Victims of Brazil’s Mariana dam disaster seek compensation through UK courts


In one of the largest claims in English legal history, 200,000 people affected by the 2015 incident will have their case heard this week

Members of the Krenak Indigenous community at the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the hearing on their compensation claim for the Mariana dam disaster. 

Photograph: Matthew Pover

Phoebe Weston
THE GUARDIAN
Tue 5 Apr 2022

More than 200,000 victims of Brazil’s worst environmental disaster are seeking compensation in a UK court this week, in one of the largest group claims in English legal history.

The claimants, including representatives of Krenak indigenous communities, are fighting to get compensation for the devastation caused by the Mariana dam disaster in November 2015. The £5bn lawsuit is against the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP.

When the Fundão tailings dam burst, it released 40m cubic metres of toxic mining waste, killing 19 people and affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands more. The brown, polluted sludge spilled down the River Doce in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, flowing for 400 miles (670km) into the Atlantic Ocean. Thousands were made homeless and livelihoods centred on the river were destroyed.

This week’s court case is the culmination of a three-and-a-half year legal fight in the UK, with lawyers from the London-based international law firm PGMBM representing hundreds of thousands of individuals as well as 530 businesses, 150 members of indigenous communities, 25 municipalities and six religious organisations.

PGMBM filed the lawsuit in 2018, and last July won the right to reopen the case after an earlier ruling denied jurisdiction for English courts to hear it.

Bento Rodrigues after the Mariana dam burst. ‘Much of what the companies have taken from our people is irrecoverable,’ says one of the local Krenaks.

 Photograph: Douglas Magno/AFP/Getty

A representative of the Krenak indigenous communities in London said yesterday: “Every time that I remember what my family and my community has gone through, every time that I revisit the river, I become angry.

“These times are a time of great struggle for my people, and I have made it my purpose to help us achieve fair compensation. Alas, I understand that no matter how hard we fight, much of what the companies have taken from our people is irrecoverable. For it to have been suggested by the defendants that my community is receiving full redress in Brazil makes me even angrier.”

Tom Goodhead, managing partner of PGMBM, said: “BHP is a multinational that generates huge profits in the regions where it operates, and it is only right that the company … is held directly accountable at its headquarters. The days of huge corporations doing what they want in countries on the other side of the world and getting away with it are over.


‘It’s about survival’: the Yorkshireman seeking justice for the Mariana dam disaster

In Brazil, BHP, along with the Brazilian iron-ore mining company Vale, and Samarco, the joint venture company responsible for managing the Fundão tailings dam, established the Renova Foundation to mitigate the environmental consequences of the collapse and to provide compensation for individuals and some small businesses for loss and damages. By November 2021, Renova had spent more than 19.6bn Brazilian reals (£2.6bn) on environmental and economic reparations and rehabilitation projects, including R$7.78bn in compensation and financial aid to 359,000 people, according to the company.

BHP had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

The hearing is due to continue until Friday and will be heard by three senior court of appeal judges. It is being streamed on London’s court of appeal YouTube channel.

WGA East Recommends Change To Its Constitution To “Fully Embrace” All Members & End Its Digital Divide


David Robb
Thu, April 7, 2022,

The WGA East, whose leaders last year talked openly about spinning off their digital news members into a separate union, is now fully embracing them by proposing changes to the guild’s constitution that would ensure “balanced representation” on its governing body for members from its different work sectors.

The guild said that to ensure that all members are represented on its governing body, its Council is unanimously recommending that members approve changes to the constitution that include creating three work sector vice presidents covering members who work in Film/TV/Streaming, Broadcast/Cable/Streaming News, and Online Media.

The constitutional changes will be put to a vote of the members later this spring. In the meantime, the guild says it will be kicking off a campaign, called #NextChapter, to encourage members to approve the changes. The guild also will be holding virtual town hall discussions in April to share more information with members about the proposed changes. Members will receive additional information about the changes by email in the next few days.

“The WGAE Council has spent the last several months working together and with an outside facilitator,” said WGA East president Michael Winship. “I think I speak for everyone involved when I say that it has been a learning process in which everyone exchanged ideas and listened to one another. Now we have united. I’m enthusiastic about the result and the next chapter for this brave union of storytellers.”

An organizing resolution approved by the Council requires the appointment of an organizing committee made up of Council members from all work sectors that will meet regularly to advise and consult with staff about potential organizing targets – and requires an increase in the organizing budget to aggressively grow the guild equitably across all sectors.

“I’m thrilled that our governing body has not only created an agreement to increase and formalize our commitment to organizing but also built a process to collaborate with each other on finding solutions to challenges across all work sectors,” said Sara David, a member of the Council who works in online media. “These changes mark an exciting new chapter of the WGA East where we can negotiate stronger contracts, expand our organizing work, and ensure that every member’s voice is heard.”

“The organizing resolution and constitutional changes, when combined, mark an exciting new chapter for the Guild where members have better representation on Council and we will have aggressive new organizing goals that will benefit everyone,” said Gail Lee, a broadcast member of the Council. “Reaching agreement on these changes wasn’t easy, but I am proud of everyone’s willingness on Council to have the difficult but necessary conversations.”

The guild, which has been aggressively organizing digital newsrooms in recent years, put a pause on that last year amid concerns that news writers and producers were on the verge of becoming a majority of the guild’s membership.

WGA East Considers Spinning Off Digital News Members Into New Union Amid “Existential Threat”

Those concerns played out last summer during the guild’s officer and Council elections, with secretary-treasurer-elect Chris Kyle, running unopposed, warning that the influx of digital news writers and producers posed “an existential threat to the guild” that could lead to it “collapsing.”

Only a few years ago, the vast majority of the guild’s members were film and scripted television writers. But over the past six years, the campaign to organize dozens of digital news outlets like Salon, Slate and HuffPost began to change the union’s demographics so dramatically that its broadcast and digital news members were on the verge of becoming a majority of the guild’s membership.

During last year’s elections, which amounted to a referendum on the future of the guild, Winship, who was also running unopposed, told Deadline that the organizing of digital media had “triggered a flow” of so many new members “that we needed to stop for a while – just pause for a while – and access where we are.”

The guild’s opposition Solidarity slate, however, dominated the contested Council races, campaigning on the belief that “it’s important that we continue to organize the entire industry.”

