Opinion
Voices: The truth behind the Hollywood strike hate

Noah Berlatsky
Mon, July 17, 2023

(AFP/Getty)

The movie and television actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, declared a strike after talks with the studio broke down. The actors joined the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike since May. It’s the first time in 63 years that both groups have been on strike.

Actors had barely picked up picket signs before they came under political attack from the right. Jon Miltimore, managing editor of the Foundation for Economic Education, sneered in response to a pro-union tweet by John Cusack that “Hollywood millionaires talk about labor like they’re labor leader Jimmy Hoffa.” Republican Senator Ted Cruz mocked a picture of actor Mark Ruffalo on the picket line, tweeting “You wouldn’t like me when I’m whiny.” How droll. Others railed against “Hollywood elitist hypocrisy“ and claimed well-known actors were virtue signaling.

Conservatives claim to be attacking rich entitled millionaires when they go after Hollywood actors. But don’t the American right usually love rich people? Ted Cruz has boasted about being friends with billionaire twitter CEO Elon Musk (who whines about twitter’s fortunes all the time). Cruz also joined wealthy real estate heir - and former president - Donald Trump and Republicans in the Senate and House in pushing through a massive tax cut for the rich. If the right thinks the wealthy are whiny hypocritic elites who need to shut up, it has a funny way of showing it.

It seems conservatives dislike wealthy people who are leftists (like Cusack and Ruffalo) or who support unions. But conservatives also, consistently, attack Hollywood elites – by which they tend to mean actors and celebrities. They’re generally less focused on studio executives like Warner Bros’ David Zaslav, who made $498 million between 2018 and 2022.

So why should Cruz and company support tax breaks for the ultrawealthy like Zaslav, but see Cusack and Ruffalo as entitled? The issue is that actors and celebrities are workers. If you are on the side of capital, workers are not supposed to be wealthy, and aren’t supposed to be demanding better wages or benefits. Workers are supposed to do what they’re told and accept whatever conditions capitalists choose to impose.

the union has more than 160,000 members, 

including those who struggle to clear the $26,000 per year in earnings 

Actors and sports stars are unusual in that they are workers who can make very large salaries – and who are in highly unionized professions. When quarterback Colin Kaepernick led protests against racist police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem, conservatives like Fox News Host Bill O’Reilly were quick to label him as “disrespectful.” One common talking point in connection with the protests was that Kaepernick and other athletes who were kneeling should be grateful to the United States for giving them the opportunity to make money. But, in addition to a seeming desire for people to stay in their rightful place, I think the outrage was because the football players were workers. Workers (especially Black workers) aren’t supposed to dictate terms, or talk about politics, or ask for anything. They’re just supposed to put their heads down and obey.

We are seeing this dynamic again with the writers’ strike. People like Ted Cruz attack Mark Ruffalo for being entitled; they may say that he’s harming rank and file workers by supporting a strike that puts less wealthy actors out of work. But the fact is, it’s the rank and file who voted for the strike. And they voted for it because they want to increase minimum film payment rates, and to prevent studios using AI likenesses of background actors without payment or consent. Those are issues that affect less affluent actors much more than they are issues for stars like Mark Ruffalo.

Those criticizing union strikes while applauding billionaires want workers to be thankful they’ve been allowed to retain the fruits of their own labor, and most definitely do not want them to demand more or speak out against injustice.

Those attacking actors on picket lines are not doing so because the actors are wealthy, which many of them aren’t. They are doing so because actors are workers, and therefore should not speak out. It seems, however, SAG-AFTRA disagrees. That’s why its members, famous and not famous, wealthy and poor, are on the picket lines.

How Fran Drescher became the voice of labor in America

As labor unrest rolls across the country, union members hope the SAG-AFTRA president is exactly what the doctor prescribed.

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher slams studios when announcing actors’ strike: ‘Shame on them’


Christopher Wilson
·Senior Writer
Updated Mon, July 17, 2023 


In a 1994 episode of “The Nanny,” the titular caretaker played by Fran Drescher is pressured by her wealthy Broadway producer boss to cross a picket line where he’s hosting a premiere party. She refuses, saying that her mother taught her to never, ever cross a picket line.

Nearly three decades later, Drescher — who created and starred in the series — is at the center of the biggest Hollywood strike in over half a century

SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union that Drescher leads, announced its strike on Thursday. It is joined by the Writers Guild of America, which has been picketing since May. Together, the two unions have brought Hollywood to a halt.

Why is Hollywood on strike?

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher with Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union's national executive director and chief negotiator, after negotiations ended with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on July 13. (Mike Blake/Reuters)

The demands of both unions are centered around residual payments from streaming services, data transparency and — crucially — concerns over the studios using artificial intelligence to replace human writers and actors.

While many of the faces of the strike are wealthy A-list actors, the union has more than 160,000 members, including those who struggle to clear the $26,000 per year in earnings needed to qualify for health insurance, a key issue Matt Damon raised recently on the “Oppenheimer” red carpet. When the strike was called, Damon and his castmates walked out of the film’s London premiere before the movie was screened.

'She has brought us all together'

Drescher and Charles Shaughnessy in the sitcom "The Nanny" in 1997. 

(CBS via Getty Images)

Drescher ended up in this position after narrowly defeating actor Matthew Modine to win the presidency in 2021 despite a lack of labor experience. “What I don’t know, I promise you I will learn very quickly, and what I do know cannot be taught,” she said at the time.

Drescher was criticized last week for appearing in a selfie with Kim Kardashian during a fashion event in Italy, but she defended the move, saying she was there for work and was in contact with SAG-AFTRA staff throughout the trip. She earned rave reviews for her speech Thursday announcing the strike, clips of which immediately went viral.

“Eventually, the people break down the gates of Versailles,” Drescher said. “And then it’s over. We’re at that moment right now.”

Drescher has, in recent years, described herself as “anti-capitalist” and criticized “the big-business sociopaths, who pray to the money gods.” And in the run-up to the strike, she was vital in galvanizing the union, which voted nearly unanimously to authorize the strike.

“It’s pretty amazing what Fran has done,” actor Shaan Sharma, a member of the negotiating committee, told Variety. “She has brought us all together.”

A summer of labor action

Meredith Stiehm, left, president of Writers Guild of America West, with Drescher at a rally outside the Paramount Pictures studio in Los Angeles on May 8. 

(Chris Pizzello/AP)

Writers and actors are generating most of the headlines, but it’s a “hot labor summer” in a number of industries.

Thousands of hotel workers have been striking in California. And there is the looming potential of a Teamsters strike if the union cannot agree to a new deal with UPS by a July 31 deadline. Even a relatively brief strike by UPS workers could snarl supply chains, delay deliveries and have a major economic impact.

