Canada moves to push back start date for possible rail strike

Reuters
Fri, May 10, 2024 

 A Canadian National Railway freight train remains halted in Tyendinaga


OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government is moving to push back the start of a possible strike by railway workers at Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC), an official said on Friday.

Workers represented by the Teamsters union last week voted overwhelmingly to strike as early as May 22. Railways are critical to Canada's economy, due to its vast geography and exports of grain, potash and coal.

Late on Thursday, federal Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan said he had asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to look at whether the strike might have safety implications. Until the board has issued a decision, the strike cannot start.

In an emailed statement, the Teamsters union said it was reviewing O'Regan's move and would "obviously comply with any order" from the board.


O'Regan acted after stakeholders expressed concern about the effect of a stoppage on healthcare infrastructure, in particular shipments of propane, which is used as a back-up generator fuel for rural hospitals, said the official, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.

There is no set timeline for the board to issue a decision.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren, Editing by Franklin Paul)

Labour board to review safety concerns of potential rail strike, making delay likely

The Canadian Press
Fri, May 10, 2024 



The federal government has asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to review whether a strike by rail workers would jeopardize Canadians' health and safety, adding a new element of uncertainty in the lead-up to potential job action.

Prompted by concerns from industry groups, the request to the tribunal by Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan will likely push back a potential work stoppage that could otherwise start in less than two weeks.

"It is unlikely a decision will come down by May 22," said labour tribunal spokesman Jean-Daniel Tardif in an email. "Written submissions alone will likely take longer."

The board is set to examine what, if any, critical shipments must continue in the event of a strike or lockout, with a would-be work stoppage on pause until a decision on that issue is made.


"Serious concerns have been raised about potential impacts to the health and safety of Canadians. It’s our duty to look into this," O'Regan said in a social media post on Thursday evening.

Last week, employees at the country's two main railways authorized a strike mandate that could see some 9,300 workers walk off the job as soon as May 22 if they are unable to reach new agreements.

The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents conductors, engineers and yard workers at Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd., has warned that a strike at both companies simultaneously would disrupt supply chains on an unprecedented scale.

Industry groups have sounded similar alarm bells.

The Freight Management Association of Canada said a stoppage would see shipments of critical commodities such as chlorine for water and gasoline for cities grind to a halt, potentially jeopardizing residents' safety.

"With the two national railways out, major Canadian ports like Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax and Saint John, N.B., will be clogged with containers, unable to function. Canadian exports like lumber, potash, coal and iron ore will have nowhere to go. Plants and mines will close and workers will be laid off," said association president John Corey in an email.

The labour minister referred the issue to the industrial relations board after receiving a letter from the Canadian Propane Association, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. The Canadian Press is not naming the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The minister highlighted heavy fuel, propane, food and water treatment materials needed in remote communities "and throughout Canada," the tribunal's Jean-Daniel Tardif said of O'Regan's referral.

The tribunal has broad authority on essential services in the event of a potential work stoppage, said Maya Fernandez, an associate with Nelligan Law in Ottawa who specializes in labour and employment law.

Employment and Social Development Canada states on its website that the minister "can ask the CIRB to intervene to decide what activities need to continue during a strike or lockout, even if the parties have a maintenance of activities agreement."

The parties are "banned from beginning a strike or lockout" until a decision comes down, the government states.

It is unclear exactly how long the review could last, but Fernandez said recent cases reveal the possibility of a drawn-out process.

“It can drag on,” she said, pointing to a dispute between Montreal port employers and dockworkers.

In March, the tribunal dismissed a request from the employers to require employees to work during a strike, opening the gate to a job action after a six-month delay while the query was under consideration.

Canadian Pacific Kansas City said the "unknown" timeline adds more uncertainty to a bargaining process that is coming down to the wire.

"Our supply chains need stability, now more than ever. CPKC believes these negotiations need to be resolved in a timely manner to provide certainty for the Canadian economy and for North America’s supply chains," said spokesman Patrick Waldron.

CN Rail spokesman Jonathan Abecassis said the "current uncertainty" hanging over a possible work stoppage "must be resolved decidedly and as soon as possible for employees, customers, and Canadians who depend on rail to get them everyday essential goods."

