Opinion

Trump is not women's "protector": New Brett Kavanaugh report shows MAGA protects predators

Amanda Marcotte
Wed, October 9, 2024 

Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images


In a recent Pennsylvania stemwinder that raised eyebrows even by MAGA standards, Donald Trump declared himself the "protector" of women. "You will be protected, and I will be your protector," the GOP nominee droned, in a tone one online commentator compared to "talking through the locked basement door to the pregnant woman he's imprisoned." Trump promised to save women from ever feeling "abandoned, lonely, or scared," and insisted that "you will no longer be thinking about abortion."

Dishonest on its surface, of course — it's not like the president can get you a date on Friday night — but also on a deeper level. As Vice President Kamala Harris pointed out to "Call Her Daddy" host Alexandra Cooper on Sunday, "This is the same guy that said women should be punished for having abortions." She also reminded listeners that Trump likes to call women "pigs" and "dogs." She didn't mention Trump was also found liable for sexual assault by a New York jury, though to be fair to Harris, Trump's list of misogynist transgressions is so extensive that she may have run out of time before getting to that point.

Trump won't protect women, but on Tuesday, we were reminded of who he is determined to protect: Men he believes to be his fellow sexual assailants. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., released a years-long investigation into how the Trump White House responded when Christine Blasey Ford accused Justice Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape during his 2018 confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court. Unsurprisingly, Trump's goal was to suppress evidence and silence anyone who could corroborate her story. Yet the details that show the extent of the cover-up are still shocking.


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Trump told the public at the time that the FBI had "free rein" to investigate the allegation and he wanted them "talking to everybody." This was a flat-out lie. As the new report outlines, the White House blocked the FBI from interviewing either Kavanaugh or Blasey Ford. Investigators were barred from interviewing corroborating witnesses. A "tip line" was set up, but tips were sent to the White House, which ignored them. It's important to remember there was a lot of corroborating evidence, including another woman who claimed Blasey Ford was abused by Kavanaugh in front of witnesses. As Whitehouse said on Twitter, the investigation "was a sham, controlled by the Trump White House, for political cover to Senate Republicans to put Judge Kavanaugh on track to confirmation."

Polls at the time showed most Americans believed Kavanaugh was guilty. The White House cover-up shows Trump and his staff also believed in Kavanaugh's guilt. If they thought Kavanaugh was innocent, they would have been eager to conduct an investigation to exonerate him. Instead, they ignored over 4,500 tips and prevented the FBI from doing basic background research.

Trump loves to scare white women with threats that immigrants will rape them, but doesn't seem bothered by the exponentially more likely threat that a woman will be raped by someone she knows. As sociologist Nicole Bedera argued on the Electorette podcast last week, this isn't hypocrisy, but a sign of Trump's belief that privileged men have a prerogative to commit sexual violence. He wishes for certain, mostly white men to reserve the right to rape. This is true when looking at his own history of both committing and bragging about sexual violence. But, as the Kavanaugh example shows, it's also shown by Trump's eagerness to surround himself with his fellow abusers and protect them from facing any accountability.

In August, Trump rehired his former aide Corey Lewandowski to his campaign. Whether on the payroll or not, Lewandowski has been at Trump's right hand for years, despite being videoed physically assaulting a female reporter, which Trump praised him for. Lewandowski has a laundry list of sexual harassment and abuse allegations. One of his accusers, a former GOP donor named Trashelle Odom, spoke out last week in outrage. She filed charges of stalking and assault against Lewandowski in 2021, which he got dismissed in exchange for community service.

In Trump's world, these allegations are a resume-polisher, however. His close aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, was hired to be Trump's body man after Nauta was stripped of his Navy security clearance following repeated complaints of sexual harassment. Rudy Giuliani, Vince McMahon, Steve Bannon, Rob Porter: all close Trump allies, all accused of sexual or domestic violence. John McEntee, a close aide and architect of Project 2025, was recently outed by Wired for sending sexually explicit messages to teen girls, even as those girls said it made them uncomfortable. Behaving like a creep toward women is a common theme in Trump Land.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk certainly seems to have grasped the message. He's been courting Trump's approval publicly for years, but made tremendous headway in the past couple of months. In August, Trump sat down for an "interview" with Musk that was really more a hard-to-follow discussion between two blowhards that went on for over two hours. Over the weekend, Musk leapt maniacally behind Trump at a Pennsylvania rally. But in the surest sign that Musk knows what it takes to be a MAGA leader in good standing, he sexually harassed pop star Taylor Swift for endorsing Harris instead of Trump. "I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life," this allegedly adult man tweeted.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the comment out as a rape threat, mocking "so-called masters of the universe in the technology world" who "can’t stand" that Swift is accomplished and stands up for herself. Musk's fans may wail that it's "just a joke," but Clinton is right. The "joke" only makes sense if the audience knows that Swift wants nothing to do with Musk. Her lack of consent is the punchline, making this a rape joke. As Bedera said on Twitter, the message is clear: "If you don’t vote the way we like, then prepare for sexual violence."

Or even if you do, I'd add. This Kavanaugh report underscores how much Trump regards it as a personal mission to make sure men he views as members of his privileged class should never be held to account for sexual violence, regardless of why they did it. During his deposition for his own rape case, he argued that the right to rape has belonged to wealthy men for "the last million years," adding, "fortunately or unfortunately." When pressed later about this on CNN, Trump clarified that he puts the right to rape in the "fortunately" category, but did allow it was unfortunate for the victims. Not that he cares, of course. Trump has shown us time and again that the only people he wants to protect are sexual predators like himself.

ECOCIDE

Polluted waste from Florida's fertilizer industry is in the path of Milton's fury

MICHAEL BIESECKER and JASON DEAREN
Updated Wed, October 9, 2024 



Hurricane Milton-Environmental Hazards
A sinkhole that opened up underneath a gypsum stack at a Mosaic phosphate fertilizer plant is seen in Mulberry, Fla., on Sept. 16, 2016. 

(Jim Damaske/Tampa Bay Times via AP, File)

As Hurricane Milton pummeled Florida’s west coast with powerful winds and flooding rain, environmentalists worry it could scatter the polluted leftovers of the state’s phosphate fertilizer mining industry and other hazardous waste across the peninsula and into vulnerable waterways.

More than 1 billion tons of slightly radioactive phosphogypsum waste is stored in “stacks” that resemble enormous ponds at risk for leaks during major storms. Florida has 25 such stacks, most concentrated around enormous phosphate mines and fertilizer processing plants in the central part of the state, and environmentalists say nearly all of them are in Milton’s projected path.

“Placing vulnerable sites so close on major waterways that are at risk of damage from storms is a recipe for disaster,” said Ragan Whitlock, a staff attorney at the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity. “These are ticking time bombs.”

Phosphogypsum, a solid waste byproduct from processing phosphate ore to make chemical fertilizer, contains radium, which decays to form radon gas. Both radium and radon are radioactive and can cause cancer. Phosphogypsum may also contain toxic heavy metals and other carcinogens, such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and nickel.

That waste is even more troublesome because there is no easy way to dispose of it, leaving it to pile up and become an ever-growing target for such storms as the monster Milton, which made landfall in central Florida late Wednesday as a Category 3 storm, with sustained winds of about 120 mph (193 kph), a towering storm surge and 18 inches (46 centimeters) of rain.

