus. Yet every ion- or hydroxyl-blasting air purifier sale strengthens a firm's next pitch: The device is doing a great job in the neighboring town.

"It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more people buy these technologies, the more they get legitimacy," said Jeffrey Siegel, a civil engineering professor at the University of Toronto. "It's really the complete wild west out there."

Marwa Zaatari, a member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers' (ASHRAE) Epidemic Task Force, first compiled a list of schools and districts using such devices.

Schools have been "bombarded with persistent salespersons peddling the latest air and cleaning technologies, including those with minimal evidence to-date supporting safety and efficacy" according to a report released Thursday by the Center for Green Schools and ASHRAE.

Zaatari said she was particularly concerned that officials in New Jersey are buying thousands of devices made by another company that says they emit ozone, which can exacerbate asthma and harm developing lungs, according to decades of research.

"We're going to live in a world where the air quality in schools is worse after the pandemic, after all of this money," Zaatari said. "It's really sickening."

The sales race is fueled by roughly $193 billion in federal funds allocated to schools for teacher pay and safety upgrades — a giant fund that can be used to buy air cleaners. And Democrats are pushing for $100 billion more that could also be spent on air cleaners.

In April, Global Plasma Solutions said further tests show its devices inactivate Covid in the air and on surfaces in larger chambers. The company studies still use about twice the level of ions as its leaders have publicly said the devices can deliver, KHN found.

There is virtually no federal oversight or enforcement of safe air-cleaning technology. Only California bans air cleaners that emit a certain amount of ozone.

U.S. Rep. Robert "Bobby" Scott (D-Va.), chair of the House Committee on Labor and Education, said the federal government typically is not involved in local decisions of what products to buy, although he hopes for more federal guidance.

In the meantime, "these school systems are dealing with contractors providing all kinds of services," he said, "so you just have to trust them to get the best expert advice on what to do."

These go-between contractors — and the air cleaner companies themselves — have a stake in the sales. While their names might appear in school board records, their role in selling the device or commission from the deal is seldom made public, KHN found.

A LinkedIn job ad with the logo for one air purifier company, ActivePure Technology, which employs former Trump adviser Dr. Deborah Birx as its chief medical and science adviser, recruited salespeople this way: "Make Tons of Money with this COVID-killing Technology!!" The commission, the post said, is up to $900 per device.

"We have reps [who] made over 6-figures in 1 month selling to 1 school district," the ad says. "This could be the biggest opportunity you have seen!"

'A tiny bit of ozone'

Schools in New Jersey have a particularly easy time buying air cleaners called Odorox: A state education agency lists them on their group-purchasing commodity list, with a large unit selling for more than $5,100. Originally used in home restoration and mold remediation, the devices have become popular in New Jersey schools as the company says its products can inactivate Covid.

In Newark, administrators welcomed students back to class this month with more than 3,200 Odorox units, purchased with $7.5 million in federal funds, said Steven Morlino, executive director of Facilities Management for Newark Public Schools.

"I think parents feel pretty comfortable that their children are going to a safe environment," he said. "And so did the staff."

Environmental health and air-quality experts, though, are alarmed by the district's plan.

The Pyure company's Odorox devices are on California air-quality regulators' list of "potentially hazardous ozone generators sold as air purifiers" and cannot be sold in the state.

A company distributor's research shows that its Boss XL3 device pumps out as much as 77 parts per billion of ozone, a level that exceeds limits set by California lawmakers for the sale of indoor air cleaners and the EPA standard for ground-level ozone — a limit set to protect children from the well-documented harm of ozone to developing lungs.

That level exceeds the industry's self-imposed limit by more than 10 times and is "unacceptable," according to William Bahnfleth, an architectural engineering professor at Penn State who studies indoor air quality and leads the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force.

Jean-Francois "JF" Huc, CEO of the Pyure company, pointed out that the study was done in a space smaller than they would recommend for such a powerful Odorox device. He cautioned that it was done that way to prove that home-restoration workers could be in the room with the device without violating work-safety rules.