Teamsters Canada said rail workers would comply with any order from the labour board, "should any safety-critical needs be identified."

"A delay is still possible but we are hopeful that the CIRB will move quickly," said spokesman Christopher Monette.

After a pause in talks this week, the two sides are set to return to the bargaining table next week.

In its letter to the minister, the Canadian Propane Association said a variety of regions rely on the gas for community hospitals, senior facilities, food production, emergency measures services and schools.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 10, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:CNR, TSX:CP)

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

700 hotel union workers launch 48-hour strike at Virgin Hotels casino near Las Vegas Strip

Fri, May 10, 2024 

LAS VEGAS (AP) — About 700 workers walked off the job at a hotel-casino near the Las Vegas Strip at dawn Friday, in what union organizers said would be a 48-hour strike after spending months trying to reach a deal for new five-year contract with Virgin Hotels.

The Culinary Union, the largest labor union in Nevada, said the action marked its first strike in 22 years. The union authorized a citywide strike late last year, but it reached agreements with all the major hotel-casinos on the Strip for about 40,000 workers before the end of the year, and with most downtown and off-Strip properties in early February for 10,000 workers.

Guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, laundry and kitchen workers were among those walking a picket line in front of Virgin Hotels, formerly the Hard Rock Las Vegas, just west of the Strip, union organizers said.

Virgin Hotels filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ahead of the anticipated strike, accusing the union of failing to negotiate in good faith “despite our sincere efforts to meet and negotiate.” It said union officials were engaged in “unlawful ‘take it or leave it’ bargaining.”

“Because the Union has not told us what agreements it believes are necessary to avoid a strike, we have asked the Union to join us in mediation as soon as possible,” Virgin Hotels said. “The goal of mediation is to reach an agreement without disrupting our guests and our team members’ lives with a work stoppage.”

While the weekend strike is far smaller in scale than the union's planned strikes last year on the Strip, the hotel-casino is still a notable Sin City landmark because of its proximity to the Strip and the airport, and because an 80-foot-tall (24-meter-tall) neon guitar sign stood on the plot for decades before it was removed for the property's transformation into Virgin Hotels.

The last time Culinary Union members went on strike was in 2002 at Golden Gate hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas.

Earlier this year, union members at other Las Vegas-area properties reached deals giving them a roughly 32% salary increase over five years, including 10% in the first year.

Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union, said they had called off a strike deadline at Virgin Hotels in February when the looming Super Bowl helped put pressure on other hotel-casinos to come to the bargaining table in order to give management more time to address its financial situation and reach a settlement at the 1,500-room hotel-casino.

But he said they had waited long enough and were hopeful the 48-hour strike would help expedite a new agreement on wage and benefit increases.

“It’s been nearly one year since the contract at Virgin Las Vegas expired on June 1, 2023 and workers are still working without a contract," he said in a statement.

Pappageorge told reporters at a news conference on Thursday that the complaint to the NLRB had no merit.

“The charge is just a company stunt, and it’s unfortunate and sad that they’ve waited until the eve of the strike to even have that kind of discussion,” Pappageorge said.

The Associated Press

CAPPLETALI$M

Apple's Maryland store workers vote to authorize strike


Reuters
Updated Sat, May 11, 2024

Fencing used for construction of the Central Subway obscures Apple's flagship retail store in San Francisco

(Reuters) -Workers at Apple's store in Towson, Maryland, have voted in favor of authorizing a strike, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (AIM) said in a statement late on Saturday.

The date for work stoppage has yet to be decided, according to the union, which represents Apple's retail store workers in Maryland.

"The issues at the forefront of this action include concerns over work-life balance, unpredictable scheduling practices disrupting personal lives, and wages failing to align with the area's cost of living", IAM said in the statement.

"We will engage with the union representing our team in Towson respectfully and in good faith," an Apple spokeswoman said.


In June 2022, Apple workers at Maryland voted to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union, becoming the first retail employees of the tech giant to unionize in the United States.

Meanwhile, workers at Apple's store in Short Hills, New Jersey, voted against unionizing, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.

Communications Workers of America (CWA), which filed complaints with the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) alleging illegal union-busting by Apple at the New Jersey store and others, blamed the defeat on the company's behavior, the report said.

