Assassination mars Cameroon's football fiesta, exposes missed political goals

Leela JACINTO 

The killing this week of a prominent senator from Cameroon’s anglophone western region, while the country hosts the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations, has put a spotlight on a conflict the government has tried to paper over. While President Paul Biya hails the tournament as a symbol of unity, his government’s policies have exacerbated deadly divides.

© Mohamed Abd el Ghany, Reuters

On Wednesday night, hours before the coastal city of Limbé hosted its first match of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON, or CAN as it is called in French), Senator Henry Kemende left his house in Bamenda, a city further inland in the troubled English-speaking region in the country's west.

He never returned home.

Hours later, the opposition politician’s body was found in his native Bamenda, capital of Cameroon’s war-torn Northwest Province, his chest riddled with bullets.

Kemende, a lawyer and lawmaker for the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party, one of Cameroon’s main opposition parties, was an outspoken human rights defender. He was also a leading representative of the country’s marignalised anglophone minority, who constitute around 20 percent of the country’s 28 million population.

His killing came as international sports journalists were making their way to Limbé for Thursday’s match between Tunisia and Mali at the Omnisport stadium. The AFCON has seen the usual displays of national pride accompanied by choruses of buzzing vuvuzelas.The tournament kicked off on Sunday with the hosts beating Burkina Faso, setting of a burst of rapturous joy among Cameroonian football fans, many emblazoned in the green, red and yellow colours of the national flag.

But Africa’s premier football tournament this year has been overshadowed by serious security concerns.

Militants from a motley mix of armed groups fighting for a separate state – called “Ambazonia” – in the anglophone west have threatened to disrupt the games. Confronting a separatist insurgency in the west, a jihadist threat in the north and a pandemic across the world, the government nevertheless responded with a confident motto: “Safety will be guaranteed”.

But the Cameroonian state – led by 88-year-old President Paul Biya, who has been in power for four decades – has not been able to guarantee the security of its citizens in the western provinces over the past few years. The anglophone insurgency has claimed more than 3,000 lives and displaced nearly a million people over the past five years, with both sides accused of committing atrocities and abuses.

No one has claimed responsibility for Kemende’s killing so far. The Ambazonian Defence Force (ADF), one of the main anglophone separatist groups, has denied responsibility for the killing.

The group did however claim an attack on Wednesday, which killed a Cameroonian soldier in Buéa, a western city around 20 kilometres north of Limbé, where four Group F national teams – Mali, Gambia, Tunisia and Mauritania – are based.

The slaying of a prominent parliamentarian in the Northwest Region followed by a deadly attack in the Southwest Region has put a spotlight on a conflict the Cameroonian government has attempted to shield from the international community.

The hosting of the AFCON – which was postponed from 2021 due to the pandemic – has also raised questions over the use of major sports events by authoritarian leaders to project national unity while their policies exacerbate divisions – with deadly consequences.

A new killing, an old colonial problem

Kemende’s killing has exposed the intractable nature of a crisis amid fears that the moderate anglophone politician could have been assassinated by extremist Ambazonia militants, locally known as “Amba boys”.

With his legal background defending the rights of his constituents and his ability to speak truth to power, Kemende was a firebrand parliamentarian and a familiar figure on Cameroon’s English language TV stations.

For the many people who knew the SDF senator and worked with him, Kemende killing is both unfathomable and tragic.

“It’s a huge loss,” mourned Christopher Fomunyoh, senior associate for Africa at the Washington DC-based National Democratic Institute (NDI), in an interview with FRANCE 24.

“It’s a huge loss for his family of course. It’s a huge loss for the legal profession, given the role lawyers played in the beginning of this crisis and the role they stand to play in resolving the crisis. Nationally, it’s an enormous loss: A member of the Senate, a constitutional body, has been assassinated. And it’s a huge loss as the conflict continues and the gap between the anglophone population and the state widens.”

The crisis in Cameroon’s anglophone western region was sparked in October 2016, when lawyers took to the streets in Bamenda to protest the exclusive use of French in court and other state institutions.

The roots of the problem date back to the colonial era, when the central African region once colonised by Germany was split between Britain and France after World War I. With the withdrawal of the colonial powers, Cameroon was declared a “decentralised unitary state” under a 1961 constitution, with English and French designated official languages. Buéa became the capital of West Cameroom while Yaounde doubled as the federal capital as well as the capital of francophone East Cameroon.

But English-speaking Cameroonians have long complained of discrimination, noting that the country’s top positions in government, as well as in the oil sector, have always been held by French speakers. Anglophone Cameroonians also complained that government documents were published only in French, enabling their exclusion from top civil service jobs.

The grievances were familiar and the protests peaceful – until a ferocious security crackdown fuelled support for separatism and the emergence of several separatist militias calling for a new state of Ambazonia.

The emergence of militias has plunged the already marginalised western region in a cycle of violence with dismaying familiarity. A militarised state response has seen hundreds of opposition party members and activists jailed and a populace living in fear of arbitrary arrests and crackdowns.

Meanwhile Ambazonia militants routinely target civilians accused of “collaborating” with the government in Yaounde and have enforced a school boycott, depriving hundreds of thousands of children of their education.

“It’s always the civilians, the ordinary people caught in the middle, who suffer,” said Rebecca Tinsley, a London-based activist with The Global Campaign for Peace and Justice in Cameroon. “The violence is just getting worse. In 2021, there were more than 80 IED [improvised explosive device] attacks in the anglophone region alone. Because of the violence, nearly a million children are not able to go to school and there’s very little security, making the lives of ordinary people very difficult.”

'Just five days' for talks

Two years after militants declared an independent Ambazonia in 2017, Swiss negotiators agreed to mediate talks between Cameroonian authorities and separatists in a bid to end the escalating violence.

The Swiss peace proposals however received no follow-up and the Cameroonian government instead launched a National Dialogue from September 30 to October 4, 2019, with much fanfare.

