ECOCIDE

Gas tank graveyard has Mexico City residents up in arms

Mexico City

Thousands of disused gas cylinders were made to sit outside down the sun at a former refinery in Mexico, producing a foul smell that neighbors say has made their lives a nightmare.

over every night, Cesar Rivera and his wife leave their apartment because the odor becomes too much, the 37-year-old web programmer told AFP.

“The smell is so strong at night so unbearable that it’s like the stove isn’t turned off properly,” he said.

The couple also fears that the liquefied petroleum gas seeping from the cylinders which are used by many households in Mexico City — will cause an explosion or make them sick.

“The building administration has asked us not to smoke or use the stove burners when the smell’s stronger. It has completely changed our lives,” said Rivera.

“It’s a time bomb,” he added.

Aerial images were taken by AFP show what looks like a huge graveyard in the west of the capital, surrounded by residential districts.

But instead of human remains the disused refinery of state-owned oil giant Pemex has become the resting place of thousands of old multicolored gas cylinders.

Rivera said that he and his wife had suffered due to the smell for eight months, but only discovered in January what the source was.

An aerial view of the former 18 de Marzo refinery in Mexico City where thousands of disused gas cylinders are stored CLAUDIO CRUZ AFP

– ‘Vomiting, headaches –

LP gas, made up mainly of butane and propane, is odorless so producers add mercaptan to give it a nauseating smell that allows it to be detected.

Although “the gases produced by its combustion are not toxic or carcinogenic” a leak can cause a build-up that “can be explosive and can suffocate people in small spaces,” Mexico’s National Commission for the Efficient Use of Energy says on its website.

The tanks were stored at the old refinery by the state firm Gas Bienestar, which was created in 2021 to expand competition in the sector, after exchanging old or damaged cylinders free of charge for new ones.

In January, the Mexico City authorities said in a statement that Pemex was in the process of removing them.

Contacted by AFP, the company said it was unable to give an interview about the matter.

Mexican civil protection authorities did not respond to a request for information about the risks posed by the cylinders.

According to Ricardo Torres, an expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, LP contributes to the formation of ozone, which at ground level is a harmful pollutant for people and the environment.

Firefighters at a nearby station said they receive daily reports of gas leaks, when in fact the odor comes from the disused tanks.

“We’ve gone to the former refinery, but they don’t see us,” says station chief Cesar Suarez.

Juan Macias, who runs a carpentry workshop next door to the old refinery, said that he now closes the windows in the afternoon despite the stifling heat.

“We feel like vomiting and have really bad headaches,” he said.

“The authorities say there’s nothing to worry about,” the 44-year-old added.

“But everyone here thinks there’s some danger, so we always take care not to light anything when it smells a lot for fear of an explosion,” he said.

Study: Africa cyclones exacerbated by climate change

Wanjohi Kabukuru
The Associated Press

Monday, April 11, 2022


A house lays in ruins in Mananjary, Madagascar, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022.

 (AP Photo/Viviene Rakotoarivony)

MOMBASA, KENYA -- Extreme rainfall in southeast Africa has become heavier and more likely to occur during cyclones because of climate change, according to a new analysis released Monday by an international team of weather scientists.

Multiple tropical storms that pummeled Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique earlier this year were analyzed by the World Weather Attribution group, who determined that the storms were made worse by the increase in global temperatures. In just six weeks between January and March the region saw a record three tropical cyclones and two tropical storms make landfall. The heavy rains, storm surges and floods left more than 230 people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands across the region.

The countries remain vulnerable to devastating weather this year, with cyclone season set to end in May.


A man caries belongings from his house destroyed by tropical storm Ana in Antananarivo, Madagascar, Jan. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexander Joe, file)

The team of climate scientists used established peer-reviewed methods, including weather observations and computer simulations, to model scenarios using both preindustrial global temperatures and today's - which is approximately 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer. The difference between the models determined the impact of human-caused global warming.

Sarah Kew, from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and participated in the study, said they investigated the influence of climate change using 34 prediction models but data gaps made it difficult to determine the full impact of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

“While our analysis clearly shows that climate change made the storms more damaging, our ability to establish precisely by how much was hampered by inconsistent data and lack of weather observations,” said Dr. Kew. “This would also help to improve forecasts of extreme weather events and their impacts.”

 

 Heavy rain falls during Cyclone Gombe in Nampula Province, Mozambique, March 12, 2022. 

In both Madagascar and Malawi, the study was contrained by a lack of weather stations with suitable data. And of the 23 weather stations in the affected regions of Mozambique, only four had complete records dating back to 1981.

“Strengthening scientific resources in Africa and other parts of the global south is key to help us better understand extreme weather events fueled by climate change, to prepare vulnerable people and infrastructure to better cope with them,” Dr. Izidine Pinto, a climate system analyst at the University of Cape Town, said.

The 33-page study was conducted by 22 researchers, including scientists from universities and meteorological agencies in Madagascar, Mozambique, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and the US.

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP's climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

'Why not us?': Latinos stuck at Mexico border as Ukrainians enter US

Thousands of Latino refugees arrive in the Mexican city of Tijuana each year, dreaming of one day crossing the border that separates them from the United States.

© Patrick T. FALLON The Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter near the US-Mexico border lies not far from Unidad Deportiva Benito Juarez, which has become the staging post for thousands of Ukrainians hoping to enter the United States after fleeing their war-torn country

But as Ukrainians who fled Russia's invasion have recently begun to cross the same frontier with little delay, many Latinos stuck waiting for months are wondering why they are not being treated the same.

"Why are we -- neighbors of the United States -- not given the same opportunity to seek asylum? We came here fleeing almost the same thing," said L., a 44-year-old Mexican man.

Because of the war raging in their homeland, Ukrainians have been granted special humanitarian permission to enter the United States. Washington said last month it would take in up to 100,000 refugees

.

© Patrick T. FALLON Young Haitian, Mexican and Central American children at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter in Tijuana, Mexico do not have any dedicated space and few toys and materials

Thousands of Ukrainians have since flown to Tijuana to cross the land border to the United States -- easier than getting the visa required to fly direct.

Volunteers in Tijuana and the neighboring US town of San Ysidro say that, on average, new Ukrainian arrivals wait just two or three days before crossing, using an entrance available only to them.

"I think we all deserve a chance," L.'s wife said, with tears welling up in her eyes.

The couple fled their central Mexican hometown of Irapuato with their three children, carrying only a change of clothes, after suspected cartel members torched their home and the bakery where they made their living.

Staring down at the floor and nervously clutching a piece of paper in her trembling hands, the woman spoke to AFP hesitantly, declining to give her name for fear of something happening to her or her family.

© Patrick T. FALLON At Movimiento Juventud 2000, some families have been waiting as long as six months for a change in border restrictions that would allow them to apply for asylum

"We came here not by choice but out of necessity -- we have endured a lot of violence," she said.

"We want to give them a better life," she added, pointing to her children, who are living in one of several tents at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter.

The family are just three blocks from Unidad Deportiva Benito Juarez, which has become the staging post for thousands of Ukrainians.

"Why don't they give us a chance?" she asked.

- 'Almost a war' -

The contrast between the two shelters could hardly be more stark.

At Movimiento Juventud 2000, the atmosphere is heavy with frustration and sadness, while at Benito Juarez, relief and hope abound.

Volunteers at the Ukrainian shelter have created a database to keep up with the rapid turnover of asylum seekers.

By Saturday afternoon, more than 2,600 Ukrainians had registered.

At Movimiento Juventud 2000, some families have been waiting as long as six months for a change in border restrictions that would allow them to apply for asylum.

R., who also did not want to give her full name, is from Honduras, and has five children aged between one and nine. She said they were forced to leave their city eight years ago when her journalist husband was attacked.

They fled to Guatemala, where her husband received medical treatment. But they realized they could not remain when one of the doctors who treated him was murdered.

Another attempt to rebuild their lives in Mexico was scuppered when a flood destroyed their new home, and so the family headed to the US border, encouraged by the election of Democratic President Joe Biden.

"We have been applying for asylum since we lived in Guatemala, but a long time has passed and we are still waiting," she said, sitting on a plastic bucket next to the tent in which the whole family has slept for months.

The youngest of her babies learnt to walk between tents.

Like the Ukrainians, "we also came fleeing," she said.

"It's different, but it's almost a war with the gangs... we can't go back."

- 'Suffered' -

Thanks to donations from both sides of the border, Ukrainian volunteers installed a children's play area at their shelter.

Toys, crayons and books are available, with a new crate of plastic yellow ducks arriving Saturday.

Nearby, young Haitian, Mexican and Central American children do not have any dedicated space and few materials, although they are entertained a couple of times each week by UNICEF workers and individual volunteers.

Teacher Nelly Cantu, who is part of that effort, says she was approached about helping at the Ukrainian shelter, but decided to stay put.

"Besides the language barrier, I preferred to stay here because the children need me. They have suffered a lot, and have less support. This is also a war," she said.

Some 125 people, mainly from Haiti and Central America, live in the shelter staffed by six people, said its director Jose Maria Garcia.

"We try to explain to them that they have to be patient," Garcia said.

