Escalation in Lebanon: What is Israel trying to achieve?

Jennifer Holleis

DW

September 24, 2024

While Israel says its attacks on Lebanon's Hezbollah are necessary to regain safety in the border region, analysts point to three different key factors.

Analysts say three key factors are behind Israel's attacks on Lebanon

Image: FADEL ITANI /AFP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the current escalation in Lebanon is necessary "to defend our people against Hezbollah."

"We must take out those weapons to pave the way for the safe return of Israel's northern communities to their homes," he said.



Almost a year ago, some 60,000 Israelis had to evacuate their houses when the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon began shelling the border area in northern Israel.

Hezbollah — which is designated as a terrorist organization by several countries, including the US and Germany, while the European Union classifies its armed wing as a terrorist group — has argued that their rockets are in support of Gaza's militant organization Hamas whose fighters along with members of other militant Islamist groups killed around 1,150 people and took some 250 more as hostages on October 7, 2023. Hamas is also designated a terrorist organization by Germany, the US, EU and others.

According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 41,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel's war against Hamas.

Experts agree that the weapon arsenal supplied by Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon will last for months to come.Image: Baz Ratner/AP/picture alliance

'Almost full-fledged war'

Meanwhile, the death tally in Lebanon is on the rise. Israel's current attacks, as well as the recent explosions of communications devices and killings of Hezbollah leaders, have claimed the lives of around 500 people and injured thousands more across Lebanon.

The EU's foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has described the situation as "almost full-fledged war."

However, according to Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the UK-based think tank Chatham House, the current military operation and the dangerous escalation mainly serves as "justification or cover for Israel's seeking to return its displaced citizens to the north."

In her view, however, there are other key factors driving Israel's current attacks on Lebanon.

"Firstly, Israel is trying to delink the Gaza and Hezbollah fronts on its borders," she told DW.

"Israel has not been able to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza, and it has not been able to achieve a peace agreement from Hezbollah because of Gaza," Vakil said.

Meanwhile, the so-called Axis of Resistance, which consists of countries like Iran and multiple militias like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemen-based Houthis who consider Israel and the US as their enemies, has been focusing on unifying their forces and pressuring Israel simultaneously since October 7, she added.

Not only Israelis, but some 110,000 Lebanese have left the border region

Image: FADEL ITANI/AFP

Aftermath of the Second Lebanon War

"Secondly, of course, Israel faces a perpetual security threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon," she said.

In 2006, a month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel — called the Second Lebanon War after the First Lebanon War between 1982 and 1985 — ended with the acceptance of the United Nations Resolution 1701.

The conditions were an immediate cease-fire, the deployment of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers to southern Lebanon, the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces and of Hezbollah from that same area, as well as the disarmament of Hezbollah.

However, Hezbollah did neither retreat to Lebanon's Litani River, which is some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the border, nor did the Shiite militia give up its weapons. In the years since, with Iran's support, Hezbollah's military equipment and number of trained fighters has multiplied instead.

This also fosters fears that Hezbollah fighters could in the future abduct Israeli citizens to their territory.

"Israel is [once more] seeking to force Hezbollah to accept UN Security Council Resolution 1701," Vakil said.

Lebanon war distracts from Gaza war

"Thirdly, with this operation in Lebanon, there is no focus on Gaza," Vakil said.

Almost a year after the war in Gaza began, the international focus has shifted despite ongoing fighting in Gaza and over 90 hostages who remain in Hamas captivity, she pointed out.

"Israel has no strategy for extracting itself from Gaza and it hasn't made it clear what it plans for the day after and it is certainly not talking about an Israeli-Palestinian process," Vakil said.

In her view, the war in Lebanon "is a distraction from the lack of strategy in Gaza."

Israel's population is getting increasingly impatient with their government almost a year after the Hamas attack on October 7

Image: Mahmoud Illean/AP Photo/picture alliance

Ground invasion in Lebanon as potential game changer

Meanwhile, the Israeli population is getting increasingly impatient. Pressure on Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal and secure the return hostages is growing.

"From an Israeli point of view, political domestic pressure is very high and is intensifying week per week," Lorenzo Trombetta, a Beirut-based Middle East analyst and consultant for UN agencies, told DW.

He assumes that reaching a consensus has become a key step for the Israeli government. One way to achieve this could be by providing for the security of northern Israel, Trombetta said.

"Only, it is hard to say if Israel will be able to achieve this," he added.

"Who knows if or when an Israeli ground operation will begin? And in what way would Iran react if Hezbollah was on the brink of a total defeat against Israel?" Trombetta asked.

Edited by: Rob Mudge

Hezbollah is the state in south Lebanon: Karim El-Gawhary

Lebanon: The history of a weak state

Kersten Knipp

DW

9 hours ago9 hours ago

The Lebanese state lacks power to contain the escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Isreal unfolding on its territory. Its army is notoriously weak too.

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon

Image: Rabih Daher/REUTERS

Earlier this week during an emergency session of the UN Security Council in New York, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared Israel was waging a "dirty war" against his country. He said Israel was responsible for an unprecedented escalation in Lebanonand for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in just a few days, "including young people, women and children." That is why he said he was counting on a joint communiqué by France and the US, which would garner international support and end the "war." Israel rejects calls for a cease-fire.

Mikati's speech showed that the Lebanese government is largely powerless to stop the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. It has no real influence on Israel's or Hezbollah's actions. Once again, the weakness of the Lebanese government and Lebanese state is becoming apparent.

French President Emmanuel Macron (left) speaks with Prime Minister of Lebanon Najib Mikati (right) on the sidelines of the UN meeting in mid-September 2024I

mage: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

The history of a weak state

This weakness has historical roots. "Lebanon was founded in the early 20th century as a state of Christian Maronites in alliance with the French as a protecting power," says Markus Schneider, who heads the Friedrich-Ebert foundation's regional project for peace and security in the Middle East in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

"The birth defect was that it included large areas of non-Maronite populations from the outset," Schneider told DW. "Confessionalism was a compromise in order to integrate other sections of the population. This however prevented the emergence of a strong nation state."

