Sunday, September 05, 2021

Two female CEOs were the first to speak out against Texas' abortion ban as big tech companies largely stay silent

Hannah Towey Sep. 3, 2021,
Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd and Tesla CEO Elon Musk
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Bumble (left) and Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Image (right)

Gov. Abbott said Texas' abortion ban "is not slowing down businesses" from coming to the state.

But two-thirds of "top talent" said in a survey that the law would discourage them from working in Texas.

Most tech companies have remained silent on the issue - the only 2 CEOs to immediately respond were women..

Two-thirds of "top talent" said Texas' abortion ban would discourage them from taking a job in the state, according to a recent survey commissioned by the Tara Health Foundation.

More than half of respondents said they would want their employer to speak publicly about restrictive abortion policies. For most Texas companies, that has not been the case.

Despite the tech industry's record of speaking out on political issues such as LGBTQ and immigration rights, only two tech CEOs with offices in Texas immediately responded to the state's abortion ban. Both are women.

Lyft CEO Logan Green tweeted Friday that the ban "threatens to punish drivers for getting people where they need to go- especially women exercising their right to choose," adding that Lyft "created a Driver Legal Defense Fund to cover 100% of legal fees for drivers sued under SB8 while driving on our platform."

Website hosting provider GoDaddy told anti-abortion group Texas Right for Life that its anonymous abortion tip line violated its terms of service on Friday.

"We have informed prolifewhistleblower.com they have 24 hours to move to another provider for violating our terms of service," a spokesperson told The New York Times.

Texas Gov. Abbott told CNBC on Thursday that he does not believe the legislation banning abortion after six weeks - before most women know they are pregnant - will cause employers to react negatively.

"This is not slowing down businesses coming to the state of Texas at all," he said, adding that Elon Musk is a fan of Texas' social policies.

The Tesla CEO tweeted in response that he would "prefer to stay out of politics" and that "the government should rarely impose its will upon the people."

Data released Tuesday suggests that the ban may deter college-educated workers from accepting positions in Texas. In a survey of 1,804 working adults ages 18 to 64 with a college degree, the majority said they would not apply for jobs in a state with an abortion ban similar to SB 8.

One male respondent from Washington wrote that the bill would make him "not likely to do business (or live) in that state. And further, as a decision influencer in some cases, I would highly recommend that no organization that I am affiliated with does business in that state - including meetings and conventions."

Texas cities Austin and Houston are considered some of the fastest-growing tech hubs in the US due to low taxes and minimal regulation. Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Amazon, Google, Dell, PayPal, and Salesforce are just some of the industry giants who have moved offices to the state over the past decade.

Bumble, the $6.6 billion company founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, tweeted that it was "women-founded and women-led," and would "keep fighting against regressive laws like #SB8."

Match Group - the $38.4 billion parent company of several dating platforms, including Hinge and Tinder - told its staff in a memo that it would start a fund for its Texas employees to access abortions outside of the state. Match Group is helmed by CEO Shar Dubey.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Insider that the company has nothing to share at this time. Dell said it would circle back if it has any statements to share.

"If you look at what our state is doing, and then you see another state where they're not doing some of those things, you might say, 'Well, the money's good, but where do I want to raise my family?" Tammi Wallace, CEO of the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce, told Bloomberg.

Facebook, Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Google, PayPal, and Salesforce did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Lyft, Uber lash out at legal threat from strict Texas abortion law

Companies to cover fees for any drivers sued for driving women to abortion clinics

The Associated Press · 
Lyft and Uber say they will cover all legal fees for the ride-hail companies' drivers if they are sued under a new restrictive anti-abortion law in Texas for driving passengers to outlawed procedures. (Steven Senne/The Associated Press)

Ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft said Friday they will cover the legal fees of any driver who is sued under the new law prohibiting most abortions in Texas.

The Texas law bans abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks and often before women know they're pregnant. Rather than be enforced by government authorities, the law gives citizens the right to file civil suits and collect damages against anyone aiding an abortion — including those who transport women to clinics.

San Francisco-based Lyft said it has created a fund to cover 100 per cent of the legal fees for drivers sued under the law while driving on its platform. Calling the Texas law "an attack on women's right to choose," Lyft also said it would donate $1 million to Planned Parenthood.

"We want to be clear: Drivers are never responsible for monitoring where their riders go or why. Imagine being a driver and not knowing if you are breaking the law by giving someone a ride," Lyft said in a statement.

WATCH | New Texas law makes most abortions illegal: 


New Texas law makes most abortions illegal

4 days ago
2
The most restrictive abortion law in all of the U.S. is now in effect in Texas following inaction by the Supreme Court. The law bans any abortion after six weeks or after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is before many women know they’re pregnant. 2:02

"Similarly, riders never have to justify, or even share, where they are going and why. Imagine being a pregnant woman trying to get to a health-care appointment and not knowing if your driver will cancel on you for fear of breaking a law."

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi responded to Lyft's statement in a tweet announcing a similar policy for its drivers.

"Drivers shouldn't be put at risk for getting people where they want to go," Khosrowshahi wrote. Uber is also headquartered in San Francisco.

The ban leaves enforcement up to individual citizens, enabling them to sue anyone who provides or "aids or abets" an abortion after six weeks. This potentially includes drivers who unknowingly take women to clinics for abortion procedures.

A judge on Friday temporarily shielded some Texas abortion clinics from being sued under the new law.

