Since early December, cable and broadcast news spent less than 50 minutes covering the wave of Starbucks unionization efforts

MSNBC outpaced both its cable counterparts and broadcast channels with the most amount of coverage

WRITTEN BY CHLOE SIMON

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ROB SAVILLO

PUBLISHED 06/23/22

Cable and broadcast news spent only 49 minutes in over six months covering the Starbucks’ workers ongoing union efforts, which has resulted in over 100 stores voting yes for unionization. 

On December 9, 2021, a majority of employees at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize as Starbucks management tried to halt the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from counting the votes. Since then, at least 211 Starbucks stores across the country have begun the process of unionizing, and to date, 119 stores have voted to form a union. Starbucks corporate management, led by notorious union buster and CEO Howard Schultz, has been a major obstacle to formation of unions. Since the initial Buffalo store unionization, Starbucks has fired workers with ties to union efforts, and managers have reportedly threatened transgender employees that their health care benefits could end if they unionize. The NLRB has filed multiple complaints against Starbucks in 2022 for retaliation against employees trying to unionize as well as for threats and increased surveillance in stores with union activity.  

Even though the Starbucks unionization push is currently one of the biggest in the country, cable news channels, which run on a 24-hour model, have paid minimal attention to the story, resulting in only 38 total minutes of coverage between December 9, 2021, and June 22, 2022. MSNBC spent the most amount of time and had the highest number of segments on the story, providing over 21 minutes of coverage across 10 segments, while CNN had almost 6 minutes of coverage across 6 segments. Though Fox News also had just 5 segments on the story, its coverage total almost 11 minutes and often portrayed unions and employees' efforts in a negative light.

Broadcast news, which airs just in the morning and evening (and in PBS’ case, just in the evenings), also had limited coverage on the Starbucks unions, totaling only 11 minutes. ABC, PBS, and NBC all devoted under 3 segments – and less than 3 minutes each – to the story. CBS fared a little better, airing 9 segments for almost 6 minutes of coverage. 

Among all segments counted on all channels, Starbucks workers were quoted only 38% of the time. Many segments focused on just one or two particular stores unionizing and failed to contextualize it within the larger effort or add important details like corporate retaliation against workers. 

Fox’s coverage was predictably the most anti-union. The day after the first successful union drive at the Buffalo store, Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto praised Starbucks for giving a “wide range of benefits” and higher salaries despite employees in certain locations stating they are not paid enough to afford their rent. In a correspondent segment on Your World with Neil Cavuto discussing both recent Amazon and Starbucks unionization drives, reporter Jeff Flock incorporated Heritage Foundation’s Rachel Greszler complaining that “increased unionization will be bad news for consumers that are already struggling with the record inflation.” 

Due to workers of big companies like Amazon and Starbucks pushing for unionization and thousands of employees striking to protest for better conditions and wages, 2021 was deemed by some as the “year of the worker.” This year has continued that trend with the NLRB reporting that from October 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, there has been a 57% increase in union petitions. Cable news has often failed to meet the challenge of providing ample coverage on these historic labor period. Media Matters previously found that “cable news failed to cover the full scope of strikes across America in 2021, with the vast majority of strikes left unmentioned and most discussion concentrated in a one-month span.” CNN and Fox News both dropped the ball when it came to the Amazon warehouse workers vote in Staten Island, New York; CNN only covered it for 5 minutes in 1 segment on a 6 a.m. Sunday morning show, while Fox covered it for 10 minutes across 5 segments “but the vast majority of it was correspondent reports about a statement of disappointment from Amazon’s management, rather than quotes or discussion of the workers’ demands.” 

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC and all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS' Mornings, Evening News, Face the Nation, CBS Morning News, and CBS Saturday Morning Show; NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press; and PBS’ NewsHour for the term “Starbucks” within close proximity to the term “worker” or any variations of any of the terms “union,” “labor,” or “organize” from December 9, 2021, through June 22, 2022. 

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when Starbucks unionization efforts were the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of Starbucks unionization efforts. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the unionization efforts with one another.