This confessional structure became further entrenched in the Lebanese civil war that erupted in 1975, pitting the country's three largest denominations — Shiites, Sunnis and Maronite Christians — against each other. After the end of the civil war in 1990, a system was established to better balance the interests of the individual confessional groups.

"However, this system led to these groups repeatedly trying to assert their own interests at the expense of the other groups," Schneider says. "This continues to weaken the state. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that the country has been unable to agree on a president since 2022." The rampant corruption which plagues Lebanon is also linked to these divisions. "If there isn't a strong state that can take action against the centrifugal forces in its own country and institutions, then an oligarchic system can easily emerge in which everyone serves themselves," Schneider said.

Israel-Hezbollah conflict: Civilians caught in the crossfire  02:21

Hezbollah

Many observers also feel that Lebanon is harmed by the presence of Hezbollah, a Shiite group classified by the US, Germanyand several Sunni Arab states as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah was founded in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war, receiving substantial support — including and above all military aid — from Iran from the very outset. In 2022, the Washington-based Wilson Center described Hezbollah's armed wing as likely "the most formidable non-state military actor in the Middle East — and arguably in the world." It was Hezbollah that opened fired on Israel after the start of the Gaza war last fall — without ever taking into consideration the rest of the Lebanese population. "Hezbollah has basically taken Lebanese politics hostage," says Middle East expert Kelly Petillo of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

A weak Lebanese army

The weakness of the Lebanese state is also evident in the passivity of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which finds itself in a dilemma in the country's south, where it cooperates with United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL) peacekeepers on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Both forces are made up of 15,000 soldiers. Their presence is linked to the 2006 Lebanon war, when Israel occupied areas of southern Lebanon. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 holds that following an Israeli withdrawal, the LAF and UNFIL would work together to ensure that no armed Lebanese militias return to southern Lebanon. Only troops authorized by the Lebanese government may be present in the south. Hezbollah has so far, however, disregarded this agreement and remains active in the area.

Lebanese armed forces out on patrol in Beirut in March 2024

Image: Elisa Gestri/Sipa USA/picture alliance

The LAF is relatively powerless in military terms. It is ranked in 118th place out of a total of 145 in the Global Firepower Index, which compares the strength of national armies worldwide. It would not be able to put up any serious resistance to the Israeli army, which is ranked 17th in the Global Firepower Index, nor would it be able to contain Hezbollah. "This would drag Lebanon into a civil war," says Schneider.

The LAF's biggest problem, meanwhile, remains political. As it is not controlled by any confessional group in the country, the army is regarded as one of the few non-confessional institutions in Lebanon, says Schneider. "But of course the army is also weakened by the national and economic crisis in Lebanon," he explains. "That is why it receives financial support, for example with regard to paying salaries. The concern is that if the army collapses, the Lebanese state itself could collapse. But of course, the army cannot solve the state's political problems."

How Israel defends itself against missile attacks  02:24

This article was translated from German

IMPERIALISM CHALLENGES CHINA

NATO's Indo-Pacific policy riddled with challenges

Anchal Vohra in Brussels 

DW

Western allies are waking up to the threat on NATO's borders and the increased ties between Russia and China. 

But the security alliance's goal to work more closely with the Indo-Pacific region still has a long way to go.

Russia and China have been conducting joint naval drills and war games in recent weeks, in a show of strength and camaraderie for the regional and Western audience.

Several experts told DW that Moscow's intentions were to distract the United States from Europe and weaken the NATO alliance, while China intended to spook regional adversaries and learn lessons from Russia's war experience.

"Russia wants the US to focus more on the Indo-Pacific in the hope that it will reduce military deployment and its support to Europe," said Ying-Yu Lin, a military expert at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

At least 15 countries were invited to observe the drills, but China was the key partner.

"We pay special attention to strengthening military cooperation with friendly states," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the launch of the exercises in early September, as if brandishing Moscow's defense cooperation with Beijing as a counterweight to the Western security alliance.

Chinese and Belarusian soldiers staged joint exercises on NATO's eastern flank in early JulyImage: Vayar military information agency/Belarusian Defence Ministry/Handout/REUTERS


But these exercises, Russia's largest in 30 years, aren't the first with China this year. In July, Russian and Chinese bombers flew together for the first time in international airspace off the US coast of Alaska, while in Europe, Chinese soldiers staged joint anti-terrorism exercises in Belarus, on NATO's eastern flank — just kilometers away from the border with Poland.

Does NATO want to expand to Asia?

China's increased presence on NATO's outer edges may be, in part, in response to NATO plans to increase its cooperation with key regional partners Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, also known as the IP4.

NATO has said developments in the Indo-Pacific region "can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security," and the idea of collaborating with the partners is to "enhance their mutual situational awareness of security developments" in the two regions, in part due to the growing influence of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has publicly reprimanded China's alleged military support to Russia. NATO has described China as "a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine" for its "so-called 'no limits' partnership and its large-scale support for Russia's defense industrial base," which includes machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that allow it to make weapons.

DW asks Blinken about China's support for Russia 01:53

Reacting to the IP4 cooperation plans in July, Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, accused NATO of "breaching its boundary, expanding its mandate, reaching beyond its defense zone and stoking confrontation."

But experts in Europe have said there is no appetite in NATO to expand its remit and offer actual security guarantees to eastern partners like Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which calls on every member state to provide mutual defense through military and political means if a member state is threatened by an external country.

"Diplomatically, there is an objective to maintain the status quo and not irritate China, as China has indicated multiple times that NATO cannot expand to the Indo-Pacific," said Sari Arho Havren, a specialist in China's foreign relations at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, based in Brussels.

Ian Lesser, who heads the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States think tank, said there is currently no consensus on expanding the geographical area of the alliance.

"NATO is very focused on what is in its areas of interests and responsibility," and is aiming for "obvious and easier" areas of cooperation that don't engage the question of geography and the key four Indo-Pacific partners.

"The easiest thing for NATO is to cooperate with the IP4 on more global concerns that do not have geographic boundaries, such as cybersecurity, information security, intelligence sharing and counterterrorism," he said.

However, the Western alliance faces a whole host of challenges, including how far it can go in provoking China, which happens to be the biggest trading partner of both its Asian partners and also of the European Union.

