US board clears path for mini-union vote at big Nissan plant

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 4, 2023

  

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--Fewer than 100 employees out of the thousands who work at Nissan's auto assembly plant in Tennessee can hold a vote on whether to form a small union, the federal labor board has decided.

The ruling Thursday by the National Labor Relations Board overturns a June 2021 decision by one of its regional officials that has long blocked the vote. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers sought to limit the push to about 86 tool and die technicians at Nissan’s Smyrna plant, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside Nashville.

The union said it is discussing the ruling with the employees at the Nissan facility “to determine the best path forward.”

The board's three Democrats, who now hold a majority under President Joe Biden, signed off on the decision. The last remaining GOP member did not join the majority's ruling.

The ruling offers a dash of hope for unions in their struggle to get a foothold in foreign-owned auto assembly plants in the traditionally anti-union South.

Previously, the regional official ruled against the smaller bloc vote after finding the few dozen workers share an “overwhelming community of interest” with the rest of the facility’s production and maintenance workers. She found that the only appropriate unionized group would be one representing about 4,300 plantwide production and maintenance workers. The union did not want the larger vote and didn’t pursue it.

The board, under a newly installed Democratic majority, announced in December 2021 that it would review that decision.

The board reasoned this week that the group of workers qualifies for the carved-out vote as a “craft unit,” saying those workers are “highly trained, highly paid employees working in a trade that the Board has frequently recognized as a craft.”

Nissan had contended that the employees are not sufficiently distinct from other plant workers to be eligible for their own small unionized subgroup. The company has about 7,000 employees at the Smyrna facility.

“While we do not agree with the Board’s position, our history reflects that we respect the right of employees to determine who should represent their interests in the workplace,” Nissan spokesperson Lloryn Love-Carter said in a statement.

The union, meanwhile, said the decision “sets a strong precedent going forward that appropriately classifies standalone craft units.”

“It is unfortunate that a broken and painstakingly long NLRB process has again allowed a company to put the brakes on workers obtaining a voice on the job without delay," Machinists union spokesperson DeLane Adams said in a statement.

Nissan does work with organized labor in the rest of the world, but votes to unionize broadly at the U.S. two plants have not been close. Workers in Smyrna rejected a plantwide union under the United Auto Workers in 2001 and 1989. The Japan-based automaker’s other U.S. assembly plant in Canton, Mississippi, rejected facility-wide representation by the UAW during a 2017 vote.

The margin was much closer in 2014 and 2019 votes at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where workers twice rejected a factory-wide union under the UAW.

The year after the 2014 vote failed, a group of 160 Chattanooga maintenance workers won a vote to form a smaller union, but Volkswagen refused to bargain. The German automaker had argued the bargaining unit needed to include production workers as well. The dust-up led to the 2019 factory-wide vote.

Unions also have run into opposition from Republican politicians when they attempt to organize at foreign automakers in the South, including in Tennessee.

Tennessee does have a big union presence at an American automaker: the General Motors plant in Spring Hill has thousands of production and skilled trades workers represented by UAW.

There is also an open question about whether workers will unionize at four sprawling new factories planned by Ford in Kentucky and Tennessee by 2025, with an aim of hiring nearly 11,000 workers. Three of the plants — two in Kentucky, one in Tennessee — will be built with Ford’s South Korean corporate partner, SK Innovation, to produce electric vehicle batteries. A fourth, in Tennessee, will make electric F-Series pickup trucks.

FLORIDA; LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE

‘I cannot understand’: Jair Bolsonaro questions Brazil election defeat

By Terry Spencer, Eleonore Hughes and Nicholas Riccardi
February 4, 2023 — 

AP

1 of 6

Brazil's right wing former President Jair Bolsonaro speaks at an event hosted by conservative group Turning Point USA, at Trump National Doral Miami, Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Miami: Only a few weeks after his supporters stormed the seat of his country’s government, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro expressed bafflement at how he could have lost October’s election, then smiled silently as a crowd of supporters cried, “Fraud!”

He did not directly address the January 8 assault on the buildings housing Brazil’s Congress and Supreme Court during his appearance in Miami before a conservative group tied to former US President Donald Trump.

Brazil’s right wing former President Jair Bolsonaro, right, speaks alongside Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, at a TPUSA event at Trump National Doral, Miami.CREDIT:AP

Bolsonaro had mimicked Trump’s strategy during his own 2020 reelection campaign, for months sowing doubts about the reliability of Brazil’s voting machines and then filing a petition to annul millions of votes. He is now under investigation for allegedly inciting the uprising.

Like Trump, Bolsonaro has not conceded the election, though unlike the former US president he also has never explicitly said he lost due to fraud.

During a question-and-answer session with Charlie Kirk, head of the conservative Turning Point USA, the former Brazilian president rattled off his administration’s accomplishments and then provided backers with an opening.

“Brazil was doing very well,” Bolsonaro said. “I cannot understand the reasons why (the election) decided to go to the left.”

After the cries of “fraud” died down, Kirk, who helped spread Trump’s own election fraud lies after the former US president’s loss, replied, “All I can say is, that sounds very familiar.”

The event took place at Trump’s Miami hotel, underscoring the connection between two populist presidents who fanned suspicion of their democracies’ elections, leading supporters to turn violent after their losses. The two were political allies who shared an overlapping set of advisers.

Shortly before Bolsonaro’s opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, took office, Bolsonaro moved to Florida, the state where Trump has based himself.

Friday’s appearance marked part of Bolsonaro’s reemergence after spending several weeks in a central Florida suburb. He spoke to some supporters there earlier this week before taking the stage at Trump’s hotel late Friday afternoon.

Much of Bolsonaro’s Friday speech amounted to a defence of his four years in power, touting job gains, what he said was a lack of corruption in his administration and, in a reference that drew loud cheers, “freedom” for those who opted out of COVID-19 vaccinations.