We did not include passing mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker mentioned the unionization efforts without another speaker engaging with the comment, or teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the unionization efforts scheduled to air later in the broadcast. For multitopic segments, we timed only the relevant speech. We rounded all times to the nearest minute.

We then reviewed all segments and articles in their entirety for whether any speaker quoted or paraphrased labor organizers or strikers or quoted or paraphrased management or company spokespersons.

WAGE THEFT

Settlement made in migrant workers’ crawfish processing suit

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Six migrant workers would share in a total of more than $21,000 in the proposed settlement of a lawsuit filed last year alleging that a Louisiana crawfish processing business underpaid them in violation of minimum wage laws.

The proposed settlement was filed this week in federal court in Lafayette. The suit was filed on behalf of workers Norma Edith Torres Quinonez and Martha Icela Flores Gaxiola, both of Mexico, against Crawfish Processing LLC in Marksville.

Four other workers later joined the litigation, which also alleged workers were housed in unsafe and unsanitary conditions and charged excessive amounts for rent. If approved by a federal judge, the six plaintiffs would receive amounts ranging from $1,863 to $4,980.

The amounts represent unpaid wages the workers said they were due under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act, plus 50% of those wages and rent reimbursement. When the original lawsuit was filed in May of last year, the two original plaintiffs said that they routinely worked 60 hours or more per week, the company failed to pay the $9.75 per hour they were promised and the pay fell below the $7.25 per hour they were legally entitled to.

The court document filed Wednesday says the settlement is a compromise of a “good faith” dispute over the number of hours the plaintiffs worked and the rent owed them. The company did not admit any legal liability.

Crawfish Processing also agreed in the settlement to arrange for state inspections of rental housing that the company provides workers to make sure it meets federal standards and will make sure that workers are told they do not have to live in company-provided housing.

The suit was filed by attorneys for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. The settlement also includes $22,500 to cover expenses and fees for the workers’ attorneys.

Merseyrail staff accept "sensible" 7% pay offer

Published17 hours ago

The pay deal was described as "a sensible outcome" by the union

Union members have accepted a pay offer from Merseyrail in a deal they have praised for being in keeping with the spiralling cost of living.

The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) said the Merseyside rail operator's offer was worth 7.1%.

General secretary Manuel Cortes described the deal as "a sensible outcome to a reasonable offer".

Merseyrail said it met with trade unions colleagues as "part of our normal annual pay negotiations".

The union members include station retailers, customer relations assistants, train crew admin assistants, stations managers, resource controllers.

Ninety-four per cent of TSSA members in general grades at Merseyrail voted to accept the deal.

Members in management grades were offered the same terms, however, this has not been accepted yet.

Mr Cortes praised all involved for clinching the deal and said Merseyrail was a company "which knows the value of our rail and transport network".

'Needless and nonsensical'

"What this clearly shows is our union, and sister unions, are in no way a block on finding the solutions needed to avoid a summer of discontent on the railways," he said.

"Rather, it is the government who are intent on digging in their heels.

"The offer from Merseyrail will demonstrate to the entire country that ministers are set on a course of needless and nonsensical intransigence which benefits no one."

He added: "It is a sensible outcome to a reasonable offer which goes a long way towards keeping pace with the escalating cost of living."

The pay deal comes after members from the rail union RMT walked out on Tuesday in the largest rail strike in decades over jobs, pay and conditions.

Andy Heath, Merseyrail managing director said: "Merseyrail is solely responsible for making such pay offers, working constructively with our trade unions.

"We are not part of the current national dispute that is taking place between the RMT, Network Rail and train-operating companies directly contracted to the Department for Transport (DfT)."

A DfT spokeswoman added: "The financing of the agreement that has been reached between the RMT and Merseyrail is a matter for them to explain to the people of Liverpool.

"No additional taxpayers' money will be spent on this cost increase."

How global warming is exacerbating floods in Bangladesh

Excessive and erratic rainfall has caused devastating floods, hitting parts of Bangladesh hard. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said there will be no quick respite for the country.

Bangladesh is considered one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world

Several regions in Bangladesh have been battered by catastrophic flooding over the past few days, killing at least 36 people and displacing hundreds of thousands.   

