NLRB says Amazon illegally fired a warehouse worker protesting safety conditions in March
Mary Meisenzahl
Dec 17, 2020

Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images

The NLRB found merit in a claim that Amazon retaliated against an employee who protested safety conditions, the agency told Business Insider.

Gerald Bryson led a protest in April over working conditions.

At the time, Amazon said Bryson was fired for bullying other employees.

An investigation by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found merit in the case that Amazon illegally fired a warehouse worker for organizing other employees around COVID-19 safety concerns, the agency confirmed to Business Insider on Thursday.

The worker, Gerald Bryson, worked at a Staten Island Amazon fulfillment center, where he was part of a protest in March about Amazon's health and safety policies amid the pandemic, led by assistant manager Chris Smalls after a coworker tested positive for the virus.

The news was first reported by Vice's Motherboard on Thursday.

This finding doesn't mark the end of the case. Amazon can settle with Bryson, or the NLRB will move forward with bringing a case against the company.

"We look forward to sharing the facts on this case before an administrative law judge should the NLRB issue a complaint," Lisa Levandowski, an Amazon spokesperson, told Business Insider in a statement.

Smalls said Amazon fired him in retaliation, and Amazon told Business Insider that Smalls was fired violating social distancing

THEY BOTH NEED TO BE UNIONIZED
Amazon slams Walmart for not paying workers $15 per hour, following new criticism of the e-commerce giant's treatment of workers

Allana Akhtar
Dec 18, 2020, 12:55 PM

A Walmart personal shopper. Walmart

Amazon took a dig at Walmart's worker pay in a recent Bloomberg article, saying the nation's biggest retailer has yet to join them in "raising the minimum wage to $15."

In analysis of 68 counties where Amazon opened a warehouse, average industry compensation dropped by 6% within two years, Bloomberg reported.

Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2018.

Walmart raised its minimum hourly wage to $11 from $9 in 2018 and previously said the full-time hourly workers averaged $14.26 an hour

Amazon took a dig at Walmart's worker pay in a recent Bloomberg article.

In analysis of 68 counties where Amazon opened warehouses, average industry compensation dropped by 6% within two years, Bloomberg reported. Average wages increased five years after Amazon arrived in the areas.

In response to the article, Amazon questioned why the report did not explore wages at Walmart, the US's largest retailer.

"Hiring more, by paying less, simply does not work. Many of our employees join Amazon from other jobs in retail which tend to be predominantly part-time, reduced benefit jobs with substantially less than our $15 minimum wage," Amazon said in a statement to Bloomberg. "These employees see a big increase in pay per hour, total take-home pay, and overall benefits versus their previous jobs. What surprises us is that we are the focus of a story like this when some of the country's largest employers, including the largest retailer, have yet to join us in raising the minimum wage to $15."


Read more: Amazon is quietly building a business to offer medical care to major companies. Here's an inside look at Amazon Care.

Walmart and Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

Competition between the two retail giants has increased in recent years as they compete for workers. Amazon raised its minimum wages to $15 an hour in 2018 after criticism from labor advocates, including Sen. Bernie Sanders. Walmart raised its minimum hourly wage to $11 from $9 in 2018 but said full-time hourly workers averaged $14.26 an hour.

"We think better than focusing only on what's that lowest starting wage, it's better to talk about ... What's the average wage?" Kathleen McLaughlin, Walmart's chief sustainability officer, told Business Insider in 2019.

Amazon tripled profits to $6.33 billion this year as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted an e-commerce boom. CEO Jeff Bezos added more than $70 billion to his net worth, according to a report from the Institute for Policy Studies.

The company in March increased pay for warehouse workers by $2 an hour as hazard pay. Amazon ended the benefit in June and has not reinstated hazard pay, despite COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations reaching a record high this winter.

Hilcorp's Harvest Alaska unit completes BP Alaska acquisition

(Reuters) - Privately held Hilcorp Energy Co said on Friday its unit completed a $5.6 billion acquisition of BP Plc’s business in Alaska, taking over the region the British oil major had operated in for 60 years.

Hilcorp’s Harvest Alaska, a midstream services provider, said it received approval from the Regulatory Commission of Alaska on Dec. 14 to acquire BP’s nearly 49% interest in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) and 49% of Alyeska Service Company and other Alaska midstream interests.