Pregnancy trap for workers in controversial Japan scheme

Tomohiro OSAKI
Mon, 11 April 2022


Japan's "technical intern" programme is a valuable source of labour given Japan's ageing population and small pool of migrant workers, but the scheme has been dogged by allegations of discrimination and physical abuse 

(AFP/Charly TRIBALLEAU)


When Vanessa, a worker with Japan's "technical intern" programme, told her supervisors she was pregnant, she says they first suggested an abortion and then pressured her to quit.

It's an example, activists say, of the abuses faced by vulnerable workers in a controversial programme that helps Japan meet its labour needs.

The programme, which had around 275,000 workers from countries including China and Vietnam last year, is supposed to give participants specialised experience that will be of use in their home country.

It's a valuable source of labour given Japan's ageing population and small pool of migrant workers, but the scheme has been dogged by allegations of discrimination and physical abuse.

And female technical interns can face particular pressure around pregnancy.

Vanessa, who asked to be identified by her first name only, was working in a care home in southern Japan's Fukuoka when she discovered she was pregnant, and hoped to return to work after the birth.

Instead, the 25-year-old Filipina says bosses pushed her and her partner for an abortion despite terminations being both taboo and a crime in her deeply Catholic homeland.

"I thought, 'how dare (they),'". "Having an abortion is a mother's choice, not someone else's," she told AFP.

When she refused to have an abortion, her supervisors forced her to quit.

Japan's health ministry says 637 technical interns quit because of pregnancy or childbirth between 2017 and 2020, including 47 who said they wished to continue the programme.

But advocates say that is likely the "tip of the iceberg", and no statistics capture how many others have been pressured to avoid or end pregnancies.

- Interchangeable, cheap labour -

"Most technical interns are of reproductive age... but the idea of them getting pregnant during their stay in Japan is often considered out of the question," said Masako Tanaka, a Sophia University professor who studies the reproductive rights of migrant women.

Technical interns are covered by Japanese laws banning harassment or discrimination based on pregnancy.

But "maternity harassment" remains a problem for Japanese women, and foreign technical interns are often even more vulnerable.

Reports of pregnancy-based discrimination in 2019 prompted Japan's immigration agency to remind employers about the rights of interns.

"We understand that it's entirely possible that technical interns, as human beings, get pregnant and give birth, and they shouldn't suffer detrimental treatment for that," an immigration agency official told AFP.

Hiroki Ishiguro, a lawyer who has represented technical interns, says employers often consider them interchangeable cheap labour.

"For some employers, it's easier to just send them back home and have them replaced with entirely new trainees, rather than go through these extra burdens (to accommodate pregnancy)," he told AFP.

Now back in the Philippines, Vanessa says she was told her pregnancy would give fellow Filipina trainees a bad reputation.

They said "because of my situation... the 'value' of Filipino trainees will decrease," she recalled.

- 'I'm sorry you two' -

Financial pressures, including debt from recruitment fees and the needs of family, also weigh on interns like Le Thi Thuy Linh, a Vietnamese worker on a farm in southern Japan's Kumamoto who found out she was pregnant in July 2020.

She feared her family back home would be "destroyed financially" if she was deported over the pregnancy, said Ishiguro, who is representing Linh.

She hid the pregnancy from her employer and sought a termination.

But abortion pills are not approved in Japan, where surgical terminations typically cost upwards of 100,000 yen ($815), and some interns fear clinics could reveal the procedure to their employers.

That leaves some women seeking unauthorised abortion pills -- a "very risky act that could see them charged with foeticide," Tanaka said.

Linh took abortion pills that she got over the internet soon after she discovered her pregnancy in July, but to no avail.

Her employer began to suspect the pregnancy, though Linh denied it, and warned her of "difficulties" if she gave birth and raised a child, Ishiguro said.

In November, she gave birth prematurely, alone and at home, to stillborn twin boys.

Exhausted, she wrapped them in a towel and placed them in a cardboard box in her room, tucking a note inside: "I'm sorry you two."

She sought help the following day from a doctor, who reported her to authorities. In January, she received a three-month suspended sentence for having "abandoned" her babies' bodies. She is appealing.

Vanessa's story ended differently -- she gave birth to her son in the Philippines, but still hopes to return to Japan.

"I want to prove that it's possible for a pregnant trainee to give birth in her country and go back to Japan to finish her contract," she said.

Syrians aid Ukrainians in ties forged by war

Members of the Syrian White Helmets use a dummy to demonstrate rescue skills in an instructive film intended for Ukrainians 


Syrians are mobilising to share with Ukrainians bitter knowledge gleaned from years of war involving Russian forces 

The White Helmets have worked as first responders, rescuing thousands from under the rubble of homes shelled by Russian and regime forces in rebel-held areas of Syria 

A unique bond has grown between Ukrainians and Syrians, as both seek accountability for the ravages inflicted by Russian forces in their countries

PHOTOS  (AFP/OMAR HAJ KADOUR)

Lynne Al-Nahhas
Mon, April 11, 2022

Syrians are mobilising to support Ukrainians, sharing hard-earned knowledge gleaned from years of war involving Russian forces, such as surviving shelling, helping refugees and responding to chemical attacks.

With both Ukrainians and Syrians seeking accountability for the ravages inflicted by Russian forces in their countries, they feel a unique bond is growing between them.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's grip on power had appeared to be hanging by a thread after the civil war erupted in 2011, until Russian forces stepped in four years later turning the conflict in the regime's favour.

"From our experiences in Syria, we might be among those most able of understanding the pain of the people of Ukraine," said Raed al-Saleh, head of the Syria Civil Defence force, known as the White Helmets.

"Syrians have lived the shelling, killing, and displacement brought on them by Russian forces.

"The time and place have changed, but the victim is the same -- civilians -- and the killer is the same -- the Russian regime," he told AFP.

During the fighting in Syria, which has claimed over 500,000 lives, the White Helmets have worked as first responders, rescuing thousands from under the rubble of homes shelled by Russian and regime forces in rebel-held areas of Syria.

The fate of Ukraine's besieged southeastern port of Mariupol, the scene of some of Moscow's fiercest assaults, has drawn comparisons with the eastern districts of Syria's northwestern city of Aleppo.

The former rebel stronghold was levelled by air strikes in 2016, during a months-long siege.

"Look at the city of Mariupol. This is exactly what we've seen in the city of Aleppo in Syria," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told an international forum last month.

He wanted to convey a message that "'Russia was always a bad actor, Aleppo is proof of that and now it is our turn to suffer'," Emile Hokayem, analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, told AFP.

- 'We warned you' -

This shared suffering has prompted a series of initiatives.

A coalition of groups has launched the Syria Ukraine Network (SUN) that has helped Syrian doctors travel to Ukraine, said coordinator Olga Lautman, a Ukrainian living in Washington.

"We will be coordinating (with) Syrian experts on war crimes documentation and chemical attacks," Lautman told AFP.

It came from "the desire of Syrians to use their expertise to help", she said, describing the "bond" forming between the two peoples.

In northwestern Idlib, one of the last remaining rebel areas in Syria, doctors at the Academy of Health Sciences are training Ukrainian doctors and nurses online, its president Abdullah Abdulaziz Alhaji said.

Ukrainians are mainly asking to learn about chemical attacks, he said. "They want to benefit from our experience."

Although no chemical weapons use has been confirmed in Ukraine, chlorine or sulphur gas attacks were recorded during the Syrian conflict, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

White Helmets rescuers are also filming tutorial videos for Ukrainians on treating casualties.

On the Ukrainian-Romanian border, Syrian Omar Alshakal, founder of Refugee4Refugees association, has been assisting Ukrainians fleeing war.

And Ukrainian and Syrian activists will Wednesday launch a "Freedom and Justice Convoy" from Paris to the Ukrainian-Polish border to show the "Syrian people's solidarity".

"Syrians are keen to embrace the cause of Ukraine because it helps revive fading international attention to their own tragedy and to tell Westerners: 'We warned you but you preferred to look away'," said Hokayem.

- 'Accountability' -

Charles Lister, from the Middle East Institute, noted Syrian activists have "sought to ride this wave of anti-Russian sentiment, to bolster the Syrian cause, but also to foster new, meaningful geopolitical relationships in Ukraine."

Syrian opposition leaders had met Ukrainian leaders on the sidelines of international gatherings, and "their shared experiences have been clear cause for unity," he told AFP.

The most important question for both is whether Moscow -- and in Syria the Kremlin-backed President Assad -- will ever be held accountable.

"If Putin was held accountable for his crimes in Ukraine, this means that he will be held accountable for his crimes in Syria as well. But if Putin gets away with it, then the next crime will only be a matter of time," said the White Helmets' Saleh.

Last month, Amnesty International's Agnes Callamard noted the situation in Ukraine "is a repetition of what we have seen in Syria".

Many have pointed to similarities in Russian tactics in Syria and Ukraine -- from targeting infrastructure to establishing so-called safe corridors and truces aiming to empty cities.

Moscow had shown a "lack of moral principles ... whether in its actions in Syria or Ukraine," said Ivan Cherevychny, 71, a resident of the Ukrainian town of Zaporizhzhia.

He also slammed "the irresponsible attitude of the United Nations and world leaders" faced with the two crises.

Others alleged that several commanders now playing leading roles in the Russian invasion had been involved in the Syrian war, naming among others Alexander Lapin and Alexander Dvornikov, commander of Russia's forces in Syria in 2016.