"We provide very stringent operating guidelines around the size of room that our different devices should be put in," he said.

You can't see or smell ozone, but lungs treat it like a "foreign invader," said Michael Jerrett, who has studied its health effects as director of the UCLA Center for Occupational and Environmental Health.

Lung cells mount an immune-like response, which can trigger asthma complications and divert energy from normal lung function, he said. Chronic exposure has been linked to more emergency room visits and can even cause premature death. Once harmed, Jerrett said, children's lungs may not regain full function.

"Ozone is a very serious public health problem," Jerrett said.

Newark has some of the highest childhood asthma rates in the state, affecting one in four kids. Scholars have linked outdoor ozone levels in Newark to elevated childhood ER visits and asthma is the leading cause of school absenteeism there.

Adding ozone into the classroom is "just nightmarish," Siegel, of the University of Toronto, said.

Morlino said the district plans to monitor ozone levels in each classroom, based on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration level for working adults, which is 100 parts per billion.

"In our research of the product," he said, "we've determined it's within the guidelines the federal government produces."

While legal for healthy working adults, the work-safety standard should not apply to developing children, said Michael Kleinman, an air-quality researcher at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. "It's not a good device to be using in the presence of children," he said.

But the devices are going into schools throughout the state that will not be monitoring ozone levels, acknowledged Dave Matisoff, owner of Bio-Shine, a New Jersey-based distributor of Odorox. He said the main safeguard is informing schools about the appropriate-size room each device should be deployed to, a factor in ozone concentration.

Huc, the CEO, said his team has measured levels of ozone that are higher outdoors in Newark than inside — with his company's units running.

"There is a tiny bit of ozone that is introduced, but it's very, very low," he said. "And you get the benefit of the antimicrobial effect, you get the benefit of reduction of pathogens, which we've demonstrated in a number of studies, and you get the reduction of VOC [volatile organic compounds]."

Meanwhile, despite expert concerns, the devices continue to pop up in classrooms and school nurses' offices across the state, said Allen Barkkume, an industrial hygienist for the New Jersey teachers union.

He doesn't blame schools for buying them, as they're a lot less expensive than overhauling ventilation systems. Teachers often push for the devices in their classrooms, he said, as they see them in the nurses' offices and think it'll keep them safe. And superintendents are not well-versed in air quality's complex scientific concepts.

"Nothing sounds better than something that's cheap, quiet, small and easy to find, and we can stick them in every classroom," Barkkume said.


Tested in shoebox, sold for classrooms

While New York officials are "not permitting" the installation of ionization devices due to "potential negative health effects," schools across the state of New Jersey are installing ionizing devices.

Ten miles away from Newark in Montclair, New Jersey, parents have been raising hell over the new Global Plasma Solutions' ionizing devices in their children's classrooms. The company website promises a product that emits ions like those "created with energy from rushing water, crashing waves and even sunlight."

The devices emit positive and negative ions that are meant to help particles clump together, making them easier to filter out. The company says the ions can also reduce the viral particles that cause Covid-19.

But Justin Klabin, a building developer with a background in indoor air quality and two sons in the district, was not convinced.

He spent hours compiling scientific evidence. He created YouTube videos that painstakingly pick apart the ionizers' viability and helped organize a petition signed by dozens of parents warning the school board against the installation.

Even so, the district spent $635,900 on installing ionizers, which would go in classrooms serving more than 6,000 kids. The devices are often installed in ducts, an important consideration, the company founder Charles Waddell said, because the ions that are emitted lose their power after 60 seconds.

But the company's shoebox study and inflated ion blast numbers that helped sell the product last year leave a potential customer with little sense of how the device would perform in a classroom, Zaatari said.