At least 17 of the country's 64 districts, mostly in the north and north eastern Sylhet region, were affected by the natural disaster with several areas also losing electricity.

With more rainfall predicted over the coming days, Bangladesh's Flood Forecast and Warning Centre warned on Tuesday that water levels would remain dangerously high in the country's northern regions.

Many people in the affected areas are struggling to access food, drinking water and other essential supplies. 

Local authorities said their medical teams were trying to reach flood-affected areas to provide them with tablets to purify drinking water.  

Food and water in short supply

Officials from Bangladesh's Department of Disaster Management said that they were making "frantic efforts" to ensure there is food and drinking water for all the affected people. 

But some people have complained that the government's response is slow and inadequate.

"People in the remote places are getting nothing," Nafisa Anjum Khan, a volunteer from Dhaka who is now working in the Sylhet and Sunamganj areas, told DW. 

"For the seven days I have been working in those areas, I haven't seen local officials put any effort to deliver aid to those areas," Khan added. 

She said that most of the groups working there were supplying dry food, which is not enough. "People are craving for cooked food. And baby food is widely missing."

The UN children's agency UNICEF said it was urgently seeking $2.5 million (€2.38 million) to respond to the emergency in Bangladesh and it was working with the government to supply water purification tablets, emergency medical supplies and water containers.

"Four million people, including 1.6 million children, stranded by flash floods in northeastern Bangladesh are in urgent need of help," UNICEF said in a statement.

Bangladesh very vulnerable to climate crisis

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited the affected area this week and stressed the need for better preparedness to face such natural disasters.

"We haven't faced a crisis like this for a long time. Infrastructure must be constructed to cope with such disasters," she later said in a press conference in Dhaka.

Hasina also pointed out that there will be no quick respite for the country. She said that floodwaters would recede soon from the northeast, but they would likely then hit the country's southern region, on the way to the Bay of Bengal.

"We should prepare to face it," she said. "We live in a region where flooding happens quite often, which we have to bear in mind. We must prepare for that."

Bangladesh is considered one of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries, and the poor are disproportionately impacted by the effects of such disasters.

The current crisis has been worsened by rainwater flowing down from the surrounding hills of India's Meghalaya state, including some of the world's wettest areas like Mawsynram and Cherrapunji, which each received more than 970 millimeters (38 inches) of rain on Sunday, according to government data.

G M Tarekul Islam, a professor at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology's  Institute of Water and Flood Management, says climate change is a factor behind the erratic and early rains that triggered the floods.

"The erratic rainfall in India's Cherapunji and other areas is the main reason for this flood. Because of global warming, the climate has changed and so has the pattern of rainfall. Now we are observing more and more heavy rainfall," he told DW.

Many people in the affected areas are struggling to access food, drinking water and other essential supplies

In its sixth assessment report published last August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also noted the increasing frequency of heavy precipitation events since the 1950s and connected them to human-induced climate change.

What other factors are behind the increased severity?

Although floods are not new to the region, Islam said that the changing climate has made the monsoon — a seasonable change in weather usually associated with strong rains — more variable over the past decades, resulting in longer dry spells interspersed with heavy rain. 

"Because of global warming, more and more aqueous vapor accumulates in the sky as clouds. When precipitation begins, it also takes down the accumulated vapor with it. Thus, the rain becomes more erratic and heavier," he explained adding: "That means, instead of getting an average amount of rain throughout the monsoon time, we get short spells of torrential rains."

The expert also blamed other factors like increased mining activity and cutting down of trees on the Indian side for contributing to the increased severity of the floods.

"When stones are mined and trees are cut off, the downward run of water becomes much faster. So we see the water flowing down faster and the rivers getting inundated," Islam said. "This also changes the river morphology. The extra sediments that are brought by the running water pile up on the riverbeds and further expedite the inundation."

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

Union Warns Jailed Iranian Activist's Health Failing As Hunger Strike Continues

Shahabi, a member of the board of directors of the Tehran Bus Workers' Union, has been on a hunger strike since June 13 to protest against his continued detention.

The Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company Workers' Union has warned that the health condition of Reza Shahabi, a jailed labor activist on his 10th day of a hunger strike, is deteriorating.