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What is NATO's strategy in the Indo-Pacific region?

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, and amid growing cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, NATO has sought to highlight the importance of its Asian partners, particularly the IP4. The four countries attended the yearly NATO summit for the first time in 2022, months after Ukraine’s invasion, and have since become regulars.

NATO's strategy, while still in the nascent stage, has so far included sharing notes on Russia's aggression in Ukraine, the growing ties between Moscow and Beijing and China's stated sovereignty claims in the region and the security situation in the Korean Peninsula.

NATO has been keen to increase cooperation with Asian partners Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand

Image: Yonhap/picture alliance

NATO member states are additionally concerned about Taiwan — a key supplier of semiconductor chips that power everything from electric vehicles to phones. The island state, which China claims as a breakaway province, is under constant threat as Beijing aims to reunite it with the mainland.

In July, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a defense gathering that NATO allies will be launching four new projects with its Indo-Pacific partners focused on artificial intelligence, disinformation and cybersecurity, but also crucially on Ukraine. So far, NATO hasn't provided any further details.

"I would say that the deepening ties are a process, and NATO and IP4 coordination has already created a strong basis,'' said Arho Havren.

For instance, Japan and NATO are in the final stages of setting up a dedicated line for sharing highly confidential security information, while the European allies have come to appreciate the South Korean defense industry, particularly its ammunition production, which has been useful in indirectly supplying Ukraine.

Ying-Yu Lin said NATO's individual agreements with its Asian partners is due to the differences among them, and general cautious approach toward China in the region. "They don't agree on everything," he said.

Is the Indo-Pacific entering new era of security alliances?  03:44

Western allies remain cautious

That's also true for the Western allies, who are still deciding on the extent of their cooperation with their Asian partners. NATO member states have been careful in how far they'll go on their own. France, for instance, even vetoed the opening of a NATO liaison office in Tokyo last year, calling it a "big mistake."

NATO also wants to avoid stretching itself too thin, at a time there is a war on its eastern flank and it needs to bolster its own defenses.

"It is also a resource matter — European NATO allies cannot realistically expand their commitments to cover the Indo-Pacific," said Arho Havren, pointing out that many European nations still allocate less than recommended 2% of the national GDP on defense spending "and lack military capabilities even at home."

Edited by: Martin Kuebler

ABOLISH LYNCHING

South Carolina executes Freddie Owens; first state inmate to die in 13 years


Officials in South Carolina executed Freddie Owens by lethal injection Friday, marking the state’s first execution in over a decade. Photo courtesy of the South Carolina Department of Corrections

Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Officials in South Carolina have executed Freddie Owens, convicted in the 1997 murder of a convenience store clerk, marking the state's first execution in more than a decade.

Owens was executed by lethal injection Friday evening at the Broad Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia.

The 46-year-old was convicted of killing convenience store clerk Irene Graves during a robbery in 1997 in Greenville, S.C.

Relatives of the 41-year-old single mother of three witnessed the execution.

Owens was 19 at the time of the murder and convicted two years later, based in part on the testimony of his co-accused.

He becomes the first prisoner to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years while the state dealt with years of supply issues securing the drugs used to carry out the procedure.

Authorities pronounced Owens dead at 6:55 p.m. EDT Friday, around 20 minutes after the procedure started. He did not make a final statement other than briefly saying goodbye to his lawyer.

Gov. Henry McMaster, R-S.C., denied a request for clemency made by Owens' lawyers.

The State Supreme Court earlier denied to issue a stay of execution made hours beforethe execution.

Days ahead of the execution, lawyers for Owens submitted a sworn affidavit from co-defendant Steven Golden. Golden was given a 30-year sentence for the crime but said he was pressured by police decades ago to name Owens as one who pulled the trigger, killing Graves.

Golden swore Owens was not even at the scene of the robbery. However the South Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday denied Owens' request for a new trial.

NOAA awards $1M to monitor potentially destructive floods, ice-jam events in Alaska

Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The federal government on Friday awarded $1.1 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct satellite monitoring of potentially destructive floods and ice-jam events in Alaska.

The project is expected to begin early next year and provide NOAA with high-resolution data from privately managed satellites "to fill observation gaps during Alaska's flood and ice-jam events," the agency said in a statement.

Officials expect the satellite data provided by the program also will be used by forecasters in flood and other prediction models.

Last month, an "unprecedented" glacial lake outburst flood caused a torrent of water in Juneau, damaging more than 100 homes and leading Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy to declare a state of emergency.

The same basin flooded almost exactly one year earlier.

More than 35 communities along the western Alaska coastline were damaged to varying degrees after Typhoon Merbok came ashore in 2022.

The money is part of a larger $2.27 million project on Alaska flood monitoring, and comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022 as one of President Joe Biden's major achievements.

The legislation sets aside billions of dollars earmarked for fighting climate change and enhancing healthcare.

"The Biden-Harris administration will be investing in the data infrastructure needed to help communities in Alaska prepare for severe flooding," U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in the department's statement.

"This funding opportunity, made possible thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, will help forecasters better track developing flood conditions, keep residents safe and mitigate the economic impacts caused by these climate disasters."

Monitoring floods in Alaska is more challenging than in most other states, according to NOAA.

Dense forest cover, limited road access, variable river-water levels and flows, along with unique flooding conditions such as glacier-dammed lake floods make it exceptionally difficult to monitor.

Friday's investment aims to make it easier for scientists to monitor and prepare against future flooding.

"Our ability to prepare the public for destructive floods that threaten communities, homes, resources and critical infrastructure will benefit from this investment," NOAA National Weather Service Alaska Region Director Scott Lindsey said in the statement.

"Satellites play an increasingly important role for NOAA in identifying conditions that could lead to flooding in Alaska, detecting where floods are occurring and improving the forecast accuracy of their magnitude, extent, timing and potential impacts."

CRIMINAL CAPITAL$M

FTC sues prescription drug middlemen, alleging they conspired over high insulin costs


 The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed lawsuits against three prescription drug benefit managers or PBMs, including Express Scripts, over concerns the companies are artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs. 