Following the talks in Yaounde, the government announced new measures, including the release of some political prisoners, the creation of regional assemblies and councils, as well as a $163 million special fund for the reconstruction of the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions.

But a year later, the western regions were still ungovernable and the violence had increased. While the special fund had received 10 percent of the promised $163 million, fighting had slowed the first phase of the reconstruction exercise.

“The National Dialogue was a piece of theatre for the benefit of the international community,” dismissed Tinsley. “It had no credibility because most of the anglophones were either not invited or afraid to go [to Yaounde] in case they got arrested.”

Most analysts agree the talks, which brought together representatives from Cameroon’s 10 provinces instead of concentrating on the aggrieved region, were a failure. “The National Dialogue was held for just five days – you can’t deal with grievances of over 50 years, diagnose the problems, find solutions, seek consensus and address implementation in five days,” said Fomunyoh. “They continue to insist this is an internal problem. They think they can just shoot their way out of the conflict or the crisis will burn itself out,” he dismissed.

Tournament will end, but 'problems remain'

The hosting of the Africa Cup of Nations could have provided an opportunity to either reinvigorate a moribund peace process or better, evaluate failures and start afresh.

Football is politics in Cameroon, with the sport playing an important role in public life. Domestically, the sport “serves as a diversionary element in the country’s tightly controlled political system, whilst internationally, successful sports performance compensates for the country’s weak influence on other aspects of continental and global politics,” noted Joanne Clarke and John Sunday Ojo in their report, “Sport Policy in Cameroon”.

The Cameroonian president – with his advanced age, health problems and protracted stays in his Swiss luxury getaway – is the subject of private jokes and speculations about his mental agility. But even at 88, Biya has proved he instinctively understands the power of the game in his football-mad nation when he declared AFCON “a great moment of brotherhood” that would provide Cameroonians an opportunity to display “the rich cultural diversity that has earned our country the nickname, ‘Africa in miniature’”.

But aside from the spectacle of declarations, the Biya administration missed the moment to include all Cameroonians in a brotherhood that enables the inclusion of the country’s diversity in all political and economic sectors.

Fomunyoh lists four conditions for the resumption of an anglophone peace process based on established negotiation norms. These include the declaration of an immediate ceasefire to stop the cycle of violence, the release of political prisoners, the use of non-Cameroonian negotiators to facilitate dialogue between opposing sides, and finally, to “accept that the mediations should be held in another country outside Cameroon”.

None of the proposals were heeded, leaving Fomunyoh to view the current football circus as a metaphor for the country’s leadership style. “I feel this tournament and the debate around it captures how this government tackles issues. They’re so focused on the here and now, they don’t seem to be able to project into the middle or long term,” he noted. “In a few weeks, the tournament will be over, but the problems remain.”

The anglophone crisis, experts agree, requires a political – not military – solution. But for Cameroonians invested in a peaceful resolution to the conflict, Kemende’s killing leaves a deep vacuum. “He was one of the few anglophone elites who spoke out and who could talk to both sides,” mourned Fomunyoh. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any confidence that there will be a thorough investigation, that the perpetrators are found and put to trial, and that justice will be served.”

EU vetoes shipbuilding merger between Hyundai and Daewoo

By Choi Kyong-ae, Yonhap News Agency

The South Korean Navy's 2,800-ton frigate, the Daejeon, was manufactured by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co. 

File Photo by Yonhap/EPA-EFE

SEOUL, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- The European Union antitrust regulator on Thursday vetoed Hyundai Heavy Industries Group's proposed acquisition of its smaller rival Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., citing monopoly issues.

The European Commission announced its decision to block the merger of the South Korean shipbuilders, arguing the tie-up could create a monopoly in the liquefied natural gas carrier market.

"The merger would have created a dominant position by the new merged company and reduced competition in the worldwide market for the construction of large LNG carriers," the commission said in a statement.

Hyundai Heavy did not formally offer remedies to address the commission's concerns that the merger would have led to fewer suppliers and higher prices for LNG ships, the statement said.

If merged, two shipbuilders' combined market share in the LNG ship market would rise to at least 60%, the EU regulator said.

Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings Co. called the commission's conclusion unreasonable and disappointing.

"The commission's use of the market share as evaluation criteria has no probative value as the market share itself is not a proper indicator of market power in the shipbuilding industry," HHIH said in a statement.

LNG ships are the only sector that the EU took issue with in terms of dominant position, HHIH said.

Hyundai Heavy had expected unconditional European Commission clearance for the deal as was the case in Singapore, China and Kazakhstan.

The Singaporean regulator said that the shipbuilding market is heavily reliant on tenders and is essentially a bidding market. In bidding markets, having high market share may not confer market power as market share can be easily lost in the next bidding round, the statement said.

The existence of at least one credible alternative to the merged entity may be enough to constrain their ability to exert market power following the proposed merger. There are close competitors, such as Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding Co., and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., it said.

After reviewing the EU's final decision, HHIH said it will pursue possible measures, including an appeal to the General Court of the European Union.

Daewoo didn't provide an official statement.

The government and analysts expected no major impact of the deal's collapse in the shipbuilding industry as the shipbuilding business has bottomed out, and orders of high-end LNG carriers and offshore facilities began to rebound from last year.

Daewoo Shipbuilding's creditors will draw up measures to strengthen the shipbuilder's competitiveness and restart the process to find a new owner in the private sector, the finance ministry said in a statement.

Analysts said the collapse of the merger will have no major impact on the two shipbuilders as global shippers will likely place more orders for LNG ships, oil tankers, and offshore plants such as floating production storage and offloading units amid rising energy prices.

"The EU decision won't matter that much for the shipbuilders as the shipbuilding industry is entering an upcycle after a decade-long downcycle. In particular, Hyundai Heavy will be able to utilize the acquisition money for other purposes," Kim Hong-gyun, an analyst at Dongbu Securities Co., said over the phone.