Labor unions have become much more popular over the last decade, according to polls, and now enjoy broad public support. Drescher has consistently tied the negotiations in Hollywood to the wider worker movement.

"The eyes of labor are upon us," she said after the press conference.

"It's very important that everybody appreciate that we're not just sticking up for ourselves, but we're sticking up for everybody else, because it is a slippery slope into a very dangerous time, and a real dystopia if big business, corporations, think that they can put human beings out of work and replace them with artificial intelligence. It's dangerous, and it's without thinking or conscience or caring."

When will the strike end?

Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland with SAG-AFTRA members during a press conference on July 13 announcing the strike.

 (Chris Pizzello/AP)

There is no timetable for when the shutdown in Hollywood might end. Just before the actors went on strike, Deadline spoke to an anonymous studio executive who said the studios and streamers planned to hold out until the writers caved.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” the executive said.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, meanwhile, called the union demands "disturbing" and said actors and writers weren't being "realistic."

While the resolution of the strike will determine Drescher’s future as a labor leader, there is one interesting historical note: The last time both the actors and writers struck at the same time was 1960, when the Screen Actors Guild president was Ronald Reagan.

Actors are demanding that Hollywood catch up with technological changes in a sequel to a 1960 strike

David Arditi, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas Arlington
Mon, July 17, 2023

As this picket sign says: lights, cameras, no action. 

Katie McTiernan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

For the first time since 1960, actors and screenwriters are on strike at the same time.

As with many of the other strikes that have rippled across the United States over the past three years, this walkout is over demands for better pay and restrictions on their employers’ use of technology to replace paid work.

The actors’ strike began on July 14, 2023, after their union, SAG-AFTRA, voted to end negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major production studios. The main concerns of the union – which represents 160,000 actors and people in other creative professions – center around compensation on streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, and artificial intelligence.

Screenwriters, who have been on strike since May 2, have similar concerns.

The two strikes have halted U.S. TV and movie production. Premieres are being canceled, and Emmy-nominated actors aren’t campaigning for those prestigious TV awards.
Rewind to the rise of TV

Ever since Louis Le Prince filmed the first movie, “Roundhay Garden Scene,” in 1888, actors have earned a living through their work being shown on screens small and large.

The first hit shows on TV aired in the mid-1940s, but actors initially earned far less from television than movies. Around 1960, with the advent of hits like “Leave It to Beaver,” “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Bonanza,” TV became very profitable. TV’s growing prestige and economic heft gave television actors newfound power at the contract negotiating table.

Actors demanded that their craft be compensated for TV shows about as highly as for their film appearances. Led by future President Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston – who went on to serve as a National Rifle Association president – the Screen Actors Guild went on strike on March 7, 1960. Among that union’s top demands: health care coverage and residuals for movies aired on television, reruns and syndication.

Residuals are a form of royalty paid to actors when movies and TV shows air on television after their initial run. That can include reruns, syndication and the broadcasting of movies on television.

The actors union’s strike, which coincided then as today with a screenwriters strike, successfully negotiated a contract with executives that resolved the residuals conflict and secured health care coverage for its members.

That contract applied to broadcasting and, years later, cable TV.

But it doesn’t work for streaming, because streamed shows aren’t scheduled. Whereas “Friends,” a sitcom that initially aired on NBC, is available today on Max, formerly HBO Max, through syndication, and its actors receive relevant residuals, “Orange Is the New Black” originated on Netflix. Because it never runs on a different platform via syndication, the actors in its cast earn paltry residuals in comparison – even though viewers are still watching the show’s seven seasons.

Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator of “Squid Game,” forfeited all residuals when he cut a deal with Netflix. It earned Netflix nearly US$1 billion, but Hwang got none of that bounty.

Actors Charlton Heston, right, and future President Ronald Reagan, second from right, shake hands with leaders of the Association of Motion Picture Producers after the Screen Actors Guild ended its 1960 strike against seven movie studios. 

Bettmann via GettyImages

Fast-forward to 2023

As I explained in my 2021 book, “Streaming Culture,” streaming has fundamentally changed the production and consumption of both TV and film while blurring the lines between them.

People consume different types of media through subscriptions and streaming technology than they do while watching broadcast TV and cable television. Actors and writers are concerned that their compensation hasn’t kept up with this transformation.

And the actors who are on strike argue that the formulas in place since 1960 to calculate residuals don’t work anymore.

Residuals paid for roles in broadcast TV shows are based on the popularity of those programs, with actors earning far more for hits like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “NCIS” than for duds. Hit shows can have a second life on streaming platforms and result in actors getting paid again for that earlier work.

In contrast, streaming residuals pay a flat rate for foreign and domestic streams. A streaming original film or TV show earns a set amount for residuals in its domestic market and second set amount for foreign markets. This fee doesn’t change based on popularity or the number of times a production is streamed.

But streaming has changed more than residuals for actors and writers. It has also transformed how TV shows are made.

Ejecting regularly scheduled shows

Many TV seasons have grown shorter since streaming became the norm, falling from 20 or more episodes to 10 or fewer per season.

That’s because streamers started making shows with lower budgets, as it costs less to produce fewer episodes. The studios also cut costs by hiring fewer writers.

Since actors are typically paid per episode in which they perform, their salaries have dropped by virtue of having fewer appearances in even the most popular shows.

The gaps between seasons have also grown longer and more unpredictable. Every season of the nine-year run of “Seinfeld” on NBC began in the fall and ended the next spring, then picked up again the next fall.

Streaming shows are far less predictable.

Amazon Prime’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” paused for more than two years between seasons 3 and 4.

The same streamer aired the first season of “Lord of the Rings: Power of the Rings,” in September 2022, but Season 2 won’t be released until late 2024.

As gaps between seasons grow, some actors are having a harder and harder time making ends meet.

Another change has to do with the question of whether particular shows will keep going. In conventional broadcast or cable television, networks determine whether they will renew a show during the period known as “sweeps,” at the end of a TV season. Since streaming television has no defined seasons, these decisions can drag on.

This can leave actors and writers in limbo. And their contracts often stop them from working on other shows between seasons.

Will AI erase actors?

Although residuals and the number of episodes have until now been negotiable, perhaps the strike’s biggest issue is the studios’ use of artificial intelligence

Actors fear studios will use AI to replace actors in the future. Without a contract that says otherwise, once a studio films an actor, it can potentially use the actor’s likeness in perpetuity. This means a background actor could be shot for one episode of a TV show and continue to be seen in the background for seasons without pay.

That hasn’t happened yet, but many actors are certain it will.

Actors object to the possibility that studios will seek to “own our likeness in perpetuity, including after we’re dead, use us in their movies without any consent, without any compensation to our performers, especially background performers,” said actor Shaan Sharma, best known for his role on “The Chosen.” “It’s inhumane. It is dystopian.”