The temporary restraining order was issued by District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin in response to a Planned Parenthood request. Although the law remains in effect, the judge's order shields Planned Parenthood's clinics, specifically, from whistleblower lawsuits by the non-profit group Texas Right to Life, its legislative director and people working in concert with the group.

A hearing on a preliminary injunction request is scheduled for Sept. 13.

Earlier this week, the chief executive of Tinder-owner Match Group said she is setting up a fund to help any Texas-based employees who need to seek an abortion outside the state.

Rival dating app Bumble also criticized the law and announced on Instagram it will donate funds to six organizations that support women's reproductive rights.

Both dating companies are based in Texas and led by women.

Match Group said CEO Shar Dubey is creating the fund on her own and not through the company. She spoke out against the law in a memo to employees on Thursday.

"I immigrated to America from India over 25 years ago and I have to say, as a Texas resident, I am shocked that I now live in a state where women's reproductive laws are more regressive than most of the world, including India," Dubey said in the memo.

The Texas law, which took effect early Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency appeal from abortion providers, constitutes the biggest curb to the constitutional right to an abortion in decades. It does not make exceptions for rape or incest.

Website hosting service GoDaddy Inc. on Friday, meanwhile, shut down a Texas anti-abortion website that allowed people to report suspected abortions.

With files from Reuters

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Nationwide Nabisco Strikes Demonstrate Growing Strength of the Labor Movement
Nabisco workers on strike on August 10, 2021.
COURTESY OF NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS

BY Tyler Walicek, Truthout
PUBLISHEDSeptember 3, 2021

Confronted with management’s burdensome demands for contract concessions, Nabisco workers in Portland, Oregon, instigated a strike last month that has rapidly taken on national proportions. On August 10, around 200 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union (BCTGM) Local 364 walked off the job at the industrial bakery. Since then, the workforces of every Nabisco production and distribution facility in the country have followed suit, a coordinated action years in the making. The strikers have drawn on the radical energies of a recently resurgent labor movement in the United States — a momentous upswell in a key vector of working-class power.

Sweet Deals for Executives, Scraps for Workers

Nabisco, the maker of popular processed foods like Chips Ahoy! cookies, Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers, is a subsidiary of Chicago’s Mondelēz International. When Kraft Foods split into different entities to skirt antitrust violations in 2012, its snack food business was spun off and reconstituted as Mondelēz, now a Fortune 500 company with $26 billion in yearly revenue. Mondelēz CEO Dirk Van de Put was compensated over $16 million in 2020; in 2017, he was lavished with a pay package of $42.4 million — 989 times the median pay of a Mondelēz employee. Meanwhile, management has declined to redistribute any of its pandemic profit gains; though people staying home in 2020 resulted in a major uptick in snack sales, the company has continued angling to cut overtime and healthcare benefits. Mondelēz’s single-minded focus on squeezing every possible cent from its workforce, combined with such exorbitant executive pay, has underscored disparities between workers and management, accelerating a discontentment that has been gathering strength for almost a decade.

Since Mondelēz assumed ownership of Nabisco in 2012, longtime workers claim, working conditions have deteriorated, sacrificed to management’s ever-more relentless drive for profits. In the background are ambient threats of outsourcing and job loss: The company halved its union workforce earlier this year, with plant closures in Fairlawn, New Jersey, and Atlanta, Georgia, and the union has had to negotiate with an acute awareness that the company can make good on its threats of offshoring. Six years ago, Mondelēz transferred Oreo production from Chicago to Mexico — a move that earned it condemnation from Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders alike.

Against this background, tension between capital and labor within Mondelēz-Nabisco has heightened since contract negotiations in 2016, when management attempted to eliminate pensions in favor of 401(k)s. In April 2020, BCTGM ceded that ground — only for the company to return to the table with even more extensive demands. BCTGM Local 364 vice president and 14-year Nabisco veteran Mike Burlingham says Mondelēz has displayed no interest in compromise: “They don’t want to share their wealth with the workers.… They want to come to the table, insult us with their proposal — which is more like a list of demands — and try to tell us to our faces that this is for our own good,” he told Truthout.

The Mondelēz proposal, which a spokesperson euphemistically described as an “alternative work schedule,” would require more work for less pay, at an already taxing and physically demanding job. Burlingham says that even without the proposed changes, “a lot of us are already putting in 13 to 16 hours a day due to forced overtime, day in and day out, for weeks on end.”

The previous contract afforded workers time-and-a-half pay for shifts over 8 hours and Saturdays, with double time for Sundays. Now, the company wants to limit overtime pay to those who work more than 40 hours — without taking into account which days are worked, or the lengths of individual shifts. Burlingham estimated that for some workers, the reductions in overtime pay could result in losses of $10,000 per year.The past few years in the United States have seen a historic groundswell of labor actions, coinciding with the highest public favorability toward unions in decades.

The plan would also establish a two-tiered benefits system, under which new hires would also be charged more for health insurance — a well-worn tactic for stoking internal division within unions. This management overreach led to a breakdown in negotiations. It was Mondelēz-Nabisco’s continued intransigence that led BCTGM to trigger the Portland action, the first strike at the company in 52 years.