"It's a high cost for nothing," Zaatari said. The company has sued her and another air-quality consultant for criticizing their devices. Of the pending case, Zaatari said it is a David-versus-Goliath situation, but she will not be deterred from speaking on behalf of children.

"Size of the [test] chamber has proved not to play a role in efficacy results but rather ion density," GPS spokesperson Kevin Boyle said in an email. The company notes by its Covid-inactivating test results that they "may include ... higher-than-average ion concentrations."

He also said the company is proud to meet the ASHRAE "zero ozone" certification.

Glenn Morrison, a professor of environmental science and engineering at the University of North Carolina, reviewed a March GPS study on a device combating the Covid virus in the air. The device appears to reduce virus concentrations, he said in an email, but noted it would not be very effective under normal building conditions, outside a test chamber. "A cheap portable HEPA filter would work many times better and have fewer side effects (possibly ozone or other unwanted chemistry)," he wrote.

Other parents joined Klabin's campaign, including Melanie Robbins, the mom of a kindergartener and a child in pre-K. Armed with her background in nonprofit advocacy, she reached out to experts. She and other parents spoke at local government meetings about their concerns.

In April, the superintendent told parents the school would turn off the devices, but parents say they haven't turned them all off.

"As far as I understand, the district has relied only on information from GPS, the manufacturer," Robbins said during a Montclair Board of Education meeting via Zoom on April 19. "This is like only listening to advice from Philip Morris as to whether smoking is safe or not."

Dan Daniello, of D&B Building Solutions, an HVAC contracting company, defended GPS products during the meeting. He said they are even used in the White House, a selling point the company has made repeatedly.

The catch: A GPS contractor installed its ionization technology in the East Wing of the White House after it was purchased in 2018 — before Covid emerged, according to GPS' Boyle. But the company was still using the White House logo as a marketing image on its website when KHN asked the White House about the advertising in April. It was taken down shortly thereafter.

Boyle said GPS was "recently informed that the White House logo may not be used for marketing purposes, and promptly complied."

The Montclair school district did not respond to requests for comment.

"I want to bang my head against the wall, it's so black-and-white," Robbins said. "Admit this is a poor purchase. The district got played."

Selling 'the Big Kahuna'

Academic air-quality experts agree on what's best for schools: More outside air pumped into classes, MERV 13 filters in heating systems and portable HEPA filters. The solution is time-tested and effective, they say. Yet as common commodities, like a pair of khaki pants, these items are not widely flogged by a sales force chasing big commissions.

After Covid hit, Tony Barron said the companies pitched air purifying technology nonstop to the Kansas district where he worked as a facility manager last fall.

Pressure came from inside the school as well. Teachers sent links for air cleaners they saw on the news. His superintendent had him meet with a friend who sold ionization products. He got constant calls, mail and email from mechanical engineering companies.

The hundreds of phone calls from air cleaner pitches were overwhelming, said Chris Crockett, director of facilities for Turner USD 202 in Kansas City, Kansas. While he wanted to trust the contractors he had worked with, he tested four products before deciding to spend several hundred thousand dollars.

"Custodial supply companies see the writing on the wall, that there's a lot of money out there," he said. "And then a lot of money is going to be spent on HVAC systems."

ActivePure says on its website that its air purifiers are in hundreds of schools. In a news release, the company said they were "sold through a nationwide network of several hundred franchises, 5,000 general contractors/HVAC specialists and thousands of individual distributors."

Enviro Technology Pros, founded in January, is one company pitching ActivePure to HVAC contractors. In a YouTube video, the founders said contractors can make $950 for each air-cleaning device sold, and some dealers can make up to $30,000 a month. Citing the bounty of the billions in federal relief, another video touted ready-made campaigns to target school principals directly.

After KHN asked ActivePure for comment, the Enviro Technology Pros YouTube videos about ActivePure were no longer accessible publicly.

ActivePure did not respond to requests for comment but has said its devices are effective and one is validated by the Food and Drug Administration.