"Russia used Syria as a training ground for testing the effectiveness of strikes against the residential, social, and economic infrastructure," said a prominent Ukrainian lawyer-turned-fighter from Kyiv, who only wanted to be identified as Oleg.

Destroying the infrastructure makes the country "unsuitable for life," he added.

DECENDENTS OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

'Silent pain' of Algerians banished by France to the Pacific

Thomas Bernardi with Amal Belalloufi in Tunis
Mon, 11 April 2022,



Algerians walk near the Porte d'Alger on July 2, 1958 at Fort National in Kabylia, the ancestral home region of Christophe Sand who is descended from Algerian convicts deported to New Caledonia (AFP/-)

On the 60th anniversary of Algeria's independence from France, descendants of the North Africans deported to the Pacific territory of New Caledonia remember the "silent pain" of their ancestors.

Between 1864 and 1897, as French colonial troops advanced through Algeria, 2,100 people were tried by special or military courts and deported.

They were sent in chains around 18,500 kilometres (11,500 miles) to the other side of the world, to a penal colony on the Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia.

The palm-fringed islands east of Australia are one of France's biggest overseas territories.

"The number of dead, whose bodies were thrown overboard, during the crossing, remains unknown," said Taieb Aifa, whose father was on the last convoy of convicts bought to the colony in 1898.

Those who survived the tough journey became known as the "straw hats" -- a nod to the convicts' headgear as they worked in the blazing sun.

Today, their descendants say that so great is the pain, the story has to be "almost prized from them," Aifa told AFP.

Aifa described a five-month journey to the islands, during which convicts were "chained in the holds" of ships.

For many years, even speaking about his ancestors' tale was taboo.

"A code of silence reigned in the families of deportees," said 89-year-old Aifa, now regarded as a pillar of New Caledonia's "Arab community" after serving as mayor of the small town of Bourail for 30 years.

- Colonised 'became coloniser' -

Aifa's father was sentenced to 25 years for fighting against the French army in Setif, in eastern Algeria.

"From the colonised in Algeria, they became colonisers... On land confiscated from the Kanaks", he said, referring to New Caledonia's indigenous inhabitants.

"In New Caledonia, the French state aimed, as in Algeria, to create a settlement," Aifa said.

Christophe Sand, an archaeologist at the IRD Research Centre in Noumea, who is also the descendant of convicts, said that "the deportees were transformed into colonists".

While some French convicts were later able to bring their wives, it was forbidden for the Algerians.

Those sentenced to more than eight years in prison -- the majority -- were not allowed to return to Algeria after their sentence, said Sand.

"This process must have abandoned 3,000 to 5,000 orphans in Algeria", he said.

Maurice Sotirio, the grandson of a convict from Constantine in northeast Algeria, described the heartbreaking trauma of his family's past.

"My grandfather left two children in Algeria whom he never saw again", Sotirio said.

The suffering continued even in freedom.

In New Caledonia, the Algerians were second-class citizens since they often did not speak French, but Arabic or Berber, said Sand.

Their children suffered from the stigma, and only a few families kept hold of their origins.

At the end of the 1960s, the descendants came together to form an association, the "Arabs and friends of the Arabs of New Caledonia".

The islands -- so-called because a British sailor thought they looked like Scotland -- have been French territory since 1853.

Today, they have about 270,000 inhabitants, with the economy's mainstays the production of metals, especially nickel, of which New Caledonia is a major global producer.

Algeria, which Paris regarded as an integral part of France, is this year marking six decades since its 1962 independence following a devastating eight-year war.

- 'Healing process' -

In 2006, Aifa took his first trip to Algeria.

He said the visit was like "bringing back his father who, like other Arabs, had suffered from not being able to return and die in his native country".

Aifa, while proud of his Caledonian heritage, also celebrates his roots in Algeria.

"I am also Algerian, I have a link with Algeria, family, land... I managed to obtain my Algerian papers 20 years ago", he said.

Sand, who also travelled to Algeria with two other descendants, said he felt he was "carrying his ancestor on his shoulders" on the flight.

"When I saw, through the porthole, the port of Algiers, where my great-grandfather and his companions had been thrown into the hold, I felt the urge to scream," he said.

Arriving at his ancestral home in the village of Agraradj in the northern Kabylia region, he bent down to touch the earth.

"I felt that the symbolic weight that I had on my shoulders since the beginning of the journey had disappeared," he said. "I brought his exiled spirit back to the place where he was born".

For Sand, you have to go through "this process of healing, of closing the door" to "build a future" in New Caledonia.

"Healing from the trauma of exile allows the Caledonians that we are today to project ourselves into the future, without remaining prisoners of the past," Sand said.

In new shake-up, French politics fragments into three blocs

Power alternated for decades between the two main parties -- the Socialists and Republicans -- before Emmanuel Macron grabbed power in 2017 

(AFP/Nicolas TUCAT)


Fabien ZAMORA
Mon, April 11, 2022

France's political landscape is now fragmented into three blocs -- the centre, far-right and radical left -- after the abysmal performance of traditional parties in the presidential election.

Power alternated for decades until the 2010s between the two main parties -- the Socialists and Republicans -- before Emmanuel Macron took power in 2017 with a centrist platform.

His meteoric emergence -- and pillaging of key traditional right and left figures for his own centrist movement -- pushed the political centre of gravity on the left and right to the extremes.

Now, the traditional parties struggle to get even five percent of the vote, a situation that creates not just political but also financial problems for them under the French system.

"The first round of this presidential election confirms the three-way split of the electorate and the creation of three blocs with pretty much equal weight," said political scientist Gael Brustier.

It's the "cornerstone of the new world of French politics", he wrote in a Slate column.

Marine Le Pen, who will go head-to-head with Macron on April 24 in the second round of the election, and her National Rally (RN) party embody the far-right bloc.

Macron represents the centre while Jean-Luc Melenchon and his France Unbowed (LFI) party are the focus of the far left, taking a strong third place in Sunday's polls.

"The French political landscape has redefined itself around three political forces: a bloc which unites the centre-left and centre-right, embodied by Macron, the radical left, and far-right," Bernard Poignant, a former Socialist mayor who now supports Macron, told the Ouest France newspaper

- 'Season 2' -

Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo and the Republicans hopeful Valerie Pecresse were crushed on Sunday, winning only 1.75 percent and 4.78 percent of the vote respectively.

They now find themselves in dire financial straits since they finished below the five percent threshold for having campaign spending largely reimbursed by the state.

Financial woes are familiar to the Socialists. The party was forced to sell its historical headquarters in late 2017 to try to salvage its finances.

And Pecresse has launched a humiliating appeal for donations to try to save the party as it faces a 7.0-million-euro ($7.6 million) hole in its finances.

"The breakdown and reshaping of French political life began in 2017 with the advent of Macronism and the collapse of the Socialist Party," political scientist Jerome Fourquet told France Inter radio.

"And we watched season two yesterday (Sunday)..., the confirmation of the obliteration of the Socialists, the second historical pillar in the French political landscape, and the Republicans have been devastated as well," Fourquet said.

The last Socialist president was Francois Hollande, a deeply unpopular leader who never ran for a second term.

"What is the Socialists' reason for existing? What is the Republicans' reason for existing in a political system where you have a radical left, a central bloc that goes from the centre left to the right, and a far-right bloc?" asked Brice Teinturier, head of Ipsos polling company, told AFP.

"It's extremely difficult to find," he said.

- 'Elitist bloc?' -

However, unity within the extreme blocs is more fragile because of their diverse social make-up, rendering them more difficult to structure.

"I reject the idea of three blocs, left, centre and right," said pollster and political scientist Jerome Sainte-Marie at PollingVox. He sees a clash between an "elitist bloc" including the wealthy behind Macron, and a double "popular bloc".

Sainte-Marie pointed to "an alignment of managers and the retired" supporting Macron in the elitist bloc that unites individuals from a higher social class.

The popular bloc is "more mixed", with private-sector workers supporting Le Pen, while public sector workers and immigrant populations usually opt for Melenchon.

Melenchon benefitted from the support of other leftist formations, like the ecologists.

In addition to his base, he has "new reinforcements" with quite significant increases in... voters of immigrant origin", political scientist Fourquet said, adding that Melenchon had captured "even more of the culturally left-wing, teachers, students".

French Greens face crisis after failed presidential bid

 France's Greens party were facing a crisis on Monday after a deeply disappointing presidential election saw their candidate finish sixth and struggle to put climate change on the national agenda. The Covid-19 pandemic overshadowed the start of campaigning before Russia's invasion of Ukraine changed the dynamic completely, making foreign policy and the rocketing cost of living key issues for voters, as FRANCE 24's Environment Editor Valérie Dekimpe explains.

Albania's former 'Stalin City' looks West with NATO airbase


The renovation project was agreed in 2018 by the Balkan state and NATO, which has already committed $55 million (50.4 million euros) to the project 

Officials are also hoping the base, which once employed 700 people, will create new jobs in the poor region, 85 kilometres south of the capital Tirana

The aircraft now languishing on the airbase mainly consist of Chinese and Soviet MiGs, Soviet-made Antonovs and Yak-18s

The authorities have to yet to decide whether they will be auctioned, put in a museum or turned into scrap metal 

PHOTOS (AFP/Gent SHKULLAKU)

Briseida MEMA
Mon, April 11, 2022

In an Albanian city once named for Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, dozens of Soviet- and Chinese-made planes rust in the open air on a former communist airbase, some with flat tyres, others covered with dust.