WGA East Council Votes Unanimously To Resume Organizing Digital Newsrooms

The two sides mended their fences in February when the Council voted unanimously to resume organizing digital newsrooms. In a statement, the guild said: “As the media industry continues to unionize across sectors, the WGAE Council is deliberating how to address changes in the make-up of the Guild’s membership and how to ensure that the union can meet the needs of all members – in digital and broadcast news, podcasts, scripted and nonfiction television, feature films, and public broadcasting.”

More from Deadline


WGA West Inclusion & Equity Report Finds "Significant" Gains By Women & People Of Color


WGA Awards: 'Don't Look Up' Wins For Original Screenplay, 'CODA' Wins For Adapted; 'Hacks', 'Succession', 'Conan' Also Win - Full Winners List


Dick Cavett Set As Recipient Of WGA East's Evelyn F. Burkey Award

WGA East Council Finalizes Proposal to Restructure Digital Media Unionization Efforts

Jeremy Fuster
Thu, 7 April 2022

After several months of meetings, the leadership of the Writers Guild of America East have settled on proposed changes to the constitution that will change how the guild develops its plans to unionize digital media companies.

The guild’s leadership announced Thursday that it will start a campaign called “#NextChapter” that will include online meetings with members about the proposed constitutional amendments, on which the WGAE Council unanimously recommended a “yes” vote ahead of a referendum later this spring.

Though WGA East was light on details about the proposed changes, the guild said that the constitution changes, if approved, would create three new vice president positions for each of the work sectors covered by WGA East: Film/TV/Streaming, Broadcast/Cable/Streaming News, and Online Media.

The Council is also proposing a resolution that would provide a budget increase for the guild’s organizing efforts and establish an organizing committee made up of Council members from all three work sectors that will advise and consult with staff about potential organizing targets. This would be done to “ensure that members from all work sectors are represented on the union’s governing body.”

WGA East President Michael Winship hailed the proposal as one that addresses the concerns of both digital media members of WGA East and film/TV writers whose work the union was originally founded to protect. Since 2015, WGA East has been heavily involved in organizing digital media outlets like Gizmodo and Vice and have been a source of stability for writers during a time of mass media layoffs.

However, Winship and other leaders and members within WGA East from the film/TV branch voiced concerns that such writers would soon be outnumbered within the guild and that not enough was being done to ensure that such members had an influential voice in contract and organizing issues that impacted their section of the industry. The debate over the future of WGAE’s organizing was at the core of last September’s council elections, which saw the legacy wing led by Winship take top positions unopposed while 7 of 11 open council seats were taken by digital media organizing supporters.

“The WGAE Council has spent the last several months working together and with an outside facilitator. I think I speak for everyone involved when I say that it has been a learning process in which everyone exchanged ideas and listened to one another,” said Winship said in a statement. “Now we have united. I’m enthusiastic about the result and the next chapter for this brave union of storytellers.”

“I’m thrilled that our governing body has not only created an agreement to increase and formalize our commitment to organizing but also built a process to collaborate with each other on finding solutions to challenges across all work sectors,” said Sara David, a WGAE council member and editor on Netflix’s editorial team. “These changes mark an exciting new chapter of the WGA East where we can negotiate stronger contracts, expand our organizing work, and ensure that every member’s voice is heard.”

As the referendum vote nears, digital media organizing has pushed forward after the WGAE Council unanimously agreed to do so in a vote this past February. Headlining the guild’s organizing work was a six-day strike at Gizmodo Media last month that ended with a bargaining agreement with several major wage and working condition improvements for the media site’s workers.

WGA East Leaders Strike Compromise on Membership Battle, Will Pursue Changes to Union Structure

Cynthia Littleton - 

Thu, 7 April 2022, 

Variety

Leaders of the WGA East have reached a compromise after months of friction over the membership base of the union that represents film and TV writers on the East Coast.

The WGA East council voted unanimously to pursue major changes to the union’s constitution to allow for different classifications of membership. The council is recommending changes that will be voted on in a member referendum later this spring.
More from Variety

G/O Media Workers From Gizmodo, Jezebel, Kotaku and More Go on Strike
WGA East Sets First Class for Showrunner Academy Program
Digital Writers Gain Ground in Contentious WGA East Election

All of this is an effort to settle the divide over the WGA East’s big push during the last decade to organize writers for digital news and entertainment outlets.

“The WGAE Council has spent the last several months working together and with an outside facilitator. I think I speak for everyone involved when I say that it has been a learning process in which everyone exchanged ideas and listened to one another,” said Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America East. “Now we have united. I’m enthusiastic about the result and the next chapter for this brave union of storytellers.”

The guild’s plan is to create three “work sectors” for WGA East membership: Film/TV/Streaming, Broadcast/Cable/Streaming News and Online Media. Under the proposed constitutional changes, all members would vote for the President and Secretary-Treasurer officer posts. The guild will create three new VP council posts — one for each sector — and voting for those slots will be limited by membership sector. Guild members would also only vote WGA East contracts or strike authorization votes that affect their sector.

“We’re very happy. The community was able to come together and reach an agreement that protects everyone’s rights and everyone’s contracts and everyone’s negotiations,” Winship told Variety after the vote.

Longtime WGA East members who work in traditional entertainment and scripted TV and film have gradually raised concerns about the influx of members who typically make far less that successful screenwriters and showrunners. The income differential has some members worried that the union’s health and pension funds will be diluted.

But the even bigger concerns among film and TV writers was the fast rate of growth for the ranks of digital writers at a rate that would quickly outpace the ranks of the union’s traditional core narrative screenwriters — which would be a big departure from the WGA East’s roots. Among the old guard, there were worries that some members would be inclined to shift membership to the WGA West, where the vast majority of members work in traditional TV and film.

The schism was laid bare last fall during the WGA East election for officers and board members when two clear factions emerged. The slate of candidates that ran under the Solidarity banner reflected the desire to keep broadening the WGA East tent with digital writers. Candidates that ran on the Inclusion and Experience ticket, which included Winship, called for a moratorium on WGA East organizing of digital outlets while the issues were vetted by union leaders.

Over the past few months, sources said Winship has led the effort to bridge the gap with the goal of keeping the union from breaking up or bifurcating along more permanent lines.

“I’m thrilled that our governing body has not only created an agreement to increase and formalize our commitment to organizing but also built a process to collaborate with each other on finding solutions to challenges across all work sectors,” said Sara David, a member of the Council who works in online media. “These changes mark an exciting new chapter of the WGA East where we can negotiate stronger contracts, expand our organizing work, and ensure that every member’s voice is heard.”