Until now, actors and writers say, the studios have refused to negotiate over AI with actors or writers. But both unions see AI as a threat to their members’ livelihoods, a point SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher made on MSNBC.

As Drescher continually points out in her media appearances, 99% of actors are struggling on working-class incomes. Meanwhile, studio executives continue to increase their own pay. For example, in 2022, Netflix co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos earned roughly $50 million each. Warner-Discovery CEO David Zaslav earned $39 million.

No ‘pause’ for widening inequality gap

The gulf between what actors and top executives earn is a major difference between today’s actors and writer strikes and the 1960 strikes. In 1965, executives made 15 times the average salary of their workers. By 2021 those top execs were earning 350 times more than the average worker – including actors.

And while today’s biggest stars, like Pedro Pascal and Natasha Lyonne, earn millions for every performance, most actors struggle to make ends meet.

In Los Angeles, actors earn an average hourly wage of $27.73.

Meanwhile, studios are pulling in huge profits. For example, Netflix and Warner Bros. earned $5.2 billion and $2.7 billion in 2022, respectively.

Watching union action on repeat

As I explain in my new book, “Digital Feudalism: Creators, Credit, Consumption, and Capitalism,” striking actors and screenwriters are part of the wave of labor unrest in recent years. In my view, U.S. workers are rejecting a system that expects workers to buy more on credit while making a living with increasingly precarious jobs.

From Starbucks baristas to Amazon’s union organizers to the workers planning the pending UPS strike, more and more Americans are fighting for higher wages and more control over their schedules.

In fighting threats to their livelihoods, actors and screenwriters are the latest example of a national movement for stronger labor rights.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: David Arditi, University of Texas Arlington.

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Watch: Final grain ship arrives in Turkey after Russia pulls out of Ukraine deal

Holly Patrick
Mon, July 17, 2023 

Watch as a final grain ship arrives in Turkey after Russia halted participation in a UN-brokered deal which lets Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea on Monday, 17 July.

At the outbreak of the war, global food prices soared to record highs due to the interruption of export from Ukraine, which is a major producer of grains and oilseeds.

The deal was struck last July by the United Nations and Turkey in order to try and alleviate a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain blocked by the Russia-Ukraine war to be exported safely.

The announcement came hours after the Crimean Bridge was badly damaged following reports of explosions on the road between Crimea and Russia’s mainland.

Moscow has said that the attack was a strike by Ukrainian sea drones.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a terrorism case.

Ukraine has not officially confirmed nor denied involvement; its military suggested Moscow could be responsible.

 

Guterres: Russia's pull-out of grain deal 'will strike a blow to people in need everywhere'

Elsa Court
Mon, July 17, 2023 

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres made a statement in reaction to Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain initiative. "Today’s decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere," he wrote, expressing his regret at Russia's decision.

The deal, which was first brokered by the U.N. and Turkey and signed in Istanbul in July 2022, has ensured the safe passage of over 32 million metric tons of food commodities from Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, according to U.N. figures.

The initiative also allowed the World Food Programme to ship over 725,000 tons of food to support humanitarian operations in regions like the Horn of Africa, and helped to reduce food prices by over 23 percent since March 2022.

Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the country usually supplied the world with 45 million tons of grain every year. Guterres added that the agreement has "been a lifeline for global food security and a beacon of hope in a troubled world."

"Ultimately, participation in these agreements is a choice. But struggling people everywhere and developing countries don’t have a choice," he wrote, adding that the hundreds of millions of people facing hunger "will pay the price."

The last extension of the grain deal was in May 2023 and was set to expire at the end of the day on July 17, 2023.

Russia informed Turkey, Ukraine and the United Nations that they will not sign an extension. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed the reason was that "the part of the Black Sea agreements concerning Russia has not been implemented so far."

Black Sea grain deal collapses as Russia pulls from agreement

Russia announced on July 17 that it is pulling out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, critical for ensuring global food security, effectively collapsing the deal.

Russia Pulls the Plug on Ukraine Grain Export Deal

Megan Durisin and Áine Quinn
Mon, July 17, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Russia ended the Ukraine grain-export deal nearly a year into the agreement, heightening uncertainty over global food supplies and escalating tensions in the region.

The pact, previously extended in May, will cease to be effective as of Tuesday, the foreign ministry in Moscow said in a statement. Russia had repeatedly threatened to leave the deal, which had marked a rare example of cooperation during its war in Ukraine. The corridor’s shutdown will hit key buyers like China, Spain and Egypt.

“Unfortunately, the part concerning Russia in this Black Sea agreement has not been fulfilled so far,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian news agency Tass. “Therefore, it is terminated.”

The move jeopardizes a key trade route from Ukraine, one of the world’s top grain and vegetable oil shippers, just as its next harvest kicks off. It also comes after Russia on Monday said Ukrainian drones damaged a key bridge to Crimea.

The pact — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey — has ensured the safe passage of almost 33 million tons of crop exports via the Black Sea since it was signed in July 2022, helping world food-commodity prices ease from the record levels reached after Russia invaded. However, it has been bogged down by issues including slow vessel inspections in recent months.

Benchmark Chicago wheat and corn futures initially spiked, before moving lower. The two commodities are the top crops shipped under the deal.

Following repeated disruptions, the shipping corridor was nearly empty before the deal ended, tempering the immediate interruption to world crop flows. The bigger risk lies longer-term, as fractured and costly export logistics could spur Ukrainian farmers to further cut harvests already shrinking under the weight of the war.

Russia cited obstacles to its own shipments and a bias toward Western interests as reasons for discontinuing the pact, though the nation is the world’s top wheat shipper. It said it would be willing to reconsider the deal when its terms are met.

Moscow’s withdrawal from the deal will have multiple implications, according to its foreign ministry. Those include the end of guarantees for navigation safety, the collapse of the maritime humanitarian corridor, and the disbandment of the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he deeply regretted Russia’s decision to end the initiative and the assurances over Black Sea shipping security. He also noted that Russian grain and fertilizer exports have normalized, citing industry groups from the country.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would discuss the export deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their planned meeting in August, or perhaps sooner by phone.

The European Union will continue to help facilitate food exports from Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter. She condemned the “cynical move” by Russia.

When the deal was inked, the UN agreed in parallel to improve access to Russian food and fertilizer exports. Russia has demanded several obstacles be removed to bolster trade — including reconnecting an agricultural bank to the SWIFT international payments system.

No new vessels have been approved to join the Ukraine grain deal since late last month and Russia had blocked one of the three open ports. Ship inspection times have progressively grown longer, with fewer than one cleared per day in the first half of this month.