The site in the central city now called Kucova is being transformed into a modern NATO airbase, a symbol of Albania's westward shift -- and a key military buffer in Europe as Russia wages war in Ukraine.

The renovation project was agreed in 2018 by the Balkan state and NATO, which has already committed $55 million (50.4 million euros) to the project, according to Albanian sources.

Construction began at the beginning of the year, ahead of Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine that has sparked fears of a spillover into NATO and EU member states.


Though the timing of the Kucova base redevelopment was a coincidence, for some it is a welcome one.

"The changed global security environment has now created considerable impetus for the completion of the (base) renovation plan," a NATO official in Brussels told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The base, due to be completed in 2023, will give the "alliance an important strategic facility in the Western Balkans, within short reach of the Mediterranean, Middle East and the Black Sea region", the NATO official said.

- 'Clear message' -

After decades of global isolation, Albania became a NATO member in 2009.

It was shunned by much of the world under paranoid Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, who forged close ties with the Soviet Union and China before falling out with them over their apparent deviation from true Marxism.

The country embraced the West after the fall of the communist regime in 1990, and today is eager to become an EU member.

The defunct aircraft at the Kucova base are reminders of a chapter of Albania's history many are happy to leave behind -- and a signal to Russia which has sought to extend its influence in the region.

"The construction of this base is a clear message to other players with bad intentions in the Western Balkans region," Albania's Defence Minister Niko Peleshi told AFP.

The construction is certain to irk Moscow, which strongly opposes any NATO expansion into eastern and central Europe -- especially in the Balkans which has traditionally been torn between East and West.

Today, Albania's neighbours Croatia, Montenegro and Northern Macedonia are all part of NATO too.

For Seit Putro, who has worked in the finance department at the base for more than 30 years, it's a welcome confirmation of Albania's political allegiances.

"Once in the East, we are now in our place, next to the West, which is a good step forward for all," he told AFP.

- Job creation -

The 350-hectare (865-acre) site in the former 'Stalin City' was built in the 1950s under Hoxha with help from the Soviets, and completed later with a network of the same kind of underground tunnels that were dug across the country in case of nuclear attack.

Once the NATO renovation is finished, it will function as a tactical operational base, kitted out with a refurbished runway more than two kilometres (1.2 miles) long, an updated control tower and new storage units.

It will have the capacity to host state-of-the-art military aircraft and can also be used for refuelling and ammunition storage.

Officials are also hoping the base, which once employed 700 people, will create new jobs in the poor region, 85 kilometres south of the capital Tirana.

It will have a "very positive economic and social impact", said deputy commander of the base, Major Leandro Syka.

- 'Natural alliance' -

The aircraft now languishing on the airbase mainly consist of Chinese and Soviet MiGs, Soviet-made Antonovs and Yak-18s.

At the end of the Cold War, the base had about 200 planes and 40 helicopters, which were put out of commission as they were obsolete.

About 75 remain today, and their fate remains uncertain.

The authorities have to yet to decide whether they will be auctioned, put in a museum or turned into scrap metal.

For some, they hold painful memories from past conflicts.

Former pilot Niazi Nelaj remembers clearly his first flight aboard a Mig-15, which bore bullet marks from combat in distant Asian countries.

But the 85-year-old is happy to see the airbase aligned with NATO, and he believes Albania's previous pivot toward the East was only an "accident of history".

"Albania's natural alliance has always been and will be with the West," he said.

bme-ev/ljv/gw

Syria's Ramadan drummers defiant as tradition wanes

Traditional dawn awakeners known as 'Musaharati' beat drums and chant religious songs to wake up Muslims before sunrise for the 'suhur' meal before the day's fast during the holy month of Ramadan - LOUAI BESHARA

by Maher AL MOUNES
April 11, 2022 — Damascus (AFP)

Ramadan drummers who awaken the faithful for their pre-dawn meal are dying out across the Muslim world but the tradition lives on in Syria's capital despite growing reliance on smart phones.

Around one hour before the call to prayer rings out at dawn, Ramadan drummers, known as Musaharati, walk through narrow streets to wake the faithful.

They include Hasan al-Rashi, 60, one of the 30 Musaharati left in Damascus.

His voice breaks the nightime silence in the capital's Old City, as he sings and pounds his drum.

"Despite the advent of smart phones and other technologies, people still like to wake up to the voice of the Musaharati," Rashi told AFP.

"The Musaharati is a part of the customs and traditions of the people of Damascus during the month of Ramadan," he added.

"It is a heritage that we will not leave behind."

While performing his Musaharati task, Rashi carries a bamboo cane in one hand and a drum made of goatskin in the other.

He walks quickly from home to home, using his stick to tap on doors of families who have asked for his services.

"Wake up for Suhur (pre-dawn meal), Ramadan has come to visit you," Rashi sings.

- 'Duty' -


Although they do receive gifts, the Musaharati don't usually expect financial rewards.

They sometimes carry bags or straw baskets to store food and other gifts that are given to them.

For Rashi, it's not about the freebies.

"We feel joy when we go out every day," he said.

"Some children follow us sometimes and ask to beat the drum," Rashi added.

Ahead of the call to prayer, Sharif Resho asks one of his neighbours for a glass of water before the start of his fast.

The 51-year-old Musaharati usually accompanies Rashi every night, also beating his drum and singing.

"My equipment is simple, it is my voice, my drum and my stick," he said.

Resho, whose father was also a Ramadan drummer, has carried out Musaharati duties for nearly a quarter of a century.

Syria's more than decade-long war and the coronavirus pandemic did not stop him from carrying on, he said.

"I will keep waking people up for Suhur as long as I have a voice in my throat," Resho told AFP.

"It is a duty I inherited from my father, that I will pass on to my son."

US monitoring rise in rights abuses in India, Blinken says

REUTERS
April 12, 2022

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was monitoring what he described as a rise in human rights abuses in India by some officials, in a rare direct rebuke by Washington of the Asian nation’s rights record.

“We regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values (of human rights) and to that end, we are monitoring some recent concerning developments in India including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police and prison officials,” Blinken said on Monday in a joint press briefing with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh.

Blinken did not elaborate. Singh and Jaishankar, who spoke after Blinken at the briefing, did not comment on the human rights issue.

Blinken’s remarks came days after US Representative Ilhan Omar questioned the alleged reluctance of the US government to criticize Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on human rights.

“What does Modi need to do to India’s Muslim population before we will stop considering them a partner in peace?” Omar, who belongs to President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, said last week.

Modi’s critics say his Hindu nationalist ruling party has fostered religious polarization since coming to power in 2014.

Since Modi came to power, right-wing Hindu groups have launched attacks on minorities claiming they are trying to prevent religious conversions. Several Indian states have passed or are considering anti-conversion laws that challenge the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief.

In 2019, the government passed a citizenship law that critics said undermined India’s secular constitution by excluding Muslim migrants from neighboring countries. The law was meant to grant Indian nationality to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs who fled Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before 2015.

In the same year, soon after his 2019 re-election win, Modi’s government revoked the special status of Kashmir in a bid to fully integrate the Muslim-majority region with the rest of the country. To keep a lid on protests, the administration detained many Kashmir political leaders and sent many more paramilitary police and soldiers to the Himalayan region also claimed by Pakistan.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) recently banned wearing the hijab in classrooms in Karnataka state. Hard-line Hindu groups later demanded such restrictions in more Indian states.

Embattled Sri Lanka PM appeals for 'patience' from protesters


Protesters have rallied daily since Saturday against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Colombo and across the island nation, calling for his government's removal

 (AFP/Ishara S. KODIKARA) (Ishara S. KODIKARA)

Mon, April 11, 2022

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa pleaded for "patience" Monday as thousands continued to take to the streets to protest his family's rule, with public anger at a fever pitch over the country's crippling economic crisis.

Sri Lanka's 22 million residents have seen weeks of power blackouts and severe shortages of food, fuel and even life-saving medicine in the country's worst downturn since independence in 1948.

Protesters have rallied daily since Saturday against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa -- Mahinda's younger brother -- in Colombo and across the island nation, chanting "Gota go home" and calling for his government's removal.

In his first address since the crisis, Mahinda -- the patriarch of the powerful Rajapaksa family omnipresent in Sri Lanka's politics for two decades -- said he needed more time to pull the nation out of the deep end.

"Even if we can’t stop this crisis in two or three days, we will solve it as soon as possible," Rajapaksa said in his televised address.

"Every minute you protest on the streets, we lose an opportunity to earn dollars for the country," he said.

"Please remember that the country needs your patience at this critical moment."

Pressure on the powerful Rajapaksa family has intensified in recent days, with the country's vital business community also withdrawing support for them over the weekend.

Mahinda did not directly address the growing calls for him and Gotabaya to step down, but he defended his administration by saying that opposition parties had rejected their offer to form a unity government.

"We invited all other parties to come forward and take up the challenge, but they did not, so we will do it on our own," he said, also blaming Sri Lanka's ballooning foreign debt on the pandemic.

While the coronavirus-spurred restrictions and stoppages have torpedoed Sri Lanka's vital tourism-driven economy, experts say the crisis was exacerbated by government mismanagement, years of accumulated borrowing and ill-advised tax cuts.