A lesser storm, Hurricane Frances, which hit the state’s eastern coast as a Category 2 and churned across central Florida in 2004, sent 65 million gallons of acidic wastewater from phosphogypsum stacks into nearby waterways, killing thousands of fish and other marine life.

Of particular concern from Milton is the Piney Point wastewater reservoir, which sits on the shore of Tampa Bay and has had structural issues that have caused regular leaks over the years.

A March 2021 leak resulted in the release of an estimated 215 million gallons of polluted water into the bay and caused massive fish kills. Another leak in August 2022 unleashed another 4.5 million gallons of wastewater. Compounding the problem is the bankruptcy filing of the site’s former owner, HRC Holdings, leaving it to be managed by a court-appointed receiver.

The nation's largest phosphate producer, The Mosaic Company, owns two stacks at its Riverview facility that sit on the shore of Tampa Bay, as well as several farther inland. In 2016 a sinkhole opened beneath the company’s New Wales Gypstack, sending millions of gallons of contaminated sludge into the state’s main drinking water aquifer. The company said tests showed there were no offsite impacts from the incident, but the site is at risk of further damage from a storm as powerful as Milton.

Asked about its preparations for the coming storm, Mosaic pointed to a statement on its website: “Preparations for hurricane season include reviewing lessons learned from the previous year, updating our preparedness and response plans ... and completing inspections to ensure all test pumps, generators and other equipment needed in the event of severe weather are onsite and in proper working order.”

Florida and North Carolina are responsible for mining 80% of the U.S. supply of phosphorous, which is important not only to agriculture but to munitions production.

“At this time we are preparing locally for the storm, both professionally and personally,” Mosaic spokesperson Ashleigh Gallant said. “If there are impacts, we will release those publicly after the storm.”

Beyond the mine stacks, the Tampa Bay area is also home to old toxic waste sites that are considered among the worst in the nation. A former pesticide production site, the Stauffer Chemical Co., has polluted the Anclote River, groundwater and soil. Today it is an EPA Superfund site undergoing years of cleanup.

The EPA posted on the website that it is “ensuring that this site is secured for potential impacts from Hurricane Milton.”

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said Tuesday it is preparing all available resources critical to the facilities it regulates, as well as securing state parks and aquatic preserves to minimize storm effects.

___

Biesecker reported from Washington, Dearen from Los Angeles.

Milton likely to hit Florida’s phosphate mining hub, worrying environmentalists

Max Chesnes, Tampa Bay Times
Updated Wed, October 9, 2024 



Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/TNS


Environmental groups are worried about possible pollution impacts as Hurricane Milton is likely to pass directly over Bone Valley, the heart of Florida’s phosphate mining and production.

According to a Tampa Bay Times analysis, 22 of Florida’s 25 phosphate waste piles are located in Hurricane Milton’s projected path over Manatee, Hillsborough and Polk counties. That’s according to the latest National Hurricane Center forecast and state environmental regulatory data as of Wednesday morning.

Mosaic, a Fortune 500 phosphate mining company headquartered in Tampa, said that it is “preparing locally for the storm both professionally and personally” at the several plants it operates in the region.

The company oversees a plant on the northeastern shores of Tampa Bay, in Riverview, and another further inland in Mulberry, among others. Their mounds of regulated phosphate waste are hundreds of feet tall and contain phosphogypsum, a mildly radioactive byproduct of the phosphate manufacturing process. These stacks also contain ponds of polluted wastewater used to create fertilizer.

As of Wednesday morning, Tampa Bay was forecast to see up to 12 feet of storm surge and damaging winds from what could be a Category 4 storm at landfall.

“We are worried that a direct hit from a storm as powerful as Milton could be catastrophic,” said Ragan Whitlock, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that has sued to increase phosphogypsum regulations.

A spokesperson for Mosaic, Ashleigh Gallant, said if there are impacts to these phosphoygypsum stacks, or “gypstacks,” that the company would “release those publicly after the storm.”

Mosaic prepares for hurricanes by conducting drills, inspecting its plants and making sure its test pumps, generators and other equipment is onsite and working, according to a website outlining its operations. After the storm, Mosaic staff assess damage and offer support to employees who have been personally affected by severe weather. A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Still, environmental watchdogs remain concerned.

“There are several phosphogypsum stacks situated precariously close to Tampa Bay’s waters,” Whitlock said. “We hope these facilities emerge from the sustained 100+ mph winds expected for the area unscathed, but open-air ponds of hazardous waste with historic structural integrity problems create a well-founded concern.”

Earlier this year, Mosaic confirmed to state environmental regulators that there was a tear in the protective liner beneath its gypstack in Mulberry. In 2016, a sinkhole stretching 152 feet opened beneath the gypstack and resulted in 215 million gallons of contaminated water draining into the aquifer below.

Many living in the Tampa Bay area also remember 2021, when millions of gallons of tainted water were sent from the Piney Point phosphate plant in Manatee County into the bay as a precaution due to fears that a leak in a reservoir could trigger a massive flood, endangering nearby homes and businesses. Last month, a judge ruled against the plant’s former owner, HRK Holdings, and ordered the company to pay more than $800,000.

Now, as the state has ordered the plant’s permanent closure, crews were on site earlier this week making sure it was prepped ahead of Milton.

“We spent a good amount of time earlier this week getting ready,” said Herb Donica, a lawyer and the court-appointed overseer of the plant. Donica has required every contractor on the site to have a written hurricane plan, and the site closed ahead of Milton at noon Tuesday.

Donica’s main concern is for his team’s mobile office. While it’s battened down, any sustained damage to the office would be “an interruption that we don’t want to have.”

It’s not safe for anyone to be on site during the storm, Donica said, and Piney Point’s managers have evacuated ahead of the anticipated hurricane-force winds from Milton.

“We are the most prepared that we can be,” Donica said.

Times staff writer Shreya Vuttarulu contributed to this report.

From the Farm: Hurricane Milton’s effects on Central IL ag

Stu Ellis

WCIA Champaign
Thu, October 10, 2024 

CENTRAL ILLINOIS (WCIA) — Hurricane Milton is hundreds of miles away from Central Illinois, but some impacts of the storm will be felt here.

Phosphate is a crop nutrient often applied to Corn Belt fields, and most of it is mined between Tampa and Orlando. Josh Linville, Vice President of Fertilizer for StoneX, said the facilities in Central Florida produce millions of tons of phosphate annually.

They may have been built to withstand hurricanes, Linville said, but there may be some damage and a lack of workers, who will be focused on damage to their own homes.

“Probably the most unfortunate, the fact that we’re less than four weeks away from the start of fall season. The Midwest is going to start rolling very, very hard Nov. 1,” Linville said. “Frankly, inventories have been tight anyway, globally and here at home. So prices are high, inventories are tight, we still see demand being pretty substantial here this fall and now, we just have this one more thorn in the side of the marketplace.”

Growmark gets its phosphate from the Florida mines and its Vice President of Crop Nutrients, Kreg Ruhl, agreed with Linville about the employee considerations.