A lone vessel remained in the corridor Monday — the TQ Samsun — which departed over the weekend from the port of Odesa. The UN said its outbound inspection is underway.

Its closure will heighten reliance on alternate trade routes via the Danube River and Ukraine’s European Union neighbors, although those paths remain expensive and some countries have pushed back against the inflow.

The routes come “at a much higher cost of transport,” said Carlos Mera, head of agricultural commodities market research at Rabobank. “That poses questions about the future production out of Ukraine. Most of the exports will flow, but some stock build-up domestically is unavoidable.”

Some traders have previously signaled interest in continuing Black Sea shipments without the deal, although that would require military and government approval — plus, international support.

“Even without the Russian Federation one needs to do everything to allow us to use this Black Sea corridor. We are not afraid,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during an interview on Monday, according to his spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov.

--With assistance from Daryna Krasnolutska, Firat Kozok and Volodymyr Verbyany.

Why Russia is suspending the Black Sea grain deal with Ukraine

The Black Sea Grain Initiative was implemented last July in a bid to curb the global food crisis worsened by the war in Ukraine

WH calls Russia's decision to withdraw from Black Sea grain deal 'irresponsible and dangerous'


Niamh Cavanagh
·Reporter   Updated Mon, July 17, 2023 

Russia announced on Monday that it was suspending a crucial deal that allows grain to be exported from Ukraine to countries in Africa and the Middle East.

“The grain deal has halted,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. “As soon as the Russian part of the deal is fulfilled, the Russian side will resume the fulfillment of this deal without delay.”

Moscow claimed that the deal had only benefited Ukraine and that Russian exports, such as wheat and fertilizer, had been blocked from foreign markets due to Western sanctions.

Wheat grain at a storage facility in Ukraine in 2016

. (Vincent Mundy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin asked for the removal of all sanctions against the Russian Agricultural Bank as well as the unblocking of accounts of Russian companies involved in the export of both food and fertilizer.

The grain agreement, which expired on Monday, was brokered in July 2022 by the United Nations and Turkey to allow grain that had been blocked by the conflict to be exported through the Black Sea. It was aimed at alleviating the global food crisis, which had been worsened by the war in Ukraine.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday that “hundreds of millions of people face hunger and consumers are confronting a global cost-of-living crisis. They will pay the price.” Guterres added that the U.N.’s main focus will be assuring global food security and price stability.

The suspension comes as Kremlin officials accuse Kyiv of a second attack on the bridge that connects Crimea and Russia. An explosion on the bridge in the early hours of Monday morning killed a couple and injured their daughter.
Why halting the grain deal matters

A harvester in a field 6 miles from the frontline in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, in July 2022. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

Millions of people around the world rely on the farmlands in the Black Sea region, dubbed the “breadbasket of the world,” for food. Nearly 30% of the world’s wheat comes from the fertile fields of Ukraine and Russia, while 75 of the essential oils used in cooking and preparing food are also produced there. Together, Russia and Ukraine account for 20% of the world’s exports of corn, as well as mineral fertilizer and natural gas — both components used in the production and cultivation of grains and seeds.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year caused a disturbance in global supply chains by creating a scarcity of grains and fertilizer. As prices increased and supply decreased, it was those most vulnerable who felt the biggest impact.

According to statistics from the U.N. released this month, more than 35 million tons of food commodities have been exported in the past 12 months from three Ukrainian ports to 45 countries on three continents. “The partial resumption of Ukrainian sea exports ... helped reverse spiking global food prices, which reached record highs shortly before the agreement was signed,” the U.N. said.

A trader carries a bag of wheat imported from Ukraine at an open-air market in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 15

. (Feisal Omar/Reuters)

Since July 2022, the U.N. World Food Program has transported 799,000 tons of wheat to the countries most affected by starvation, including Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen.

“Failure to renew the Black Sea Initiative today is a huge, life-threatening blow to vulnerable children living in countries in Africa and the Middle East who rely on grain staples,” Nana Ndeda, the humanitarian advocacy and policy lead of Save the Children, said in a statement to Yahoo News.

“The grain deal was a lifeline to millions of boys and girls facing devastating hunger. Not renewing this initiative will prove catastrophic for children around the world and cost thousands of lives.”

Russia halts grain deal in what UN calls blow to needy people everywhere



Reuters
Updated Mon, July 17, 2023

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia halted participation on Monday in the year-old U.N.-brokered deal that lets Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea, causing concern in poorer countries that price rises will put food out of reach.

Hours earlier, a blast knocked out Russia's bridge to Crimea in what Moscow called a strike by Ukrainian sea drones, killing two people. Moscow said it was a terrorist attack on the road bridge, a major artery for Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said there was no link between the attack and its decision to suspend the grain deal, over what it called a failure to meet its demands to implement a parallel agreement easing rules for its own food and fertilizer exports.

"Unfortunately, the part of these Black Sea agreements concerning Russia has not been implemented so far, so its effect is terminated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres signalled that Russia's withdrawal meant that the related pact to assist Russia's grain and fertilizer exports was also terminated.

"Today's decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere," he told reporters.

Moscow said it would consider rejoining the grain deal if it saw "concrete results" on its demands but that its guarantees for the safety of navigation would meanwhile be revoked.

In Washington, the White House said Russia's suspension of the pact "will worsen food security and harm millions" and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it unconscionable.

IMPACT COULD BE PROFOUND IN AFRICA

Ukraine and Russia are some of the world's biggest exporters of grain and other foodstuffs and any interruption could drive up food prices across the globe.

Shashwat Saraf, the emergency director in East Africa for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), said the impact would be profound in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, which have been facing the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades.

"I don't know how we will survive," said Halima Hussein, a mother of five living in a crowded camp in Somalia's capital Mogadishu for people displaced by years of failed rains and violence.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy raised the prospect of resuming grain exports without Russia's participation, suggesting Kyiv would seek Turkey's support to effectively negate the Russian de facto blockade imposed last year.

"Ukraine, the U.N. and Turkey together can ensure the operation of a food corridor and vessel inspections, Zelenskiy said in his nightly video message, saying said the world "has the opportunity to show that blackmail is not allowed ... We must all ensure security, protection from Russian madness."

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE

Ukrainian forces have been striking Russian supply lines as it pursues a counteroffensive to drive Russian forces out of its south and east. On Monday it reported two more civilians killed by Russian forces, which it said had begun a major push in the northeast.

"For two days running, the enemy has been actively on the offensive in the Kupiansk sector in Kharkiv region. We are defending. Heavy fighting is going on and the positions of both sides change dynamically several times a day," Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar, wrote on Telegram.

The armed forces said Russia had amassed a huge array of forces.

"In the Lyman-Kupiansk sector the enemy has concentrated a very powerful grouping. More than 100,000 personnel, more than 900 tanks, more than 555 artillery systems, and 370 multiple launch rocket systems," Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Armed Forces East group, said on national TV.