Coordinated by BCTGM International, the strike expanded to an interstate scale. Mondelēz has three factories (Chicago; Portland, Oregon; and Richmond, Virginia) and three distribution facilities (Aurora, Colorado; Addison, Illinois; and Norcross, Georgia) — all six of which are now on strike. These workforces were already stretched to breaking point. The frustrations expressed by strikers at the Portland bakery are far from isolated concerns, and were echoed by those at other Mondelēz facilities. Interviewed by Jacobin, utility operator April Flowers-Lewis, who has worked at the Chicago plant for 27 years, described deteriorating conditions: brutal schedules, rescinded benefits and an attitude of disrespect from management. In July, Mondelēz was also cited by the city of Chicago for failing to pay out sick leave.

A Mondelēz spokesperson, quoted by CBS, stated that the “alternative work schedule” proposals are intended to “promote the right behaviors” among workers. Elsewhere, the company described the goal of its proposal as “setting up our U.S. bakeries for future investment and long-term success.” At present, the company is busing in nonunion workers (colloquially, “scabs”) to continue production.

Meanwhile, as the action enters its third week in Portland, strikers have earned the resounding support of many in the community. Mohammed Mohammed, a production worker on the picket line, spoke to Truthout as a cacophony of celebratory honks from passing cars threatened to drown out his words: “I’m grateful for the city that’s shown us a lot of support. We got a lot of union support; a lot of local businesses bring us food.… People know we’re essential. We’re strong because of each other.”

Such expressions of solidarity have been plentiful, from supporters both on the ground and online (including Danny DeVito). A strike support GoFundMe has raised over $50,000, and BCTGM has urged a boycott of all of Nabisco’s enduringly popular snack foods. On the picket line, demonstrators have been joined by members of over a dozen other unions, including the AFL-CIO and UFCW. At one point, confirmed Mike Burlingham, union railroad conductors in Portland reversed their train and refused to cross the picket line to deliver their freight of confectionary ingredients to the bakery.

Strikers in Portland, as well as those in Atlanta, Richmond and Chicago, have received the aid of their local Democratic Socialists of America chapters. Portland DSA has helped coordinate solidarity rallies, marches and strike support, as has Portland Jobs with Justice, a labor and community activism coalition. Organizers entered a Fred Meyer grocery by the dozen to make shoppers aware of the boycott. Jobs with Justice co-chair Russell Lum told Truthout, “It’s a cry out to Nabisco, sure, but it’s also a cry out against a broken economic system…. The bleeding of these jobs [by outsourcing] is Mondelēz’s business model, and the signal to the workers is, ‘You’re next.’ That’s how Mondelēz wants to bargain, with the workers feeling like they’re on a knife’s edge.”
Demanding More Than Crumbs

The past few years in the United States have seen a historic groundswell of labor actions, coinciding with the highest public favorability toward unions in decades. 2018-2019 were particularly militant years; notable developments include the late 2019 major strike at GM and the Red for Ed wave of nationwide teachers’ strikes. Strike activity reached a 30-year-high in 2019. Some Bureau of Labor Statistics data gave the impression that work stoppages dropped off precipitously at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis — though, it’s worth noting that these numbers do not reflect actions involving under 1,000 employees. During that period, amid complicating factors like layoffs and social distancing, there was an enormous number of small-scale pandemic-safety walkouts by essential workers. Alternate data better captured these stochastic, nontraditional actions. In other words, solidarity, organizing and radical energies persisted throughout the pandemic. And though the virus is still exacting a devastating toll, the return to major strike activity in 2021 indicates a potential for sustained worker militancy.

BCTGM’s modest size makes its members’ boldness all the more impressive. Amid a national climate hostile to unions, BCTGM, further beleaguered by offshoring and plant closures, fell from over 114,000 members in 2002 to about 63,900 in 2019 — making it one of the smallest production worker unions. Historically, the union has not been particularly militant. Like many manufacturing strikes, BCTGM’s actions have tended towards the defensive: protecting existing wins, rather than breaching new territory.BCTGM’s bold actions of the summer of 2021 are an indicator that unions in the United States, resurgent to a degree unseen in decades, will sustain their struggle into the future.

That said, “there are a lot of signs that even manufacturing union workers are increasingly fed up with employer demands for concessions,” says C.M. Lewis, an editor at the labor publication Strikewave. The Mondelēz-Nabisco strikes are preventative measures: “We’re not on strike to secure huge gains. We’re on strike to keep what we’ve already got,” Cameron Taylor, BCTGM Local 364’s business agent, told HuffPost. However, taken with a string of recent BCTGM actions, they’re a component of a positive trend. Says Lewis, “That Nabisco workers [are] striking in multiple states is rare and encouraging, and could be a sign of increased militancy down the road.”

BCTGM members are finding their footing: They organized a workforce of several hundred at a Tennessee brewery in December 2020. And in July, BCTGM members took on the titanic PepsiCo, striking at a plant owned by its subsidiary Frito-Lay in Topeka, Kansas, over concerns analogous to those at Nabisco. The 19-day strike ended with a renegotiated contract — which didn’t meet every BCTGM term, but still held ground and won some gains. Though short of unmitigated victory, that strike still helped bolster the confidence of Nabisco workers in Portland, as Mike Burlingham related to Truthout: “There was a show of solidarity” with Frito-Lay employees, he said, and “it was really good to see those workers were able to come to an agreement … and were successful.” Burlingham added, “There’s been an influx of strikes around the country … people are paying attention to what’s going on. It’s getting to a point where people are saying, ‘It’s enough of the corporate greed. Enough is enough.’”