The 800-mile TAPS is one of the largest pipelines in the world and transports oil from the North Slope to the northern most ice-free port in Valdez, Alaska.

Last year, BP agreed to sell all its Alaskan properties, including interests in the most prolific oil field in U.S. history at Prudhoe Bay, and the Trans Alaska Pipeline, to Hilcorp Energy.

Oil majors including BP have reduced their production roles in the northernmost U.S. state as output slid and lower-cost fields emerged elsewhere. Hilcorp, known for buying up oil castoffs, acquired half of another BP Alaska project in 2014.


Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli

Germany: Tesla, conservationists each score partial win over new factory

Construction at Tesla's new factory, after being blocked twice, has been allowed to proceed with certain restrictions. Conservation groups had expressed concerns over the well-being of hibernating reptiles.


Tesla said the land is needed for pipelines and storage

A German court on Friday ruled that Tesla could not cut down trees in certain sections of a forest near Berlin where it had planned to build a manufacturing site.

The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court banned Tesla from clearing the peripheral areas of the site, upholding an emergency appeal by environmental groups.

However, the court added that a stoppage in the rest of the area was unjustified.

The order means that Elon Musk's company can proceed, albeit with restrictions, to start the construction of its planned "Gigafactory" in Grünheide, south of Berlin.

Construction for the carmaker's site had been blocked for the second time last week after briefly getting the green light from a lower court to continue clearing the forest.

The state of Brandenburg gave its initial approval on November 30.

Tesla received a permit to clear 83 hectares (205 acres) of forest that comes on top of the 92 hectares already cleared during preparation work for the site.

Watch video Tesla comes to Germany

Tesla said the land is needed for pipelines and storage for what will be the US carmaker's first European plant.

Threat to protected species

Conservation groups Grüne Liga (Green League) and Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) opposed the planned construction, arguing that logging could endanger hibernating reptiles.

The case specifically focused on the well-being of the local smooth snakes (Coronella austriaca) and the sand lizard (Lacerta agilis), both of which are protected species.

Tesla carried out measures to relocate the species earlier this year, but the environmentalists say the efforts did not go far enough.

Residents of Grünheide worry that Tesla's new factory will worsen the water shortages haunting the region.

The groups argued that clearing the forest could kill sleeping snakes and lizards who were left behind — putting Tesla in violation of Germany's Federal Nature Conservation Act, which bars killing "strictly protected species."

The court agreed and thus prohibited logging in certain areas of the site where the reptiles could be harmed.

Residents of the town of Grünheide have also raised concerns that the factory could further aggravate water concerns.

Tesla plans to manufacture around 500,000 Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles at its new site every year and hire more than 10,000 workers. Operations are scheduled to begin in July 2021, despite a series of delays in courts.

adi/sms (Reuters, dpa)

Top U.S. energy diplomat expects minerals initiative to continue under Biden

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration’s top energy diplomat said on Friday he expects an initiative aimed at securing supply chains for metals critical for the clean energy transformation will continue with President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.

“I have every expectation that it would continue,” Frank Fannon, the energy diplomat, told reporters. “Transitioning conversations are underway,” with the incoming Biden officials, Fannon said.

Biden’s inauguration is on Jan. 20. His transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ten countries, including Canada, Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Peru, joined the United States last year in forming the Energy Resource Governance Initiative, or ERGI, to share mining experience and help producer countries discover and develop minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt.

ERGI is part of effort to reduce global reliance on China for the materials, which are also used in weapons and other high-tech defense equipment.

The initative provides advice to help ensure mining and processing industries in rich and poor countries are attractive to international investors concerned about environment, human rights and governance.

The World Bank has said minerals demand for advanced batteries that allow more implementation of wind and solar power could grow up to 1,000% in 20 to 30 years if governments adopt strict rules on curbing climate change.

China currently dominates the critical minerals market. The Trump administration grew concerned about U.S. dependence on imports after Beijing suggested using them as leverage in the trade war between the world’s largest economic powers.

“If we are going to grow renewables and clean energy technologies the way we think they should be, in the way the market participants are demanding, then we have to create an alternative supply chain,” Fannon said.

He added China’s current dominance of mineral mining and processing creates a “bottleneck” to the current global system.

Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Aurora Ellis

Boeing 'inappropriately coached' pilots in 737 MAX testing: U.S. Senate report

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing officials “inappropriately coached” test pilots during recertification efforts after two fatal 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people, according to a lengthy congressional report released on Friday.

The report from the Senate Commerce Committee Republican staff raised questions about testing this year of a key safety system known as MCAS tied to both fatal crashes was contrary to proper protocol.

The committee concluded Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing officials “had established a pre-determined outcome to reaffirm a long-held human factor assumption related to pilot reaction time ... It appears, in this instance, FAA and Boeing were attempting to cover up important information that may have contributed to the 737 MAX tragedies.”

The report citing a whistleblower who alleged Boeing officials encouraged test pilots to “remember, get right on that pickle switch” prior to the exercise that resulted in pilot reaction in approximately four seconds, while another pilot in a separate test reacted in approximately 16 seconds.

The account was corroborated during an FAA staff interview, the committee added.

Numerous reports have found Boeing failed to adequately consider how pilots respond to cockpit emergencies in its development of the 737 MAX.

Boeing said Friday it takes “seriously the committee’s findings and will continue to review the report in full.”

The FAA said Friday it was “carefully reviewing the document, which the committee acknowledges contains a number of unsubstantiated allegations.”

The agency added it is “confident that the safety issues that played a role in the tragic (737 MAX) accidents involving Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 have been addressed through the design changes required and independently approved by the FAA and its partners.”

Senate Commerce Committee chairman Roger Wicker said the report “details a number of significant examples of lapses in aviation safety oversight and failed leadership in the FAA.”

The committee also said “multiple independent whistleblowers contacted the committee to allege FAA senior management was complicit in determining the 737 MAX training certification level prior to any evaluation.”

Boeing resisted requiring simulator training for pilots before operating the 737 MAX but reversed course in January.

The report also noted Southwest Airlines was able to operate more than 150,000 flights carrying 17.2 million passengers on jets without confirmation that required maintenance had been completed.

The Senate report said the Southwest flights “put millions of passengers at potential risk.” Southwest said Friday it was aware of the report and added “we do not tolerate any relaxing of standards that govern ultimate safety across our operation.”

Boeing still faces an ongoing criminal probe into the MAX. The committee said its review was “constrained due to the continued criminal investigation”

Last month, the FAA approved the 737 MAX’s return to service and flights have resumed in Brazil. The first U.S. 737 MAX commercial flight with paying passengers is set for Dec. 29.

Last month, the Senate committee unanimously a bill to reform how FAA certifies new airplanes and grant new protections for whistleblowers, among other reforms, while the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a similar bill.

Apple puts supplier Wistron on notice after Indian factory violence

By Sankalp Phartiyal, Chandini Monnappa

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (Reuters) -Apple Inc has placed supplier Wistron Corp on probation, saying on Saturday it would not award the Taiwanese contract manufacturer new business until it addressed the way workers were treated at its southern India plant.

Early findings of an Apple audit in the wake of violence at the Wistron plant in India’s Karnataka state showed violations of its ‘Supplier Code of Conduct’, the Cupertino, California-based tech giant said in a statement.

Contract workers angry over unpaid wages destroyed property, gear and iPhones on Dec. 12, causing millions of dollars in losses to Wistron and forcing it to shut the plant.

Apple said Wistron had failed to implement proper working hour management processes, which “led to payment delays for some workers in October and November”.

Wistron on Saturday admitted some workers at the plant in Karnataka’s Narasapura had not been paid properly or on time, and it was removing a top executive overseeing its India business.

Apple said it will continue to monitor Wistron’s progress on corrective action.

“Our main objective is to make sure all the workers are treated with dignity and respect, and fully compensated promptly,” Apple said, adding that it continued to investigate issues at the plant, which is located some 50 km outside of the southern tech hub of Bengaluru and assembles one iPhone model.

“This is a new facility and we recognise that we made mistakes as we expanded,” Wistron said in a statement. “Some of the processes we put in place to manage labor agencies and payments need to be strengthened and upgraded.”

Wistron said it is re-structuring its teams and setting up 24-hour hotlines for employees to make anonymous complaints.