An Enviro Technology Pros founder, Rod Norman, told KHN the company was asked to take the posts down by Vollara, a company related to ActivePure. He called sales to schools "the big kahuna."

Shortly after he spoke with KHN, the website for his own company was taken down.

In an Instagram post that also disappeared, the company had asked: "4000 classrooms protected why not your kids?"

Correction: This article has been revised to reflect that an Odorox distributor, not Pyure, commissioned the ozone test on a Boss XL3. And the article was revised to reflect that Pyure CEO Jean-Francois "JF" Huc said his company provides stringent operating guidelines for use of the company's air purifiers but did not acknowledge that school staffers are often not warned about the problems they could face if a too-powerful device is used in a too-small room

VIDEO
Escalating violence in Jerusalem has Winnipeg's Palestinian and Jewish communities on edge

Duration: 02:14 


Idris Elbakri, a Palestinian Canadian who lives in Winnipeg, grew up in Jerusalem. He was at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which has been a flashpoint in the latest conflict in the region, just a few weeks ago, after travelling to Jerusalem for a family emergency.

The fate of coral reefs around the world remains grim should global warming continue at its current rate, according to new research.

Coral reefs will stop growing in the next decade or so unless a significant reduction in greenhouse gases is achieved, a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests.

© Michael Wood/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images A school of Gray Snapper swim into the current on a colorful reef in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Key Largo, Fla.

A team of researchers led by Christopher Cornwall, a marine botanist at the Victoria University of Wellington in Australia, analyzed data from 183 reefs worldwide to estimate the effects of ocean warming and acidification, which are posing increasing threats to underwater ecosystems.

The calcifying coral reef taxa that constructs the calcium carbonate framework of the reef and cements it together are "highly sensitive" to ocean warming and acidification, the scientists said. Climate change affects both the abundance and the calcification rates, while ocean acidification, which is mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, also reduces the calcification rates.

© Brandi Mueller/Getty Images

MORE: Great Barrier Reef has deteriorated to 'critical' level due to climate change

Under the worst case scenario presented by the researchers, 94% of all reefs could erode by 2050. Under other scenarios, declines are projected to be so severe that reef production will cease by 2100, the researchers said.

© Humberto Ramirez/Getty Images A grooved brain coral is bleached.

Geographic location also played a role in production declines, with reefs in the Pacific Ocean faring better than more degraded coral reefs in the Atlantic Ocean, the researchers said.

The population declines are largely due to bleaching events, a process that occurs when water is too warm and the algae the corals expel from their tissues cause them to turn completely white.

MORE: Australian scuba tour company is planting coral as vacationers stay away

The capacity for reef-building taxa to gain tolerance to marine heat waves and ongoing ocean warming and acidification over the coming decades is unknown, the scientists said.

If coral reefs stop growing, there would be negative effects on a vast array of biodiversity that reside in its ecosystems. The reefs also yield billions of dollars of revenue for fisheries and tourism around the world and protect tropical shorelines from hazards, such as storms, the researchers said.

© VW Pics/Universal Images Group/Getty Images A school of blue and yellow fusiliers, Caesio teres, over a tropical coral reef, Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

Should sea levels continue to rise due to climate change, reefs will no longer be effective at protecting coastlines because the production will not be able to keep up with the amount of melting ice, Cornwall told ABC News.

"Our work highlights a grim picture for the future of coral reefs," Cornwall said in an email.

MORE: Bleaching on Great Barrier Reef more widespread than ever

"Rapid reduction" of carbon dioxide emissions is necessary to protect coral reefs, according to the study's authors.

© Brandi Mueller/Getty Images Marine life on the Great Barrier Reef.

The findings highlight "the low likelihood that the world's coral reefs will maintain their functional roles without near-term stabilization of atmospheric CO2 emissions," the study states.