Apple retail staff at its New Jersey store had filed for union representation with Communications Workers of America on April 8, according to John Nagy, who is the operations lead at the Short Hills store and a member of the organizing committee

Apple did not respond to requests for comment on the vote against unionization. CWA and the NLRB did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the Bloomberg report on the New Jersey workers' vote.

(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan and Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Cocoa Rises in Quieter Trading as More Analysts See Price Peak

Ilena Peng and Celia Bergin
Fri, May 10, 2024 




(Bloomberg) -- Cocoa futures edged higher in New York in relatively subdued trading as more market watchers say this year’s historic rally has peaked.

Futures rose as much as 2.4% in New York, reversing losses from earlier in the day. Volatility remains high in the market as open interest is low, but the magnitude of price moves has been smaller compared to the swings seen in recent weeks.

Rabobank analyst Paul Joules said in a Friday report that the cocoa rally has peaked, with lower production this season “now fully incorporated in the market price.” However, the world is expected to be in deficit both this year and the following, making prices unlikely to return to “normal” levels quickly.

“A combination of weakening global demand and production responses, particularly from countries without a fixed farmgate price, will help alleviate the pronounced uncertainty baked into current futures pricing,” he said. Still, “it’s likely that inflated cocoa prices will stick around for the next few years.”

Joules sees New York prices easing to an average of $7,000 a metric ton in the fourth quarter. Last week, Citi Research analysts revised their price target for the next three months down to $8,500 a ton, saying that the recent selloff lent more confidence that prices had peaked.

New York futures are currently trading just below $9,000 a ton, after jumping as much as 15% on Tuesday — the biggest intraday move since 1960 — to recover from a steep slide last week. Prices had soared to a record above $11,000 a ton in mid-April on the back of severe shortages.

In the near term, some showers are expected for West African nations like Ivory Coast and Ghana in the next five days, which “would aid some crop growth and could slightly improve soil moisture for some areas,” according to forecaster Maxar Technologies Inc.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

U$ Fed Flags Rising Delinquencies in Commercial Real Estate Loans

Ben Bain
Fri, May 10, 2024 



(Bloomberg) -- Banks are preparing for further losses as delinquencies in loans tied to office space continue to rise, according to the Federal Reserve.

The Fed said Friday that the rate of late payments on some commercial real estate loans had surged to above its pre-pandemic level. Officials at the central bank are focused on “improving the speed, force and agility of supervision, as appropriate,” the Fed said in a semiannual report.

US bank regulators, including the Fed, have been sounding alarms about the commercial real estate market. About a year ago, officials asked lenders to work with creditworthy borrowers that are facing stress in the sector. Property owners have come under pressure as borrowing costs have soared.

Potential risks were spotlighted earlier this year by the troubles at New York Community Bancorp, fueled by concerns linked to a portfolio that included billions of dollars in apartment loans in New York’s rent-regulated complexes.

Read More: Powell Says US Banking System Can Withstand Threats From CRE

Despite the concerns, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other officials have said the US banking system is strong enough to cope with the CRE risks.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Big Oil is doing way better under Biden than under Trump

Oil and natural gas executives should be careful what they wish for.

Rick Newman
·Senior Columnist

Yahoo Finance
Fri, May 10, 2024

Big Oil has chafed under President Biden, who has trash-talked fossil fuels and aggressively pushed to decarbonize the US economy. Donald Trump, by contrast, says “drill, baby drill” and has reportedly promised to give energy lobbyists everything on their wish list if their firms back his 2024 presidential campaign.

Irony alert: The fossil fuel industry has done far better during Biden’s presidency than it did during Trump’s in terms of profitability, stock performance, and production. Some of Trump’s promised policies, in fact, could lead to the same sort of oversupply that kept consumer prices low during his presidency but wrecked oil and gas financials.

Trump reportedly hosted oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago estate recently and listened to their complaints about onerous regulations under the Biden administration. There’s truth to that: Biden has raised the cost of drilling on federal land, imposed new requirements to reduce methane emissions, paused the approval of new natural gas export permits, and taken other steps that add cost and complexity to fossil fuel extraction.