“Whenever that happens, you lose days of production and that’s always confusing for people when we talk about fertilizer because you never get those days back and you can never replace the capacity that was lost during those days,” Ruhl said. “So as we think about the phosphate complex, even if this storm passes in in two or three days, the effects will take weeks to rectify. And like I said, we’re right at the beginning of fall and we’re in critical need of the supply that’s coming out of there.”

This, Ruhl said, will “absolutely” delay phosphate barges coming up the Mississippi River and disrupt supply for local supplies and farmers.

“About two-thirds of the domestic production of phosphates happens in Florida, and this storm will impact almost all of that production,” Ruhl explained. “And what we see move into Illinois, up the river system, actually starts in Florida, comes across the Gulf of Mexico in a boat and then transfers onto barges that end up in Central Illinois, so it’s a direct impact to our farmers.

Farmers are already paying unusually high prices for fertilizer and this situation will exacerbate their financial stress. Ruhl is already seeing prices start to fluctuate not just because of peak demand, but because of Milton as well.

“We’ve seen them rise dramatically just over the course of the last couple of days as people have watched this news unfold,” Ruhl said.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Fight over West Texas nuclear waste plan to hit U.S. Supreme Court

Travis Bubenik, Marfa Public Radio
Wed, October 9, 2024 

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a yearslong dispute over a plan to ship highly radioactive nuclear waste to rural West Texas, a case that could have sweeping implications for how the nation deals with a growing stockpile of waste generated by nuclear power plants.

A company called Interim Storage Partners has long pursued the plan to move “high-level” nuclear waste from power plants across the nation to an existing nuclear waste storage facility in Andrews County, on the Texas-New Mexico border.

Last year, in a Texas-led lawsuit, a federal court blocked the plan and threw out Interim Storage Partners’s federal license to handle the waste. A federal appeals court upheld the decision earlier this year, but the company and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission urged the Supreme Court to reconsider the ruling.


The high court agreed to take up the case on Friday, Oct. 4., allotting one hour for oral arguments at a later date. The court also consolidated a related challenge from the waste company into the Texas case.

For years, this dispute has been percolating in lower courts, the Texas Legislature and among potentially impacted rural communities. Texas lawmakers passed a law that effectively banned the nuclear waste plan in 2021, cheered on by Gov. Greg Abbott and an unlikely alliance of oil, ranching and environmental interests.

Still, the waste company and the federal government – most recently under the Biden administration – have fought to keep the plan alive.

“We are confident we have a strong position for the Solicitor General to argue before the court,” NRC spokesperson David McIntyre said.

The fundamental question now before the Supreme Court is whether federal regulators have the authority to approve plans for privately operated, high-level nuclear waste storage sites that are located far away from where the waste is generated. A ruling in the Texas case would almost certainly have implications for a nearly identical proposal just over the state line in New Mexico that’s also still being fought over in a lower federal court.

The entrance to the Waste Control Specialists site where radioactive and hazardous waste is being stored on Jan. 17, 2021. Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune

While multiple federal courts have now ruled federal law does not allow for the licensing of such facilities, supporters of the Texas and New Mexico plans – including the nuclear energy industry – insist the courts are wrong.

“The Atomic Energy Act provides a comprehensive framework for regulating nuclear generation and the related fuel cycle, granting the NRC broad authority over both at-reactor and away-from-reactor used fuel storage,” Ellen Ginsberg, an advocate and attorney with the trade group Nuclear Energy Institute, said in a statement.

Ginsberg said a Supreme Court ruling in favor of Texas “would further delay progress in advancing a safe, environmentally sustainable, and well-managed used fuel management system.”

The West Texas company Fasken Oil and Ranch is among the entities that have fought the nuclear waste plan for years. Monica Perales, an attorney for the firm, said the plan’s opponents remain confident in their legal arguments.

“Oil and gas interests are concerned because it’s a threat to our industry, to the people who work in the industry, it’s a threat to the Permian Basin, and we’re the most productive oil and gas region in the United States,” she told Marfa Public Radio.

The question of what to do with nuclear waste from power plants – among the most dangerous types of such waste – has vexed U.S. administrations from both political parties for decades.

As NPR has reported, Congress attempted to solve the quandary in the 1980s, but political roadblocks to finding a permanent home for toxic waste soon developed.

The proposed waste facilities in Texas and New Mexico are essentially aimed at being stopgap measures to provide a “temporary” home for the waste – though that could amount to decades – while the U.S. continues its search for a permanent disposal solution.

AMERIKA

Meteorologists Get Death Threats as Hurricane Milton Conspiracy Theories Thrive

Lorena O'Neil
Wed, October 9, 2024 

People at an Orlando, Florida, bar watch the local news as the community prepares for Hurricane Milton on Oct. 8, 2024. - Credit: Saul Martinez/Getty Images

As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, meteorologists are staying awake for days at a time trying to get vital, life-saving information out to the folks who will be affected. That’s their job. But this year, several of them tell Rolling Stone, they’re increasingly having to take time out to quell the nonstop flow of misinformation during a particularly traumatic hurricane season. And some of them are doing it while being personally threatened.

“People are just so far gone, it’s honestly making me lose all faith in humanity,” says Washington, D.C.-based meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, in a phone interview conducted while he was traveling down to Florida for the storm. “There’s so much bad information floating around out there that the good information has become obscured.”

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Cappucci says that he’s noticed an enormous change on social media in the past three months: “Seemingly overnight, ideas that once would have been ridiculed as very fringe, outlandish viewpoints are suddenly becoming mainstream, and it’s making my job much more difficult.”

He says meteorologists and disaster relief experts have to strike a balance between putting out helpful, high-quality information while also squashing misinformation. “Nowadays, there’s so much bad information out there that if we spent our time getting rid of it, we’d have no more time.”

This hurricane season, Cappucci and the other meteorologists I spoke with say, conspiracy theories have been flooding their inboxes. The main one that people have seemed to latch onto is the accusation that the government can control the weather. This theory seems to be amplified with climate change creating worsening storms combined with a tense election year, and the vitriol is being directed at meteorologists. “I’ve been doing this for 46 years, and it’s never been like this,” says Alabama meteorologist James Spann. He says he’s been “inundated” with misinformation and threatening messages like “Stop lying about the government controlling the weather or else.”

“For me to post a hurricane forecast and for people to accuse me of creating the hurricane by working for some secret Illuminati entity is disappointing and distressing, and it’s resulting in a decrease in public trust,” says Cappucci. He says he hasn’t slept in multiple days and is exhausted. This past week he received hundreds of messages from people accusing him of modifying the weather and creating hurricanes from space lasers.

“Ignorance is becoming socially acceptable. Forty or 50 years ago, if I told you I thought the moon was pretend, people would have laughed at me. Now, people are bonding over these incredibly fringe viewpoints.”

“An average hurricane’s life cycle burns through the energy of roughly 10,000 nuclear bombs,” says Cappucci. “The idea that we can even influence something like that, never mind direct it, is just so outlandish that it’s almost, sadly, funny.”
‘Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes’

Meteorologist Katie Nickolaou went viral after correcting a male commenter who tried to claim a Category 5 hurricane can turn into a Category 6, at which point it becomes a tornado.