But uncertainties remain for Daewoo as it has a growing financial burden to pay interest on the 1.9 billion debt sale to the state Export-Import Bank of Korea, he said.

Hyundai Heavy announced the deal in 2019, and the EU regulator postponed the review of the acquisition three times in the past two years due to the extended COVID-19 pandemic.

In March 2019, Hyundai Heavy's main creditor Development Bank agreed to provide the 56% stake it holds in Daewoo Shipbuilding to Hyundai Heavy in exchange for a stake worth about $105 million in Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co.

HHIH, the holding company of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, holds a 36 percent stake in KSOE. KSOE is the group's subholding company and has three affiliates -- Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Co. and Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co. -- under its wing.

Under the initial agreement, Hyundai Heavy was planning to raise about $105 million through the sale of Daewoo Shipbuilding shares to pay back Daewoo's debts after acquisition.

An EU veto is the first since the EU regulator blocked the merger between Germany's steelmaker Thyssenkrupp AG and India's Tata Steel Ltd. in 2019 due to the same anti-competition worries.

South Korea has the world's three biggest shipbuilders by orders -- Hyundai Heavy, Samsung Heavy Industries Co. and Daewoo Shipbuilding.

Meanwhile, South Korea's antitrust regulator is expected to end the merger review process if Hyundai withdraws the combination proposal following the EU decision.

Robots hired to fill server positions in Florida

CareerSource Palm Beach County says the leisure and hospitality sectors are still down about 4,

By: WPTV Staff
Jan 12, 2022

BOCA RATON, Fla. (WPTV) — As restaurant operators struggle with staffing, restaurants in Boca Raton, Florida, are turning to robot servers.

"Bella" is a robot at the fast-casual Asian bowl concept called Eat District in Boca Raton, Florida.

"Hello, Your food is here," the robot said to a table.

"It helps greats the customer, it helps run the food," said Louis Grayson, who operates several Asian eateries in Palm Beach County. "It can even seat customers and it even sings happy birthday."

The demand for collaborative robots, known as “COBOTS," is surging.

"Due to, like, the labor shortage, it really does help us with a little bit more, like a helping hand," said Grayson.

Bella's attendance record is perfect.

"Luckily the robot never calls out sick," said Grayson. However, he admitted that the robot may need time off for system updates.

At Eat District, Bella is more of a food runner.

At The Sea Asian Kitchen, also in Boca Raton, Grayson has given that robot more responsibilities.

"Placing all the plates and everything on there and runs it to the dishwasher," he said.

The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association said operators have told them that robots cut down on costs and "they have proven to be reliable."

The robots cost over $10,000.

"We thought about it and we thought, you know, from that $10,000 to extra helping hand is worth every penny," Grayson said.

POV: The Great Resignation. It’s Not as Great as Screaming Headlines Suggest

Historical data and a deeper analysis show large numbers of US workers have been quitting for years

January 13, 2022
Jay Zagorsky

The so-called “Great Resignation” was one of the top stories of 2021 as “record” numbers of workers reportedly quit their jobs.

The latest figures, which came out on January 4, showed that 4.5 million people voluntarily left their positions in November—an “all-time high,” according to the agency responsible for collecting the data. That’s 3 percent of the nonfarm workforce—which headlines also proclaimed a record level.

But is it?

The “quit rate” interests me, because I wrote my economics doctoral thesis on how people find work. Since then, I have been fascinated by how people leave jobs and then find new ones.

Data on people quitting comes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Each month, the bureau runs the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, also known as JOLTS. The bureau interviews about 20,000 businesses and government agencies each month, which it uses to estimate several aspects of the workforce, including the number of people who quit, retired, got hired, or got fired.

Since April 2021, the share of nonfarm workers who quit their jobs has been at some of the highest levels recorded by the bureau. In all, nearly 33 million people left their positions over this period, or over a fifth of the total US workforce.

Certainly, that’s a lot of people. But a closer look at all the historical data we have can help put this in some perspective.

One issue is calling the current levels [of quitting] a “record.” The problem is the data only goes back a little over two decades, which means it’s certainly possible that the [quit] rate could have been higher at several points in the past. We just don’t know.

For example, during the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the US economy was strong, which created many new jobs and opportunities for workers. These are typical precursors to more people quitting their current jobs in search of better pay and benefits. Given that the rate was 2.4 percent in January 2001—a month after the quits data begins—it’s not a stretch to imagine it may have been higher than the current level at some point in 2000 or earlier.

Or another time when quits may have been higher was after World War II, when the postwar American economy was booming and the economy was in great flux.

In fact, some data pre-2000 does exist that suggests there are times when the quit rate may have been higher. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics tracked the quit rate in the manufacturing sector from 1930 to 1979, when it ended the survey because the industry—which at one time made up as much as 28 percent of the economy—became less important.

Manufacturing workers, who make things like steel, cars, and textiles, were quitting their jobs at a monthly average rate of 6.1 percent in 1945, compared with the 2.3 percent recorded for the sector in November 2021.

Since about a third of the US workforce had manufacturing jobs in the late 1940s, this suggests the overall quit rate was likely higher back then.

A lot of recent stories have also focused on the absolute number of workers who quit their jobs—such as 4.5 million who quit in November—on a seasonally adjusted basis.

If quits for December 2021 are similar to November, I expect about 47 million people will have voluntarily left their jobs in all of 2021. That would mean about 33 percent of the total nonfarm workforce quit jobs last year.

Again, that seems like a lot, but a huge swath of the labor force does this every year. In 2019, for example, about 28 percent of the US workforce quit.

So, is quitting higher than normal? For sure. But off the charts enough to earn the moniker of “Great”? I don’t think so.

Workers also aren’t quitting in droves across all sectors of the economy. While quits are higher than usual in most industries, a few sectors are responsible for most of the turnover, with some lower than their recent peaks.