The union said in a statement dated June 22 that authorities need to release Shahabi, claiming his "continued physical and psychological abuse" coupled with "further interrogations" will fail to yield results and "only lead to his death."

The union added that Shahabi "should be transferred immediately to a suitable hospital outside the prison and undergo the necessary medical examination and care."

Shahabi, a member of the board of directors of the Tehran Bus Workers' Union, has been on a hunger strike since June 13 to protest against his continued detention.

Shahabi was arrested at his home on May 10 by Intelligence Ministry officers shortly after publicly calling on the authorities to investigate death threats against him and his family.

On May 17, state television alleged Shahabi and other labor activists had met with two French nationals -- 37-year-old Cecil Kohler and her 69-year-old partner, Jacques Paris -- who were arrested the day after Shahabi and accused of seeking to foment unrest in Iran.

The allegations come as the country's security forces try to suppress antigovernment protests in cities across the country against skyrocketing inflation and the government's recent decision to cut some subsidies. Reports say at least five demonstrators have died in the protests.

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

Mexico to offer Assange sanctuary as Amlo calls for charges to be dropped


The British government on Friday, June 17, 2022 ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face spying charges.

MEXICAN President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has offered sanctuary to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and will raise the case with US President Joe Biden when they meet next month.

The president, known as Amlo, told reporters during a press briefing on Tuesday that the journalist had been treated “very unfairly” to the shame of the world and will call on the US to drop the charges against him.

“Julian Assange is the best journalist of our time in the world and he has been treated very unfairly, worse than a criminal. This is a shame for the world,” Amlo said.

The leftist leader said he was disappointed by Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel’s decision to allow his extradition to the US, where he faces 175 years behind bars under the draconian Espionage Act.

Amlo said that his demand for charges against Mr Assange to be dropped would disappoint hardliners in the US but insisted that “humanity must prevail.”

He will make the call when he meets Mr Biden in the US next month and offer him sanctuary in Mexico, describing Mr Assange as “a prisoner of conscience.”

Amlo is the latest world leader to condemn the actions of Britain and the US in the treatment of Mr Assange who remains in Belmarsh high security prison pending appeal against Ms Patel’s decision.

Earlier this week, China said “all eyes are on the Assange case,” which Beijing said exposed the hypocrisy of those countries that claim to stand for press freedom and democracy.

Newly elected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has, however, come under criticism for “abandoning” Mr Assange, despite speaking out against his treatment before assuming power.

His government insists that it is using diplomatic channels to secure his release rather than engaging in what he described as “megaphone diplomacy.”

But veteran Australian journalist John Pilger blasted Mr Albanese for his “weasel words,” describing him as a coward.

“Australia has the diplomatic power to bring Julian Assange home. Not doing so is treachery,” he said.

“The killing of Assange is our final surrender,” Mr Pilger added.

Yesterday leading German newspaper Berliner Zeitung called for the release of Mr Assange in a front-page article.

Mr Assange’s father John Shipton and brother Gabriel Shipton have been in the German capital calling for the federal government to act to secure his release.

“Joe Biden will act if Germany puts the case on the table with agreement from its Nato partners,” they told the newspaper, adding that next week’s G7 summit in Munich is “a good opportunity to build up pressure.”

MORNINGSTAR

US asked to explain after Pentagon admits to operating 46 biolabs in Ukraine after months of denial


A woman brandishes the Ukrainian flag on top of a destroyed Russian tank in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, June 10, 2022

WASHINGTON has been urged to come clean over its biolab programme in Ukraine after the Department of Defence admitted its existence.

The Pentagon said on Thursday that it has operated 46 biolabs in Ukraine handling dangerous pathogens, after previously dismissing the charges as Russian propaganda.

China has joined calls for United States to explain the role and capacity of the laboratories following the Pentagon’s stunning reversal after months of denial.

In March leaked papers appeared to suggest that its operations in Ukraine were sensitive while Kiev was reportedly blocked from public disclosure about the programme.

According to a document signed between the two nations, Ukraine is obliged to transfer the dangerous pathogens to the US Department of Defence for biological research.