After his 30-minute appearance, many in the several hundred-strong crowd, often clad in the national colours of yellow and green, swarmed around the 67-year-old former president.

Some of Bolsonaro’s backers in Brazil have expressed disappointment that he left the country before January 8 and has remained circumspect about the attack. The former president faces legal jeopardy not only from a mushrooming number of investigations into the January 8 uprising but from the country’s supreme court, which has censored websites that have spread what it calls lies about Brazil’s election.

Brazil’s right wing former President Jair Bolsonaro, left, is surrounded by supporters as he leaves after speaking at an event hosted by conservative group Turning Point USA, at Trump National Doral Miami

Reynaldo Rossi, a Brazilian farmer visiting Florida to explore a possible relocation there, said he is glad Bolsonaro is staying in the US for now.

“If he goes back, they are going to create a lot of trouble for him,” Rossi said. “He would spend a lot of his time down there defending himself instead of leading us.”

In his speech, Bolsonaro acknowledged Brazilians who have left the country for the US, seeming to include himself in that category.

“As well as we feel here, we always worry about our friends and family that stayed there,” he said, referring to Brazil.

He also reassured the crowd about the country’s future.

“I believe in Brazil, and I am certain that Brazil will not end with the current government,” Bolsonaro said.

Democratic capitalism is in crisis but Westminster politicians remain in denial – Stewart McDonald

Martin Wolf, the Financial Times columnist and high priest of globalisation, published his new book this week to rave reviews from Ben Bernanke, former chair of the US Federal Reserve, and Sir Angus Deaton, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics.

By Stewart McDonald

These men are not firebrand radicals, they are made and moulded by the economic establishment. And yet they have all come together to nail their colours to the mast in support of Wolf’s central argument: something is deeply broken with our economic system.

In his book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Wolf argues that the Dickensian inequality which increasingly defines life in the US and UK tugs at the threads which hold our liberal democracy together, while stagnating real wages, declining social mobility and job insecurity have combined to drive down life expectancy and happiness alike. Our economic system, he argues, has “dissolved” citizens’ hopes for their future as our lives become increasingly nasty, increasingly brutish, and increasingly short.

Wolf convincingly demonstrates the emergence of an economy rigged in favour of his own generation, something that will not come as news to any young person struggling to scrape together the deposit for a house while paying exorbitant rents for poor-quality housing. It was a point reinforced by that other esteemed organ of the economic establishment, The Economist, which recently lamented that “Britons in their 30s are stuck in a dark age”.

But this article is neither a book review nor an attempt to wade into the intergenerational culture war. I want only to highlight the fact that the economic orthodoxy which defined the past 40 years is being washed away by a tide of economists who recognise that our economic model has warped into something that no longer serves the majority of citizens. Working people can see this in their payslips and in prices, leading to many going on strike, in a cry for politicians to wake up.

The BBC is also on something of a journey in this regard. In a review of its own economic reporting, commissioned by the BBC Board and conducted by independent experts, it noted that “too many journalists lack understanding of basic economics or lack confidence reporting it” and found that, when talking about austerity, the corporation was too often guilty of reporting a political opinion as economic fact. This recognition, while welcome in its own right, should be viewed as part of a wider realisation across the West that we can and must have a more rigorous debate about the economic foundations upon which we build our open societies. This new economic dawn, however, is yet to break over Westminster.

The tragedy of Liz Truss was that her diagnosis was correct. She was one of few Conservative politicians willing to admit that something has gone badly wrong in the United Kingdom. She recognised that too many people have to leave their communities to find a good job, that too many people are incentivised to engage in economically unproductive, rent-seeking behaviour, and that all of us suffer from living in a country crippled by low growth, low productivity and low wages.

Her quack cure, cobbled together by extremists and ideologues, was worse than the disease. But the defining problem of political life remains the same: to address the grotesque maldistribution of economic wealth and power in the country. There could be no more apt reminder of the urgent necessity of this task than this week’s news that British Gas has been sending debt collectors to break into the homes of single mothers struggling to keep their children warm, while oil executives take home record pay cheques.

Dickensian levels of inequality are increasingly part of life in modern Britain

(Picture: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Indeed, last year, as households were confronted with rising food bills, falling wages and energy bills that will force them into destitution, the 2022 Sunday Times Rich List welcomed in “a golden era for the super-rich”, noting that the top 250 entries in that year’s list had hoarded more wealth than the entire 1,000 entries of the 2017 Rich List combined. Might this be a factor for increasing disengagement with modern capitalism? What about the fact that 15 out of the past 16 treasurers of the Conservative party were also major party donors who were later made legislators for life? Might this also erode faith in democratic institutions? Such disregard for the reputation of our public sphere doesn’t come cost-free.

These questions need to be taken seriously in Westminster, but also here in Scotland. Governments must take the health and resilience of our liberal, open society as seriously as they take the health of their economy and national security, for these things cannot meaningfully be separated – as is well understood in countries such as Finland, Denmark and Norway. Corporations too must recognise they have a responsibility to invest in the people and society that makes their very existence possible.

And while there are promising hints that the nightmare of Conservative rule will soon be over, their damaging legacy will haunt us for decades to come. Their party has hollowed out our economy and eroded the public’s faith in electoral politics. Meanwhile, the Labour party – still struggling to exorcise the ghost of Jeremy Corbyn – remains unwilling to speak about the structural problems which haunt the British economy for fear of upsetting Leave voters. Westminster remains trapped in 2010s, wedded to an outdated economic orthodoxy being trashed everywhere from the slopes of Davos to the pages of the Financial Times.

The opportunity that independence offers is the chance to do what the UK has never done: to reflect upon what we want our state and society to be. Most other countries went through that process upon their founding or when writing their constitution, while the United Kingdom – its rules proudly unwritten – never has. But until we rebalance where political and economic power lies in our country, our society and democracy will continue paying the price.