The highest quit rate is in accommodation and food services. About 6.9 percent of people working in hotels, motels, restaurants and bars gave notice in November. While that’s the highest since 2000, voluntary turnover in this sector is usually on the high side—given the nature of the work—and has been above 5 percent many times over the past two decades.

November’s second-highest quit rate, at 4.4 percent, was retail trade, which includes workers in stores and shops. Combined, these two relatively low-wage industries accounted for one-third of all people who quit that month.

On the other hand, the quit rates for construction, information, finance and insurance, and real estate are relatively low and have been higher in the past 21 years.

We can also see from the data that young people make up the biggest share of people switching jobs. Data from ADP, one of the largest payroll processors, breaks down turnover by age. But unlike the JOLTS data, ADP doesn’t learn why someone is no longer working at a company—whether they quit, got fired, or something else—so it can track only total turnover. ADP’s most recent data shows high turnover is concentrated among 16-to-24-year-olds, with a turnover rate almost three times the national average.

High turnover for young workers is not surprising, in my view, because COVID-19 restrictions have canceled many nonwage benefits like after-work socializing and company parties. For younger workers new to the labor force, these types of activities are important in developing company belonging and loyalty. Without them, there are fewer ties binding these workers to a company.

Nevertheless, just because the quit rate isn’t at a record doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem of too much turnover in the labor market. But that problem appears to predate the pandemic.

High annual quit rates mean many workers are not satisfied with their job’s pay, benefits, or working conditions. And that can be a huge waste of time and money for both companies and workers. Hiring and training workers is expensive. And searching for new jobs and switching jobs is physically and emotionally difficult for workers.

Research shows employers can minimize turnover by many different methods, such as by giving workers a sense of purpose, letting them work in self-directed teams, and providing better benefits.

Individuals thinking about quitting should ideally find another job before quitting. You have a much higher chance of success transitioning from one job to another than trying to jump from unemployment to work.

The next time you hear about the “Great Resignation,” understand it isn’t quite as great as it seems, since large numbers of US workers have been quitting for years.

Jay Zagorsky, Questrom School of Business senior lecturer in markets, public policy, and law, can be reached at zagorsky@bu.edu.

This column originally appeared January 11 on The Conversation.

“POV” is an opinion page that provides timely commentaries from students, faculty, and staff on a variety of issues: on-campus, local, state, national, or international. Anyone interested in submitting a piece, which should be about 700 words long, should contact John O’Rourke at orourkej@bu.edu. BU Today reserves the right to reject or edit submissions. The views expressed are solely those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of Boston University.

The heat stays on: Earth hits 6th warmest year on record

By SETH BORENSTEIN

Vivek Shandas, a professor of climate adaptation at Portland State University, takes a temperature reading of almost 106 degrees in downtown Portland, Ore., on Aug. 12, 2021. On Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released measurements showing 2021 was the sixth hottest year on record globally, part of a long-term warming trend. 

(AP Photo/Nathan Howard, File)

Earth simmered to the sixth hottest year on record in 2021, according to several newly released temperature measurements.

And scientists say the exceptionally hot year is part of a long-term warming trend that shows hints of accelerating.

Two U.S. science agencies — NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — and a private measuring group released their calculations for last year’s global temperature on Thursday, and all said it wasn’t far behind ultra-hot 2016 and 2020.

Six different calculations found 2021 was between the fifth and seventh hottest year since the late 1800s. NASA said 2021 tied with 2018 for sixth warmest, while NOAA puts last year in sixth place by itself.

Scientists say a La Nina — natural cooling of parts of the central Pacific that changes weather patterns globally and brings chilly deep ocean water to the surface — dampened global temperatures just as its flip side, El Nino, boosted them in 2016.

Still, they said 2021 was the hottest La Nina year on record and that the year did not represent a cooling off of human-caused climate change but provided more of the same heat.

“So it’s not quite as headline-dominating as being the warmest on record, but give it another few years and we’ll see another one of those” records, said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the Berkeley Earth monitoring group that also ranked 2021 the sixth hottest. “It’s the long-term trend, and it’s an indomitable march upward.”

Gavin Schmidt, the climate scientist who heads NASA’s temperature team, said “the long-term trend is very, very clear. And it’s because of us. And it’s not going to go away until we stop increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

The last eight years have been the eight hottest on record, NASA and NOAA data agree. Global temperatures, averaged over a 10-year period to take out natural variability, are nearly 2 degrees (1.1 degrees Celsius) warmer than 140 years ago, their data shows.

The other 2021 measurements came from the Japanese Meteorological Agency and satellite measurements by Copernicus Climate Change Service i n Europe and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

There was such a distinctive jump in temperatures about eight to 10 years ago that scientists have started looking at whether the rise in temperatures is speeding up. Both Schmidt and Hausfather said early signs point to that but it’s hard to know for sure.

“If you just look at the last the last 10 years, how many of them are way above the trend line from the previous 10 years? Almost all of them,” Schmidt said in an interview.

There’s a 99% chance that 2022 will be among the 10 warmest years on record and a 10% chance it will be the hottest on record, said NOAA climate analysis chief Russell Vose in a Thursday press conference.

Vose said chances are 50-50 that at least one year in the 2020s will hit 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming since pre-industrial times — the level of warming nations agreed to try to avoid in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

While that threshold is important, extreme weather from climate change is hurting people now in their daily lives with about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warming, Vose and Schmidt said.

The global average temperature last year was 58.5 degrees (14.7 Celsius), according to NOAA. In 1988, NASA’s then-chief climate scientist James Hansen grabbed headlines when he testified to Congress about global warming in a year that was the hottest on record at the time. Now, the 57.7 degrees (14.3 Celsius) of 1988 ranks as the 28th hottest year on record.

Last year, 1.8 billion people in 25 Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations had their hottest years on record, including China, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Iran, Myanmar and South Korea, according to Berkeley Earth.

The deep ocean, where most heat is stored in the seas, also set a record for warmth in 2021, according to a separate new study.