File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed lawsuits against three prescription drug benefit managers or PBMs over concerns the companies are artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs.

The FTC lawsuit contends Caremark Rx, Express Scripts and OptumRx engaged "in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices," leading to the artificial price inflation as well as impairing access to lower cost drugs, and shifting "high insulin list prices to vulnerable patients," according to a statement issued Friday.
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Alabama-based Caremark, Minnesota's OptumRX and Missouri-based Express Scripts are the country's three largest PBMs.

The lawsuit also names the three companies' affiliated group purchasing organizations or GPOs.

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The three companies "created a perverse drug rebate system that prioritizes high rebates from drug manufacturers, leading to artificially inflated insulin list prices," according to the FTC complaint.

That complex system allowed the companies to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates rather than return the money to patients, according to the FTC. They also allegedly used the allure of rebates to lure new clients.

The agency contends that even when lower drug priced insulin was available, the PBMs "systemically excluded" vulnerable patients in favor of higher-priced options with large rebates.
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The filing points out the average cost of a brand-name insulin drug in 1999 was $21, but increased to more than $274 by 2017, an increase of 1,200%.

It goes on to say one out of every four insulin patients became unable to afford their medication by 2019.

"Millions of Americans with diabetes need insulin to survive, yet for many of these vulnerable patients, their insulin drug costs have skyrocketed over the past decade thanks in part to powerful PBMs and their greed," FTC Bureau of Competition Deputy Director Rahul Rao said in the agency's statement.

"Caremark, ESI, and Optum-as medication gatekeepers-have extracted millions of dollars off the backs of patients who need life-saving medications. The FTC's administrative action seeks to put an end to the Big Three PBMs' exploitative conduct and marks an important step in fixing a broken system-a fix that could ripple beyond the insulin market and restore healthy competition to drive down drug prices for consumers."

SPACE/COSMOLOGY

Space travel might be harmful for human hearts

By Dennis Thompson, HealthDay News


Long-term space travel to Mars could be bad for astronauts' hearts, a new zero-gravity study shows. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Long-term space travel to Mars could be bad for astronauts' hearts, a new zero-gravity study shows.

After a month at the International Space Station, a set of 48 bioengineered human heart tissue samples beat about half as strong as similar tissues that remained on Earth.

The tissues also became weaker and started showing genetic evidence of inflammation and oxidative damage that are hallmarks of heart disease, researchers reported Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Many of these markers of oxidative damage and inflammation are consistently demonstrated in post-flight checks of astronauts," added researcher Devin Mair, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.

Previous studies have shown that some astronauts return to Earth with reduced heart muscle function and irregular heartbeats, researchers said. Some, but not all, of these effects dissipate over time following their return.

Missions to Mars could mean as much as two years spent in space, making it crucial that doctors better understand the effects of weightlessness on heart function, researchers said.

For the study, researchers used stem cells to create a set of heart muscle cells, called cardiomyocytes.

The team then placed the heart muscle tissues into a chip that strings the tissues between two posts, to collect data about how the tissues beat. The resulting chambers were about half the size of a cell phone.

"An incredible amount of cutting-edge technology in the areas of stem cell and tissue engineering, biosensors and bioelectronics, and micro-fabrication went into ensuring the viability of these tissues in space," said project leader Deok-Ho Kim, a professor of biomedical engineering and medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

A SpaceX mission took the heart tissues into space in March 2020. Once they safely reached the space station, scientists received real-time data for 10 seconds every half-hour about the cells' strength of contraction and beating patterns.

Astronaut Jessica Meir changed the liquid nutrients surrounding the tissues once a week, and preserved tissues for later genetic and imaging analysis.

When the tissue chambers returned to earth, researchers continued to track their progress. They also were compared to tissues developed from the same source and maintained in an Earthbound laboratory.


The heart muscle tissues in space became weaker, and also developed irregular beating, researchers said.

The tissues developed a delay between beats about five times longer that the normal delay of around a second, researchers said. The time between beats returned nearly to normal following their return to Earth.

The protein bundles in muscle cells that help them contract, called sarcomeres, also became shorter and more disordered in the space-bound heart tissue samples. This is a hallmark of human heart disease, researchers noted.

Other abnormalities developed in the energy-producing mitochondria in the tissue samples, as well as in genetic markers for inflammation and oxidative damage.

A second batch of bioengineered heart tissue samples went to the space station in 2023 to test drugs that may protect them from the effects of low gravity. That study is ongoing, researchers said.

The researchers also continue to improve their heart tissue chip system, and are studying the effects of space radiation on human heart tissues.

More information

NASA has more on the human body in space.

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Survey: Most Americans won't get new flu, COVID-19 vaccines

By Dennis Thompson, 

HealthDay News

Sept. 25, 2024 


Most Americans don't plan to get vaccinated against the flu or COVID-19 this season, a new survey has found. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Most Americans don't plan to get vaccinated against the flu or COVID-19 this season, a new survey has found.

Fewer than two in five U.S. adults (38%) say they will definitely get a flu jab, and only one in four (26%) say they'll get the updated COVID vaccine, according to a survey released Wednesday by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

This lack of interest extends to those eligible for an RSV vaccine (21%) and pneumococcal vaccine (24%), the survey found.

"Last flu season, an estimated 25,000 people in the U.S. died from flu or related complications and 75,000 from COVID-19 in 2023, demonstrating how dangerous these diseases can be," U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a news release.

This appears to be driven by a lack of concern. Few U.S. adults are worried about themselves or a family member becoming infected with flu (17%), COVID-19 (20%), RSV (16%) or pneumococcal disease (17%).

Cohen and other leading health experts got vaccinated at an onside flu vaccine clinic following a press conference announcing the results of the NFID survey.

"We can protect ourselves and those we care about by getting updated vaccines to reduce the risk of serious illness from flu and COVID-19 and do more of the things we enjoy," Cohen said. "I encourage everyone 6 months and older to get an annual flu vaccine and the updated COVID-19 vaccine in the coming weeks."

Interest in vaccination is even lower this season than last, in which less than half (45%) of adults got a flu vaccine, according to CDC data.

Worse, only 46% of adults with a chronic health condition got the flu vaccine last season, the CDC said.