Stewart McDonald is SNP MP for Glasgow South

STOP BEAR HUNTING

Biden administration may lift some protections for grizzlies, opening door to hunting

Montana, Wyoming and Idaho want federal protections lifted so they can regain management of grizzly bears and offer hunts to the public.
(Jim Urquhart / Associated Press)

BY MATTHEW BROWN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

FEB. 3, 2023 

BILLINGS, Mont. —

The Biden administration took a first step Friday toward ending federal protections for grizzly bears in the northern Rocky Mountains, which would open the door to hunting in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said state officials provided “substantial” information that grizzlies have recovered from the threat of extinction in the regions surrounding Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

But federal officials rejected claims by Idaho that protections should be lifted beyond those areas and raised concerns about new laws from the Republican-led states that could potentially harm grizzly populations.

“We will fully evaluate these and other potential threats,” said Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Friday’s move kicks off at least a year of study before final decisions are made about the Yellowstone and Glacier regions.

The states want protections lifted so they can regain management of grizzlies and offer hunts to the public. As grizzly populations have expanded, more of the animals have moved into areas occupied by people, creating public safety issues and problems for farmers. State officials have insisted that future hunts would be limited and would not endanger the overall grizzly population.


Long portrayed as a villain, the coyote is gaining a flicker of respect

After grizzlies temporarily lost their protections in the Yellowstone region several years ago, Wyoming and Idaho scheduled hunts that would have allowed fewer than two dozen bears to be killed in the initial season. In Wyoming, almost 1,500 people applied for 12 grizzly bear licenses in 2018 before the hunt was blocked in federal court. About a third of the applicants came from out of the state. Idaho issued just one grizzly license before the hunt was blocked.

Republican lawmakers in the region in recent years also adopted more aggressive policies against gray wolves, including loosened trapping rules that could lead to grizzlies being inadvertently killed.

As many as 50,000 grizzlies once roamed the western half of the U.S. They were exterminated in most of the country early in the last century by over-hunting and trapping, and the last hunts in the northern Rockies occurred decades ago. There are now more than 2,000 bears in the lower 48 states and much larger populations in Alaska, where hunting is allowed.



The species’ expansion in the Glacier and Yellowstone areas has led to conflicts, including periodic bear attacks on livestock and the fatal mauling of humans.

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte welcomed the administration’s announcement and said it could lead to the state reclaiming management of a species that was placed under federal protection in 1975. He said the grizzly’s recovery “represents a conservation success.”

Montana held grizzly hunts until 1991 under an exemption to the federal protections that allowed 14 bears to be killed each fall.

The federal government in 2017 sought to remove protections for the Yellowstone ecosystem’s grizzlies under former President Trump. The hunts in Wyoming and Idaho were set to begin when a judge restored protections, siding with environmental groups that said delisting wasn’t based on sound science.

Those groups want federal protections kept in place and no hunting allowed so bears can continue to move into new areas.


California used to pay people to hunt mountain lions. Now we spend millions to protect them

“We should not be ready to trust the states,” said attorney Andrea Zaccardi of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Dave Evans, a hunting guide with Wood River Ranch in Meeteetse, Wyo., said the issue is complex, and he can understand why people fall on both sides of the debate.

“You have so many opinions, and some of them are not based on science, but the biologists are the ones that know the facts about what the populations are and what should be considered a goal for each area,” Evans said. “If you’re going to manage grizzly bears, there’s a sustainable number that needs to be kept in balance. I’m not a biologist, but I would follow the science.

U.S. government scientists have said the region’s grizzlies are biologically recovered but in 2021 decided that protections were still needed because of human-caused bear deaths and other pressures. Bears considered to be problematic are regularly killed by wildlife officials.

Demand for hunting licenses would likely be high if the protections are lifted, Evans said.

“You would definitely have a higher demand, and it would probably be very expensive,” Evans said. “A guided bear hunt in Alaska can start around $20,000, so I would imagine it would be very sought-after.”

A decision on the states’ petitions was long overdue. Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Thursday filed notice that he intended to sue over the delay. Idaho’s petition was broader than the one filed by Montana and sought to lift protections nationwide. That would have included small populations of bears in Idaho, Montana and Washington state, where biologists say the animals have not yet recovered to sustainable levels. It also could have prevented the return of bears to the North Cascades and other areas.

In an emailed statement, Little said the decision was “seven months late.” Under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to issue a finding within 90 days, to the extent that is practical. That deadline arrived last June, the governor’s office said.

“While we continue to evaluate the decision from USFWS, this is another example of federal overreach and appears to have a disproportionate impact on North Idaho,” Little wrote. He said his office would “continue to push back against the federal government.”

Grizzly bear encounters are rare in northern Idaho, though wildlife managers occasionally warn people to be on the watch. In 2021, Idaho Fish and Game officials estimated that there were 40 to 50 grizzly bears in the northernmost part of the state.

ECOCIDE

Brazil Says It’s Started Sinking an Old Warship, Hazardous Material and All

The navy said it had begun an operation to send the aircraft carrier São Paulo to the bottom.

São Paulo in the Atlantic off Rio de Janeiro in 2011. Once the flagship of the Brazilian Navy, it had not seen active service in roughly a decade.

Credit...Brazilian Navy, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Manuela Andreoni
Feb. 3, 2023

RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian Navy said on Friday evening it had begun an operation to sink the decommissioned aircraft carrier São Paulo, packed with an undetermined amount of asbestos and other toxic materials, about 220 miles off the country’s northeastern coast.

A navy news release did not give details of the operation, and it was not clear whether the ship had gone down. Naval officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The carrier had spent months at sea, refused permission to dock back in Brazil after plans to recycle the ship in Turkey collapsed. Environmental groups accused Brazilian officials and the company that owned the ship of underreporting the amount of hazardous material aboard. Under pressure from environmental groups, Turkey canceled permission for São Paulo to dock after the ship and its tug had already reached Gibraltar.