“Ocean warming, aside from causing coral bleaching and threatening sea life and fish populations, ... is destabilizing Antarctic ice shelves and threatens massive ... sea level rise if we don’t act,” said study co-author Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania State University climate scientist.

The last time Earth had a cooler than normal year by NOAA or NASA calculations was 1976. That means 69% of the people on the planet — more than 5 billion people under age 45 — have never experienced such a year, based on United Nations data.

North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello, 39, who wasn’t part of the new reports but said they make sense, said, “I’ve only lived in a warming world and I wish that the younger generations did not have to say the same. It didn’t have to be this way.”


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See more AP climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter: @borenbears.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Last nine years all among 10 hottest-ever, says US

With the exception of September and December, each month of 2021 had Arctic sea ice levels in the top-10 lowest levels for those respective months, a US agency said in its annual climate report

January 14, 2022 -

With the exception of September and December, each month of 2021 had Arctic sea ice levels in the top-10 lowest levels for those respective months, a US agency said in its annual climate report

The nine years spanning 2013-2021 all rank among the 10 hottest on record, according to an annual report a US agency released Thursday, the latest data underscoring the global climate crisis.

For 2021, the average temperature across global surfaces was 1.51 degrees Fahrenheit (0.84 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average, making the year the sixth-hottest in the overall record, which goes back to 1880.

Climate change worsening toll of humid heat on outdoor workers: study


Date1/13/2022 
(MENAFN- AFP)

A punishing mix of heat and humidity that makes outdoor labour difficult and dangerous is causing around 677 billion lost working hours a year around the world, according to a new study Thursday that warns climate change is making it worse.

Researchers in the United States, who estimated the current cost at $2.1 trillion every year, said that the negative effects of stifling temperatures on people doing heavy work in agriculture and construction had been underestimated.

The new figures comes amid a growing focus on the severe health impacts of climate change, not just as projections of future harm from heatwaves and other extreme events, but also as consequences already playing out across a warming world.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, looked at data on humid heat -- particularly dangerous because the body is less able to cool down by sweating.

Researchers estimated the number of workers exposed to unsafe levels over the 20 years to 2020, as well as the impact on labour compared to the period 1981 to 2000.

Researchers incorporated the findings from laboratory-based research published last year that suggest productivity drops off at lower temperature and humidity levels than previously thought.

They found that between 2001 and 2020, exposure to high humidity and heat was linked to approximately 677 billion lost working hours a year in heavy outdoor labour.

It suggested almost three quarters of the global working-age population are already living in locations where background climate conditions are associated with about a hundred hours of heat-associated lost work per person per year.

"If outdoor workers are losing productivity at these lower temperature and humidity levels, then labour losses in the tropics could be as high as 500 to 600 hours per person per year, which is over twice as high as previous estimates," said lead researcher Luke Parsons, of Duke University.

The research found that India currently loses around 259 billion hours annually due to the impacts of humid heat on labour, while China loses 72 billion hours and Bangladesh loses 32 billion hours.

- Warming 'magnifies impacts' -

Over the last four decades, as global temperatures have risen, the study found heat-related labour losses have increased by at least nine percent.

The authors estimate that climate change is to blame for an additional 25 billion working hours lost annually in India over the last 20 years compared to the previous 20 years, and an extra four billion hours a year in China over the same period.

Parsons said other hot and humid regions such as the southeastern United States could also be experiencing "significant" labour losses as well.

"These results imply that we don't have to wait for 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming to experience impacts of climate change on labour and the economy," he said.

"The warming we've already experienced may be associated with large-scale background labour losses. Additional future warming magnifies these impacts."

The Lancet's annual Countdown on Health and Humanity report last year warned that overall some 295 billion hours of potential work were lost due to extreme heat exposure in 2020, with the average potential earnings lost in poorer countries equivalent to between four and eight percent of national gross domestic product (GDP).

Research published last year in the journal Nature Climate Change suggested 100,000 heat-related deaths per year were caused by climate change.

Last year, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that global heating is virtually certain to pass the Paris agreement threshold of a 1.5 degree Celsius cap, probably within a decade.

The last seven years since the Paris deal was signed in 2015 have been the hottest on record.

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“This is exactly what all the factory workers should do”: Autoworkers support struggle by teachers and students to shut down schools

Our reporters

WSWS.ORG

Autoworkers across the United States are supporting the growing movement by teachers and students to shut down in-person schooling to contain the spread of the Omicron variant. Chicago schoolteachers are battling a sellout by the Chicago Teachers union to reopen schools, while students, parents and teachers across the country are organizing walkouts and sickouts to force buildings to shut down. A city-wide walkout by students in New York City on Tuesday affected dozens of schools. This is part of an international struggle, including a nationwide strike by French teachers today.

“I support the student walkouts [in New York City], it’s the safe thing to do,” one Stellantis Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) worker said. “The newly elected mayor [Eric Adams] should be ashamed of himself but his arrogant attitude will only make things worse. So, the students have done that, the safest thing possible for their own health and their fellow students’ health and safety. If the mayor has a problem with what they did, then he should enroll his children in that school.”

Stellantis workers at Warren Truck Plant in suburban Detroit

 (WSWS Media)

A worker at General Motors Wentzville Assembly Plant near St. Louis said, “To keep the children and staff safe, I think online school should be enforced till the numbers go down.” Shutdowns, vaccine and mask mandates, widespread testing and contact tracing are needed, she added. “That’s the only way we are going to get past this.”

A worker at Ford’s Chicago Assembly plant said, “I know that teachers are needed, but they also have the right to be safe doing it and the children have the same rights to be safe. It’s very sad that parents have to choose to work or not work. We have a coworker here at Ford Chicago that had to take a leave because she has no one to care for or watch her child when they are not in school.

“They say over a million workers quit their jobs because of their children. I know if I had a child in school, I don’t think that I would send them. I would home school them if I could. “And these union [leaders] are up to no good. Right now, UAW Local 551 at the Chicago plant is trying to change the local bylaws so they can screw us over.