David Simon, a veteran showrunner and council member who ran on the Inclusion and Experience slate, said the issue at hand came down to a problem of governance. The WGA East needed to find a way to make room for new members working in different sectors while still protecting the interests of the members that the union was founded to represent. At present the WGA East has about 6,500 members.

“What it came down to was: How do we protect the existing union and its intention and allow the digital side to continue to organize,” Simon told Variety. “None of us wanted to stop that process or throw them out of the union.”

But without the changes now recommended by WGA East leaders, the union’s board membership and representation on negotiating committees could eventually be dominated by writers from other sectors. That would be a big disadvantage when it comes to bringing leverage to the table with Hollywood’s major employers, in the view of Simon and many others.

“At that point, somebody in the West who calls us to talk about a contract might be talking to somebody who works for Vice or for Hearst,” Simon said. “That’s a different kind of writing job.”

Sources close to the situation said the discussions picked up steam after the first of the year. Council members broke up into working groups to tacke the nitty-gritty issues that require changes to the union’s constitution. Numerous scenarios for restructuring the union were considered, including the prospect of the digital members to create their own local.

Ultimately, it was determined that creating a separate local was too big of a lift for new members that don’t have as much experience with union governance and contract negotiations.

Winship credited the contributions of two outside labor law experts — Susan Davis, of Cohen Weiss and Simon, and Rutgers professor Susan Schurman — for helping to bring objective perspective that helped guide discussions. He also cited the work of WGA East vice president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen and Secretary-Treasurer Christopher Kyle.

“They shouldered so much by helping us hammer out language and being able to reach compromise when necessary,” Winship said.

KAPITALI$M KILL$

Creative sentencing improves workplace safety: Why don't we use it more?

Lianne M Lefsrud, Associate Professor, Engineering Safety and Risk Management, University of Alberta, 

Joel Gehman, Professor of Strategic Management & Public Policy, George Washington University,

Heather Eckert, Associate professor, Department of Economics, University of Alberta - 
The Conversation

Hundreds die each year from workplace-related incidents in Canada. Alberta, in particular, has seen its fair share of recent deaths, like the man who was killed at a construction site in Cochrane last September, and the oilsands worker who was killed in northern Alberta last June.

The most recent Report on Workplace Fatalities and Injuries found that 590 workers in Canada died from occupation-related diseases, and 335 died from workplace injuries in 2019.

Besides the loss of life and environmental damage, these incidents are expensive; the associated production losses, absenteeism, medical costs and workers’ compensation payouts equate to four to five per cent of the annual global gross domestic product (GDP).

Learning from past mistakes

As researchers with an interest in workplace safety, we wanted to understand: How do companies learn from their mistakes? What motivates them, and their industries, to change their ways? Monetary penalties? Deeper reflection from analyzing the causes of the infraction? Public scrutiny?

To answer these questions, we (an engineering professor, an economics professor and a business professor) developed a testable model of how different types of regulations affect companies’ safety performance. We examined the injury rates of 87 Albertan employers found guilty and sentenced for environmental and occupational, health and safety infractions from 2005 to 2018.

Our work is among the earliest to quantitatively examine the effect of incidents and sentencing type on companies’ safety performance, for two reasons. First, is a lack of data access, which we overcame by connecting with several forward-looking government ministries: Alberta Justice and Solicitor General, Alberta Environment and Parks, Alberta Labour and Immigration.

Second, our approach is interdisciplinary, meaning it combines research from several fields. There are a few assumptions each field tends to make: economists expect companies to maximize expected profit, management researchers expect companies to avoid incidents that create public scrutiny and engineers expect companies to adopt the best technical solutions.

Individually, all these perspectives have blind spots. For example, economists might fail to see the hidden costs associated with incidents, such as reputational impact, or management researchers might overlook how incidents are under-reported and unevenly covered by media. Together, our research is able to overcome these shortcomings.

Fines are not (always) the way to go

Our results suggest that creative sentencing provided more effective and longer lasting deterrence for offending companies. Instead of paying fines, creative sentencing uses funds to promote better workplace safety, like better industry training.

When a serious incident happened, we found a small reduction in a company’s injury rate, even before they were sentenced. This suggests that incidents motivate companies to change their practices prior to prosecution and sentencing.

With traditional sentencing, like fines or imprisonment, companies’ injury rates rebounded within two years. With a creative sentence, companies’ injury rates remain lower for at least two years. In other words, our research suggests that creative sentencing and case-study learning improves performance, while economic fines do not.

A possible explanation for this is that major incidents focus managerial attention on improving company practices, while creative sentences reinforce these improvements.

Why isn’t creative sentencing used more often?

This begs the question: If creative sentencing improves company behaviour, why don’t more jurisdictions use it? The answer is that fines are easy — justice departments collect money from offending companies and it goes into government general revenues. Fines are simpler for companies too — they just need to write a cheque.

In comparison, creative sentencing requires much more work. There needs to be a detailed examination of the incident’s root causes, agreement on the right creative fixes to put in place and appropriate follow-through to hold the company accountable for those changes.

The root causes, and subsequent fixes, are often complicated. Workers feel rushed and take shortcuts, or they might be contractors who don’t have access to their company’s work procedures. Perhaps work procedures are overly detailed, complicated and difficult to follow. Or only one specific person knows and they’re home sick that day.

A justice department has to monitor a company (sometimes for years) while it unravels the causes and enacts fixes, then check the company’s homework.

Our firsthand experience working with companies and creative sentencing is that this is time-consuming, technically and organizationally complicated and emotionally exhausting. Company operations are messier than our model portrays.

This work is incredibly important to do, despite how tedious and difficult it can be. Only by examining these complexities, and enacting creative solutions, can we learn from incidents and fix the causes. While a workplace fatality is a tragedy, an even greater tragedy is not learning from it.

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

Read more:

The end of dangerous working conditions starts with informed consumers

The National Day of Mourning is a reminder workplaces should be safe

Lianne M Lefsrud receives data from the Government of Alberta Workers' Compensation Board and funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, Alberta Justice and Alberta Occupational Health and Safety.

heckert@ualberta.ca receives funding from The Government of Alberta, Ministry of Labour and Immigration.

Joel Gehman is a co-investigator with Lianne M Lefsrud on grants related to this research program.