The government is preparing for bailout negotiations with the International Monetary Fund this week, with finance ministry officials saying that sovereign bond-holders and other creditors may have to take a haircut.

Sri Lanka expects $3 billion from the IMF to support the island's balance of payments in the next three years.

aj/dhc

Afghans protest Iranian mistreatment of refugees

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
11 April, 2022

Dozens of Afghans chanting "Death to Iran" protested Monday outside Tehran's consulate in the western city of Herat after videos allegedly showing Afghan refugees being beaten by Iranians went viral over the weekend.

The authenticity of the videos could not be independently verified (Getty)


Dozens of Afghans chanting "Death to Iran" protested Monday outside Tehran's consulate in the western city of Herat after videos allegedly showing Afghan refugees being beaten by Iranians went viral over the weekend.

Iran, which hosts more than five million Afghan refugees, has seen a fresh influx of Afghans entering the country since the Taliban stormed back to power last August.

But on Monday, angry Afghans staged protests in Herat and some other cities against Tehran after videos showing alleged Iranian border guards and Iranian mobs beating Afghan refugees in Iran circulated on social media networks over the weekend, though it was unclear when the images were filmed.

One video seemed to show Iranian border guards beating Afghan refugees in a room, while other footage appeared to show a group of Iranians dragging and beating refugees in a compound in Iran.

The authenticity of these videos could not be independently verified.

"Death to Iran! Iran is a killer state!" chanted protesters as they gathered outside the Iranian consulate in Herat, an AFP correspondent reported.

Protesters burnt the Iranian flag and broke CCTV cameras installed at the consulate before dispersing.

"Where are the human rights organisations? They are beating our people... but nobody is raising a voice," said Shakib, a protester in Herat.

Hours after Monday's protest in Herat, Iran's foreign ministry in a statement on its website called on the Taliban authorities to provide "the necessary guarantees for the safe operation of these missions" in Afghanistan.

The Iranian embassy in Kabul on Sunday had dismissed the beating videos, saying they were "baseless and invalid" and aimed at harming the historical relations between the two countries.

It further said that Iran's border forces had the authority to prevent any foreigner from illegally entering the country.

On Monday, a similar anti-Iran protest was held in the southeastern city of Khost, and a demonstration was staged outside the Iranian embassy in Kabul.

Since the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan has plunged further into economic crisis, pushing even those without links to the former Western-backed government to scramble for an exit.

Thousands of people daily try to cross into neighbouring Iran in search of work, or in a bid to reach Europe in the hope of asylum.

Iran, which shares a 900-kilometre (550-mile) border with Afghanistan, has so far not recognised the Taliban government.

Illegal mining, abuses surge on Indigenous land in Brazil: Report

Report accuses illegal miners of committing rape, other acts of violence in Indigenous communities in Brazilian Amazon.

Munduruku Indigenous people carry a banner with text written in Portuguese that reads 'Mining Kills', during a march for the demarcation of Indigenous lands on April 6 in Brasilia

 [Eraldo Peres/AP Photo]

Published On 11 Apr 202211 Apr 2022

Illegal gold mining surged by a record amount last year on Brazil’s biggest Indigenous reservation, according to a new report that carried chilling accounts of abuses by miners, including extorting sex from women and girls.

The area scarred by “garimpo”, or wildcat gold mining, on the Yanomami reservation in the Amazon rainforest increased by 46 percent in 2021, to 3,272 hectares (8,085 acres), said a report by the Hutukara Yanomami Association (HAY) on Monday.

That is the biggest annual increase since monitoring began in 2018.

“This is the worst moment of invasion since the reservation was established 30 years ago,” said the Indigenous rights group in the report, which was based on satellite images and interviews with inhabitants.

“In addition to deforesting our lands and destroying our waters, illegal mining for gold and cassiterite [a key tin ingredient] on Yanomami territory has brought an explosion of malaria and other infectious diseases … and a frightening surge of violence against Indigenous people.”

Men search for gold at an illegal mine in the Amazon in the Itaituba area of Para state, Brazil 

[File: Lucas Dumphreys/AP Photo]

Illegal mining has soared in the Amazon as gold prices have surged in recent years.

Mining destroyed a record 125sq km (48sq miles) of the Brazilian Amazon last year, according to official figures.

Illegal miners with links to organised crime are accused of numerous abuses in Indigenous communities, including poisoning rivers with the mercury used to separate gold from sediment and sometimes deadly attacks on residents.

The report comes as far-right President Jair Bolsonaro pushes legislation to legalise mining on Indigenous lands, drawing protests from Indigenous groups and environmentalists.

The Yanomami, one of the Amazon’s most iconic Indigenous groups, related a harrowing series of abuses.

They included miners giving Yanomami alcohol and drugs, then sexually abusing and raping women and girls.

ANYONE WHO HAS TAKEN FIRST YEAR ANTHROPOLOGY KNOWS OF THE YANOMAMI

The Yanomami said miners often demanded sex in exchange for food. One miner reportedly demanded an arranged “marriage” with an adolescent girl in exchange for “merchandise” he never delivered.

“Indigenous women see the miners as a terrible threat,” said HAY, condemning “a climate of terror and permanent fear”.

The Yanomami reservation spans 9.7 million hectares (24 million acres) in northern Brazil, with approximately 29,000 inhabitants, including the Yanomami, the Ye’kwana and six isolated groups who have almost no contact with the outside world.

Brazilian environmental and Indigenous authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the AFP news agency on the report.

SOURCE: AFP

Starbucks CEO to unionizing baristas: 

‘Why don’t you go somewhere else?’

By Ariel Zilber
April 11, 2022 1

Starbucks interim CEO Howard Schultz reportedly lashed out at a barista involved in unionization efforts in Southern California on Friday.

WireImage

Interim Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz reportedly lashed out at a coffee chain barista who was leading a unionization drive at one of the company’s California locations, telling the worker: “If you hate Starbucks so much, why don’t you go somewhere else?”

The alleged encounter between Schultz and the 25-year-old barista, Madison Hall, took place at Long Beach Airport on Friday, Hall has claimed.

Schultz, 68, has embarked on a tour of Starbucks locations nationwide in an apparent bid to dissuade his employees from voting to join unions, according to the pro-union news site More Perfect Union.

Schultz released a statement to The Post saying: “With significant pressures leading to the fracturing of our partner and customer experiences, I’ve been transparent about our missteps and the reason for my return – to reimagine Starbucks – built on our core values and guiding principles.”

“I have complete confidence that together we will restore the trust and belief of our partners and deliver an elevated Starbucks Experience to our partners and customers,” the interim CEO said.

Schultz added that the “collaboration sessions” with employees “have not been without efforts at disruption by union organizers”– though he did not allude specifically to Hall’s accusations.

The reported incident took place during a meeting between Schultz and company employees at Long Beach Airport.AP

Hall, who is leading an organizing drive of workers at a Starbucks restaurant in Long Beach, was invited to a meeting with Schultz and some two dozen other employees from other stores in the region, the site said.

The meeting, which was held at a building on the grounds of Long Beach Airport, began with a videotaped speech by Schultz from a week ago in which the interim CEO blasted Starbucks Workers United, the group behind the organizing drive.

Schultz, who recently re-assumed the helm of the company after former CEO Kevin Johnson left the firm, called the group “outsiders trying to take our people” while waging an “assault” on the coffee chain.

He then appeared in person to take part in a question-and-answer session with workers. Earlier last week, Schultz held similar give-and-takes with employees in Seattle and Chicago.

A Starbucks spokesperson told More Perfect Union that the “focus of the meeting was about ways we can improve the partner experience and the various ways we can co-create the future of Starbucks together.”

Schultz has tried to dissuade employees at the coffee chain’s 9,000 US restaurants from joining unions.

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett

Hall told More Perfect Union that when Hall confronted Schultz over reports that Starbucks was firing employees who were active in organizing, the interim CEO cut Hall off.

“Then he went into a long rant about the history of Starbucks and how he used to be poor,” Hall said. “I said, ‘You say you’re not anti-union, but on July 1, 2021, [Starbucks was] found guilty of retaliation in Philadelphia,'” Hall said, referring to a National Labor Relations Board ruling that found the company acted against two baristas who were trying to unionize.

“That was when he got super-defensive and cut me off, saying, ‘We’re not talking about this,'” Hall claimed. “It was very, very bad. He was getting very aggressive with me.”

“And then he went on another rant, and he told everyone else that he’s sorry that this was brought up, that this isn’t what [the event] was about, and he had his hand pointed towards me like I was a problem,” Hall claimed.

So far, workers at 16 Starbucks locations in the US have voted to form unions.AFP via Getty Images

A spokesperson for Starbucks told the pro-union news site: “Howard and others in the room requested to get back on track and shift the focus back on the whiteboarding sessions and what they were working on together.”

Starbucks management suffered a weekend of more setbacks as six more shops — all of them in upstate New York — voted to unionize.

Employees at another Starbucks location in Boston also voted to join a union on Monday, according to More Perfect Union.

Two stores in Rochester and another in Buffalo — the city where the unionization campaign first started — voted to form a union on Thursday afternoon. The next day, three more shops in Ithaca also approved unionization efforts. That brings the total number of Starbucks stores that have voted to form unions to 16.

Nationwide, there are more than 9,000 restaurants owned by the coffee chain.