"The only hope for coral reef ecosystems to remain as close as possible to what they are now is to quickly and drastically reduce our CO2 emissions," Cornwall said. "If not, they will be dramatically altered and cease their ecological benefits as hotspots of biodiversity, sources of food and tourism, and their provision of shoreline protection."

VIDEO

Sexual assault survivors stunned to learn peer support mentor was sex offender

Duration: 03:06

Participants of a trauma retreat for sexual assault survivors, including military veterans, were stunned to learn that a sex offender served as a peer mentor at the program.

VIDEO

Diversity, ethics outcry leads to cancellation of 2022 Golden Globes broadcast

Duration: 02:08

NBC says it won’t broadcast the Golden Globes next year after the organization behind the awards was repeatedly called out for bias and a lack of representation.
More from cbc.ca

VIDEO

Calif. governor proposes new funding for homeless

Duration: 01:08 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday proposed $12 billion in new funding to get more people experiencing homelessness in the state into housing and to "functionally end family homelessness" within five years. (May 11)

The US has approved a huge offshore wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard - the first of its kind

insider@insider.com (Connor Perrett) 

© REUTERS/Nick Oxford 

The Biden administration granted approval Tuesday for the nation's first large-scale offshore wind farm.

The Vineyard Wind project would be built off the coast of Matha's Vineyard.

The project is expected to power as many as 400,000 homes and businesses.

The US Department of the Interior approved Vineyard Wind - the first large-scale wind farm in the US - on Tuesday.

The Vineyard Wind project would be built off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts and is slated to create up to 800 megawatts of electricity.

That would be enough to power as many as 400,000 homes and businesses, the Interior Department said.

"A clean energy future is within our grasp in the United States," Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a statement. "The approval of this project is an important step toward advancing the Administration's goals to create good-paying union jobs while combatting climate change and powering our nation."

According to NBC Boston, the project is estimated to cost $2 billion and is part of President Joe Biden's agenda to reduce carbon emissions in the US and generate 30 gigawatts of energy from offshore wind by 2030.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Daimler CEO: 'We need an honest conversation" about EVs and jobs

© Reuters/Steve Marcus FILE PHOTO: Ola Kallenius, chairman of the board of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, unveils the Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR concept car, inspired by the Avatar movies, at a Daimler keynote address during the 2020 CES in Las Vegas

LONDON (Reuters) - If the European Union wants to push a faster shift to zero-emissions cars then Daimler AG is ready, but there needs to be an open debate on the impact electrification will have on auto jobs, the carmaker's top executive said on Tuesday.

"It's an ambition that we say yes to," Chief Executive Ola Källenius said during an interview at a Financial Times conference on the future of the car. But he added "we have to have an honest conversation about jobs."

"Everyone knows it takes more labour hours to assemble and build a combustion based powertrain compared to an electric powertrain," he said.

The EU last month raised its target for cuts in net greenhouse gas emissions to 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels instead of 40% and Europe's automakers will find out in July what their contribution on CO2 emissions is expected to be.

There are broad expectations within the auto industry that there will be job losses associated with electrification, focused primarily in combustion engine factories.

Germany's car industry faces an "employment fiasco" unless it gets badly needed investment in new technologies, especially batteries, the country's top labour leader said last week.

The warning from Joerg Hofmann, president of IG Metall, came after a survey by the Ifo institute showed that the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) could cost the industry some 100,000 jobs in combustion engine production by 2025 if companies fail to beef up efforts to reskill workers.

Källenius said the impact on jobs needs to be handled in a "socially responsible way." He said the German carmaker is in "very constructive dialogue" with its works council and the industry will create more jobs in areas like software engineering.

"But it (the engine jobs impact) is not something where we should not acknowledge that it's there," Källenius said. "It is there."