Abandoned Russian Tank Tagged With ‘Wolverines’ in Shout-Out to 1984’s 

‘Red Dawn’

(Photo)


Harper Lambert
Thu, April 7, 2022


“Red Dawn,” the cult classic Cold War film about a group of teens who must defend America against a fictional attack by the Soviet Union, has resurfaced in the very real war taking place in Ukraine.

NPR Politics correspondent Scott Detrow tweeted Thursday that he drove past “a destroyed Russian tank with WOLVERINES spraypainted across it” in Ukraine.


Although Detrow wasn’t able to get a clear picture, another user shared an image of the tank later in the day.


In the John Milius (FROM CZECHLOSOVAKIA)-directed film, “Wolverines” is the name that the group of protagonists – played by Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Darren Dalton, Doug Toby and Brad Savage – goes by, as well as their battle cry. Their Colorado town comes under siege when the Soviet Union and their Cuban and Nicaraguan allies attack, forcing them to take cover in the woods.

After weeks of surviving in the wilderness, Jed (Swayze) and Matt (Sheen) find their father (Harry Dean Stanton) in a “re-education” camp and learn that their mother has been killed. Toni (Jennifer Grey) and Erica (Lea Thompson), the daughter of two other captives, also join the Wolverines. The rest of the film follows them through “occupied America” on their mission to avenge their family and country.

Although the 1984 film only performed decently at the box office, it found a home with fans over the years. Its cultural impact is evident in the number of times it has been referenced in real-life politics. “Operation Red Dawn” was the nickname given to the mission to capture Saddam Hussein. Furthermore, a chain of emails exchanged between members of the Trump administration about COVID-19 were deemd the “Red Dawn emails.”

Russia’s war against Ukraine has also prompted a popularity surge for the movie, as viewership on streaming platforms rose to 500% the day the invasion began. In addition to “Red Dawn,” “Inglorious Basterds” and “Rocky IV” have also experienced surges.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Hertz CEO Admits False Arrests Over Rented Cars Have Happened

He has confidence that the company will reach a settlement with customers.

Anthony Alaniz - 
motor1.com


Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr admitted that the company's actions have caused some customers to be falsely arrested for stealing rental cars. His admission arrives after 230 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the company for wrongly accusing them of theft.

Scherr admitted not only what happened, but he also explained how:
"What played out here is we had cars that were stolen, or allegedly stolen. We put a police report in, when that car was found, the report was rescinded. And, unfortunately, in certain circumstances, when that car went out again, it wasn't in fact rescinded, and so the customer was accused."

"What played out here is we had cars that were stolen, or allegedly stolen. We put a police report in, when that car was found, the report was rescinded. And, unfortunately, in certain circumstances, when that car went out again, it wasn't in fact rescinded, and so the customer was accused."

Claims of false arrest over non-stolen rental cars date back to 2014, with reports of this happening to people as recently as this year. In the Bloomberg TV interview, reported by CBS, Scherr also said that the company would "do right" for its customers. He didn't lay out any specifics, but he did say he had confidence that the company would reach some settlement for the innocent customers now facing legal threats.

Hertz had initially claimed that the attorney filing the lawsuit had a "track record of making baseless claims" that "misrepresented the facts," or that's what Hertz said a month ago. Now, Scherr is saying that the issue was not "systemic," adding that there are now guidelines to prevent these issues from happening again. That's quite a turn. He did not detail those new policies, either.

Hertz Over The Last Few Years:

Hertz Files For Bankruptcy Due To Coronavirus Crisis

Hertz Buying 65,000 Polestar EVs For Its Rental And Retail Fleet

Last November, a CBS News report chronicled two instances where police stopped two renters for alleged theft. One could prove to the police that Hertz had rented the car to him. The other was arrested and charged with a felony. Prosecutors dropped the charges when they discovered that the man had paid for the vehicle.

These legal headaches for customers won't be easy to solve. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2020, citing the coronavirus pandemic. It was allegedly saddled with billions in debt, and it emerged from bankruptcy last October. However, it will likely now face new challenges with this costly lawsuit.

Walmart is offering truckers a starting salary between $95,000 to $110,000 a year, as retailers scramble to shore up supply-chain capabilities

insider@insider.com (Áine Cain,Grace Kay) 

© George Frey/Getty ImagesWalmart is raising starting salaries for its truckers. George Frey/Getty Images

Walmart is raising its starting salaries for truck drivers in its private fleet.
Previously, the average starting annual salary for these truckers was around $87,500.
The company is increasing that number to a range of $95,000 to $110,000.

Walmart is shifting its pay structure so that its drivers can earn up to $110,000 in their first year with the retailer, as it strives to shore up its logistics capabilities with new investments.

Previously, the average starting salary for Walmart's truck drivers had been $87,500. Now, it ranges between $95,000 and $110,000. In a blog post from senior vice president of transportation Fernando Cortes and senior vice president of supply chain people Karisa Sprague, the Walmart executives wrote that "drivers who have been with Walmart longer can earn even more, based on factors like tenure and location."

Walmart's new starting pay range for truckers is nearly double the average truck driver's salary of $50,340 per year, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The salary spike for truckers is just the latest effort from the Arkansas-based retail giant to set up more mechanisms to allow for internal promotion from Walmart's huge labor pool. Walmart currently employs 12,000 drivers, and a total workforce of 1.6 million in the United States alone.

In additional to increasing truckers' pay range, Walmart has also launched a "Private Fleet Development Program" to establish a pipeline between supply-chain jobs and trucking positions. The 12-week development program features classes from already-established Walmart truckers. Inaugural classes graduated in Dallas, Texas and Dover, Delaware this year, with participants earning commercial driver's licenses and getting hired into Walmart's private fleet.

Walmart is one of many retailers working to attract more truck drivers. Last year, the company offered truckers an $8,000 sign-on bonus, joining several transportation companies that gave new drivers bonuses as high as $15,000.

Earlier this year, the American Trucking Association reported that there is a shortage of over 80,000 truck drivers. Truckers move about 72% of all goods in the US and trucking capacity has been repeatedly cited as a contributing factor to the supply-chain crisis — which has spawned shortages and price hikes.

Even the White House has taken action to help bring more truck drivers into the industry. On Monday, President Joe Biden said his administration's Trucking Action Plan had helped push employment levels in the industry past pre-pandemic levels.