“I think walking out or a wildcat would be a good idea [with teachers and autoworkers united]. I thank the teachers for all their hard work and taking care of the children at their own risk. We, the whole world, need good teachers. Teachers are the future of our community and our lives.”

Another Stellantis worker from Indiana, after watching a video of the walkouts in New York, said simply, “This is exactly what all the factory workers should do.”

After two full years of the pandemic, the situation in the United States is dire. More than 814,000 new cases were recorded yesterday and over 2,200 people died, while hospital systems are spread past the breaking point. Alongside schools and nursing homes, factories and construction sites are the primary centers of transmission for the virus, according to outbreak figures recorded by the state of Michigan. The state abruptly stopped tracking outbreaks in factories in late November, citing the difficulty in obtaining data from worksites—an indication of the cover-up of infections by the auto companies, with the assistance of the pro-corporate United Auto Workers.

The situation in the plants is rapidly deteriorating. At least 500 workers are currently out sick at Stellantis’ Warren Truck plant in the Detroit area, while at SHAP, over 1,000 are currently out. The death toll continues to mount. Yesterday, UAW Local 1700 announced the death of SHAP worker Thomas Whitney. The cause of death was not announced, but COVID-19 is widely suspected.

In response, management is “flooding the plants with temporary part-time (TPT) workers to try to replace them,” in the words of one SHAP worker. At Warren Truck, anger is at the boiling point over the decision to work TPTs, who are the lowest-paid and most exploited section of the workforce, for 12-hour shifts and six days per week to maintain production. A letter from a TPT to the World Socialist Web Site went viral among autoworkers last week, many of whom wrote in to the WSWS with their own experiences.

A skilled worker at Chrysler Technical Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, explained the dangers white collar workers at the facility face. “The housekeeping may be better and the restrooms cleaner than in the factories, but the new company [Stellantis] that took over doesn’t give a crap about the health and safety of workers at CTC either. As for the UAW, we call the health and safety reps, and they don’t respond. We talk about this every day. There is a joint labor-management health and safety committee, and they work together.

“Most of the workers at the tech center are masked and 100 percent of the non-union workers are vaccinated because of the company mandate. The UAW is opposed to a mandate because they want workers to show up to work.”

Referring to those lost to COVID-19, he added, “The UAW health rep at CTC passed away the day before Christmas from COVID.”

The worker continued, “When the building is fully staffed, there are 11,000 people who work here. Some 8,000–9,000 are working remotely now. There are 2,000 in the building on any given day. All the UAW-represented workers, except the designers, are in the building. That includes those workers involved in electronics and building and making things that cannot be done remotely.

“We got paid sick leave before the pandemic, but we aren’t getting it for COVID. There is a lack of social distancing. They are supposed to do tracing and inform us when someone is infected. But they keep things secret by falsely pointing to the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) rules designed to protect the privacy of patients. I know the law, and this does not prevent the company and the union from revealing COVID infections to protect public health.

“I’m 62 years old and have preexisting conditions. I show up for work like the workers in the factories. For the corporations, they look at me about to retire, and they say my life doesn’t matter anymore. My wife is a retired schoolteacher, and the schools are just like the factories, few masks, no social distancing and COVID everywhere.

“I voted for Biden, but not for this. Trump gets vaccinated and riles up his supporters about ‘don’t take away my rights’ with vaccines and masks. I say, ‘Don’t take away my right to live.’ But it’s both parties. They don’t care, they want all of us to get sick.”

Other autoworkers voiced support for the teachers.

“Given the gravity of the situation, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to go remote,” a veteran Ford Chicago Assembly worker told the WSWS. “Look, at this point, the teachers have to look out for themselves. Nobody else is going to do it for them. The union isn’t going to do it for them. The government or city obviously isn’t going to do it for them. They’re going to have to hunker down and pull it off on their own. Nobody else is going to care about their health or how it affects them.”

The policies of both big business parties have been virtually identical in relation to the pandemic, he said. “The Democrats are about the same as the Republicans. They say, ‘Let’s take it easy here, keep going to work, we’ll be all right.’”

COVID-19 is spreading widely at the Ford plant, he said. “It’s crazy. We’re having outbreaks of COVID, a lot of outbreaks. There’s a lot of people out with it. It’s like a little chain reaction. They keep moving people from one place to another, back and forth.

“There’s quite a bit of exposure here,” he continued. “If anything, you’re more exposed here than anywhere else.”

Management and the UAW, however, “are not saying anything. They’re just saying there’s an uptick. They don’t have the sense of urgency like when things first started. Before they had the clean-up crew going around, cleaning up all the tables where you eat.

“The whole facemask policy and social distancing, it’s very lax now. If they see someone without a mask, they might say something, they might not. And we’re all going in and out at the same time, so there’s no social distancing. I think they’re just doing the bare minimum to comply with state law and not be liable, but other than that they really don’t care.”

When he tested positive for the COVID-19, he said management asked him if he had stayed six feet apart from the other workers. “I said, ‘What do you mean? I’m working, which means you have to be a foot from someone or six feet from someone, or whatever. Unless you change your job, it’s just not possible to maintain that distance.’

“Let’s cut the BS. We have to work side-by-side all night. And it’s not well-ventilated, they know this. I don’t know what they’re expecting from the workers. The workers are doing what they can. Face masks? Okay, what else? Six feet apart, well, that’s impossible.”

Addressing himself to educators directly, he said, “All those sweet words about ‘How we care about our educators.’ Don’t listen to the words, look at the actions. And the actions show they don’t care. As workers, we have to look out for our best interests. That’s it. That’s the bottom line.”

A Mack Trucks manufacturing worker in Macungie, Pennsylvania, said, “I want teachers to know I support your fight to save the lives of students and your own. The CTU is betraying you, diverting your struggle and misdirecting your momentum, in an effort to demoralize you the same way all the other trade unions do, including the UAW, which ‘represents’ me. We had a worker die from COVID and the UAW has yet to acknowledge his death.