“Those are different storms with different processes,” clarified Nickolaou. “Though hurricanes can produce tornadoes, it doesn’t affect the overall categorical rating.”

Undeterred, he pushed back, insisting that “anything above a Category 5 would be a tornado,” which is untrue. “I’m going to go scream into an abyss now,” Nickolaou tweeted in response. She tells me her tweet “struck a chord” with meteorologists and people tired of the misinformation.

There is no Category 6 designation for hurricanes, she explains. Designations are based on wind speed, so there has been conversation among scientists that now that hurricanes are getting stronger, we need an additional category. But there are meteorologists that say adding a designation is unnecessary because a Category 5 already means nearly total destruction. They worry that adding a Category 6 would decrease the significance of a four of five and impact people’s decision to evacuate.

“I put on armor every day to try to go online and make sure people aren’t saying things that could harm responses,” says Nickolau. She’s had to fend off rumors that meteorologists should just use giant fans to blow the hurricane away or try nuking it. “You get a person arguing that a hurricane turns into a tornado at a Category 6 and your brain short circuits.”

“Stopping misinformation is becoming an exhausting part of the job which is taking away from spending time forecasting or sending out other information that could be helpful,” says Nickolau. She says her heart sinks when she sees a false post get millions of views because it’s virtually impossible to go back and fact-check it for everyone that’s seen it.

After our phone call, Nickolau received an even more troubling message on her page: “Stop the breathing of those that made them and their affiliates.” She responded that she would not allow people to advocate for murder. “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes,” she tweeted. “I can’t believe I just had to type that.”
‘It beats you down’

Spann, the meteorologist in Alabama, has been doing this work for decades and says he can’t believe what he’s seeing unfold.

“Something has clearly changed within the last year,” says Spann. “We know some of it is bots, but I do believe that some of it is coming from people that honestly believe the moon disappeared because the government nuked it to control the hurricanes, or that the government used chemtrails to spray our skies with chemicals to steer [Hurricane] Helene into the mountains of North Carolina.”

He says the misinformation has gotten so out of control it’s distracting meteorologists from doing their jobs, which involves keeping people safe ahead of, during, and after a devastating hurricane. Spann posted a public service announcement on Facebook that went viral, asking people to stop flooding his page with conspiracy theories.

“We’re trying to push critical information to people that need it and people who are looking for a credible source,” says Spann. He sounds weary as he tells me that if people are going to push conspiracy theories, he wishes they would wait until after the danger has passed. As we’re talking he receives an email from a colleague telling him about an angry caller who demanded to be connected to the folks responsible for stopping the hurricane.

“It affects our mental health,” he adds, saying he’s spoken to the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore and other meteorologists about it a lot this week. After Spann posted a FEMA website about rumor control, he got multiple private messages telling him to retire or personally threatening him. “You’re working with two to three hours of sleep for multiple weeks under a high stress situation, and then you deal with these threats that come in, it’ll beat you down.”
‘It costs lives’

South Florida meteorologist John Morales made headlines this week when he cried on air while warning Floridians about how strong Hurricane Milton will be. For his part, he’s been getting overwhelmingly supportive messages on social media from people who share his angst and anxiety about the climate crisis. He’s been using the increased attention to spread awareness about global warming, climate action, as well as the dangers of misinformation.

“I’ve seen the reactions of climate dismissives for many, many years, and it’s become particularly vitriolic in the last year or two, especially on X,” says Morales, referring to the former Twitter. He’s Puerto Rican, and said that in Latin countries he’s heard the conspiracy theory that Americans control the weather, but now the belief has exploded.

“This is the post-truth era, and these types of crazy beliefs aren’t just confined to your crazy Uncle Joe,” says Morales. “It seems to spread with greater ease, and I am particularly alarmed that after Hurricane Helene, it’s really spread and truly impacted the work of the emergency management agencies that are trying to help people recover and have to dedicate resources to dispel rumors and trample down on the type of stuff that, sadly, even some politicians are spreading. It costs lives and dishonors first responders and civil servants.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on claims Democrats control the weather, prompting fellow GOP congressperson Carlos Gimenez to tweet she should “have her head examined.” Meanwhile, the White House is launching a Reddit account to keep the public informed on Helene/Milton response and recovery.

“Science is one of the few things that doesn’t care about politics,” says Cappucci. “If a tornado is coming down the road at you, it doesn’t check your voter registration.”

He says every October the bird migration causes fuzzy images on weather radars, but this year conspiracy theorists are convinced that these fuzzy images are actually caused by lasers heating up the atmosphere to create hurricanes. Some experts I spoke with think that misinformation is exceptionally bad this year because we are leading up to a presidential election. Some of the conspiracy theories accuse Democrats of intentionally steering hurricanes to red-leaning swing states, in order to hurt Donald Trump’s chances of winning.

“The 2024 misinformation is being fueled to a certain extent by political polarization,” says Sarah DeYoung, a professor at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. “I think that’s corresponding with there being a presidential election this year.”

DeYoung says there are certain myths that pop up for every disaster. Some of them are well-intentioned, like telling people that hotels have to accept pets in an emergency event, which is not true. Others are misconceptions, like saying looting goes up after natural disasters when in fact the crime rate often goes down, and people are just trying to locate basic essentials like food and water to survive. But in 2024, they are often politically motivated.

“It becomes particularly dangerous because it starts to rile up additional feelings of division and then the false information about FEMA funneling money towards immigrants, that makes people who are immigrants more vulnerable to potential acts of violence and backlash from those kinds of rumors.”

DeYoung says this harms both the people that need help and the people trying to help, by adding confusion, slowing down the recovery process and fomenting mistrust.
‘Platforms are not prepared’

Misinformation and climate change researcher Abbie Richards says she likes to look at the core emotions that drive conspiracy theories.

“When people feel really anxious, really powerless, really uncertain, those are the times where we expect misinformation to thrive,” says Richards, who is also a senior video producer for Media Matters. She says this is exacerbated with a big moment in the news cycle, and then even further inflamed by something as emotionally overwhelming as climate change.

“It’s a problem that by its very nature, makes people feel a wide range of pretty negative emotions — scared, anxious, uncertain — maybe guilty or conflicted if it’s something they’ve been denying,” says Richards. “We are mixing these giant events that are catastrophic and devastating with these big emotions, and it’s really easy for people to fall into scapegoating and blaming conspiracy theories that provide really simple explanations for these super complicated problems.”

Richards explains that in order to regain a sense of control, people drink in whatever information they can get their hands on, even when it’s false. “Sometimes it’s the moon was nuked, but sometimes it’s also just people wanting to help and that can get us into bad situations, too — I’ve seen a lot of hoaxes spread in the name of awareness.”

She says she doesn’t criticize consuming news on TikTok because it is an excellent source for firsthand accounts of events that can fill a different emotional need for people. For example, Richards says TikTok has helped people understand the nuanced challenges of evacuating.

But, she says, social media change is needed.

“The platforms are just not prepared,” says Richards. “They are seemingly very unequipped to handle widespread misinformation that arises in the wake of these events. And if we’re going to learn anything from this experience, it’s that the platforms need to seriously invest in climate-related content moderation, because this is causing harm and it’s impeding relief efforts, and it could hurt people.”