The labor movement has been chalking up several significant victories of late. Last week, workers at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island voted to unionize — a first for the mega-retailer that has worked to snuff out similar efforts by organized labor.

Ithaca Starbucks workers vote to unionize

By Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo |

Starbucks workers in Ithaca celebrate after the vote count.

 (Photo courtesy of Casey Moore)

BINGHAMTON, NY (WSKG) — Starbucks workers in Ithaca voted to unionize last week. They’re the latest in a wave of unionization efforts at Starbucks stores across the country.

All three of Ithaca’s Starbucks locations are now part of the Starbucks Workers United union.

“Today, we unionize a store that is not even four months old. That really shows that the unions are in the future for Starbucks. And I hope that Starbucks will get behind that,” said Hope Liepe, a barista at a location on South Meadow Street in Ithaca.

The employees said Starbucks management has used union busting tactics, such as denying time-off requests and writing up workers.

“It’s been a lot of hours getting cut, a lot of support managers coming in and just kind of breathing down your neck during your shifts,” Rebekkah MacLean, who works at a Starbucks on College Avenue.


The Ithaca Commons location is one of three Starbucks stores now part of the Starbucks workers union. (Megan Zerez/WSKG)

A spokesperson from Starbucks called claims of union-busting “categorically false.”

Starbucks employees in Buffalo became the first in the country to unionize in December. Since then, unionization efforts have cropped up at Starbucks locations nationwide. On Thursday, locations in Rochester and Buffalo also voted to unionize.

The employees said they will negotiate for better hours and health care benefits. Evan Sunshine is one of the organizers at the Starbucks on College Avenue in Ithaca. He said the workers plan to push for a tip minimum as well.

“A lot of stores in Ithaca don’t get a lot of tips. I know on College Avenue, I only get $1 in tips per week,” Sunshine said.

Nearly all of the workers at the Ithaca stores were in favor of unionizing, with only three votes against the measure.

The spokesperson for Starbucks said the company respects its workers efforts, but is against the stores unionizing.

Four St. Louis Starbucks locations have filed paperwork to unionize. 

Stores in Ladue, Bridgeton, and St. Louis City appealed to the National Labor Relations Board to begin union elections. The stores join nearly 200 other Starbucks locations across the country in filing for unionization. According to workers at the Bridgeton location, the workers want higher pay, benefits, and a voice in store decision-making. (KMOV4)

On Friday, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz met with union-minded workers in the city. 

When a barista asked the CEO about the company's growing union movement, he responded with, "if you hate Starbucks so much, why don't you go somewhere else?" At this time, this barista is "leading the unionization effort at the Second and Covina store in Long Beach." (Perfect Union)

Starbucks union campaign pushes on, with at least 16 stores now organized.

Workers at six more stores in upstate New York have voted to unionize.



Pro-union pins were available during a watch party for a Starbucks union election in Buffalo in December.

Credit...Joshua Bessex/Associated Press

By Noam Scheiber
April 8, 2022

Starbucks workers have added to the momentum of a union campaign that went public in late August and has upended decades of union-free labor at the company’s corporate-owned stores.

On Thursday and Friday, workers at six stores in upstate New York voted to unionize, according to the National Labor Relations Board, bringing the total number of company-owned stores where workers have backed a union to 16. The union, Workers United, was also leading by a wide margin at a store in Kansas whose votes were tallied Friday, but the number of challenged ballots leaves the outcome officially in doubt until their status can be resolved.

The union has lost only a single election so far, but it is formally challenging the outcome.

Since the union secured its first two victories in elections that concluded in December, workers at more than 175 other stores across at least 25 states have filed for union elections, out of roughly 9,000 corporate-owned stores in the United States. The labor board will count ballots in at least three more stores next week.

The organizing success at Starbucks appears to reflect a growing interest among workers in unionizing, including the efforts at Amazon, where workers last week voted to unionize a Staten Island warehouse by a significant margin.

On Wednesday, the general counsel of the labor board, Jennifer Abruzzo, announced that union election filings were up more than 50 percent during the previous six months versus the same period one year earlier. Ms. Abruzzo expressed concern that funding and staff shortages were making it difficult for the agency to keep up with the activity, saying in a statement that the board “needs a significant increase of funds to fully effectuate the mission of the agency.”

Daily business updates The latest coverage of business, markets and the economy, sent by email each weekday. Get it sent to your inbox.

Starbucks has sought to persuade workers not to unionize by holding anti-union meetings with workers and conversations between managers and individual employees, but some employees say the meetings have only galvanized their support for organizing.

In some cases, Starbucks has also sent a number of senior officials to stores from out of town, a move the company says is intended to address operational issues like staffing and training but which some union supporters have said they find intimidating.

The union has accused Starbucks of seeking to cut back hours nationally as a way to encourage longtime employees to leave the company and replace them with workers who are more skeptical about unionizing. And the union argues that Starbucks has retaliated against workers for supporting the union by disciplining or firing them. Last month, the labor board issued a formal complaint against Starbucks for retaliating against two Arizona employees, a step it takes after finding merit in accusations against employers or unions.

The company has denied that it has cut hours to prompt employees to leave, saying it schedules workers in response to customer demand, and it has rejected accusations of anti-union activity.

As the union campaign accelerated in March, the company announced that Kevin Johnson, who had served as chief executive since 2017, would be replaced on an interim basis by Howard Schultz, who had led the company twice before and remained one of its largest investors.

Some investors who had warned Mr. Johnson that the company’s anti-union tactics could damage its reputation expressed optimism that the leadership change might bring about a shift in Starbucks’s posture toward the union. But the company soon announced that it would not agree to stay neutral in union elections, as the union has requested, dampening those hopes.

On Monday, the same day that Mr. Schultz returned as chief executive, the company fired Laila Dalton, one of the two Arizona workers the N.L.R.B. had accused Starbucks of retaliating against in March. The company said that Ms. Dalton had violated company rules by recording co-workers’ conversations without their permission.

“A partner’s interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we have always held,” Reggie Borges, a company spokesman, said in a statement, using the company’s term for an employee.

Starbucks Union Drives

A Starbucks store in Seattle, the company’s hometown, votes to unionize.

March 22, 2022

U.S. labor board issues a complaint against Starbucks.

March 15, 2022

Starbucks Workers at 3 More Buffalo-Area Stores Vote to Unionize

March 9, 2022

Noam Scheiber is a Chicago-based reporter who covers workers and the workplace. He spent nearly 15 years at The New Republic magazine, where he covered economic policy and three presidential campaigns. He is the author of “The Escape Artists.” @noamscheiber

Starbucks Just Fired a Union Organizer for Allegedly Breaking a Sink

Starbucks fired the 20-year-old barista and organizer just days before employees begin voting on whether to unionize.

By Paul Blest

A PRO-UNION POSTER IS SEEN ON A LAMP POLE OUTSIDE A STARBUCKS LOCATION IN SEATTLE'S SEATTLE. (PHOTO: TOBY SCOTT/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Starbucks fired a barista and organizing committee member at a store in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday after blaming her for purposely breaking a sink—just days before employees at the store begin voting on whether to unionize.

Sharon Gilman, 20, a student at nearby North Carolina State University, had worked at Starbucks since May 2020 and also trained other baristas at the store. Gilman told VICE News Sunday that she didn’t purposely break the three-compartment sink while she was washing dishes, and that she believes she was fired for being a pro-union employee who’d spoken to the press.

“My name was on the letter, my name was on the press release when we went public,” Gilman told VICE News. “I think this is Starbucks' way of making a statement of what could potentially happen if we were to vote yes for the union.”

The Raleigh store is one of more than 200 that have filed for a National Labor Relations Board election since the first store, in Buffalo, voted to unionize in December, according to a tracker compiled by labor outlet More Perfect Union. Workers at 15 of 16 stores where results have been counted since have voted for a union, including six in New York last week.

Workers at the Raleigh store will begin their vote on union representation later this week.

The incident in question happened on Feb. 13, just one day before Gilman and six other coworkers published an open letter to then-Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson stating their intent to form a union at the Starbucks store. That night, Gilman was washing dishes in the back of the house and was cleaning the floor drain using the spray head of the sink when the spray head snapped

“The sink just kind of fell off the wall onto me,” Gilman said. “I wasn't injured, but it did fall off and I was holding it up and there was water spraying.”

“I heard her scream when it happened, and could see how scared she was when the sink collapsed on her,” Elsa Englebrecht, another Starbucks worker and leader in the union campaign, said in a statement provided Sunday by the union.

Gilman said she and her co-workers took photos and video of the broken sink, which was later fixed. But more than a month later, on March 26, Gilman arrived at work to find her district manager wanting to talk to her, which she assumed was about the union.

The district manager instead told her she needed to write a statement about the sink, said a repairman had determined the sink couldn’t have been broken by accident, and that the store had video of when the sink broke. In an email, Starbucks spokesperson Reggie Borges told VICE News that “video footage confirmed [Gilman] forcefully pulled on the hose until it snapped.”

On Saturday, two weeks after she found out she was under investigation, Gilman was fired.

Gilman told VICE News that she didn’t break the sink on purpose. “Nothing memorable happened [that night]. I was not frustrated. I was not angry,” Gilman recalled of that night. She also said that she doesn’t believe she has the physical strength to break the sink in the manner she was accused of doing.