“I cannot imagine the trauma it would be for a classroom of students to lose a teacher to this virus in an entirely preventable death. Hold your ground. Fighting back against what will surely mean mass infections and deaths as a result of keeping schools open is the most important thing for everyone in the working class to fight for right now. You are leading that fight.

“I’m doing everything I can to spread word and build support for you where I am. It used to be common sense to protect children at all costs. Now it’s the governments’ and teacher unions’ policy to infect children at all costs. You have the power to stop this and we as a class can bring an end to this virus if we make the conscious effort to do so.

“For all the students walking out, thank you for supporting your teachers and community by taking the actions necessary to protect yourselves and all of us. To anyone who doesn’t see it, you are saving lives. It means everything to see such a strong future for the world embodied in your actions.”

Thousands of Colorado grocery workers strike at King Soopers as opposition continues to build in the working class

Alex Findijs
WSWS.ORG

Thousands of workers at King Soopers grocery chain stores in Colorado began a three-week strike Wednesday morning at 64 stores from south Denver to Boulder. The workers are members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7.

Support for the strike is high among workers in the area. A striking worker from Centennial, Colorado, said that customer traffic was just 10 percent of normal and that they received considerable support from community members. The company has been attempting to bring in scab workers at $18 an hour, but workers report that few people have taken the jobs. Instead, the company has resorted to flying in salaried workers from out of state in a desperate bid to keep shelves stocked for the few people who cross the picket line.

Grocery store worker pickets outside a King Soopers store after the union rejected the latest contract offer from the chain that is owned by Kroger, Co., Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2022, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver. 

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

King Soopers, a subsidiary of Kroger, the largest grocery chain in the country, offered workers a pitiful contract that would have seen starting wages rise to just 13 cents above minimum wage and would have included concessions in health care benefits as well as the ability to lower workers’ wages at any time during the contract.

On Tuesday, the union stated that it would not accept King Soopers “last, best, and final offer,” which included only modest adjustments, notably the inclusion of a “favored nation” clause, which would have automatically lowered negotiated wages and benefits to the level of the lowest deal negotiated by the union with another company.

The union’s counteroffer includes a $6 raise for all workers, raising the starting wage to $18.35, and an additional $1.50 raise in the second and third year of the contract.

For the Denver area, the proposed wage increases are fairly modest. Denver is one of the most expensive metro areas in the country. The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Denver is $2,400, up 16.5 percent from last year, while the current maximum wage of a King Soopers worker is just $3,100 a month. According to the MIT living wage calculator, a worker supporting a family of four would need to make $36 an hour to have a living wage in Denver.

Kroger has made impressive profits on the basis of poverty wages for its workforce. A recent study conducted by the Economic Roundtable on the living conditions of Kroger workers in Colorado, Southern California, and the Seattle metro area found that two-thirds of Kroger workers struggle to afford basic necessities.

On average, a Kroger employee makes $16,000 less than needed to survive, with 29 percent of all grocery workers in the US living below the poverty line. Since 1990, wages for the most senior workers have declined between 11 and 22 percent, adjusted for inflation. Up to 78 percent of workers live with low to very-low food security and there are startling rates of homelessness among all age groups and seniority levels.

A Kroger worker from Seattle, referred to as Jim to protect his identity, spoke to the WSWS about the living conditions of Kroger workers after 15 years in the industry.

“The top end of a union job here is $22.15. Which I know seems like a lot, but on a 40-hour-a-week job even that’s around $3,544 a month before taxes, union dues, etc. Rent for a one-bedroom apartment can range from $1,500 to over $2,000 and it keeps going up. With the requirement of making 3x the rent to even qualify for an apartment, the top-scale employees can have a hard time.

“Food, gas, rent—it’s all starting to exceed what we can bring in. Plenty of us have roommates or multiple-income households and we still (generally) can’t afford to not work because the slight decrease in a paycheck will mean we have to pull money from what little savings we have scraped together or just go without.”

Workers in Denver are facing similar circumstances. A striking worker from the Denver metro area who has worked for King Soopers for seven years said, “We’re exhausted, frustrated, and insulted on top of it. Even without the concessions, the wage increases aren’t even enough to cover how much our rent raised in 2021.

“Like a lot of stores, we’re severely understaffed and have had hiring and retention issues for over a year now. Customers are more aggressive, everyone’s getting sick, people threaten our service desk clerks nearly daily and every single department has been working overtime just to have this concession-riddled contract shoved in our faces. The vast majority of us are fired up and genuinely excited to strike.”

Though workers are ready and willing to fight back, the union took steps to weaken and isolate the strike before it even began. Just days before the strike was set to take place, the union told workers in Colorado Springs to report to work, with no explanation provided. Earlier in the week, the union also extended the contract of workers at Safeway, which had expired over the weekend, separating them from the King Soopers workers.

The decision to isolate workers by company only serves to weaken the strike. It is reminiscent of the General Motors (GM) strike in 2019, when the United Auto Workers (UAW) forced workers at Ford and Fiat Chrysler to remain on the job, even though their contracts, which were patterned after the deal at GM due to the pattern bargaining system, expired at the same time. This enforced isolation allowed the UAW, whose top leadership was under indictment for bribery and embezzlement, to eventually shut down and sell out the strike.

The UFCW, and Local 7 in particular, has played a treacherous role during the pandemic, helping to keep meatpacking and food processing plants open in spite of massive levels of infection. In the summer of 2020, after months of stalling by Local 7, workers at the JBS beef plant in Greeley, Colorado, staged a wildcat walkout to force a temporary closure of the facility, where six workers have died. As for King Soopers workers, the two-tier wage system that workers are seeking eliminate was “negotiated” by Local 7 in 2005, and it has limited the current strike in advance to three weeks, allowing the company to make their own preparations to try and weather the strike. The UFCW, which has more than $1 billion in assets nationwide, is a pro-corporate organization ruled over by a privileged bureaucracy. Local 7 President Kim Cordova makes more than $200,000 per year.