Insider previously reported that trucking companies have begun recruiting drivers at gas stations and convenience stores, as well as offering perks like luxury truck stops with masseurs and pet-bathing stations.

Amazon objecting to union's victory in New York, alleging interference

(Reuters) -Amazon.com accused the new union at a New York City warehouse of threatening workers unless they voted to organize, an assertion an attorney for the labor group called "really absurd."

A second labor group, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which was losing a bid to organize an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, also filed objections on Thursday to that union election.

The U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is giving Amazon until April 22 to back up its objections to last week's election in New York, in which Staten Island workers voted to form the company's first U.S. union. Amazon had requested extra time to provide evidence because its objections are "substantial," it said in a filing Wednesday.


© Reuters/BRENDAN MCDERMIDFILE PHOTO:

 Amazon.com Inc workers react to the outcome of the vote to unionize, in Brooklyn

A certified election result would give organized labor a foothold in the United States' second-largest private employer, with the potential to alter how Amazon manages its finely tuned operation.

Some 55% of workers who voted in the election at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island opted to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), which has demanded higher pay and job security. Since the result, U.S. workers from another 50 Amazon sites have contacted the union, the group's leader has said.

Among Amazon's planned objections to the outcome are that the ALU interfered with employees in line to vote and that long waits depressed turnout, Amazon's filing said. Some 58% of eligible voters cast ballots in person over several days.

Eric Milner, an attorney representing the ALU from law firm Simon & Milner, dismissed Amazon's claims as false and said they would be overruled.

"To say that the Amazon Labor Union was threatening employees is really absurd," he said. "The Amazon Labor Union is Amazon employees."

Separately on Thursday, the RWDSU objected to the election in Bessemer, Alabama, in which Amazon workers voted against unionizing. It was the second election in Bessemer, after the NLRB determined that Amazon had improperly interfered in the first contest there last year. The most recent outcome is pending in light of hundreds of challenged ballots and now the RWDSU's objections, which could delay a result for months.

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said, “We want our employees’ voices to be heard, and we hope the NLRB counts every valid vote.”

In a filing, the RWDSU said Amazon unlawfully removed pro-union literature from non-work areas and terminated an employee who spoke in favor of the union during mandatory work meetings, among other objections. The RWDSU said these were grounds for the NLRB to set aside the result.

Amazon itself took issue with the RWDSU's conduct, such as the union's communications with workers around the use of a mailbox on warehouse property, adding that its filing objections is standard process.

The retailer faces a high bar in demonstrating that the New York union violated rules for engagement with employees that influenced the outcome, said John Logan, a labor professor at San Francisco State University.

In addition, the NLRB typically treats employers' alleged violations more seriously than alleged wrongdoing by unions because companies have greater power over workers, he said.

"It's going to be really tough" for Amazon, he said.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, California, Julia Love in San Francisco and Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese, Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

21 CENTURY TECHNOLOGY MEETS WAR

Analysis: Drones, phones and satellite technology are exposing the truth about Russia's war in Ukraine in near real-time

Analysis by Nic Robertson, CNN - 13h ago
© Rodrigo Abd/AP

Russia's lies may be catching up with it faster than it ever imagined.

The war in Ukraine is defying President Vladimir Putin's expectations at every turn, not only with Russia's failure to capture Kyiv as planned but with the war crimes his soldiers are alleged to have committed in Bucha, a city close the capital, exposed for the world to see.

Throughout history, wars have been won by forces turning new technologies to their advantage. The 1415 victory of English King Henry V over the French at the Battle of Agincourt came courtesy of his archers and their newly developed longbows, raining arrows over a range the French could not match.

The war in Ukraine may see another historic first, with technology cutting through the fog of war, exposing the aggressors' lies and accelerating efforts to bring about their defeat.

Satellite images of murdered civilians that match videos, recorded weeks later, of bodies at the roadside are providing compelling evidence of Russian war crimes, convincing Western leaders to ramp up sanctions on Russia and accelerate weapons supplies for Ukraine.


How this will affect the final outcome of the war is unclear. But what is evident at a time when Ukraine is urgently seeking any additional leverage as Russian forces regroup for a new offensive, is that Russia's actions in Bucha are strengthening Ukraine's hand.

While battlefield satellite imagery has been available to governments for decades and was instrumental in pinpointing war crimes during the Bosnian civil war in the 1990s -- notably locating a mass grave of many of the 7,000 Bosnian Muslims slaughtered in the town of Srebrenica in 1995 -- it has never been so immediately available in the public domain as now.

Putin and his battlefield commanders appear not to care or not to have grasped the fact that orders and actions now leave an indelible record beyond their control that could come back to haunt them.

They will be aware that in many past conflicts -- even as recent as the Syrian civil war -- leaders like Bashar al Assad escaped conviction and have even been rehabilitated, despite vast troves of incriminating documents spirited from government offices and police stations.

But this is not the only lesson to which Putin should pay attention. Following the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian civil war, the war crimes tribunal in the Hague used political and military leaders' own words to help convict them.

When the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) put Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic on trial, it had video of him looking over Sarajevo, condemning the civilians below to artillery and mortar fire.

His military partner in war crimes there, General Ratko Mladic, also saw his words come back to help convict him, as video showed him on the outskirts of Srebrenica directing the filtering of civilians, many of whom would shortly be slaughtered by his soldiers, following his orders.

That type of link may be harder to pin on Putin, but his 20-page thesis published last summer on why Ukraine is not a country, and his TV comments on why Russia should invade, will, if previous war crime courts are a precedent, count against him as author and director of the war.

If Putin were to come to trial, his unravelling may turn out to have begun with his inability to understand his army's weaknesses and Ukraine's strengths. Failure to fulfil his first major objective, the capture of Kyiv, forced his troops to retreat, leaving their tide of terror exposed.

They did what they have done so many times before, in Syria, in Chechnya, in Georgia: committed awful abuses. And Putin and his officials did what they have done so many time before: lied to cover their crimes.

Russian defense officials claimed photos and videos that emerged on April 2, showing murdered civilians -- shot in the head, some with their hands and legs bound -- were fake, saying their troops left before the killings occurred. "The troops left the city on March 30," the defense ministry said in a statement. "Where was the footage for four days? Their absence only confirms the fake."

They were very clear about the date. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, one of Putin's most seasoned spin masters, doubled down on the clumsy cover-up, insisting "Russian forces left the Bucha town area as early as the 30th of March."