Yet the industry is hardly hurting. The energy sector’s profit margin in 2023 averaged 11.3%, according to S&P Capital IQ. Wall Street forecasts for 2024 are similar. That would put the average energy sector profit margin for Biden’s four years at around 11%.

An oil pumpjack operates in Signal Hill, south of Los Angeles, California, on April 21, 2020, a day after oil prices dropped to below zero as the oil industry suffered steep falls in benchmark crudes due to the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images) (FREDERIC J. BROWN via Getty Images)

During Trump’s four years, the energy sector profit margin was basically 0. That includes the wipeout year of 2020, when the COVID pandemic brought travel to a halt and sent oil prices plummeting. Excluding 2020, the average energy margin was just 4.5%. In each of Trump’s four years, energy profits were lower than in every year of Biden’s presidency.

ExxonMobil (XOM), the nation’s largest energy firm, reflects the performance of the whole sector. It had record profits in 2008, but net income dropped sharply during the 2010s. Then, in 2020, Exxon lost a staggering $22.4 billion. The oil giant recovered, and in 2022 turned in a new record performance, earning $55.7 billion.

As with many elements of the economy, the effect of any given president’s policies is far less important to the energy sector than what’s going on in global markets. Around 2012, during the Obama administration, the hydraulic fracturing revolution generated a boom in American oil production. That wasn’t because of anything Obama did. It was because of new technology and aggressive private-sector investment.

For the next several years, drillers focused on gaining market share, assuming profitability would follow. That production boom made the United States the world’s largest producer of both oil and natural gas, which is still the case today. The OPEC+ oil-producing nations fought back by boosting their own production, which kept oil and gasoline prices subdued.

But low prices for consumers came at the expense of profitability for drillers. From 2015 through 2020, the US energy sector was the worst performer among 11 industries in terms of profitability.

The wipeout in 2020, when oil prices briefly turned negative, transformed the industry. Since then, drillers and their investors have prioritized profitability and invested less in new capacity. Even so, US oil production has hit new record highs under Biden, driven mainly by high prices that make increased production lucrative. And unlike the 2010s, the OPEC+ nations have been limiting their own output to keep prices up rather than flooding the market to protect share.

Trump has reportedly promised oil executives that he’ll revoke many of Biden’s green energy rules and take other steps favorable to fossil fuels, such as speeding drilling permits and allowing more extraction from federal territories. In exchange, Trump wants the industry to pump $1 billion into his 2024 presidential campaign. But Trump also wants lower energy prices for consumers, and he might find that energy firms prefer less production and higher prices over more production and lower prices.

Biden is obviously no friend of Big Oil, but any policy that disincentivizes fossil fuel production — which is what Biden is trying to do — effectively pushes prices higher. And when prices go higher, drillers earn more. Don’t expect oil CEOs to thank Biden, but his antipathy toward fossil fuels isn't nearly as damaging as they might want you to think.

Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.

Police prevent environmental activists from storming Tesla factory in Germany

The Canadian Press
Fri, May 10, 2024



German police said Friday they had prevented hundreds of demonstrators from storming Tesla’s factory near Berlin during protests against the pioneering electric carmaker over its environmental footprint.

Crowds of demonstrators gathered near the Grunheide factory, Tesla’s only European production base, on Friday carrying banners complaining about water consumption at the plant and advocating for public transport over private cars.

Activists have been protesting in a forest near the plant since February over concerns about water and plans to cut trees to make way for an expansion of the plant, which opened in early 2022. In March, a suspected arson attack on an electricity pylon claimed by a far-left group knocked out power supplies to the factory for nearly a week, interrupting production.

Company CEO Elon Musk at the time called the culprits the “dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth” and said anti-Tesla protesters were misguided for aiming to halt production of electric vehicles rather than those powered by fossil fuels.

During Friday's protest march at a nearby train station, “hundreds of participants ran into the forest and tried to get onto the Tesla site,” police spokesman Mario Heinemann said on ntv television. “We prevented that with our forces.”

Social media footage showed black-clad protestors, many wearing medical masks, running over rough ground toward the factory boundary, and riot police using pepper spray in an attempt to turn them back.