“The way UFCW works is they don’t actually tell you anything,” said Jim. “They keep everything vague and generic until the votes. They say they do this so people don’t misunderstand what it means. Then they don’t actually present you with a contract at the vote. It’s more of a bullet point list with the ability to ask questions. Most people go in, throw the vote in the box, and walk out. So you don’t really know what is given and taken. None of it is very clear unless you take the time to read a contract that has already passed.”

King Soopers workers should be on guard against the UFCW’s inevitable attempt to sell out their struggle and force through a concessions agreement. They must do so by organizing their own independent rank-and-file strike committee to formulate a red line for what workers will accept in any deal, and appeal for active support within the working class, including teachers, meatpacking workers, and others.

France: unions say 75% of teachers strike

Issued on: 13/01/2022 -

Video by: James ANDRÉ

French teachers went on strike Thursday (January 13), with the biggest teachers' union saying half of primary schools were closed as staff demand clarity from the government on coronavirus measures. They complain that their members are unable to teach properly, are not adequately protected against coronavirus infection and frequently hear about changes to health precautions via the media rather than from higher-ups. FRANCE 24 's James Andre tells us more.

Half of French schools may close due to teachers strike over COVID-19 concerns
By UPI Staf

French President Emmanuel Macron is seen during a visit at a school in Marseilles, France, on September 2, 2021. Macron has touted keeping France's schools open in the COVID-19 era as a major accomplishment. File Photo by Daniel Cole/EPA-EFE

Jan. 13 (UPI) -- About half of schools in France were expected to close Thursday due to a mass teachers strike over complaints about COVID-19 safety protocols in classrooms and other ways that the government is handling the pandemic.

About a dozen teachers unions across France called for the walkout as a protest and a call for change.

The French government has changed COVID-19 rules three times since children returned to classrooms this month, and many teachers say that lax safety protocols are threatening students and staff. Prime Minister Jean Castex relaxed protocols again on Monday, which spurred calls for the strike.

French President Emmanuel Macron painted a different picture this week when he said that keeping schools open in the COVID-19 era has been one of the country's greatest accomplishments -- a view shared by education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer.

Union officials said about 75% of teachers are expected to participate in the labor walkout on Thursday, and the shortages may close about half of all schools in France.

The walkout comes amid a surge in coronavirus infections across France that are being driven, as in most other parts of the world, by the more contagious Omicron variant. This week, the country has averaged about 350,000 new cases per day.

Eleven unions are taking part in Thursday's walkout, including close to 40% of primary school teachers and a quarter of secondary school teachers.

   

French teachers go on strike over handling of pandemic
By SYLVIE CORBET

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Teachers and students hold a banner reading " National Education- working condition - wages " as they demonstrate in Bayonne, southwestern France, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. French teachers have walked out in a nationwide strike Thursday to express anger at the way the government is handling the virus situation in schools, denouncing confusing rules and calling for more protection. (AP Photo/Bob Edme)

PARIS (AP) — French teachers voiced anger at the way the French government is handling the pandemic in schools, denounced confusing rules and called for more protection during a nationwide strike on Thursday.

Exhausted by the pressures of surging COVID-19 cases, many teachers answered the call by 11 unions to protest virus-linked class disruptions and ever-changing isolation rules.

France is at the epicenter of Europe’s current fight against COVID-19, with new infections topping 360,000 a day this week, driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.

Health Minister Olivier Veran announced on Twitter Thursday that he tested positive for the virus and was self-isolating in order to continue working.

The teachers’ strike puts the government of President Emmanuel Macron under additional pressure a week after opposition lawmakers delayed implementation of a key measure that mandates proof of vaccination for entry into restaurants, cultural and sport facilities.

Teachers want clarifications on rules and more protections, such as extra masks and tests to help relieve the strain.

Among those at a demonstration in Paris’ city center was English teacher and SE-UNA union member Lilia Larbi who said that people are “fed up” with the situation at school.

“The strike is not against the virus, it’s against bad communication, changing rules... and the bad handling of the sanitary crisis,” she said, adding that the government “is denying reality.”

Larbi said she taught to only three children in her class on Wednesday because colleagues either tested positive for COVID-19 or were waiting for test results. “We feel like we’re babysitting” rather than teaching, she said.

Paris teacher Frédéric Le Bihan expressed “exasperation” at the confusing “orders and counterorders.”

Within a span of a week, authorities changed the rules on testing schoolchildren twice.

Le Bihan said teachers are under additional pressure from parents who expected them to implement government directives “which is not possible.”

Fatna Seghrouchni, a teacher in the Paris region and member of the Federation Sud Education union, said teachers are being asked “to do things without having the means to do them.”

Like many other protesters, Seghrouchni’s anger was directed at Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer who she said has shown teachers “contempt” by announcing last minute, virus-related rules in a newspaper interview to a newspaper instead of sending instructions directly to educators.

Blanquer has acknowledged that January has been “tough” for schools as 50,000 new COVID-19 cases have been detected among students in “recent days” and more than 10,000 classes cancelled. The figures are expected to worsen in the coming weeks.

Unions estimated that 62% to 75% of teachers were supporting the protest movement, depending on which school they’re posted. The government said 27% of teachers were on strike.

The SNUIPP teacher’s union is calling for a return to a previous rule that shuts classes down for a week if a child tests positive.

Teachers are also demanding higher quality masks, more testing at schools and devices in classes warning when ventilation is required.

The strike comes on the same day French senators voted a bill requiring adults to provide proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and bars, cinemas, theaters, museums, sports arenas and inter-regional trains. Unvaccinated kids between 12 and 17 can show a negative test.

The measure will come into force later than initially expected, after parliament approves the legislation by next week.