"The low vaccination rates among those with chronic health conditions are of particular concern because they are more likely to develop serious and even life-threatening complications from respiratory infections," said Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr., medical director of the NFID.

Unfortunately, it appears to take catching the flu to make one want the flu vaccine.

Among U.S. adults who were diagnosed with the flu in the last two years, nearly 72% say they will likely get the flu jab, NFID survey results show.

The 2023-2024 flu season in the United States was moderately severe, with an estimated 41 million illnesses, 490,000 hospitalizations and 25,000 flu-related deaths, according to new CDC data.

Many people who don't plan to get vaccinated say they're worried about potential side effects or have a general distrust of vaccines, the NFID survey found.

"We must build trust by enhancing our support for people in using science and evidence to make personally appropriate decisions regarding vaccines and other health choices," Dr. Reed Tuckson, cofounder of the Black Coalition Against COVID, said in an NFID news release.

"The pandemic taught us that it is possible to close some of the gaps in immunization rates among communities of color, but we still have a long way to go," Tuckson added. "In addition to evidence-based messaging, we know that guidance from familiar, trusted healthcare professionals working with minority communities is essential to building vaccine confidence."

More information

Kaiser Permanente has more about seasonal vaccines.

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

ICYMI

Study: Climate change made rains that led to deadly European floods more likely, heavier


The Elbe river in Dresden, Germany, pictured on 16 September at 19 feet above its normal level after four days of the heaviest rain ever recorded in central Europe that a report out Wednesday says was made much more likely by human-induced climate change. 

File photo by Filip Singer/EPA-EFE


Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Extreme rainfall that triggered deadly floods in Europe killing at least 24 people earlier this month was made both more likely and worse by orders of magnitude by man-made climate change, a new study published Wednesday said.

The heaviest rain over a four-day period Sept. 12 through Sept. 15 in Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Austria and the Czech Republic was made at least twice as likely and 7% more intense due to human-induced climate change, according to research by academics for World Weather Attribution.

"In today's climate, which is 1.3 degrees Celsius warmer than at the beginning of the industrial period, a rainfall event of this magnitude is a very rare event expected to occur about once every 100 to 300 years," the group said in a news release.

"As the event is by far the heaviest ever recorded, the exact return time is difficult to estimate based on only about 100 years of observed data."

However, using observational data to isolate trends the researchers found heavy four-day rainfall events had become about twice as likely and 20% more intense since the pre-industrial era.

They calculated the changes in frequency and intensity specifically linked to man-made climate change by using models simulating heavy rain in the affected areas combined with their observation-based evaluations.

"All models showed an increase in intensity and likelihood as well, as expected from physical processes in a warming climate. The combined change, attributable to human-induced climate change, is roughly a doubling in likelihood and a 7% increase in intensity.

"The models are, however, not explicitly modeling convection, and new convection-permitting studies have shown that increases in precipitation may have been underestimated in lower-resolution climate models. Therefore, these results are conservative," WWA said.

The scientists warned that in a future warming scenario where the global temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, their models show even heavier 4-day rainfall events, with rainfall intensity rising a further 5% and the likelihood jumping half as much again, compared with today.

They cautioned that these calculations too were likely underestimates of the real picture because existing climate models underplay the frequency of very heavy rainfall.

The trend is clear. If humans keep filling the atmosphere with fossil fuel emissions, the situation will be more severe," said study co-author and Poznan University climatologist Bogdan Chojnicki.

Every 1 degree Celsius of heating of the atmosphere allows it to hold 7% more moisture providing water is readily available, physicists have calculated.

The record-breaking rains unleashed on central Europe were the result of cold air from the Arctic colliding with wet air from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea creating Storm Boris which remained static for turning rivers into torrents that tore through major urban centers along their banks.

The death toll from the recent floods was much lower than in previous events in 2021, 2002 and 1997 when hundreds of people were killed thanks only to upgraded emergency management systems across Europe largely working well despite the higher intensity and larger scale, WWA said.

But they stressed that any loss of life highlighted the need for additional measures to account for climate change including constructing flood defences at scale and improving risk communication and emergency response plans.

The WWA research was a so-called "attribution study" that uses recognized scientific practices but has not gone through the normal peer review process prior to publication.

Merrill Lynch, Harvest Volatility Management to pay $9.3 million to settle SEC charges


The Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday Merrill Lynch and Harvest Volatility Management LLC have settled charges by paying a combined $9.3 million. According to the SEC, the companies exceeded investment limits over a two-year period, causing clients to pay higher fees and incurring investment losses.

 File Photo/Laura Cavanaugh/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday that Harvest Volatility Management LLC and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. have agreed to pay a combined $9.3 million in penalties to resolve SEC charges.

The companies exceeded investment limits over a two-year period, causing clients to pay higher fees and incur investment losses, the SEC said in a statement Wednesday.

The penalties imposed against the two companies include recovery of more than $6 million in excess fees.

The SEC said this enforcement action "holds Merrill and Harvest accountable for dropping the ball in executing these basic duties to their clients, even as their clients' financial exposure grew well beyond predetermined limits."

The case involved complex options trading.

"In this case, two investment advisers allegedly sold a complex options trading strategy to their clients, but failed to abide by basic client instructions or implement and adhere to appropriate policies and procedures," said the SEC Enforcement Division's Mark Cave in a statement.

The SEC said that starting in 2016, Harvest let accounts exceed risk exposure levels, including dozens of accounts that exceeded the limits by 50% or more.

"Merrill and Harvest received larger management fees when investors' exposure levels climbed above pre-set levels and exposed investors to greater financial risks," the SEC said.

Merrill's role, the SEC said, was introducing its clients to Harvest and then receiving part of Harvest's management and incentive fees along with trading commissions.

Harvest and Merrill are paying the penalty without admitting or denying the SEC's findings.

Merrill will pay $3.8 million and Harvest will pay $5.5 million, according to the SEC.

Meta fined $101M in Ireland after failing to encrypt user passwords


Regulators found Meta Platforms Ireland Limited failed to properly encrypt and store passwords of the tech giant’s users, levying a $101.7 million fine.