Reuters was not able to verify the accounts and there was no immediate comment from Russia.

The blast on the road bridge to Crimea could limit Moscow's ability to supply its troops in southern Ukraine, although Russian President Vladimir Putin said the bridge had not been used for military transports for a long time. Partial road traffic had been restored, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said on Telegram.

Earlier, images showed part of the road bridge had come down and traffic halted in both directions, although a parallel railway bridge was still operational. Blasts were reported before dawn on the 19-km (12-mile) bridge, which Putin ordered built after seizing and annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Putin told officials Russia would respond to the "senseless" attack.

Ukrainian media quoted unidentified officials as saying Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) had deployed maritime drones against the bridge. SBU spokesperson Artem Dekhtyarenko alluded to the idea that the agency would reveal details after Ukraine won the war, without directly claiming responsibility.

Ukraine says the bridge is illegal. It was hit by a massive explosion and fire in October.

The grain deal was hailed as preventing a global food emergency when brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last year.

Global commodity food prices rose on Monday, though the increase was limited, suggesting traders did not yet anticipate a severe supply crisis.

Western countries say Russia is trying to use its leverage over the grain deal to weaken financial sanctions, which do not apply to Russia's agricultural exports.

Russia has extended the Black Sea deal three times, despite repeated threats to quit. It suspended participation after an attack on its fleet by seaborne Ukrainian drones in October, leading to a few days when Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations kept exports going without Moscow.

Any resumption of shipments without Russia's blessing would probably depend on insurers. Industry sources told Reuters they were studying whether to freeze their coverage.

"The (key) question is whether Russia mines the area which would effectively cease any form of cover being offered," one insurance industry source said.

(Reporting by Max Hunder in Kyiv, Michelle Nichols in New York, Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Ron Popeski, Lidia Kelly and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Alex Richardson and Grant McCool)

‘Underground climate change’ is deforming the ground beneath buildings, study finds


Jacopo Prisco
Mon, July 17, 2023

CNN

A phenomenon that scientists have called “underground climate change” is deforming the ground beneath cities, a study conducted in Chicago has found.

This shifting of land under urban areas could pose a problem for buildings and infrastructure, threatening long-term performance and durability, according to the research.

Technically known as “subsurface heat islands,” underground climate change is the warming of the ground under our feet, caused by heat released by buildings and subterranean transportation such as subway systems.

“The denser the city, the more intense is underground climate change,” said lead study author Alessandro Rotta Loria, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Soil, rocks and construction materials deform when subjected to temperature variations. For example, the ground underneath buildings can contract when heated, causing unwanted settlement, Rotta Loria said.

“Deformations caused by underground climate change are relatively small in magnitude, but they continuously develop,” he said. “Over time, they can become very significant for the operational performance of civil infrastructure like building foundations, water retaining walls, tunnels and so on.”

But underground climate change is not the same as what we think of as climate change in the atmosphere, which is largely driven by greenhouse gases and has far-reaching effects, said David Archer, a professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago.

“Calling it climate change seems like a bit of a coattail thing,” Archer, who was not involved with the study, said.

The term “underground climate change,” however, was not coined for this study — it has been in use, and the phenomenon a subject of research, for some time.
‘A silent hazard’

Studied for the past 25 years, underground climate change can cause issues such as groundwater contamination or problems with underground railways by making tracks prone to buckling or causing passengers to become ill due to excessive heat. Its effects on civil infrastructure, however, had not been explored until this study, according to Rotta Loria.

The research, published this month in the journal Communications Engineering, was conducted by installing 150 temperature sensors across the Chicago Loop district, both above and below ground, and in a variety of places such as basements, tunnels and parking garages. Sensors were also placed in Grant Park along Lake Michigan to compare temperatures from an unbuilt area with no excess heat coming from construction or transportation.

Data was collected over three years, and the results showed that the ground under the Loop was up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) warmer than the ground beneath the park.

“We found underground structures, such as basements, where the air temperature was very high,” Rotta Loria said. “And the consequence of that is that at least a portion of the heat will diffuse towards the ground over time, and that’s the origin of the phenomenon.”

Researchers then used the data to build a computer model of the Chicago Loop and simulate the effect of the rising temperatures on the ground, from the 1950s until the 2050. They found that depending on the composition of the soil, the ground reacts unevenly to warming and can both expand and contract by amounts that — while imperceptible to humans — could cause problems for buildings.

Underground climate change can affect systems and structures such as underground railways, making tracks prone to buckling or causing passengers to become ill due to excessive heat.

 - Bruce Leighty/Alamy Stock Photo

“It’s important to stress that underground climate change does not threaten the safety of people and does not threaten to collapse structures and buildings,” Rotta Loria said. “It does pose a potential challenge for the functionality and the durability of structures, because excessive ground deformations can lead to distortion, tilting and potentially cracking.”

As a result, water could flow more easily into cracked structures, potentially causing corrosion in materials such as reinforced concrete.

“There is what I call a silent hazard,” Rotta Loria said. “Buildings that are more prone to issues, because they were designed and built with outdated approaches, are also those that contribute the most to underground climate change, because they lack appropriate thermal insulation and therefore inject the most heat into the ground.”
Harvesting heat

It’s not all doom and gloom, however, according to Rotta Loria. “This study can make us realize that we are in front of an opportunity — we can take action, and in different ways,” he said.

Future buildings will not significantly increase the phenomenon, because modern construction technologies and regulations mandate better insulation and energy efficiency. And for those structures that already exist, understanding underground heat presents opportunities, according to Rotta Loria.

“We can take action by applying thermal insulation to underground building enclosures, to minimize the amount of waste heat that goes into the ground,” he said. “But if for any reason we aren’t able to thermally insulate the buildings to enhance their energy efficiency, we could at least deploy geothermal technologies underneath or next to them to absorb the waste heat that is generated and use it for heating and cooling.”

David Toll, a professor of engineering and codirector of the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience at Durham University in the United Kingdom, said the study is important as the effects of thermal movements of the ground beneath cities have not been a focus of much research.

“My conclusion from the study would be that, for the Chicago Loop, we now know that these thermal movements that have taken place, and those predicted for the immediate future, are not large enough to be of concern. That is a very useful finding,” said Toll, who did not participate in the research.

“However, that is not to say that such temperature changes below other cities, with different ground conditions, could not be potentially problematic.”

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-ground-is-deforming-and-buildings.html

Opinion

 I'm a tenant in the mass eviction at Barrington Plaza. This developer decision could devastate L.A.