The vessel, by then in need of maintenance, was forced to head back to Brazil, where it was similarly refused permission to dock by civilian officials. The navy, for unexplained reasons, also refused to offer its bases. So the ship spent months being towed in circles as its condition deteriorated.

A navy news release this week warned of “deteriorating hull buoyancy conditions and the inevitability of spontaneous/uncontrolled sinking.”

Officials had said earlier that the 30,000-ton carrier would be sunk off Pernambuco State at a spot about three miles deep, outside any environmentally protected zones or areas with undersea cables.

A Proud Ship Turned Into a Giant Recycling Problem. So Brazil Plans to Sink It.
Feb. 2, 2023

In the last decade, according to the Shipbreaking Platform, a watchdog organization that advocates for sustainable recycling, Brazilian companies have disposed of more than 50 vessels in South Asia, where regulations for handling toxic materials are lax.

“Several of these vessels were exported from Brazilian ports without following the international rules on trans-boundary movements of hazardous waste,” said Nicola Mulinaris, a policy adviser at Shipbreaking Platform.

The plan to recycle São Paulo in Turkey was thought to be Brazil’s first effort to scrap a ship under well-regulated conditions.

The toxic material aboard São Paulo could disrupt ecosystems, kill animals and plants and poison marine food chains with heavy metals, according to IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency.

Rosângela Muniz, the interim director of IBAMA’s environmental quality department, said the agency had asked the navy for information, including the method that would be used to sink the ship, so it could help mitigate the impact. There had been no response by the end of business on Friday.

Ms. Muniz said her team was frustrated that the effort to recycle São Paulo sustainably had failed.

“This ship is an environmental liability that has only one correct destination: recycling,” she said. “We know there will be other requests like this one that will get to IBAMA, and we hope they will have an outcome that is better for the environment.”

Manuela Andreoni is a writer for the Climate Forward newsletter, currently based in Brazil. She was previously a fellow at the Rainforest Investigations Network, where she examined the forces that drive deforestation in the Amazon. @manuelaandreoni

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 4, 2023, Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: Brazil Plans to Sink Warship Packed With Toxic Materials. 


Brazil sinks aircraft carrier in Atlantic despite pollution risk

Critics of Brazil’s planned sinking of the decommissioned Sao Paulo aircraft carrier described it as a ‘state-sponsored environmental crime’.

A photo taken in 1994 shows the then-French aircraft carrier 'Foch' in the Adriatic Sea. Renamed 'Sao Paulo' when bought by Brazil in 2000, the ageing and decommissioned aircraft carrier was sunk on Friday February 3, 2023 in the Atlantic Ocean, Brazil's Navy said [File/AFP]

Published On 4 Feb 2023

Brazil has sunk a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean despite concerns expressed by environmental groups that the ageing warship was packed with toxic materials.

The “planned and controlled sinking occurred late in the afternoon” on Friday, some 350 km (220 miles) off the Brazilian coast in the Atlantic Ocean, in an area with an “approximate depth of 5,000 meters [16,000 feet]”, Brazil’s Navy said in a statement.

The decision to scuttle the six-decade-old aircraft carrier “Sao Paulo” came after Brazilian authorities had tried in vain to find a port willing to welcome the vessel.

Though defence officials said they would sink the vessel in the “safest area”, environmentalists attacked the decision, saying the warship contained tonnes of asbestos, heavy metals and other toxic materials that could leach into the water and pollute the marine food chain.

The Basel Action Network had called on newly-elected Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva -who took office last month pledging to reverse surging environmental destruction under far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro – to immediately halt the “dangerous” plan to scuttle the ship.

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform – a coalition of environmental, labour and human rights organisations – had described Brazil’s planned sinking of the Sao Paulo as potentially a “state-sponsored environmental crime”.

Built in the late 1950s in France, whose navy sailed the aircraft carrier for 37 years as the Foch, the warship had earned a place in 20th-century naval history. The Sao Paulo took part in France’s first nuclear tests in the Pacific in the 1960s and saw deployments in Africa, the Middle East and the former Yugoslavia from the 1970s to 1990s.

Brazil bought the 266-metre (873ft) aircraft carrier for $12 million in 2000. A fire that broke out on board the ship in 2005 accelerated the vessel’s decline.

Last year, Brazil authorised Turkish firm Sok Denizcilik to dismantle the Sao Paulo for scrap metal. But in August, just as a tugboat was about to tow it into the Mediterranean Sea, Turkish environmental authorities blocked the plan.

Brazil’s defence ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the dismantling plan for the ship “represented an unprecedented attempt” by Brazil to safely dispose of the ship through “environmentally sound recycling”.

Brazil then brought the aircraft carrier back home but did not allow it into port, citing the “high risk” to the environment.

According to the defence ministry statement, the area selected for the sinking was identified by the Navy’s Hydrography Centre, which considered it the “safest” location as it was outside Brazil’s exclusive economic zone, environmental protection areas, free from documented submarine cable and was at a depth greater than 3,000 metres (9,840ft).

“In view of the facts presented and the increasing risk involved in towing, due to the deterioration of the hull’s buoyancy conditions and the inevitability of spontaneous/uncontrolled sinking, it is not possible to adopt any other course of action other than jettisoning the hull, through of the planned and controlled sinking,” the ministry said.

AL JAZEERA

Japan’s workers haven’t had a raise in 30 years. Companies are under pressure to pay up
 
Analysis by Michelle Toh and Emiko Jozuka, CNN
 Fri February 3, 2023

Hong Kong/TokyoCNN —

Hideya Tokiyoshi started his career as an English teacher in Tokyo about 30 years ago.

Since then, his salary has stayed pretty much the same. That’s why, three years ago, after giving up hopes for higher pay, the schoolteacher decided to start writing books.

“I feel lucky, as writing and selling books gives me an additional income stream. If not for that, I would’ve stayed stuck in the same wage loop,” Tokiyoshi, now 54, told CNN. “That’s why I was able to survive.”