 File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Ireland's Data Protection Commission on Friday fined Meta more than $100 million for privacy law violations related to failing to properly encrypt and store passwords of the tech giant's users.

The DPC found Meta Platforms Ireland Limited violated four parts of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR in levying the $101.7 million fine.
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Regulators found Meta "did not use appropriate technical or organizational measures to ensure appropriate security of users' passwords against unauthorized processing," among other violations.

Meta was also cited for three other violations related to improperly storing users' passwords.

An investigation into the allegations first started in 2019 after Meta self-reported a possible issue. EU legislation requires companies to report potential privacy breaches as soon as they become aware of them.

"It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in the statement.

"It must be borne in mind that the passwords, the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users' social media accounts."

The GDPR was first adopted in 2016, coming into law in 2018 and is considered some of the strongest privacy legislation in the world.

The commission's power stems from the legislation and its responsibilities extend to upholding the individuals' rights to have their personal data protected.

Officials said Meta was first informed of the decision Thursday.

The commission will publish a comprehensive version of its decision in the future.

This is not the first time Irish regulators have fined the social media giant.

In May of 2023, the DPC fined Meta $1.3 billion for privacy violations and ordered the U.S. tech giant to stop transferring user data across the Atlantic.

In January of that year, the commission levied a pair of fines against Meta totaling about $414 million for violating GDPR rules.

Aquarium rescues blue lobster from grocery store tank

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- A New York aquarium came to the rescue of a rare blue lobster spotted hanging out with the standard-color crustaceans in a supermarket's tank.

Danielle Morales said she was at Market 32 in Clifton Park with her young sons, Parker, 4, and Zachary, 3, when the boys insisted on visiting the lobster tank.
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"We were walking and we went up to the tank and Parker goes, 'Hey! That one is blue!' And I thought, wow. That's weird. And I took a picture of it," Morales told WRGB-TV.

Morales opened Facebook on her phone and messaged the Via Aquarium in Schenectady.

"Once we contacted the aquarium and had the momentum, I went up to the counter and was like, 'Hey. The aquarium is going to call you. You might not want to sell that one," Morales said.

The young boys initially named the lobster Bluey after the popular cartoon character, but when they found out the sea creature was male, they changed his name to Bandit -- the animated dog's equally blue dad.

Via Aquarium officials collected Bandit from the store and said he is currently in quarantine and will join the rest of the facility's lobsters in October.
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Rare lobster colors are often caused by a genetic mutation that can cause them to sport hues including orange, blue and white. An orange lobster at the University of New England recently hatched a clutch of eggs, and dozens of the babies share her rare coloration.

Cassidy Livingston of Via Aquarium said officials believe Bandit's color might be more based around his diet, as he is a darker shade of blue than some other blue lobsters that have been found.

"We're thinking it's possibly because of diet in this case," Livingston said. "There's also a chance that he got more blue in color because of what he's eating. Like, if they're eating a lot of shrimp, that can cause color changes."

FAKE NEWS MISINFORMATION

China denies U.S. claim that its newest nuclear submarine sank at pier

China denies U.S. claim its newest nuclear submarine sank at Chinese pier


Sept. 27 (UPI) -- The newest nuclear-powered submarine in China's fleet sank in spring while docked at a pier but Chinese government officials have taken steps to cover it up, according to U.S. officials.

The sinking allegedly took place near the Chinese city of Wuhan around late May or early June. The attack submarine was the first of a new Zhou-class line of sea vessels.
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According to an unnamed senior Biden administration official cited in multiple media reports, "it's not surprising" that China's navy "would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pier-side," he told multiple news outlets.

It has not clear if nuclear material was on the submarine when it allegedly went down.

On Friday at a news conference in Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said he was not familiar with the topic and did not provide any information when asked about it, the BBC reported.

"We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide," a separate spokesperson from China's embassy in Washington told CNN.

China currently has the biggest navy in the world by number of ships.

The communist nation has had long-standing maritime territorial disputes with other neighboring countries, such as Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

According to the Congressional Research Service, China is on track to have by next year 65 submarines and about 80 in the next decade by 2035 due to growth the Chinese submarine construction sector.

Meanwhile, the nuclear-powered U.S. Navy reportedly has 53 "fast attack" submarines, 14 ballistic-missile submarines and four guided-missile submarines.

The apparent sinking was first noticed by an expert in the field who examines satellite imagery of China's shipyards.

Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submariner and an analyst at the Center for a New American Security, said the sinking was a "setback" that would cause "pretty significant embarrassment" for China's People's Liberation Army navy, but added that the safety risk was probably "pretty low."

"I've never seen a bunch of cranes clustered around (one spot)," Shugart told CNN. "If you go back and look at historical imagery, you can see one crane, but not a bunch clustered there," said Shugart.

Shugart says what took place "raises deeper questions" about the PLA's "internal accountability and oversight" of China's defense industry which contends "has long been plagued by corruption."

"I do not see it significantly altering the really impressive upward trajectory of the PLA navy's capability," he stated.

ECOCIDE

U.S. fines Turkish shipping company $2M for dumping oil waste in ocean

$500,000 from $2M penalty will go toward preserving Louisiana's fragile coastline.



The legal charges were related to a previous investigation about the January 2023 incident. DOJ says the Dream was traveling to New Orleans when it is alleged the ship's captain ordered the crew to discharge oil-contaminated waste from a residual tank on deck into the ocean. 

Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard/UPI

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- A Turkish shipping company and its United Arab Emirates-based partner were sentenced and fined $2 million by the United States after a ship's captain ordered his crew to dump polluted waste overboard into the ocean and allegedly tried to cover it up, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday.

On Thursday, Prive Shipping Denizcilik Ticaret, headquarted in Turkey, and its Dubai-based subsidiary company Prive Overseas Marine LLC were fined $2M and sentenced to a four-year probation by a New Orleans court as the operators of the shipping tanker "P/S Dream," according to new information by DOJ.

That ship's captain, Abdurrahman Korkmaz, was given an eight month prison sentence on Sept. 10 for obstruction of a U.S. Coast Guard investigation and violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.