But publicly available satellite images from space-tech company Maxar, taken March 18 while Russian troops were in control, showed the civilians lying dead at the road side in exactly the same locations as Ukrainian forces discovered them when they re-entered the town in early April. And drone video shot before March 10 showed a cyclist being shot and killed by Russian troops. Ukrainian forces found his body weeks later, exactly where he fell.

In the months prior to Russia's invasion and the days since Maxar's images appeared, tracking Russian forces and their destruction, the public's understanding of the battlefield has been revolutionized. Coupled with the near-ubiquitous use of smartphone cameras, geolocation technology and sophisticated drones, Putin faces the possible reckoning he escaped in previous conflicts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants more cameras, and wider access, to let the public see for themselves: "This is what we are interested in, maximum access for journalists, maximum cooperation with international institutions, enrolment of the International Criminal Court, complete truth and full accountability," he said in a video address on Monday.

Ukraine's enigmatic leader has realized it's not just high-tech, tank-busting weapons like Javelins and NLAWs, or surface-to-air missiles like Stingers and Starstreaks, that could turn the tide in the war. It's truth, and the tools -- satellites, drones and smartphones -- to deliver it.

Unparalleled in any modern war, technology could hand the underdog this surprising advantage, undermining the lies of an oversized aggressor. Zelensky was at pains for the United Nations to understand this when he spoke to them Tuesday: "It is 2022 now. We have conclusive evidence. There are satellite images. And we can conduct full and transparent investigations."

Like Henry V in 1415, Zelensky knows an advantage when he sees it. While satellite imagery may not be as game-changing as a six-foot yew branch and a length of hemp string, if he can use it cleverly, he may force Putin to talks much sooner than the Russian President would like.


© Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking to the United Nations Security Council on April 5

Seeing Bucha atrocities is turning point for media, viewers

Yesterday 

NEW YORK (AP) — CBS News reporter Debora Patta has covered conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Europe. She has seen violence and death at close range before. But the atrocities she witnessed in Bucha, Ukraine this week stood out, and overwhelmed her.

“We need to be disturbed by these pictures,” Patta said on “CBS Mornings,” after describing what she and other journalists witnessed in the outskirts of Kyiv.

The war changed this week from a media perspective, which is how most people outside of Ukraine experience it.

Before, events had been seen primarily from a slight distance — fiery explosions caught on camera or drone-eyed views of burned-out buildings. Now, with the Ukrainian army retaking control of villages near Kyiv that had been brutalized by Russian soldiers, journalists are capturing the aftermath of horrific violence at close range — of dead bodies bound, tortured and burned.

While there’s a sense that images like these might change public opinion or have an impact on how a war plays out, historically that hasn’t often been the case, said Rebecca Adelman, a communications professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in war and the media.

Still, several countries, including the United States and Britain, imposed additional sanctions on Russia this week, and they cited the brutality in Bucha as compelling them to do more.

Whatever the impact, Adelman said it is critical to have journalists on hand to document what is going on. “Bearing witness is crucially important, particularly in cases of catastrophic loss,” she said. “Sometimes the photograph is all you have left.”

Photographs and video from Bucha showed body bags piled in trenches, lifeless limbs protruding from hastily dug graves, and corpses scattered in streets where they fell, including one man blown off a bicycle.

Journalists from around the world also interviewed Ukrainians emerging from their hiding places to tell stories about the barbarism they witnessed from Russian soldiers.

TV anchors and correspondents warned viewers that they were about to see graphic and disturbing pictures — a warning that came four times in one episode of “World News Tonight” on ABC. “I'm sorry I have to show you this,” CNN's Frederik Pleitgen apologized, before motioning a camera to show body bags piled in a van.

“While we may want to look away, it is becoming harder and harder to close our eyes to what's happening,” NBC “Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt said in his warning to viewers.

Veteran television news producer Rick Kaplan said that, from what he's seen, news organizations have been careful in what they've shown without flinching from the story.

“Every day we have these images it brings (the war) home more and more,” said Kaplan, a former president of both CNN and MSNBC. “It's a good thing that this horrifies us. Can you imagine if we were blase about it?”

The gruesome images from Bucha, in particular, have dominated news reports around the world.

The BBC reported on the continued “world revulsion.” Italian state TV gave no warning before showing bodies with bound hands, half-buried in sandy terrain. “What you see from here, unfortunately, are signs of torture on the face,” journalist Stefania Battistini said. “All are wearing civilian clothes.”

Narrating a story on Fakty, Poland's most-watched evening news program, anchor Grzegorz Kajdanowicz said “it is our duty to warn you, but also to show you what the Russians did in Bucha and several other places.”

It was different in Russia, where state television falsely claimed Ukraine was responsible for either killing civilians themselves or perpetrating a hoax. Russian TV has also run images of dead bodies in Bucha, some taken from CNN, with the word “fake” stamped on the screen, according to Internet Archive, a company that monitors Web and television content.

The Russian propaganda prompted many Western news organizations to debunk those claims by using satellite imagery to show that many dead bodies that were documented on the ground this week by journalists had been in the same spots when Russia controlled the town.

Some of the most graphic images were compiled in a short video made by Ukraine to accompany President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's speech to the United Nations on Tuesday. To a soundtrack of somber music and the cries of children, the video showed close-ups of corpses and body parts.

Technical difficulties delayed its airing until well after Zelenskyy talked, giving networks like CNN and Fox News Channel that had aired the speech time to present it later in edited form. But MSNBC appeared to show it in full, leaving anchor Andrea Mitchell visibly shaken.

“That's just horrific,” she said. “I don't think the world has seen anything like it.”

Ukraine has a clear motivation to show the world what is happening, and journalists accompanied Zelenskyy on a visit to Bucha on Monday.

While television and the Internet give greater immediacy to war coverage, heart-wrenching images — and their potential to shape public opinion — are hardly new.

Harvard historian Drew Faust, author of “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War,” noted that when Matthew Brady had an exhibit of his Civil War photographs in 1862, The New York Times wrote, “if he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it.”

When a memorable photo was circulated of a 5-year-old boy sitting dazed and bloodied after being rescued from a bombing in Aleppo, Syria in 2016, NPR asked in a headline, “Can one photo help end a war?”

It hasn't yet.

A danger, too, is that in a world not easily shocked people will become numb to the pictures. That's Faust's fear, particularly as she expressed surprise that many people became strangely disconnected to the news of so many people dying of COVID-19.