Rolling Stone

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: The Origin of American Conspiracy Theories 

UK

Andy Burnham pleads with mental health workers 'not to follow through with industrial action'
Charlotte Hall
Thu 10 October 2024 at 4:02 pm GMT-6·3-min read


-Credit: (Image: MEN MEDIA)

As mental health workers prepare to go on strike over ‘dangerous’ conditions for patients, Andy Burnham has pleaded with them ‘not to follow through with industrial action’. The Greater Manchester mayor offered to work with mental health teams to ‘discuss issues’.

Union members in Manchester’s Early Intervention in Psychosis teams are reportedly set to strike on 16 October, due to staffing levels at ‘lower than acceptable standards’, leaving patients at risk.

The team is part of the Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust, which has struggled to make improvements since shocking failures were uncovered at a number of hospitals in 2022.

Low staffing levels and missed opportunities have been slammed. The trust has been deemed as ‘inadequate’ by government health watchdog the Care Quality Commission two years in a row.

Speaking in the Mayoral hot seat on Radio Manchester, he said it was the ‘first’ he’d heard of the strike suggestions. He responded: “This is not being done out of self interest. They are clearly doing this to raise awareness of the risk to patients.

“They’re trying to get the attention of people like me and those who run the health service as to the severity of the situation. I will meet the team and discuss issues with them.

Understaffing and spiralling demand have put mental health services under pressure. -Credit:MEN

“But I would ask them not to follow through with the industrial action, because it won’t necessarily make things better.”

Mr Burnham also warned against ‘demonising’ people working in public services who want to go on strike.

“It’s a really bad place that some want to take us to, to demonise people working in our mental health services or in the hospital, or even driving trains,” he said. “These are frontline people providing really important services to us. They’re not our enemies.”

Addressing mental health workers, he added that his ‘door is open’ and that he would ‘respond immediately’ in his role as co-chair of Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership - a committee that brings together the region’s health and local authority bosses.

But the issue goes beyond Greater Manchester. Mental health services across the country are at breaking point while investment into the service fails to keep pace with the spiralling number of people in need of support since the pandemic.

Greater Manchester’s NHS was slammed last month for sending people as far afield as Taunton for out-of-area treatment because hospitals in the region ran out of beds and staff to care for patients. The desperate measures only pile on more pressure long-term, having been quoted as a reason for the region’s NHS being in hundreds of millions of pounds in deficit.

The government has said it wants to ‘fix the broken system’ with a recruitment drive for 8,500 more mental health workers and by reforming the Mental Health Act.


Firefighters 'should respond to medical emergencies' to help overstretched paramedics

Charlotte Hall
Thu 10 October 2024 

-Credit: (Image: GMFRS)

Andy Burnham has called for firefighters to respond to medical emergencies to help overstretched paramedics.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue service vehicles carrying defibrillators could see patients attended to ‘more quickly’ than North West Ambulance Service personnel when they're under severe pressure and ‘help save lives’, the mayor argued.

In a letter penned to the chief fire officer this morning (October 10), Mr Burnham asked the service to help ‘take the pressure off the shoulders of the NHS’. Due to growing queues at A&E, ambulance wait times have soared over the last few years, putting patients at risk.

The letter reads: "I am writing to request that, in negotiation with the Fire Brigades Union, you recommence discussions on how Greater Manchester Fire Rescue Service can best support the North West Ambulance Service to provide emergency medical response."

Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester, Mr Burnham added: “This is for when a 999 call can’t immediately get an ambulance there. It’s about keeping the people of Greater Manchester safer, because quite often firefighters can get to a heart attack incident more quickly than an ambulance.

“This is about Greater Manchester using the power of devolution to change the way public services work and integrate them more to help save more lives.”

Heart attack and stroke patients across the UK were left waiting an average of 40 minutes for ambulance call outs earlier this year. But for cardiac arrests, survival rates drop by ten percent for every minute beyond the first ten minutes, making a quick first response crucial.

By bringing services together, Burnham said he could help 'reduce pressure' on the NHS. -Credit:Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News

Mr Burnham, who is also the co-chair for the integrated care partnership, noted the average response time for fire engines was around seven and a half minutes - ‘much faster than the ambulance service’.

“If you look at fire stations across Greater Manchester, they tend to be more embedded in communities and are often very much more present in localities than the ambulance service,” he told Mike Sweeney on BBC. “Ambulances can end up queuing at hospitals because of the pressures we see in A and E so it can take them a while to hand over patients.”

The suggestion follows a pilot scheme carried out in 2015 and 2016, which saved 63 lives and stopped 77 people from suffering ‘life altering neurological damage’, according to the mayor’s letter.

Mr Burnham claimed that the fire chief had ‘indicated agreement’ with his plan, but discussions will still need to take place with fire service unions regarding extra support and pay and with the health secretary. He also acknowledged that funding would need to be secured for the program.

“I don’t know at this moment in time what the cost will be,” he said. “If it means an extra pound from residents to support the fire service, I’ll have to see what the public feel about that.”

He added that the program would be part of a wider scheme to share pressures on the NHS across different public sectors, including more social intervention and community support.

UK

‘I will regret it for the rest of my life’: How women feel forced to shorten maternity leave over low pay

Maya Oppenheim
Thu 10 October 2024 

A woman forced to go back to work six weeks after giving birth due to not being able to live on statutory maternity pay has said she will regret the decision for the rest of her life.

Laura Mazzeo, from north London, told The Independent she went back to her job in construction after taking six weeks of government maternity pay despite being very physically weak at the time due to having recently undergone surgery.

It comes as new research from campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed, which polled almost 6,000 women, has found four in 10 mothers took just 12 weeks or less of maternity leave after the birth of their most recent child due to the low levels of maternity pay in the UK.

“I will regret it for the rest of my life,” Ms Mazzeo said. “Not being able to take time to recover and adjust to that new state of life really puts pressure on your relationship with the baby and then you resent the baby. It means you can’t take into account the change and adapt – as you are forced to go back to how you were but you can’t.”

The 40-year-old said she experienced complications following her pregnancy so had placentas removed via surgery six weeks after giving birth.

She added: “They put you under local anaesthetic and if they don’t do this you can die of sepsis. I was very weak after the surgery. I could walk very little and very slowly, you have no physical strength.”

The mother of one said she was self-employed at the time so would have had no income coming in if she did not work.

“In hindsight, it was a terrible mistake,” Ms Mazzeo said of her decision to return to work. “At the time because my son was not sleeping at all and couldn’t take formula very well, and so on, and I thought this was the best way to get back at things.”



I will regret it for the rest of my life. Not being able to take time to recover and adjust to that new state of life really puts pressure on your relationship with the baby and then you resent the baby

Laura Mazzeo

She said she was fortunately able to work from home but explained she did not have family around to help with childcare and hired a maternity nurse to support them.

Ms Mazzeo added: “It exerted a lot of pressure on my mental health. You are constantly being torn between wanting to book in time with your newborn and worrying you are not earning enough for this new life to be catered for.

“I came back into the workforce feeling I was not good at anything: not good at being a mum, not good at being a professional. You feel worthless. Without the resources I had put aside, it could have gone really, really wrong.”