BCTGM is up against a company that has proven willing to go to great lengths to further exploit workers and ensure the flow of profit. Mondelēz’s threats of offshoring have weight behind them, thanks to free trade agreements and loosened restraints on capital mobility. Mondelēz also maintains massive production capability at a “superplant” in Mexico — ostensibly, the “world’s largest cookie plant” — giving the company enormous leverage in its threats to shift production to workforces in Mexico that are even more callously exploited. (Relatedly, the company, along with Nestle, Cargill, Hershey, and others, has also been named in a class action lawsuit alleging that it “knowingly” utilized forced child labor. That’s far from its only scandal.)

With corporate power further entrenched by the depredations of neoliberal policy and the dismantling of labor laws, workers often find themselves struggling to preserve a status quo. Yet, as C.M. Lewis says, “Successful strikes build confidence and power, and Nabisco workers are experiencing firsthand what potential power they hold in their workplaces. Although this is a defensive strike for the moment, holding the line now is a good start toward going on the offensive and raising standards instead of managing declining working conditions.”

Unions across the country are demonstrating a greater willingness to strike when companies go beyond the pale. The Nabisco picketers all shared that sense of last-straw frustration. Said Oreo production line worker Nicole Bertholomey, “They’re being greedy. We work so hard for this company, and we have families at home. They’re making so much money, and they still want to take everything away from us.”

The 2021 Nabisco strike sits at the intersection of two intertwined forces: growing union confidence, support and strike activity, in correlation with widespread austerity and egregious demands from the ownership class. The interests of capital, at Mondelēz and elsewhere, are not only unwilling but are structurally unable to pursue any end but endless profit. As Nabisco employee Mohammed Mohammed told Truthout, echoing his coworker Mike Burlingham, “It came to a point where enough is enough.”

That phrase could be heard from many others up and down the Nabisco picket line, and the sentiment has lately found purchase throughout the country, from coal mines to the offices of The New Yorker. “Labor” is not a monolithic entity, and there are of course complex challenges impacting unions’ ability to take on corporate power. Still, it’s evident that workers are increasingly unwilling to capitulate — and less hesitant to deploy the strike.

Hope lies in the fact that an embattled populace has, in recent years, been reminded again and again that organizing is the real vehicle of working-class power. BCTGM’s bold actions of the summer of 2021 are an indicator that unions in the United States, resurgent to a degree unseen in decades, will sustain their struggle into the future.


Hardesty, Rubio stand with striking Nabisco workers

Nabisco strike in Portland spread to other cities


by: KOIN 6 News Staff Posted: Sep 4, 2021 / 

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland City Commissioners Jo Ann Hardesty and Carmen Rubio joined the picket line outside the Nabisco bakery facility in Northeast Portland on Saturday.

They rallied with workers in front of the bakery as passing cars honked their support. Nabisco bakery workers have been on strike for nearly a month and their action has now spread to Nabisco facilities in Denver, Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere.

Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty joined the picket line at the Nabisco facility in Portland, September 4, 2021 (KOIN)

“I know the sacrifice you make, I know what it’s costing your family,” Hardesty told the striking workers. “This is happening all across the country because of you.”

Nabisco’s corporate parent, Mondelez International, posted a new contract offer to the workers on their website. The offer, made Thursday, offers a $5000 ratification bonus, a 60-cent-per-hour raise and a 401K match increase, among other items.

Mondelez said the offer expires September 7.





Nabisco Workers Strike Could Cause Supply Issues

No more buttery Ritz Crackers until some negotiation happens

SEPTEMBER 2, 2021

Thanks to a heated labor battle, the Triscuit supply could run drier than the actual cracker. Grocery stores are stocking up on Nabisco treats because of a production slowdown at bakeries and distribution facilities around the country.

Why is production slowing down? On August 10, about 200 employees at a Nabisco bakery in Oregon put down whatever makes Ritz crackers so buttery and went on strike. Since then, workers in four other states have joined them.

What do they want? Workers want their pensions back after the company switched to a 401(k) plan in 2018. They’re also angry about a July proposal from Mondelez International, Nabisco’s parent company, that would increase shift length but cut overtime pay.
Employees have also expressed concerns about the company’s outsourcing of work to Mexico after two recent factory closures in the US.
Mondelez has denied those claims and said that, while it is moving some workers to 12-hour shifts to handle the recent spike in demand, employees are well compensated.

Zoom out: Workers have been gaining leverage in a labor market where qualified employees are hard to find. This Nabisco standoff will test the limits of that resurgent power. – MM

Nabisco worker calls for boycott of company’s snacks amid strike

Alexis Christoforous
·Anchor
Wed, September 1, 2021, 

Steven James has been working as a machine operator making Oreos, Chips Ahoy! and other Nabisco snacks at a plant in Richmond, Va. for 20 years.

On Aug. 16, James joined about 1,000 of his fellow union members in five states and walked off the job to protest what they say are “unfair” demands for concessions in contract negotiations with Nabisco's parent company Mondelez International (MDLZ). James, who isn't working another job, said he plans to stay out of the plant until a fair contract is signed.

“We're not asking for a lot,” James told Yahoo Finance Live. “We just want a fair contract.”

As America’s appetite for snack foods has grown during the pandemic, James said he and his colleagues on the frontlines have been working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week.

“It was just constant. Never had time to spend with the kids. Never had time to spend with the family,” he said.