As more communities are liberated from Russian rule, the number of ghastly images will almost certainly multiply.

“A little caution will be needed going forward so every news program doesn't become a parade of horrible images,” said news consultant and retired NBC News executive Bill Wheatley.

Yet one of the surprises of this war, along with Ukraine's ability to stave off a quick defeat, is the way Zelenskyy has been able to win the information battle and unite opposition in a way that was not anticipated. In that context, the images may help make a difference.

___

Associated Press correspondents Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy; Louise Dixon in London; Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland; and Amanda Seitz in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

David Bauder, The Associated Press

TODAYS PARTY LINE FOR CANADIAN STALINISTS

After evidence emerged that Russian soldiers had been indiscriminately killing civilians in occupied areas of Ukraine , the immediate response of many European countries was to order a mass-expulsion of Russian diplomats. But Canada has refused to follow suit, citing the risk of retaliation from Moscow.

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what Russia’s Ottawa embassy has been up to lately, they just finished firing out a string of tweets claiming that the burned, maimed and rotting corpses found in the streets of Bucha, Ukraine are actually all just a neo-Nazi hoax .

 

© Maxar Technologies/ReutersA satellite image of a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine

Edmonton to make local safety plan based on national MMIWG inquiry

CBC/Radio-Canada - Yesterday


The City of Edmonton is working on a tailor-made plan to improve safety and well-being for Indigenous people, based on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).


© CBCRed Dress Day is an annual event that honours missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The city is looking into streamlining its existing projects and funding new ones on the topic of safety and well-being for Indigenous people in the city.

City council looked at a report with a general framework, which came from the city's Indigenous Relations Office. It included both short- and long-term projects.

Council then asked administration for a specific action plan, timelines and a budget by this fall. Coun. Aaron Paquette was the one who put it forward.

Paquette, a Métisman, said the initiatives mean a lot for the city and his own family.

"This issue has impacted and affected my family in very personal ways," Paquette said at the council meeting.

"We have lost members of our family and continue to lose members of our family and so this grief is very common in First Nations, Métis, and immigrant communities."

The motion also directs administration to develop a funding strategy that includes awareness campaigns for National Indigenous History Month.

Another step could be to create an Indigenous ombudsperson or advocate within the City of Edmonton.

Jaimy Miller, director of Indigenous Relations at the city, said during community consultations, she's heard many people call for an advocate to investigate complaints of racism.

"Indigenous people still continue to face racism and discrimination in our city," she told council.

"Sometimes they're experiencing it within city facilities, or in city places of public engagement or work but there are also people experiencing racism and discrimination when they're trying to, for example, get housing in our city," Miller said.
Short and long-term projects

Some initiatives are already underway, like an Indigenous housing strategy, which administration is expected to present this spring.

The motion is meant to streamline a budget and timeline for everything moving forward, as well as provide resources for the projects that are already happening.

Short-term priorities outlined in the report include public awareness campaigns such as Red Dress Day, Sisters in Spirit Day, Walk a Mile in a Ribbon Skirt and Okîsikow/Angel Way that aim to expose violence against Indigenous women, girls and LGBTQ2S community.

These are meant to be rolled out between this year and the end of next year.

Longer-term goals include developing Indigenous awareness and anti-racism training; capital funding for Indigenous hubs, cultural and wellness centres, and support for Indigenous-led community safety and harm and transition reduction programs.

When it comes to making things happen, city manager Andre Corbould said he's analyzing the current resources and will determine what's needed.

"We need to properly staff all the right places in the city to make sure that we can do the work," Corbould said.

Corbould will present a budget in the fall.

 
Invest in healing

According to research from the Native Women's Association of Canada, Alberta has the second highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the country.

Jodi Calahoo-Stonehouse, executive director of the Yellowhead Indigneous Education Foundation, said the city could expand education and healing programs.

She points to the Indigenous Knowledge and Wisdom Centre, which is building the kihciy askiy site in the river valley. kihciy askiy is Cree for sacred land.

The Indigenous community will be able to host ceremonies and sweat lodges and grow medicinal herbs there.

Programs will be available for families and women to heal from the sexual, emotional and psychological abuse from residential schools and the Sixties Scoop, she explained.

"We know the trauma is there, we must invest and support in the healing and recovery," Calahoo-Stonehouse said.

The city can also work on establishing shelters specific for women in crisis, she added.

With housing and health care being provincial and federal areas of jurisdiction, Calahoo-Stonehouse said often governments try to put the responsibility on each other.

She lauded Edmonton's efforts to take this step.

CANADA
Food industry heavyweights to sit down and hash out code of conduct: internal report
Jake Edmiston - 

Financial Post

© Provided by Financial PostAdvocates for a grocery code of conduct say it would end the historic power imbalance between big grocers and their suppliers, and even help tamp down rising food inflation.

Executives from Canada’s largest food companies and retail chains will convene this month to hash out new rules that could end years of squabbling in the grocery business, according to a report sent to government this week.

The roundtable, which will include representatives from Loblaw Companies Ltd., Sobeys’ parent Empire Co. Ltd., PepsiCo Inc. and Unilever Plc, marks a new phase in a protracted campaign to establish a code of conduct for the food industry. Advocates say a code would end the historic power imbalance between big grocers and their suppliers, and even help tamp down rising food inflation. But the process of writing those rules continues to get longer, with negotiations missing another deadline this month.

Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers have been closely following rising tensions between grocers and suppliers throughout the pandemic — the latest of which has been the standoff between Loblaw and PepsiCo over the price of chips.

Last summer, the ministers gave the industry an ultimatum : call a truce and draft a code yourselves, or government will do it for you. The ministers appointed a mediator to facilitate talks between 10 trade associations representing grocers and suppliers, hoping for a solution by the end of 2021. Then, in November, the ministers set a new deadline , asking for the 10 groups to come up with a “concrete proposal” by March.

This week, the trade associations went back to the ministers with a progress report, not a proposal. The talks have produced “significant progress” but there are still disagreements, the report said. “We feel confident that the big picture is coming together.”

One of the industry reps involved in the discussions said the deadline wasn’t realistic.

“The expectations of government were by March we have it done. But quite honestly, they had no understanding of the complexity of what we’re trying to deal with, or the magnitude of it,” said Michael Graydon, CEO of Food, Health and Consumer Products of Canada. “We’re better off to take the time.”