“I was in disbelief. I don’t work out. I’m not a freaking macho man,” Gilman told VICE News. “As a 20-year-old female, I didn't know that I had the strength to pull, to break a metal sink clear off the wall.”

Gilman did not admit to wrongdoing in the statement she wrote to her manager about the sink, but she said she couldn’t argue with the company’s interpretation of the video. Both the company and Gilman also confirmed that she originally said she was cleaning the back of the sink and then later said she was cleaning the floor drain; Gilman said she initially didn’t remember everything about the situation at the time she was asked.

“I've never been fired from a job before,” Gilman, who said she’d never been written up in the nearly two years she worked at the store, told VICE News. “I think I had a little bit of a panic attack when it happened. I didn't know what to do.”

Both Gilman and the company also said she was offered a chance to watch the video but declined.

“I suppose I just didn’t see the point in arguing back to them, because at the end of the day they’re corporate and I’m just a barista. They’ll see what they want to see,” Gilman said. “There are partners at my store that have broken company policies, but their names weren’t on the letter or in the press release, so they’re safe.”

“I’m 20 years old, a junior in college, overwhelmed with everything, and this just sprung on me a month and a half after the whole thing happened,” Gilman said. “I didn’t see the point in arguing with them because I’m replaceable. It’s sad but true.”

“At the end of the day, they can just hire a new person and go on with their lives,” she added.

Workers at this particular Starbucks store have complained of malfunctioning equipment in the past. In the letter sent to Johnson, workers raised a particular incident in December—which some employees at the store now refer to as “fume-a-geddon”—in which the plastic encasement of a store oven melted and the store’s lobby was filled with fumes and smoke.

“This incident led to one of our best shift supervisors leaving the company because she no longer felt supported,” the partners wrote in the February letter. “We will no longer tolerate an unsafe work environment.”

Alyssa Watkins, a shift supervisor and lead organizer at the store, told VICE News that after the ovens began to fail, she suffered from lightheadedness and a migraine that lasted for more than two days. Watkins filed a complaint with the North Carolina Department of Labor’s OSHA division on Dec. 6, but in February, the agency notified her that it closed the complaint after the store replaced the ovens.

Though this particular Raleigh store opened only two years ago, Gilman said the store often has trouble with espresso machines and card readers not working. “It’s not an abnormality for something like this to happen at our store,” she said.

Gilman is not the first organizer at a Starbucks store to be fired. Starbucks Workers United, the union representing Starbucks workers, told VICE News last week—before Gilman was fired—that it believes at least 16 Starbucks workers have been fired in retaliation for their union activity

“Our ballots are supposed to be mailed at the start of this week, and the incident they're firing her for happened two months ago,” Watkins said in a statement provided by the union. “It's very clear this is an effort to stop our unionization.”

Starbucks has repeatedly insisted it has not retaliated against organizers. “We have in no way, shape, or form retaliated against a partner because of their interest in unions or unionization efforts,” Borges told VICE News Friday. “There's been no situation where that action was taken strictly because that partner has an interest in unionization or has unionization ties."

But in a few similar cases the NLRB has heard so far, they’ve disagreed. In March, the agency issued a complaint against Starbucks after it fired Phoenix barista Alyssa Sanchez and suspended shift supervisor Laila Dalton, finding that the company retaliated against them. Dalton was fired April 4, the same day interim CEO Howard Schultz held a town hall with employees where he said unions were “assaulting” American companies like Starbucks.

In February, the company fired seven pro-union Memphis workers after they gave a local news crew an interview inside their store. Bloomberg News reported Friday that the NLRB found the firings were illegal and will file a complaint against the company unless it settles with the workers, which the NLRB confirmed in an email to VICE News.

Starbucks Workers United said in a release that they will file a charge with the NLRB against Starbucks over Gilman’s firing, and that a protest at the store is set for Monday morning.

“In terminating Sharon, Starbucks continues to treat us inhumanely, and displays a callous disregard for the right of Starbucks partners to unionize,” the union said in a Sunday press release.
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Labor Officials Find Starbucks Illegally Fired 7 Union Organizers in Memphis

A pro-union poster is seen on a lamp pole outside Starbucks' Broadway and Denny location in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood on March 23, 2022.

TOBY SCOTT / SOPA IMAGES / LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

BY Sharon Zhang, 

Truthout

PUBLISHED April 11, 2022

Labor board prosecutors have determined that Starbucks illegally fired seven union organizers who formerly worked in a unionizing store in Memphis, Tennessee, backing up the union’s claims that the terminations were clearly unlawful.

According to Bloomberg, the labor board is planning to issue a formal charge against the company for firing the workers unless the company offers a settlement. The workers — dubbed the “Memphis Seven” by the union — represented nearly the entire organizing committee at the store. Starbucks terminated them in February, alleging that they had violated a number of company policies, including the dress code and rules against entering the back room while off the clock.

At the time, Starbucks Workers United said that the firings were Starbucks’s “most blatant act of union-busting yet.” The company cited “policies that have never been enforced” to fire the workers, the union said, claiming in a complaint filed after the terminations that the company was illegally retaliating against the workers for organizing.

“I’m hoping Howard Schultz is a smart man and he settles, but from the union-busting tactics that have continued, I don’t think he’s going to,” Nikki Taylor, one of the fired workers, told Bloomberg. “We’re going to win either way.”

It is a violation of federal labor laws for employers to take actions to retaliate against pro-union workers, including termination, surveillance, or other forms of punishment. The consequence for illegally terminating a worker, which is incredibly common in union-busting campaigns, is usually very light — typically, the company simply has to rehire the worker and compensate them for lost pay, which is just the normal cost of operation for the employer.

Even after the labor board finds that an employer illegally retaliated against a worker, such cases can take months or years to litigate. Since fired workers would likely be ineligible to vote in upcoming union elections, firing pro-union workers often proves to be an efficient way for companies to union bust.

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is hoping to speed up the litigation process in order to bring more immediate relief to workers who have been on the receiving end of illegal retaliation, Bloomberg reported.

Meanwhile, the company has been escalating its anti-union campaign, firing numerous workers since the first clean sweep of the Memphis organizers. Over the weekend, the company fired Sharon Gilman, a pro-union worker at a store in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a student at North Carolina State University.

In February, a sink fell on Gilman while she was washing dishes, startling her. The company, which has lied about its reasons for terminating pro-union workers before, claimed that Gilman purposefully broke the sink — but Gilman and the union believe that she was fired for her support of the union.

As Howard Schultz retakes the helm at the company, Starbucks’s union-busting campaign may escalate even further. Schultz has been openly anti-union in recent events, and last week said in a town hall that companies like Starbucks are “being assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization.”

In a recent Q&A with workers in Long Beach, California, Schultz snapped at a pro-union worker. When union organizer Madison Hall questioned Schultz’s claims that he isn’t anti-union, Schultz said, “If you hate Starbucks so much, why don’t you go somewhere else?”

The union has been incredibly successful so far, despite fierce opposition from the company. On Friday, Starbucks Workers United won union elections at all three stores in Ithaca, New York, making Ithaca the first town in which all Starbucks locations are unionized. Sixteen stores have now successfully unionized, and the union recently hit a milestone of 200 union filings across the country.

It's Organized Starbucks Workers vs. Oligarchs in the City of Buffalo

Buffalo's baristas give us hope. Buffalo's pols, meanwhile, are giving oligarchy our hard-earned tax dollars.

Starbucks employees celebrate after voting to unionize in Buffalo, New York on December 9, 2021. (Photo: Eleonore Sens/AFP via Getty Images)

SAM PIZZIGATI

April 10, 2022 by Inequality.org

Want an up-close look at what’s going right — at how much is still going wrong — in the ongoing struggle against America’s oligarchs? These days you can see both on the shores of Lake Erie. Just shuffle off, as a Great Depression-era standard once advised, to Buffalo.

And what should you do when you get there? Go find a Starbucks. With a little bit of luck, you could find yourself gazing at the most impactful Starbucks outlet anywhere.

Until this past December, Starbucks had no unions at any of its over 9,000 corporate-run U.S. locations. But workers in upstate New York changed all that. Rank-and-filers at a Starbucks in Buffalo stared down and beat back the extravagantly funded opposition of a $50-billion corporate colossus. Against all odds, they voted to unionize.

That stunning rank-and-file victory has inspired a “labor spring” that’s now sweeping across the United States. Starbucks Workers United has so far won 16 elections nationwide, and workers at 176 other Starbucks storefronts have officially filed for union recognition.

First Starbucks, then Amazon. Who knows where America's most inspiring grassroots union upsurge since the 1930s is going to surface next?

How are the Corporate Starbucks power suits reacting? They’re panicking. The company has even brought back retired chief exec Howard Schultz for his third stint as Starbucks CEO. In his nine-year second stint, the intensely anti-union Schultz pocketed $553 million.

But Schultz the third-timer is clearing feeling the new worker pressure. On April 4, his first day back on the job, the billionaire announced that he was halting the $20 billion in stock buybacks the company had planned for the next few years. Stock buybacks, notes CEO pay analyst Sarah Anderson, serve to artificially inflate the value of a company’s shares — and the value of executives’ stock-based pay.

Why is Howard Schultz making this abrupt about-face on stock buybacks his first order of business? His announcement of the change proclaimed that “suspending” buybacks “will allow us to invest more profit into our people and our stores — the only way to create long-term value for all stakeholders.”