Police said demonstrators also blocked a nearby highway and a railway line, and set off fireworks at an airfield where Tesla stores new cars.

Police detained several people temporarily, German news service dpa reported.

“Companies like Tesla are happy to destroy habitats for their own profit,” said Ole Becker, a spokesman for “Disrupt Tesla," a group that helped organize the protest. “Instead of SUVs for the few, we must build buses and trains for the many.”

The Associated Press

Mock coffins fill a square in Milan in a protest over workplace safety in Italy

Fri, May 10, 2024 



MILAN (AP) — Mock coffins filled one of Milan’s most famous squares Friday in a protest organized by Italy's second-largest union to raise awareness over workplace deaths.

Protesters lined up 172 cardboard coffins in Piazza La Scala to symbolize the exact number of workers who died on the job last year in the northern Lombardy region alone.

The UIL labor union said that it was demanding that both the government and businesses do more to protect Italian workers.

“Today is a day of anger, of anguish, because behind every coffin that we have put out here there are first names and last names,” explained UIL union leader Enrico Vezza, noting that 41 workers have already lost their lives in Lombardy this year.

The union’s campaign is titled “Zero Deaths.” A sign at the center of the piazza showed the number of workers who have died in the workplace since 2018, with a peak of 1,709 in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic sent deaths figures spiraling upwards in Italy.

Last year, 1,041 people died in the workplace in Italy.

According to European statistics agency Eurostat, Italy ranks eighth among European countries in fatalities at work, with an incidence of 2.66 per 100,000 employed, against the EU average of 1.76.

Friday’s protest comes amid a heated debate over workplace safety in Italy, following a series of fatalities across the country.

Earlier this month, five workers died at a sewage treatment plant near the southern city of Palermo, Sicily. In April, seven workers were killed in an explosion that collapsed several levels of an underground hydroelectric plant in northern Italy, while in mid-February five constructions workers died after a concrete beam collapsed at a supermarket building site in Florence.

The Associated Press

Exxon Pleads Not Guilty in Guyana to Misstating Equipment Value

Denis Chabrol
Fri, May 10, 2024



(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. and one of its suppliers pleaded not guilty in a Guyana court Friday to charges related to overstating the value of oil-well equipment on a customs declaration by 200 times to about $12 billion.

The oil company’s local unit, Exxon Mobil Guyana Limited, is accused of making and subscribing to a false declaration. The supplier, Trinidad-based Ramps Logistics, is charged with making an untrue declaration. A magistrate adjourned the case until June 28.

Exxon and Ramps have said the issue stemmed from a clerical error by the contractor in late 2023 that denoted the value of equipment in US dollars instead of Guyanese dollars. A Guyana dollar is worth about one-half of a US cent.

In a statement, Exxon’s Guyana office said the mistake did not lead to any loss in revenue to the nation or its tax agency. The information on the customs declaration is not used to calculate any cost recovery or taxes, according to the statement. Exxon says it’s cooperating with the investigation and has provided the Guyana Revenue Authority with the corrected value.

“We are dedicated to ethical practices,” Exxon said in its statement. “Mistakes are promptly corrected when uncovered.”

The prosecutor in the case, Guyana Revenue Authority Deputy Commissioner Jason Moore, said the investigation is ongoing

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

After layoffs, Musk says Tesla to spend $500 million on charging network

Reuters
Updated Fri, May 10, 2024 


(Reuters) -Tesla will spend more than $500 million this year to expand its fast-charging network, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday, days after abruptly laying off employees who were running the business.

"Just to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW chargers this year," Musk said in a post on his social media platform X.

"That's just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher," he said.

After the layoffs last week, Musk said Tesla planned to expand the Supercharger network but at a slower pace for new locations.


EV makers have been adopting Tesla's North American Charging Standard, making the company's superchargers closer to becoming the industry standard at the expense of the rival Combined Charging System.

However, Musk's decision to gut the electric-vehicle charging team is scrambling plans for rolling out new fast-charging stations and may delay President Joe Biden's efforts to electrify U.S. highways.

The Biden administration has doled out $5 billion to states over five years to build 500,000 EV chargers as part of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, and Tesla has been among the biggest winners of those federal funds so far.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Arun Koyyur)