The trade associations agreed that the next step is to get professionals from the field to sit down and “tackle the major subjects,” including what sorts of products and dealings should be covered by a code. The discussions so far appear to have made headway on a key issue, with all lobby groups involved in agreement that the code should be mandatory and enforceable, though it’s still not clear how it will be enforced.

“It is too early to say definitively that a regulatory or non-regulatory route is required,” the progress report said.

As of this week, the so-called “cross-industry working group” involves senior leaders from food companies behind some of the biggest brands in the world, including PepsiCo, Unilever, and Danone S.A. Canada’s top three grocers, Loblaw, Sobeys’ parent Empire and Metro Inc., will also be involved, along with the Western Canadian grocer Save-On-Foods. More than three dozen people are participating in total, including Cara Keating, president of PepsiCo Foods Canada, and Gary Wade, president of Unilever Canada, according to a recent roster obtained by the Financial Post.

A mediation firm and a “neutral competition lawyer” will also be involved.


© Cole Burston/Bloomberg

Loblaw is among the grocers taking part in the talks.

Retail Council of Canada, which represents the grocers, expects to have “strong and capable representation” at the working group meetings, spokesperson Michelle Wasylyshen said in an email.

Graydon, at FHCP, said the executives will bring an on-the-ground perspective, which has been lacking so far in negotiations between industry lobbyists.

“I think when they actually get down to it, they’re going to look each other in the eye and say, ‘Yeah we can do that,'” Graydon said. “I’m hopeful that we can get to a point in the next month or two that we can get everything resolved, maybe have a semblance of a draft code…. I don’t think anybody wants this to last a long time. They’ve all got full-time jobs.”

The meetings are set to start this month, the progress report said.

André Lamontagne — Quebec’s agriculture minister, who has been one of the leaders of a cross-governmental probe into the grocery business — is satisfied with the progress so far, his office said on Thursday.

“This important issue is progressing well,” spokesperson Alexandra Houde said in an email.

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau is reviewing the progress report and recognizes “that the issues at stake are very complex,” her office said in a statement.

Frito-Lay vs. Loblaw fight underscores importance of grocery code of conduct negotiations, leaders say

Talks on grocery code to extend into new year, but legislators say it’s progress

Empire eyes year-end for a grocery code of conduct, but others are skeptical

Retail Council joins call for code of grocery conduct, paving way for new rules on the big chains

For years, food producers have complained that a handful of dominant grocery chains are taking advantage of their position in Canada’s consolidated food retail market to foist fees and fines on their suppliers. Suppliers say they have no choice but to pay up, since they can’t afford to sour a relationship with one of the five retail chains in Canada that control about 80 per cent of grocery sales.

Those tensions got worse in the pandemic, when Walmart Inc. and Loblaw both started charging fees to suppliers to recoup the costs of their investments in e-commerce. The retailers said the investments would lead to higher sales volumes for suppliers, but food manufacturers viewed the move as a step too far. Suppliers also complained that some retailers continued to charge fines for short shipments and late deliveries through the pandemic, even though manufacturers were struggling to maintain outputs due to COVID-19 outbreaks, heightened safety measures that slowed down production lines, and global supply chain disruptions.


© Peter J. Thompson/National Post

Empire chief executive Michael Medline.

In 2020, Empire broke ranks with the big grocers and endorsed supplier demands for a code of conduct, similar to a model used in the United Kingdom’s consolidated grocery industry. Empire CEO Michael Medline has said supplier-grocer relations are the worst he’s seen in his career, and has criticized the plodding process toward a code in the last year.

“It’s taking too long,” he said in an interview in December . “If we had a way that we could work better together and encourage businesses to talk to each other and not just lob threats, then we could tamp down a little bit of this inflation.”

• Email: jedmiston@postmedia.com | Twitter: jakeedmiston

CANADA

Indigenous and BIPOC musicians face substantial pay gap with white peers in music, industry study shows

The Canadian Press

A new study commissioned by the Canadian Live Music Association (CLMA) shows Indigenous performers and other live-music-business employees are routinely discriminated against in terms of how much they are paid for their work.

The 18-month study, called Closing the Gap: Impact and Representation of Indigenous, Black and People of Colour Live Music Workers in Canada, shows that Indigenous people and other minorities make $11,700 less annually than their white counterparts.

The CLMA’s CEO said she was, unfortunately, not surprised by the study’s finding.

"We're neither shocked nor surprised at the findings," said Erin Benjamin. "But now, with this report in-hand, we can – all of us – accelerate and make every effort to rid systemic inequities from our industry - prioritize and fight for the change that the report calls for, that we know we need, that we know is right. This is our community and it's our responsibility to ensure that IBPOC live music workers have every opportunity to succeed. Today marks the end of creating the report and the beginning of closing the gap in Canada's live music industry. The Canadian Live Music Association is proud to have championed and led this report and we are so grateful to our industry partners and funders for helping to make it happen.”

For the CLMA consulted extensively with BIPOC artists, organizations, and community members alongside its project team, which included many collaborators, community partners and an advisory committee to ensure that ongoing conversations with a wide range of unrestricted perspectives and experiences helped shape the direction and research questions driving the study.

‘Indigenous respondents most frequently reported fear of losing control and ownership over their stories, artistic projects and/or decision making, while mental or physical well-being (i.e., lack of health or other insurance benefits, little to no work/life balance), was reported as a significant impediment to career progression by all survey respondents,’ a CMLA statement said. The results of the study also hammer home concerns with genre categorization, where terms such as ‘Indigenous Music’ were highlighted by respondents as both providing a source of community and belonging, while also creating feelings of marginalization and tokenization, the statement said.

A major concern coming out of the study was the gatekeeping factor. More than half of all white entrepreneurs – 61 percent, to be precise -- reported that Indigenous people or people of colour made up a minority of their workplace, while 82 percent of Indigenous people or people of colour reporting that increased access to gatekeepers – including bookers, producers and executives – would help advance their careers, indicating a lack of representation at the gatekeeping level as well.

The CLMA statement said more efforts must be made to increase diversity at all levels of the live-music industry.

‘The results of the study have provided the Canadian live music industry with clear evidence and recommendations, to implement an industry-wide action plan towards dismantling the disparities and closing the gap for IBPOC live music workers nationwide, thus fostering real change,’ the CLMA said.

Marc Lalonde, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Iori:wase