As a condition of probation, the two aligned international shipping corporations must adhere to an environmental compliance plan and face safety and inspection requirements over the next four years.

In May, the two companies pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and violating the APPS.

The legal charges were related to a previous investigation about the January 2023 incident. DOJ says the Dream was traveling to New Orleans when Korkmaz ordered the crew to discharge oil-contaminated waste from a residual tank on deck into the Atlantic Ocean.

The seamen rigged a portable pump to empty the contents overboard over a three day timespan. The captain then told his crew to clean the tank with soap, Justice officials said.

The defendants then falsified the vessel's oil record book by omitting the discharge.

According to the federal government, senior corporate managers were aware that Korkmaz, a Turkish national, had arranged the scheme and multiple crew members came forward to alert authorities as to what took place.

In the evidence was a recording of a ship officer discussing the polluted discharge.

Given to the U.S. Coast Guard during inspection, the falsified logs were intended to "conceal the fact that the crew had dumped oil-contaminated waste overboard in violation of MARPOL Annex I," which is an international treaty regulating oil pollution from ships, the Justice Department added.

But from the big toxic mess came a little good, perhaps.

From the $2M criminal penalty will come at least $500,000 in "organizational community service payments," according to the government, to help pay for various ongoing maritime preservation and environmental projects in eastern Louisiana's fragile coastline managed by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, established by Congress.

Trump Media co-founder, investor dumps shares following lockup period

One of the co-founders of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., parent company of the Truth Social platform, has sold nearly his entire ownership stake in the firm, according to a regulatory filing this week. File Photo by Will Oliver/EPA-EFE

Sept. 28 (UPI) -- A co-founder of former President Donald Trump's Truth Social messaging platform has dumped his shares following the expiration of a mandatory "lockup" period, a public filing shows.

United Atlantic Ventures LLC, headed by Andrew Litinsky, a one-time contestant on Trump's television show The Apprentice, now holds only 100 shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., Truth Social's parent company, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission document filed Thursday.

At the time of its debut on the Nasdaq market following a merger with a publicly traded shell company in March, Litinsky's firm held more than 7.5 million shares, representing an approximately 4% stake.

The former president owns a majority stake in the company, which goes by ticker symbol DTJ. Its share price has fluctuated wildly since March, largely in relation to Trump's political fortunes and is considered a "meme" stock by most market observers.

Since mid-May, however, its share price has largely been on a steady downward trajectory and reached new lows this week as SEC-imposed rules restricting the sale of shares by company insiders in the wake of the merger expired.
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Analysts questioned whether Trump himself would sell his shares -- the former president has vowed he would not -- but the prospect of other investors dumping their positions further depressed share prices.

Trump Media had a market capitalization of $2.954 billion at Friday's close.

The peak was $79.38 on March 26.

DTJ closed at $14.75 per share on Friday, up from an all-time low of $11.75 on Tuesday. At this week's low-water mark, United Atlantic Ventures' sale would have been worth $89 million.

The share sale was not unexpected due to legal battling between Trump and the former Apprentice contestant.

In April, Litinksy and partner Wesley Moss, another former contestant on the show, were sued by Trump Media & Technology Group, which sought to force them to give up their ownership stakes and leadership positions in the firm.

The suit alleges the pair "failed spectacularly" in their leadership of the company and made "reckless and wasteful decisions" that damaged it. That action came after they sued Trump Media claiming their stake should have been higher.

Global unions allege wages withheld from Palestinian workers in Israel

By Paul Godfrey

UPI

Sept. 27, 2024


Relatives of an estimated 4,000 Palestinian workers arbitrarily detained in custody in Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks await their return at Gaza's Kerem Shalom border crossing on November 3, 2023. International labor unions filed a complaint Friday to recover unpaid wages and benefits they allege are owed to more than 200,000 Palestinians employed in Israel prior to the war. File Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Israel has withheld the pay and benefits of more than 200,000 Gaza and West Bank Palestinians who work in Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel in a "blatant" violation of international labor law, unions alleged Friday.

The workers employed in Israel, formally and informally, have not received wages amounting to tens of millions of dollars for work prior to Oct. 7 and have received no pay since, plunging many families into destitution, nine global unions said in a joint complaint to recover the outstanding pay.

The complaint accuses the Israeli government of "blatant" breaches of the International Labor Organization's protection of wages convention by holding back the September pay of 13,000 workers whose work permits were revoked on Oct. 10, the first working day after the attacks in which Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel.

The brief argues that almost 200,000 other Palestinian workers blocked from re-entering Israel from the West Bank are owed back pay and wages for subsequent months under the terms of their employment contracts due to failure to give them formal notice they were being let go.

"These workers have experienced widespread wage theft due to the suspension of work permits and the unilateral termination of their contracts," the complaint said, noting that Palestinian workers had been battling to recover outstanding wages or settle wage debts for almost a year.

The average daily wage for Palestinian workers employed in Israel under regular work permits was $79 and $567-$702 per week for those working in the informal economy.

"When I visited the West Bank earlier this year, I witnessed the economic destitution experienced by the families of Palestinian workers employed in Israel. As always, working people are enduring the worst of the continuing conflict," said International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Luc Triangle.

Public Services International union General Secretary Daniel Bertossa said the withholding of wages was the latest "unjustified indignity faced by Palestinian workers under occupation," calling it disproportionate.

"This is a collective punishment of the Palestinian people," he said.

Independent Israeli unions backed the complaint.

"Two hundred thousand workers in the West Bank lost their jobs," Maan Workers Association executive director Assaf Adiv, told The Guardian.

"They did not receive any compensation and have been suffering ever since from extreme poverty.

"Thousands of workers who risk entering Israel without permits face repression, humiliation and even death. Workers are a major social layer in Palestinian society that is peaceful and doesn't associate with Hamas and thus should not be punished," said Adiv.

Palestinian unemployment has risen to its highest-ever level since the outbreak of the war in Gaza with the loss to the economies of the West Bank and Gaza estimated to be as much as $19 million per day, according to an ILO report published in May on the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories.

From Boeing machinists to cannabis workers, unions are mobilizing across U.S. industries

By Robert Forrant, UMass Lowell

Sept. 27, 2024 

THE CONVERSATION


City workers rally at City Hall in Los Angeles in August. 