(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Keith Weir)

U.S. asks Mexico to review GM plant labor allegations in test of new trade deal

By David Lawder and David Shepardson

© Reuters/Sergio Maldonado FILE PHOTO: 

GM's truck assembly plant in Silao, Mexico

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Biden administration on Wednesday asked Mexico to examine alleged labor rights violations at a General Motors pickup truck factory in Mexico, a move that could lead to tariffs on some of GM's most profitable vehicles under the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that her agency and the U.S. Department of Labor have received "information appearing to indicate serious violations" of worker rights in an April union contract vote at GM's Silao factory in central Mexico.

The request for review marks the first time any country has used the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism in USMCA, which allows countries to target labor rights violations at specific factories. Tai helped negotiate the labor enforcement mechanism on behalf of Democrats in the U.S. Congress.

Mexico's labor ministry on Tuesday said it found "serious irregularities in the union-led worker vote at the GM factory and ordered a new vote to be held within 30 days.

The Mexican ministry's decision followed pressure from U.S. lawmakers on GM after some Mexican officials had said some ballots were destroyed during the vote, which was intended for the Silao plant's 6,000 union workers to ratify their labor contract.

A key U.S. goal for the USMCA, negotiated by the Trump administration, was to strengthen Mexican unions to help drive up wages and slow the migration of U.S. auto production to Mexico. GM won key changes to USMCA that allowed it to continue to build hundreds of thousands of high-profit pickups in Mexico for export to the United States annually.

In a statement, Tai praised Mexico "for stepping in to suspend the vote when it became aware of voting irregularities" and said the U.S. action "will complement Mexico’s efforts to ensure that these workers can fully exercise their collective bargaining rights.

Representative Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat and staunch union advocate, praised the Biden administration for swiftly acting on "reported acts of bullying" of workers at the GM plant.

"Our trade agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on if they are not enforced to defend workers in Mexico and here in the United States," Pascrell said.

PROFIT CENTER

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-nafta-autos/game-of-chicken-gm-bets-on-mexican-made-pickup-trucks-idUSKBN1F42G7

GM's Silao plant  is a lynchpin of its North American truck strategy, producing more than 339,000 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-sized pickup trucks in 2019 -- more than a third of the company's total of 906,000 that year.

GM said it would cooperate with both the U.S. and Mexican governments in the matter and that it condemns violation of labor rights and actions to restrict collective bargaining.

"We do not believe there was any GM involvement in the alleged violations or that any government-approved inspectors were denied access to the facility, and have retained a third-party firm to conduct an independent and thorough review," the company said in a statement.

USTR's request comes days before U.S. President Joe Biden travels to Dearborn, Michigan to tour a Ford Motor Co electric vehicle plant to highlight his push for $174 billion in government funding to expand electric vehicle production and charging infrastructure.

Ford builds all of its U.S. full-size pickup trucks in the United States but both GM and Ford are investing in electric vehicle production in Mexico, prompting the United Auto Workers union to call for tax incentives to apply only to U.S.-assembled EVs.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to say Tuesday if Biden supported limiting EV subsidies.

The USMCA trade deal was rewritten to require that effectively 40% of the value of all Mexican-made vehicles be made in the United States or Canada.

WARNING SHOT

Tai's request warns all automakers -- including Ford, Volkswagen and Chrysler parent Stellantis that the Biden administration won't tolerate past Mexican labor practices that critics say kept wages depressed.

"In requesting this review, the United States clearly sends the message that worker rights must be respected," U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said in a statement.

If the United States and Mexico cannot reach an agreement to resolve the matter, Tai can request a dispute settlement panel to review the matter, with the entire process meant to take about 90 days from the initial request.

Labor remedies under USMCA include revoking tariff-free access for the violating factory's goods. In GM's case, that could mean applying the normal 25% U.S. pickup truck import tariff on Silao-made trucks, a painful move that could add thousands of dollars to the cost of each vehicle.

Tai has requested that the U.S. Treasury immediately suspend final settlement of customs accounts for U.S. border entry of GM's Silao trucks, a move that preserves the option to apply tariffs to them later.

(Reporting by David Lawder and David Shepardson; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)