The walkout began on Aug. 10 at a biscuit bakery in Portland, Ore., and has since spread to Aurora, Colo., Richmond, Va., Chicago, Addison, Illinois, and Norcross, Ga. Union members in those states have been working without a contract since May and are represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM).

James said he was given one-time “hazard pay” of $300 earlier this year for working long hours during the pandemic while “some of the supervisors, they got $10,000."

"We had some management working from home. So, of course they were good, they were safe. We risk our lives coming out every day working all those hours,” he added.

The strike has not affected Nabisco’s ability to churn out popular snacks during the pandemic, since Mondelez International has been using non-union workers at plants where there have been walkouts.

James said he and his union members are asking customers to show their support by boycotting the snack giant.

“We try to tell everyone, do not buy any Nabisco products at this time, because we are on strike,” said. James. “The community has really shown us some support. We have businesses and our local brothers and sisters have really been giving us a lot of support, and they are with us walking on the line as well.”


Union workers are asking customers to boycott Nabisco snacks like Ritz Crackers. Credit: Mondelez International

In a statement, Mondelez said, “Our goal has been — and continues to be — to bargain in good faith with the BCTGM leadership… while also taking steps to modernize some contract aspects which were written several decades ago.”

'Keep our jobs here in the U.S.'

Union workers also want Mondelez to restore their pensions, which were replaced by a 401(k) plan in 2018.

Striking workers are also protesting two factory closures in February in Atlanta, Georgia and Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a move the union says is part of a larger plan to transfer low-wage jobs to Mexico.

“They closed two of our plants and they sent the product to Mexico,” said James. “We just want to keep our jobs here in the U.S.”

In a statement, BCTGM International President Anthony Shelton said union workers “are telling Nabisco to put an end to the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico and get off the ridiculous demand for contract concessions at a time when the company is making record profits.”

Mondelez International’s net income climbed 98% in the quarter ended in June to $1.1 billion, while sales climbed 12.4% to $6.6 billion, compared to the same time a year ago.

Mondelez denies that any jobs went to Mexico as a result of the recent factory shutdowns in Georgia and New Jersey. Company spokeswoman Laurie Guzzinati told Yahoo Finance that production at the shuttered facilities has been absorbed by existing bakeries in Portland and Richmond. Some Oreo production was shifted to Mexico in 2016, a move that Donald Trump criticized as a presidential candidate.

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Growing (with) Muskeg Oil Sands Reclamation and Healing in Northern Alberta

Tara L Joly
2021, Anthropologica

26 Pages
1 File ▾
Anthropology,
Indigenous Studies,
Environmental History,
History of Science,
Environmental Anthropology
 ...more ▾
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Scientists working for oil companies in the Athabasca region are developing methods by which to reclaim muskeg (boreal peatlands) on land disturbed by oil sands extraction. The Alberta government requires companies to reclaim disturbed land by achieving equivalent capability of the landscape to support an end land use. Indigenous community members instead define reclamation as establishing not only quantifiable ecological functions, but also relationships to their traditional territories. Tensions emerge as Indigenous concerns are often subsumed within bureaucratic discourses that favour scientific classification and quantification of land uses in reclaimed areas. Divergent responses to muskeg in reclamation activities are informed in part by these competing emphases on quantifiable landscapes as opposed to those that are relational and growing. This article traces this multiplicity through the examination of government and scientific literature and ethnographic fieldwork with Indigenous communities in northern Alberta. Muskeg is used as an analytical tool to explore competing conceptions of land reclamation. Mistranslation of polysemantic terms like muskeg occur on an ontological level, and settler colonial relations and power imbalances between competing languages and knowledge systems proliferate in reclamation activities.


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'Entire world is short-staffed': Food prices to climb as labour shortage crushes food industry

Whether it's fruit pickers, slaughterhouse workers, truckers, warehouse operators, chefs or waiters, the global food ecosystem is buckling due to a shortage of staff

Author of the article:
Bloomberg News
Elizabeth Elkin, Mai Ngoc Chau and Agnieszka de Sousa
Publishing date: Sep 02, 2021 •
A farm worker picks tomatoes in Massachusetts. 
PHOTO BY ADAM GLANZMAN/BLOOMBERG FILES


Across the world, a dearth of workers is shaking up food supply chains.

In Vietnam, the army is assisting with the rice harvest. In the United Kingdom, farmers are dumping milk because there are no truckers to collect it. Brazil’s robusta coffee beans took 120 days to reap this year, rather than the usual 90. And American meatpackers are trying to lure new employees with Apple Watches while fast-food chains raise the prices of burgers and burritos.

Whether it’s fruit pickers, slaughterhouse workers, truckers, warehouse operators, chefs or waiters, the global food ecosystem is buckling due to a shortage of staff. Supplies are getting hit and some employers are forced to raise wages at a double-digit pace. That’s threatening to push food prices — already heated by soaring commodities and freight costs — even higher. Prices in August were up 33 per cent from the same month last year, according to an index compiled by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.

The coronavirus pandemic has helped spark a labour shortfall for many parts of the economy. But the impact is particularly stark in food and agriculture, which are among the world’s least-automated industries. Food security is a sensitive issue in many parts of the world and thin margins mean rising costs generally pass through to buyers, according to Boston Consulting Group.