Those who had raised concerns over the presence of the biolabs have been dismissed as conspiracy theorists and accused of regurgitating Russian disinformation.

But comments made by US Deputy Secretary of state Victoria Nuland in March prompted further suspicions when she appeared to confirm the biological programme, saying she feared the labs would “fall into Russian hands.”

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday that the US must explain its activities and called on it to stop “single-handedly opposing the establishment of a verification mechanism for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

“As I stressed time and again, the US conducts more bio-military activities than any other country in the world.

“Moreover, the US is the only country opposing the establishment of a verification mechanism for the BWC.

“The international community has long had concerns over this. Recently, Russia has further revealed the US’s bio-military activities in Ukraine, and raised clearly that the US has violated the BWC.

“According to the stipulations of the BWC, the US is under an obligation to provide clarifications on Russia’s allegation so as to restore the international community’s confidence in the US’s compliance,” he said.

Washington denies Russian claims that it has experimented on humans after it was alleged that testing of pathogens was carried out on psychiatric patients from Kharkiv.

The United States has been accused of engaging in biological warfare in the past.

Late Cuban leader Fidel Castro claimed that its operatives had introduced swine fever and dengue fever into the country, with a previously unknown strain of the latter created in a laboratory.

The aim was to create “the largest number of victims possible,” he said.

Former Daily Worker international correspondent Alan Winnington and Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett were accused of treason and had their passports cancelled after exposing the US biological war in Korea in the 1950s.

Despite the denials, an International Scientific Commission headed by Cambridge University’s Professor Joseph Needham concluded that China and North Korea had been subjected to bacteriological weapons.

MORNINGSTAR

WAIT, WHAT

PKK accuses Turkey of using tactical nuclear weapons in Iraqi Kurdistan


Kurdistan Communities Union spokesman Zagros Hiwa

KURDISTAN Workers Party (PKK) commander Duran Kalkan accused Turkey of using “tactical nuclear weapons” in Iraqi Kurdistan today as he said that lawyers were looking into the claims.

The outlandish claim was made despite Turkey not being a nuclear weapons state and not having been previously accused of having any nuclear weapons capacity. Turkey is a signatory to the Non-proliferation treaty, although President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made past references to its right to acquire such weaponry.

No radiation spike associated with a nuclear blast has been reported.

He said members of the Kurdish resistance movement made the claim after they escaped from the Tepe Sor area close to the Iraqi-Turkish border earlier this month.

Mr Kalkan, who lives in a base deep inside Iraqi Kurdistan’s Qandil mountains, said that Turkish army officials have admitted to using nuclear weapons in the 1990s.

Retired air force general Erdogan Karakus told the CNN Turk news channel in a broadcast in March: “We [Turkey] have been using tactical nuclear weapons since the 1990s. In the Ukraine war, this weapon is also used. We also have these weapons and we use them.”

According to the PKK official, the broadcast was then interrupted.

Turkey has been accused of hundreds of chemical attacks in its war and occupation of Iraqi Kurdistan which began in April 2021.

Credible evidence has been presented for the claims and the Morning Star has met with the victims of the alleged use of banned munitions as well as medics and regional political leaders.

Ankara has carried out a number of war crimes in its daily bombing of Iraqi Kurdistan which has targeted Kurdish villages, the UN-administered Makhmour refugee camp and a Yazidi hospital.

Mr Kalkan, who has a $5 million (£4.1m) US bounty on his head, said there has been “absolute silence” over the chemical attacks from world bodies which emboldens Turkey in its dirty war on Kurds.

Speaking to the Morning Star, Kurdistan Communities Union spokesman Zagros Hiwa said that guerilla fighters had experienced “shockwaves from bomb blasts that do not resemble the blast of conventional bombs.”

“They say, ‘not only the cave, but all the earth was shaking when the bombs exploded.’

“We felt a huge electric shock in our bodies, as if we had touched a high-voltage wire and felt as if our bodies were torn apart,” Mr Hiwa explained.

No concrete evidence has however been presented for the alleged use of tactical nuclear warheads.