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


What do violinists, grocery store clerks, college dorm counselors, nurses, teachers, hotel housekeepers, dockworkers, TV writers, autoworkers, Amazon warehouse workers and Boeing workers have in common?

In the past year or so, they've all gone on strike, tried to get co-workers to join a union, or threatened to walk off the job over an array of issues that include retirement plans, technology replacing workers and lagging wages as inflation increased.

The array of Americans who are organizing unions extends to the tech, digital media and cannabis industries. Even climbing gym employees have formed a union.

This is happening as U.S. workers in general are finding themselves in an increasingly precarious position. As a labor historian, I believe mobilization is the result of economic disruption caused by the relocation of jobs, the impact of new technologies on work and the erosion of income stability. It's become very unlikely that today's workers will have the same employer for decades, as my father and many men and women of his generation did.

Greatest generation of jobs

My father, a butcher, worked for the same company for 40 years and raised a family of seven on his union-secured wages and benefits. While back in the 1950s and 1960s many working-class Americans took that kind of job security for granted, it's no longer the case. Some career coaches consider keeping a job for many years as a character flaw.

The upsurge in labor organizing is in part a way for workers to gain some sort of say about what happens to their jobs. It's also helping employees plan for the future.

Union members are increasingly using strikes to demand higher wages, better benefits and increased job security. Why should it be, some low-income earners are asking, that in my family we must hold down two or three jobs to make ends meet, while CEO pay goes through the stratosphere?

There were 33 major strikes involving nearly a half-million workers in 2023, the most since 2000. Many labor scholars attribute much of this uptick in organizing to several long-term trends. They include stagnating wages, high out-of-pocket health spending costs -- even for those with insurance coverage -- and growing concerns over job insecurity caused by the expanded use of labor-saving technology.

Precarious work

In many industries, large numbers of the reliable jobs that paid enough for workers to be in the middle class have dwindled. That's largely due to technological advances that replaced labor with automation and manufacturers moving to lower-income places, including Mexico, China and other foreign countries, as well as southern states such as Alabama and Tennessee. These trends have left behind a Rust Belt strewn with decaying buildings that once housed bustling factories and increasing numbers of what are sometimes called "precarious" jobs, which are poorly paid and lack sick leave, vacation time and other basic protections.

This isn't new.

I've researched how New England's textile industry fled cities such as Lowell, Mass., as early as the 1920s for nonunion locations in South Carolina, while precision metalworking plants in Springfield, Mass., sent work to Mississippi and South Carolina starting in the 1950s.

But faced with mounting economic uncertainty, public support for unions is increasing. A 2024 Gallup Poll found that 70% of Americans approve of them -- close to the 71% level seen in 2022, which was the highest approval rating that unions had gotten in half a century.

Support is even rising among Americans who identify as Republicans, a political party that has historically frowned on organized labor: Gallup found it stood at 49% in 2024, down from 56% two years earlier but up from a low point of 26% in 2011.
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Hotel workers strike

On Labor Day weekend in 2024, more than 10,000 hotel workers represented by the UNITE HERE union and employed by 24 hotels from Boston to the West Coast to Hawaii went on strike. Their labor actions disrupted travel plans during a busy time.

Most hotel work stoppages lasted for three days and intended to pressure the companies that own hotels as part of a larger labor contract negotiation strategy. Later in September, workers kept walking off the job at other hotels to pressure management to improve pay, expand health insurance coverage, boost retirement benefits and agree to resolve important job security issues.

Although the hotel industry has been booming since 2023, UNITE HERE contends that employment has decreased by nearly 40%, while wages have stagnated. On the picket line, workers have described living paycheck to paycheck and working one or two additional jobs to cover recent rent hikes.

Hotel workers have more bargaining power today because, according to an industry study, 79% of the 450 hotels surveyed looking to hire people said they could not fill open jobs.

That strike shows no sign of ending. Thousands more hotel workers were joining in by late September.

Boeing strike

Unlike the hotel workers' brief rolling work stoppages, the Boeing strike hasn't let up since it began Sept. 13. About 32,000 workers, mainly in Seattle and Portland, Ore., have walked off the job.

Boeing workers declared the strike even though the International Association of Machinists District 751 leadership in Seattle wanted to accept a deal from Boeing's management. But on Sept. 12, 94.6% of all rank-and-file workers rejected the tentative contract their leadership recommended the union accept.

The Boeing strike started the next day; it could last a long time. On Wednesday, the workers rejected what the company had called its "best and final offer" to settle the strike.

This is the eighth time these workers have gone on strike since their union formed in the 1930s. Its two most recent strikes, in 2008 and 2005, lasted 57 days and 28 days, respectively. Boeing's management, already reeling from the company's numerous operational and safety problems, has announced several cost-cutting measures, including furloughs for some nonunion employees.

Boeing's nonunion backup plan

Boeing has assured its shareholders and the public that the strike would not hinder production of the 787 Dreamliner jets at the company's nonunion factory in South Carolina.

International Association of Machinists union members have never forgiven Boeing for deciding to build that assembly plant. Operational since 2011, it now employs roughly 6,000 workers. Most of them would have been union members had Boeing built that plant or expanded production in Washington or Oregon, because the existing labor agreement would have covered the new workers.

However, the agreement did not extend to South Carolina.

At the time of the decision, a Boeing spokesperson said, its contract with the machinists' union "acknowledges our right to locate work elsewhere, and that's what we chose to do in this case because we just couldn't get the terms from them that we needed."

Dockworkers could be next

The timing of the hotel and Boeing strikes makes them perhaps more visible than they might have been because union members' votes are coveted by both major parties in the 2024 presidential election.

Meanwhile, 25,000 dockworkers who belong to the International Longshoremen's Association are planning a possible shutdown of ports from Boston to Houston on Oct. 1, over the union's concern for job loss due to automation.

How job security issues are addressed following this wave of strikes could set the tone for what other hospitality, manufacturing and transportation unions seek when their contracts are up for negotiation again.

Robert Forrant is a professor of U.S. history and labor studies at UMass Lowell.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.