Translation: We’ll pause our greed-grabs until we can crush the union-organizing momentum that workers in Buffalo have inspired. Then we’ll get back to enriching the already rich.

That strike you as too cynical an interpretation of the current Corporate Starbucks gameplan? Take a look at the latest press reports. With Schultz back in charge, notes one, firings of union activists “appear to have accelerated,” with several union leaders in Buffalo either “fired or forced out.”

But crushing the union momentum that Buffalo baristas have inspired won’t come as easily as Schultz seems to believe. The rank-and-file challenge to America’s oligarchy has already burst past the confines of Starbucks. Most notably, Amazon workers at a huge Staten Island warehouse have scored the first-ever union win within the Amazon empire. First Starbucks, then Amazon. Who knows where America’s most inspiring grassroots union upsurge since the 1930s is going to surface next?

America’s oligarchs, on the other hand, still wield enormous power at our every political level. Just how entrenched does our oligarchy remain? We now have a new and particularly outrageous example — from Buffalo, the second-largest city of the nation’s second-largest “Blue State.”

Local pols in Buffalo, with the help of the state of New York, are now handing the billionaire owner of Buffalo’s pro football franchise $850 million to build a spanking new state-of-the-art stadium. That $850 million ranks as the single largest taxpayer subsidy in the plutocratic history of American professional sports.

Buffalo, to be sure, already has a football stadium. This existing stadium, open since 1973, sits right across the street from the site where the new stadium will go and functions fine for watching football games. But the facility lacks the luxury boxes, high-end restaurants, and other goodies that make big bucks for the owners of pro teams that play in newer ballparks and arenas.

The current owner of the Buffalo Bills, the Florida-based Terry Pegula, has spent the last decade not-so-subtly hinting that he’ll move the Bills to Toronto if the good citizens of Buffalo don’t “fix” his stadium problem. In 2014 and 2018, this extortion ploy won Pegula $95 million from state taxpayers for stadium renovations. But the renovations haven’t produced, Pegula claims, enough new revenue.

The new subsidy deal, Pegula apparently feels, hits the new-revenue sweet spot. The deal certainly does hit taxpayers in their wallets. State taxpayers will be on the hook for at least $600 million. Erie County taxpayers will pony up another $250 million. The tab for Pegula will come to $350 million, but a healthy chunk of that will come out of the pockets of season ticket holders. They’ll have to fork over $1,000 for personal seat licenses if they want to continue to watch the Bills punt, pass, and tackle.

One point worth keeping in mind: Bills owner Pegula, who owes his fortune to fracking, holds a net worth now running well over $5 billion. He could afford to bankroll the entire new stadium himself.

New York governor Kathy Hochul, even so, is calling the financing deal for Pegula’s new stadium a “point of pride” for all New Yorkers. For Hochul’s husband Bill, the deal could also be a potential “point” of serious personal profit. Bill Hochul serves as senior vice president and general counsel for Delaware North, the company that currently runs the concessions at all the Bills’ home games.

“Quite a sweetheart deal,” charges Native American leader Matthew Pagels, the president of New York’s Seneca Nation, a community that’s just lost a battle with the state over revenue-sharing funds.

New York’s new subsidy for the billionaire Pegula, agrees Stanford economist Roger Noll, rates as a “terrible deal.” The governor’s claim that subsidizing the Bills will pay off big for the regional economy, Noll just told a New York business publication, holds no water. Years of research, he points out, show that new stadiums typically have next to no impact on city-wide income and employment.

“Concessionaires in the stadium sell more food,” Noll explains, “but restaurants elsewhere sell less.”

None of this research, of course, matters to oligarchs. Billionaires like Terry Pegula have the power to get what they want. They may not all have super yachts as large as their Russian oligarch counterparts. But their presence and power foster a systemic corruption just as destructive.

Starbucks workers in Buffalo have delivered America’s oligarchs an unexpectedly solid blow. But our oligarchy will only crumble when we all start hammering together.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

SAM PIZZIGATI
Sam Pizzigati, veteran labor journalist and Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits Inequality.org. His recent books include: "The Case for a Maximum Wage" (2018) and "The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970"(2012).

The Problem With Starbucks Benefits, According To Employees

BY FELIX BEHR/APRIL 11, 2022 9:41 AM EDT

In recent weeks, multiple stories have come out about people who worked at Starbucks specifically for their IVF benefits. At the end of February, Autumn Lucy shared with Business Insider how the only way she could afford in vitro fertilization (IVF) was by picking up a part time job at Starbucks because most insurance companies do not cover IVF. True, she made no money from working, but she got the benefits package that allowed her to finally become a parent.

A similar story was shared with NBC news in late March. A couple couldn't have children without IVF and the only company in their area that offered benefits that covered this was Starbucks. So, Leah Russell applied, was hired, and learned that the benefits were structured in such a way that her actual paycheck could not cover the deductible.

Fortunately, her partner's salary could keep them afloat.

The point, though, is that even if one works full time, the amount one actually makes means that you often can't pay for the benefits you receive. The issue extends beyond IVF as well. Back in May, when Business Insider was covering how Starbucks was suffering the labor shortage, workers were already saying that even though they appreciated the benefits, that wasn't what they wanted: "Benefits do not make up for lackluster pay; free Spotify doesn't pay rent."

This is not to say that workers are demonizing the benefits Starbucks offers. "From tuition assistance to health care coverage," the Twitter account for Starbucks Workers United wrote back in August, "we appreciate the benefits Starbucks offers to partners. This doesn't mean things couldn't be better." Again, in the piece about staffing, another worker admitted "Our benefits are amazing, however in lieu of some of the frivolous ones such as Headspace, a meditation app, we would prefer higher wages and better staffing."

However, it is cheaper for Starbucks to offer free Spotify or Headspace because the subscription to these apps is less than what they'd have to pay in higher wages. It's analogous to the perk wars Corey Pein covered in Silicon Valley in which businesses will offer free steak suppers to those who worked late because the $20 spent on steak results in $200 made from their work. It is perhaps for this reason that even though Howard Schulz repeatedly states that there is no need for a representative between the workers and corporate, there has been a pattern of firing union agitators who if successful would push for more material benefits that a free subscription to Spotify, per Vice.

Starbucks taps new chief strategy officer amid growing union tension

Published April 11, 2022
Aneurin Canham-Clyne

Associate Editor

RESTURAUNT DIVE

Courtesy of Starbucks

Dive Brief:
Starbucks has hired Frank Britt, who previously served as CEO of workforce development firm Penn Foster, as chief strategy officer, a Starbucks spokesperson confirmed. Matthew Ryan previously served as CSO but has not worked at Starbucks since 2018.

Britt will be responsible for developing long-term strategies focusing on employees and customers, and joined the company in April, according to a bio on Starbucks' website.

The news of Britt's hire follows a dramatic week for Starbucks, which began with interim CEO Howard Schultz suspending stock buybacks and ended with Starbucks Workers United winning six elections in two days.

Britt's bio highlights his tenure at a workforce development firm, "helping provide educational access and training opportunities to front-line employees." That experience may prove useful at Starbucks, which is facing a nationwide union campaign reaching more than 200 stores. The coffee chain also posted a job listing on April 6 seeking a labor lawyer with experience handling unfair labor practice charges and strike contingency planning.

Starbucks is also contending with tension between its interim CEO and union supporters. Schultz attended a number of discussions with Starbucks employees over the last week, capped off by a meeting Friday where Schultz allegedly asked Madison Hall, a pro-union worker in Long Beach, California, "If you hate Starbucks so much, why don't you go somewhere else?"

On Monday, Schultz wrote a Starbucks blog post suggesting Starbucks Workers United union's goal is at odds with the company's values. In the post, Schultz writes that the company will become "the best version of Starbucks by co-creating our future directly as partners" and said employees "must not be distracted by the different vision being put forward" by pro-union workers.

"While not all the partners supporting unionization are colluding with outside union forces, the critical point is that I do not believe conflict, division and dissension ... benefits Starbucks or our partners," Schultz wrote.

The blog post includes a video of Schultz speaking with Starbucks employees at the listening session in Long Beach, California, but the clip does not include an exchange between Schultz and Hall. Hall has not responded to Restaurant Dive's requests for comment on this alleged exchange.

On Thursday and Friday, Starbucks Workers United won elections in six stores in New York, including every store in the city of Ithaca, in vote counts observed by Restaurant Dive. In a seventh vote count at a store in Overland Park, Kansas, the union led 6-1 in counted ballots, but 7 ballots were challenged. Workers United's Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board said those ballots were challenged by the company's lawyers, and said the union expected a victory once challenges were resolved.

In Overland Park, three pro-union workers were fired before the vote count, and union supporters launched a strike between April 7 and April 11 at the store. The pro-union workers allege they were retaliated against for organizing, but a Starbucks spokesperson said all three workers were terminated for disciplinary infractions not related to organizing.

A new strategy-focused executive could help Starbucks better navigate growing union pressure and ease shareholder fears. Last month, a contingent of of 73 shareholders wrote a letter to Starbucks urging it to change its approach to the union's growth to protect Starbucks' reputation. The shareholders represent over $3.4 trillion in assets, and they are especially concerned with complaints lodged by the National Labor Relations Board against Starbucks' anti-union response.