“Apple has sent a strong message to its suppliers, telling them unequivocally that they need to adhere to its standards,” Neil Shah of Hong Kong-based tech researcher Counterpoint said.

“In the long-run it should make suppliers more cautious and likely create fewer such public-relations headaches for Apple.”

MANUFACTURING SETBACK

The Apple probation will delay Wistron’s smartphone production and hurt its manufacturing push in India where it had committed to invest some 13 billion rupees ($177 million) over the next five years as part of New Delhi’s production-linked incentive plan for smartphone manufacturing.

FILE PHOTO: Men wearing protective face masks walk past broken windows of a facility run by Wistron Corp, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer for Apple, in Narsapura near the southern city of Bengaluru, India, December 14, 2020. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

Wistron had plans to make another iPhone model at the Narasapura plant and was planning to hire up to 20,000 workers in a year’s time, a source told Reuters previously.

But it could not cope with the rapid scaling up of manpower and breached several laws, Karnataka state officials found after an inspection of the plant following the violence.

The number of workers rose to 10,500 from the permitted 5,000 in a short span of time, the Karnataka factories department said in a report, which was reviewed by Reuters.

“The HR department has not been adequately set up with personnel of sound knowledge of labour laws,” the report of the inspection, which was conducted on Dec. 13, concluded.

Wistron did respond to emails from Reuters seeking comment on the violations listed.

Other violations highlighted in the report included underpayment of wages to contract workers and housekeeping staff, and making female staff work overtime without legal authorisation.

The findings of this inspection, and another preliminary government audit, confirm the grievances over unpaid wages and poor attendance recording systems recounted in interviews to Reuters by at least half a dozen Wistron workers.

The Wistron probation will likely also dent Apple’s plans to scale up in India, a market it has bet on to expand its manufacturing base beyond China.

Apple began the assembly of its first iPhone model in India via Wistron in 2017. It has now ramped up assembly operations, with Foxconn in southern India and another top supplier Pegatron is set to begin local operations.

($1 = 73.5700 Indian rupees)


Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru and Sankalp Phartiyal in New DelhiEditing by Shri Navaratnam and Alexander Smith

Apple supplier Wistron could not manage scaled up India plant, government report says


By Chandini Monnappa, Sankalp Phartiyal

BENGALURU/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Apple supplier Wistron’s Indian factory in Karnataka state could not cope up with the rapid scaling up of manpower and breached several laws, a government inspection has revealed following violence at the site last weekend.

Several thousand contract workers at Wistron angered over alleged non-payment of wages destroyed property, factory gear and iPhones at the plant early on Dec. 12, causing millions of dollars in losses to the Taiwanese contract manufacturer and forcing it to shut the plant.

The manpower at this plant, which assembles one iPhone model and became operational earlier this year, rose to 10,500 workers from the permitted 5,000 in a short span of time, according to a Karnataka factories department report, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters.

“Though 10,500 workers are employed in the factory the HR department has not been adequately set up with personnel of sound knowledge of labour laws,” said the report of the inspection conducted on Dec. 13.

The report said there is a wide gap between practices followed at the factory and legal requirements.

Wistron did not respond to a request for comment.


Apple, which is conducting it’s own audit at the factory, also did not comment.

Wistron introduced 12-hour shifts from the earlier eight-hour shifts at the plant in October but failed to properly address “the confusion in the minds of the workers” about their new wages inclusive of overtime, the report noted.

The company also did not inform the factories department of the new work shifts, it said.

Wistron, which also changed its attendance system in October, did not fix for two months a glitch which caused employees’ presence to be incorrectly registered, the probe found.

Some other violations highlighted in the report included underpayment of wages to contract workers and housekeeping staff, and making women staff work overtime without legal authorisation.

An earlier government audit of the factory, just hours after the rampage, had also found “several labour law violations”, Reuters previously reported.

Karnataka state, home to India’s showpiece software services sector and global firms such as Bosh and Volvo, has previously tried to soothe investors by condemning the violence and assuring Wistron of its support.

“The company has started an internal audit, which should help it improve systems,” said Gaurav Gupta, the top government official at Karnataka’s Industries Department.

“We expect it will bring up solutions to improve relationships with workers and pave the way for starting operations soon.”

Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru and Sankalp Phartiyal in New Delhi; Editing by Shri Navaratnam

Ginza shoppers clean hands, phones with high-tech wash stations

By Chris Gallagher, Hideto Sakai

DECEMBER 18, 2020


TOKYO (Reuters) - Shoppers washed their hands and sterilised their smartphones in the streets of Tokyo’s posh Ginza district on Saturday using handwashing stations that a Japanese start-up hopes will revolutionise access to clean water and better hygiene.

WOTA Corp set up 20 of its WOSH machines near popular Ginza stores in an initiative with a district association aimed at encouraging shoppers to wash their hands to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The machines don’t require connection to running water and don’t use fresh and waste water tanks. Instead they recycle the water through a three-stage process of membrane filtration, chlorine and deep ultraviolet irradiation.

They also have a device that cleans smartphones through 20-30 seconds of ultraviolet light exposure while users are washing their hands, since touching a dirty smartphone would otherwise negate their handwashing efforts.

The firm had already been developing the machine in part to alleviate long lines at rest rooms when the COVID-19 crisis hit early this year, Chief Executive Yosuke Maeda told Reuters.

“Amid the impact of COVID-19 we thought we had to implement this as soon as possible,” Maeda said. “So we sped up development and got things moving to have it in December in time for the third wave of the coronavirus.”

On average 20 litres of water provides around 500 washes, while the filters should be changed after about 2,000, he said.

The machine, however, needs connection to a power supply.

WOTA has now begun shipments within Japan of roughly 4,000 units. It aims to expand internationally next year, with many inquiries coming from the United States.

Maeda hopes the smartphone feature in particular will transform hygiene habits.

“We thought if it had the smartphone sterilisation function, maybe people who never wash their hands will start doing so,” he said.


Reporting by Chris Gallagher and Hideto Sakai; Editing by Michael Perry

Landslide at Vale mine near 2019 disaster site kills one in Brazil


RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A landslide at a mine owned by Brazil’s Vale SA near the site of the 2019 Brumadinho dam disaster buried and killed a worker on Friday, the company told Reuters in a statement.

According to the company, the worker, who was employed by a Vale contractor, was in a bulldozer when the side of a pit collapsed at the Corrego do Feijao mine.

The mine shares the name of the Corrego do Feijao hamlet, which is part of the town of Brumadinho and was partially destroyed in January 2019 when a Vale-owned tailings dam collapsed, killing 270 people.

Vale said it “deeply lamented” the accident and would support the family of the worker.

“The companies are supporting the authorities who are attending to the case and investigating the causes of the accident,” Vale said.

“Maintenance activities in the area will be suspended for new studies and evaluations of the security conditions.”

Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Two smuggled Sumatran orangutans flown home from Thailand

By Juarawee Kittisilpa

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Two critically endangered orangutans smuggled into Thailand three years ago were returned to Indonesia on Thursday, where they will undergo rehabilitation before being released into the wild.

Ung Aing and Natalee, both four-year-old Sumatran orangutans, were taken from a wildlife rescue centre in Ratchaburi province to Bangkok’s airport, before being put on a flight to Indonesia where they will initially stay at a rehabilitation centre in Jambi Province on Sumatra island.

Before being put on the flight, the pair were fed with bananas and green apples, and cleared of having COVID-19 after taking a test, said Suraphong Chaweepak, a director at the Thai division to protect wild fauna and flora.

“This is the fifth repatriation of orangutans back to Indonesia since 2006,” Prakit Vongsrivattanakul, an official at Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation said at the airport. A total of 71 orangutans have now been repatriated to Indonesia from Thailand.

The two great apes were seized on the Thai-Malaysian border in 2017 and after the smugglers were prosecuted, Thailand agreed to send them back to Indonesia, according to a joint statement from Thailand’s wildlife and conservation ministry and Indonesia’s embassy in Bangkok.

Orangutans are poached illegally from forests for food, to obtain infants for the domestic and international pet trade, or for traditional medicine.

There are only estimated to be around 100,000 Bornean orangutans left in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund, while only about 7,500 Sumatran orangutans are thought to remain.

In addition to illegal poaching, populations have crashed because of habitat destruction due to large-scale logging and replacement of forests with cash crops such as palm oil.


Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Karishma Singh