“Almost certainly there is disruption,” said Decker Walker, BCG’s agribusiness expert in Chicago. Effects vary among locations and products, he said, but “the general theme seems to be: The roles with the least desirable working conditions are actually the ones that we have the most pain with.”

There are signs the labour shortfall is curbing supplies. In the United States, wholesale distributors like Sysco Corp. and United Natural Foods Inc. are reporting production delays and slowdowns for items ranging from bacon and cheese to coconut water and spices. In the U.K., some stores are running low on staples like bread and chicken, while McDonald’s Corp. ran out of milkshakes in August.

I have been in this business since the '80s, but I have never seen a situation like this
MICHELE FERRANDINO, FARMER

“We have family-wage, great jobs that have been open, that we’ve been recruiting really hard for and have had trouble filling,” said Patrick Criteser, chief executive officer of Tillamook County Creamery Association.

The Oregon-based dairy co-operative recently ran so short of workers that a board member had to skip an operational meeting to help out in the fields. “With the inflation we’re seeing in the business and the inflation that we’re seeing at the farm level, it’s going to translate to the shelf.”

Shortages are hitting farms, processors and restaurants alike. Malaysia, the world’s No. 2 palm oil producer, has lost about 30 per cent of potential output of the edible oil used in everything from chocolate to margarine. Shrimp production in southern Vietnam — one of the world’s top exporters — has dropped by 60 per cent to 70 per cent from before the pandemic. And a fifth of tomato production in the south of Italy has been lost this year, due to the scorching heat and transport paralysis, according to the farmers’ association CIA.

“I have been in this business since the ’80s, but I have never seen a situation like this,” said Michele Ferrandino, a farmer in Foggia. “Tomatoes are very perishable goods. There were not enough trucks to transport the crop to the processing plants, in those crucial days” of the harvest, he said.

Cancelled or delayed deliveries have also forced British dairy farmers like Mike King in South Gloucestershire, England, to dump milk while stores run short. King estimates he has lost some 20,000 litres (5,283 gallons), and says some farmers have resorted to milking their cattle less frequently due to staffing shortfalls.

A dairy farmer dumps excess milk down a drain at Plurenden Manor Farm dairy farm in Ashford, U.K., 
PHOTO BY ASON ALDEN/BLOOMBERG FILES

Even as restaurants and other businesses reopen in the U.S. and parts of Europe — boosting demand for goods such as meat and bottled drinks — the Delta variant is spreading in places like Southeast Asia, curbing primary production. Other, longer-established pandemic effects are still causing problems too: COVID-19 outbreaks continue to crop up in meat- and fish-processing plants, forcing temporary closures, and border restrictions in countries from the U.K. to Thailand are limiting the supply of migrant workers.

In some places, the scramble for staff is compounded by local issues, such as difficult and dangerous farmwork conditions caused by a record U.S. heatwave, or the disruption of Brexit.

As a result, employers face another hurdle: Workers have plenty of options.

The current economy is creating “choice where choices may not have existed in the past,” said BCG’s Walker. When “the entire world is short-staffed,” filling less desirable jobs gets more difficult, he said.


Employment in the food supply chain can certainly be tough. Whether it’s backbreaking strawberry picking, insecure slaughterhouse work or the fast-paced, high-pressure environment of a restaurant kitchen, many jobs are physically taxing, short term, poorly paid — or a combination of all three.

With more jobs available, Australian workers who might previously have settled for positions at meat processing plants in sparsely populated areas can opt for work in busier towns instead. Many of the European Union citizens who might typically travel to the U.K. to work on farms, in haulage or serving coffees are choosing to stay in their home countries or on the continent. American labourers who have struggled with sweltering heat in the fields may choose the cool interiors of a store instead.

Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, acknowledges that work such as fruit picking is demanding.

A worker picks apples at an orchard in the U.K. 
PHOTO BY MATT CARDY/GETTY IMAGES FILES

“It is a physical job,” he said. “You are picking fruit and carrying it up and down ladders, so if your alternative is pushing buttons on a cash register, that might be more appealing.”

Higher salaries and perks can sweeten the deal. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. recently raised U.S. menu prices by as much as four per cent after increasing average pay to US$15 an hour; in Canada, the company is offering a referral bonus to help with recruitment. Pork-processing workers at Smithfield Foods Inc. in South Dakota get freebies like Apple Watches or iPads once they complete their first 60 days, a company official said. Pizza chain Rossopomodoro, which is headquartered in Europe, has been forced to boost its base pay by 50 per cent in London, chief executive Daniele di Martino said.

But often, money is not enough. Workers are increasingly demanding greater protection from the coronavirus as well as higher wages, according to Sunny Verghese, chief executive of agricultural trading giant Olam International Ltd.

While meatpackers have made significant safety progress since last year, they are up against the Delta variant now. That has slowed the amount of cattle moving through slaughterhouses at meat giant Tyson Foods Inc

.
A meatpacking plant in Quebec. 
PHOTO BY COURTESY OF OLYMEL/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS

“We were on a good trajectory and then the Delta variant showed up, and we’ve taken a step back as result of that,” chief executive Donnie King said on a call with investors last month. “Essentially it takes six days to get five days’ worth of work.”

Worker shortfalls aren’t happening everywhere, and the effects aren’t evenly distributed. Much of mainland Europe has not felt the same crippling shortages as the U.K., where Brexit constrained the flow of EU workers. China has been largely unaffected and in India, while inflation is still a worry, labour is plentiful and agriculture has been mostly untouched by virus restrictions.