Robert Lawrence
Mon, July 17, 2023 

Barrington Plaza, where owners have served the residents of 577 occupied rent-controlled units with eviction notices. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“Hell, no, we won’t go!” The spirited chant sounded familiar, although it had been 51 years since I last shouted it alongside other demonstrators.

This time, instead of protesting the Vietnam War at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, I stood with 25 other impassioned tenants on a corner of Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles, in front of Barrington Plaza — the apartment complex from which we are being unlawfully evicted.

My motivations for participating in both were altruistic and self-serving. I opposed the war in Vietnam on moral grounds, appalled by the unnecessary devastation, but I also did not want to join the thousands of Americans who had already perished in it.

Read more: They face L.A.’s largest eviction in years. But these Westside renters won’t go quietly

I'm helping to organize the tenants' resistance to the eviction to preserve my own home, but I'm equally motivated to protect our community, especially my fellow boomers, some of whom suffer from dementia, diabetes or cancer.

The multibillion-dollar corporate landlord and developer, Douglas Emmett, decided to evict all the largely working-class tenants from their 577 occupied units in one of the biggest rent-stabilized buildings on Los Angeles’ pricey Westside. The company says it intends to retrofit the fire sprinkler system, following dangerous fires in 2013 and 2020, and make other needed repairs. Yet if it requires units to be vacant to do the work, the city requires the filing of a Tenant Habitability Plan, under which tenants should be temporarily relocated, not evicted.

Emmett is also claiming the Ellis Act as justification for the mass eviction. Passed in 1985, this California law was created to allow landlords to evict tenants from rent-controlled units that they plan to take off the rental market. But the company won’t commit to removing Barrington Plaza from the rental market when the renovations are complete, and they may gentrify and then re-rent the units at inflated market prices.

Another inescapable irony: Barrington’s eviction announcement came on May 8, the same date in 1959 that Los Angeles officials used eminent domain and other political machinations to bulldoze Chavez Ravine and destroy the homes of that vibrant, historic Mexican American community to make way for Dodger Stadium. If the Barrington evictions go through, they’ll join Chavez Ravine as among the largest evictions in the city’s history.

While I watched L.A.’s rush-hour traffic crawl by our tenant protest, many of the vehicles honking in support of our ragtag crew carrying signs and joined by our dogs, I reflected that this time the power we were fighting was not the military-industrial complex, but “Big Development” and corporate greed. Emmett donated $400,000 to the campaign of the current City Council member for Barrington Plaza’s district.

Read more: Opinion: The mass evictions at Barrington Plaza will happen again if L.A. doesn't act to protect renters

The wonderfully inclusive, intergenerational, international community at Barrington represents the best of L.A., with a wide range of jobs and backgrounds. Tenants I’ve spoken with since we received notice include an Uber Eats driver, a waitress at El Pollo Loco, a professional dog walker, a Beverly Hills hairstylist and others who service our more affluent Westside neighbors.

Many of us, myself included because of the current writers’ strike, are on some form of government assistance. Others, even more vulnerable, are still financially recovering from the COVID pandemic and struggling with child-care costs; or are elderly and disabled, depending on nearby loved ones for trips to go shopping or attend medical appointments.

One tenant I spoke with has suffered with PTSD from rape and attempted murder. She previously lived in her car. For her, the very real possibility of losing her apartment triggers sleepless nights along with anxiety, depression and panic. Another tenant has worked for the county assisting homeless people in South Central for 20 years. Now she could be relocated to the same neighborhood where she spends her days helping those who live in makeshift tents on the street.

We are facing either imminent relocation to a distant part of the city, a premature placement in an extended care facility — or homelessness.

This tragedy is not just about us. At stake is the fate of an entire city where more than 75,000 people are homeless on any given night. If Emmett’s mass eviction is allowed to stand, it will displace hundreds of us, set a devastating precedent for rent-stabilized housing in Los Ange les and unleash a catastrophic burden on our already strained social services.

Our Barrington Plaza Tenant Assn. is working with the Coalition for Economic Survival to fight our eviction, and we’ve created a GoFundMe page to collect donations. It will take all of us to stop Douglas Emmett's unlawful use of the Ellis Act.

A lot has changed since I was a 20-year-old, long-haired activist who chanted, “Hell, no, we won’t go!” at a Vietnam War rally. But the stakes for this community are just as high now.

Robert Lawrence is a producer whose films include “Clueless,” “Die Hard with a Vengeance,” “Rapid Fire” and “Rock Star.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

WORKERS CAPITAL

CalPERS CEO gives update on data hack that exposed Social Security numbers, birth dates


Jay Mather/Sacramento Bee file

Maya Miller
Mon, July 17, 2023 

The California Public Employee and Retirement System launched its three-day offsite meeting in Monterey with a long-awaited update on a June data breach that exposed Social Security numbers, birth dates and other personal information on nearly 1.2 million retirees and other beneficiaries.

The update follows a call from California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, who sits on both the CalPERS and CalSTRS boards, for the nation’s two largest public pension funds to hold special meetings and provide members with an update on the organization’s response to the breach.

“We know what an unsettling experience this has been for our retirees,” said CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost less than five minutes after the board convened at 9 a.m. “So, I want to address what we’re doing to make the recovery process as smooth as possible for them.”

The third-party vendor that was hacked, PBI Research/Berwyn Group, works with CalPERS and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to identify any members who have died, which helps the agencies prevent overpayments or other errors.

CalPERS said that PBI was using a data transfer application called MoveIt Transfer, made by Progress Software, that organizations around the nation use to share data securely. The application boasts encryption, tracking and access controls for secure collaboration and automated transfers.

In the Monday update, Frost said CalPERS has received nearly 4,000 calls about the breach at its own customer contact center. The average wait time is one minute, she said. Retirees can also send in questions to the email address pbiquestions@calpers.ca.gov, which Frost said is monitored by CalPERS managerial staff. The average wait time for an email response is less than 24 hours, she said.

The pension fund also established a special call center with Experian, which has fielded nearly 34,000 calls. Callers were experiencing “alarming” wait times, Frost said, so last weekend the call center added 50 more representatives to help bring wait times back down to one to two minutes.

So far, about 122,000 CalPERS retirees have signed up for two years of free credit monitoring and identity restoration services through Experian. Frost said this represents a higher-than-expected response, according to Experian, when compared to other companies that it’s worked with following data breaches. (Frost noted that these companies were largely private employers, rather than public pension funds.)

Frost suggested members could find answers to their questions at calpers.ca.gov/page/home/pbi. She encouraged people who need more help to send an email to pbiquestions@calpers.ca.gov or contact the CalPERS call center at (833)-919-4735. The hours are 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.