Turkey is not included in the list of declared nuclear states, however, there are known to be at least 70 warheads stationed in Incirlik airbase in the south of the country.

They are held there under the Nato weapons sharing agreement, which allows “non-nuclear” states to host the missiles under the guard of the nuclear power — in this case, the United States.

It is believed that Turkey controls around 40 of the weapons, although it would likely require US permission to use them as they are thought to be protected with Permissive Action Links.

Republican Peoples Party lawmaker Aytug Atici accused the government of “concealing the existence of B61 tactical nuclear bombs at Incirlik from the public” in December 2016, demanding immediate answers.

MORNINGSTAR

Tunisia trade unions chief rejects IMF reforms

The head of Tunisia's powerful UGTT trade union has rejected conditions set by the IMF to bail out the North African country's crisis-hit economy

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
23 June, 2022

Noureddine Taboubi said the living conditions of Tunisians made the reforms demanded by the IMF inappropriate [Getty]


The head of Tunisia's powerful UGTT trade union confederation on Thursday rejected conditions set by the International Monetary Fund for a new loan to bail out the country's struggling economy.

"We reject the conditions set by the IMF, given Tunisians' low salaries, lack of means, rising poverty and unemployment," Noureddine Taboubi told reporters.

The global lender has called for "ambitious reforms" to tackle the heavily indebted country's public finances and reform its state-owned companies.

The IMF's regional chief Jihad Azour said Wednesday that the fund was set to begin formal talks on a new financial aid package "in the coming weeks", saying the economic fallout from the Ukraine war made it ever more pressing.

Azour had reiterated an IMF call for "swift implementation of ambitious reforms", saying Tunisia "needs to urgently tackle its fiscal imbalances" including by replacing generalised subsidies with transfers targeting the poor.

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But on Thursday Taboubi, whose union members last week staged a crippling public sector strike, said the UGTT rejected "the painful options they're talking about".

"We support reforms, but we don't share the vision of reforms supported by this government," he said.

He also indirectly criticised President Kais Saied, who in July last year sacked the previous administration and suspended parliament in moves opponents have called a coup against the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings.

The UGTT, a co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts in a previous national dialogue following Tunisia's 2011 revolution, initially backed Saied's moves but has become increasingly critical as Saied extended his power grab.

On Thursday, Taboubi said: "When there is a government produced by institutions and elections, it will have the legitimacy to start negotiations over reforms."

The IMF has previously conditioned any bailout deal on the union's consent.

Azour visited Tunisia this week, meeting with President Kais Saied and other officials, and welcomed government plans to start tackling dire economic issues exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

Horrific videos of employer assaulting workers in Lebanon sparks fury

Amani Hamad, Al Arabiya English
Published: 23 June ,2022

Videos showing a group of Lebanese and Syrian workers being assaulted and tortured by their employer in the Lebanese town of Majdel al-Aqoura sparked fury on Wednesday, according to local media reports.

The employer accused the cherry-picking workers of stealing a watch and sunglasses from him, charges which they denied.

In one of the videos seen by Al Arabiya English, the employer slaps the workers – some of whom have been stripped of their clothes.

According to An-Nahar, the employer and other men also assaulted the workers with sharp objects and electric wires. They also stuffed the young workers’ mouths with potatoes.


A screengrab from the videos shows the workers being assaulted by their employer who accused them of theft. (Supplied)

Videos of the incident stirred an uproar on social media with people demanding security forces launch an investigation and hold the perpetrators accountable.

The general directorate of the internal security forces issued a statement on Wednesday saying that on June 20, a man filed a complaint stipulating that several people who work for him stole 20 million Lebanese liras from him, the equivalent of about $700 using the unofficial rate.

The statement identified the man as the employer who assaulted the workers, adding that an investigation has been initiated into the incident and the employer has been summoned to give in a statement.

The municipality of Fneidik in the governorate of Akkar where some of the workers live issued a statement describing the incident as a “heinous crime,” adding that the employer falsely accused them of theft because he did not want to pay them their wages.

On Thursday, MP Michel Moussa, the chairman of the parliamentary human rights committee, condemned the “abhorrent torture” of the young men, and called for arresting the perpetrators a