Elsewhere, labour is just one of several headaches for the world’s food ecosystem. Extreme weather from Brazil to France has affected harvests. Surging crop prices have pushed up the price of feeding livestock — and, therefore, the price of meat. Transport costs have skyrocketed due to soaring demand, container shortages and overwhelmed ports, not helped by the temporary partial closure of China’s Ningbo-Zhoushan, the world’s third-busiest cargo port.

Still, the shortage of workers threatens to further add to costs, whether through wage increases or supply shortfalls. And the issue won’t disappear when the pandemic ends: The share of workers employed in agriculture has been falling for decades amid a shift to cities and services sectors, and hiring for some jobs was tough long before COVID-19. These more permanent changes to the labour market call for technological solutions, and investment in automation and robotics has accelerated during the pandemic.

In the U.S., automated tractors, robotic milkers and machines such as carrot planters are replacing human labour. Meanwhile, U.K. farmers are trialling robots to pick strawberries, lettuce or broccoli. Harvesting tools have helped Brazil’s robusta-coffee farmers cut dependence on manual workers to one-fifth of the number needed just a few years ago, according to Edimilson Calegari, general manager at Espirito Santo-based cooperative Cooabriel. While the country’s labour shortfall extended the length of the harvest, he said, technology has lessened its impact.

Still, it will take years before farmers really take to robots, according to Cindy van Rijswick, a senior analyst at Rabobank in Utrecht who specializes in horticulture.

“In the end, prices for food have to go up to compensate workers in a better way and to find solutions,” van Rijswick said. “They just cost money and we need to be willing to pay that.”

Bloomberg.com

  A big risk right now is if this labour shortage will become a common theme: Equity strategist

Jeff Weniger, head of equity strategy at WisdomTree Asset Management, discusses his North American investing strategy for the current market conditions. He says one of the systemic risks is if shortages are a feature, not a bug. He says if it’s a longer-term issue you could get a self-fulfilling prophecy that witnesses hoarding of goods in anticipation of such back-ups.

Bloomberg Markets

  


EU'S NEW MIGRANT WORKERS

About 77% of Lebanese youth want to leave amid several crises

Sep 3, 2021
Al Jazeera English

The number of people leaving Lebanon to look for opportunities abroad is at an all-time high. 

A new report warns the rate of mass exodus is leading to a severe brain drain as people lose hope in their country’s future. 

Al Jazeera's Sara Khairat has more from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Billionaire Trump donors ordered to testify over union-busting accusations: report

The two brothers, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, allegedly undercut organizing efforts at a casino they own

By TOM BOGGIONI
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 5, 2021
Lorenzo Fertitta, left, and Frank Fertitta (Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on Raw Story

According to a report from the Daily Beast, two billionaire brothers who made the bulk of their fortune selling off the Ultimate Fighting Championship, are being compelled to appear a National Labor Relations Board judge over accusations of union-busting at a casino they own.

"Brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta have been ordered to testify about allegations that their gaming business, Station Casinos, egregiously tried to undercut labor organizing efforts," the Beasts' Noah Kirsch reported, adding, "The Fertittas are best known for Ultimate Fighting Championship—the mixed martial arts promoter they sold for more than $4 billion in 2016—and for donating millions of dollars to Donald Trump and his dark-money machine, America First Action."

According to the report, in July a federal judge ordered the Station to start negotiations "with roughly 1,350 culinary workers over a contested 2019 union vote at Red Rock Resort," but instead the organization offered employees new benefits, that included smaller health-care contributions on the employees' part and a changed 401k. That, in turn, reportedly, led to a defeat by labor organizers to form a union.
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In her opinion, Judge Gloria Navarro wrote, "Red Rock's offer of benefits was a hallmark violation," adding, "Many employees admitted not voting for the Union because they feared losing the new health care and 401(k) benefits that Red Rock had just promised."

According to one employee, Adam Christian, he feels his fellow workers were bullied into voting no on the union.

"They decided to throw the kitchen sink at everybody and not even give detailed information to us to be able to even make an informed vote," Christian recalled. "I just want to be treated fairly by a company and have something in writing."

According to labor expert Bill Werner, of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the judge calling on the bothers to testify is an unusual move.

"It's extraordinary that you would bring in the very, very top person in the company [to testify]," Werner explained. "What the union is saying: the Fertittas made this decision."

You can read more here and watch an interview with Lorenzo Fertitta describing taking over the casino with his brother below:





These Trumpy Billionaire Bros Are in Hot Seat Over Union-Busting Claims

Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta may have to testify about allegations of union-busting at their casinos.


CAGE MATCH
Noah Kirsch
Wealth And Power Reporter
Updated Sep. 04, 2021 

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photo Getty

A labor dispute of cartoonish proportions is playing out in Las Vegas, pitting two Trump-supporting casino billionaires against one of the largest private union drives in the country.

Brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta have been ordered to testify about allegations that their gaming business, Station Casinos, egregiously tried to undercut labor organizing efforts. It is just the latest chapter in a complex saga that has played out for a decade. An administrative trial involving some of the claims is underway before a National Labor Relations Board judge.

The Fertittas are best known for Ultimate Fighting Championship—the mixed martial arts promoter they sold for more than $4 billion in 2016—and for donating millions of dollars to Donald Trump and his dark-money machine, America First Action. Much of their wealth, however, lies in a gambling operation founded by their father, which is now the subject of the union-busting allegations.