“We realize how sensitive this situation is,” Frost said, “and again, we want to reassure our retirees that we’ll do everything possible to help them through the situation.”
Retirees say CalPERS isn’t doing enough

Devara “Dev” Berger, a retiree who used to work for CalPERS overseeing health legislation, didn’t know that the board would provide an update at its offsite meeting. When she looked at the agenda, she saw no indication that the board would discuss the breach or take public comments from members.

“CalPERS is foisting the majority of action about the breach onto us,” Berger said. “That is what infuriates us. That shows a complete lack of integrity and leadership.”

Berger is upset that the pension fund’s board hasn’t heeded the state treasurer’s request to host a public hearing or town hall where members can directly engage with board members.

“I’m not buying into it,” Berger said. “I’m not buying into CalPERS telling me ‘c’est la vie.’”

The board planned to take questions at its June meeting, but then it ended the question period “for the board’s convenience,” according to former board member J.J. Jelincic, who attended the meeting.

This came after stakeholders had been forced to wait as the board repeatedly extended a closed session meeting, Jelincic said, making attendees wait two hours after initially saying it would be 20-30 minutes.

CalPERS spokesman Brad Pacheco told The Bee at the time that staff ended the stakeholder briefing because many attendees had come to hear about the proposed 2024 health care rates. The board’s Pension & Health Benefits Committee was starting a meeting where those rates would be discussed, and staff didn’t want to overlap meetings.

At Monday’s meeting, two members spoke in-person during the public comment section after Frost’s update about the data breach. Former board member Margaret Brown wanted to know whether PBI or CalPERS received a ransomware demand from the hackers, and whether the pension fund’s ransomware insurance covered that demand.

The board didn’t provide an answer.

“Two years is not enough time to protect us.” Brown said, referring to Experian’s two-year credit monitoring and identity restoration program. “Now, 769,000 members have all their data out there in the public – forever. Not for two years. Forever.”
Why does CalPERS contract with PBI?

In her update, Frost also addressed the question of why CalPERS contracts with PBI in the first place. She said PBI provides the most timely and accurate information about retiree deaths, which prevents overpayment of benefits. An internal CalPERS audit from 2021 found that the pension fund had failed to recover nearly $42 million in payments to about 22,000 dead people.

Death records are maintained by each individual state, and CalPERS previously used the Social Security Administration’s “Death Master File” to obtain verification of retiree deaths, according to a letter from Keith Riddle, the then-chief of the Disability and Survivor Benefits Division in response to the audit. But in 2011, the federal administration prohibited public pension plans from accessing state death records.

Social Security now only provides access to the full file of death information, which includes state death records, to “certain federal and state agencies.” CalPERS submitted an application in 2020, according to Riddle’s letter, but was denied because its benefits are not fully funded by the state.

The federal administration also sells a “Limited Access DMF,” which still excludes death records provided through contracts with states, to agencies and businesses that engage in fraud prevention. One such subscriber is The Berwyn Group, which the pension fund has contracted with since 2011 after the Social Security Administration made the change.

In February 2022, CalPERS entered a contract with PBI Research in order to access even more data and compile a complete picture of retiree death information. (Berwyn Group and PBI Research are currently in the process of merging.) Frost said the data that CalPERS shared with PBI was fully encrypted “from our end.”

“There’s a very small community of vendors that actually do this type of work,” Frost said. “The moment we made the decision that this data would leave,” she continued, “we placed this data in the hands of a vendor who we had a trusted and very strong contract with.”

Frost would not elaborate further, citing a pending class-action lawsuit from two pensioners in San Francisco federal court.

The Bee’s Cathie Anderson contributed to this story.

Clemson Starbucks workers file petition to unionize, seeking more hours, health insurance



A.J. Jackson, Greenville News
Updated Mon, July 17, 2023 

Clemson Starbucks workers at the 1082 Tiger Blvd. location have officially filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize alongside Starbucks Workers United.

The paperwork was filed on Monday morning, and an adjacent letter was sent to Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan to announce their organizing, detailing complaints of discrimination of race and illness, drastic hour cuts, favoritism shown in the workplace, and more.

"I know first-hand that it is possible to love this job," said Kale Hilley, barista at the Clemson location. "But as long as we are in these conditions, it will never be possible. I'm speaking up and voting to unionize because my partners and I deserve better."

The letter also detailed: "We risk losing eligibility for health insurance because our hours are being continually cut. We repeatedly see the destruction of our partner experience occurring due to unrealistic customer demand."

The nationwide union includes more than 8,500 workers looking for better working conditions, fair wages and consistent schedules. Since December 2021, more than 335 stores across the country have successfully unionized, according to workersunited.org.

In response, Starbucks Press issued the following statement:

"We recognize that a subset of partners feel differently and we respect their right to organize and to engage in lawful union activities without fear of reprisal or retaliation," a Starbucks media correspondent said. "As a next step, we welcome the opportunity for our partners at our Tiger Blvd. and College Ave. store to vote in a neutral, secret ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board."

The vote would allow the employees and partners to make their own informed decision regarding union representation.

According to Starbucks officials, their company offers employees an average of $17.50 hour, medical/dental and vision benefits and 100% tuition reimbursement.

If successfully unionized, the Clemson Boulevard and Tiger Avenue Starbucks location would join three other sites in South Carolina, including Interstate 85 and Pelham Parkway in Greenville, Millwood Avenue and Butler Street in Columbia, and I-85 and Clemson Boulevard in Anderson.

– A.J. Jackson covers the food & dining scene, along with arts, entertainment and more for The Greenville News and Anderson Independent Mail. Contact him by email at ajackson@gannett.com, and follow him on Twitter @ajhappened.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson Starbucks workers petition to unionize, seek hours, insurance

Biden, Sanders meet with young labor organizers from Starbucks, Minor League Baseball




Brett Samuels
Mon, July 17, 2023 

President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday met with union organizers at the White House in a show of support for organized labor.

The two leaders dropped in on a meeting with young workers who have organized unions in industries that have traditionally not been organized, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing.

The meeting included employees from Starbucks, SEGA and Minor League Baseball, Jean-Pierre said. Other administration officials in attendance included acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and National Economic Council director Lael Brainard.

“You’re seeing unions standing up and trying to end the rather poor conditions that they are working under,” Sanders told reporters after the meeting.

Biden, who has touted himself as the most pro-union president in history, tweeted Monday afternoon, “In my White House, labor will always be welcome.”

The meeting comes as the unions representing Hollywood writers and actors are both on strike, and as UPS workers threaten to go on strike.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien told union members over the weekend the White House has been asked not to intervene if UPS workers strike, saying the administration should be concerned only with corporate greed.

Biden meets labor organizers from Starbucks, Minor League Baseball



Updated Mon, July 17, 2023 
By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders met with young labor organizers from Starbucks and Minor League Baseball among others at the White House on Monday as a growing number of worker strikes grip the country.