Tokiyoshi is part of a generation of workers in Japan who have barely gotten a raise throughout their working lives. Now, as prices rise after decades of deflation,the world’s third largest economy is being forced to reckon with the major problem of falling living standards, and companies are facing intense political pressure to pay more.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is urging businesses to help workers keep up with higher living costs. Last month, he called on companies to hike pay at a level above inflation, with some already heeding the call.

Like other parts of the world, inflation in Japan has become a major headache. In the year to December, core consumer prices rose 4%. That’s still low by comparison with America or Europe, but represents a 41-year high for Japan, where people are more used to prices going backwards.

“In a country where you haven’t had nominal wage growth over 30 years, real wages are declining quite rapidly as a result [of inflation],” Stefan Angrick, a Tokyo-based senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, told CNN.

Last month, Japan recorded its biggest drop in earnings, once inflation is taken into account, in nearly a decade.

A longstanding problem

In 2021, the average annual paycheck in Japan was $39,711, compared with $37,866 in 1991, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

That means workers got a pay bump of less than 5%, compared to a rise of 34% in other Group of Seven economies, such as France and Germany, over the same period.


Experts have pointed to a series of reasons for the stagnant wages. For one, Japan has long grappled with the opposite of what it’s facing now: low prices. Deflation started in the mid-1990s, because of a strong yen — which pushed down the cost of imports — and the bursting of a domestic asset bubble.

“For the past 20 years, basically, there has been no change in consumer price inflation,” said Müge Adalet McGowan, senior economist for the Japan desk at the OECD.

A customer walking into a Tokyo supermarket on Dec. 23, 2022. Japan's core consumer prices rose 4% that month, a 41-year high.Richard A. Brooks/AFP/Getty Images

Until now, consumers wouldn’t have taken a hit to their wallets or felt the need to demand better pay, she added.

But as inflation rises, people are likely to start making “strong” complaints about the lack of raises, predicted Shintaro Yamaguchi, an economics professor at the University of Tokyo.
A changing job market

Experts say Japan’s wages have also suffered because it lags in another metric: its productivity rate.

The country’s output, measured by how much workers add to a country’s GDP per hour, is lower than the OECD average, and “probably the biggest reason” for flat wages, according to Yamaguchi.

“Generally, wages and productivity growth go hand-in-hand together,” McGowan said. “When there’s productivity growth, firms perform better and [when] they do better, they can offer higher wages.”

This giant economy wants its workers to get inflation-busting pay rises

She said Japan’s aging population was an additional issue because an older labor force tends to equate to lower productivity and wages. The way people are working is also changing.

In 2021, nearly 40% of Japan’s total workforce was employed part-time or worked irregular hours, up from roughly 20% in 1990, according to McGowan.

“As the share of these non-regular workers has gone up, of course the average wages also stay low, because they make less,” she said.

People crossing a street in the Ginza area of Tokyo in November. The shape of Japan's workforce is shifting, with more people working part-time.Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP/Getty Images
‘Lifetime’ employment

Japan’s unique work culture is contributing to wage stagnation, according to economists.

Many people work in the traditional “lifetime employment” system, where companies go to extraordinary lengths to keep workers on the payroll for life, Angrick said.

That means they’re often very cautious about raising wages in good times so that they have the means to protect their workers when times are tough.

“They don’t want to lay people off. So they need to have that buffer in order to be able to keep them on the payroll when a crisis hits,” he said.

Japan's job-for-life culture has survived war, earthquakes and now a pandemic

Its seniority-based pay system, where workers are paid based on their rank and length of service rather than performance, lowers incentives for people to change jobs, which in other countries generally helps push up wages, according to McGowan.

“The biggest issue in Japan’s labor market is the stubborn insistence on pay by seniority,” Jesper Koll, a prominent Japan strategist and investor, previously told CNN. “If genuine merit-based pay were introduced, there would be much more job switching and career climbing.”
Pressure on businesses

Last month, Kishida warned the economy was at stake, saying Japan risked falling into stagflation if wage rises continued to fall behind price increases. The term refers to a period of high inflation and stagnant economic growth.

Raising wages by 3% or more a year was already a core goal of Kishida’s administration. Now, the prime minister wants to take another step further, with plans to create a more formalized system.

Asked for details, a government spokesperson told CNN that new “comprehensive economic measures will include expanded support for wage increases, integrated with an improvement in productivity.”

Authorities plan to roll out guidelines for companies by June, said a representative from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Hideya Tokiyoshi, a teacher in Japan, told CNN he had barely seen his salary go up over the last 30 years.

Courtesy Hideya Tokiyoshi

Meanwhile, the country’s largest labor group, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation or Rengo, is now demanding wage increases of 5% at this year’s talks with the management of various companies. The annual negotiations kick off this month.

In a statement, Rengo said it was making the push because workers were making “inferior wages on a global scale,” and needed help with rising prices.

The owner of Uniqlo is boosting pay for Japan employees by up to 40% as inflation bites

Some companies have already acted. Fast Retailing (FRCOF), the company behind Uniqlo and Theory, announced last month that it would boost salaries in Japan by up to 40%, acknowledging that compensation had “remained low” in the country in recent years.

While inflation was a factor, the company wanted to align “with global standards, to be able to increase our competitiveness,” a Fast Retailing spokesperson told CNN.

According to a Reuters poll released last month, more than half of the country’s big firms are planning to raise wages this year.

Suntory, one of Japan’s biggest beverage makers, may be one of them.

Customers browsing for vegetables at a supermarket in Tokyo in January. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is urging businesses to hike pay and help workers keep up with the higher costs of living.Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP/Getty Images

CEO Takeshi Niinami is weighing a 6% raise for its Japanese workforce of approximately 7,000 people, according to a spokesperson, adding that it was subject to negotiation with a union.

The news may prompt other businesses to follow suit.