Research by Pregnant then Screwed found three-quarters of mothers have been pushed into debt or into taking money out of their savings due to low statutory maternity pay.

Statutory maternity pay for much of the leave is only 43 per cent of the national living wage, researchers point out, saying this means many families face financial struggles.

Campaigners have urged the government to increase statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance so it tallies with the national living wage. They say maternity leave which surpasses 12 weeks carries massive benefits for both mother and child.



I came back into the workforce feeling I was not good at anything: not good at being a mum, not good at being a professional. You feel worthless. Without the resources I had put aside, it could have gone really really wrong

Laura Mazzeo

In the UK, statutory maternity leave is paid for up to 39 weeks – with mothers getting 90 per cent of average weekly earnings before tax for the first six weeks. After that, mothers get £184.03 or 90 per cent of their average weekly earnings, whichever sum is lower, for the next 33 weeks.

Joeli Brearley, founder and chief executive of Pregnant Then Screwed, said: “Maternity pay is an abomination. How is anyone meant to survive on £184 a week, which is less than half the minimum wage – the lowest amount someone can live on.

“The perinatal period is critically important to the health and wellbeing of a mother and her child, and I think we should all be deeply concerned that, due to severe hardship, we are now seeing a degeneration and a degradation of this vital period. Ultimately, it is a false economy to not pay parental leave at a rate on which families can survive and thrive.”


'For women, the Employment Rights Bill is a start – but a way off perfect'

Rebecca Reid
Thu 10 October 2024 

'New Employment Rights Bill is no silver bullet

'
Some years back, a few days after learning I was pregnant, I rang a woman who had recently offered me a job. She was about to go on maternity leave herself, and given it was a female-focussed company – staffed entirely by women – I assumed that there wouldn’t be any issue. Legally, there was no need for me to tell her I’d be going on maternity leave eight months after joining the business either, but it felt like a polite thing to do… until the phone line fell silent. I panicked, stomach knotted with guilt. “Right,” she said. “I'll call you back.”

When she did (eventually) phone back, she rather guiltily spelled out what benefits I would – or rather wouldn’t – be entitled to as a result of starting a new job while pregnant. And what I heard was both depressing and shocking in equal measure.

Under the current system, when it comes to maternity leave you’re entitled to (at least) 90% of your full pay for the first six weeks. That is, if you’ve been employed for at least a year when you fall pregnant. So, for the average woman in the UK who is employed full time, earning around £29,000 per year, that figure would be closer to the £500 per week mark. However if you’ve not been employed for a year, you’re only entitled to statutory maternity pay for those six weeks, which equates to just £183.03 per week. Spot the difference much?

But things are – hopefully – about to change. The government has today announced new plans for the Employments Rights Bill as part of its Make Work Pay campaign.

It has promised to introduce ‘Day One’ rights for workers, meaning that you’ll no longer have to be an employee for a specific length of time before you can benefit from the protections afforded to employees who’ve been at the company for a year or more. Something that’s especially relevant if you are, or at some point might become, a working parent.

KoldoyChris - Getty Images

The reform will also deliver stronger protections for pregnant women and new mothers returning to work, including protection from dismissal whilst expecting, while on maternity leave and within six months of returning to work.

There are also other, equally important and non-financial Day One rights set to kick in, which I’m hopeful will benefit women in particular and help us to close the gender pay gap (women still earn 91p for each £1 a man does). As per the government's plans, employers will now have to offer “flexible working as the default” unless they can prove it’s incompatible with the role (a win whether you’re a parent or not: we all benefit from having more control over our work-life balance, which in turn has been proven to help boost happiness, health and productivity).


The ew press release also says there’ll be reviews into the parental and carers leave systems (at the moment workers are entitled to one unpaid week of leave per year to care for a loved one and on the parenting front, once you've been employed for a year you can take up to 4 weeks per year per child of unpaid leave) to ensure they are delivering for employers, workers and their loved ones. Plus, the Labour government has pledged to tackle the complexities of zero hours contracts and establish a right to bereavement leave.

It all sounds promising, sure. I want to feel reassured. But we all know that when it comes to policy, you can’t get too excited until you’ve read the small print (see: ‘free’ childcare hours for frustrating details!) and we’ve seen the plans in action, says Joeli Brearley, the CEO and Founder of Pregnant Then Screwed.

“There are some clear wins in this bill – moving to a Day One right to parental leave makes absolute sense, though we do need clarity as to whether that includes statutory pay. We’re pleased to see large employers will be required to create action plans for reducing their gender pay gap too, though we do need clarity on how this will be enforced,” Brearley tells Cosmopolitan UK. “We are thrilled the government has moved forward with this bill, [but] the next step is to ensure it isn’t all fur coat and no knickers… A review of parental leave feels like [it’s just] kicking the can down the road. Ultimately, [we already know] it needs to be better paid and paternity leave should be longer. We need action, not more research.”

Other experts are a bit more enthused about the changes. Jemima Olchawski, CEO of Fawcett Society, said as part of the government’s announcement: “Today’s draft employment bill is a win for women. Fawcett and our members have campaigned long and hard to see the government chart a new course for inclusive economic growth and to improve women’s working lives. We share this government’s ambition to ensure all women can thrive at work and fully contribute to the economy.”

In short it’s a positive step, but it’s not the silver bullet that maternity support in this country so badly needs. We’re still playing catch up with other European countries, like Finland, where both parents get 164 days off work each at 70% of their full pay.

Social pressures on women not to have babies ‘too soon’ after starting a role aren’t going to vanish overnight either – and this legislation is only going to ease one small burden on women.

andreswd - Getty Images

Time and time again I hear from my career driven friends, who are wrestling with the balance of progression and fertility, that they have to ‘time having their babies around their jobs’. There’s a feeling that it’s ‘unfair’ to get pregnant too quickly because it ‘disrupts’ their workplace, and consensus seems to be that it’s ‘right’ to wait two years after starting a new role before having a baby. In fact, a 2022 study by Fertility Family found that one in five women had delayed having a baby in order to protect her career.


The stress doesn’t miraculously ease if and when you do fall pregnant either. There’s still no end in sight to women selling their clothes or secretly working to make extra money while on maternity leave just to make ends meet, and let’s not forget that one in five women have used a food bank while on maternity leave either.

We have to remain vocal and continue to put the pressure on those in charge to really commit to improving quality of life (and career stability) for women, no matter their family situation. And on our side, perhaps – easier said than done I know – we have to stop allowing ourselves to feel guilty if we do become pregnant while in a new job.

Because when you think about it, is it not utterly bonkers to plot your fertility and family planning around your boss's preferences rather than your own?

From 26 October 2024, the base offer from your employer will be the same whether you’ve been in the job for eighteen months or eighteen minutes. So, if you’re agonising over when to try for a baby, yes it’s probably wise to think about finances, how strong your relationship is and how you deal with sleep deprivation. But for goodness sake, please don’t think about how it’s going to go down with your manager – and don’t forget to nudge your child-free work wife into submitting her flexible working request while you’re at it.