After decades of declining union membership, organized labor is witnessing a resurgence in the U.S., as sky-high costs of living, housing shortages and technological disruptions have bred unusual levels of solidarity among workers in disparate industries, from dockworkers to Hollywood screenwriters.

Employees seeking better working conditions and higher pay have recently organized unions at companies such as Starbucks, Amazon.com, and Apple even as businesses have become more aggressive in pushing back against union activity.

Biden and Senator Sanders, who chairs a committee on labor issues, was expected to congratulate organizers for the work they have done and discuss the president's "belief that worker power is essential to growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

In a tweet on Monday night, Biden said he and Sanders met with young labor leaders to discuss their fight for better pay and benefits.

"The presence of a union means there is democracy. And organizing or joining a union - that's democracy in action," Biden tweeted.

Administration officials in Monday's meeting included Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, White House National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard, and White House Director of Governmental Affairs Tom Perez, the official said.

Biden, who is often referred to as the most pro-union president in U.S. history by labor leaders, had a similar meeting with union activists from Amazon and Starbucks at the White House last year.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Sonali Paul)

Biden and Sanders meet union organizers amid labor turmoil



A little more than a week after contract talks between UPS and the union representing 340,000 of its workers broke down, UPS said Friday, July 14, 2023, it will begin training many of its non-union employees in the U.S. to step in should there be a strike, which the union has vowed to do if no agreement is reached by the end of this month. 

CHRIS MEGERIAN
Mon, July 17, 2023 

WASHINGTON (AP) — With labor turmoil roiling industries from coast to coast, President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders met with organizers at the White House on Monday to talk about ways to boost union membership.

The organizers represent industries and workplaces that have not traditionally been represented by unions, such as Starbucks coffee shops and video game companies.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said outside the White House that more people are “standing up and saying it is important for us to have a union so we can earn better wages, better working conditions, better pensions and dignity on the job.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president believes that “worker power is essential for growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up.”

The meeting took place as strikes have been launched and threatened around the country. Entertainment unions representing actors and writers have shut down film and television production over concerns about how revenue is shared in an industry geared more toward streaming content online.

“The president believes all workers, including the writers, including the actors, they deserve a fair pay," Jean-Pierre said. "And they deserve fair benefits.”

She said the administration hopes that "the parties come together and have a mutually beneficial agreement as soon as possible.”

There's already talk of a United Auto Workers strike as contract talks get under way and the industry wrestles with a transition toward electric vehicles. In addition, the Teamsters said its drivers might walk off the job as they struggle to reach a new contract with UPS. Negotiations have a deadline of July 31, and union leader Sean O’Brien said he doesn't want the White House to get involved.

“My neighborhood where I grew up in Boston, if two people had a disagreement and you had nothing to do with it — you just kept walking,” he said on Sunday.

All of this is taking place as Biden pushes the Senate to confirm Julie Su as his new secretary for the Department of Labor. She helped resolve a dispute between dockworkers and shippers, but that has not dislodged her nomination, which is opposed by Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat.

Jean-Pierre said the White House had an “unwavering” commitment to Su and would continue to fight for her.

___

AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

9th Circuit denies bid by environmentalists and tribes to block Nevada lithium mine


 Construction continues at the Lithium Nevada Corp. mine site Thacker Pass project on April 24, 2023, near Orovada, Nev. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, July 17, 2023, rejected the latest bid by conservationists and tribal leaders to block construction of a huge lithium mine already in the works along the Nevada-Oregon line. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

SCOTT SONNER
Mon, July 17, 2023

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The latest bid by conservationists and tribal leaders to block construction of a huge lithium mine already in the works along the Nevada-Oregon line was denied by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday.

A three-panel judge of the San Francisco-based appellate court rejected a half-dozen arguments the opponents had put forth in their appeal seeking to overturn federal land managers' approval of the project.

That included claims it violates multiple environmental laws and would destroy lands tribal members consider sacred because they say dozens of their ancestors were massacred there in 1865.

Lithium Nevada Corp.'s mine at Thacker Pass near the Oregon line, 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of Reno, has pitted environmentalists and Native Americans against President Joe Biden’s plans to combat climate change. The mine would involve extraction of the silvery-white metal used in electric vehicle batteries.


On Monday, the judges didn't specifically address the claims that the project fails to comply with a new opinion the 9th Circuit issued last year that blocked a copper mine in Arizona based on a more stringent interpretation of the 1872 Mining Law regarding the use of neighboring lands to dispose of waste.

Rather, they more generally differed to the expertise of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which approved the mine in 2021, and the decision by U.S. District Judge Miranda Du earlier this year to allow construction to go forward even though she concluded the mine was not in complete compliance with the new interpretation of the Civil War-era mining law.

The bureau's approval of the mine “was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with” the National Environmental Policy Act, the 11-page ruling said.

The bureau approved the mine in 2021 on an accelerated basis under Donald Trump's administration. The Biden administration has continued to embrace it in an effort to ramp up U.S. production of lithium needed for electric vehicles that are an integral part of his clean energy agenda.

Lithium Nevada officials say the Thacker Pass mine’s reserves would support lithium for more than 1.5 million electric vehicles per year for 40 years.

Conservationists say the open pit mine, deeper than the length of a football field, will pollute the groundwater and destroy precious habitat for sage grouse, pronghorn antelope and other species in violation of environmental laws.

Their lawyers had argued that Du illegally exceeded her authority when she refused to revoke the mine's operation plan in March despite her conclusion that federal land managers had violated the law in approving parts of it.

“This is the first time in public land history that we have a major project violating a number of provisions but is allowed to go forward,” Roger Flynn, the director of the Colorado-based Western Mining Action Project, told the 9th Circuit panel during oral arguments in Pasadena on June 27.

“In the meantime, thousands of acres of public land are essentially being clear-cut,” he said Tuesday about the high-desert sagebrush that serves as critical habitat for the imperiled bird species sage grouse.

The 9th Circuit ruling Monday said Du applied the proper legal standard and found the bureau's sole error in approving the project “weighed against” vacating the entire approval of the mine partly because “there was at least a serious possibility that the (agency would) be able to substantiate its decision on remand.”

Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of the Canadian-based Lithium Americas, spent more than $8.7 million on the environmental analysis and permitting process, even altering the original plans to move it outside of environmentally sensitive areas, said Laura Granier, a lawyer for the company. She said investments in mitigation, legal costs and initial construction already have exceeded $150 million.

Government lawyers said much of the evidence the Western Shoshone and Paiute tribes presented about the sacred nature of the land came after a formal decision had been issued and that none of it clearly established the actual location of the massacre.

The 9th Circuit ruled Monday that bureau acted “reasonably and in good faith” in its consultation with tribes potentially affected by the mine.