“If some of the biggest companies in Japan raise wages, many other firms will follow,” if only to stay competitive, said Yamaguchi. “Many firms look at what other firms do.”

Disney World union members reject contract offer

By Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN
Fri February 3, 2023


New YorkCNN —

Unionized workers at Disney World have rejected a contract proposal from the company that would have given them at least a $1 an hour raise each year over the five-year life of the rejected offer.

The 32,000 Disney employees, members of six different unions, had been urged by their unions’ leadership to vote no. More than 14,000 votes were cast and 96% voted no.

“I think the workers at Disney World have sent a loud message that $1 is not enough. The company need to provide a meaningful wage increase that addresses the economic issues that workers are facing,” said Matt Hollis, president of the Service Trades Council Union, the collection of unions that are negotiating with Disney management.

Union negotiators are demanding an immediate $3 an hour raise, which would be about a 20% pay hike for the 75% of workers now earning $15 an hour. The union and rank-and-file members say workers wouldn’t be able to afford to live in central Florida under the company’s offer.

The company, which had described its rejected contract proposal as a “very strong offer,” said that 46% of cast members would have gotten more than a $1-an-hour raise in the contract’s first year, and that the majority of employees would have received raises totaling 33% to 46% during the life of the contract. Retroactive pay increases back the October 1 expiration of the previous contract would have resulted in lump sum payments of about $700 per employee.

“We are disappointed that those increases are now delayed,” said Andrea Finger, a spokesperson for Disney.

Hollis said that management has agreed to return to the negotiation table, though no date for talks has been set. Unions have represented workers at Disney World since soon after the park’s 1971 opening, but employees have never gone on strike, and the unions have yet to set a strike deadline or schedule a strike vote.

Those working under this contract, all of them full-time employees, represent more than 40% of all workers at Disney World. Currently, the park has 75,000 cast members, as the company refers to its employees, including full-time and part-time, hourly and salaried staff. It is comparable to Disney World’s pre-pandemic employment levels.

Negotiations on a new union contract had been ongoing since August.

The unions said those workers who would have gotten more than a $1 an hour pay increase under the offer are in jobs where Disney is having trouble filling openings and retaining workers. And they say with rising rents and other costs in the Orlando area, a $1 an hour increase isn’t sufficient.

Rent for a typical apartment in the Orlando area costs about $1,800 per month according to Realtor.com, the second-fastest pace of increase of any US market.

Disney reported that its parks, experiences and products unit, which includes Disney World and other park locations worldwide, had revenue of $7.4 billion and operating income of $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2022, which ran through October 1. The first six months of that fiscal year were affected by surging Covid cases.



DeSantis feud with Disney enters new phase as Florida lawmakers announce special session next week

Revenue was up 36% and profits more than doubled from the previous fiscal year. And both revenue and operating profits are above what the company posted in fiscal year 2019, before the pandemic, with a 12% rise in revenue and a 10% gain in earnings.

Disney is due to report financial results for the final three months of 2022 on Wednesday, with analysts surveyed by Refinitiv forecasting that revenue will be up 7% from a year earlier, but earnings will be down 27%.

Arctic blast barrels into US Northeast, threatening record lows

A powerful arctic blast swept into the US Northeast on Friday, threatening to push temperatures to record lows in many spots, including New Hampshire's Mount Washington.


People bundle up in bitterly cold temperatures and high winds in Manhattan 

as deep cold spread across the northeast United States. (Photo: Reuters)



Reuters
Worcester,

UPDATED: Feb 4, 2023 

A powerful arctic blast swept into the US Northeast on Friday, threatening to push temperatures to record lows in many spots, including New Hampshire's Mount Washington, where the wind chill could drop to -110 degrees Fahrenheit (-79 Celsius), forecasters said.

A National Weather Service (NWS) advisory said the mass of frigid air would keep temperatures at life-endangering levels through Saturday, warning of "extremely dangerous" conditions from the "short-lived blast."

Boston and Worcester, the two largest cities in New England, were among the school districts closed on Friday over concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite as children waited for buses or walked to school.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency through Sunday and opened warming centres to help the city's more than 650,000 residents cope with what the NWS has warned could shape up to be a "once-in-a-generation" cold front.

The bitter cold forecast forced a rare closing of a floating museum that presents a daily re-enactment of the 1773 Boston Tea Party when a band of colonists disguised as Native Americans tossed crates of tea taxed by the king into the harbour.

"It's too cold for that, we're closed," a receptionist at the museum said on Friday.

Early on Friday, the core of the cold air mass, driven from Arctic Canada into the United States by high-altitude air currents, was centred over the U.S. Plains, said weather service forecaster Bob Oravec. International Falls, Minnesota, was the coldest spot as of 7 a.m., with temperatures hovering around -36 F (-38 C). Dry air meant snowfall would be limited, he said.

"It's moving into the Northeast" and temperatures will drop throughout the day on Friday, he said. "That's the biggest story of the day."

Heavy snow warning: Exact date forecasters say PERFECT STORM fuelled by 200MPH jet stream could bring 'wall of snow' to UK


Nathan Rao

WEATHER CORRESPONDENT
PUBLISHED Friday 03 February 2023 -

AN ‘explosive’ battle between cyclonic storm systems spanning the Atlantic astride a furious jet stream threatens to plunge Britain into a -15C easterly freeze.

A massive low-pressure ‘beast’ churning off the east coast of America is about to supercharge the jet helping it strengthen another storm thousands of miles away over Greece.

All three elements could join forces later next week to steer a plume of sub-zero air across Eastern Europe towards Britain, experts say.

If it does, the UK will be facing freezing temperatures, howling Russian winds and heavy snow possibly until the end of February.

Weather models are yet to agree on a definitive outlook, although forecasters have sounded early alarm bells to get winter coats at the ready, claiming the snow could arrive as soon as next Saturday (February 11).