“It's extraordinary that you would bring in the very, very top person in the company [to testify],” says Bill Werner, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who researches employment disputes. “What the union is saying: the Fertittas made this decision.”

The trial follows a blistering opinion issued by a federal judge in July, which ordered Station to begin negotiating a contract with roughly 1,350 culinary workers over a contested 2019 union vote at Red Rock Resort.

In the run-up to that vote, Station had announced that it would grant employees new benefits, including a pension plan, reduced health-care contributions, and a medical center, according to court documents. The union ultimately lost the right to organize by a margin of 627 to 534.

“​​Red Rock’s offer of benefits was a hallmark violation,” Judge Gloria Navarro wrote in her opinion. “Many employees admitted not voting for the Union because they feared losing the new health care and 401(k) benefits that Red Rock had just promised.”


A 2019 union vote at the Red Rock Resort is at the center of the legal drama.
Ethan Miller/Getty

Adam Christian, a union supporter who has been a server at one of Station’s properties for 15 years, believes that many of his co-workers were intimidated into voting no.

“They decided to throw the kitchen sink at everybody and not even give detailed information to us to be able to even make an informed vote,” he says. “I just want to be treated fairly by a company and have something in writing.” Christian claims the casino stopped letting him serve Frank Fertitta meals once he started wearing a union button on his shirt, even when the billionaire sat in his section.

A spokesperson for Station Casinos denies that the new benefits were related to the union drive, saying it made “changes before it even knew there was to be an election.” In an appeal to the July ruling, the company called the decision “not only unjust, but also unprecedented.”

The Fertittas are likely to challenge the order to testify until the last moment, Werner says. In the meantime, supervisors at their casinos are choosing sides.

Last month, dozens of managers arrived at the union’s offices wearing matching shirts and chanting, “We despise union lies.” Most were not even eligible to join the unit.

“In our nearly nine decades of organizing, the Culinary Union has never seen company managers or supervisors picket, especially on their day off when it is 99 degrees outside,” the union’s secretary-treasurer, Geoconda Argüello-Kline, said in a statement. “We hope that they stay hydrated and cool.”

Union activity at Station Casinos has bubbled for a decade, driven in part by a history of harsh workplace practices, some employees claim.

Steve Bailey, a bellman at Red Rock Casino, says that he was pressured to skip breaks when he first started at the company 14 years ago. He bristled at other policies too, including a requirement that on-call employees be available 24 hours a day if managers decided to summon them into work.

“If you did not answer that call within five minutes, it was considered a refusal,” Bailey says. Three refusals resulted in automatic termination, he said. “I was so apprehensive about missing a call that I would put my phone in a plastic bag… and I would take it in the shower with me.”

Bailey also claims that employees have faced pressure to work private events for the Fertitta family, and that managers have sometimes used surveillance tapes to nitpick job performance. There is little recourse, he says, when employees are asked to perform tasks outside of their job descriptions.

As one example, Bailey was recently asked to drive a gambler to another property, he said. He resisted, since he lacked formal training, and ultimately said no, but he worried about repercussions: “I felt like my job was in jeopardy,” he said.

A Station spokesperson says that “the Culinary Union has a fraught relationship with the truth from the top down. The very few of our employees who have complained typically have an agenda.”

The years of tumult have not impeded the Fertittas’ financial success—including the massive UFC sale five years ago.

The brothers had purchased the fight promoter for just $2 million in 2001 after growing addicted to martial arts while taking classes in the basement of one of their casinos.

“What makes UFC so great,” Lorenzo Fertitta told Forbes in 2008, “is that every single man on the planet gets it immediately. It’s just two guys beating each other up.”

Previously, gambling had been the true family trade. The Fertittas’ dad, also named Frank, founded Station Casinos in 1976, and it grew to specialize in properties off the main Vegas strip, catering to locals over crapulent tourists.


Lorenzo Fertitta, left, and his brother Frank, right, with artist Damien Hirst at the Palms Casino Resort in 2018.
David Becker/Getty

The company is technically still private, though it is partly owned by Red Rock Resorts, a publicly traded business that the Fertittas control. Red Rock’s stock is up more than sixfold since the start of the pandemic—when it suffered a precipitous drop—and it’s now worth over $5 billion, an all-time high. Each Fertitta brother is personally worth $2.7 billion, Forbes estimates.

The brothers have not been shy about that money.

In late August, Lorenzo’s 285-foot megayacht, Lonian, caused a stir when it docked off the coast of Newport Beach; some locals believed it was a naval ship. Lonian, which cost a reported $160 million, features a glass-bottomed pool and helipad. It even travels with its own special friend, a 217-foot support yacht called Hodor outfitted with a spare helipad and additional gear.

Frank is known to splash out, too. His daughter’s 2018 wedding reportedly cost $25 million, thanks to a cake that stood more than two stories tall, a blinding amount of crystal, and an entertainment lineup that included Seal, John Mayer, and Bruno Mars. According to the Review-Journal, event staff were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements.

As for the labor dispute, the ongoing trial is unlikely to end the war, since the Fertittas could easily drag out the fight for another decade or longer.

“This will all be resolved when the culinary union has a contract with each Station property,” says Werner, the University of Nevada professor, about one slice of the battle. “I predict that happens never.”

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