UK

Unite union says Labour’s workers’ bill has ‘more holes than Swiss cheese’ over zero-hour contracts

Millie Cooke
Thu 10 October 2024 

Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham and Keir Starmer, who has been urged to push the reforms further (PA)

Labour’s new workers’ rights legislation is under fire, with one union boss claiming the proposal has “more holes than Swiss cheese”.

While others have hailed the Employment Rights Bill as bringing a “seismic shift” for workers, Sir Keir Starmer has still been urged to go further in his bid to shift the balance of power between employers and employees.

The legislation has been described by Labour as the biggest upgrade in employment rights for a generation and was published on Thursday. It will include plans to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts and “unscrupulous” fire and rehire practices which it said will benefit millions of workers.

Fire Brigade Union general secretary Matt Wrack welcomes the planned employment Bill (PA)


Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said: “This is a pro-worker, pro-business plan. The government will tackle head-on the issues within the UK labour market that are holding Britain back.

Unite has responded most critically to the legislation, accusing the government of tying itself “up in knots trying to avoid what was promised”.

General secretary Sharon Graham said: “This Bill is without doubt a significant step forward for workers but stops short of making work pay.

“The end to draconian laws like Minimum Service Levels and the introduction of new individual rights, for example on bereavement leave, will be beneficial. But the Bill still ties itself up in knots trying to avoid what was promised.

“Failure to end fire and rehire and zero-hours contracts once and for all will leave more holes than Swiss cheese that hostile employers will use.”

While the Bill will give workers the right to a contract reflecting the number of hours they regularly work, it leaves room for employees who want zero-hours contracts to opt in.

Promising to push for improvements to the legislation as the bill goes through parliament, she added: “The Bill also fails to give workers the sort of meaningful rights to access a union for pay bargaining that would put more money in their pockets and, in turn, would aid growth.”

But Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, said the legislation will “improve working lives for many” if delivered in full.

“After 14 years of stagnating living standards, working people desperately need secure jobs they can build a decent life on”, Mr Nowak said.

“Driving up employment standards is good for workers, good for business and good for growth. It will give workers more predictability and control and it will stop good employers from being undercut by the bad.

“While there is still detail to be worked through, this Bill signals a seismic shift away from the Tories’ low pay, low rights, low productivity economy.”

Business groups welcomed the Bill, with the CBI praising the government for engaging with business and unions. The Federation of Small Businesses was the only main business group critical of the Bill, saying: “This legislation is a rushed job, clumsy, chaotic and poorly planned – dropping 28 new measures onto small business employers all at once leaves them scrambling to make sense of it all.”

Ministers described the Employment Rights Bill as the biggest boost to pay and productivity in the workplace in a generation.

Under the new legislation, the existing two-year qualifying period for protections from unfair dismissal will be removed and workers will have the right from the first day in a job.

Former TUC president Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, told The Independent that the workers’ rights reforms will “shift the balance of power in Britain back towards workers”, saying lives will be “immeasurably improved” by the legislation.

Mr Wrack urged the government to implement the “hugely welcome” legislation without delay.

He said: “This very significant extension of workers’ rights is a huge victory for the FBU and other unions that have been at the forefront of campaigning to ensure that Labour’s New Deal for Working People is fully delivered.

“The banning of zero-hour contracts, the outlawing of fire and rehire, and other despicable working practices promoted by the Tories, are long overdue.”

However, many of the reforms will not take effect until autumn 2026, with ministers scheduling a series of consultations on the details of the plan over the course of 2025.

Some measures, such as the right to “switch off” at the end of a working day, are not in the Bill but will be included in a so-called next steps document for further consideration and consultation.

The government said the legislation is being unveiled against a backdrop of it inheriting a “battered” economy from the Conservatives.

More than twice as many days were lost to industrial action than France under Rishi Sunak’s premiership, said Labour, following more than two years of strikes by hundreds of thousands of workers including nurses, teachers, junior doctors, train drivers and barristers.

Labour said new analysis showed that the Tories’ “scorched-earth” approach to strikes over the last two years cost the economy £3.3bn in lost productivity, including £1.7bn from NHS industrial action alone.

New UK government closes in on major employment reform

Clément ZAMPA
Thu 10 October 2024 

The UK government says its new workers' rights bill will offer more protection for employees (HENRY NICHOLLS) (HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP/AFP)


Britain's new Labour government on Thursday took a key step towards delivering major reforms to workers' rights with the presentation of its employment bill to parliament, pitting unions against businesses.

The bill contains key pre-election pledges, including a ban on zero-hours contracts, improvements to sick and maternity pay, and measures aimed at making it harder for employers to sack staff.

Other proposals are for increased flexibility around working hours and greater protection against sexual harassment in the workplace.

The proposed shakeup to employment legislation comes almost 100 days after Keir Starmer became prime minister following his Labour party's landslide general election win.

- 'generational upgrade' -

"This is a comprehensive bill which, once implemented, will represent the biggest upgrade in employment rights for a generation," Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in a statement Thursday.

"It will raise the minimum floor of employment rights, raise living standards across the country and provide better support for those businesses who are engaged in good practices."

Since winning power in early July, Labour has acted swiftly to end drawn-out strikes by public- and private-sector workers over pay -- notably among doctors in Britain's free National Health Service.

"The Employment Rights Bill will ensure work pays, it'll forge a new partnership with business, and reset the dreadful industrial relations that have cost our economy and our NHS so much in recent years," Starmer told parliament Wednesday.

Paul Nowak, leader of British umbrella organisation the Trades Union Congress, said a fully delivered bill "will make work better for millions of working people".

"Increasing job security is good for workers and business. Treating staff well boosts productivity and living standards," he said on the eve of the paper's unveiling.

But the main opposition Conservatives have warned the proposals amount to business-constricting "French-style union laws".

Tina McKenzie, policy chair at the Federation of Small Businesses, warned that "adding to the risks and costs associated with employing people would make small employers think twice about whether and who to hire".

"Done wrongly, this bill could damage growth, wages and jobs," added McKenzie, whose organisation represents millions of UK businesses.

However business lobby group CBI said the "government deserves credit for its willingness to engage with businesses and unions".

"With a number of critical details still subject to consultation, it’s important the government builds on the good engagement to date to ensure we get the detail right on this decisive piece of legislation," added its chief executive Rain Newton-Smith.

The bill's publication comes ahead of Labour's maiden budget on October 30, when finance minister Rachel Reeves is widely expected to announce tax rises.

Labour says tough measures are needed and claims that the Conservatives left it with a financial hole totalling £22 billion ($29 billion) after the election defeat ended their party's 14 years in power.


Starmer bids to end Tory ‘scorched earth’ industrial relations policy with workers’ rights reset

David Maddox
Wed 9 October 2024 

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan, centre, has described the government’s pay offer as good and fair (PA)


Union chiefs have hailed workers’ rights reforms unveiled by Keir Starmer’s government today for “changing the balance of power” in favour of employees and away from employers.

The long-awaited package to unpick Tory anti-union legislation has been unveiled less than 24 hours after the Renters’ Rights Bill passed its second reading in the Commons.

Experts also hailed that legislation as handing power to tenants and away from landlords as Labour pushed through a revolution to protect the rights of millions of people in the UK.

The dual reforms, which aim to end exploitation in the UK, come in a week when Sir Keir has sought to put behind him the rows about freebies and his former chief of staff Sue Gray by taking a grip on the political agenda with a new top team around him led by Morgan McSweeney.