Exacta Weather’s James Madden said: “Some computer models are now favouring a bitter easterly blast later next week, and this could bring the risk of widespread snow.

“This is expected ahead of next weekend and if it happens, temperatures will plunge across the country.

“Snowfall in parts could bring the risk of disruption, and depending on the severity of this blast, this could be on a scale or greater than anything we have seen so far this winter.

“We could see temperatures dipping to -10C or even -15C in some urban regions in a cold spell that could hold out for seven to 10 days.”

Heavy snow on a 'different scale' could hit the UK from the end of next week, forecasters warn Danny Lawson

A freezing blast hitting the US will clash with tropical air wafting up from the Gulf of Mexico to supercharge the jet stream, experts say. Synoptic forecasting models show the core of the jet - the jet streak - whipping up speeds of 200mph as swoops across the tip of Britain.

This will have a knock-on effect on weather patterns and air flow across the Atlantic and further east which could send temperatures plummeting.

Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern said: “A huge area of cold air across North America is coming up against milder air to the south, and we are getting a powerful jet stream which is helping to deepen areas of low pressure.

“An area of low pressure deepens explosively and becomes a real beast coming out of North America, and although that’s deepened by the jet stream, the size of that low affects the shape of the jet stream and helps to push its energy southwards and northwards amplifying the jet stream.

“This will have a knock-on impact on the shape of the jet steam coming over the UK and helping to develop an area of low pressure coming across Greece.”

Computer models areas yet undecided on a definitive forecast for next week, flipping between a bitter cold easterly blast and a stormier but milder assault from the west.

American synoptic systems favour colder weather setting in, while UK Met Office charts suggest wetter milder conditions. Meteorologists are watching this interaction to work out how cold it gets next week, and which parts of the UK could be most at risk.

McGivern said: “That will ultimately decide how much of the cold air stays to the east of the UK and how much it influences the UK itself.

“What we think is that there is an 85-per cent chance that next week will start off colder and drier in the south but milder with some rain in the north.

“Then gradually through next week westerlies will sink south brining changeable but milder air across the UK. But there is a 15-per cent chance that it will turn very cold especially across the south and east with snow.”

If this happened, it would mean a ‘slow return’ to milder conditions through the start of spring, he added.

While Britons are warned to have winter coats and scarves on standby, experts have played down fears of a ‘proper beast from the east’.

Widespread snowfall could hit northern Britain, spreading to the south and east Netweather

The last one struck in February 2018 when sub-zero temperatures engulfed Britain while swathes of the country were buried under inches of snow.

It was triggered by a Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) above the North Pole, causing Polar air to spill over Europe as bitter winds swept in from the East.

While meteorologists have in the past week confirmed the onset of an SSW event this year, they say it is unlikely to drive a similar cold snap.

The jet stream will instead meander over the Atlantic into Scandinavia and Europe, although this could bring freezing conditions to the UK.

Jim Dale, meteorologist for British Weather Services, said: “The jet stream is coming over Iceland, Norway and Europe and this will help low pressure to form over Greece.

“This is the power battle, and there is about a 20-per cent chance that we could get something colder at the end of next week as a result.

Snow warning: Temperatures are set to plunge across the UK ahead of next weekend WX Charts

“This is what is being referred to as the Beast from the East, although I think a full beast is unlikely, certainly before the last 10 days of the month.

“However, there is a chance that we will see something colder by the end of the week, and this is something that we are going to be keeping our eyes on.”

Weather models show a wall of snow ploughing across Britain ahead of next weekend with up to eight inches possible over Scotland.

South-eastern Britain will be in the firing line for the first taste of the cold if it arrives, according to the Met Office.

A spokesman said: “It looks like we will start to see a change from the current mild conditions to a colder spell from the middle of next week, especially for parts of the south and east of England.

“High pressure is expected to build and settle over or near to the south of the UK allowing colder air from continental Europe to cross the country.”

Heavy snow warning: New weather chart shows Britain to be blanketed for ELEVEN DAYS this month - latest maps

Brits have been warned to brace for a cold snap as the UK is plunged into a deep freeze


UK weather forecast: Temperatures plunge to MINUS TEN as 'North Pole donut' of ferocious winds smashes into Britain

The Beast from the East and Big Freeze were both caused by the same phenomenon

Bolsonaro Takes Post-Presidency Florida Tour to a Trump Resort

Felipe Marques, Bloomberg News

Jair Bolsonaro speaks during a Turning Point USA ‘Power of The People’ event in Miami, on Feb. 3. , Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is again marshaling supporters in Florida, saying he’s puzzled that he lost last fall’s election and giving no indication that he intends to leave the US.

For his second rally this week, he ended up at a very symbolic setting: The Trump National Doral Miami resort, a deluxe enclave northwest of Miami belonging to the hotel chain of the former American president, a close ally. 

“I can’t understand why Brazil turned left,” Bolsonaro said at the Friday event, referring to his defeat by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to whom he narrowly lost the runoff vote in October. He added that he’s not optimistic about the Brazilian economy under his successor, given Lula’s initial measures.

While Bolsonaro, 67, refrained from fiery attacks on Lula and other opponents, he also didn’t give any hint that he intends to end his self-imposed exile in Florida, where he has been living since late December after refusing to take part in handing power to Lula. 

His presence in the US has created a diplomatic dilemma for the Biden administration, which is preparing to welcome Lula to the White House next week. Back home, the former president faces multiple investigations, including over whether he had any connection to the Jan. 8 riot in the capital Brasilia by supporters who refused to accept his election loss.

Read More: Bolsonaro Resurfaces in Orlando, Vowing to Stay in Politics

Friday’s event, attended mostly by Brazilians, was organized by Turning Point USA, a conservative advocacy group for young people. Turning Point has also organized rallies for Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump himself didn’t attend the Doral rally and there’s no indication that he has met with Bolsonaro in Florida.