The workers’ rights reforms will see an end to exploitative contracts and fire-and-rehire practices while also including the repeal of anti-strike laws put in place by successive Tory governments.

Meanwhile, the renters’ reforms end the practice of no-fault evictions and protect the rights of people to stay in their homes.

Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday (PA Wire)

Former TUC president Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, told The Independent that the workers’ rights reforms “shift the balance of power in Britain back towards workers”.

He said: “This very significant extension of workers’ rights is a huge victory for the FBU and other unions that have been at the forefront of campaigning to ensure that Labour’s New Deal for Working People is fully delivered.

“The banning of zero-hour contracts, the outlawing of fire and rehire, and other despicable working practices promoted by the Tories, are long overdue.

“The lives of firefighters and other public sector workers will be immeasurably improved by the new rights to bereavement leave and parental leave from day one of employment. The leadership of the FBU has long fought for an irreversible shift towards extending the rights of working people.

“There must be no delay in the full implementation of this hugely welcome package. That must also be reflected in pay offers to firefighters and other public sector workers in the Budget later this month.”

The government said its Employment Rights Bill is being unveiled against a backdrop of it inheriting a ‘battered’ economy (Lucy North/PA Wire)

The plan is aimed at kickstarting workplace productivity ahead of the International Investment Summit.

Labour will say the Tories’ “strike Britain” failure meant the UK lost twice as many working days as France due to industrial action.

The government will also link the plan to its economic growth agenda.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner MP, who has pushed hard for the Starmer government to keep its promise to trade unions, said: “This Labour government’s plan to make work pay is central to achieving our growth mission, boosting productivity. After years of stagnation under the Tories, we’re replacing a race to the bottom with a race to the top, so employers compete on innovation and quality.

“It’s by making work more secure and modernising workplaces that we will drive up productivity, improve living standards, generate jobs and investment, and pave the way for sustained economic growth that benefits working people.

“We’re calling time on the Tories’ scorched earth approach to industrial relations. A new partnership of cooperation between trade unions, employers and government will put us in line with high-growth economies that benefit from more cooperation and less disruption.”

Commenting on the renters’ reform legislation, Lawhive’s head of legal operations, Daniel McAfee, said: “The ban on ‘no-fault’ evictions, which would abolish Section 21 evictions, fundamentally alters the balance of power between landlords and tenants.”

Conservative shadow business secretary Kevin Hollinrake said: “Despite a chorus of opposition and the fastest decline in confidence from business owners large and small on record, Labour are rushing this legislation through parliament to appease their trade union paymasters, ignoring the inevitable negative economic impact on jobs and wages.

“This is a thinly veiled reward for the trade unions after they donated £28 million to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

“We will look closely at the detail of what the Labour Party have set out. But businesses and the economy needs certainty not the threat of being sent back to the 1970s, unleashing waves of low threshold, zero warning strikes, driving down growth and slowing productivity.”

Congo wants to pivot away from China’s dominance over its mining

Bloomberg News | October 9, 2024 |

Chinese President Xi Jinping with DRC President Felix Tshisekedi. (Image CCTV)

Democratic Republic of Congo’s top mining official said the country is courting new investors for its world-class deposits of key metals as it looks to diversify ownership in its industry, which is currently dominated by China.


The plan includes streamlining processes to pay customs and taxes, along with a partnership with the United Arab Emirates, Mines Minister Kizito Pakabomba said in an interview. The nation is also planning to revamp a railway that can be used to transport minerals so cargoes can be more easily exported from a port along the Atlantic Ocean, positioned closer to US and European markets, he said.

Congo wants to “attract better investors, more investors and diversified investors,” Pakabomba said.

The ambitions come as the country continues to play a key role in international metals markets, while also finding itself at the center of a contest between China, the US and other countries vying for access to critical minerals. Congo recently overtook Peru to become the second-largest producer of copper and is by far the world’s biggest source of cobalt. Both commodities are key to the global energy transition.

The government is looking to make “strategic choices” about who runs Congo’s mines, the minister said, citing this year’s example of the state’s decision to oppose a proposed sale of Trafigura Group-backed copper and cobalt miner Chemaf Resources Ltd. to China’s Norin Mining Ltd.

“We’ve stopped this transaction,” Pakabomba said. If Chemaf remains set upon an ownership change, “we’ll consider with them the different options that could be taken,” he said.

Congo’s government has grown increasingly frustrated by its lack of influence over its mining industry, particularly in cobalt, a key ingredient in many electric-vehicle batteries. The country accounted for about three-quarters of global output of the metal last year, but a spike in production by miners in the nation — particularly China’s CMOC Ltd. — has pushed prices to eight-year lows.


The government is considering multiple options to have more control over cobalt exports, Pakabomba said.

Pakabomba also said that the country’s railway project is a big part of its strategy for the industry.

The government is evaluating how to improve a railway from the mining hub of Kolwezi to Congo’s border with Angola, which would then connect to a line terminating at the port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean, Pakabomba said.

The US has already committed $553 million to refurbish the Angolan section of the railway.

Congo’s foreign minister, Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, told Bloomberg that the country was considering a tender process to rebuild the Congolese side of the railway.

“I think that there are a lot of companies that are already lining up” with the project in mind, she said.

The rail-improvement project would cost $245 million over the first two years of construction, Pakabomba said.

“It will allow us to diversify the different export routes so that we are not only toward the East,” he said.

(By Michael J. Kavanagh and William Clowes)

Ghana unions cancel strike over illegal gold mining after talks

Bloomberg News | October 9, 2024 | 

Small-scale mining. Credit: Knut-Erik Helle via Flickr

Ghanaian unions have called off a strike after the government promised to take measures to clean up Africa’s biggest gold producer’s small-scale mining sector.


The Trades Union Congress’ planned strike represented the biggest escalation of a movement to clamp down on illegal gold mining that’s caused severe environmental damage in the West African country, polluting rivers and soils, and poisoning people.

The umbrella body of unions said Wednesday that it called off the strike, meant to start Thursday, because Ghana’s outgoing president, Nana Akufo-Addo, pledged to revoke a law that allows some mines to operate in forest reserves, its secretary-general, Joshua Ansah, said in a conference broadcast by Accra-based Joy TV.

Akufo-Addo also promised to deploy soldiers to fight illegal miners operating in forest reserves and near water bodies following talks with union leaders, Ansah said.

These are concessions that organized labor has “forced government to make toward combating illegal mining in Ghana,” he said.

The presidency confirmed the measures in a statement Wednesday.

Gold is a mainstay of the Ghanaian economy, accounting for nearly half of exports in 2023, according to central bank data. Large-scale miners such as Newmont Corp. and Gold Fields Ltd. have to adhere to strict environmental rules, but a thriving artisanal and small-scale mining industry is less regulated, or not at all, in some cases.

Known as “galamsey,” a colloquialism originating from the phrase “gather them and sell,” illegal mining has been spreading with impunity, according to protesters who had been ramping up pressure for authorities to act ahead of Dec. 7 presidential elections.

“Government will hear from us if it fails to do the needful,” Ansah said.

(By Yinka Ibukun)