Turning Point did not pay Bolsonaro or provide other support, according to Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for the organization. He said the event was an opportunity to host an “intriguing political figure at an intriguing political time” who shares certain political affinities with Turning Point.

On Tuesday in Orlando, Florida, Bolsonaro spoke to his first public gathering since arriving in the US, saying he intended “to remain active in Brazilian politics.”

--With assistance from Mark Niquette.

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

Missouri Jewish leaders advocate for trans rights at state legislature

Eight bills were heard that would restrict trans children from participating in sports that align with their gender identity and limit their access to specialized medical care.

By JACKIE HAJDENBERG/JTA
Published: FEBRUARY 4, 2023 

“Hi, my name is Dan. I’m 11 years old and I like doing magic and circus skills, especially unicycling. I’m here today to testify against House Bill 170, 183, and 337,” a young voice said into the microphone.

“I really like to play sports with my friends, although honestly I’m not very good at it,” he added. “I’d really like the chance to play.”

Dan — a transgender boy whose parents asked that his last name not be used — was the youngest person to testify at the Missouri State House last week in opposition to eight bills heard in the chamber that would restrict trans children from participating in sports that align with their gender identity and limit their access to specialized medical care.

He was also part of a delegation of Missouri’s Jewish community members, alongside a few Christian clergy, that has been consistently appearing at the state Capitol to advocate for trans rights in response to a slew of bills that activists say violate their religious freedoms and cause significant harm to the LGBTQ community.

“Those are the bills that criminalize treating your child as every medical and psychological mainstream organization recommends.”Daniel Bogard, rabbi at Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis

Daniel Bogard, the rabbi at Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis and the parent of a trans child, was at the State House Jan. 24 and again on Feb. 1 to support those testifying against the bills and to lobby lawmakers against them. He is a frequent visitor to Jefferson City as a trans rights activist, saying the possibility of restrictions on medical care are what scare him the most. One piece of legislation would bar physicians and health care professionals from providing gender affirmation procedures to anyone under 18. It would also deny access to medication like puberty blockers, which are administered to delay the onset of puberty.

The Transgender Pride Flag flies on the Foreign Office building in London on Transgender Day of Remembrance, 20 November 2017. (credit: FOREIGN COMMONWEALTH & DEVELOPMENT OFFICE)

Proponents' motives

“What we want to do is we want to protect kids from unnecessary and harmful surgeries and medications,” said Brad Hudson, a Republican representative and one of the sponsors of the bill. “I say harmful because giving kids puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even transgender surgery violates the first duty of medicine, do no harm.” (The Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and other providers say they are generally considered safe to use.)

Hudson also identified himself in his testimony that he is a Christian pastor, and said that his worldview is one in which human beings are created “in the image and likeness of their Creator.”

Opposition to the legislation

“Those are the bills that criminalize treating your child as every medical and psychological mainstream organization recommends,” Bogard countered. “And that means parents are left with a choice of not giving these kids the sorts of treatment and care that are best practice according to everything that we know, or fleeing the state, or staying and risking some sort of criminal charge. The one that terrifies me is the idea of DSS [Department of Social Services] agents showing up to my door to take my kid away.”


Bogard, who has been going to the state Capitol for five years now, says the experience of being back at the State Legislature has been simultaneously “awful and affirming.”


“What’s remarkable is you go in and two-thirds of the people who are sponsoring these bills or testifying in favor of these bills are using overtly Christian theological language when they’re talking about the why,” he explained. “And then you look around and the people who are showing up to protect trans kids are Jews.”


“I’m just so proud of our Jewish community, the way we have shown up around this issue here in Missouri,” Bogard said, remarking on the decades-long history of Jewish-led LGBTQ advocacy in the state. (The founder of the statewide LGBTQ advocacy group PROMO, which is not itself a Jewish group, was founded by Rabbi Susan Talve, one of the founding members of Bogard’s synagogue. Shira Berkowitz, a Jewish summer camp friend of Bogard’s, is the senior director of public policy and advocacy at the organization, and last year, Bogard and Berkowitz launched a summer camp for trans kids.)


The new principal of Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School, Raquel Scharf-Anderson, made the two-hour drive early on Jan. 24 to testify on behalf of her students.


“I make all of my decisions in the best interest of children,” Scharf-Anderson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Anything that would impact the students in my school, I want them to see me standing with them.”


The sports bills in particular, she said, would impact trans students at private schools, like Mirowitz.


Over the course of the Jan. 24 hearing, Rachel Aguirre, a special education teacher who ran unsuccessfully for State Senate in the Republican primary in 2022, argued that the government was “founded upon the word of God,” and therefore athletes should only play on teams whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Nancy Delcour, another witness testifying in favor of the bill, also cited the biblical principle that humankind was created in God’s image, and an attempt to change that is the work of Satan.





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Before the nine-hour long hearing was over, another interpretation of the principle of “the image of God” was explored on the hearing room floor.


“As a Jew, this is something that speaks to me quite a bit. We call it ‘b’tzelem Elokim’ — ‘created in the image of God,’ literally,” said Russel Neiss, a Jewish educator and technologist and the parent of a trans child. “But the way we understand this is that God bestows a special honor onto humans that requires that we need to be treated with dignity and we need to treat others with dignity.”


Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, a rabbi, and the wife of Russel Neiss, also testified against the bills and in support of their child.


“Sitting here for the past two hours has been one of the most painful things that I’ve ever had to do as a mother and we’ve been doing this for four years,” she said. Picker-Neiss stayed home from the Jan. 31 Senate hearing for the first time in four years — but was back at the Capitol fighting for her child’s rights by the next day.


Next week, as another bill limiting what can be said about trans identity in schools makes its way through the Missouri chambers, Scharf-Anderson says school leadership will return to the state Capitol.


“We know that children imitate what we do, and we want to make sure that we’re being good role models for them,” she said. “And we will continue to stand by the children that we need to support who are part of our school and in our broader community.”